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Ear to the Ground

The ‘Blood Pipeline’ Test

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Posted on Jan 4, 2009
Flickr / Amir Farshad Ebrahimi

Haaretz’s Gideon Levy recalls the mathematician whose dutiful students drew up plans for a “blood pipeline” without questioning why it should be built. With Gaza, he warns, Israel faces such a test and “when the time comes for reckoning, we will need to remember the damage this war did to Israel.”


Haaretz:

The legend, lest it be a true story, tells of how the late mathematician, Professor Haim Hanani, asked his students at the Technion to draw up a plan for constructing a pipe to transport blood from Haifa to Eilat. The obedient students did as they were told. Using logarithmic rulers, they sketched the design for a sophisticated pipeline. They meticulously planned its route, taking into account the landscape’s topography, the possibility of corrosion, the pipe’s diameter and the flow calibration. When they presented their final product, the professor rendered his judgment: You failed. None of you asked why we need such a pipe, whose blood will fill it, and why it is flowing in the first place.

Regardless of whether this story is legend or true, Israel is now failing its own blood pipeline test. As Israel has been preoccupied with Gaza throughout the entire week, nobody has asked whose blood is being spilled and why. Everything is permitted, legitimate and just. The moral voice of restraint, if it ever existed, has been left behind. Even if Israel wiped Gaza off the face of the earth, killing tens of thousands in the process, as a Chechnyan laborer working in Sderot proposed to me, one can assume that there would be no protest.

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By Fadel Abdallah, January 7 at 1:02 am #

Please reflect on the following!

“They don’t repair a tire on the Sabbath, but starting a ground terrorist offensive and massacring children, women and men is no problem!”

Peace upon all warriors for peace by word or action!
No Peace for supports of Israeli terrorism by word or silence!

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By cyrena, January 6 at 6:32 am #

“So, it little e could see this scenario coming up 5th Avenue,
WHY the f’ didn’t all the USA pols and pundits?
oh yeah, they are under occupation too.”

~~
Eileen,

Thanks for the posts. I’ve saved them. I particularly appreciate hearing about the demonstrations, since I have NOT seen anything from the MSM at all. Now I don’t generally view it, (US MSM) because I learned this very same lesson back in 2003, when millions across the globe, (including us right here in California) demonstrated on Feb. 15th, against the planned invasion and occupation of Iraq.

In fact, I was discussing this with my sister not long ago, who swears that received wide media coverage back then. I don’t remember it that way, but maybe because my view from the crowd was never reflected in any of the media that I saw at the time.

I’ve long been convinced that the US MSM is just an even more effective version of the Nazi and Stalin regime Ministries of Propaganda.

No difference in the past 8 years, other than that this regime has lasted so much longer, and done that much more damage.

Anyway, thanks for the update. It’s a tiny sliver of hope to add to the pile. If just one more person learns the truth, it’s worth it.

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By KDelphi, January 6 at 3:16 am #

Folktruther—well said…

Blackspeare—I assume that you are being fascietious…even if you are not—I would not care if we did it, as long as we removed the people.

If I were “king of the world”, as they say, I would remove ALL people from Gaza, and nuke it. There. Nobody gets it.

If we do not recognize Palestine as a state, why can their people not seek refuge here and in other free countries(well, sortve “free”)

But, the uS would still participiate in war crimes elsewhere…the uS vow to block a vote in the uN SC wil have long and lasting repercussions in the MIddle East, and, all around the world, for the uS and its allies…

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By nrobi, January 5 at 7:24 pm #

With the advent of Youtbue and other mass forms of media, not controlled by the Main Stream, Israeli ass-kissing programmers, we now know the truth behind
the illegal and immoral occupation of Gaza and the West
Bank.
I for one, regret the fact, that Israel and the US of A, cannot and will not talk to an elected government, of the choosing of the Palestinians. Which elections were forced upon the Palestinians by the US and Israel.
Why then, do the US and Israel, refuse to speak with an elected government of the Palestinians?  Because they do not like the choices of the people? How unrighteous and impertinent of the governments of America and Israel. How dare they interfere in the internal politics of a sovereign nation?
Why oh why do the nations rage?  Because the shepherds of the people are not righteous and do not act according to the laws of civility and decency.
Nothing in the world would please me more than to see
the Palestinian people win this conflict. Yet, there will only be more and more bloodshed, conflict and hardened hearts on either side of this conflict.
Things will not change because of governmental interference, the only time that change will come to this troubled land is when the people of either side, decide that enough is enough, and take matters into their own hands and give peace a chance.

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By Nozferatu, January 5 at 4:22 pm #

Herman Rosenblat:

I couldn’t agree with you more.  Well said!

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By Nozferatu, January 5 at 4:17 pm #

Blackspeare,

Indeed…let’s hope they drop a nice big one on your house and family….I’d like to see that.

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By Nozferatu, January 5 at 3:39 pm #

Do we expect hell-bent, domination seeking, egocentric animals to think about whose blood they are spilling?

Very very unfortunately, the reality of it is that the jews who really want peace and understand the realities of what they have done to the rest of the world for the past 60 years are a tiny tiny minority.

Most are happy with the fact that their presence is protected in a holier than thou way by dumb Christians and Zionist fascist extremists.  Most are happy that they have a network of Maddoffs who are milking the world and corporate structures of wealth in entertainment, clothing, jewelry, banking, and whatever else they can get their hands on.

The jews who really care are insignificant and drowned out.

The article is right….Israel’s day of reckoning will be one of utter brutality and calamity.  They have no one to blame but themselves.

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By Blackspeare, January 5 at 1:40 pm #

The present day Israelis are finally taking a lesson from their ancestral Hebrew warriors——vanquish the enemy for a dead enemy is the best enemy.  You know this might be the time for a low yield nuclear weapon in spite of the potential for collateral deaths.  The fear of an atomic explosion is based upon the Hiroshima/Nagasaki experience, but those were primitive dirty weapons.  The newer advanced models are much more effective and controllable.  With advance warning to the civilian populace, as well as the militants, time would be allotted for evacuation.  Once detonated the world would realize, “Wow, that wasn’t so bad after all and the war is over!”  Now, lets get nukin’.

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By Folktruther, January 5 at 1:32 pm #

Every once in a while, Truthdig prints a piece that justifies its existence.  Gideon Levy focuses on the esstential point here, the moral rather than the political, the spritual rather than the technical. 

A power system cannot exist over historical time if it is universally held to be immoral by the poeple of the world, because jdegement eventually affects its own people.  What the American Jewish community does not realize is that Israel is digging its own histical grave by these massacres, which benefit current power not the Israeli people.

This is an election massacre, as Uri Averney, a real Israeli peace advocate has suggested, intended to show the Israeli electorate that Olmert, Avni, and Barak are just as bloodthirsty as Natanyahu, who is leading in the election polls.  In arousing war hysteria, the powerful don’t care about the long term effects to the power system if it serves their interests RIGHT NOW.

As soon as the American people understand the reality of the Israeli oppression, and how they are paying for this unjustified brutality, currented obscured and obfuscated in the American learned and mass media and the maistream truth,  they will incrreasingly oppose the Dem-Gop leaders financed by Zionsts to support it. As will the whole world.

Because once you tansverse the path from the political to the moral, you affect people more intensely, people who pay little attention to normal politics.  And moral and spiritual presuppostiions are what is necessary to strengthen a political movement against the barbarism and brutality of the US-Israeli power systems.

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By eileen fleming, January 5 at 1:13 pm #

“We won’t get fooled again”

THANK YOU to every one of you WIDE AWAKE people.

Nothing is more dangerous to the establishment/status quo/empire/Big Brother than one who see’s through the BS and vocally and publicly DISSENTS.

did any of you watch/read any MSM news Jan 4? was it reported that:


Possibly the largest global protest took place in New York City where a huge rally in Times Square stretched from 42nd Street south to 36th Street, along 7th Ave. Buses came from throughout the region. Crowd estimates ranged from 25,000 and 30,000. Just before the demonstration started the announcement of the Israeli invasion came over the news wires. An angry march through midtown Manhattan, shut down 42nd St, stalled mid-town traffic and ended at the Israeli Mission to the U.N. At the closing rally, the crowd stretched from 48th to 42nd Street, along 2nd Ave.

...While much of the U.S. national media limited their coverage of world wide protests to Europe and the Middle East, the size of the New York protest clearly equaled or surpassed other protests. Ty Chandler, reporting at the scene of the protest for New York 1 TV, stated on camera near the Israeli Consulate “This massive crowd is still making its way up 2nd Ave., and you can see the anger and frustration on their face, this crowd is huge, it goes for blocks.”

 

....In Boston, about 1500 people took to the streets to protest the US/Israeli Genocide in Gaza. Chanting “Free, Free Palestine”, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will Free”, “We Support the Resistance” the demonstrators marched through main shopping area of downtown Boston, stopping at the US Military Recruiters and the Israeli Consulate for mini rallies. The demonstration, called by an ad-hoc coalition formed to protest the US/Israeli massacres in Gaza, was led by a militant contingent of Palestinian youth.


...Around 1,000 people stretched across the steps in front of Philadelphia’s City Hall for a rally targeting U.S. funding for the Israeli war against the Palestinian people in Gaza…Passing motorists honked in support.


http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=798919682#/topi c.php?uid=110426460581&topic=7259

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By eileen fleming, January 5 at 11:58 am #

IN 2005 I wrote:


.......what a farce the so-called disengagement in Gaza was. The Israeli government still controls all access to Gaza by land, sea, and air…only 25 of over 150 settlements will be dismantled, and only 8,475 of over 436,000 settlers [less than 2 percent of settlers] have been evacuated. Meanwhile, in the past year, 12,800 new settlers have moved into the West Bank — 50 percent more settlers than were evacuated.

This is no withdrawal, this is BS!

Until Palestinians have control of Gaza’s borders and a guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank, it is not a withdrawal; it’s just BS propaganda!

And Gaza is less than 6 percent of the occupied territories…the corruption in the PA government and hot tempers from those under occupation are a powder keg that’s getting ready to blow!


What’s it going to take to wake the world up to the fact that most of our problems with radical Islamist fundamentalist militants leads us back to the conflict in Israel and Palestine?

All roads do indeed lead to Jerusalem.

What’s it going to take before the International community gets it together and insists, in unity, upon the upholding of international law as the rule we all live by? And that includes Israel and America, too, for both ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I wonder, what’s the point of signing on, but then not doing it?


What’s it going to take to wake up the legions of blind U.S. Christian Zionists to their indifference to the misery of their sisters and brothers in Israel and Palestine? Their blind allegiance to the Israeli government has allowed our best friend in the world to become a big bully. What’s it going to take to break through the ignorance that hard-earned U.S. tax dollars are being used to continue the occupation and apartheid wall?

-excerpted “KEEP HOPE ALIVE” Chapter 14: 9/11/05 AND THE GULFPORT BLUES by eileen fleming, Author, Founder WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Producer “30 Minutes With Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”


So, it little e could see this scenario coming up 5th Avenue,

WHY the f’ didn’t all the USA pols and pundits?

 

oh yeah, they are under occupation too.

Report this

By fatimatalk, January 5 at 9:42 am #

GAZA MASSACRE

HORRIFYING!

http://vimeo.com/2715560?pg=embed&sec=2715560

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By Herman Rosenblat, January 5 at 8:43 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Yes Israel is democratic and lawful….if you happen to be Jewish; otherwise drop dead.
If Jews enjoy equal rights in other countries then why do the Gaijin, or Goyim, not enjoy equal rights in Israel?

Israel is nothing more than a Middle Classed Fascist state.  And all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the Holocaust won’t mitigate their sneaky Gangster methods. 

I was asked by an Orthodox Jew to come into his home and switch off the gas heating appliance.  It was a Saturday.  I went in and turned the red switch under his stair well.  He thanked me politely. I went on my way.  End of story. 

I didn’t rob his house or murder his children.  It was one human being speaking to another.  But in Israel, to use the Holocaust for every excuse to commit ruthless acts of state terrorism and murder is despicable. 

Israel has taken on itself the Licence to Kill. They engineered this Gaza attack by displaying bad faith with the blockade and killing 6 Palestinians…then Hamas fired its cheap home made rockets.  And Israel has the nerve to say Hamas started it.

What do they say?  The bigger the lie the more people will believe it?  All you get from Israeli officials is ...Holocaust Holocaust, Never Again, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler…Israel Democratic.  Ehud Barak wanted this war, Israel wanted it.  Israel defines itself though constant fighting.

I say the palestinians should just leave.  Let Israel have it.  But here is the Deal:  A giant wall be built around the New Israel and the Israelis can be left to themselves.  They can wallow in their Religion of Holocaust. Yes I said it.

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By KDelphi, January 5 at 2:18 am #

According to reports, Bush has known that this was in the works for a long time. The elections of both countries is too prominent , to not have played a role. I really doubt that Bush could have held Israel to a timetable to “hurt Obama”, though.

The US vowing to stop a vote in the UN SC, will have deep, lasting repercussions for the uS, Israel, and the entire Middle East.

Too bad that the uS commits too many war crimes to be able to say much, with any seriousness. The Israeli reps are parroting Bush’s words “regime change”, “not occupying”. etc.

Anyone who thinks that the US can “move on”, without legal undoing of the Dubya legacy, is mistaken…

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By Bill, January 5 at 1:36 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

Israel has only two options in dealing with their unwanted neighbors. One is to return all seized lands and allow their neighbors free movement within their own territories. The other is to kill them all off. There are no other options.

One problem with the first option is that Israel, like the world’s human population in general, wants to expand. That’s a tall order given the land limitations of the Middle East. Another problem is that the Palestinians also need land and water resources for their own population growth, which is substantial. Thus, conflict is inevitable.

The only problem with the second option is that it is immoral. But history shows that usurpation, genocide, and forced expulsion of native peoples and land holders has occurred anyway, time and time again. When it’s all over, and people start writing about it, it becomes just another sad but unavoidable episode. It’s not genocide; it’s Manifest Destiny!

America wiped out the native Americans, and Israel will wipe out the Palestinians, one way or another. To avoid claims of genocide, Israel will do it slowly and methodically; many Palestinians, sickened by 80% unemployment, roadblocks, lack of access to health services, third-class citizenship and other miseries, will just leave. Those who remain will be wiped out.

In America, it’s ISRAELI = FREEDOM FIGHTER, ARAB = TERRORIST. Even America’s hypocritical Christian churches will welcome the slaughter. They’re already cheering it on. It’s disgusting.

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By eileen fleming, January 4 at 11:52 pm #

My letter RE: Creation of Israeli war crimes tribunal


Dear President General Assembly United Nations

The current massacre happening in Gaza is of urgent concern to me and all people of conscience, for these attacks which bear all the trademarks of war crime demand a war crimes tribunal.


The 1.5 million open air prisoners of “the world’s biggest concentration camp” are forced to continue to collectively-pay for democratically-electing Hamas.

While the Israeli authorities punish the Palestinians in order to teach Hamas a lesson, the INNOCENT pay the highest price Israel is refusing ceasefire requests, in spite of Hamas offering it on the basis of reasonable and attainable compromises:

“an end to the blockade, and an Israeli ceasefire on the West Bank”, according to Yuval Diskin, current head of Israeli security services Shin Bet.

 

Also, in light of the current attacks which have sparked international condemnation, Archbishop Desmund Tutu said: “In the context of total aerial supremacy, in which one side in a conflict deploys lethal aircraft against opponents with no means of defending themselves, the bombardment bears all the hallmarks of war crimes.”

Over the past 2 months, fuel supply to Gaza has been blocked leading to the closure of its power plant, and even the U.N. has been forced to halt distribution of food aid, upon which most Gazans are reliant. The actions of the Israeli authorities violate the Geneva Conventions and so many international norms. It is now more necessary than ever for the U.N. to establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI), under U.N. Charter Article 22. Failure to create viable accountability would only further embolden the Israeli government to continue their extermination of the Palestinians.

As the crimes committed against Palestinians degrade all humanity, we request you to urge members of the U.N. General Assembly to swiftly take necessary and appropriate action towards creating an ICTI under U.N.Charter Article 22, and holding the Israeli government accountable.

I HOPE the ‘fierce urgency of now’ moves the world to unite and END the Siege on Gaza and End the Occupation of Palestine which is the ONLY way to security for Israel.

“HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it.”-St. Augustine


Eileen Fleming, Author, Founder WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Producer “30 Minutes With Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”

 

 


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