A letter from Ronit Salomon at Kibbutz Or-Haner  ------ near  Israel's Military Operation against Hamas in Gaza "We have been waiting too long, having absorbed these rockets attacks for more than 7 years. 7 years - too many. " -- Ronit Salomon, Kibbutz Or-Haner

Kibbutz Or Haner, December 29th, 2008  [The kibbutz is in the Israel Partnership Region of the Quad Cities Jewish Federation, and Ronit's letter is directed to the Executive Director of the Federation, Allan Ross, who has made the letter public. --MF]   Dear Allan,   It doesn't matter how you get prepared for the most difficult, complicated and hard to take scenarios.  You find yourself confused, terrified, scared......in one of the most unbelievable situation you find yourself involved.   We all hoped that something would happen. That there would be some kind of Israeli response and as soon as possible because we couldn't take it anymore - the missiles, the mortars, the snipers.....we couldn't think about ourselves but about our friends and neighbors in the kibbutzim nearby and in Sderot, a town where we used to do our shopping and feel the tension every day when we hear the RED Alert alarm, keeping our hopes that we would retaliate for the Hamas attacks.   We wanted our government to react. To give us answers that will make us feel that we are not alone in our way of life. That no one forgets our existing. We have heard the warnings coming from our minister of defense, our prime minister, our ministers who warned the Hamas leaders to stop their missiles shooting to our area every day despite the cease fire agreement. We felt like human targets for Hamas who upped the danger more and more..   And the reaction finally arrived Saturday morning.  The kids were busy with their Hanukah activities. We had been in the purple hall, enjoying famous musicians who came to sing here in the kibbutz despite the situation. Then started our Air Force's attack. Since Saturday morning our Air Force continues to bomb different targets in the Gaza Strip.   I must admit that despite these terrible voices of war, I feel more tranquil. I am trying to do my best to keep safe, taking care of my kids, hoping the older ones will know what to do when they need to. We all trust our army to do what is needed to bring the quiet to our area. We have been waiting too long, having absorbed these rockets attacks for more than 7 years. 7 years - too many.   Since Saturday we have been told to keep staying in safe places, protected and close. Indoors activities are welcome and the farmers have been told not to work the fields and keep staying indoors. We closed the kids houses and the students won`t get back to school tomorrow, when their Hanukahs holiday will end.   We are trying and doing as much as we can to send the kids out of the kibbutz, out of the area. We don't want them to stay here in this atmosphere, with these bomb sounds, with the fear of the rockets which are sent to us so many times a day.   Today we send the kids to Tel Aviv, to one of the Fun parks...Personally, I would rather  they will stay there and not coming back home right now. Last week the teenagers were invited to one of our northern kibbutzim and they stayed there 1 day. That was even before the operation in Gaza.   We have an emergency crew in the kibbutz and I am a part of it. My responsibility in this crew is to inform the community about any changes, any information, any note about the sensitive situation we are in. By messages via cell phones (SMS) or by the Beepers (which we all have in our houses), or a special channel on TV where the people can read the news and the notes we send them. The people should arrange whatever they need if we will have to stay at the bomb shelters, none knows for how long it will be and when. We are trying to arrange everything that might help to make our stay, especially the kids`s staying in these shelters - such as furniture, games for the kids, air conditioners, TV`s, everything that might make our time over there comfortable as possible.   Due to the army's orders we closed our dining room and the people can get food only once a day. The Clinic and Mini market is also closed. There are families which decided to leave the kibbutz for a while for relatives' houses in other parts of the country. I guess they will be back when things will calm down a little bit although we all know it will take much as needed to arrange this quiet we are all expecting and hope for.   We all hope that this operation will bring the quiet to our area for many days. We surely need that.   We pray for better days in the new year, 2009.   Thank you, Allan, for your encouraging and supporting and to all of you, our friends. We know you are with us all the time.   Love and Happy New Year to all of you.   Ronit Salomon, Kibbutz Or-Haner, Shaar hanegev Region, Israel.   ************************   ****If you get a chance, please send Ronit and Kibbutz Or-Haner a note of support to:  ronchili10@gmail.com.

DECEMBER 29, 2008  Wall Street Journal  Editorial   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051162714738469.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Sudan's Slaves

Adding to the list of crimes in Darfur.

• Add slavery to the list of Khartoum's crimes in Darfur. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people have been enslaved in the region, the human-rights group Darfur Consortium says in a report based on interviews with escaped or released abductees, witnesses and families. The abductions by Sudanese soldiers and government-backed Arab tribesmen, the Janjaweed, are part of a wider strategy to drive civilians from non-Arabic speaking ethnic groups from their lands. The land is "then seized and repopulated by the militia and Arabic-speaking nomadic groups," the Uganda-based group reports.

Women and girls are raped, forced into "marriages" and sexual slavery, the report says. The testimonies are difficult to bear. "They used us like wives in the night and during the day time we worked all the time," one woman told Darfur Consortium. She was able to escape after having been abducted from a refugee camp in 2005 with 20 other people.

President Bush has led international calls to end the slaughter, urging the U.N. Security Council to act. Moscow and Beijing have snubbed his efforts and repeatedly vetoed tough sanctions against Khartoum.

President-elect Obama says diplomacy will be a keystone of his foreign policy. We'll soon see whether he will be more successful than his predecessor in rallying a reluctant international community to stop the atrocities.

 

 

 

Gaza Update 5 Dec. 29, 2008 Palestinian Media Watch PMW archives: Hamas explains using civilians as human shields:  "We desire death as you desire life." [Feb. 29, 2008] by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook The UN announcement that 51 civilians have died in the conflict in Gaza must be understood in the context of Hamas's declared ideology to use civilians as human shields for Hamas fighters.   Indeed, Hamas continues to emphasize and promote the religious ideology that death for Allah is an ideal to be actively pursued. The goal is to convince Palestinians, including women and children, not to fear death but even to face it at the front to protect Hamas fighters.   Hamas's placement of its military installations and fighters among civilians reflects this ideology, and has led to these 51 deaths.   A Hamas representative in the PA legislative council this year expressed pride in the fact that women and children are used as human shields in fighting Israel. He described it as part of a "death industry" at which Palestinians excel, and explained that the Palestinians "desire death" with the same intensity that Israelis "desire life."   The following is the full text of the comments by Hamas representative Fathi Hamad:   "For the Palestinian people death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly [Palestinians] created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine, as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: We desire death as you desire life."   [Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas) Feb. 29, 2008]   To view video in English click here. To view video in Hebrew click here.    To download the clip in high quality to your computer contact our office. To support the work of PMW, donate by credit card, check or wire   VISIT PMW VIDEO ARCHIVES Incitement of children to Shahada Teaching hatred with music Children as combatants in PA ideology Denying Israel's right to exist Hamas in its own words Support for terrorism Understanding Shahada Mothers joy at sons' Shahada Hatred of America and the West Holocaust denial Clarifying history Arab world TV Contact Palestinian Media Watch:   p:+972 2 625 4140 e: pmw@pmw.org.il f: +972 2 624 2803 w: www.pmw.org.il

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From: The Jewish Community Relations Commission of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines.  December 29, 2008

 

Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, JCRC, and National JCPA Support Israel's Efforts to Stop Gaza Rocket Attacks on Israeli Civilians

Hamas’ dramatic intensification of attacks on Israeli civilians required Israel to protect its people.  Israel air strikes targeting Hamas, terror-related sites exclusively.  IDF making all attempts to minimize civilian casualties.

 

For additional information, contact: Mark Finkelstein, JCRC Director for the Jewish Federation.   jcrc@dmjfed.org

 

For continuing coverage on this and other matters of pertinence to the Jewish community, view or subscribe to the JCRC’s Informational Blog:   http://jcommunitynews.blogspot.com

 

The following is a statement from the Jewish Council for Public Affairs [JCPA], the umbrella group of Jewish Community Relations Councils across the nation.  The Jewish Community Relations Commission of the Jewish Federation of Greater Des Moines, on behalf of the Jewish Federation, supports the central points articulated in the statement, below, from JCPA.

National JCPA Supports Israel's Efforts to Stop Gaza Rocket Attacks

NEW YORK- December 27, 2008.  The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) is standing behind Israel's efforts to extinguish weeks of sustained, daily rocket fire and mortar shell attacks from the Gaza Strip into Israel. While JCPA has a strong record of supporting Israel in its quest to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, no country can be expected to absorb continuous and unrelenting violence.

JCPA Executive Director Rabbi Steve Gutow issued the following statement about the unfolding operations in Gaza:

"It is unfortunate that Israel has had to resort to air strikes and is now grappling with a possible ground operation in the very area that it has tried hard to disengage from since 2005.

Israel has taken great lengths to avoid this sort of escalation, but was left with no other way to ensure that its civilians would not have to live in fear of rocket fire. Just a few days ago, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made an appeal on the Arab television station Al-Arabiya asking Gaza residents to stop the firing of rockets and mortar shells so that a military response could be avoided.

Even while rockets rained down on the frequently targeted town of Sderot and in the town of Kiryat Gat-a first-time target-Israel continued to transfer food and medicine into Gaza despite no apparent end to the attacks.

As Israel moves towards elections and the possibility of turning a new page, it is our hope that the Palestinian people will take the opportunity that this transition presents to turn their own page on Hamas' failed leadership." 

###

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs is the community relations arm of the organized Jewish community.

 

Background

Israelis living near the Gaza border have been targets of cross –border rocket and mortar attacks for years, despite Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.   If you recall, Gaza was taken over in 2006 by a Palestinian Islamist group, Hamas, a terrorist organization identified as such by the U.S. State Department.  Hamas is largely responsible for the attacks at the crossing points into Israel, the very points where Israel has transported humanitarian supplies into Gaza, making it dangerous for Israel to provide assistance to average Gazans not involved in terrorism.  Hamas is also largely responsible, having taken credit, for the 5,000 rockets, missiles, and mortars that have been launched from Gaza indiscriminately on Israeli civilians living in Israeli towns.  To intentionally target civilians is a war crime.

 

  Hamas is anti-Jewish, as clearly demonstrated by passages in its Charter that call for the killing of Jews – not Israelis – Jews.  Hamas is dedicated to the total destruction of Israel.  As one political scientist*, has put it: “Hamas has no program of improving the well-being of the [Palestinians in Gaza] or educating children to be doctors, teachers and engineers.  Its platform hs but one plank: war, war, endless war, sacrifice, heroism, and martyrdom until total victory is achieved.”  That victory, again, is the defeat of the Jews in Palestine and the destruction of Israel.

 

On November 19^th of this year, Hamas unilaterally decided to end a cease-fire negotiated with Israel.  It had not actually been a cease-fire, but rather a “period of calm,” during which fewer rockets had been launched into Israel.  After the cease fire ended,  Hamas began escalating its attacks, with fifty or sixty rockets flying indiscriminately onto Israeli civilians.  Dozens of Israelis were treated for shock.   This was an untenable situation for Israel as it would be for any nation.

 

In regard to the situation, Israel’s President Shimon Peres has stated: "Israel doesn't have any ambition in Gaza. But we cannot permit Gaza to become a permanent base of threatening- and  even killing- children and innocent people [residing inside Israel.]"

 

Everyone knew that something had to be done to stop Hamas from continuing to assault Israel with its rockets and mortars.

 

Last Thursday, December 25, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert addressed the people of Gaza by television. He, Israeli President Peres and Israeli Foreign Minister Livni, at different times that day, virtually begged for peace. 

 

Olmert  said: " I appeal to the residents of Gaza: I speak to you as a father and grandfather and I know that there is nothing I want less than to put my children and grandchildren in danger. Is it the spirit of Islam to kill innocent children? To shoot rockets at kindergartens and at civilians? I do not think that this is the spirit of Islam. Hamas, which does this against the spirit of Islam, is the main reason for your

 suffering - for all of ours.

I say to you in a last-minute call, stop it. Stop it. You the citizens of Gaza, you can stop it. I know how much you want to get up in the morning to quiet, to take your children to kindergarten or school, the way we do, the way they want to in Sderot and Netivot."

But to no avail.  Despite all pleas, Hamas continued to launch rockets into Israel—and to use Iranian-supplied rockets that can strike further into Israel, at that.  And as you know, Israel has now endeavored to stop the rockets from flying into Israel.

Overview

 ·    Abbas: Hamas Could Have Avoided Gaza Raids - Alaa Shahine
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday in Cairo that Hamas could have avoided the Israeli attacks on Gaza. "We talked to them and we told them 'please, we ask you, do not end the truce. Let the truce continue and not stop' so that we could have avoided what happened," he said. (Reuters)

 

·    Israel Must Defend Its Citizens - Amos Oz
The systematic bombing of the citizens in Israel's towns and cities is a war crime and a crime against humanity. The State of Israel must defend its citizens. It is obvious to everyone that the Israeli government does not wish to enter Gaza; the government would rather continue the ceasefire that Hamas violated and finally revoked. But the suffering of the citizens surrounding Gaza cannot go on.

Rice: U.S. Holds Hamas Responsible for Gaza Violence
The United States holds Hamas "responsible" for the renewal of deadly violence in Gaza after the Islamist group broke its ceasefire with Israel, Secretary of State Rice said Saturday. "We strongly condemn the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and hold Hamas responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence there." The six-month ceasefire, which Hamas said last week it would not renew, "must be restored immediately and fully respected," she said. On the day the truce expired, she warned that renewed violence against Israel by Hamas would only hurt the Palestinians, and that the movement "needs to concentrate on turning away from violence." (AFP)

   Egypt: Hamas Responsible for Israeli Response - Roee Nahmias
At a press conference Saturday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit held Hamas responsible for Israel's military action in Gaza, saying that "Egypt warned for a long time, and someone who ignores warnings is responsible for the outcome." Earlier, Gheit had said, "we suspected this would happen. Hamas didn't stop shooting rockets at Israel." (Ynet News)

 

Information prepared for JCRC by Mark Finkelstein

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