Tearing Gaza Apart

So, no one (A.K.A. Pete or myself) has blogged in awhile, so here we go! There has been a lot happening in Gaza and Israel in the past couple of weeks, and even the last couple of days. Even though C.A.N. has not taken a stand against the occupation of Palestine as a point of unity, I believe that our C.A.N. chapter, as a majority, is against the occupation of Palestine. Also, it doesn't hurt to become more educated about the ongoings in Palestine, especially with the hope of going into the next CANference united against the occupation of Palestine (if it still is occupied, hopefully not).

This artile describes the most recent attacks on Gaza, after the on-foot invasion by Israel. There are now over 500 dead Palestinians, and for what? Four dead Israelis? How is that "defending" Israel? Also, the article makes a good point that the reason Hamas was launching rockets into Southern Israel was because Israel broke the five month cease fire back in November by killing 6 Palestinians. So, whose fault is it?

Another point is that the U.S. is aiding Israel in the attacks on Gaza. The weaponry that Israeli troops are using was manufactured in the U.S. and given to Israel by the U.S. And, not surprisingly, the international community, including the U.N., is calling for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which the U.S. is blocking. This shares the same disregard the U.S. has when the U.N. mandated the ending of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

Another point to be made is that Hamas is kind of the opposite of the Taliban. Whereas the Taliban started out as a political and humanitarian group, and turned into a terrorist organization, Hamas was a terrorist organization and is now turning over to a humanitarian group fighting for the rights of the Palestinian civilians.

This issue is most relevant to the conference call we had this past Sunday about including ending the seige on Gaza as one of our demands to Obama. There was dissention about calling Hamas a terrorist organization. We had to widdle down the demand of ending the total occupation to just ending the seige on Gaza, just to make it more relevant to what is currently happening. Also, I suppose Midwest C.A.N. wants to ease into its demands. Personally, I think we should just throw everything that we want at Obama. It seems, to be really effective, we need to stay strong with our demands, and not just "see what we can get." We need to DEMAND what we want, and what truly needs to happen.

So, everyone had better be at the demonstration on the 17th. It is our chance, as a grassroots organization, to make our demands heard by our new President. We need to let him know that the killings in Palestine can no longer be allowed to happen. That the aid and allowance of terrorism by Israel needs to be stopped.

-Patricia
College Not Combat, Troops Out NOW!