Environmental and historical contexts are vital in describing and understanding disease in a population. The environment of Gaza and the predicament of its people are unique. To know of it and to feel it in your bones will help you to a deeper understanding of euphemism - 'ethnic cleansing', isolation, stigmatization and, with this latter word on my tongue, crucifixion.

In transporting you again over those 3,100 sea miles to Gaza, you will consider what are the essentials of human existence on this beautiful planet. Good water and food for the body. The love of family. Security within a society. Nourishment for the soul.

I will stick to my text and a few pictures so that I can end inside 50 minutes to allow plenty of time for questions.

The honourable Member of Parliament for Teignbridge gives his final reply in defence of invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and in response to the 'rant' of David Halpin.

 

 

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. wrote: 

 

To back the campaign and help spread the word, see my website: http://www.NickClegg.com/armedforcespay Nobody can put a price on the sacrifices our troops make on our behalf - but we can start rewarding them properly.

Best regards,
Nick Clegg
Leader of the Liberal Democrats
P.S. You can also join the Facebook group here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118450563203 

 

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I stand here because I have strong passions and beliefs. My central motivation is the child. When I look into the happy blue eyes of our three girl grandchildren, I see the two billion children in our world. Each child is precious and not one should be hurt in the least way. I believe in the sanctity of life. As a surgeon, I heal and do not harm. I grew up in a family where to lie was sinful. And the underdog was not to be kicked around. Gentleness and sensitivity grew strong within me.

Many share my instincts but most of those in power do not. All living creatures and our most wonderful and beautiful world are threatened by humans who climb to power and who harm every single thing their claws can gouge – like Rumsfeld's claws.

The British have affection for Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta The Pirates of Penzance. These pirates are jolly rascals. No such description can be applied to the pirates of Somalia and even less to the Pirates of the Levant, the Israeli navy.

Wide publicity has been given to piracy in Somalian waters since Captain Phillips of the American-crewed Maersk Alabama was captured. The arrival of a US missile cruiser and US destroyer added the tension and glamour required by the Hollywood confederation. The killing of three young Somalians and the release of the captain provided the blood and the triumph for the star spattered banner. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and along the long shoreline of Somalia started in 1995 in response to rapacious fishing, mostly by Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean vessels. The dumping of toxic waste by European nations stoked more resentment¹. Foreign fishing boats were the first targets but when these got protection from local warlords, the Somalian pirates turned to commercial and cruise shipping. With at least 20,000 vessels on passage they had plenty to choose from. Since the US navy Seals shot their men, over sixty more seamen have been taken hostage.

Why is it that little is heard of the piracy off the coast of the Zionist entity and the strip it dominates called Gaza? In contrast to the actions of young Muslim fishermen from an impoverished and broken Somalian nation, the entity carries out its piracy under the title of the Israeli Occupation Force, out of a country with the greatest wealth and with the pretense of a fully fledged legal system. As it turns out, its maritime law is the British Maritime Law of 1856, a hangover from the British Mandate.

 

For Virtue, Vibrio and God

The paramount war criminal used more tons of aviation fuel flying to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington ten days ago. The CFR sounds like one of the more benign 'think' tanks among the hundreds there. On its board sits Mrs 'The Price is Worth It' Albright and General Plutonium Powell. The gist of the speech given by the envoy for the Quartet was two fold.

Firstly the natives in the ineptly named West Bank (the west side of the Jordan Valley having been robbed from them) have been pacified in Jenin by Palestinian Authority security forces. The quisling nature of these forces who were trained by the CIA in Jericho and Jordan escaped mention of course. So too did the fact that these forces often go for Palestinian "targets" provided by Israel. Ord Wingate trained the "special night squads" in the 1930s and they included trainee Zionist terrorists. The brutal methods spawned by the British mandate have bore fruiting bodies in Israel. Now, the PA has taken the bloodied baton. A phalanx of pick-ups with armed thugs in balaclavas beats the family door down in the early hours. The family sobs in the street whilst the furniture is destroyed and a son is snatched for 'interrogation'. Thus is Jenin pacified and it becomes Blair's exemplar for a new 'state' which has to provide security as its first duty. That security comes down the barrel of a gun and through the local Abu Ghraib from whence the tortured corpse of Sheikh Barghouti was carried in February of this year. 'The Israelis have been able to step back' says the envoy. 'On to this can be grafted economic and social progress'.