On March 5 2010, Channel 4 aired an episode of Dispatches entitled "The Children of Gaza". It focused on the lives of a few of the children living in that small strip of Palestinian land whose lives were devastated when, 15 months ago, Israel launched its military attack on their homes, killing many of their parents and relatives, and shattering their already fragile existences. It showed how they have bravely tried to deal with their losses and bereavements and have tried to move on with their lives, and simultaneously how Israel has ensured that this is well near impossible as a result of the children’s literal incarceration in Gaza due to Israel’s illegal and ongoing siege. The documentary focused on how they have been struggling to deal with the fallout of their physical injuries as well as their psychological scars which, in all probability, they will never fully recover from. For once, this documentary was an opportunity for the children of Gaza themselves to speak out and to tell their own stories instead of it being told on their behalf by propagandists with a vested interest in how these children are portrayed. Listen to the Children.
Dr. Norman Finkelstein speaking at the University of Alberta on January 22, 2009. His talk dealt with Israel's responsibility in the situation in Gaza and the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Part 2
By Geoff McMaster January 23, 2009
Edmonton-Israel's attack on Gaza had little to do with self-defense and everything to do with instilling fear among Palestinian people, says political scientist Norman Finkelstein.
Invited to speak on campus by the Edmonton chapter of the Palestine Solidarity Network, Finkelstein accused Israel of deliberately killing Gaza civilians in order to cement their control over the occupied territory.
He said the incursion was only the latest in a more than 60-year history of "terrorizing the Arab world periodically into submission, and reminding them who is in charge in the Middle East."
Following its defeat at the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2000 and 2006, Israel was waiting for an opportunity to seek revenge, Finkelstein claimed. It turned to Gaza when "the feebly armed resistance, Hamas, had defiantly resisted Israeli dictate.
"As Israel targeted schools, mosques, hospitals, ambulances, UN sanctuaries... and slaughtered and incinerated Gaza's defenseless civilian population, Israeli commentators gloated that Gaza was to Lebanon as a second sitting for an exam is to the first: a second chance to get it right.
"There's no pretense here that this war had anything to do with rocket attacks-it's about getting it right," and restoring Israel's "deterrence capacity" he said, adding that Hamas fired rockets into Israel only after Israel broke a ceasefire agreement and killed seven militants.
The son of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein received his doctorate at Princeton University in 1988 and has since been a fervent and controversial critic of Israeli aggression in Palestine. In five books, including The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering and Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, he has attacked what he sees as the Israeli/U.S. propaganda machine.
Along the way, his polemical style has alienated many commentators on the Middle East, among them the pro-Israeli author and lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who has charged that he is "guilty of various forms of intellectual dishonesty" and that his "entire literary catalogue is one preposterous and discredited ad hominem attack after another." Finkelstein's supporters include the prominent political dissident Noam Chomsky.
Finkelstein has held a number of academic appointments but was last year denied tenure at DePaul University in Chicago, some contend because of the controversial nature of his work. He is now an independent scholar and active public intellectual.
Some 400 people crowded into Dinwoodie Lounge in the Students Union Building Thursday to hear him speak. He had intended to discuss the non-violent example of Mahatma Gandhi in resolving the Middle East conflict but decided to change his topic at the last minute because of the crisis in Gaza.
Even before the Gaza invasion, he said, Israel had "starved the population" and "reduced it to abject despair" through a long-standing blockade. When United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, visited Gaza, she reported having witnessed "a civilization being destroyed," he said.
In December Israel sent in the full weight of its military arsenal, achieving a kill ratio of 100 to one, said Finkelstein. More than 1,300 Gaza civilians were killed in the conflict, one third of them children, according to the latest figures from the United Nations. Last Sunday Israel and Gaza's Hamas leaders reached a ceasefire agreement.
In addition to terrorizing the population, Israel was also intent on discrediting Hamas, who had signaled it was ready to agree on a resolution to end the conflict, said Finkelstein.
The international community-including the vast majority of the United Nations Assembly, the International Court of Justice, and a number of prominent human rights organizations-supports a two-state solution, he said, involving a full withdrawal of Israel from the occupied territories to pre-1967 borders and a provision to properly take care of refugees.
"There can't be a worse disaster for Israel, because Israel wants to keep the West Bank, and always needs someone who it can claim doesn't want to negotiate. So it pulled Hamas out of the hat, and now Hamas won't co-operate, it wants to settle," said Finkelstein.
He accused Canadian political leaders of unwittingly helping to bring about the demise of Israel by supporting its disregard of the rule of law.
"If Israel continues on this path, there can't be any doubt that it will be destroyed," said Finkelstein. By endorsing an unjust war against civilians, "Harper, Ignatieff and the rest support putting Israel in a path where it can't possibly survive much longer. And when that destruction comes to pass, the blood will be on their filthy, filthy hands."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has consistently blamed Hamas for the provoking the Israeli attack on Gaza, and two weeks ago Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff agreed that Israel was justified in taking action to defend itself.
Finkelstein also derided the "absolutely ghastly press and media" in Canada, singling out the Globe and Mail, for their pro-Israeli bias.
Nonetheless, he said, "this massacre was the last time Israel will get a free ride. People now know too much, the myths have been dispelled and the truth is out there. People are appalled and disgusted at the state which has become in some sense Satanic in its constant, incessant desire to wage war, war and more war." Source
January 22 2009 right after yet another the Ceasefire
On Thursday a Palestinian man and girl walking near the shore in Gaza City were wounded by a shell fired from an Israeli gunboat, a Gaza health official said.
Another shell landed 100 metres away in an empty area near a UN aid distribution centre. And heavy-calibre bullet fire struck at least one house in the area, a witness said.
The Israeli military said it was firing to deter a Palestinian fishing vessel that had strayed off-limits.
Are we all so blind as to not see the truth.
ISRAELI Discrimination Against the ETHIOPIAN Hebrews "JEWS"! August 23, 2008
US Backed Ethiopian troops commit war crimes August 15, 2007
By Khalid Amayreh
August 5 2008
“We committed Nazi acts.”
Aharon Zisling, Israel’s first Agriculture Minister
“There is no doubt that many sexual atrocities were committed by the attacking Jews. Many young (Arab) girls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested.”
General Richard Catling, British Army Assistant Inspector after interrogating several female survivors (The Palestinian Catastrophe, Michael Palumbo, 1987)
As the evil state of Israel is celebrating sixty years of ethnic cleansing and atrocities against the native Palestinians, many people around the world, especially young generations, will not be fully aware of the manner in which Israel came into existence. Similarly, the younger Zionist generations who don’t stop calling their Palestinian victims “terrorists” should have a clearer idea about Israel’s manifestly criminal past which Zionist school textbooks shamelessly glamorize and glorify
Prior to "Jewish" statehood, three main Jewish terror organizations operated in Palestine, primarily against Palestinian civilians and British mandate targets. The three were: The Haganah, the Zvei Leumi or Irgun and the Stern Gang. The Haganah (Defence) had a field army of up to 160,000 well-trained and well-armed men and a unit called the Palmach, with more than 6,000 terrorists. The Irgun included as many as 5,000 terrorists, while the Stern Gang included 200-300 dangerous terrorists.
The following are merely some examples of Zionist terrorism prior to the creation of the Zionist state in 1948: The list doesn't include the bigger massacres such as Dir Yasin, Dawaymeh, Tantura and others.
1937-1939
During this period, Zionist terrorists carried out a series of terror attacks against Palestinian buses resulting in the death of 24 persons and the wounding of 25 others.
1939
Haganah blew up the Iraqi oil pipeline near Haifa/Palestine. Moshe Dayan was one of the participants in this act. The technique was used in 1947 at least four times.
1940
On 6 November, 1940 , Zionist terrorists of the Stern Gang assassinated the British Minister resident in the Middle East , Lord Moyne, in Cairo .
1940
On 25 November, S.S. Patria was blown up by Jewish terrorists in Haifa harbour, killing 268 illegal Jewish immigrants. The explosion, carried out by the Haganah terrorist group, was only meant to prevent the ship from sailing. However, it seemed that the terrorists had miscalculated the amount of explosives needed to disable the vessel. Other sources reported that this was no miscalculation and was a deliberate mass murder of Jews by Jews aimed at drawing sympathy and influencing British immigration policy to Palestine .
1946
Zionist terrorists blew up the KingDavidHotel in Jerusalem, which housed the civilian administration of the government of Palestine, killing and injuring more than 200 persons. The Irgun gang claimed responsibility for this criminal act, but subsequent evidence indicated that both the Haganah and the Jewish Agency were involved.
1946
On 1 October, the British Embassy in Rome was badly damaged by a bomb explosion for which Irgun claimed responsibility.
1947
In June 1947, a postal bomb addressed to the British war office exploded in the post office sorting room in London, injuring 2 persons. It was attributed to Irgun or Stern Gangs (The Sunday Times, Sept. 24, 1972), p. 8.
1947
In December 1947, six Palestinians were killed and 30 wounded when bombs were thrown from Jewish trucks at Arab houses in Haifa; 12 Palestinians were killed and another injured in an attack by armed Zionists at an Arab coastal village near Haifa.
1947
On 13 December 1947 , Zionist terrorists believed to be members of Irgun Zevi Leumi murdered 18 Palestinian civilians and wounded 60 others in Jerusalem , Jaffa and Lud areas. In Jerusalem , bombs were thrown in an Arab market-place near the Damascus Gate; in Jaffa bombs were thrown into an Arab café; and in the Arab village near Lud, 12 Arabs were killed in an attack with mortars and automatic weapons.
1947
On 9 December, Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village near Safad, blowing up two houses, in the ruins of which were found the bodies of 10 Arabs, including 5 children. Haganah admitted responsibility for the attack.
1947
On 29 December, two British constables and 11 Palestinians were killed and 32 others were injured at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem when Irgun terrorists threw a bomb from a taxi.
1948
On 1 January, Haganah terrorists attacked a village on the slope of Mount Carmel , killing 17 Palestinian civilians and wounding 33 others.
1948
On 4 January, Haganah terrorists wearing British Army uniforms penetrated into the centre of Jaffa and blew up the Sarai, which was used as headquarters of the Arab National Committee, killing more than 40 persons and wounding 98 others.
1948
On 5 January, the Arab-owned Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem was blown up, killing 20 civilians, among them Viscount De Tapia, the Spanish Consul. Haganah admitted responsibility for this outrage.
1948
On 7 January , seventeen Arab civilians were killed by a bomb at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem , 3 of them while trying to escape. Further casualties, including the murder of a British officer near Hebron, were reported from different parts of the country.
1948
On 16 January, Jewish terrorists blew up three Arab buildings, killing 8 children between the age of 18 months and 12 years.
December 13, 1947- February 10, 1948
Seven bombing attacks by Jewish terrorists took place and the targets were innocent Arab civilians in cafés and markets, killing 138 and wounding 271 others. During this period, there were 9 attacks on Arab buses. Moreover, Jewish terrorists attacked passenger trains on at least four occasions, killing 93 persons and wounding 161 others.
1948
On 15 February , Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village near Safad and blew up several houses, killing 11 civilians, including four children.
1948
On 3 March, heavy damage was done to the Arab-owned Salam building in Haifa (a seven-story block of flats and shops) by Jewish terrorists who drove an army truck to the building and escaped before detonation of 400 pounds of explosives, killing 11 Arab civilians and 3 Americans. The Stern Gang claimed responsibility.
1948
On 22 March, Jewish terrorists from the Stern Gang blew up a housing block in Iraq Street in Haifa , killing 17 and injuring 100 others. Four members of the Stern Gang drove two truckloads of explosives into the street and abandoned the vehicles before the explosives went off.
1948
On 31 March, Jewish terrorists mined the Cairo-Haifa Express, killing 40 people and wounding 60 others.
1948
On 16 April, Jewish terrorists attacked the former British army camp at Tel Litvvinsky, killing 90 Palestinians.
1948
On 19 April, fourteen Palestinian civilians were killed in a house in Tiberias, which was blown up by Zionist terrorists.
1948
On 11 May, a letter bomb addressed to Evelyn Baker, former commanding officer in Palestine , was detected in the nick of time by his wife.
April 25, 1948- May 13, 1948
Wholesale looting of Jaffa was carried out following armed attacks by Irgun and Haganah terrorists. They plundered and carried away everything they could, destroying what they could not take with them.
1948
On 17 September, Count Folke Berndadotte, UN Mediator in Palestine was assassinated by members of the Stern Gang in the Zionist-controlled sector of Jerusalem . Bernadotte’s aide Col. Serot was also killed and murdered by Jewish terrorists.
1948
In November, the Christian Arab villages of Igrit and Birim were attacked and destroyed, killing and injuring many unarmed civilians, including women and children. All the Christian Arab inhabitants were forcibly expelled from their homes. The State of Israel still refuses to allow them to return to their villages despite several court orders.
1948-1949
The greatest acts of Jewish terror took place when Jewish terrorists, now called Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), uprooted 700,000-800,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homeland in Palestine . Since then the refugees have consistently been denied the right to return home. After the expulsion, the Zionist terrorist army razed to the ground hundreds of Arab towns, villages and hamlets and obliterated their remains. Eventually, Israeli villages, Kibbutzim and towns were built on the remaining rubble.
They have continued down this road of destruction to steal land and murder innocent Palestinians.
It is estimated that: Since then about 2 million Palestinians have been killed. Just as many if not more have been displaced.
A story to ponder before you watch these Videos I know a man, who for many years thought he was something, he in fact was not. He was in very sense of the word a Bigot. He like many loves to hate. He thought he was better then others simply because he was White. Many times I heard him talk about Jews as Hitler had done. I heard him talk about Aboriginal Indians and how awful they were. Each time he spewed his hate and rhetoric, I of course had to giggle to myself. I listened to his propaganda, his ignorance and his messages of hate.
I however was rather amused by all of this. Why you ask? I knew his true heritage and ancestry. He however, never knew his heritage or the ancestry of his family. He was raised, believing he was White and Pure as the Driven Snow. He lived through out his life assuming, he was something he was not.
Not that his parents ever told him this. His parents for the sake of survival never proclaimed their heritage or ancestry.
In those days to be an Indian or even Métis would mean you were treated much like the Palestinians have been treated. Being Jewish of course could also mean persecution. A double edge sword of hate and lies would fall upon you.
You may never get a job or if you did it would for a pitons, of what you were really worth. You were by all standards would have been treated badly.
His parents for the sake of survival denied their heritage, their ancestry was left a mystery. Simply by never mentioning it.
They never condemned or promoted hate, to the contrary they were accepting of all races, or religions. They believed everyone could and should live together in peace in spite of their differences. They did not teach hate to their children.
So as this man, would spew his hate or his beliefs which were build on a foundation of falsities, I was amused at his foolish pandering of White Supremacy beliefs. Even his extended family aunts, uncles, cousins, etc never knew the truth of their heritage or ancestry. Some of them were as bad as he was.
There did however come a day when the "truth" was told. Oh to have been a fly on the wall, of each and ever one, of their homes, who thought they were so Superior. To see the dismay of it all. To relish in the revelation, of enlightenment, that they were in fact, the people they had hated and condemned. I still have to smile, to this day, as I remember that moment of “Truth” being “Unveiled” So the next time you look in the "Mirror" ask yourself "Who am I really"?
Occupation 101 Part 1
Occupation 101 Part 2
Occupation 101 part 3
Occupation 101 Part 4
Occupation 101 Part 5 : Why Hamas won the election.
Occupation 101 Part 6 Aphartide and US Supporting it. Media manipulation on the facts.
Occupation 101 Part 7 : Israel breaking International Law :Geneva Convention :US funding to Israel
Occupation 101 Part 8 Israel Weapons : Check Points : Schools: Unemployment : People Die at Check Points
Occupation 101 Part 9 The New Berlin Wall: Propaganda (brainwashing):
Occupation 101 Part 10 wrong part ten
Occupation 101 Part 11
Rachel Corrie - Interview: Rachel Died at the hands of an Israeli Bulldozer driver. She was trying to protect a Palestinian Doctors home from being Destroyed.
Rachel Corrie Memorial in Gaza - Days After Her Murder
Friends of Rachel and supporters attempted to erect a memorial and plant flowers where Rachel was killed days before, and were met by the Israeli Defense Force armored personnel carries, tear gas, and bullets.
The following is a timeline of events leading to the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip that began on December 27 with Israel’s aerial bombardment of Hamas-linked compounds in the coastal sliver:
January 5 2009
2008
June 19: An Egyptian mediated ceasefire begins between Hamas and Israel. The Palestinian movement agrees to stop firing rockets as Israel accepts to gradually ease its embargo on the Gaza Strip.
July 27: Israel kills Shihab al-Natsheh, a senior Hamas fighter, in his house in the West Bank city of al-Khalil.
August 2: Three Hamas police officers and six pro-Fatah gunmen are killed in factional fighting in the Gaza Strip, the worst of such since June 2007.
October 8: Israel prevents Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) from entering the embattled Gaza Strip.
November 5: Israel raids houses in the Hamas-controlled region and arrests seven Palestinians.
Israel attacks areas inside Gaza, killing at least six Palestinians. Ghassan el-Taramse, a nineteen-year-old Palestinian activist, is killed in an Israeli air raid in the northern parts of the coastal sliver.
Palestinians fire several dozen rockets and mortar shells at western Negev in Israel in retaliation. No casualties or property damage is caused, but three women are treated for shock.
November 8: Israel violates the ongoing truce as its tanks and bulldozers cross the southern border of the Gaza Strip.
November 14: Hamas fires a barrage of homemade rockets at the city of Ashkelon. Four rockets are also fired into western Negev after Israeli air strikes wounded two people in Gaza.
November 15: Israeli air strike kills two Palestinians in the town of Beit Hanoun in Gaza.
November 18: Israeli tanks backed by a bulldozer and a military jeep roll half a kilometer into Gaza. The Israeli army claims the incursion is “a routine operation to uncover explosive devices near the border fence in the southern Gaza Strip.”
November 20: An Israeli tank fires shells, killing a Palestinian fighter east of Gaza City.
November 23: The Israeli army wounds two Palestinian residents while shelling homes in various cities in the strip.
November 28: Israeli forces backed by tanks enter the southern parts of the coastal region and kill two Palestinians.
November 29: Projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip wound eight Israeli soldiers in an army base in the town of Nahal Uz.
December 02: The Israeli army launches air strikes into southern Gaza and kills at least two civilians and wounding four others.
December 17: Five Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip injure two Israelis in the southern town of Sderot.
December 18: A Palestinian man is killed in Jabaliya as Israeli aircraft target metal workshops in the towns of Jabaliya and Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military claims the targets are used to manufacture rockets.
December 19: The six-month truce officially ends.
December 20: Israeli launches air strikes on the northern Gazan town of Beit Lahiya, killing one Palestinian and wounding two others.
December 21: Palestinian fighters fire rockets into Sderot and Negev and one Israeli is wounded.
December 22: A twenty-four hour truce is declared between Israel and armed Palestinian factions at the request of Egyptian mediators.
December 23: The twenty-four hour truce expires.
Clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters leave three members of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades dead along the border fence in northern Gaza.
Six Qassam rockets are fired into western Negev. The rocket attacks do not hit any targets in Israel.
December 24: Gaza fighters fire two dozen mortar shells at three different targets inside Israel.
An Israeli air raid kills a Palestinian and wounds two others in southern Gaza.
December 27: Israeli F16 bombers and apache helicopters carry out at least 30 simultaneous raids on various targets across the Gaza strip. The operation kills at least 230 and wounds hundreds of Palestinians.
Hamas responds with rocket fire from Gaza and kills one Israeli in the southern town of Netivot.
December 28: Israel begins a fresh wave of air strikes. Israel deploys tanks and troops along the Gaza border. Tunnels in and out of Gaza are bombed.
A Hamas missile strikes near the largest city in the south of the occupied lands, the deepest reach into Israel to the date.
Global protests against the Israeli attacks begin.
Palestinian death toll rises to 296; 900 are injured.
December 29: The third day of attacks on the strip brings the death toll to 340. At least 1,400 Palestinians are wounded.
Muslim world announces day of mourning.
Two more Israelis are killed and one is injured.
December 30: Israeli air operations continue as Tel Aviv declares the area around Gaza a ‘closed military zone’.
Israeli floats the idea that a ground invasion of Gaza is imminent.
Palestinian casualties rise to 360 dead and 1,500 injured.
December 31: Israel continues tunnel attacks and civilian casualties increase.
Hamas says Gaza will be victorious.
The UN and Arab League find no solution to end the crisis.
Palestinian death toll rises to 400 with 1,600 injured.
January 1: Israeli bombardments continue; first senior Hamas official dies in air attacks.
Israel denies a 48-hour request for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza by rejecting an EU truce.
Hamas calls for Palestinian protests; it rockets hit several positions.
417 Palestinians and 6 Israelis dead.
January 2: Curfew imposed on West Bank and foreigners are told to leave Gaza.
Top Israeli ministers discuss ground invasion into the Gaza Strip. The United Nations condemns Israel and describes situation in Gaza as “appalling”.
Kadima, Israel’s ruling party, losses ground in polls ahead of elections.
Death toll continues to rise.
January 3: A senior leader of the armed wing of the Palestinian Hamas is killed in Israeli air strikes in Gaza.
Hamas warns Israel not to “commit the stupidity” of taking its offensive to the next level. The group says its fighters have foiled an attempt by Israeli ground forces to cross the border into the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli cabinet approves a military ground incursion in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli warplanes bomb a bridge linking Gaza City to the rest of the coastal slither.
Hamas fires eight rockets into Israel, seven into the Western Negev and one into the Eshkol region.
Israeli warplanes raid several targets in Gaza and kill four people.
A Hamas rocket hits a four-story building in Ashdod — Israel’s second largest port - and lightly wounds four people.
An Israeli air raid on a mosque in the Gaza Strip kills at least 16 Palestinians.
Israeli tanks begin shelling areas inside the strip, causing a large explosion in Gaza City as well as a series of blasts stitching the nearby frontier with Israel.
Israeli tanks roll into Gaza.
A Palestinian rocket destroys a house in the Israeli city of Netivot.
Israel bans a “Red Cross medical team” from entering Gaza to treat injured residents.
Hamas says that nine Israeli soldiers have been killed and 25 wounded.
The United Nations Security Council calls for an emergency meeting.
January 4: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calls for an immediate cessation of the Israeli ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli warplanes bomb the coastal region, lighting up the sky hours before sunrise.
The United States blocks a UN Security Council bid to require an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli bombers hit the Hamas-run al-Aqsa radio station inside Gaza.
A Palestinian ambush allegedly kills five Israeli troops.
Hamas says its fighters have captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes with invading Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli forces surround the largest city in the Palestinian territories, Gaza City.
Clashes continue between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters in four spots in the north, around Gaza City, Beit Hanun, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya.
Gaza resistance fighters fire ten more rockets into Israeli cities, two targeted at western Negev and three hit Sderot city.
Israeli bombers target heavily populated areas inside the Gaza Strip, killing five Palestinian civilians and wounding 40 others.
Medics inside Gaza confirm that they have found traces of “depleted uranium” in some Palestinians wounded in the Israeli ground offensive.
Israel kills two senior Hamas officials, Hussam Hamdan and Muhammad Hilo, in an air strike on Khan Yunis.
Palestinian fighters fire at least 40 Qassam and Grad rockets into southern Israel.
Israeli President Shimon Peres rejects the possibility of a ceasefire.
Palestinians target an Israeli helicopter and allegedly destroy seven Israeli tanks inside the strip.
War on Gaza pushes oil prices up January 5 2009 Oil prices have surged nearly one dollar in Asia due to the war on Gaza and concerns over the Russia-Ukraine gas supply dispute.
US light sweet oil for February delivery jumped 86 cents to 47.20 dollars a barrel on Monday, while London Brent gained 61 cents to reach 47.52 dollars.
Traders say Israel's ten-day incursion into the Gaza Strip, which has claimed more than 520 Palestinian lives and left 2790 more wounded, has added to the geopolitical risk of obtaining crude supplies from the Middle East.
They believe Russia's stand-off with Ukraine over gas prices has also pushed oil up.
At the same time, the United States and China, the two largest oil consumers of the world, have announced that they are seeking more oil to build up reserves.
The developments came after a senior military commander from oil-rich Iran called on Muslim states to cut crude exports to all countries supporting Israel and its policies against the Palestinians.
"Oil is among the major stimuli that can pressure the Zionist regime's supporters in the US and Europe," Brigadier General Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh, head of the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Holy Defense, said Sunday.
Israel's military offensive in Gaza ignites an interational wave of protests.
Demonstrations have been taking place in countries in the Middle East, Asia and Europe to urge an end to Israel's military strikes on Gaza that have claimed the lives of more than 400 Palestinians.
At least four Israelis have also been killed in rocket attacks by Palestinian militants which triggered the Israeli offensive.
A few Reports about Protests that have been held around the world:
A disturbing report published this week highlights yet another facet of Israel's regime in the occupied territories that is seeing Palestinian lives ruined and families torn apart. As if the alienation of the Palestinians from their pre-1948 homelands wasn't crushing enough to those affected, the Hamoked-B'Tselem study reveals an alarming increase in forcible transfers of West Bank residents to the Gaza Strip, effectively making refugees twice over of those falling victim to this punitive policy.
Palestinians whose registered address is in Gaza are now prohibited from living in the West Bank, regardless of how long ago they made the move eastwards. Thanks to Israel's flouting of theOslo agreements, the process of updating Palestinians' addresses on the population registry has been indefinitely frozen, making criminals of everyone who falls foul of the rule. The effect has been to separate husbands from their wives and parents from their children, and to add yet another layer of hardship to the already gruelling circumstances in which the Palestinians live.
According to the authors of the paper, the reason behind the Israel authorities' recent escalation of enforcing this law is based on a desire to do everything within their power to drive a wedge between the West Bank and Gaza, and to turn them into separate entities. This is, again, in direct contravention of the Oslo Accords, which state that the two areas are to be treated as one geographical unit; but at the same time it is entirely in keeping with Israel's strategy of cutting off Gaza as a way of punishing the Hamas government.
B'Tselem's Jessica Montell, who presented the findings at a press conference on Wednesday, pointed out that Israel is not acting alone when attempting to isolate and demonise Hamas: "The United States and Europe worked closely with Israel to form a united position towards the Hamas government, and the siege on Gaza [which] stemmed from that". Montell described the latest moves to clamp down on so-called "illegal aliens" in the West Bank as an "exacerbation" of this ostracising approach towards the Hamas leadership.
However, as was shown by way of written and video testimony from Palestinians affected by Israel's increasingly heavy-handed tactics, it is ordinary civilians who are suffering the most. Hadeel al-Bardawil, a 22-year-old mother of two, has been forcibly separated from her husband for over a year, during which time their second child (whom her husband Jamal has never seen) was born. Neither she nor her husband can convince the Israeli authorities to grant them permits to visit one another in either the West Bank or Gaza, and the impact on the entire family has been immense.
"My children now run to their uncles and call them 'daddy'", she said. "I want them to be with their father like other children; all that I ask for is to live my life in dignity with my family".
Her story is by no means unique. Another man described his plight as "abnormal – I haven't seen my daughter for over a year". When asked by the interviewer whether he had phone contact with her, he replied bitterly "We're sick of the phone; everyone always cries". Dozens of similar cases have been brought to the attention of Hamoked although, according to Montell, the number of people affected by the policy could run into "many thousands".
On top of the denial of permits for families to be reunited, there has been a spate of forcible transfers of Gaza-registered civilians out of the West Bank and into the Gaza Strip, by way of house-to-house searches and other methods of tracking down so-called "illegals".
Article 49 of the Geneva conventions expressly forbids occupying powers from "forcible transfers, as well as deportation of protected persons [to anywhere else]… regardless of the motive". Amnesty International go further in their condemnation of the practice, stating that forcible transfer also violates article 33 of the Geneva conventions, which prohibits collective punishment. However, Israel's penchant for ignoring the statutes of international law is nothing new; the current policy being only the latest in a long line of contraventions, and those enforcing it are unlikely to be swayed by censure from human rights groups and NGOs.
Instead, pressure should be brought to bear by those who, at present, are bankrolling and rubberstamping Israel's ever-more exacting regime in the occupied territories. Governments that declare themselves champions of human rights and staunch defenders of victims of abuse are, in effect, giving Israel carte blanche to proceed at will in their denial of basic freedoms to the Palestinians.
As one desperate Palestinian mother put it during her testimony, "[Why don't they just] put me in a cage? At least I'll know I'm in prison, and that I've got a problem; and then I'll give up. Where [else] in the world does a wife have to live apart from her husband for no reason?" Her life in limbo is a constant nightmare, and every government cosying up to Israel, while it attempts permanently to divide the West Bank and Gaza, is just as responsible for her plight as the Israeli authorities themselves.
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