by Stephen Lendman

Israeli terror attacks continue. They're merciless. Defenseless civilians are targeted. It's official policy in all Israeli conflicts. Besieged Gazans are sitting ducks.

Where can they go? How can they hide? What can they do but pray they'll survive? Many won't. Through midday Monday, Haaretz reported 95 Gazan deaths. Another report said 97. These numbers will rise.

Nearly 700 were injured. The great majority are civilian men, women, children, infants and the elderly. Many others are missing. They're presumed buried under rubble. Dozens of Israeli sorties are flown daily. Devastation is left in their wake.

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By Gilad Atzmon

Gilad Sharon, son of Ariel Sharon, wrote in the Jerusalem Post that Israel should “Flatten all of Gaza.”

“There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing. Then they’d really call for a ceasefire,” he wrote. “We need to flatten entire neighbourhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.”

Many Israelis and even some Zionists are ‘outraged’ but the truth must be told – Sharon’s views are fully consistent with Zionism, Israeli thinking and some aspect of Jewish culture.

For example, Sharon’s call is fully consistent with some devastating Old Testament’s passages:

‘You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.’ Leviticus, 26:7–8

‘When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations … you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.’ Deuteronomy 7:1–2

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by Stephen Lendman

Longstanding US and Israeli policies call for regime change in Iran. Replacing its independent government with a pro-Western puppet one is planned. War is the bottom line option if other methods fail. Both countries have longstanding plans. War could erupt any time. Doing so is madness. It's also lawless, unconscionable, and self-destructive. Attacking Iran assures all combatants lose. Gaza may be prelude to what's planned. Perhaps strategy and tactics are being tested. In all Israeli wars, so are new weapons. Israel uses illegal ones freely. Victims sustain horrific injuries. Many are killed outright or don't survive.

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by Stephen Lendman

Sunday as this is written is day 5. Monday when it's read will be day 6. How much longer will this continue? How much more death, destruction, and human misery is tolerable? Seventy-two confirmed Palestinian deaths were reported. Sunday attacks killed 24. Most are civilians. They include 14 children and eight women. Over 550 others were injured. All but about 15 are civilians. They include 145 children and 86 women. Israel deliberately targets noncombatants and civilian sites. It's official policy in all Israeli wars. International laws are spurned. Israel contemptuously ignores them.

Accountability never follows because world leaders don't care. Israel has carte blanche to kill, injure, maim, destroy, torture, and terrorize an entire population.

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By Michael Collins

(Washington, DC 11/18) Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org. had some tough words for the oil giants at the organization's events in the nation's capital. He announced to a packed house at the Warner Theater, "We're going after the fossil fuel industry" for trying to wreck the future. It's that simple. He argued that we have a choice. Either we take on the oil giants and end their rapacious behavior or we find a way to change the laws of physics to accommodate the insanity of ongoing pollution in the face of calamitous outcomes.

Shell, Exxon, BP, and the others in the fossil fuel industry were portrayed as world killers, rogue corporations whose relentless pursuit of profits threatens the lives and culture of every human being on earth.

The 350.org Do the Math Tour started in Seattle on November 7. The nationwide tour visits 21 cities across the country and culminates in Salt Lake City on December 3. Yesterday's presentation at the Warner Theater was followed by demonstration during which participants encircled the White House to remind President Barack Obama to hold fast on suspending work on the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

The math is simple and painful in its implications:

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by Stephen Lendman

Palestine's democratically elected government is targeted. West Bank coup d'etat authority has no legitimacy. Abbas' term as president expired in January 2009. Israel rigged his 2005 election.

What's ongoing is illegal aggressive war. Israeli provocations caused it. Israel's entire history reflects belligerence. It lives by the sword. It's a modern-day Sparta.

Operation Pillar of Cloud was planned months ago. All military campaigns take many weeks or months of planning. Attacking Gaza coincides with Israel's January elections.

Netanyahu hopes war will ensure his reelection. On January 22 he'll know. Also at issue is subverting Palestine's November 29 UN non-member observer status bid. Israel and Washington are going all out to sabotage it. As of now it looks certain.

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by Stephen Lendman

Bullies choose easy adversaries to pummel. Equal fights are shunned. It's the same in schoolyards or battlefields.

America and Israel operate this way. They avoid foes able to give as much as they take. Rogue governments never say they're sorry.

During Cast Lead in January 2009, Professor Jeremy Salt wrote "A Message to the brave Israeli Airmen." His comments apply to what's now ongoing.

What’s it like firing missiles at people you can’t see, he asked?

Does it help being unable to see who you're killing?

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by Stephen Lendman

The pattern playing out in Gaza is one Israel followed many times before. Provocations target adversaries. Multiple ones usually occur before targets respond.

Blame the victim follows. Israeli aggression is called self-defense. Legitimate defense is called terrorism. Media scoundrels support Israel in lockstep. It plays out the same way every time.

Facts on the ground are ignored, sanitized, suppressed, and/or distorted. Readers and viewers get manipulated managed news misinformation.

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Aleksandr Tarasov

The 1990s were the years in which the intelligentsia gave up its identity and its autonomy. The intellectual [intelligent] – if he is authentic and not a pseudointellectual (an intellectual by status, a bureaucrat, a clerk, a narrow specialist in a nonindustrial sphere such as education, management, or information technology) – is a creator: a creative individual, a genius, a person engaged in the search for truth through rational (scientific) or emotional (artistic) understanding and assimilation of the world. True intellectuals comprehend their individual role as thinking subjects and their social role as enlighteners and emancipators. Genuine intellectuals are paragons of critical thinking, opposed to conformity and parochialism.

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by Stephen Lendman

On November 14, Israel murdered Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari in cold blood. A missile struck his car. Another passenger was killed. Unconfirmed reports said it was his son. An IDF Twitter message said, "We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead."

Press TV said Shin Bet claimed responsibility. An official statement said:

"During a joint operation of the General Security Service (Shin Bet) and the IDF today, Ahmed al-Jabari, the senior commander of the military wing of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, was targeted."

Attacks continue. Israel's Operation Pillar of Cloud (aka Cloud Column) killed at least nine Palestinians. Over 20 others were injured. Authorities expect death and injury tolls to rise.

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