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Israel threatens more bloodshed in Gaza

The Israeli air force Saturday dropped leaflets on the Gaza Strip warning residents that it plans to escalate its military offensive, now in its second week, AP reported.

The warning came as eight members of the same Palestinian family, including a 12-year-old, were killed on Saturday by Israeli fire in the northern town of Jabaliya.

Elsewhere in France, pro-Palestinian rallies were held in Bordeaux, Grenoble Lille, Marseille, Nice and Toulouse.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=186538

A friend forwarded to me the most original greeting for the New Year: “I wish in 2009 a horrible year for all war criminals and their accomplices.” I could not but think of whether some United Nations officials can be counted among such “accomplices.”

Over the last two days, various UN officials stated that the percentage of civilians among those Palestinians killed in the current Israeli war of aggression on Gaza is about “25 percent” and is “likely to increase.” Assuming the best of intentions, stating such a painfully low figure reflects shabby research or scandalous incompetence. At worst, it reveals intentional deception and misinformation that can only benefit the already massive and well-oiled Israeli public relations machine.

The UN’s complicity in Israel’s propaganda war is the latest, albeit hardly ever mentioned, dimension of the international organization’s utter failure in defending its principles, foremost among which are the prevention of war and the promotion of peace, when performing such a duty is expected to stir the wrath of the US master and the uniquely influential Israel lobby. Not only has the UN Secretary-General betrayed the very Charter of the UN and all relevant international law principles by failing to even condemn Israel’s massacre of civilians and targeting of civilian institutions and residential neighborhoods; the entire UN system has so far dealt with it as a “war” between two relatively symmetric forces, where the mightier side has sufficient justification to “defend itself,” but should do so more proportionately, while the weaker side is chiefly responsible for triggering the “armed conflict.”

Full Story:    http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10089.shtml

In Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s latest verbal assault on Israel, the Iranian president said it would soon “fade away from the earth.”

“The crimes being committed by the Zionist regime [Israel] are happening because it is aware that it has reached the end of the line and will soon fade away from the earth,” Mehr news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying during an anti-Israeli rally in Tehran.

He said world powers have become increasingly hesitant to show further support for Israel, which he said has lost direction.

Ahmadinejad claimed that Israel’s “crimes” in Gaza were aimed at changing the political leaders in the troubled region in line with its own political interests.

Israel has enforced a blockade on the Gaza Strip since the Islamist organization Hamas seized power there in June 2007.

The Iranian president has attracted international condemnation in the past three years with his attacks on Israel, suggesting it should be “wiped off the map.”

However, he has repeatedly rejected charges he is anti-Semitic.

Iran does not acknowledge the sovereignty of Israel and supports the Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip.

At the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, the Iranian cleric Ahmad
Khatami condemned international organizations and even Arab countries, including Egypt, for having remained silent over the situation in Gaza.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1046139.html