Comedian Jackie Mason unloads

The plug has been pulled on the latest war in Gaza, which was supported by 90 per cent of Israelis. The conduct of the military and the toll of civilians has caused some pro-Israelis in the diaspora to become visibly unhinged. Here's a clip of stand-up comedian Jackie Mason, who famously sued Jews for Jesus for defamation, gave Ed Sullivan the finger on live tv, and denigrated Sarah Silverman's appeals for young Jews to schlep to Florida and bring out the Democratic vote. Now the old guy is in meltdown against Jews who fear World Opinion and he rants about liberals who dare empathize with the Palestinians.

These are the real zingers. The map shows the radius that rockets from Gaza presently reach inside Israel. It's against international law to fire onto a civilian population, and Hamas militants are wrong to do this. No doubt. Talk will stop this more effectively than Israeli boots on the ground and drones in the sky remote-controlled by girl soldiers.

Graveyard Shift: Meet Islamic Jihad 's brazen rocket scientists

Extraordinary photos of a Qassam weapons team ran in Der Spiegel. They can crank out 100 rockets per night. Fertilizer for the explosives comes in sacks labeled in Hebrew, so the source presumably is Israel.

excerpt:

The TNT comes to us from Sudan via Egypt." Other elements arrive by boat across the sea to Gaza. "We get some from Eastern Europe." The raw materials for one large rocket cost up to €500. The money to finance the operation comes the same route as the materials. "The Israeli blockade doesn't affect us; it's just intended to plunge the people into misery."

Now and then shots can be heard outside and an explosion echoes through the night. There is fighting at the nearby border. The walkie-talkies in the hut keep them up-to-date on the situation. With a hiss, the gas cooker comes to life. A cauldron full of fuel is set on it, and one of the men stirs in a lump of golden syrup, while the others weigh the fertilizer, which contains nitrate. They explain that the nitrate has to be mixed very slowly with the sugar solution. "The thing is highly explosive." Abdul admits that many of his friends have suffered severe burns or lost fingers. He shrugs his shoulders: "There is a local saying in Gaza: He who cooks poison has to also try it."

The production of the fuel may be delicate, but the real danger lies in the Israeli helicopters, Abdul says. "We know that we are easy prey." His thumb flashes a nervous Morse code with his flashlight onto the floor of the hut. "We are ready to die; that is the price of our freedom." He says that the Palestinians are left with no other choice but to fight the Israelis with weapons. "Either we resist, or they treat us like slaves." He has thought about who is hit by his rockets. "If we kill soldiers, then we are more than happy," he says. "If it hits a child, then naturally we are not happy."

The simple fact of the matter is that you can't aim a Qassam, he says. "And look at the Israelis. They have F-16s and Apache helicopters and can shoot with amazing accuracy. And they still kill our women and children." He reflects for a moment. "Children shouldn't be killed in any war in this world," says Abdul, who has no children of his own.

Then he sends everyone outside. "This is the most dangerous moment. Just before the fuel is ready, the whole thing can explode." Over tea on the porch Abdul tells of his career as a rocket maker. A few hours of theory, then he and his friends did their apprenticeship with an experienced rocket builder. He doesn't want to explicitly say it, but it seems as if he also trained abroad. "I was in Syria, Jordan and one other country," he says. In Iran? Abdul smiles slightly.

The rocket fuel in the cauldron is ready: a thick yellow dough. Abdul carries a spoonful outside and put it in the fire on which the tea is brewing. A flame darts up, the nitrate-sugar mixture fizzes and bubbles as it burns off. It smells like fireworks, Abdul is pleased. The mixture is ready and is poured into a plastic tube, where it is to cool down. A fuse with a long wire is embedded in the mixture, with which the rocket can be ignited later. Once the fuel has set, the plastic tube will be cut away and the yellow fuel cylinder will be placed in the Qassam casing.

Now that the first Qassam rocket of the night is practically finished, Abdul has become quieter. "Today the clouds are protecting us from the Israeli drones."

Such bravado is to be expected. But the easy access of the German press to Islamic Jihad is disturbing. One wonders how they would react to Shir Shusdig, a teenager from Sderot, who spoke at a rally in support of lifting the Gaza blockade: "For seven years I am suffering from the Qassams in Kibbutz Zikim and Sderot. I know that the people on the other side are also suffering very much. That's why I am here!"

According to the Jewish Voice for Peace, the Gaza Strip situation today has terrible echoes of a desperate appeal a century ago.*

"Arise and go now to the city of slaughter;
Into its courtyard wind your way;
There with your own hand touch, and with the eyes of your head,
Behold on tree, on stone, on fence, on mural clay,
The spattered blood and dried brains of the dead."

What can one think as one stands at the gates of Gaza?

Only this:

"There in the dismal corner, there in the shadowy nook,
Multitudinous eyes will look"

What can we imagine today as we stand at the gates of Gaza, other than

"A babe beside its mother flung,
Its mother speared..."


Because today, as we stand at the gates of Gaza, we have no voice, we have no words and we have no deeds. There is not a single Yanosh Korchak among us who will go in and protect the children from the fire. There are no Righteous Gentiles who will endanger their lives in order to save the victims of Gaza. We stand forlorn and contemptible in front of the gates of evil, in front of the fences of death, and obey the racist laws that have taken control over our lives, and all of us are helpless.

When Bialik wrote:
" Satan has not yet created Vengeance for the blood of a small child,"
It did not occur to him that the child would be a Palestinian child from
Gaza and his slaughterers would be Jewish soldiers from the Land of
Israel.

And when he wrote:

Let the blood pierce
through the abyss! Let the blood seep
down into the depths of darkness, and
eat away there, in the dark, and breach
all the rotting foundations of the earth.

He did not imagine that those foundations would be the foundations of the Land of Israel. That the Jewish and Democratic State of Israel that uses the expression "blood on his hands" to justify its refusal to release freedom fighters and peace leaders would submerge us all in the blood of innocent babes up to our necks, up to our nostrils, so that every breath we take sends red bubbles of blood into the air of the Holy Land.

"And I, my heart is dead, no longer is there prayer
on my lips;
All strength is gone, and
hope is no more.
Until when,
How much longer,
Until when?"

* The poems "City of Slaughter" and "On Slaughter" were written by the Jewish poet Haim Nahman Bialik in tribute to the victims of the Kishinev Pogrom in 1903, Russia - trans.

3 turns of the screw : Why Gazans blew up that wall and got hold of the goods

The UN's Karen AbuZayd guest blogs on the Gaza blockade:
Palestinian suffering has reached new depths. Peace cannot be built by reducing 1.5m people to a state of abject destitution

Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and - some would say - encouragement of the international community. An international community that professes to uphold the inherent dignity of every human being must not allow this to happen.

Across this tiny territory, 25 miles long and no more than 6 miles wide, a deep darkness descended at 8pm on January 21, as the lights went out for each of its 1.5 million Palestinian residents. A new hallmark of Palestinian suffering had been reached.

There have been three turns of the screw on the people of Gaza, triggered in turn by the outcome of elections in January 2006, the assumption by Hamas of de facto control last June, and the Israeli decision in September to declare Gaza a "hostile territory". Each instance has prompted ever tighter restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza. Each turn of the screw inflicts deeper indignity on ordinary Palestinians, breeding more resentment towards the outside world.

Gaza's border closures are without precedent. Palestinians are effectively incarcerated. The overwhelming majority cannot leave or enter Gaza. Without fuel and spare parts, public health conditions are declining steeply as water and sanitation services struggle to function. The electricity supply is sporadic and has been reduced further along with fuel supply in these past days. Unicef reports that the partial functioning of Gaza City's main pumping station is affecting the supply of safe water to some 600,000 Palestinians.

Medication is in short supply, and hospitals are paralysed by power failures and the shortage of fuel for generators. Hospital infrastructure and essential pieces of equipment are breaking down at an alarming rate, with limited possibility of repair or maintenance as spare parts are not available.

It is distressing to see the impact of closures on patients who need to travel outside Gaza to get medical treatment. The demand for such treatment is rising as medical standards fall inside Gaza, yet the permit regime for medical referrals has become more stringent. Many have had their treatment delayed or denied, worsening their medical conditions and causing preventable deaths.

Living standards in Gaza are at levels unacceptable to a world that promotes the elimination of poverty and the observance of human rights as core principles: 35% of Gazans live on less than two dollars a day; unemployment stands at around 50%; and 80% of Gazans receive some form of humanitarian assistance. Concrete is in such short supply that people are unable to make graves for their dead. Hospitals are handing out sheets as funeral shrouds.

As the head of a humanitarian and human development agency for Palestinian refugees, I am deeply concerned by the stark inhumanity of Gaza's closure. I am disturbed by the seeming indifference of much of the world as hundreds and thousands of Palestinians are harshly penalised for acts in which they have no part.

In discharging its mandate, Unrwa delivers a variety of services to improve living conditions and prospects for self-reliance. It is impossible to sustain our operations when the occupying power adopts an "on, off", "here today, gone tomorrow" policy towards Gaza's borders. To take one example, this week we were on the verge of suspending our food distribution programme. The reason was seemingly mundane: plastic bags. Israel blocked entry into Gaza of the plastic bags in which we package our food rations.

In today's Gaza how can we foster a spirit of moderation and compromise among Palestinians, or cultivate a belief in the peaceful resolution of disputes? There are already indications that the severity of the closure is playing into the hands of those who have no desire for peace. We ignore this risk at our peril.

What we should be doing now is nurturing moderation and empowering those who believe that Gaza's rightful future lies in peaceful co-existence with its neighbours. We welcome the new efforts to resuscitate the peace process, revive the Palestinian economy and build institutions. These pillars, on which a solution will be built, are the very ones being eroded.

Yesterday, the people of Gaza received a temporary reprieve when the occupying power allowed fuel and other supplies to enter: 2.2m litres of fuel per week for the Gaza power plant and 0.5m litres a week for industrial usage, hospitals and clinics. We have been informed that the crossings into Gaza will be partially open, allowing Unrwa and other organisations to bring in about 50 trucks a day. No one knows how long the reprieve will last as the resumption of Qassam rocket fire, which we ourselves strongly condemn, will lead to further closures.

The people of Gaza have been spared from reaching new depths of anguish - but only for the moment.

There has never been a more urgent need for the international community to act to restore normality in Gaza. Hungry, unhealthy, angry communities do not make good partners for peace.

Over the hump.

· Karen Koning AbuZayd is commissioner general for Unrwa, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East www.un.org/unrwa
Chris Gunness is Unrwa spokesperson. (Hat tip for pointing this out to Izzy Bee.)
Israelity Bites.

Splat. Kernel lobs cobs egg-zactly on target

Some readers objected to a description of Hebron settlers resisting forced eviction as a foodfight, although eggs and vegetables rained down from the marketplace roof alongside light bulbs and stones. Point taken.

But this month’s “organic protest” by Israeli activists, who used a couple of homemade launchers to fling rotten vegetables, corn, tomatoes, fruit and eggs towards the Gaza Strip, surely qualifies as a foodfight. Their makeshift attack created a “Green alert” to remind the Israeli government about its failure to halt the Palestinian militants’ Qassam rockets, which continue to rain down on Sderot.

Yigal Tzur, a former reserve artillery corps officer in the IDF, said he recruited two amateur Israeli technicians to devise a small potato cannon and a rocket-propelled launcher to retaliate agasint Qassams with a messy "aerial salad". (No wounds on either side will require any dressing.) His intentions are to get the two sides to resume peace talks. With squished tomatoes substituting for spilled blood, the publicity blitz was gratifying.

Somehow, the idea of firing food towards a place where hunger results from frequent border closing is off-putting. More akin to fraternity hijinks than guerrilla street theater. This stunt did show how easily rockets can be assembled, despite tight security, and it’s admirable that the fellows used no explosives. (Although those eggs can really hurt!) I suppose rocketeers can even make the claim that they are doing their bit to get food into the Strip. Yeah right. Click here to see a Reuters video of the assault.

Spy Blimp : how Israeli nerve center works

Izzy Bee is abroad for two weeks, but will attempt to keep a pulse monitor on Israel for loyal readers of this blog. Here's a post, by Anne Penketh of the London Independent, which details how the watchers can watch from afar. The "separation barrier", known as the "security fence" or "the wall", depending on your point of view, is supplemented by remote IDF eyes in the sky. Children under scrutiny view this pale albino guppy that hovers overhead with alarm. Here's how it functions, from an eye-witness:

The Israeli nerve centre watching Gaza's every move

A group of Israeli soldiers is gathered round a television screen. They are watching the grainy images of a youth crawling towards the perimeter fence that hems the Palestinians inside the Gaza Strip.

The dark form tracked on camera is placing a bomb by the fence. Minutes later, his body is shaken by tank fire. A second shot confirms that the militant is dead, and his bomb activated.

We are inside the Nahal Oz military base on the border with Gaza. With the help of a white blimp bristling with cameras, and remote-controlled drones that buzz overhead, the Israeli military have every square inch of Gaza under surveillance.

At Nahal Oz, the headquarters of the southern command which monitors Beit Hanoun and the rest of northern Gaza, the cameras watching the nearby fence pick up every sound.

Palestinians have been warned that if they approach within 300 yards of the fence they are risking their lives. The sensors along the fence can tell the difference between a human and an animal if it ventures into the no-man's land where Palestinian crops and orchards have been flattened. A low throbbing alarm goes off if the sensors are activated.

The moment a Qassam rocket is fired towards Israel, a siren sounds inside the army base. The soldiers know they have 12 seconds before the notoriously inaccurate missile reaches its target, usually in the town of Sderot.

"If a Qassam is fired, we don't fire back straight away because of the possibility of hitting civilians," says a second lieutenant who identifies herself as Hila. "It goes through a lot of levels before we have permission to fire."

On a quiet day, some seven or eight rockets come over the fence. But when tensions are running high, as during the Lebanon war, up to 70 missiles are fired against the Israelis. "They know where we can fire, and where not, so they deliberately choose places where we cannot retaliate," the officer says. In one case, Palestinians fleeing Israeli fire took refuge in a petrol station.

On the army base TV screens militants can be seen using children to place their home-made bombs in an attempt to avoid reprisal gunfire. The fighters are also accused of storing weapons on the first floors of houses, where civilians living in downstairs rooms risk bearing the brunt of Israeli missile strikes.

IDF takes aim at Gaza while the Strip self-destructs and blood flows

How can cooler heads possibly prevail when the blood-soaked region is on the verge of all-out war?

According to a UN envoy the entire Middle East is set to flare into pitched combat on at least four fronts and get engulfed in war. All the usual suspects, alas. Already in Gaza, the bodycount increases daily, even though analysts say that fighting has yet to peak. The BBC reports today that Hamas are countering an assassination attempt against Prime Minister Ismail Haniya with an assault on Fatah bases. They may try a power grab, fears the weak Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas; so far 19 Gazans have been killed in the past 24 hours. Gunbattles inside Gaza's hospital wards, where rival factions executed the wounded, are a new low point. Elsewhere in the brutalized Gaza Strip, militants have resorted to hurling handcuffed prisoners to their deaths from high rise buildings. Lately, the internecine bloodletting tends to lull as soon as militants rocket Israeli towns in the Negev and provoke a military response from the IDF. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has pledged that airstrikes will continue until the Qassam rocket barrages stop and infiltrators are thwarted. Outrage over a report that Palestinian militants posed as journalists and attempted an attack on Israelis at a checkpoint by using a white jeep labelled with "TV" markings has been met with cynicism. Senior correspondents point out that journalists never are waived through without credentials being scrutinized; it is just as likely that the shot-up jeep was taped up as a TV vehicle after the fact in order to make the point that journos should lie low. Meanwhile, Gaza implodes.
Nasty.

Is that a rocket in your diplomatic pouch?

...or are you just happpy to see me?

A new government public relations blitz is sending Qassam shrapnel to foreign embassies, via the diplomatic pouch. Because these Palestinian rockets are a blunt instrument, and often inaccurate, their damage is often underplayed in the press. The charred chunks on tour will remind envoys just how intimidating and destructive rocket fire can be. Five Qassams launched last night set wheat fields ablaze and yesterday another killed a grazing white mare. (Compare this with the 38 Palestinians killed in IDF air strikes since May 17th, including 7 children.)
While Christian evangelicals in America are moved to toss their money at the Qassam rocket victims, and strengthen their shelters, so is the Russian billionaire Gaydamak. Palestinian leaders like Mahmoud Abbas are even beginning to question the tactics behind the rocket barrage, and call for it to stop. Few analysts believe in the viability of any truce without the approval of Hamas's military wing, though.

Meanwhile, in another Israeli assault on the diplomatic front, security forces rounded up 33 Hamas officials in the West Bank, including mayors and elected members of parliament, who they claim "pose a clear and present danger to the lives of Israelis." This may be partly to counter any propaganda benefits to Hamas caused by retaliatory air strikes in Gaza. Earlier, officials said that the Israeli forces took out Gaza businesses with terrorist money connections to Iran, Lebanon or Syria.