That letter was composed by the honorable Democratic Congressman from Ohio

Dennis Kucinich....

Paramedic, please when you post these type of things, give credit and a link.

Kucinich letter link

and for the record, I agree with what he says in the letter. I´m deeply ashamed of the action by Vice President Joe Biden in his interview on Charlie Rose...and by Obama´s lack of forcefull commentary.  What happened to the flotilla was wrong.....period.....

Turkey Mourns Murdered Gaza peace activists

See; Today´s ZAMAN

THE IRISH PETITION

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?Israelno&1

Hi ....... I thought you might like to sign the petition to put pressure on the Irish Government to expel the Israeli Ambassador immediately. He refused to attend a metting with the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michael Martin, citing a
"prior engagement"!!!!. As a nation who suffered 800 years of English tyranny and wanton Ethnic Cleansing, under The Great British Empire, we stand firmly behind the People of Palastine as a whole in their fight for freedom.
If possible can you pass the link onto your friends and family to sign also.
Wishing you well
Ann xxx

If you track down money, then you can make Obama, being the president of the U.S., responsible for everything that happens in the world, including attacks on the U.S. itself. That´s why I said, just keep him out of this debate. You can make the Dutch prime minister resposible, you can even make the Turkish president responsible. Focus your attention on the directly involved people, who gave the order to jump on that boat. Focus on Israel, it seems more usefull than showing worldwide networks of financial support to Israeli organizations.

USA has funded the Israel Army for years if they did not fund this the army would not exist.

you can read this whole article  at http://www.wrmea.com/us_aid_to_israel/index.htm

good luck with your reading......... or baking cookies

THE STRATEGIC FUNCTIONS OF U.S. AID TO ISRAEL

By Stephen Zunes

Dr. Zunes is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics at the University of San Francisco

Since 1992, the U.S. has offered Israel an additional $2 billion annually in loan guarantees. Congressional researchers have disclosed that between 1974 and 1989, $16.4 billion in U.S. military loans were converted to grants and that this was the understanding from the beginning. Indeed, all past U.S. loans to Israel have eventually been forgiven by Congress, which has undoubtedly helped Israel´s often-touted claim that they have never defaulted on a U.S. government loan. U.S. policy since 1984 has been that economic assistance to Israel must equal or exceed Israel´s annual debt repayment to the United States. Unlike other countries, which receive aid in quarterly installments, aid to Israel since 1982 has been given in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year, leaving the U.S. government to borrow from future revenues. Israel even lends some of this money back through U.S. treasury bills and collects the additional interest.

In addition, there is the more than $1.5 billion in private U.S. funds that go to Israel annually in the form of $1 billion in private tax-deductible donations and $500 million in Israeli bonds. The ability of Americans to make what amounts to tax-deductible contributions to a foreign government, made possible through a number of Jewish charities, does not exist with any other country. Nor do these figures include short- and long-term commercial loans from U.S. banks, which have been as high as $1 billion annually in recent years.

Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world´s population and already has one of the world´s higher per capita incomes. Indeed, Israel´s GNP is higher than the combined GNP of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. With a per capita income of about $14,000, Israel ranks as the sixteenth wealthiest country in the world; Israelis enjoy a higher per capita income than oil-rich Saudi Arabia and are only slightly less well-off than most Western European countries.

AID does not term economic aid to Israel as development assistance, but instead uses the term "economic support funding." Given Israel´s relative prosperity, U.S. aid to Israel is becoming increasingly controversial. In 1994, Yossi Beilen, deputy foreign minister of Israel and a Knesset member, told the Women´s International Zionist organization, "If our economic situation is better than in many of your countries, how can we go on asking for your charity?"

U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know

by Tom Malthaner

This morning as I was walking down Shuhada Street in Hebron, I saw graffiti marking the newly painted storefronts and awnings. Although three months past schedule and 100 percent over budget, the renovation of Shuhada Street was finally completed this week. The project manager said the reason for the delay and cost overruns was the sabotage of the project by the Israeli settlers of the Beit Hadassah settlement complex in Hebron. They broke the street lights, stoned project workers, shot out the windows of bulldozers and other heavy equipment with pellet guns, broke paving stones before they were laid and now have defaced again the homes and shops of Palestinians with graffiti. The settlers did not want Shuhada St. opened to Palestinian traffic as was agreed to under Oslo 2. This renovation project is paid for by USAID funds and it makes me angry that my tax dollars have paid for improvements that have been destroyed by the settlers.

Most Americans are not aware how much of their tax revenue our government sends to Israel. For the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, the U.S. has given Israel $6.72 billion: $6.194 billion falls under Israel´s foreign aid allotment and $526 million comes from agencies such as the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Information Agency and the Pentagon. The $6.72 billion figure does not include loan guarantees and annual compound interest totalling $3.122 billion the U.S. pays on money borrowed to give to Israel. It does not include the cost to U.S. taxpayers of IRS tax exemptions that donors can claim when they donate money to Israeli charities. (Donors claim approximately $1 billion in Federal tax deductions annually. This ultimately costs other U.S. tax payers $280 million to $390 million.)

When grant, loans, interest and tax deductions are added together for the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, our special relationship with Israel cost U.S. taxpayers over $10 billion.

Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $83.205 billion. The interest costs borne by U.S. tax payers on behalf of Israel are $49.937 billion, thus making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen.

I am angry when I see Israeli settlers from Hebron destroy improvements made to Shuhada Street with my tax money. Also, it angers me that my government is giving over $10 billion to a country that is more prosperous than most of the other countries in the world and uses much of its money for strengthening its military and the oppression of the Palestinian people.

Why did you only quote a part of my message? I know the other part of my message is true too, but you don´t seem to care about that What I mean is, that theories about U.S. aid isn´t going to help anybody. How about seeing what is possible for the people in Gaza. People are too caught up with the politics, to see the human suffering. Talking about Obama isn´t going to accomplish anything. I´m wondering what kind of concrete thing I can do right now to help the people in Gaza, but nobody seems to be able to tell me what to do. All I get are responses about international politics.

If baking cookies would help people in Gaza (perhaps a bake sale!) I would do it.

You could boycott anything that come from israel you could also boycott the usa or you could go on the next flotilla if none of these help

you can write to your own media and politicians and express outrage and yes money helps

you can help fund the next flotilla

http://www.vivirlatino.com/2009/01/01/ways-to-help-gaza.php

http://www.yayacanada.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-you-can-help-gaza.html

The general population of Gaza is lacking the basic necessities of life such as shelter, food, clean water, and medicine.

• Over 80% of Gaza´s population depend on International Aid
• 70% live on $3 or less everyday
• 80% require Food Aid
• Around 32,000 people have no running water
• About 100,000 have access to water once every 2-3 days
• 80% of the water supply is unfit to drink and does not meet the World Health Organization´s standards for drinking

This is a humanitarian crisis. Your donations are desperately needed in order to help the needy people in Gaza.

http://www.irfan.ca/help_gaza_11.html

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19199.htm

I´m not going on the next boat since I have some problems with the orgaizations which provides the financial support for this. They had close contact with the top of Hamas.  I understand that they did this, because Hamas is in power in Gaza, and that way they can perhaps  know better what is needed, and make sure that the aid goes to the right places. But in any case, I can´t be part of any organization that has this kind of contact with Hamas. (In all honesty, ofcourse this is not the only reason why I will not hop on the next boat )

Trust me, you wouldn´t hop on the next boat even if you knew there was no link between them and Hamas.

I am not sure whether Hamas are as evil as the current Israeli government. But then you would go there running wouldn´t you. Patriots can tolerate a few little mistakes here and there.

MEET RACHEL CORRIE, HERSELF

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4pex9_rachel-corrie_news

I think nobody on earth with sensible views can defend what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Israel is trying to use anti semitizm as a weapon by calling all their critics as anti semite. Alas so far..

But there is one more thing, there is a pact in the Middle East against Israel.. In this pact, in this alliance, there are many who dont want to Israel to live at all!! They want to scrape Israel from the Middle east!!

I think almost in my entire life I have never seen any cause "more right" than  cause of Palestinians..

I have always supported Arafat/Habash/PLO with all my heart.

I even support Hamas/Hezbullah -in Lebanon-.

But in order to achive a peace in the Middle East, people should agree ´the right of Israel´s existance´ there too..

Ok.. It has been a great injustice since the beining of Israel..But in the end, there has to be a solution there and that solution must include ´everybody´s right to exist!!´

Now, coming to the incident.. Of course it was barbaric.. Of course, apart from afew ultra right wing Israelis, no body on earth can support those killings  or attacking a ship in international waters..Who do Isrealies think they are?

But,  I have been hearing that there were people on those ships, who went there to fight the greatest enemy of Islam!! They went there to become shahid- martyrs!!

Well, Isreal is using anti Semitism as a propaganda to silence her critics. They are almost paranoid about this..We all know that..

But if those ships were full of people  whom ´went there to become martyrs´, can you turn around and say that Israel´s paranoia was  an empty paranoia entirely? what was the percentage of anti semite people in those ships?

When people protest in front of the consulates, they are shouting ´allahu ekber´ or reciting verses from Quran.. When doing that, are those people not pulling the entire protest into a war between religions?

I think we should be quite careful with what we want and do not sideline ourselves with anti-semitism .