On Dec. 27, the second anniversary of Israel’s three-week assault on Gaza, Seattle-area activists are launching a Metro bus ad campaign to expose the use of U.S. taxpayer money to support Israel’s ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people.

Inspired by similar public advertising campaigns in Chicago, San Francisco, Albuquerque and other cities, the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign is launching the advertising campaign aimed at securing equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis, as well as an end to United States military aid to Israel, which continues at a time of economic crisis and severe budget cuts that have resulted in massive unemployment. A companion website at www.stop30billion-Seattle.org suggests ways that people can get involved locally.

The initial campaign begins on 12 Metro bus routes in the city of Seattle, with the slogan “ISRAELI WAR CRIMES: Your Tax Dollars At Work”. The ads will run 4 weeks.

Seattle activists will also hold a vigil and protest in downtown Seattle on Monday, December 27, starting at 5:00 pm at 4th & Pine St. The walking vigil will be in memory of those killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza and in protest of Israel’s ongoing crimes against human rights.

December 27, 2008 was the first day of Israel’s three-week military offensive against the captive population of Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 Palestinians, most of them non-combatants, more than 300 of them children.

A formal inquiry by the United Nations found grounds for a criminal investigation i nto war crimes by Israel. The UN report concluded that Israel’s assault was not in self-defense, but was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population”. Amnesty International found evidence that Israeli soldiers used Palestinian civilians as human shields, and Israeli soldiers have testified publicly to other human rights violations. Yet the U.S. government has pledged $30 billion in military aid to Israel over the next 10 years, even though the U.S. Arms Export Control Act prohibits the use of U.S. weapons against civilians.

An increasing number of US citizens are becoming aware of this issue. “I had never heard the whole story of the Israeli occupation. I never anticipated US complicity in Israel’s crimes. I had no idea,” says one volunteer with the Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign. “When I began to learn the truth, it was like an avalanche. I became angry. Why all the lies? Why the blackout of information? Why the silence from our government?”

Another volunteer was in the West Bank during Israel’s assault on Gaza. “I was in Ramallah during the entire Operation Cast Lead – watching TV with people from Gaza in the evening in the hotel reception area, talking with our staff in Gaza each morning to see if they had survived the night of bombings.”

The Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign is incorporated in Washington State.

For more information: www.stop30billion-Seattle.org.

The United Nations First Committee has voted, by an overwhelming margin, for state users of depleted uranium weapons to release data on where the weapons have been used to governments of states affected by their use.

136 states last night voted in favor of a resolution calling on state users of depleted uranium weapons to release quantitative and geographical data to the governments of affected states. The resolution will now go forward to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) for a second vote at the end of November.

Although UNGA resolutions are non-binding, they are a useful means of focusing attention on key issues. In this case the ongoing failure of the US to release data on its use of depleted uranium in Iraq and concerns over the use of the weapons in other conflicts, such as the interventions in Somalia in the mid-1990s. The resolution was submitted by Indonesia on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement.

The resolution was opposed by only four states – the US, UK, France and Israel. These four also voted against previous resolutions accepting that DU has the potential to damage human health (2007) and calling for more research in affected states (2008).

For a full rundown of the results visit: http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/a/348.html

Here is a link to a recent study of cancer and birth defects in iraq:

http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/pdf, and a wiki page on the likely cause: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium.

And here are links to stories I’ve published about depleted uranium:

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/95178_du12.shtml

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/133581_du04.html

A depleted uranium bullet (photo from Wikipedia)

(The embedding link has been disabled. When you click to start the video, you will get a message suggesting you watch it on YouTube. Please do. The video is long, but it is definitely worth watching.)

Here is a link to the study mentioned at the end of the video report:
http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/7/2828/pdf, and a wiki page on the suspected cause: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium.

And here are links to stories I’ve published about depleted uranium:

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/95178_du12.shtml

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/133581_du04.html

Dateline is a multi-award winning international current affairs program with a brief to provide stories for Australians about life beyond Australia’s shores. The program is presented by George Negus, one of Australia’s most respected journalists, and is made up of a team of acclaimed producers and video journalists. Commissioned in 1984, it is Australia’s longest-running international current affairs program.

Australia’s Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), according to an Australian government website, “is the voice and vision of multicultural Australia.” The principal function of SBS, is to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that “inform, educate and entertain all Australians, and, in doing so, reflect Australia’s multicultural society.”

“Anyone who says that within the next few years an agreement can be reached ending the conflict … simply doesn’t understand the situation and spreads delusions, ultimately leading to disappointments and an all-out confrontation here,” right-wing Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, according to news reports.

Lieberman said the two sides should instead come up with a long-term interim arrangement that would ensure prosperity, security and stability, the Associated Press reported. He recommended leaving the toughest issues, the status of Jerusalem and a solution for Palestinian refugees who lost homes amid war, to some time in the distant future. This is a position that the Palestinians have already strongly rejected.

Lieberman’s statements, a rejection of Obama’s efforts to bring about a resumption of peace talks, could also be a reaction to the European Union actions on a controversial U.N. report that harshly criticized Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

The EU gave its backing on Thursday to the report and offered praise for its chief author, saying the document is “worthy of consideration.”

“It is worthy of consideration needless to say, I think Mr. Goldstone is a person of high credibility and high integrity and accordingly his report carries weight,” Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt – whose country holds the EU presidency – told reporters in Stockholm, according to Agence France Presse (AFP).

The report by a fact-finding mission led by former international war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone condemned both Israel and Palestinian leaders for war crimes during Israel’s military invasion of Gaza from December 27 to January 18, but it primarily blasted Israel for “actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity.”

The 22-day conflict that saw more than 1,400 Palestinians killed, the great majority civilians, and only 13 Israelis killed, the majority soldiers.

Israel has condemned the report for its bias and even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been pressured into holding off on further action on the report so that current peace efforts wouldn’t be jeopardized. The report had called for the U.N. Security Council to refer allegations of war crimes to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if either side failed to investigate and prosecute suspects.

The only sign of hope in the Middle East seems to be the report saying that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, which fought a week-long civil war in 2007 that killed over 100 people, are due to sign a deal later this month which is designed to pave the way for a unity government.

Recently, seven CIA directors, including three who are subjects of the probe, asked the president to reign in the attorney general, telling Obama that, “public disclosure about past intelligence operations can only help Al-Qaida elude U.S. intelligence and plan future operations.”

Obama has said that no one is above the law, and it is obvious that the CIA is worried about the very real prospects that several top officials may face war crimes charges if this investigation continues.

But in order for the United States to regain the respect and cooperation of the international community and for Americans to regain a sense of self-respect, the investigation has to be carried out and if officials are charged with war crimes, they must be put on trial.

ConsortiumNews.com has all the sordid details about the CIA directors and the letter to Obama in an article by Ray McGovern. He also writes about the involvement of government officials leading all the way up to former president George W. Bush.

McGovern should know what he is talking about. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years, working under nine CIA directors and seven presidents. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.