SF Jewish Film Festival EXPOSED!

NOTE TO READER: KGO talk-show host, John Rothman, who is both Jewish and a San Franciscan, narrates this piece about this summer's controversy at the San Francisco Film Festival for playing the American premier of a film about Rachel Corrie of the ISM, and invited her mother, Cindy Corrie, who actively promotes anti-Israelism to the event. In two parts, Rothman shows both the ire and vehemence of the anti-Israel forces, and explains why such efforts on the part of supposedly Jewish organizations, such as Jewish Voice for Peace and "peace" organizations such as the American Friends Service Committee are spreading hate, mis-information, and demonization of Israel. Please view both parts, and if moved to action, read the bottom of this post for suggested responses. --- Becky Johnson, editor











See video below



















































Natan Nestel has sent this message in direct response to John Rothman's
piece on the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival hosting two anti-semitic films and
inviting anti-Israel speaker, Cindy Corrie to speak:

Why This Issue Is Urgent and Ongoing

By virtue of its ongoing support of the Film Festival, the Jewish Federation continues to lend legitimacy to the extreme anti-Israel groups that co-presented the Corrie event - Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), and the Rachel Corrie Foundation (RCF) - as well as the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which is glamorized in the movie.

The damage caused by the Jewish Federation's granting of respectability to these extreme organizations can only be undone when the Federation unambiguously states that it will not support organizations or events that demonize Israel or that collaborate with those who call for divestment, boycotts, sanctions against Israel or banning aid to Israel.

Please Take Action!

We all have the responsibility to speak up when we realize that our donations to the Jewish Federation are being misallocated. The Jewish Federation is an important institution in our community and it is vital that the Federation remains true to its mission.

Contact:

* The San Francisco Jewish Community Federation:

Jim Koshland, President - jimk@sfjcf.org
Jennifer Gorovitz, Acting CEO - Jenniferg@sfjcf.org
Rabbi Doug Kahn, Exec Dir JCRC - dkahn@jcrc.org

The East Bay Jewish Federation: Rabbi James Brandt CEO - James@jfed.org

Tell them:

• The Federation that you fund should never support events or organizations that advocate boycotts, divestment, sanctions against Israel or banning aid to Israel, and it shouldn't collaborate with those who do.

• (and any other such events or organizations that defame and demonize Israel or Jews).
  
  _____________________________

* Please send a blind copy (bcc) of your letter to: reformjff@gmail.com

The Moral Inversion of Richard Goldstone

photo: Gaza Islamic University Campus in Gaza 2009 after the end of the bombing

NOTE TO READER: I was lucky enough to hear Melanie Phillips speak at Merrill College at UCSC a few years back. Her clear understanding of the situation and her plain language cut through the propaganda, and delivered a message worth hearing. Since then, I've followed her writings and have not been disappointed. Her book "Londonistan" has been both praised and rebuked as her message is effectively delivered. Here she writes about the biased Goldstone Report which will be presented to the United Nations September 29th. --Becky Johnson, editor

The Moral Inversion of Richard Goldstone
by Melanie Phillips
September 16, 2009

So now we can see how Richard Goldstone thinks he has preserved his judicial reputation while perpetrating a blood libel against Israel. He has produced a report which, as anticipated, finds that Israel committed all the ‘war crimes’ during Operation Cast Lead of which his Mission members had decided it was guilty before even starting their deliberations, along with the NGOs whose unremitting hostility and malice towards Israel and history of peddling Palestinian propaganda as fact did not deter the Mission from uncritically accepting their evidence as the truth, thus finding Hamas guilty of no crimes at all -- except one. That was, by an amazing coincidence, the one set of crimes it committed which the world was forced to acknowledge actually happened ­ the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel with the sole intention of killing Israeli civilians. By referring to this en passant, devoting minimal attention to it in the course of his 570- page report the vast majority of which is devoted to allegations against Israel, he engineered the ‘even-handed’ headline he needed to maintain his credibility:

There is evidence that both Israeli and Palestinian forces committed war crimes in the recent Gaza conflict, the official UN report says.

With this cynical veneer, Goldstone does worse even than establish a moral equivalence between the instigators of genocidal violence and those who were attempting to defend themselves against it. He presents Israel, the victims of such aggression, as war criminals and the Palestinians, the actual instigators of terror, as its victims. This is not moral equivalence but moral inversion.

He acknowledges no such crimes by Hamas within Gaza itself -- not least against other Palestinians -- such as turning the entire population of Gaza into hostages by siting its rockets and terrorist infrastructure amongst that population and additionally using them as human shields.

(To clarify, this is quite different from the intra-Palestinian violations of human rights he found took place as a result of the violence between Fatah and Hamas).

Even worse, he presents the Palestinian aggressors as victims of Israel, requiring Israel to make reparation to those from whose houses and streets it was being attacked. No reparations to Israel are required from any Palestinians, even though Goldstone accepts that Hamas committed war crimes and crimes against humanity by firing thousands of missiles at its civilians.

To cover himself completely against the fact that the degraded aim of the mission he headed was to delegitimise Israel, his report claims at the start that his mandate from the President of the UN Council on Human Rights was:

... to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after.

Now this is curious, since UN Resolution S-9/1 which established the mandate for the Goldstone commission said the Human Rights Council:

Decides to dispatch an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission.

So the UNHRC mandate explicitly limited Goldstone to investigating solely Israel, which it deemed guilty of human rights violations during Cast Lead -- a mandate whose terms as set out in the UNHRC resolution cannot be changed; while Goldstone’s report cites a mandate which is quite different from that resolution, which is ascribed not to the Council but to the President, and which encompasses all such violations during Cast Lead. Goldstone himself said he had changed the terms of the mandate in ‘informal discussions’. It looks therefore as if he and the UNHRC President unilaterally tore up both the Council’s mandate and UN regulations to provide Goldstone with the fig-leaf to disguise the moral bankruptcy of the entire process.

Of the countless distortions, errors and absurdities in this travesty of a report, the following jumped out at me from an initial reading.

1) The first error is in the title itself: HUMAN RIGHTS IN PALESTINE AND OTHEROCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES: Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict

But Gaza is not occupied by Israel, as is quite clear from even a cursory look at the Hague Convention which lays down the criteria for occupation. For Goldstone to say that Gaza is still occupied demonstrates either an ignorance of international law quite remarkable for a professor of international law, or that he is signed up to the ideology which deliberately uses such mis-statements to delegitimise Israel.

2) Par 27: Goldstone describes Gaza as blockaded by Israel. He makes no mention of Gaza’s border with Egypt which Egypt keeps closed. Is Goldstone as ignorant of topography as he appears to be of international law? Unlikely, since he also states (par 8) that

the Mission sought and obtained the assistance of the Government of Egypt to enable it to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing.

3) Par 30: ‘The data provided by non-governmental sources with regard to the percentage of civilians among those killed are generally consistent and raise very serious concerns with regard to the way Israel conducted the military operations in Gaza.’

But Goldstone does not mention that Israel provided a detailed breakdown of the Palestinians killed in Gaza and stated that the vast majority of these were Hamas or other terror operatives. Even the UN eventually acknowledged that some 75 per cent of the dead in Gaza were Hamas terrorists.

4) Pars 33-34 Goldstone says he does not accept that the Gaza police targeted by Israeli military strikes were ‘part of the terrorist infrastructure’; and that therefore the attacks on police buildings

constituted deliberate attacks on civilian objects in violation of the rule of customary international humanitarian law whereby attacks must be strictly limited to military objectives.

But as Jonathan Halevi has reported for the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs:

-- Among the 343 members of the Palestinian security forces who were killed, 286 have been identified as terror organization members (83 percent). Another 27 fighters belonging to units undergoing infantry training raises this total to 313 (91 percent).
-- Lumped under the rubric of the ‘Palestinian police’ are all the security bodies that fulfilled combat and terror roles against Israel, the intelligence and preventive intelligence bodies, as well as those active in policing and maintaining order. Those serving in all of the Palestinian security apparatuses in 2007 and 2008 took part in terror activity and fighting against the IDF.
-- In the December 27, 2008, attack on an officer training course at Gaza police headquarters, 89 dead were counted. Of these, 60 (67 percent) belonged to Hamas and almost all were members of its military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades. The total number of terror activists and fighters among those killed at police headquarters was 81 (91 percent).

Indeed, Goldstone himself goes on to say he accepts that

there may be individual members of the Gaza police that were at the same time members of Palestinian armed groups and thus combatants

yet he nevertheless still finds that these were somehow ‘civilian objects’!

5) In attempting to discover whether Palestinian civilians were adequately protected by Hamas, Goldstone says delicately (par 35) that the mission

was faced with a certain reluctance by the persons it interviewed in Gaza to discuss the activities of the armed groups.

A ‘certain reluctance,’ eh? Like a ‘certain reluctance’ to be thrown off the top of a tall building? Maybe the utter dislocation of this report from reality is also due to the fact that

as part of Israel’s refusal to cooperate, it banned the panel members from entering the country. The panel made two visits to Gaza, entering from Egypt, but conducted the bulk of their research from Geneva.

Mmnn, yes, Geneva, home to the UNHRC, is as everyone knows where every conscientious and objective researcher goes to.... manufacture libellous claims to delegitimise Israel...er... find those authoritative first-hand accounts of what actually went on in Gaza.

6) Then there is Goldstone’s treatment of the mortar shelling of al-Fakhura junction in Jabalya next to an UNRWA school. This was the site of the infamous accusation by the UN that Israel had shelled the school itself, killing more than 40 civilians sheltering there. The UN eventually admitted that this was entirely false and the school had not been shelled at all. Israel had instead returned mortar fire at the street next to the school from where firing was still continuing, killing a small number of Hamas terrorists and an even smaller number of civilians who were standing near to the Hamas mortar position.

But Goldstone concludes:

Par 688... The Mission notes that the attack may have been in response to a mortar attack from an armed Palestinian group but considers the credibility of Israel’s position damaged by the series of inconsistencies and factual inaccuracies.

So the fact that Israel was the victim of an incendiary libel by the UN, which said falsely that its school had been hit and inflated the number of casualties -- a lie that went round the world inciting hysteria and violence against Israel and Jews -- is totally ignored; instead Israel is pilloried for its (undoubtedly) chaotic response as it gradually pieced together what had actually happened.

7) Goldstone says:

Par 209. Since 1967, about 750,000 Palestinians have been detained at some point by the Government of Israel, according to Palestinian human rights organizations.

This claim was taken straight from Sahar Francis, director of the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. As Elder of Ziyon observes, however, the figure is ludicrous:

In order for the 750,000 number to be accurate, it would mean roughly 500 arrests a week every week since 1967. In order for 50,000 new prisoners to appear this year, it would mean around a thousand arrests a week. The PCHR [Palestinian Commission on Human Rights] keeps track of the number of Palestinian Arabs arrested every week. Taking the past two months as examples, we see the date of the weekly report and the number of arrests:

8/26 --- 16
8/19 --- 28
8/12 --- 17
8/5 --- 25
7/29 --- 14
7/22 --- 21
7/15 --- 10
7/8 --- 18
7/1 --- 28

This doesn't quite add up to tens of thousands of arrests a year.

And yet, like the rest of the claims made by these NGOs, Goldstone just shoved it straight into his report. (For more reputable and authoritative facts about Cast Lead, see here.)

In short, Goldstone adduces no evidence of Israeli war crimes at all. He merely recycles the claims made by hostile NGOs peddling unverifiable Palestinian propaganda as fact ­ including more than 30 references to Human Rights Watch, the anti-Israel organisation of which Goldstone himself was until recently a member of the board.

As such, the Palestinians who used other Palestinians as hostages, booby-trapped their civilian areas and used women and children as human shields are given a virtually free pass by Goldstone. Israel, which conducted an operation that was targeted with astonishing precision against terrorists operating inside civilian areas, taking every possible precaution to safeguard civilian life by repeatedly dropping leaflets and making cell-phone calls beforehand to warn residents to evacuate, is accused by Goldstone of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Through such moral inversion and the reproduction of distortions, lies, smears, errors and omissions Goldstone has thus anathematised a country’s defence against terrorism and genocidal aggression. But then, he doesn’t accept that in Cast Lead Israel was defending itself. Astoundingly, he characterises the aim of Cast Lead thus:

1674 The operation fits into a continuum of policies aimed at pursuing Israel’s political objectives with regard to Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole. Many such policies are based on or result in violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Military objectives as stated by the government of Israel do not explain the facts ascertained by the Mission, nor are they congruous with the patterns identified by the Mission during the investigation.

The implication is that Cast Lead had a ‘political objective’ of subduing Gaza. But it was provoked solely by the 6000-rocket attack from Gaza. It was not ‘political’. It was undertaken to defend the lives of its citizens. Having stated that the impact of Cast Lead

cannot be understood and assessed in isolation from developments prior and subsequent to it

Goldstone proceeds to omit the key ‘development’ that explained Israel’s military action -- the rocket bombardment from Gaza of its citizens. He thus presents Israel as the aggressor and Hamas as the victims. What malice.

This disreputable piece of work will in turn embolden and empower Hamas and Palestinian terrorism, provide the jihadis of the UN and their accomplices with the means further to persecute Israel and endorse its genocidal attackers, and incite the Arab and Muslim world still further to aggression and to war.

With this report, Goldstone demonstrably forfeits his claim to legal, moral or intellectual credibility. He should be disowned by the legal profession.

Update: In an earlier version of this post, I said the report only required Israel to investigate the allegations made against it and to be referred to the International Criminal Court if these investigations were not satisfactory. In fact, it makes the same requirement of the Palestinians in respect of the far fewer allegations made against them.

This article can be read at its source at:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/5334541/the-moral-inversion-of-richard-goldstone.thtml

Outdoor Smoking Task Force Mtg. notes June 16, 2009

Photo: Santa Claus Smoking on a Marlboro Cigarette Pack

NOTE TO READER: At HUFF's request, Council member, Don Lane sent these notes from the task force that came up with the "Smoking Air Pollution Ordinance" which will be passed into law on a second reading tomorrow (Sept 22, 2009) by the Santa Cruz City Council. First Don had claimed the Task Force report was online. It wasn't. Then when he sent it, it was unintelligible. Presumably no one from the public has had a chance to read it yet, but it will be passed into law tomorrow on the afternoon agenda. Note that the Task Force met in private, with only selected members invited. And though the entire ordinance is tailored to remove poor and homeless people from public spaces, there was no representative for homeless people or advocate for smokers invited. This is Ryan Coonerty's world. Zero public input. Secret meetings. Excluded participants. Sweeping loss of rights. HUFF has gone on record as opposing the law due to its intended selective enforcement against marijuana smokers and poor and homeless people.

--- Becky Johnson, Editor

Outdoor Smoking Task Force

Information Gathering Meeting

June 16, 2009 – 3 p.m.

I. Input from City Staff

Dannettee Shoemaker

§ The City has a smoking ban on Main Beach, Cowell’s Beach, parts of San Lorenzo Parks and Grant Street Park. Staff would support a larger ban.

§ The purpose of the ban is for health and the waste issue from cigarette butts

§ The ban has been fairly successful but enforcement is an issue. At the time the ban was passed, there was only one ranger. Now we have four but the smoking ban enforcement of the ban may not always be the highest priority.

§ The debris from smoking on Pacific Avenue, the wharf and other parks is a huge problem.

§ Some City employees and wharf businesses are concerned about how the smoking ban will work and where they and customers will be able to smoke

§ There are real public safety concerns with smoking on the wharf: a ½ mile long wooden structure with pilings coated with creosote

§ There are concerns and fears about losing customers to other jurisdictions where smoking is allowed

§ Would support smoking ban in parks as smoke travels and secondhand smoke is a problem

§ Further, the goal of the Parks and Recreation Department is to encourage people to get out and exercise and smoking doesn’t fit in with this goal.

§ In response to a question from Ryan Coonerty (RC), Its Beach is now within the State’s jurisdiction and just a small sliver belongs to the City.

§ In response to a question from RC, yes a ban in the City’s open space would be supported. There are severe fire concerns, particularly from the nearby residents. Our open space can be just like dry tinder with great fire potential.

Mark Dettle

§ The Public Works Department sees the post-smoking impact as non-point source pollution. Smoking debris blows all over the City and is picked up in storm drains and with street sweepers. Although cigarette butts are individually small, collectively, they become a big problem.

§ Public Works would support a ban from the litter reduction perspective.

Tom Graves

§ City employees affected when cigarette smoke comes in through windows. This can be very impactful to those with asthma.

§ Encourages the Task Force to consider how smoking affects employees in the workplace.

II. Presentations from Invited Guests

Santa Cruz County Department of Health – Laurie Lang and Andrea Silva

[Note: I have a copy of the powerpoint presentation.]

§ Secondhand smoke outdoors is as harmful as secondhand smoke indoors.

§ In a recent clean-up, 26 lbs of butts were recovered from Pacific Avenue in only 9 hours.

§ 85% of Santa Cruz residents are non-smokers

§ Discussion and support of a tobacco retail license

§ Discussion of smoking bans in other cities. Generally, outdoor smoking ordinances create designated smoking areas

§ There is a correlation between smoking rates and the price of cigarettes

à RC commented that San Francisco is considering a 33 cent/pack fee to cover clean-up costs.

§ There are hidden costs to smoking. Three years after Pueblo, CO instituted its smoking ban, a 40% drop in emergency room visits for heart problems was recorded

§ Studies have shown that there is no negative impact from a smoking ban on restaurants and other businesses.

Save Our Shores – Laura Kasa, Lizzie

§ There are tremendous marine life impacts: 1 cigarette butt in will kill marine life in 1 Liter of water

§ Cigarette butts are as toxic to fish as pesticides

§ The litter problem causes by cigarette butts is staggering. 62,000 pounds of butts have been recovered from Santa Cruz beaches over the past two years

§ During the beach clean-ups, cigarette butts are by far, the most common trash found

§ There is a recommendation to classify cigarette butts as toxic waste

§ Cigarette butts do not biodegrade; they contain plastic

§ Cigarette filters (butts) captures the toxins before they enter the smoker’s lungs but when discarded release those toxins into the environment

§ Save Our Shores recommendations:

a. Smoking ban

b. Anti-litter laws

c. Financial assessment on cigarettes (waste fee or tax)

d. Public information campaign / place signage with photos of the impacts (diseased fish, etc)

e. Implement a program to exchange used butts

f. Ban sale of filtered cigarettes (knows is severe but this is a serious problem)

§ In response to a question from Don Lane (DL), Save our Shores said they would be willing to design the signage if the City had the resources to create and install

Santa Cruz County Chamber of Commerce – Bill Tysseling

§ The Chamber has no position yet and looks forward to seeing a proposal before making specific comments.

§ The solicitation for feedback sent to local businesses yielded a mix of responses

§ Dominican Hospital and Santa Cruz Medical Foundation were enthusiastic for health reasons. Dominican will be going smoke-free by January1, 2010.

§ Community ambiance could be improved by pedestrians not walking around in clouds of smoke. Further, the impact on behaviors, particularly constraining the use of downtown as a smoking lounge, would be positive.

§ There are concerns about pushing the problem elsewhere.

§ There are concerns about enforcement.

§ Competitive impacts have been raised and worries about clientele going to places where you can smoke. Example story: four friends go out to lunch. They are more likely to go to a place where the one smoker in the group can smoke.

§ In re: to a retailer fee, concerns about competitive impacts. Other jurisdictions should be brought in if the City is to proceed with this concept.

§ The City needs to designate places to smoke. Question of who will create the smoking ghettos and the need to consider parameters, distance, protection from the weather and ash try amenities.

§ The City should consider how to address second stories – balconies, roof tops, etc.

§ The City should consider balancing not penalizing those who do smoke with social costs (environmental, health) of secondhand smoke.

§ The City should consider how employee will smoke.

§ The Chamber of Commerce is enthusiastic about participating as the outdoor smoking ordinance concept moves forward.

Santa Cruz County Conference & Visitors Council – Maggie Ivy

§ There are some concerns about enforcement and liability. Los Angeles held businesses harmless.

§ Public education is important. Santa Monica invested $150,000 in the first year of its ban to educate. The CVC could help here with the noticing and dissemination.

§ Some cities have tried a trial period for 90 days or so.

§ The City should consider impact on hotels. Most new properties are completely smoke-free but how to regulation the pool and outdoor lounge areas?

§ The majority of visitors to Santa Cruz would likely enjoy a smoke-free environment but those that do smoke will be inconvenienced.

§ International visitors, about 8% of Santa Cruz County’s tourists, tend to be smokers.

§ Recommends looking at other cities with bans: Los Angeles, Mammoth Lakes, Santa Monica

§ Health and litter issues affect tourism as well.

§ The CVC is happy to participate moving forward.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk – Kris Reyes

§ The Boardwalk discontinued smoking about 4-5 years ago. Smoking is allowed in designated areas on the street and these areas receive the necessary attention to keep them clean. The ban has been a success.

§ The reactions of patrons, when asked to smoke in a designated area, have been cordial. Further, more people are proactively asking where they can smoke. This suggests a greater awareness that smoking is not allowed everywhere.

§ The Boardwalk has new beach grooming equipment – sand sifters – that capture litter, including cigarette butts. The equipment has been picking up fewer butts since the City’s beach smoking ban was instituted.

§ A problem area is the Promenade between the casino and Idea restaurant. There is nothing there to prevent people from smoking and other behaviors.

§ The Boardwalk is happy to participate in the process moving forward.

III. Public Comment

John Huffman – Santa Cruz resident and downtown property owner

§ There is a cigarette butt problem around his properties. He cleans plaza lane and finds lots of butts there an in the planter boxes.

§ The sidewalks on Pacific Avenue have cracks that are just the right size for a cigarette butt, requiring some effort to remove.

Ron Perigo – Santa Cruz resident

§ He has noticed a lack of cigarette butt collection points. Because there are not enough places to deposit the butts, people throw them on the ground.

§ Stormdrains have become a collection point for butts.

§ The City of Los Angeles vacuums their stormwater drains every fall before the rains (the task force here informed Mr. Perigo that Santa Cruz does this as well)

Submitted for the record by:

Don Lane

Santa Cruz City Council

809 Center St. Room 10

Santa Cruz, CA 95060

831-420-5022

Banned Comments from Indybay.org/palestine

Photo I took of Bradley Stuart taken seconds after he assaulted me at the Town Clock, Aug 4, 2006 at 6:17PM

by Becky Johnson
Sept 19, 2009

Santa Cruz, Ca. -- Now many readers know that I have had a long running battle with Indybay.org/santacruz which is the latest generation of Santa Cruz Indymedia. I am one of the founders of Santa Cruz Indymedia, along with Robert Norse, when we were both approached by Vangelis in the fall of 2000 and asked to join. The site went live 6 months later. Robert and I attended a few early meetings, but we primarily concerned ourselves with gathering and writing the articles which became some of the first articles posted there. At the time of the controversy in 2005, Joe Williams, who had monitor status, told me that I had contributed more postings at Santa Cruz Indymedia than any other single contributor. Rather than be rewarded for my unpaid contributions to the site, I was rebuked. Two indybayista's, Matt Fitt and Bradley Stuart, decided to drive me from the site using any tactic they could think of, including censorship, threats, slander, libel, stealth meetings, hyperbole, and even a physical assault on me at the Town Clock by Bradley Stuart. My IP address was blocked for 6 months and a similar purge was led by the same two people at Free Radio Santa Cruz, where I had produced Robert Norse's radio show for 11 years.

Why did my leftist buddies do an about face and now ban and censor me? Because I support Israel. How does Bradley Stuart feel about Israel? See this on his blog.

INDYBAY.ORG/PALESTINE

Naturally, when my posts on indybay.org/palestine are deleted 20 seconds after I post them, it gets discouraging. Why write them if no one will ever read them? Apparently ONLY preaching to the choir is allowed at Indybay.org, and I've heard tell that Bradley Stuart won't allow any new volunteer to be given monitor status unless they vow to oppose capitalism. What does that even mean? Does that mean you don't buy food at a store? That you don't work for money? But apparently that's only the first problem with Bradley's reign of error.

Forget what the editorial guidelines say. They are ignored for the posts they like, and posts they don't like are removed even if they violate no rule. Here is an example of a post of mine which was recently removed. It was in response to this article, entitled "Doctor: 90% of war casualties at Gaza hospital were civilians"

The following post was instantly deleted:

Errr...um...25% were civilians

by Becky Johnson

Saturday Sep 12th, 2009 6:13 PM

I see the censors at INDYBAY can't allow a dissenting point of view. That's how they keep their LIES posted so long without any opposing comment.

For the REAL numbers see my analysis of the death toll and the IDF report which lists total deaths at 1133, 709 of them combatants, the VAST majority were male (96%), and the IDF report doesn't include ALL THE NATURAL DEATHS that occurred in Gaza during the Winter incursion as deaths by the Israeli military.

see:http://beckyjohnsononewomantalking.blogspot.com/2009/09/idf-reports-251-death-discrepancy-and.html

ANOTHER CENSORED POST in response to this article titled "More than 50 Palestinians evicted from Jerusalem homes"

Staged photo-op

by dupes

Sunday Aug 9th, 2009 1:21 PM

Where in this article does it say that they refused to pay rent?
Where in this article does it say that Arab tenants who agreed to pay their rent were NOT evicted? These families had weeks and months to make arrangements. Their blankets and pads are for foreign press photo-ops and when it gets too dark for pictures, they will pack up and go to the housing where they are actually staying.

FROM THE ARTICLE

"And the Hannoun and al-Ghawe families will sleep outside again tonight on the pavement across from their homes."

Happy New Year!! Shana Tova!

by Becky Johnson
September 17, 2009

Santa Cruz, Ca. -- What? New Year's already? Didn't we just celebrate that 9 months ago? Well, one particular, non-Christian nation, the Jewish Nation, celebrates Rosh Hashana on Friday at sundown to usher in year number 5770. These Jews have been doing this for an extremely long time! And they say that G-d says to listen to the sound of the shofar blown during Rosh Hashana. And if you listen to the shofar, it's a mitzvah, or good deed.

Now I'm not Jewish. And neither are most of my readers, but the book it's written in has been around an awfully long time. And the people who wrote the book, said that G-d spoke to their entire nation at the same time (not just to some kook who says he "hears the voice of God") from on top of a mountain. G-d says to wash your hands before you eat. Now we all know THAT's a good idea. So NOT doing what G-d says to do, might have some unseen pitfalls. And if G-d says to do it, it must be important.

So here's one of the easiest and most enjoyable mitvahs one can do. Listen to the shofar. This was the best one I found. Listen, enjoy, and contemplate a New Year in which we have another chance to be better human beings.

UN report on Gaza War claims Hamas didn't use human sheilds

VIDEO: Hamas praises civilians who volunteered as human shields in Gaza Conflict

by Becky Johnson
Sept 16, 2009

Santa Cruz, Ca. -- The United Nations Human Rights Council has released a new report on Israel's Gaza incursion last winter. While the report does condemn Hamas for firing rockets into sovereign Israel directly at civilian targets, most the report focuses on Israeli war crimes. Daniel Carmon, Israel's deputy UN Ambassador, has called the report "biased" and "one-sided." Even the title reflects that bias. "Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories: Report of the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza Conflict." Words like "occupied Arab territories" assume ownership in what is actually disputed territories. Nor does the report seem to care about human rights in Israel evenly, as reflected by the title.

The investigation was led by South African judge, Richard Goldstone. Goldstone said Israel's blockade of Gaza, which began prior to the assault, amounted to "collective punishment" for the 1.5 million Gazans, most of whom rely on aid to survive." The summary said Israel's operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole, not just Hamas militants. And that Israel committed “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions.

Setting aside for the moment that the population of Gaza is really 1.1 million people, the report claims that "there is evidence indicating serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law were committed by Israel during the Gaza conflict, and that Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity." One of the claims that Israel made during the conflict was that Hamas was using civilians as "human shields." The report claims they couldn't find a single instance of that happening. In the video above, Hamas praises women, children, and old men for serving as human shields even unto death.

HONEST REPORTING has challenged this report and has issued a list of the following errors in the report.

• Israel did not deliberately target the civilian population of Gaza and, in fact, made efforts to prevent civilian casualties that no other army in the world would have done.
• Contrary to the assertions of Goldstone, Hamas did use Palestinian civilians as human shields.
• The Goldstone Report is not objective and is, in fact tainted by bias and politicization, both from the UN Human Rights Council and members of the mission itself.
• The report relied upon the contributions of anti-Israel non-governmental organizations and unreliable Palestinian "eyewitnesses."
• Israel respects human rights and has a sophisticated legal and judicial system. Hamas does not. Yet the report has created an unjust equivalence of a democratic state with a terror organization.

Pesticides and Fertilizers seized in Save Our Sierra

Photo: Pesticides, fertilizers, rat and gopher poisons seized in the DEA and Fresno County Sheriff's in their two-week long, marijuana eradication effort in June of 2009 in which they claimed they destroyed $1.6 billion worth of crop.

by Becky Johnson

Santa Cruz, Ca. -- Not only does the DEA and law enforcement up and down California claim that our forests and parkland have been invaded by "Mexican" "Drug" "Cartels" growing massive amounts of pot in our state forests and causing environmental damage. Above is a photo of the fertilizers, pesticides, rat and gopher poisons confiscated from the two-week operation that busted 88 individuals.

FRESNO COUNTY PESTICIDE USE 2007: "Fresno County farmers applied 24,565,600 pounds of 50 different pesticides on 8,338,350 acres in ONE YEAR.


By contrast, the Fresno "Save Our Sierra" operation conducted by the Federal Government's Office of National Drug Control Policy in conjunction with local law enforcement which fielded over 300 law enforcement personnel to eradicated pot grows in remote, mountain areas. Determining acreage in these busts is difficult as authorities prefer to give the number of plants seized rather than acreage. However, one can use the formula of 1/2 acre = 10,000 plants to determine the actual acreage under cultivation. So the 330,000 plants seized in Save Our Sierra were on 16.5 acres.

In the video below, Drug Czar John Walters in 2008 claims that violent Mexican Drug Cartels had been growing in the rugged hills near Visalia, CA. Note the tiny amount of evidence of these pesticides, rat killers, and chemical fertilizers.