I know Gilad Shalit. Not personally, but I could tell you what he looks like, his age, where he went to school, his hometown, his father's name, what his father looks like, and how he weeps for his son.

I know that this is not the first time that the Shalit family has felt the emotional impact of armed conflict. I know that during the Arab-Israeli war, Gilad's uncle, Yoel, was killed.

I know that Gilad's brother is named after Yoel. I know that his brother attends university in Haifa and is worried about him. I know that Gilad is being held by Palestinians after his army outpost was raided and Gilad was captured.

I know that Gilad is the first Israeli soldier captured by Palestinians since 1994. I know Gilad's friends describe him as a peaceful and quiet young man.

I know that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has spoken with Gilad's father. I know that Olmert has assured Galid's father that everything in his power is being done to secure the release of his son.

I also know that the "everything" Prime Minister Olmert speaks of includes the collective punishment of the Palestinian people by further military incursions into their territory, destroying Palestinian infrastructure and cutting their power supply, leaving families in the dark.

I know these things because I watch the nightly news and read the daily paper. Since his capture, I have been unable to avoid the image of Gilad Shalit and the life and history behind this image.

What I do not know is the names and faces of the hundreds of Palestinian children held in Israeli jails. I could not tell you about their brother or sister, whether they would like to go to university, or whether they have a dead relative for whom they were named after.

Nor could I tell you about the thousands of Palestinian men and women who are held by the Israeli state without charge or trial. I could not tell you whether their friends and family describe them as peaceful or quiet.

These people are nameless, faceless, reduced to bare life -- human beings not entitled to rights, dignity and respect. Nor do they merit the attention of the BBC, The Globe and Mail, Ha'aretz, or The New York Times.

Unless of course they engage in an act of violence so horrific, so apparently unexplainable and incomprehensible that they must be subject to biography, psychological profiling, a where-did-it-all-go-wrong-for-the-aspiring-fun-loving-university-student-type docudrama.

Apparently their suffering does not deserve the attention of the media.

Their incarceration is not the stuff of headlines in the national media. Their detainment is without explanation and justification in the op-ed section of the dailies or subject to the analysis of talking heads on the evening news.

No ink will be spilled over their life stories.

And here lies the tragedy of the Palestinian people. Here lies the tragedy for many of us.

We only know Gilad Shalit.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Simon J. Black is a freelance writer living in Toronto.

I've just seen the most recent televised taped message of Nasrallah speaking. His beard suddenly grayed significantly; all his confidence, conceit and haughtiness are GONE -- he sounded broken, disappointed, didn't smile and made no bodily gestures. He realizes that no one in the Muslim world is supporting him except Syria, Iran and Yemen. Even Iran is shying away from making statements to the effect of getting involved in the warfare.

I've also watched an electrifying address of Israeli defense minister Amir Peretz in which he announced that Israel won't let excessive moral considerations tie her hands -- should Lebanese civilians in whose homes Hizballah has stashed weapons and terrorists fail to evacuate their homes after being warned to do so, they'll be killed together with the weaponry.

The Israeli air blitz is rapidly crushing Hizballah's launcher, missile, Katyusha and ammo reserves.

Meanwhile, the int'l community has come out squarely against the Hizballah-Syria-Hamas-Iran axis. There seems to be a recognition that Israel is confronting this axis and cutting it down to size in the name of the entire free world.

Evidently, Hizballah has overplayed its hand.

Where is JA? Where is Wendy Klanbell? Notwithstanding Israeli casualties, these are rather depressing times for the supporters of Islamonazis!

"Meanwhile, the int'l community has come out squarely against the Hizballah-Syria-Hamas-Iran axis."

Oh, so that's how Israeli propaganda workers are telling it over there, huh? And the relationship this has to reality, that would be, uh, WHAT exactly?

"There seems to be a recognition that Israel is confronting this axis and cutting it down to size in the name of the entire free world."

Wow, straight from the mouth of the spam can itself. Do you actually expect this cheap rhetoric to influence anyone here?

"Evidently, Hizballah has overplayed its hand."

Uh-huh. You mean when Israel initiated the conflict in the first place by violating Lebanese territory? Yeah, what was Hizbollah thinking?

The longer time passes the clearer and clearer it gets that you assholes are EXACTLY like the Nazis, you know it? The way Israel is EXPLOITING the initial clash would send any Nazi into fond reminiscences:

http://www.angelfire.com/ct/ww2europe/1939.html

Latuff hits the bullseye once again:

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/168803.php

If the Nazis were around today, you'd be the guests of honor at their Oktoberfests

- I see the press conferences on TV...

"Hitler and Goebbels would have traded their balls AND their dicks for a TV in every German living room, and if you don't think your media establishment is using it just the way they would have (only more artfully) you are a pathetic goddamn fool "

Take it up with your Nazigal apparent, Angela Merkel, for one.



- All I care is to spread the truth.

Truth Warper:

"HAHAHAHAHAHA! Yah, the "truth" AS YOU SEE IT, which is through the eyes of a fanatical totally one-sided ideologue "

Let me strike it rich in the greatest US lottery and I wouldn't trade the truth as I see it for your morbid spew about same.

Jewish power in application sends you prompty into a frenzy of lobbing the Nazi slur at Jews who benefit from or practice it. Kiss my lovely posterior, you racist loser.

nternational Action Center statement:

STOP THE U.S.--ISRAELI WAR AGAINST LEBANON AND PALESTINE!

July 13, 2006

The blood in Gaza and Lebanon is on George Bush's hands. The bombs,

shells and missiles now pounding Lebanese and Palestinian cities and

villages, wiping out entire families and leaving hundreds of thousands

without power or water, are made in the U.S. So are the planes and

cannons that launch them.

The Israeli attack on Gaza and the sovereign state of Lebanon is part

of Bush's war against Iraq--part of a decades-long war against the Arab

people and the people of the Middle East.

The Bush regime pays the bills for the Israeli war machine and has

given it a green light to go to war. And it is using the

Israeli-created crisis as a pretext for attacks on Syria and Iran.

Israel has launched a terror bombing against the people of Gaza and

Lebanon, allegedly in response to the capture of Israeli soldiers by

Palestinian and Lebanese freedom fighters. This excuse is a lie.

Israeli artillery murdered a dozen civilians in Gaza, including a

family resting on the beach, the week before Corporal Shalit was

captured.

Israel's invasion of Gaza and kidnapping of Palestinian ministers were

planned six months ago. What Israel seeks is the overthrow of

Palestine's democratically elected government. And the Bush regime

seeks complete control over the Middle East for the greater profit of

Big Oil and the military-industrial complex.

The three captured Israeli soldiers are not hostages, as Israeli Prime

Minister Ehud Olmert claims. They are volunteers in the brutal, racist

Israeli military. They are prisoners of war. The real hostages are the

9,000 Palestinian political prisoners, including hundreds of women and

children, held in Israeli concentration camps. They are illegally

imprisoned, and many have been tortured. If the Israeli state cared

about its soldiers' welfare, it would agree to a prisoner exchange.

The three POWs are the latest of many pretenses used by Israel to

justify decades of war and terror against the people of Palestine,

Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan. Since the Palestinian people were

forced from their homes by force and massacre in 1948, hundreds of

thousands of Arab women, men and children have been murdered and maimed

by Israeli bombs and missiles. And the U.S. government has spent

hundreds of billions to make this possible. The U.S. poured arms and

aid to Israel while the people of New Orleans drowned, while Katrina

evacuees are being evicted onto the street, while tens of millions in

this country lack health care.

The International Action Center calls on justice-loving people in the

U.S. and the world over to stand in solidarity with the people of

Palestine and Lebanon. They have a right to defend themselves. They

have a right to fight for land and freedom. They have a right to seek

freedom for their unjustly imprisoned compatriots.

The Lebanese and Palestinian combatants--be they in Hezbollah, Hamas or

the Popular Resistance Committees--are not terrorists. They are freedom

fighters, like the Spear of the Nation in South Africa, like the Jewish

resisters of the Warsaw Ghetto. The Israelis, with their mass

collective punishment of civilians, are emulating the Nazis.

We salute the stand of the Congress of South African Trade Unions

(COSATU), which fought so long against a white minority regime backed

by Israel and the United States. COSATU has denounced Israeli apartheid

as worse than that in South Africa, and called for international

sanctions against the racist Israeli settler state. The South African

Council of Churches has also adopted this call.

Peace in the Middle East is possible. It requires an end to occupation

from Iraq to Palestine, the freedom of Lebanese and Palestinian

prisoners and the right of displaced Palestinians to return to their

homes. It requires the U.S. to withdraw from the region and stop

financing the brutal Israeli war machine.

U.S.-Israel, Hands Off Gaza and Lebanon!

Free All Lebanese and Palestinian Political Prisoners!

U.S. Out of the Middle East!

Stop Aid to Israel!

International Action Center

http://www.iacenter.org

212-633-6646



http://www.iacenter.org