By Michel Chossudovsky

URL of this article: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15557

Global Research, October 6, 2009

I arrived in Manila barely a week after the disaster struck, affecting the lives of more nearly 4 million people, devastating more than 700,000 households, creating a public health disaster, destroying the lives of population groups, which were already living well below the poverty line.

During my visit to Manila, I was hosted by the Ibon foundation and the CDRC, one of the main NGOs involved in relief efforts, in close liason with people’s organizations in the affected areas.  

Under the auspices of CDRC and other NGOs involved in relief work, I visited Marinika, one of the main disaster areas in Metro Manila, where an entire urban area was devastated by the floods, with water levels reaching the second floor of people’s homes. There was no government presence, no medical or public health officials on location, no electricity, no drinking water. Toxic waste, garbage, piles of mud have accumulated.  

The WHO is present in providing medicine first aid kitsinncluding 10,000 water containers. What we are dealing with is one of south east Asia’s a largest natural disasters. 

The international media has casually focussed on the climatic event without providing indepth coverage of an impending humanitarian crisis.  

In a follow-up report, I hope to provide more information on the disaster. Below is the initial report of the CRDC which hosted me during my stay in Manila.

Global Research has contributed to the appeal for financial support.

We invite our readers to support the CRDC in its endeavors. We hope that in the next week or so we will be able to have an online donation form, wehich will be sent out to our readers and members.  

Michel Chossudovsky, Manila, October 7, 2009

CITIZENS’ DISASTER RESPONSE CENTER

72-A Times St., West Triangle Homes, Quezon City, Philippines

Fax: (632) 929-9822

Tel. No. (632) 929-9820

E-mail: cdrc_1984@yahoo.com

Website: www.cdrc-phil.org

Tropical Storm Ondoy (Ketsana), which caused the Philippines’ worst flooding in four decades, left Php8.3 Billion worth of damages to infrastructure (P2.7B) and agriculture (P5.5B), the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.

Ondoy battered Metro Manila and parts of Luzon after it made landfall near the boundary of Aurora and Quezon last September 26. Metro Manila, Bulacan, Pampanga, Batangas, Laguna and Rizal were the most affected by the massive floods.

Ondoy also left 797,404 families of 3.8 million people affected. The total number of casualties has already reached 335. Of this number, 288 were killed, 5 injured and 42 missing.

In Metro Manila alone, over 100,000 people from over 900 barangays were evacuated after incessant rains caused heavy flooding in Manila, Marikina, Malabon, Muntinlupa, Makati, Pasay, Pasig, Valenzuela, San Juan and Quezon City. Flood water in some areas have already reached the second and third floors of buildings, forcing residents to seek refuge on the roof of their houses. Other areas such as Pasig and Cainta remain flooded up to this day.

In Bulacan, 113 baranggays in Marilao, Meycuayan, San Miguel and Bocaue Sta Maria, Calumpit, Bustos and Norzagaray were heavily flooded. In Pampanga, 64 barangays in San Simon, Guagua, Masantol, Apalit, Lubao, Porac, Sto Tomas and San Fernando were flooded as well.

In Rizal, several barangays were flooded and 5,000 families were affected by rising floodwater. Many villages were not accessible to the rescue teams, leaving several families trapped on rooftops for hours.

Landslides occurred in Mt Province-Cagayan via Tabuk in CAR; Brgy. San Juan-Banyo, Arayat, Pampanga in Region III; Brgy. Bongalon, Sangay, Camarines Sur in Region V; Tagaytay-Taal Road, and Tagaytay-Talisay Road in Cavite; and Antipolo-Teresa Road and Sumulong Highway in Rizal.

Appeal for assistance

Right after the typhoon, CDRC and its Regional Centers immediately conducted a Damages, Needs and Capacities Assessment (DNCA) in the affected areas.

Of the total number of affected families, the most vulnerable were carefully identified, taking into account the gravity of destruction, their economic capacity to cope, their accessibility to relief services conducted by other agencies, and their willingness to help themselves.

On the basis of these criteria, 100,000 families have been identified as the most vulnerable families from among the total affected. They were among the worst affected by the typhoon and floods. Their houses were destroyed, and many of these areas are still difficult to access and therefore receive very little assistance if any. Immediate needs are food supply augmentation and other essential non-food items.

Needs include:

• food provisions
• water supply
• medicines (for common colds and diarrhea)
• clothes
• bedding (mats, blankets, mosquito nets)
• plastic sheet
• kitchen utensils
• sanitary napkins
• construction materials (plywood, corrugated metal roof, etc)

Donations for the evacuees may be sent through the Citizens’ Disaster Response Center at 72-A Times St., West Triangle Homes, Quezon City. Concerned individuals and donors can easily reach us at (632) 929-9822 / (632) 929-9820. Donations may also be sent through the following bank accounts:

Dollar Account

Account Name:  Citizens’ Disaster Response Center
Account Number:  2-63600158-3

Bank:  Metrobank, Examiner Branch

Bank Address: Corner Examiner and Quezon Avenue, West Triangle, Quezon City, Philippines

Swift Code: MBTCPHMM

Peso Account

Account Name:  Citizens’ Disaster Response Center
Account Number:  3-63600741-3

Bank:  Metrobank, Examiner Branch

Bank Address: Corner Examiner and Quezon Avenue, West Triangle, Quezon City, Philippines

References:

NDCC
PAGASA
Reports from:

Community Response for Enlightenment, Service and Transformation (CREST)

Alay Bayan Incorporated (ABI)

Southern Tagalog People’s Response Center (STPRC)

The landscape is dotted with piles of rubble of bombed out buildings, the twisted iron and aluminum of destroyed factories, once green fields reduced to sand and dirt by Israeli tanks, apartments with 2 meter holes in the walls and toppled minarets of mosques turned to ruins.

But as devastating as bearing witness to the destruction was, it was the absurdities of the siege, the total blockade of Gaza imposed by Israel and Egypt, that really affected me. Gaza itself remains frozen in time; for nearly five months after the ceasefire, aside from a few rare cases in which cinder blocks have been used to fill gaping holes in the sides of buildings, no reconstruction whatsoever has begun. The blockade keeps the necessary building materials out of Gaza.

While traveling throughout Gaza with a delegation of mostly U.S. citizens organized by CodePink, the absurdities of the siege presented themselves over and over.

At Al Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza, we saw state of the art isotope scan and radio therapy machines in the oncology department that cannot operate because the radioactive material as well as a calibration tool have been refused entry by Israel. A row of dialysis machines sat unused, lacking the required fluids.

As medical conditions in Gaza deteriorate due to the siege, many look for medical care abroad. However, the sealed borders prevent them from traveling. We met the director of an orphanage who had already lost the vision in one eye, was losing it in the other, but had been unable to obtain permission to travel to Egypt for eye care.

Power outages are regular occurrences. The Gaza power plant simply cannot keep up with the demand due to a lack of fuel, which is blocked by Israel, as is supplemental electricity produced in Israel. There are both scheduled blackouts of 8-10 hours, as well as spontaneous outages.

While touring the Al Shifa Hospital, the Minister of Health apologized for the heat in the room, saying their generator must be reserved for higher priority uses than air conditioning. Families are forced to carry their loved ones up the stairs, the elevators shutdown during blackouts.

The centers working to create employment opportunities for Gaza’s women inevitably fall prey to the siege. Power cuts bring the sewing machines making dresses and linens to a stand still. Even the embroidery thread used to make traditional handicrafts must be smuggled in through the tunnels.

The siege has also taken its toll on the father figure. According to Dr. Zeyada of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, with well over 50% unemployment due to the siege, children see their fathers as unable to provide for them. And during the war, they saw that their fathers were also unable to protect them. Children have started looking to other role models, and make easy targets for those who, unfortunately, have no desire for peace.

Education suffers under the siege. At a UN vocational training center in Khan Younis, the library consists of roughly 12 bookcases, but only two had any books at all, with half being photocopied manuals. The textbooks destined for the center have been held up in a storage facility in Jerusalem; the Israelis simply refused to allow them in. The center is also unable to get the raw materials for their metal and woodworking courses.

Sharif, a university student studying business administration in his second year, is understandably proud of having top marks in his faculty. His friends have nicknamed him ‘The Genius.’ Sharif has been awarded a scholarship at Portland University in Oregon starting this fall. Unfortunately, the irrationality of the siege is likely to prevent him from being allowed to go. “If I can’t get authorization by August, there goes my scholarship.”

A professor at Al Aqsa University has been offered a position at the University of Manchester, however, he has been denied permission to travel. Professors are also unable to travel to attend international conferences. And students of the English department have a tough time finding native speakers with which to practice the language; getting into Gaza is almost as difficult as getting out!

Numerous projects for which funding has already been approved are currently suspended for the simple fact that the materials to complete them are not allowed in. Turkey has donated funds for a new university library and PalTel, the Palestinian telecommunications company, has allocated funds for an Information Technology Center. Both projects remain in limbo, victims of the siege.

An official with the UN Relief and Works Agency remarked that it is also a problem to get the actual banknotes in. UNRWA, which provides services to more than 1 million registered refugees in the Gaza Strip, is often only able to get money in to pay the salaries of their 10,000 employees, while money to fund projects is blocked.

Not only are Palestinians restricted in their movement in and out of Gaza, but also within. In late May, Israel began dropping thousands of leaflets near the border areas warning the people of Gaza not to come within 300 meters of the border or they would be fired upon. Farmers are forced to risk their lives in order to work their fields that fate has placed too close to the border. The same restrictions are imposed on Palestinian fishermen. The sound of shots pierce the silence nightly, as Israeli gunboats fire on fishing boats that dare to venture far enough away from the shore in order to catch fish to sell and provide a living for their families.

These are the absurdities that have become the norm in Gaza. But perhaps most absurd of all is how anyone can believe that Israel’s severity in the closures, the destruction of the economy and social fabric of the Gaza Strip, will serve to convince Palestinians to place their trust in international law.

What we in the international community must do is to heed the call we heard repeatedly from the people of Gaza: work to break the siege so that they can take care of themselves.

Stephanie Westbrook

Stephanie Westbrook is a founding member of U.S. Citizens for Peace & Justice in Rome, Italy ( http://www.peaceandjustice.it ) and currently serves on the group’s coordinating committee.
–
Greta Berlin
Free Gaza Movement
357 99 081 767
www.freegaza.org
www.flickr.com/photos/29205195@N02/

May 6, 2009

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/05/200955143232389149.html 

A United Nations inquiry into the war in Gaza has found that Israel was blame for at least seven direct attacks on UN operations – including schools and medical centres.

Missiles, bombs and small arms were all used by Israel against the UN – leading to dozens of deaths.

The UN’s own fuel and aid depot in Gaza was hit with Israeli artillery shells causing widespread damage.

The attack continued for two hours after the UN asked the Israeli military for it to stop.

‘Negligence and recklessness’

The report’s summary accused the Israeli army of “varying degrees of negligence or recklessness with regard to United Nations premises and to the safety of UN staff and other civilians within those premises, with consequent deaths, injuries and extensive physical damage and loss of property.”

Ban said at a news conference on Tuesday that the aim of the report, which is not legally binding, was to establish “a clear record of the facts” surrounding incidents involving UN premises and personnel.

A total of 53 installations used by the United Nations Relief and Works agency (UNRWA) were damaged or destroyed during Israel’s Gaza campaign, including 37 schools – six of which were being used as emergency shelters – six health centres, and two warehouses, the UN agency said.

Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey in New York said the UN secretary-general was still determining the UN’s course of action over the report’s 11 recommendations.

The report said the UN would seek reparations for damages from Israel and meet the Israeli government.

Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, told Al Jazeera that the report was “one-sided” and that he hoped Ban would take into account Israel’s response to it.

Israel’s army concluded its own report into the three-week war on Gaza in late April, finding that Israel followed international law and that while errors occurred they were “unavoidable”.

Notorious incident

The report found that in seven out of the nine incidents involving UN premises or operations that it investigated, ”the death, injuries and damage involved were caused by military actions … by the IDF [Israeli army]“.

It also said one of the incidents, when a World Food Programme warehouse in the Karni industrial zone in Gaza was damaged, was largely caused by a rocket “most likely” fired by Hamas or another Palestinian faction and condemned those responsible for using such “indiscriminate weapons” to cause deaths and injuries.

The investigation included one of the most notorious incidents in the war, when up to 40 people are believed to have died at a UN school in Jabaliya after Israeli mortar shells struck the area.

The UN initially said the shells had hit the school but later retracted the claim, while Israel initially said its forces were responding to firing from within the school, but also later reportedly withdrew the statement, although the UN report noted the claim still appeared on the Israeli foreign ministry’s website as of Tuesday.

The report also recommended that because there had been “many incidents” during the war involving civilian victims, an impartial inquiry should be mandated ”to investigate allegations of violations of international law in Gaza and southern Israel by the IDF [Israeli army] and by Hamas and other Palestinian militants”.

Israel’s 22-day war on Gaza left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, including around 400 children, Gaza health officials said, along with 13 Israelis.

Much of the coastal territory was also left in ruins.

Report ‘flawed’

Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, told Al Jazeera that the report was “fundamentally flawed” and contained “methodological problems are so deep that everyone has to ask on what basis they make these criticisms”.

“Evidence shows one thing and the UN report clearly shows that they are not looking at reality.”

Israel has said the aim of its operations in Gaza was to cripple the Palestinian group Hamas’s ability to launch rockets into the south of Israel.

Earlier this month an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson confirmed to Al Jazeera that it would not co-operate with a separate UN Human Rights Council investigation into alleged war crimes during the assault on the Gaza Strip.

International rights groups have accused both the Israeli military and Palestinian groups such as Hamas of violations throughout the conflict.

The UN secretary-general commissioned the report, written by a special committee led by Ian Martin, former head of Amnesty International, in January, shortly after fighting ended.

The UN report, commissioned by Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, said the Israeli military intentionally fired at UN facilities and civilians hiding in them during the war and used disproportionate force.

01/03/2009

CrisisWatch N°67, 1 March 2009

Four actual or potential conflict situations around the world deteriorated and two improved in February 2009, according to the new issue of the International Crisis Group’s monthly bulletin CrisisWatch, released today.

In Bangladesh, disgruntled members of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) paramilitary border force staged a mutiny in their Dhaka barracks, taking some 130 senior military officers hostage and killing over 70. The spread of mutinies to other BDR barracks threatened to spark violence across the country amid fears of retaliation by the military, including a takeover. But steps taken by the government appear to have reduced the threat of any coup.

Conditions in Sri Lanka continued to deteriorate for 200,000 civilians caught between the government’s military offensive against the Tamil Tigers and Tiger attempts to prevent people from fleeing areas under their control. Levels of food, water and medical care are dangerously low. Tensions between North and South Korea also increased, putting Seoul’s armed forces on high alert after Pyongyang’s decision to void political and military agreements with the South. In Guadeloupe, strikes led to violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces before a partial agreement was reached between unions and the government at the end of the month.

Hopes for progress in Zimbabwe were raised as President Mugabe and opposition leader Tsvangirai finally agreed on the formation of a power-sharing government, with Tsvangirai as prime minister. However, serious concerns remain about its successful implementation and political repression continues. In Mali, Tuareg rebels from the Democratic Alliance for Change faction agreed to lay down their arms under an Algerian-brokered peace deal, as government operations against another Tuareg rebel faction continued.

CrisisWatch highlights Bangladesh as a significant conflict risk alert for March, as tensions within and surrounding the military continue to simmer. In Sudan, the International Criminal Court decision, due in early March, on whether to issue an arrest warrant for President Bashir presents both an opportunity to move towards resolving the conflict in Darfur and a potential trigger for increased violence.

February 2009 TRENDS

Deteriorated Situations
Bangladesh, Guadeloupe, North Korea, Sri Lanka

Improved Situations
Mali, Zimbabwe

Unchanged Situations
Afghanistan, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Basque Country (Spain), Belarus , Bolivia, Bosnia, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Chechnya, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Ethiopia/Eritrea, Georgia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, India (non-Kashmir), Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories, Kashmir, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Liberia, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Moldova, Morocco, Myanmar/Burma, Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan), Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, North Caucasus (non-Chechnya), Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan Strait, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Lest e, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Western Sahara, Yemen

March 2009 OUTLOOK

Conflict Risk Alert
Bangladesh, Sudan

Conflict Resolution Opportunity
Sudan

*NOTE: CrisisWatch indicators – up and down arrows, conflict risk alerts, and conflict resolution opportunities – are intended to reflect changes within countries or situations from month to month, not comparisons between countries. For example, no “conflict risk alert” is given for a country where violence has been occurring and is expected to continue in the coming month: such an indicator is given only where new or significantly escalated violence is feared.

Search current and all past editions of CrisisWatch by using the CrisisWatch database.

Interview With the Author of Hell Minus One

Other resources on Hell Minus One:

Hell Minus One – signed verified confessions of satanic ritual abuse – Anne’s parents confessed their atrocities – both in writing and verbally.
http://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/survivor-stories/hell-minus-one-signed-verified-confessions-of-satanic-ritual-abuse/

book’s web page  – http://www.hellminusone.com/

Woman revisits the ‘Hell’ of ritual abuse By Ben Winslow  Deseret News  12/10/08
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705269563,00.html

An Interview With the Author of Hell Minus One

ANNE A JOHNSON DAVIS

My Story of Deliverance From Satanic Ritual Abuse and My Journey to Freedom

Q. What is Hell Minus One about?

Anne: Ultimately, Hell Minus One is a book about hope and empowerment. It is a memoir – a segment of my life. As the subtitle of my book states, it is “My Story of Deliverance from Satanic Ritual Abuse and My Journey to Freedom.”

Hell Minus One also reveals that there are people who engage in satanic ritual abuse. SRA is not a myth, as some claim it to be.

Starting at age three, my parents intermittently used me as a sacrificial object in satanic rituals until I ran away from home at 17.

Hell Minus One tells the story about my abuse, and the steps I took to break free, heal and eventually forgive my tormentors.

It is a story of choices I made, and the miracles and crucial help I received, which empowered me to triumph over a tragic past. It is also about the commitment I made to live a new life of love and purpose.

Q. Why did you write Hell Minus One?

Anne: As I healed, I began to understand that my life and my sanity hadn’t been spared for my sake alone. I felt a calling to bring empowerment and hope to others. My husband, Bruce, was also convinced of that calling, and consistently encouraged me to write a book. He felt that my experiences could make a contribution to the world. At first I resisted, because I wasn’t ready to commit to what I suspected would be an intense and painful effort.

Yet, as I healed, the desire to inspire courage in others grew. Based on my experience, I wanted other victims of abuse to have hope, and to be empowered, to overcome what appear to be insurmountable obstacles; that whatever we face, we can overcome – and be even better. Doors will open and help will come when we are giving our all for good.

Also, I have unique corroborative evidence to SRA. Memories I allowed to come forth, alone and in private, I wrote in explicit allegation letters.

Those letters were responded to with handwritten confessions from the perpetrators, who were my own mother and stepfather. Also, my half-siblings sent letters to authorities that validated my abuse allegations as true.

Two detectives from the Attorney General’s Office subsequently obtained from the perpetrators verbal confessions admitting to their handwritten confessions.

Q. Who should read Hell Minus One?

Anne: My book is a story intended to bring hope to the abused that they have the ability to be healed; hope to those in bondage that they have options (take courage, seek them out). It is also a plea to those in a position to help—such as law enforcement officials, mental health professionals, clergy and even friends—to be open-minded about allegations entrusted to them.

This book is also for those who would love to read a true story about goodness and light overcoming evil and darkness.

Q. What is the most important message or messages in your book?

Anne: Our adversity is not our identity. What we do, or what has been done to us, is not who we are. No matter what has been inflicted upon us – or what mistakes we may have made – we can overcome and be true to our authentic, real self. Goodness and light always overcome evil and darkness. Our God-given ability to define our own life is never lost – never!

This book is for those who need encouragement – or who are in a professional or personal position to support and encourage others.

The subtitle of my book is: “My Story of Deliverance from Satanic Ritual Abuse and My Journey to Freedom.” I often say “deliverance” rather than “escape” because I could not have made it out by myself. I received assistance from a Higher Power. I do not believe that anyone can get out of something this thoroughly enslaving entirely on their own.

This book is more than about overcoming satanic abuse. My message also applies to individuals, organizations and corporations about overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. We all have Goliaths to face and overcome. This process of facing and overcoming is never easy and requires commitment and hard, hard work. But the work and the result are life-changing. The only way out is through.

Q. How long did it take you to write the book?

Anne: Let’s see – how old am I?  It took me a lifetime! Forty-seven years to first live it, and then relive it and deal with it; six years to write it; and finally, eighteen months to edit and publish the final manuscript released in December 2008.

Q. What kind of research did you do?

Anne: What kinds of research? I didn’t research it. First I lived it, and then I remembered it.

Memories to come forward – which they did in crystal clarity – one by one, day after day, week after week, month after month. They formed a shocking and malignant picture of which I had been totally unaware.

I wrote explicit allegation letters and ultimately received handwritten confessions from my parents – my own mother and stepfather. Those written confessions were validated by verbal confessions to Utah Attorney General Detectives who investigated the allegations.

Q. What was the most difficult thing or challenge for you in writing Hell Minus One?

Anne: Finding determination and courage to stay with it for over seven years; writing and re-writing manuscripts that recounted horrifying and painful details, yet balancing the dark elements of my story with the more important shafts of light that diminished the darkness.

Those shafts of light included my faith and spiritual experiences, along with circumstances and priceless people who intersected my life.

Q. In the book’s early chapters, the amount of detail you recall as a three year old is significant. How did you remember all that? Was it always there, or did it come to you as you wrote?

Anne: Most of it I had recalled as I went through therapy. Additional details emerged as I endeavored to get my story into written form over the years.

As my editor and I worked together to finalize the manuscript, at times he asked me if I knew more. In that case, I would employ the same skill I had gained from my counselor. In order to maintain authenticity and accuracy, I gave myself quiet uninterrupted time and simply let the supporting details emerge.

Q. Were your siblings victims like you, or were they Satanists like your parents?

Anne: My half-siblings wrote corroborating letters to church authorities verifying my allegations as true. I respect their privacy, and cannot speak for them.

They were not victims “like me,” because I was separated out from the rest of the family – considered the “bastard child” to be used as a sacrificial object.

Q. How did you get them to write corroborative allegation letters against your parents?

Anne: In the early stages of my therapy, when I still had contact with them, I called all three and asked if they would each write to church authorities corroborating my allegations. All three did.

Q. Your parents’ confession letters are published extensively in your book. You used ellipses extensively in several paragraphs. What did you leave out and why?

Anne:  left out parts that were too demented and violent to be published.

This book is less an expose and more a message of hope and encouragement, deliverance and healing.

My intention of including the confession letters in this book was to give the reader enough information to know how bad it was. But I didn’t want it to be so abrasive and offensive that the reader would put the book down.

There are references made to my half-siblings, and for the sake of their privacy, I also excluded that information with ellipses.

Q. Where are your parents’ confession letters now?

Anne: The originals are in a security vault.

Q. Are they available for public scrutiny? If not, why?

Anne: No. They are not available for public scrutiny. They were made available to the Utah Attorney General’s Office during its investigation.

They were also made available to the publisher and editor of the book during the writing of the final manuscript; but, because of the often overtly graphic nature of the contents, and issues of libel and invasion of privacy in naming names, they are not available to the public.

Q. Your parents began to subject you to satanic ritual abuse when you were three  years old and continued until you left home at 17. You began to experience episodes of rage in your mid-30s. By the late 1990s, you had finished your therapy and were on your way to recovery. That was over a decade ago, and now you’re in your mid-50s. You say it took you seven years to write Hell Minus One. Why didn’t you write your book sooner? Was it a matter of getting emotionally ready before revealing this memoir?

Anne: It wasn’t until 2001 that I felt I had enough closure and time to write a meaningful book that would help others. Writing Hell Minus One took much longer than I could have ever anticipated, but I was not willing to finalize the manuscript until it was authentic in every detail, and also well written. It took eighteen months to write and edit the final manuscript.

Q. Your parents did horrible and vicious things to you. After each episode, you wouldn’t remember a thing, or connect your dark, painful feelings inside to your parents. What is the medical or psychological definition of this occurrence, and how does it come about? How and why does the brain work this way? To cancel things out?

Anne: Professional definitions that I have heard used are inconclusive. I tend to stay with my own experience rather than attempt to use labels that can be contradictory and misunderstood.

In my case, my psyche prevented me from knowing about my abuse until I was mature enough to take action. Until then, the threats of my perpetrators of being able to tell what I was thinking, even if they were not around, and that I would be destroyed if I remembered anything, kept all of the memories of their abuse in bound psychological silence.

Q. What exactly is Satanic Ritual Abuse?

Anne: To me, SRA is a criminally inhumane and depraved form of devil-worship. The felony crimes include brutal torture and molestation of innocent victims – physically, sexually, mentally and spiritually.

Q. What is its origin? Its history?

Anne: First of all, I’m not an expert on satanic ritual abuse, nor do I want to be. Sometimes while I was being abused, I heard my parents and their cohorts speak of going back into medieval times, and therefore, anything that was done that night didn’t apply to that present time.

However, what they said is not the origin of SRA. There are several resources on the Internet that describe in detail the term and origin of satanic ritual abuse. Unfortunately, what is found there mostly proclaims SRA to be false—to be an urban myth, born during the 1980s and discredited by the late 1990s, largely because of unsubstantiated victim claims. Yet, what happened to me—and my parents’ confession letters—directly challenges those proclamations. In fact, my parents’ confession letters, their confessions to law enforcement, and their excommunication from their church, provides new evidence that researchers and skeptics of SRA haven’t had before. Without such evidence, I can understand why SRA hasn’t received stronger belief and support in the past. One of my hopes is that Hell Minus One will encourage critics—from law enforcement, to mental health professionals and even the media—to reconsider the satanic ritual abuse question.

Q. Why do cultists engage in this behavior? What do they get out of it?

Anne: From my point of view, it was justification to gratify sexualized addiction to violence and perversion. Also, I witnessed them employing the most deranged of behaviors – determined to call down the powers of darkness and evil – believing that it would give them an advantage of power over other people, and extraordinary means to obtain money.

Q. The SRA you experienced occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. If you Google Satanic Ritual Abuse, hundreds of SRA sites are listed, some that offer help, some that go into disturbing detail on how to perform SRA today on family members, friends, etc. How would you compare the SRA you experienced to what is being done today?

Anne: After scanning the Internet about SRA practices for only a few hours more than a year ago, I decided that I would never again subject myself to the mind-rotting material I saw and read.

What I did understand is that the purpose and intent of SRA doesn’t seem to have changed, although the implementation techniques have developed dramatically, becoming more bizarre, brutal and inhumane.

Q. To readers who are victims of SRA, what would you recommend that they do?

Anne: Most importantly, I would want them to know that they have options. I would urge them to have courage and seek out help in any way that they can – to get away and stay away from evil bondage. If your family is sick and toxic – entrenched in evil and criminal activity – don’t go back to them. You can’t save them, but you can save yourself.

I would want them to realize that they have the God-given right to their own lives and identity, and that they have inner signals to guide them as to where to turn.

Q. To readers who worship Satan, or practice SRA, what would you recommend that they do?

Anne: To those who practice Satanism, they have the right to do whatever that want – but not when it is a crime.

Having witnessed the soul-sickening practice of Satanism, I would advise them to get out, whatever the price, before it’s too late.

Q. What purpose or design do you hope or intend Hell Minus One will accomplish?

Anne: My hope and prayer is that Hell Minus One will be a beacon of light out of darkness – a message of hope and courage – that we can all overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The epigraph in my book reminds us: we have all been endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights to our lives, liberty and happiness.

Q. In your book, you explain why you and your husband chose not to seek criminal and civil charges against your parents. Now that several years have passed since that decision, do you regret it? Yes or no, why do you feel that way?

Anne: No, I don’t regret it. To this day, I don’t feel that at the time, with society’s mind-set about SRA and false-memory syndrome, it would have resulted in a fair trial. Instead of my parents being the focus, it would have been me and whether or not I was telling the truth—even though my parents had already written confession letters, confessed to detectives from the Utah Attorney General’s Office, and were excommunicated from their church. Something deep inside warned me that it would have resulted in a media explosion that would have torn my little family and me apart.

Feb 11, 2009, 00:20

People have asked me, since I returned from Gaza, how people manage? How do they keep going after being traumatized by bombing and punished by a comprehensive state of siege?

I wonder myself. I know that whether the loss of life is on the Gazan or the Israeli side of the border, bereaved survivors feel the same pain and misery. On both sides of the border, I think children pull people through horrendous and horrifying nightmares. Adults squelch their panic, cry in private, and strive to regain semblances of normal life, wanting to carry their children through a precarious ordeal. And the children want to help their parents.

In Rafah, the morning of January 18, when it appeared there would be at least a lull in the bombing, I watched children heap pieces of wood on plastic tarps and then haul their piles toward their homes. The little ones seemed proud to be helping their parents recover from the bombing. I’d seen just this happy resilience among Iraqi children, after the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing, as they found bricks for their parents to use for a makeshift shelter in a bombed military base.

Children who survive bombing are eager to rebuild. They don’t know how jeopardized their lives are, how ready adults are to bomb them again.

In Rafah, that morning, an older man stood next to me, watching the children at work. “You see,” he said, looking upward as an Israeli military surveillance drone flew past, “if I pick up a piece of wood, if they see me carrying just a piece of wood, they might mistake it for a weapon, and I will be a target. So these children collect the wood.”

While the high-tech drone collected information — “intelligence” that helps determine targets for more bombing — toddlers collected wood. Their parents, whose homes were partially destroyed, needed the wood for warmth at night and for cooking. Because of the Israeli blockade against Gaza, there wasn’t any gas.

With the border crossing at Rafah now sealed again, people who want to obtain food, fuel, water, construction supplies and goods needed for everyday life will have to rely, increasingly, on the damaged tunnel industry to import these items from the Egyptian side of the border. Israel’s government says that Hamas could use the tunnels to import weapons, and weapons could kill innocent civilians, so the Israeli military has no choice but to bomb the neighborhood built up along the border, as they have been doing.

Suppose that the U.S. weapon makers had to use a tunnel to deliver weapons to Israel. The U.S. would have to build a mighty big tunnel to accommodate the weapons that Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Caterpillar have supplied to Israel. The size of such a tunnel would be an eighth wonder of the world, a Grand Canyon of a tunnel, an engineering feat of the ages.

Think of what would have to come through.

Imagine Boeing’s shipments to Israel traveling through an enormous underground tunnel, large enough to accommodate the wingspans of planes, sturdy enough to allow passage of trucks laden with missiles. According to UK’s Indymedia Corporate Watch, 2009, Boeing has sent Israel 18 AH-64D Apache Longbow fighter helicopters, 63 Boeing F15 Eagle fighter planes, 102 Boeing F16 Eagle fighter planes, 42 Boeing AH-64 Apache fighter helicopters, F-16 Peace Marble II & III Aircraft, 4 Boeing 777s, and Arrow II interceptors, plus IAI-developed arrow missiles, and Boeing AGM-114 D Longbow Hellfire missiles,

In September of last year, the U.S. government approved the sale of 1,000 Boeing GBU-9 small diameter bombs to Israel, in a deal valued at up to $77 million.

Now that Israel has dropped so many of those bombs on Gaza, Boeing shareholders can count on more sales, more profits, if Israel buys new bombs from them from them. Perhaps there are more massacres in store. It would be important to maintain the tunnel carefully.

Raytheon, one of the largest U.S. arms manufacturers, with annual revenues of around $20 billion, is one of Israel’s main suppliers of weapons. In September last year, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency approved the sale of Raytheon kits to upgrade Israel’s Patriot missile system at a cost of $164 million. Raytheon would also use the tunnel to bring in Bunker Buster bombs as well as Tomahawk and Patriot missiles.

Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest defense contractor by revenue, with reported sales, in 2008, of $42.7 billion. Lockheed Martin’s products include the Hellfire precision-guided missile system, which has reportedly been used in the recent Gaza attacks. Israel also possesses 350 F-16 jets, some purchased from Lockheed Martin.

Think of them coming through the largest tunnel in the world.

Maybe Caterpillar, Inc., could help build such a tunnel. Caterpillar, Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer of construction (and destruction) equipment, with more than $30 billion in assets, holds Israel’s sole contract for the production of the D9 military bulldozer, specifically designed for use in invasions of built-up areas. The U.S. government buys Caterpillar bulldozers and sends them to the Israeli army as part of its annual foreign military assistance package. Such sales are governed by the US Arms Export Control Act, which limits the use of U.S. military aid to “internal security” and “legitimate self defense” and prohibits its use against civilians.

Israel topples family houses with these bulldozers to make room for settlements. All too often, they topple them on the families inside. American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death standing between one of these bulldozers and a Palestinian doctor’s house.

In truth, there’s no actual tunnel bringing U.S. made weapons to Israel. But the transfers of weapons and the U.S. complicity in Israel’s war crimes are completely invisible to many U.S. people.

The United States is the primary source of Israel’s arsenal. For more than 30 years, Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance and since 1985 Israel has received about 3 billion dollars, each year, in military and economic aid from the U.S. (“U.S. and Israel Up in Arms,” Frida Berrigan, Foreign Policy in Focus, January 17, 2009)

So many Americans can’t even see this flood of weapons, and what it means, for us, for Gaza’s and Israel’s children, for the world’s children.

And so, people in Gaza have a right to ask us, how do you manage? How do you keep going? How can you sit back and watch while your taxes pay to massacre us? If it would be wrong to send rifles and bullets and primitive rockets into Gaza, weapons that could kill innocent Israelis, then isn’t it also wrong to send Israelis the massive arsenal that has been used against us, killing over 400 of our children, in the past six weeks, maiming and wounding thousands more?

But, standing over the tunnels in Rafah, that morning, under a sunny Gazan sky, hearing the constant droning buzz of mechanical spies waiting to call in an aerial bombardment, no one asked me, an American, those hard questions. The man standing next to me pointed to a small shed where he and others had built a fire in an ash can. They wanted me to come inside, warm up, and receive a cup of tea.

Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence.

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By Joseph Levine

05 January, 2009
Countercurrents.org

Israel’s current assault on Gaza has sparked controversy in the mainstream press. But for all their differences, critics and supporters share a fundamental assumption: that Israel, as a Western industrial democracy, accepts the Enlightenment idea of the absolute value of individual human lives, and recognizes the inalienable rights that stem from it.. Against this background, Israeli officials are seen as facing a tragic dilemma: how to confront threatening forces who do not share these values – Islamic extremists — without sacrificing their own moral standards. Thus, supporters of the action in Gaza ask how else but with deadly military force can Israel protect its citizens from rocket attacks, while the critics insist that the bombing, with its high human costs, is anyway a poor means of ensuring Israel’s security.. The critics, of course, are correct. But in their tacit endorsement of the “clash-of-cultures” frame, they let Israel off the moral hook. The current assault is not governed by a painful recognition of conflicting demands of human rights; rather it is animated by profound racism, tribalism, and the ancient doctrine of collective guilt.

To see why I say this it is only necessary to engage in a simple thought experiment. Suppose Hamas terrorists were hiding out in Tel Aviv (or Los Angeles, or London, for that matter — the exercise is equally illuminating applied to the U.S. and or any other “civilized” Western state). Would an assault of the sort we have seen against Gaza even be contemplated? Would Israeli officials grimly but dispassionately calculate the cost-benefit ratio concerning a massive aerial assault on Jewish neighborhoods? Would American and European officials condone such an attack? Would the pundits express their sympathy with Israel’s terrible dilemma? Of course not! The very idea of such an action would be recognized immediately as morally outrageous, and anyone who proposed it would be treated with contempt. You can hear the voices: What, are we just like Hamas and Al Qaeda? They don’t respect human life, but we do.

Except, of course, “we” — members of the self-consciously enlightened West — don’t – any more than “they” do. If we really acted out of the values we claim to espouse, then there would be no asymmetry in our reactions to the suggestion in the thought-experiment. Either we would acquiesce in the decision to sacrifice the people of a Tel Aviv neighborhood for the sake of the greater good, or – more likely – we would have to see Israel’s current assault against Gaza as morally out of bounds. The fact that the cases do not immediately strike us as parallel– a regrettable necessity in one case, a moral atrocity in another – betrays the existence in us of two very primitive, anti-Enlightenment impulses: racial/tribal chauvinism, and a belief in collective guilt.

The first one is obvious. If we are honest, we’ll admit that the men, women, and children of Gaza seem different from Israeli Jews and other “Westerners” – they are “Other,” not fully human. We vehemently disavow such judgments, of course. But if we don’t believe it, what explains the result of the thought experiment? Why would we not be willing to kill hundreds of “us” in order to protect the rest, when we are prepared to kill as many as necessary of them? It’s simple: they just don’t count as much as we do.

But maybe not. Someone might object that there is a morally relevant difference between the two populations: because Hamas is a Palestinian organization, it is morally justifiable to put Palestinian lives at risk in order to protect Israeli citizens. But this objection simply lays bare the second anti-Enlightenment element in the modern Western psyche: the notion of collective guilt. But why should the mere fact that Hamas is Palestinian justify imperiling the lives of Palestinians who are not Hamas fighters, who are not personally responsible for the terrorist acts the organization commits? It is only if one believes that all Palestinians are made guilty in some way, simply by — how else to put it? — being of the same tribe as Hamas. How else can one find a basis for distinguishing between potential victims who are innocent and Palestinian and those who are innocent and like “us?”

Collective guilt is a notion that is as morally primitive and abhorrent as any of the ideas supposedly espoused by “religious extremists.” This is why collective punishment is prohibited by international law. Moreover, embracing the doctrine of collective guilt means abandoning the moral high ground. Terrorists always appeal to the notion in justifying the taking of life. Al Qaeda viewed the victims of the World Trade Center bombings as minions of the Great Satan, just as Hamas views its victims as collaborators in the occupation. If we wish to repudiate such thinking, we must not indulge it in ourselves.

Once we give up belief in collective guilt and relinquish allegiance to the tribe, there is nothing left to distinguish the very real victims of Israel’s assault on Gaza from the imagined victims in my thought experiment. Indeed there is no morally relevant difference. Vociferous outrage is the only humanly decent response to Israel’s brutal assault. It is what’s demanded by those Western, Enlightenment values we all supposedly hold dear.

Joseph Levine
Dept. of Philosophy
352 Bartlett Hall
Univ. of Mass
130 Hicks Way
Amherst, MA

joselevine@gmail.com

Fida Qishta

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 3 January 2009 13.35 GMT

Saturday 27 December

I go to visit friends in the Block J neighbourhood in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip. While I am in a friend’s house, my phone rings. It’s a friend from Gaza City, calling for a chat. Suddenly I hear the sound of an explosion at his end. At the same time I hear an explosion in Rafah too. Just outside, somewhere near. My friend says: “Fida, they are attacking nearby.” I say: “They are attacking here too.”

I run into the street and everybody is running, children and grown-ups, all looking to see if their relatives and friends are alive. It is the time for children to go to school for the second shift, after the first shift finishes at 11.30am.Naama is aged 13. This is what she tells me: “I was sitting in the classroom with my friends when the attack happened. We were scared and we ran out of our school. Our headmaster asked us to go home. We saw fire everywhere.”

People are looking at the remains of a police station. There are still bodies under the wreckage. It is scary because the attack isn’t over, and from where we are we can see an Israeli airplane attacking another police station.

At the hospital, I speak to a wounded police officer, aged 39. “We were at the police station,” he said. “The Israeli planes came and suddenly the building collapsed on us. I saw four dead bodies near me. They were in pieces. Outside there were more bodies. Everyone was shouting. I lost consciousness and then found myself in hospital.”

Later I am at home with my family. We’ve just received a phone call on our land line. It’s the Israeli defence ministry, and they say that any house that has guns or weapons will be targeted next, without warning and without any announcement. Just to let you know, we don’t have any weapons in our house. If we die please defend my family.

Sunday 28 December

I wake up at 7am after an Israeli F-16 attack. Our house is shaking. We all try to imagine what has happened, but we want to at least know where the attack was. It is so scary. We try to open the main door to our flat, but it’s stuck shut after the attack. I have to climb out of the window to leave the house. I am shocked when I find out our neighbour’s pharmacy was the target. It is just 60 metres from our house. They targeted a pharmacy. I still can’t believe it.

Om Mohammed says: “They [Israeli forces] attack everywhere. They have gone crazy. The Gaza Strip is just going to die … it’s going to die. We were sleeping. Suddenly we heard a bomb. We woke up and we didn’t know where to go. We couldn’t see through the dust. We called to each other. We thought our house had been hit, not the street. What can I say? You saw it with your own eyes. What is our guilt? Are we terrorists? I don’t carry a gun, neither does my girl.

“There’s no medicine. No drinks, no water, no gas. We are suffering from hunger. They attack us. What does Israel want? Can it be worse than this? I don’t think so. Would they accept this for themselves?

“Look at the children. What are they guilty of? They were sleeping at 7am. All the night they didn’t sleep. This child was traumatised during the attack. Do they have rockets to attack with?”

Monday 29 December

The Israeli army is destroying the tunnels that go from Rafah into Egypt. For the past year and a half the Israeli government has intensified the economic blockade of Gaza by closing all the border crossings that allow aid and essential supplies to reach Palestinians in Gaza. This forced Palestinians to dig tunnels to Egypt to survive. From our house we can hear the explosions and the house is shaking.At night we can’t go out. No one goes out. If you go out you will risk your life. You don’t know where the bombs will fall. My mother is so sad. She watches me writing my reports and says: “Fida, will it make any difference?”

Before the attack started we got some food aid from the EU. It’s not much, but it’s enough, we’re not starving. But some of our friends have nothing. My mum warns me: “Fida, don’t leave the house, it’s too dangerous outside.” Then she goes out to share our food with the neighbours who have nothing.

Wednesday 31 December

11.40pm: a powerful air strike somewhere nearby. I was sleeping but the blast wakes me up. I see my mum looking from the window. She points at one of the refugee camps. “The attack was there,” she said.

I went back to sleep – not because I don’t care, but because I can’t deal with it. If the attack was really aimed at one of the camps that means hundreds are going to be injured or even killed, the houses destroyed. I really can’t imagine it.

Thursday 1 January

In the morning I get up early and call a friend who lives in Alshabora camp. He confirms the attack had hit there and I go to meet him.

It looks like an earthquake. Many houses have been damaged, and many people have been wounded. The people who had escaped injury were trying to clean the place up – they have nowhere else to go. But the biggest shock is when I ask about the target. It was the children’s playground.

“We heard a strong explosion happen, but with all the smoke and the dust we couldn’t see well, and the electricity was off,” I am told by a small child.

“We saw everything fall down – the window broke on us. We went downstairs, and people were saying that the playground’s been targeted. This park is not a member of Hamas, it’s a park for playing. It’s for civilians – so why did they attack it?,” asks one 12-year-old girl who lives nearby.

The target was a civilian area – but there was no warning, not one phone call from the Israeli army to tell civilians to beware.

I visit the main hospital in Rafah. There are so many injured people, most of them children. In one ward, I meet four children aged five or six. They are in deep shock. They can’t speak, they just look at you.

Only one child could say his name: “Abdel Rahman”. That’s all he can say. Otherwise, he just stares. He’s five. His ear was wounded by shrapnel, his head is covered by bandages.

There is a 16-year-old girl also suffering from shrapnel injuries. Three of her brothers were killed; all her family were injured. She looks like a zombie and says nothing at all. Her mother is dying in the intensive care unit.

The hospital manger, Abu Youssef Alnajar, gives the statistics for 1 January: two dead – a young man aged 22 and a woman aged 33; 59 injured – 16 children, 18 women and the rest old people. Most of them had been sleeping when the bombs dropped.

I go back home and the first thing I do is take a shower. I feel really upset after what I have seen. As always I am trying to cope with the situation but sometimes it is too much to deal with.

A short message to the pilots in the Israeli F-16s: does it make you feel happy to kill Palestinian children and women? Do you feel it’s your duty? Killing every child and woman, man and teenager in Gaza? I don’t know what exactly you feel, what exactly you think, but please think of your mother and sister, your son and daughter.

Friday 2 January

I am in the hospital again. An ambulance crew has been called out to help an injured man somewhere near the ruins of the old Gaza airport. He’s a civilian, one of the bedouin who tend their sheep in that area. Four shepherds saw an explosion and went to investigate – when they arrived at the scene there was a second bomb and they were injured. An ambulance managed to rescue three of the men. But one of their friends is still there, bleeding.

The ambulance crew are afraid to go back for him. The wounded man is just 50 metres away from the green line so they are afraid the Israeli soldiers will target them.Outside there are still planes in the air. I have just heard a big explosion on the border area.

• Fida Qishta is a freelance Palestinian television producer and writer based in Gaza’s southern township of Rafah

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/03/gaza-diary-israel

Written by Andrea Becker

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

The collective punishment of Gaza’s civilian population is illegal. But international law was tossed aside long ago

It has been two weeks since Israel imposed a complete closure of Gaza, after months when its crossings have been open only for the most minimal of humanitarian supplies. Now it is even worse: two weeks without United Nations food trucks for the 80% of the population entirely dependent on food aid, and no medical supplies or drugs for Gaza’s ailing hospitals. No fuel (paid for by the EU) for Gaza’s electricity plant, and no fuel for the generators during the long blackouts. Last Monday morning, 33 trucks of food for UN distribution were finally let in – a few days of few supplies for very few, but as the UN asks, then what?

Israel’s official explanation for blocking even minimal humanitarian aid, according to IDF spokesperson Major Peter Lerner, was “continued rocket fire and security threats at the crossings”. Israel’s blockade, in force since Hamas seized control of Gaza in mid-2007, can be described as an intensification of policies designed to isolate the population of Gaza, cripple its economy, and incentivise the population against Hamas by harsh – and illegal – measures of collective punishment. However, these actions are not all new: the blockade is but the terminal end of Israel’s closure policy, in place since 1991, which in turn builds on Israel’s policies as occupier since 1967.

In practice, Israel’s blockade means the denial of a broad range of items – food, industrial, educational, medical – deemed “non-essential” for a population largely unable to be self-sufficient at the end of decades of occupation. It means that industrial, cooking and diesel fuel, normally scarce, are virtually absent now. There are no queues at petrol stations; they are simply shut. The lack of fuel in turn means that sewage and treatment stations cannot function properly, resulting in decreased potable water and tens of millions of litres of untreated or partly treated sewage being dumped into the sea every day. Electricity cuts – previously around eight hours a day, now up to 16 hours a day in many areas – affect all homes and hospitals. Those lucky enough to have generators struggle to find the fuel to make them work, or spare parts to repair them when they break from overuse. Even candles are running out.

There can be no dispute that measures of collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are illegal under international humanitarian law. Fuel and food cannot be withheld or wielded as reward or punishment. But international law was tossed aside long ago. The blockade has been presented as punishment for the democratic election of Hamas, punishment for its subsequent takeover of Gaza, and punishment for militant attacks on Israeli civilians. The civilians of Gaza, from the maths teacher in a United Nations refugee camp to the premature baby in an incubator, properly punished for actions over which they have no control, will rise up and get rid of Hamas. Or so it goes.

And so what of these civilian agents of political change?

For all its complexities and tragedies, the over-arching effect of Israel’s blockade has been to reduce the entire population to survival mode. Individuals are reduced to the daily detail of survival, and its exhaustions.

Consider Gaza’s hospital staff. In hospitals, the blockade is as seemingly benign as doctors not having paper upon which to write diagnostic results or prescriptions, and as sinister as those seconds – between power cut and generator start – when a child on life support doesn’t have the oxygen of a mechanical ventilator. A nurse on a neo-natal ward rushes between patients, battling the random schedule of power cuts. A hospital worker tries to keep a few kidney dialysis machines from breaking down, by farming spare parts from those that already have. The surgeon operates without a bulb in the surgery lamp, across from the anaesthetist who can no longer prevent patient pain. The hospital administrator updates lists of essential drugs and medical supplies that have run out, which vaccines from medical fridges are now unusable because they can’t be kept cold, and which procedures must be cancelled altogether. The ambulance driver decides whether to respond to an emergency call, based on dwindling petrol in the tank.

By reducing the population to survival mode, the blockade robs people of the time and essence to do anything but negotiate the minutiae of what is and isn’t possible in their personal and professional lives. Whether any flour will be available to make bread, where it might be found, how much it now costs. Rich or poor, taxi drivers, human rights defenders, and teachers alike spend hours speculating about where a canister of cooking gas might be found. Exhaustion is gripping hold of all in Gaza. Survival leaves little if no room for political engagement – and beyond exhaustion, anger and frustration are all that is left.

guardian.co.uk

Source: http://en.qawim.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1021&Itemid=335