Coca-Cola’s investment in Gaza

Source: middleeastmonitor.com

By: Yvonne Ridley

Coca-Cola is building a factory in Gaza, but before you applaud such an investment in an area where the economy is shattered and unemployment ranks among the highest in the world, let’s examine the deal more closely. Who will actually benefit from this? It’s a rhetorical question really, because the Palestinians living there will be the long-term losers while the neighbouring State of Israel will count the shekels rolling in.

The first of the materials to build the factory came via Israel with a convoy of 10 trucks carrying assembly line machines through the Yitzhak Rabin border terminal; from there the lorries were processed by the Israeli military into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom border crossing last week. This, in itself, is amazing, since only 130,000 tons of construction materials have been allowed into Gaza since the latest Israeli blitz; five million tons are needed to try to rebuild the factories bombed to destruction by Israel in its last two wars against the civilians of Gaza.

Thousands of families are still without homes in the depths of a Gaza winter and some of the dead are still buried under the tons of rubble where tower blocks stood before the Israeli military destroyed them. Despite international promises of humanitarian aid and a massive rebuilding programme nothing of any substance has happened because of the ongoing siege of the territory led by Israel and Egypt.

Shock and horror at killings, but not when victims are Palestinians

Source: middleeastmonitor.com

By: Yvonne Ridley

I wonder how many people have heard of Mohammed Siyam? While the Western media went into overdrive over the tragedy of the synagogue killings in Jerusalem, little Mohammed lay gasping, fighting for his life on an operating table in Turkey.

As two crazed men, armed with knives, unleashed a brutal, indiscriminate attack on the unsuspecting Jewish congregation, the 14-year-old was just one of many Palestinian children who had already had his limbs sheared off in a brutal, indiscriminate attack.

5 Videos The Israeli Military Wish You’d Stop Sharing On Facebook And Twitter

By: Yvonne Ridley

Source: http://yvonneridley.org

Whilst the Israeli military consistently denies that it does not deliberately targets civilians, the relentless killings of women, children and the sick continues.

1. GRAPHIC: Viewer Discretion advised. Video appears to show a man searching in rubble for family being shot dead

2. “What are Gazans supposed to do? Evacuate to where? SWIM FOR IT? Have you ****ing seen Gaza?”

3. “How does killing children on a beach protect Israel?”

4. “What people on earth would tolerate a 45 year old brutal occupation?”

5. “Is not clear … they [Israel] have no regard themselves to international humanitarian law .. that they place completely different and much lower value on Palestinian life compared to Israeli life?”

#gazaunderattack

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: A Moral Vision For The Future (Video)

 Reflections on the core values that bring us together to build the beloved community – a moral vision for the future. Hamza Yusuf is a president, cofounder, and senior faculty member of Zaytuna College. He is an advisor to Stanford University’s Program in Islamic Studies and the Center for Islamic Studies at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union. He also serves as a member of the board of advisors of George Russell’s One Nation, a national philanthropic initiative that promotes pluralism and inclusion in America. In addition, he serves as vice-president for the Global Center for Guidance and Renewal, which was founded and is currently presided over by Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, one of the top jurists and masters of Islamic sciences in the world. Recently, Hamza Yusuf was ranked as “the Western world’s most influential Islamic scholar” by The 500 Most Influential Muslims, edited by John Esposito and Ibrahim Kalin, (2009).