Palestinian Firefighters. Look different.

Hatem Omar. Associated Press.

With the wonderful video of Barcelona Firefighters from Friday,
I was planning to post a little about their role in rescue operations
during the air raids on Barcelona in the Civil War.

The present gets in the way.

"Firefighters at the site of a bombing of a Hamas security
compound" said the caption on the New York Times' report.

Where are the helmets, the masks, the protective uniforms?

A search for "Palestine Firefighters" on the net frustratingly,
ironically, gives you Palestine, Texas.

It seems the real Palestine hardly has a fire brigade at all, relying
on trained civil defence workers and a few Japanese donated
engines.

But then, under siege since long before yesterday's brutal,
unjustifiable attacks, Palestine hardly has anything at all.



Imagine life under these conditions:

...Having your free movement denied by enclosed population
centers, closed borders, regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints,
electric fences, and separation walls. Having your homes regularly
demolished and land systematically stolen to build settlements for
encroachers in violation of international law prohibiting an occupier
from settling its population on conquered land.

Having your right to essential services denied - to emergency health
care, education, employment, and enough food and clean water.
Being forced into extreme poverty, having your crops destroyed,
and being victimized by punitive taxes. Having no right for redress
in the occupier's courts under laws only protecting the occupier.

Being regularly targeted by incursions and attacks on the ground
and from the air. Being willfully harassed, ethnically cleansed,
arrested, incarcerated, tortured, and slaughtered on any pretext,
including for your right of self-defense. Having no rights on your
own land in your own country for over six decades and counting.
Vilified for being Muslims and called terrorists, Jihadists, crazed
Arabs, and fundamentalist extremists. Victimized by a slow-motion
genocide to destroy you.

So begins an article:

Israel's Slow-Motion Genocide in Occupied Palestine

by Stephen Lendman.

There are other voices, if you bother to search.

And others.

As some news articles report: Israel has launched an intense
diplomatic and media PR campaign to blame Hamas and
justify the killings.


Truth and lies.