VATICAN CITY, March 30: Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said on Sunday.
Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican’s newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics, said Muslims made up 19.2 per cent of the world’s population and Catholics 17.4 per cent.—Reuters
The letter tells how a palestinian thinks abt israel... why they hate israel... how is the war between israel n palestine unfair...
Source:BBC
Dear Anav
It is very kind of you to write from Sderot.
Mona has lost a grandfather and a brother in the conflict
Before I tell you about life in Gaza, I would like to tell you that I am originally from what is now the Israeli city of Ashkelon.
My family left with thousands of others after 1948 and my grandfather was one of many killed in fighting the Israelis.
My grandmother is still alive. She tells in detail how peaceful life was before the Israeli thugs attacked.
I grew up during the first Intifada [Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule 1987-1993].
I can't remember how many times the Israeli forces attacked my home, but I remember one time hiding under my bed, trembling with fear.
I have three younger brothers who are all at school. I used to have four - my brother Amer was shot dead by an Israeli soldier in 1992. He was 12 years old.
Scenes of blood and death are fixed in my mind. I have to say, Israel taught us how to hate it, no-one else.
Is life in Sderot a war-zone?! Then what words should I use to describe Gaza?
If you contrast the weaponry of Israel with Hamas - you see Hamas' resistance is symbolic, nothing more
Life in Gaza is like hell.
Israel killed more than 60 people in Gaza on Saturday 1 March alone. Many were civilians and children.
Are there any similarities between the power of the weapons that do this - and Hamas' home made Qassam rockets?
How many people have they killed since Hamas started launching them? How many houses have they destroyed?
If you contrast the two, I think you can see that Hamas' manner of resistance is symbolic, nothing more than that.
When Israel dismantled its illegal settlements and disengaged from the Gaza Strip in 2005, I was happy that I would finally be able to visit my friend who lives in the middle of the Strip whenever I wanted.
But Israel didn't leave us peace, it left us sonic booms. The occupation forces use this to shatter our nerves. The sound of the aircraft is so loud it can break windows.
How would you feel if someone else controlled your every movement? How would you feel if you didn't have the right to move inside your country; if you were prevented from travelling abroad for study; if the cost of food and fuel was determined by someone else closing your borders; if you spent most of your nights in darkness?
I had severe headaches last month because I spent several hours studying by faint candlelight.
Why are we punished with darkness? Why are patients prevented from having medicine?
It is our land and we have the right to dismiss anyone who shows aggression towards us.
Shelling has been going on while I have been writing this. I just heard my mother asking "What will happen tonight"?
I hope your night is quiet.
Warmest regards,
Mona.
By Jeremy Bowen
BBC Middle East editor
Hamas says Israel's offensive in Gaza was a massacre
CCTV of missile
Before the Israelis started scaling back their operation in Gaza, one of their officials told the BBC that after what he called the "current round" they wanted to leave no perception that Hamas had come out on top.
As soon as Israel said it was pulling its troops back, Hamas held a victory rally in Gaza.
The Hamas claim was not unexpected. The violence in the last week has been about sending political messages, as much as it has been about changing the military balance.
Hamas wants its people to know that nothing will stop it resisting Israel.
Israel would like to stop the rocket fire that has been hitting its border towns since it ended its permanent military presence in Gaza in 2005.
But almost constant raids - and several big offensives - have not been able to do the job.
That is why the Israeli government has so far resisted strong domestic pressure from its political opponents for a much more far-reaching - and bloody - offensive.
So instead it wants to show its people that attacks will not go unanswered - and to try to win an argument around the world that it is only reacting as any country under fire would do.
Rice in talks
It looks as if the United States now believes that Israel has made its point, and that it should stop before any more damage is done to the peace talks that it is sponsoring between Israel and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his team.
The Palestinian side suspended them over the weekend, in protest at what one senior negotiator told the BBC were massacres in Gaza.
Secretary Rice must know that the talks will not produce anything if there is a war in Gaza.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due in Jerusalem on Tuesday. She wants the talks to restart.
But the last few days have shown how vulnerable those talks are to events - especially when Hamas in Gaza, who are boycotted by Israel and the big western countries, have no interest in seeing them succeed.
Ms Rice, who is committed to trying to realise George Bush's "vision" of a comprehensive peace deal by the end of the year, must know that the talks will not produce anything if there is a war in Gaza.
The best way to understand the violence that is washing back and forth between Gaza and Israel is to go back to first principles.
It is the latest episode in a conflict that has lasted about a century. It started because two different peoples wanted one piece of land.
They are still working their way through the consequences of that single fact.
Absolute rights
When you take the long view you realise how hard it will be to stop the killing.
Never leaving an attack unanswered is a basic instinct in a state whose founders believed that they had abandoned centuries of Jewish weakness when they left Europe to build something new and strong in the land of Israel.
Israel believes it is in the front line of a conflict between the western world and Islamic militants, led by Iran.
In pictures: Mid-East violence
The Palestinians of Hamas, who run things inside the Gaza strip, say that their right to resist, to defend their people, is absolute.
They believe that their rivals in Fatah, the other main Palestinian faction, were ready to sell their birthright in negotiations with Israel that amounted to surrender. They say that they will not make the same mistake.
What is going on between the Palestinian rocket squads in Gaza and the Israeli army is a classic fight between the strong and the weak - which is known these days as asymmetric warfare.
The thing about it is that the weaker side can exert leverage far beyond the power of its weapons.
That accounts for some of the rage and frustration in Israel's defence establishment.
They are big, they are strong, and they have some of the most sophisticated weapons systems in the world. And they are struggling to stop rockets that are the lowest of low tech.
That is probably why Israeli deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai used the word holocaust last week to describe what would happen to the Palestinians if the rocket fire intensified.
His spin-doctor moved fast to say that the deputy minister, a retired major general, did not mean genocide.
Iranian rockets?
There are people inside Hamas who listen to Israel's threats and in the unfortunate phrase used by President Bush about Iraq, say "Bring it on".
The religious warriors of Hamas do not fear death, and believe they can do some damage.
What upped the stakes in the last week was the death of an Israeli in Sderot, the battered Israeli border town.
It was also the fact that Hamas showed it could rocket Ashkelon, a city of 120,000 people.
The Israelis say that the longer-range rockets came from Iran, which for them makes matters even worse.
Israel believes it is in the front line of a conflict between the western world and Islamic militants, led by Iran.
So if Ashkelon keeps getting hit, even though few Israelis believe it's a perfect solution, expect more military action once the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaves town.
Someone killed 7 israelis yesterday n everyone in the world is strongly condemning the act in firmest possible terms... all of them were sleeping when israel killed 60 palestinians (including more than 7 civilians) on march 1? why didnt anyone condemn the killing of infants and women by israel? coz the infants were palestinians?
after all this bias they show they expect peace in middle east... pity... r they human?
I agree with a hamas spokesman who said:
"This is a normal response to all the Israel occupation, commission and aggression, and they [have] committed massacres inside the Gaza and West Bank - about 128 [people were] killed, 30 of them children and infants, people and elderly and [women]. So I find this is a normal response to all Israel's occupational crimes, and waging a war against the Palestinians." (BBC)
Source: BBC"France condemns in the firmest possible terms the appalling attack which took place in a Talmudic school in West Jerusalem on Thursday evening, in which many civilians died.
"[Paris], in spite of this violence, which is also an attack on peace, calls for the continuation of negotiations with a view to the creation of a Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel.
"There is no alternative to the quest for a negotiated political solution to put an end to the conflict."
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Israeli forces killed more than 50 Palestinians in a land and air blitz in the Hamas-held Gaza Strip on Saturday, medics said, amid warnings that the violence had “buried” the peace process.
Full story at The Nation's website
and on Dawn
GAZA CITY: Palestinian medical workers rush a baby, injured in an Israeli attack, to a hospital – AFP.
Dawn says:
---------------------------------------------------------
Palestinian officials said the one-day death toll in Gaza was the highest since 2002.
Of the 46 Palestinians killed, 26 were civilians and the rest were militants, according to hospital staff and the Hamas movement, which seized Gaza last June after routing the more secular Fatah forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
“Uncle, I do not want to die, I want my dad,” a toddler screamed as doctors tried to treat burn wounds across her body in Gaza’s main Shifa hospital. The girl was injured in a house which the army said was used to store and make weapons.
---------------------------------------------------------
See the 'terrorists' Israeli brave soldiers r fighting with... see who is the real target... see wht is the goal of a so called 'innocent and in danger state'... 81 palestinians killed in 3, 4 days n how many israeli dogs??? is it a war???? yes, but one way... israel will keep barkin, biting n tearing innocent kids on the name of it own mf 'security'... Why dont ppl call this extremism whereas killing an israeli soldier is a crime n an act of terrorism... self proclaimed civilized nations like USA, take a break from civilizing muslims, have a look at ur closest allies... neutralize its extremist government, its extremist thoughts, why do u fight against muslim 'extremism' only? plz see below to see how stuborn the israeli pm is... he has no regrets on killing yng kids (as if palestinian innocent blood has no value) n he is doin all this shit to protect his citizens (whose blood is of course priceless)... i wish the crazy pm do let us know who is terrorizing his state... n justify tht he is not committin crimes by mass killing civilian muslims...
for god's sake, who will justify killing 81 civilians ????
 |  |
 |
 | |
 |
Blogged with Flock
