Jan Ullrich TextPortrait

Jan Ullrich TextPortrait

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Racing cyclist Jan Ullrich TextPortrait by Ralph Ueltzhoeffer

Posted on Bike Hugger

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Jan Ullrich - Portrait - Ralph Ueltzhoeffer - Jan Ullrich (born December 2, 1973 in Rostock, Germany) is a German professional road bicycle racer. In 1997, he was the first German to win the Tour de France. He went on to achieve five second place finishes, along with a fourth place (2004) and a third place finish (2005). Critics consider Ullrich as one of the most talented riders of all time: he can combine great power with a soft, athletic style, with his time trials as perfect examples. Despite, or perhaps because of this talent, critics consider Ullrich to be "lazy" as he is notorious for becoming out of shape during the off season. Ullrich has won a gold and a silver medal in the Olympics 2000 in Sydney, as well as the 1999 Vuelta a España. Although not known as a one-day race specialist, he won the HEW Cyclassics in front of an adoring home crowd in Hamburg in 1997, and has made podium finishes in other editions of the HEW Cyclassics, and the hilly classic Classica San Sebastian. His victorious ride in the 1997 Tour de France led to a bicycle sports boom in Germany. Biography Early training Ullrich won his first bicycle race (at school) at the age of nine. He was educated in the sports training system of the German Democratic Republic, and attended the SC Dynamo sports school in Berlin in 1986. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany, Ullrich and his trainer, Peter Sager, moved to Hamburg. In 1993, Ullrich surprisingly won the amateurs road world championship in Oslo. At the same time, Lance Armstrong won the professionals world championship. After this and other successes, Ullrich became a professional member of Team Telekom. From 1994 to 2005, he lived in Merdingen, Germany, with his long-term partner Gaby Weiss. The couple have a baby, Sarah, who lives with Gaby in Merdingen. Ullrich resides in Switzerland since they split up in 2005, allegedly due to Weiss's reluctance to be in the limelight, which conflicted with Ullrich's enjoyment of celebrity life. 1997 Tour de France In Ullrich's first one and a half years as a professional, he was inconspicuous. At his first start at the 1996 Tour de France, he reached a sensational second place behind his Danish teammate, Bjarne Riis. He won the final individual time trial and secured himself his first Tour stage win. Ullrich with teammate Udo Bölts crossing the Vosges mountains during the 1997 Tour de France. Despite being a teammate of the previous year's winner Bjarne Riis, Ullrich quickly became the favorite in the 1997 Tour de France. Riis was not strong enough to keep Ullrich down in the mountains or in the time-trials. After a dominant win in a mountain stage earning his first yellow jersey, the German press started following the Tour more closely. Despite Marco Pantani's devastating attacks in the Alpe d'Huez and Morzine stages, Ullrich was able to limit his time losses. For performance and ability to keep his nerves, the French sports newspaper L'Équipe, considered him to be one of the top bicycle racers with the words Voilà le Patron ("Here is the boss"). Ullrich won another stage in the Tour and became the first German to be the overall winner. He also became the only person in Tour history to win a time trial with a three minute gap between him and the number two. At the age of 23, Ullrich was also one of the youngest winners ever. He was chosen "sports person of the year" in Germany in 1997. The eternal second Ullrich was the defending champion of the 1998 Tour de France. He again obtained the yellow jersey, but he had an off day day in the rainy mountains, where he lost too much time on the later champion and natural born climber Pantani. The Tour of 1998 was haunted by doping affairs, giving it the nickname "Tour de Dopage".The following year, he missed the 1999 Tour de France — which was won for the first time by American Lance Armstrong — due to a knee injury. However, he returned in time to win the 1999 Vuelta a España, defeating the Spanish favourite Abraham Olano of Team ONCE. He also became the world time trial champion, which made up for his somewhat lost season. The 2000 Tour de France saw former champions Ullrich and Marco Pantani and defending champion Armstrong line up against each other for the first time. However, Armstrong proved too strong to upstage, as he did again in the 2001 Tour de France despite Ullrich wearing the jersey of the German National Champion, and the fact that he arrived at the Tour obviously in form, finishing in fourth place just three seconds behind third place Armstrong in the opening prologue. His ride in the 2001 Tour was memorable for his crash during which Armstrong waited for him to return to his bike. In interviews, Ullrich cited his failures to defeat Armstrong despite his preparations as his reasons for falling into depression in the next year. Despite his failure to ascend the top of the podium in the Tour de France, Ullrich delivered an outstanding performance in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. After establishing a 3-man breakaway with Telekom teammates Andreas Klöden and Alexandre Vinokourov, Ullrich won the gold medal with Kloden and Vinokourov rounding out the all-Telekom podium. He established himself as a world-class time triallist by winning the Silver medal in the individual time-trial event, losing by a small margin to Viatcheslav Ekimov and beating rival Armstrong to third place. In May of 2002, Ullrich temporarily had his driver's license revoked after a drunk driving incident. After a positive blood sample for amphetamine in June of 2002, Ullrich's contract with Team Telekom was ended, and he was banned for 6 months. He explained that the positive result was from ingesting the recreational drug ecstasy, which had been cut with amphetamine. He had not been racing since January due to a recurring knee injury, and the German Cycling Federation's disciplinary committee agreed that he was not attempting to use the drug for performance enhancement, so he was only given a minimum suspension. In January of 2003, Ullrich and his longtime advisor Rudy Pevenage joined the Team Coast outfit, but after severe financial problems, Coast pulled its sponsorship, and Team Bianchi was formed. He finally returned to racing in March of 2003, preparing for the Tour de France. The Tour de France of 2003 would become a memorable one. Nobody, including Ullrich himself, knew what to expect from him after such hectic years. For the first time in years he was not considered one of the top favorites; however, Armstrong still considered him very dangerous. In the first week, Ullrich got sick and almost retired from the race. In the Alps stages Ullrich lost one and a half minutes on Armstrong and his Tour seemed lost. In the 12th stage, Ullrich fought back hard in the time trial, as he became the only one to finish within an hour. Armstrong was overpowered and had trouble with the heat, and lost one and a half minutes to Ullrich. Ullrich now found himself within a minute of Armstrong in the classification. The next day, he closed the gap in the first mountain stage by another 19 seconds and the clash would become epic: Ullrich seemed stronger then ever as he was able to stay with Armstrong in the mountains. Two days later Ullrich was able to ride away from Armstrong on the Tourmalet, but he could not sustain his pace and Armstrong caught up. In the final climb of that stage Ullrich dictated the pace, and it seemed that Armstrong was not in the condition to attack. More than half way into the climb, Armstrong's handlebar got caught in a spectator's bag and he fell. Ullrich decided not to take advantage of the situation and waited. For some time, whether Jan Ullrich waited for Armstrong to remount was subject of intense debate, although Ullrich himself asserted that he did indeed wait and did not attack. In a recent interview Armstrong admitted that Ullrich did wait for him, and that Armstrong himself had been misled at the time by Tyler Hamilton's gesture and assertion that Ullrich had not waited. According to Armstrong, his fall gave him such an adrenaline boost that he could attack. Ullrich lost 40 seconds in the final kilometers, but all was not over: the 2nd, and final, time trial would be decisive. In that time trial, Ullrich suffered a dramatic crash and saw a potential stage and tour victory disappear. In the general classification, Ullrich ended 2nd with a gap of just 61 seconds in one of the greatest Tours de France in history. Ullrich's remarkable comeback was acknowledged by the Germans as they gave him the sportsman of the year award later that year. In terms of finishes, Jan Ullrich could be compared with Raymond Poulidor, who was called the "eternal second" (with the difference that Poulidor never won the Tour de France). Also like Poulidor, Ullrich has not donned the Maillot jaune since 1998. A better comparison would probably be to Joop Zoetemelk, who won the Tour once as well and finished in second place six times, only once more than Ullrich. For the 2004 season, Ullrich returned to Team Telekom (now named T-Mobile, after a popular division of Deutsch Telekom). Ullrich won the Tour de Suisse during his preparation for the Tour de France. In the 2004 Tour de France, he finished in fourth place, 8:50 behind Armstrong. It was Ullrich's first finish lower than second. T-Mobile teammate Andreas Klöden finished second, and Ivan Basso third. Ullrich said that he had been infected by a cold from his newborn baby, and was not able to ride to his full capacity. Ullrich in Hanover. For 2005, Ullrich again captained the talented T-Mobile squad. As was his normal routine to prepare for the Tour de France, Ullrich maintained a low profile for much of the 2005 early season campaign, surfacing to test his preparedness in the 2005 Tour de Suisse, in which he finished third after Aitor González (Team Euskaltel) and Michael Rogers (Team Quick Step-Innergetic). Ullrich is constantly criticized, and sometimes parodied, for his weight, especially for large gains in the winter, but he maintains that he always races it off in time for the Tour. Compared to his perennial rival, Lance Armstrong, Ullrich has been said to have perhaps a more advantageous physiology that would prevail were it not for the near-maniacal training regimen of Armstrong, but this is debatable. Armstrong himself admitted that it is Ullrich whom he considers to be his most dangerous rival, going as far as admitting that he would examine photos of Ullrich in the early season races to see how his form was developing. The day before the 2005 Tour de France, during a training ride, Ullrich crashed. He was closely following his accompanying team car when it stopped unexpectedly. He was unable to stop and plowed into the back windshield, narrowly avoiding cutting a major artery by several millimetres. He was not wearing a helmet at the time. During the 2005 Tour de France, Ullrich was passed by Lance Armstrong in the first stage time trial after starting a minute before him, causing speculation that he was once more doomed to be beaten by the American. Ullrich fell again in the mountains, bruising his ribs. During several other pivotal moments in the Tour, he could not keep up with Armstrong or Ivan Basso. Ullrich began focusing on finishing ahead of the surprise star of the mountains, Michael Rasmussen, for a podium position in the general classification. At the individual time trials nearing the end of the 2005 Tour de France Ullrich had a stellar time trial, demolishing the competition, save Lance Armstrong who came through to set an even quicker time near the end of the stage. Rasmussen had a terrible time trial, which consisted of several crashes and around five bike changes, which ultimately gave Ullrich a podium place in the Tour de France. Post-Armstrong Lance Armstrong retired after the Tour de France in 2005, and Ullrich's career is coming to its end as well. Jan has stated he will likely quit after 2007 season However, he seemed more motivated than ever to win at least one more Grand Tour (either the Tour,Giro or Vuelta ). Notorious for coming out of the winter with serious weight problems (see above) and in bad condition, he began his preparation for the 2006 season early, with his mentor Rudy Pevanage finally back in the T-mobile staff and watching his every move. Early reports indicated that Jan was indeed in much better shape than in previous years and would be ready for what could be his second victory in the Tour de France. Ullrich finished 115th in the Tour de Romandie on April 30. However, Jan injured his knee in the off season and this could have limited his performance in the 2006 Tour de France, had he participated (see below). In May, riding in the 2006 Giro d'Italia, not to win but to prepare himself for the Tour de France, Ullrich targeted the Stage 11 50km ITT, and won it by a decisive 28 seconds over Maglia Rosa Ivan Basso, who beat 3rd placed Marco Pinotti by another 33 seconds (which means Ullrich beat everyone except for Basso by over a minute). Only five riders were able to finish within two minutes of Ullrich's time. Ullrich dropped out of the Giro during Stage 19, with back pain. Team Director Rudy Pevenage stated that the problem was not bad but merely as a precaution to avoid possible Tour de France problems. He won the Tour of Switzerland for a second time in preparation for the Tour de France, winning the final time trial in decisive and dramatic fashion jumping from third to first in the GC. Operación Puerto doping case In the weeks prior to the Tour de France 2006, Ullrich's name was mentioned in a large Spanish doping scandal, nicknamed Operación Puerto doping case. Ullrich himself has always denied the rumors. However on Friday, 30 June 2006, one day before the start, he was suspended from participating in the Tour de France. Jan Ullrich's biggest rival (according to many experts) Team CSC's Ivan Basso, who finished 2nd in 2005, and several other riders were also excluded. The decision to exclude Ullrich could be based on several text messages from his mentor, Rudy Pevenage, with Doctor Fuentes. Ullrich himself stated that he has nothing to do with Fuentes and he will try to prove this. If found guilty by the UCI, Ullrich faces an almost certain career-ending suspension. As of 20 July 2006, Jan Ullrich has been fired from T-Mobile in relation to the aforementioned accusations. T-Mobile general manager Olaf Ludwig announced the news during the 18th stage of the Tour de France between Morzine and Macon, though the sacking had been made in writing on Thursday. The German rider published a statement on his website saying that his dismissal was 'unacceptable.'"I am very disappointed that this decision was not communicated to me personally but that it was faxed to my lawyers," Ullrich added. "I find it shameful that, after so many years of good cooperation and after all I have done for the team, I am being treated as a fax number." There are rumours linking Ullrich with rivals Discovery Channel, team of retired Lance Armstrong. Discovery Channel opted for Levi Leipheimer, instead, as the future of Ullrich remains uncertain, as he also was excluded from the 2006 Vuelta. Ullrich is trying to defend his reputation in court,where he won a case against Dr. Werner Franke. Franke accused Ullrich of buying doping up to 35.000 Euros each year, after reviewing the files of the Puerto affaire. The court stated that Franke has to keep his comments out of the media as his statements lack solid grounds. Franke however also went to court against Ullrich, claiming that Ullrich lied while being under oath when asked if he had used doping. At this point, the Swiss cycling federation (Ullrich lives in Switzerland and rides with a Swiss license) are investigating all the documents and will come to a verdict soon. Meanwhile, the justice department raided his house for several hours, collecting DNA material. Ullrich was on a honeymoon during the event with his new wife Sara, and was so shocked with the news that he aborted it. Signature bike frame line In May 2006 Ullrich launched a signature bike frame line, the "Jan Ullrich Collection"[9], which he helped to develop. There are three models catering for all types of cyclist, from enthusiast to pro. They take their names after significant times in Jan's career. The 'Campione', the 'Olymp' after his Gold and Silver Olympic medals, and finally, the 'Grand Tour' after his Tour de France victory in 1997. They range in price from 1395 to 2995 Euros and are available only as frames (not as complete bikes)

Jan Ullrich

STOP the MADNESS.

Image by eyewashdesign: A. Golden
Graphic Design: A. Golden, eyewash design - c. 2009.
Illustration: Carlos Latuff, c. 2002 - latuff2.deviantart.com/

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US Aid: The Lifeblood of Occupation
By: Matt Bowles, www.wrmea.com/html/usaidtoisrael0001.htm

Israel has maintained an illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Palestinian territories) for 35 years, entrenching an apartheid regime that looks remarkably like the former South African regime.

Palestinians into small, noncontiguous bantustans, imposing closures and curfews to control where they go and when, while maintaining control over the natural resources, exploiting Palestinian labor, and prohibiting indigenous economic development.

The Israeli military (IDF)—the third or forth most powerful army in the world—routinely uses tanks, Apache helicopter gunships, and F-16 fighter jets (all subsidized by the U.S.) against a population that has no military and none of the protective institutions of a modern state.

All of this, Israel tells its citizens and the international community, is for "Israeli security." The reality, not surprisingly, is that these policies have resulted in a drastic increase in attacks on Israel. These attacks are then used as a pretext for further Israeli incursions into Palestinian areas and more violations of Palestinian human rights which makes Israeli civilians more secure; all of which further entrenches Israelÿs colonial apartheid regime. Most Americans do not realize the extent to which this is all funded by U.S. aid, nor do they understand the specific economic relationship the U.S. has with Israel and how that differs from other countries.
The aid pipeline

There are at least three ways in which aid to Israel is different from that of any other country. First, since 1982, U.S. aid to Israel has been transferred in one lump sum at the beginning of each fiscal year, which immediately begins to collect interest in U.S. banks. Aid that goes to other countries is disbursed throughout the year in quarterly installments.

Second, Israel is not required to account for specific purchases. Most countries receive aid for very specific purposes and must account for how it is spent. Israel is allowed to place US aid into its general fund, effectively eliminating any distinctions between types of aid. Therefore, U.S. tax-payers are helping to fund an illegal occupation, the expansion of colonial-settlement projects, and gross human rights violations against the Palestinian civilian population.

A third difference is the sheer amount of aid the U.S. gives to Israel, unparalleled in the history of U.S. foreign policy. Israel usually receives roughly one third of the entire foreign aid budget, despite the fact that Israel comprises less than .001 of the world's population and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes. In other words, Israel, a country of approximately 6 million people, is currently receiving more U.S. aid than all of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean combined when you take out Egypt and Colombia.

This year, the U.S. Congress approved .76 billion in its annual aid package for Israel. The total amount of direct U.S. aid to Israel has been constant, at around billion (usually 60% military and 40% economic) per year for the last quarter century. A new plan was recently implemented to phase out all economic aid and provide corresponding increases in military aid by 2008. This year Israel is receiving .04 billion in military aid and 0 million in economic aid there is only military aid.

In addition to nearly billion in direct aid, Israel usually gets another billion or so in indirect aid: military support from the defense budget, forgiven loans, and special grants. While some of the indirect aid is difficult to measure precisely, it is safe to say that Israel's total aid (direct and indirect) amounts to at least five billion dollars annually.

On top of all of this aid, a team from Israel's finance ministry is slated to meet with U.S. government officials this month about an additional 0 million aid package which the Clinton administration promised Israel (and the Bush administration later froze) as compensation for the costs of its withdrawal from Lebanon. The U.S. also managed to find another million in the 2001 Pentagon budget to give Israel to purchase "counter terrorism equipment."

According to the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE), from 1949-2001 the U.S. has given Israel a total of ,966,300,000. The direct and indirect aid from this year should put the total U.S. aid to Israel since 1949 at over one hundred billion dollars. What is not widely known, however, is that most of this aid violates American laws. The Arms Export Control Act stipulates that US-supplied weapons be used only for "legitimate self-defense."

Moreover, the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act prohibits military assistance to any country "which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." The Proxmire amendment bans military assistance to any government that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to allow inspection of its nuclear facilities, which Israel refuses to do. To understand why the U.S. spends this much money funding the brutal repression of a colonized people, it is necessary to examine the benefits for weapons manufacturers and, particularly, the role that Israel plays in the expansion and maintenance of U.S. imperialism.

A very special relationship

In the fall of 1993, when many were supporting what they hoped would become a viable peace process, 78 senators wrote to former President Bill Clinton insisting that aid to Israel remain at current levels. Their reasons were the "massive procurement of sophisticated arms by Arab states." Yet the letter neglected to mention that 80 percent of those arms to Arab countries came from the U.S. itself.

Stephen Zunes has argued that the Aerospace Industry Association (AIA), which promotes these massive arms shipments, is even more influential in determining U.S. policy towards Israel than the notorious AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) lobby. AIA has given two times more money to campaigns than all of the pro-Israel groups combined. Zunes asserts that the general thrust of U.S. policy would be pretty much the same even if AIPAC didn't exist: "We didn't need a pro-Indonesia lobby to support Indonesia in its savage repression of East Timor all these years."

The "special relationship" between the U.S. and Israel must be understood within the overall American imperialist project and the quest for global hegemony, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s. For example, 99% of all U.S. aid to Israel came after 1967, despite the fact that Israel was relatively more vulnerable in earlier years (from 1948-1967). Not coincidentally, it was in 1967 that Israel won the Six Day War against several Arab countries, establishing itself as a regional superpower. Also, in the late 1960s and particularly in the early 1970s (this was around the time of the Nixon Doctrine), the U.S. was looking to establish "spheres of influence"-regional superpowers in each significant area of the world to help the U.S. police them.

The primary U.S. interest in the Middle East is, and has always been, to maintain control of the oil in the region, primarily because this is the source of energy that supplies the industrial economies of Europe and Japan. The U.S. goal has been to insure that there is no indigenous threat to their domination of these energy resources. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the U.S. made the strategic decision to ally itself with Israel and Iran, which were referred to as "our two eyes in the middle east" and the "guardians of the gulf." It was at this point that aid increased drastically, from million in 1967 (before the war), to 4 million in 1971, to a staggering .6 billion in 1974, where it has remained relatively consistent ever since.

Israel was to be a military stronghold, a client state, and a proxy army, protecting U.S. interests in the Middle East and throughout the world. Subsidized by the CIA, Israel served U.S. interests well beyond the immediate region, setting up dependable client regimes (usually military-based dictatorships) to control local societies. Noam Chomsky has documented this extensively: Israel was the main force that established the Mobutu dictatorship in Zaire, for example. They also supported Idi Amin in Uganda, early on, as well as Haile Selasse in Ethopia, and Emperor Bokassa in the Central African Republic.

Israel became especially useful when the U.S. came under popular human rights pressure in the 1970s to stop supporting death squads and dictatorships in Latin America. The U.S. began to use Israel as a surrogate to continue its support. Chomsky documents how Israel established close relations with the neo-Nazi and military regimes of Argentina and Chile. Israel also supported genocidal attacks on the indigenous population of Guatemala, and sent arms to El Salvador and Honduras to support the contras. This was all a secondary role, however.

The primary role for Israel was to be the Sparta of the Middle East. During the Cold War, the U.S. especially needed Israel as a proxy army because direct intervention in the region was too dangerous, as the Soviets were allied with neighboring states. Over the last thirty years, the U.S. has pursued a two-track approach to dominating the region and its resources: It has turned Israel into a military outpost (now probably the most militarized society in the world) that is economically dependent on the U.S. while propping up corrupt Arab dictatorships such as those in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. These regimes are afraid of their own people and, thus, are very insecure. Therefore, they are inclined to collaborate with the U.S. at any cost.

Prospects for activism

Since the end of the Cold War, the nuclear threat associated with direct intervention in the Middle East has disappeared and the U.S. has started a gradual and direct militarization of the region. This began with the Gulf War—putting U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia (the primary source of oil), among other places—and has continued through the current ‘war on terrorism.’

Although U.S. aid has not decreased yet, there have been other observable shifts. The first obvious one is the mainstream media reporting on the conflict. Although there is still, of course, an anti-Palestinian bias, the coverage has shifted significantly in comparison to ten years ago. This has been noticeable in both journalistic accounts of Israeli human rights abuses and the publication of pro-Palestinian op-eds in major papers such as the Washington Post and the Boston Globe.

There are also some stirrings in the U.S. Congress. Representative John Conyers (D-MI) requested that President Bush investigate whether Israel's use of American F-16s is violating the Arms Export Control Act. Further, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) recently complained about giving aid without conditions: "There are no strings on the money. There is no requirement that the bloodshed abate before the funding is released." Other elected representatives are slowly starting to open up to the issue as well, but there is a long way to go on Capital Hill.

The most important development, however, has been the rising tide of concern and activism around the Palestinian issue in the US left. The desperate plight of the Palestinians is gaining increasing prominence in the movement against Bush's "war on terrorism," and it is gradually entering into the movement against corporate globalization.

For years the Palestinian cause was marginalized by the left in America. Since this intifada broke out 17 months ago, that began to shift significantly and has moved even further since September 11. With the new "anti-war" movement, there has come a deeper understanding of U.S. policy in the Middle East and how the question of Palestine fits into progressive organizing.

In Durban, South Africa last September, at the UN Global Conference Against Racism, one of the most pressing issues on the global agenda was the Palestinian struggle against Israel's racist policies. 30,000 people from South Africa and around the world demonstrated against Zionism, branding it as a form of apartheid no different than the system that blacks suffered through in South Africa. Shortly after, the U.S. and Israel stormed out of the conference.

In Europe and America, a range of organizations have risen in opposition to Israeli apartheid and in support of Palestinian human rights and self-determination. Just over the last year or two, organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine, based at the University of California at Berkeley, have begun organizing a divestment campaign, modeled after the campaign that helped bring down South African apartheid. SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Tax-funded Aid to Israel Now!) chapters in a number of cities have focused their efforts on stopping U.S. aid to Israel, which is the lifeblood of Israeli occupation and continued abuses of Palestinian rights.

Many Jewish organizations have emerged as well, such as Not in My Name, which counters the popular media assertion that all Jewish people blindly support the policies of the state of Israel. Jews Against the Occupation is another organization, which has taken a stand not only against the occupation, but also in support of the right of Palestinian refugees to return. These movements, and particularly their newfound connection with the larger anti-war, anti-imperialist, and anti-corporate globalization movements, are where the possibilities lie to advance the Palestinian struggle.

The hope for Palestine is in the internationalization of the struggle. The building of a massive, international movement against Israeli apartheid seems to be the most effective and promising form of resistance at this time. The demands must be that Israel comply with international law and implement the relevant UN resolutions. Specifically, it must recognize that all Palestinian refugees have the right to return, immediately end the occupation, and give all citizens of Israel equal treatment under the law.

We must demand that all U.S. aid to Israel be stopped until Israel complies with these demands. Only when the Palestinians are afforded their rights under international law, and are respected as human beings, can a genuine process of conflict resolution and healing begin. For all the hype over peace camps and dialogue initiatives, until the structural inequalities are dealt with, there will be no justice for Palestinians and, thus, no peace for Israel.

Matt Bowles is a member of SUSTAIN—Stop US Tax Funded Aid to Israel Now.

(The above article was originally published in the March/April issue of Left Turn magazine.)

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Israel's fait accompli in Gaza
By: Eric S. Margolis, Al Jazeera
UPDATED ON: Monday, January 05, 2009, 12:43 Mecca time, 09:43 GMT
There are two completely different versions of what is currently happening in Gaza.

In the Israeli and North American press version, Hamas - 'Islamic terrorists' backed by Iran - have in an unprovoked attack fired deadly rockets on innocent Israel with the intent of destroying the Jewish state. North American politicians and the media say Israel "has the right to defend itself".

True enough. No Israeli government can tolerate rockets hitting its towns, even though the casualty totals have been less than the car crash fatalities registered during a single holiday weekend on Israel's roads.

The firing of the feeble, home-made al-Qassam rockets by Palestinians is both useless and counter-productive.

It damages their image as an oppressed people and gives right-wing Israeli extremists a perfect reason to launch more attacks on the Arabs and refuse to discuss peace.

Israel's supporters insist it has the absolute right to drop hundreds of tonnes of bombs on 'Hamas targets' inside the 360sq km Gaza Strip to 'take out the terrorists'.

Civilians suffer, says Israel, because the cowardly Hamas hide among them.

Actually, it is more like shooting fish in a barrel.

Omitting facts

As usual, this cartoon-like version of events omits a great deal of nuance and background. While firing rockets at civilians is a crime so, too, is the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which is an egregious violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. According to the UN, most of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian refugees subsist near the edge of hunger. Seventy per cent of Palestinian children in Gaza suffer from severe malnutrition and psychological trauma. Medical facilities are critically short of doctors, personnel, equipment, and drugs. Gaza has quite literally become a human garbage dump for all the Arabs that Israel does not want. Gaza is one of the world's most-densely populated places, a vast outdoor prison camp filled with desperate people. In the past, they threw stones at their Israeli occupiers; now they launch home-made rockets. Call it a prison riot, writ large.

Eyeing the elections

When the so-called truce between Tel Aviv and Hamas expired on December 19, Israeli politicians were in the throes of preparing for the February 10 national elections. Israeli politics are playing a key role in this crisis. Ehud Barak, the defence minister and leader of the Labour party, and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and leader of the Kadima party, are trying to prove themselves tougher than Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud party - and one another. Israel's elections are only six weeks away, and Likud was leading until the air raids on Gaza began. Kadima and Labour are now up in the polls. The heavy attacks on Gaza are also designed to intimidate Israel's Arab neighbours, and make up for Israel's humiliating 2006 defeat in Lebanon, which still haunts the country's politicians and generals.

A fait accompli

When the air raids on Gaza began, Barak said: "We have totally changed the rules of the game." He was right. By blitzing Hamas-run Gaza, Barak presented the incoming US administration with a fait accompli, and neatly checkmated the newest player in the Middle East Great Game - Barack Obama, the US president-elect - before he could even take a seat at the table.

The Israeli offensive into Gaza now looks likely to short-circuit any plans Obama might have had to press Israel into withdrawing to its pre-1967 borders and sharing Jerusalem.

This has pleased Israel's supporters in North America who have been cheering the war in Gaza and have been backing away from their earlier tentative support for a land-for-peace deal.

Israel's successes in having Western media portray the Gaza offensive as an 'anti-terrorist operation' will also diminish hopes of peace talks any time soon.

Obama inherits this mess in a few weeks. During the elections, Obama bowed to the Israel lobby, offering a new US carte blanche to Israel and even accepting Israel's permanent monopoly of all of Jerusalem.

As he concludes forming his cabinet, his Middle East team looks like it may be top-heavy with friends of Israel's Labour party.

Obama keeps saying he must remain silent on policy issues until George Bush, the outgoing US president, leaves office, but his staff appear happy to avoid having to make statements about Gaza that would antagonise Israel's American supporters.

Obama will take office facing a Middle East up in arms over Gaza and the entire Muslim world blaming the US for the carnage in Gaza.

Unless he moves swiftly to distance himself from the policies of the Bush administration, he will soon find himself facing the same problems and anger as the Bush White House.

Photo: jaffa48 -"Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Hebron"

Arab deal killed

Israel's Gaza offensive is also likely to torpedo the current Saudi-sponsored peace plan, which had been backed by all members of the Arab League.

The plan, now likely defunct, had called for Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders and share Jerusalem in exchange for full recognition and normalised relations with the Muslim world.

Arab governments will now be unable to sell the deal as they face a storm of criticism from their own people over their powerlessness to help the Palestinians of Gaza.

Egypt, in particular, is being widely accused of collaborating with Israel in further sealing off and isolating Gaza. It seems highly unlikely they will be able to advance a peace plan with Israel for now.

This is a bonus for right-wing Israelis, who have always been dead set against any withdrawal and strongly supported the attack on Gaza.

Other Israeli factions who were always lukewarm about the Saudi peace plan are now unlikely to reconsider it.

Israel's security establishment is committed to preventing the creation of a viable Palestinian state, and refuses to negotiate with Hamas. Unable to kill all of Hamas' men, Israel is slowly destroying Gaza's infrastructure around them, as it did to Yasser Arafat's PLO.

Israel's hardliners point to Gaza and claim that any Palestinian state on the West Bank would threaten their nation's security by firing rockets into Israel's heartland.
Mighty information machine

Israel is confident that its mighty information machine will allow it to weather the storm of worldwide outrage over its Biblical punishment of Gaza. Who remembers Israel's flattening of parts of the Palestinian city of Jenin, or the US destruction in Falluja, Iraq, or the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Beirut?

Though the torment of Gaza is seen across the horrified Muslim world as a modern version of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising by Jews against the Nazis during World War Two, Western governments still appear bent on taking no action.

Though Israel's use of American weapons against Gaza violates the US Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts, the docile US Congress will remain mute.

Israel's assault on Gaza was clearly timed for America's interregnum between administrations and the year-end holidays, a well-used Israeli tactic.

Hamas refuses to recognise Israel as long as Israel refuses to recognise Hamas and the rights of millions of homeless Palestinian refugees.

It calls for a non-religious state to be created in Palestine, meaning an end to Zionism. Ironically, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and late leader of Hamas, had spoken of a compromise with Tel Aviv shortly before he was assassinated by Israel in 2004.

An inherited mess

Israel's hopes that it can bomb Gazans into rejecting Hamas are as ill-conceived as its failed attempt in 2006 to blast Lebanon into rejecting Hezbollah.

The Fatah regime on the West Bank installed by the US and Israel after Yasser Arafat's suspicious death will be further discredited, leaving the militants of Hamas as the sole authentic voice of Palestinian nationalism.

Hamas, the militant but still democratically elected government of Gaza, is even less likely to compromise.

The Muslim world is in a rage. But so what? Stalin liked to say "the dogs bark, and the caravan moves on," and as long as the US gives Israel carte blanche, it can do just about anything it wants.

The tragedy of Palestine will thus continue to poison US relations with the Muslim world.

Those Americans who still do not understand why their nation was attacked on 9/11 need only look to Gaza, for which the US is now being blamed as much as Israel.

Unless Israel can make 5 to 7 million Palestinians disappear, it must find some way to co-exist with them. Israeli leaders on the centre and right continue to avoid facing this fact.
The brutal collective punishment inflicted on Gaza will likely strengthen Hamas and reverse any hopes of a Middle East peace in the coming years.

Eric S. Margolis is an author, syndicated foreign affairs columnist, broadcaster, and veteran war correspondent. His latest book is American Raj: America and the Muslim world.

Skeg for ferry Tokitae

Image by WSDOT
Piece of the skeg for newly-named first Olympic Class (144-car) ferry, Tokitae. The skeg is a fitting that protects the lower part of the propeller. It was cast in Tacoma and shipped to Seattle on Friday, Nov. 9. Note the size in comparison to the worker in the upper left corner of the photo.

8-365 year2 Its Cold

Image by johngarghan
Take a photo every day in 2010
Apparently the temperature dipped to minus 8 over night but this morning my car
was surprisingly free of frost on the windows, however, when I took the dogs for a walk and returned home from the park in the car I only went a half a mile before I had to scrape the windows. Fighting through the snow had really exercised the dogs and their heavy breathing (and mine) was creating the condensation that froze on the windows.


This time last year I thought it was cold; it was like heatwave in comparison
www.flickr.com/photos/johngarghan/3180085062/in/set-72157...

Walls come tumbling down

Image by phill.d
I guess this picture just shows how much of an endangeared species these old stable buildings really are. It looks like i got here just in time for this one!

Looking at the way they've taken the building down, and stacked the bricks, I'm hoping there going to renovate it, rather than demolish it. Building, and renovation work is going on all around. I'll have to take a look later on and see what the outcome was. I am a little miffed that i never got a good picture of it standing though. I tried several times when i passed to get a good shot. It was always either overcast, or cars were parked next to it :-(

At least i did get the shot below for comparison.

Part of the Crooked old buildings of Leeds set.

© phill.d
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