NewsHammer Exclusive

It's taken a while to get an overview of the global impact of the deadly H1N1 Swine Flu outbreak in Mexico back in April. It doesn't look good. The World Health Organization reports over 700 dead worldwide, a dramatic doubling of fatalities this month. 116 countries have laboratory confirmed cases of H1N1 as of July 6, 2009. The WHO's latest summary, July 16, 2009 (included in a change on its H1N1 reporting guidelines):

The 2009 influenza pandemic has spread internationally with unprecedented speed. In past pandemics, influenza viruses have needed more than six months to spread as widely as the new H1N1 virus has spread in less than six weeks.

The WHO also notes that the continued spread of the pandemic to all countries is inevitable.

The last time an influenza pandemic moved something near as fast, was the H1N1 Spanish Influenza of 1918 that killed 50 to 100 Million. As reported first in NewsHammer, there are other similarities between the Spanish Flu and the current pandemic, officially declared finally on June 11, 2009 by the WHO, too late to contain it.

Recently a trickle of patient data has become available as well as the first major study of this new or novel Influenza A (H1N1). Although they are different, the current H1N1 does behave in a similar manner to Spanish Influenza H1N1. If similarities hold then this first outbreak could mutate into a later more virulent second stage attack like Spanish Flu did.

The UW-Madison Study published in Nature July 13, 2009 confirms that people born before 1920 who were exposed to H1N1 then, carry protective antibodies to the current N1H1. Clearly both pandemic influenzas are similar in effect.

Even though there are common seasonal H1N1 influenzas circulating now, those who've become ill with them won't have any immunity to today's pandemic H1N1. The new H1N1 also replicates more efficiently than seasonal influenzas, and so people get sick faster. Some are overwhelmed by the virus's virulence, needing hospital care while some die because the new H1N1 penetrates deeper, spreading from the nose into the lungs, unlike seasonal head cold influenzas, and causing lung damage, leading in some cases to pneumonia, organ failures and death. It's also highly contagious, way more than seasonal flus. It takes the same route though, into the nose as you breathe in contaminated droplets of water from sneezes and coughs from people already infected. But it also can pass from a contaminated hand if you touch your nose, hence the frequent need for hand washing.

The Study also notes that "sustained person-to-person transmission might result in the emergence of more pathogenic variants, as observed with the 1918 pandemic virus". That point was also made in NewsHammer back in May, "H1N1 Mexican Swine Flu: A Two Stage Attack And The New Spanish Influenza?".

We have to be prepared for a killer pandemic that might mutate like the Spanish Influenza. And we're going that route with mass vaccinations on the way. A shot of a weakened H1N1 will produce protective antibodies that will neutralize the real H1N1 virus. We'll be protected in a similar way as those who recovered from the Spanish Influenza and are immune to today's threat. Mass vaccinations are our best hope to stop the current pandemic.

On the positive side, the vast majority of current infections are mild, requiring no hospitalization. Mild cases may now number a million or more in the U.S. As of last week U.S. fatalities numbered 263, up from 170 as of July 6th.

Since lab testing is costly and time consuming, and a general picture has emerged, the WHO has also changed its requirements for reporting H1N1, so now we won't be getting a country by country breakdown. Instead the WHO will concentrate on new cases of H1N1 in new countries and any atypical cases. It looks like we won't know the overall numbers or what the odds are in catching H1N1 or the odds of recovering from H1N1. Not that we'd ever know except if we had massive testing of all cases of influenza, certainly impracticable.

There's still the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control that's doing global monitoring. As of July 20, 2009 we have as many as 140,000 confirmed cases according to the ECDC.

The best and last global guideline we have from the WHO is 94,512 confirmed cases, 429 dead as of July 6, 2009. Or about a 0.45% chance of dying if you have been diagnosed with H1N1. Those hospitalized for H1N1 have a much higher 5% chance of dying. If the U.S. trend continues with infections estimated at a million now, 263 dead out of 40,617 confirmed cases, and ultimately hitting 30% to 50% of the population as one of the leading vaccine producers, Novartis AG expects, we might see a lot more deaths within a year if there's no vaccine available. In the U.S. based on the above statistics it could be as high as 22,092 to 36,820 dead.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the CDC made its own estimates last month but only released them today, July 24th to AP. Up to 40% of Americans could get H1N1 within 2 years. Deaths could range from 90,000 to several hundred thousand. Again if there's no effective vaccine. But how did the CDC arrive at such high numbers? During the Spanish Influenza doctors and nurses were dying, hospitals were always packed. Many of the sick couldn't get any help. Economies, infrastructure crashed.

If the current virus mutates dangerously it could be mean a worldwide collapse. More virulent or less virulent strains of H1N1 will change the odds. In the Northern Hemisphere we haven't entered the seasonal flu season yet but when we do researchers expect that we'll see a resortment of its genetic material when it combines with other flu viruses circulating. This is the mechanism by which H1N1 evolved in the first place. The odd thing is we have not only deadly H1N1 but a great number of cases of mild H1N1 flu spreading wildly as though we're in the winter flu season now.

That's why there is a rush to get a new vaccine out that prevents or mitigates the consequences of H1N1 infection. The U.S. has already ordered $289 Million of vaccine from Novartis back in May and has placed further orders totaling $979 Million, plus with other manufacturers to inoculate the entire U.S. population. Vaccine trials in the U.S. should start soon and if all goes well the U.S. will have 160 Million doses available in October. In the U.S. and elsewhere health professionals will be first in line for immunization.

The last influenza pandemic in 1968, an avian flu, killed about 700,000 people worldwide. The 1957 flu pandemic killed about 70,000 Americans. And we still have a serious threat developing of another bird flu pandemic, the recent H5N1, still spreading and killing people: 262 dead as of July 1, 2009.

Plans for a massive vaccination campaign in many countries show that governments are expecting a worst case scenario. Some are also stockpiling the two major flu antivirals, Tamiflu and Relenza, that are used in serious flus and have been beneficial in cases of H1N1. Though lately 5 cases of H1N1 have been shown to be resistant to Tamiflu, with more being reported, a new worry that suggests H1N1 can rapidly mutate, and might become generally resistant. The problem is that Tamiflu is widely used to treat any severe flu and some people have been taking it as a preventative. A man in Quebec took it that way, but at less than the recommended dosage and caught H1N1 from his son. Seems the virus became Tamiflu resistant in his own body. Some parents are sending their kids to camp with Tamiflu in their backpacks as insurance, but wide spread and unnecessary use as we've had with antibiotics is just going to speed up Tamiflu resistance in H1N1. There are very few antivirals as it is. If a vaccine that works isn't out in time, we will be in big trouble.

No results yet on any vaccines at a clinical trial stage. But 2 different H1N1 vaccines are being tested.

Novartis AG developed the first H1N1 vaccine back in June, in a new type of mammalian cell culture. Clinical trials started in July according to the Novartis AG website. This type of vaccine hasn't been tested widely, about 3500 people treated for other diseases. It promises to be much quicker to produce than chicken egg embryo incubation. Gearing up for extreme mass production of an effective vaccine might be a lot slower than anticipated. H1N1 isn't easily produced in chicken eggs, the standard medium, as it yields a third to a half of what other influenzas produce. Then too, researchers are saying that two shots of vaccine will probably be needed per person, spaced apart, for effective immunity.

Although Australia has been hit hard with H1N1, 14,703 confirmed cases and 41 deaths as of July 22, 2009, there's some good news. The first Australian clinical trials of an H1N1 vaccine are underway. Results will be available in another 6 weeks.

Trials started July 20, 2009, but one of the biotech companies involved, Vaxine, isn't promising any miracles.

Vaxine research director Nikolai Petrovsky told BBC News that there "is no guarantee any of these vaccines will work. Swine flu is a very peculiar beast, it's a very different virus that we're dealing with. But we are hopeful."

What is striking and disconcerting are the contrary comments from researchers and labs that an H1N1 vaccine is not difficult to make or produce, as there's plenty of experience gained from seasonal flu vaccines and that results should be in line with expectations, that like seasonal flu vaccines, an H1N1 will work. So much so that in Britain, according to The Independent, "high risks groups such as children are likely to receive the vaccine before the final clinical trial results are in."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration thinks it could be fast-tracked, as reported by AP, "because it's brewed exactly the same as regular winter flu vaccine, merely using the new swine influenza virus, part of the common H1N1 influenza family, as the chief ingredient. Companies just have to take the normal steps required for each year's regular winter flu vaccine, such as proving the inoculations are manufactured appropriately."

We'll find out who's right soon enough. Though if there isn't some certainty provided by solid clinical studies, vast quantities of vaccines might be made with little or no value, possibly including dangerous side effects. The WHO at least isn't perfectly sanguine about the mass vaccinations coming.

Since new technologies are involved in the production of some pandemic vaccines, which have not yet been extensively evaluated for their safety in certain population groups, it is very important to implement post-marketing surveillance of the highest possible quality. In addition, rapid sharing of the results of immunogenicity and post-marketing safety and effectiveness studies among the international community will be essential for allowing countries to make necessary adjustments to their vaccination policies.

Currently 850-900 Million doses of vaccine have been ordered by governments, on a one dose per person basis, says the WHO, or full coverage for wealthy countries. Most have options or are considering options for 2 doses per person, doubling the demand to 1.8 Billion doses. But orders are from higher income countries for their needs.

Can we make it that fast with few major vaccine companies, that much vaccine, when we haven't even got to the stage of finding a vaccine formula that we know works?

Russia and China and other middle income countries would produce an additional 10% for their needs, according to their capability, not even close to anticipated needs of their 3.114 billion people.

Low income countries of about 2.662 billion people without local vaccine production would have no vaccine.

Expect an international fight over swine flu vaccine.

A bad case of the flu is now an alarm bell for people everywhere as it might be the new H1N1. Who's at risk? According to the WHO, the short answer is everybody. WHO Guidelines: What can I do?

--Alan Gillis

Other References

Nature, "In vitro and in vivo characterization of new swine-origin H1N1 influenza viruses", July 13, 2009 U-W Madison

Nature News, "Swine flu shares some features with 1918 pandemic", July 13, 2009

U Wisconsin School of Medicine, "UW-Madison Study: H1N1 More Dangerous Than Suspected", July 13, 2009

NewsHammer, "H1N1 Mexican Swine Flu: A Two Stage Attack And The New Spanish Influenza?", May 22, 2009

NewsHammer Exclusive

Although the initial breakout of the new deadly swine flu was hit with a quick response to try to limit its spread from Mexico, it has escaped into the general population in the U.S. in milder forms. Many other countries are reporting cases and now there are thousands of confirmed infections.

H1N1 is spreading fast and is on the way to being a global pandemic, though the U.N.'s World Health Organization doesn't want to panic people prematurely with its highest level alert 6. For one thing the H5N1 bird flu outbreak of 2006 never materialized into the global threat that many anticipated with governments ordering tons of antivirals and protective masks while scientists were trying to rush through a new vaccine. It's still an ongoing threat with 11 avian flu H5N1 outbreaks last year.

Now researchers are saying the H5N1 though extremely deadly doesn't propagate well as the human nose is too cold for it to enter the respiratory system. Nevertheless H5N1 has spread widely in a milder form and might evolve still into a more infectious type by recombining with other influenza viruses, even with the new H1N1.

But the fear that H1N1 will become a plague is now thought to be unlikely as nearly all cases outside of Mexico have been mild, with few deaths reported. Perhaps the WHO is basing their strategy on this fact, that this strain will accommodate itself to the human population by becoming less virulent which is generally the case in epidemics that fizzle out. It has to do with a survival mechanism: the virus or bacteria to be successful needs to spread quickly by not killing its hosts, as if viruses and bacteria have this sort of intelligence to dilute themselves into less of a threat for their maximum survival.

But in many pandemics initial virulence has been sustained for years, wiping out populations wholesale like the old plagues of Europe, the Black Death and others. The most recent was the Spanish Influenza of 1918-1919, which also was a swine flu and alarmingly an H1N1 type like today's swine flu, but the Spanish Influenza killed millions worldwide, some estimates going as high as a 100 million deaths.

The Spanish Influenza did follow this model towards less virulence and disappeared into the morass of other milder influenzas. At that point its survival today can't be measured easily as you'd have to test a lot of people with common flu symptoms to see if it's in the general population. It is the ultimate source of the alarming new variant we've seen in Mexico and possibly not transmitted via pigs but from human to human perhaps exclusively.

The Spanish H1N1 has evolved into the Mexican H1N1, through admixtures of genes from other flus. Scientists and the media haven't broadcast the connection as the new H1N1 isn't the old Spanish H1N1. This could panic more people as some would assume they could expect another deadly pandemic like the Spanish Flu of 1917-1918. Though it is a possibility. The new H1N1 could be as devastating. In the last decade the Spanish H1N1 has been genetically sequenced from some poor samples taken from victims who died during the pandemic, partially preserved in their frozen bodies buried in the arctic. Some other samples were also discovered in the US Army medical collections in Washington, which also helped the sequencing projects. Scientists now have been able to compare them as the new virus has been under intense and rapid scrutiny since the Mexican outbreak.

To complicate matters the new H1NI is a mystery in itself, as no swine in Mexico have so far been reported as animal hosts of this influenza. So where did it come from? And how? Now the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta are saying that a mild precursor of the new H1N1 did infect some Americans as far back as September 2008. So it's not clear if the March outbreak in Mexico of its most deadly form is ultimately from Mexico. No pigs in Mexico involved so far.

Though somewhere along the line there has to be an animal host, scientists presume, and like the earlier Spanish Flu, it was pigs. No pigs in the US have been confirmed as the source of the American infections either though researchers are saying there is evidence of a precursor in American pigs though lacking the full compliment of genes. N1H1 is a swine flu but the swine can't be found. Yet the panic about swine as a source of infection has started, with the Egyptian government ordering the killing of all swine in Egypt, some 300,000 and other countries banning imports of pigs and pork.

Consumption of pork properly cooked has never been linked to influenza transmission to humans. This has prompted the WHO to rename the influenza as H1N1, rather than the misunderstood and media spread swine flu.

Recently the first pigs infected were found in Canada, with a swine herd in Alberta diagnosed with the current H1N1, though cases of humans infected there haven't come to light.

If all of this is a cause of major concern, the oddest thing of all is the cautious approach of the WHO and other government agencies that fight infectious diseases to the link to the Spanish Influenza. Probably to limit a panic. But is that wise? It's not only that the two viruses are similar, it's that there is no guarantee that the new H1N1 will melt away into a less virulent strain as many hope. The most unsettling thing is the Spanish Influenza according to an excellent history on the subject* by Gina Kolata, wasn't a sudden and spectacular disease that swept Europe at the end of WWI out of nowhere.

It had a precursor that was floating around Europe in a milder form though of the bad flu type that didn't raise any alarm as the war was going on. What appears to have happened is the Spanish Influenza used human hosts to develop its virulence before bursting forth and slaughtering more people than the war did. That's accepted science in disease outbreaks, that infectious diseases evolve from milder strains.

Is this what's happening now? Is this virus on a two stage attack plan? The milder and earlier cases of H1N1 in the U.S. would seem to confirm it. The later Mexico fatalities might be traceable to the U.S. outbreak. Tourists nowadays are the big vectors for new influenzas and other infectious diseases. American tourists with mild cases of H1N1 might have brought it into Mexico where it evolved into it's deadly form. Though this would be hard to prove even if this etiology is being studied anywhere by government agencies.

What if the milder forms are still recombining with other influenza viruses in these people infected, as some researchers expect, for a new outbreak like the Spanish Influenza? Are changes to the virus being monitored? To some extent, but it's extremely difficult to see if any of these current mild infections now affecting perhaps a hundred thousand people in the U.S. alone are mutating. Virus and virus subtypes are extremely difficult to detect with precision if you bother looking. Studying an evolution of H1N1 from mild to virulent must be an over-riding concern, but there's hardly time and the resources when you have the real McCoy to worry about. Oddly too, so far the virus shows remarkable consistency in samples studied. Viruses are extremely tiny and it's difficult even if you have a good sample of a suspected altered virus to find it under an electron microscope, unless you laboriously culture it first to concentrate it for study.

The major focus of research has been to sequence the new swine flu genome and in this way compare it to other strains. The idea is to understand how it formed and how it works, and then counter it with a vaccine. Today, a science paper on the new H1N1 was released, providing a complete picture of what is known. A team of 59 researchers collaborated on the project led by the CDC and the University of Cambridge.

What they found was bits of genetic material from various swine and other flus combined. The new strain of H1N1 goes back to the first isolate of swine flu discovered back in 1930, an H1N! that was a close relative of H1N1 Spanish Influenza of 1917-1918 which was also a swine flu. Ultimately the new strain derives from the original H1N1, but it has new features from other flu viruses. Here's the recap from Science, the highly respected publication of the AAAS:

The paper explains that this novel H1N1 has two genes from an avian virus that entered Eurasian swine in 1979, three from the old-fashioned H1N1 in North American swine, two genes from the triple reassortants in North American swine, and the final one from humans transmitted to us from birds in 1968.

Just how all this happened is rather a mystery. Did it form in humans or swine or in some other host? We still don't know. Also strangely, the researchers note:

Many of the molecular markers predicted to be associated with adaptation to a human host or to the generation of a pandemic virus, such as in 1918 H1N1 or highly pathogenic H5N1, have not been identified in the 2009 H1N1 viruses characterized here.

So the new H1N1 is not identical to Spanish Influenza H1N1, but its potential is similar enough through its rapid spread and its virulence, as we've seen worldwide, to be a major threat. It could mutate, now that it is widespread in the human population, into a more virulent form with a great many people infected worldwide and new infections still soaring. In the Spanish Influenza pandemic in just two years about one in five died out of an estimated 500 million who were infected. The rock bottom estimate was half that or 50 million dead, 250 million infected. It's important to know just how similar the original H1N1 is to today's H1N1, not only in structure but in mechanisms of infection and propagation. With all the research findings we now have, it's possible to find out.

Oddly again, the researchers who studied the 76 isolates of the new swine flu, from victims in Mexico and the U.S. have found that so far there is a remarkable consistency or just one major form of the virus. This is good news for producing a vaccine more simply and more quickly. But it raises another question. If there is such a consistency in the virus both in lethal and non lethal cases, why does it kill some and not others? Do some people have a partial immunity due to previous swine flu exposures or swine flu vaccines commonly used in the U.S. but not in Mexico?

In any case the advice on current swine flu vaccines is they are ineffective in providing immunity to the new virus.

The spread of the virus is so rapid, we might see new lethal outbreaks perhaps where we don't expect them. There's the wait and see approach in pandemics to gauge how they are evolving. We don't have a vaccine yet and mass quarantines and restrictions on travel would be extremely disruptive, maybe unnecessary, maybe spreading more panic. When other people get more seriously ill who have been in contact with mild cases, then the alarm bells will ring out everywhere.

A deadly outbreak as in Mexico might arise again but from contact with carriers of the milder type who didn't have obvious symptoms or had ordinary flu symptoms, but still due to the new virus. So the deadly H1N1 could surface in a population that hasn't been detected as harboring the less virulent virus as its hard to spot with so many ordinary influenzas around. In any case it takes only one virulent case to start a chain reaction. The deadly virus might jump out without any warning anywhere as it did in Mexico. We wait and see.

What happens next is anyone's guess. No doubt the correlations with Spanish Influenza are known to researchers and agencies, though the more recent discovery of an incubation period in the old Spanish Influenza in Europe isn't generally known.

One way of checking Spanish Influenza easily enough with Mexican is to see what age groups are infected and who dies. In the Spanish Influenza it was generally healthy adults aged 20-40 who died en mass. Are epidemiologists studying who's getting the Mexican variety? Obviously, but why not tell us publicly if there is or isn't a correlation? Why aren't reporters too asking the right questions? Problem always is few know enough about a topic to cover it really well.

It seems in order not to spread panic the WHO is not publicizing any connections to the Spanish Influenza plague, in the same way as they have downplayed the severity of the current pandemic. The WHO isn't sure where it will go. It went overboard justifiably in its dire warnings on H5N1 that never panned out. Embarrassing to be wrong, but they might have been right. Now the WHO seems to be more cautious in predicting risk. The new policy might backfire though as the Mexican government has just lifted restrictions that went into place to limit exposure to this swine flu, now with new deadly cases not spreading as quickly, the Mexico epidemic isn't as alarming.

A full scale alarm from the WHO might have stopped this quick return to business as usual in Mexico, with the tourist industry a leading pressure factor. If the WHO and Mexico are wrong, we're in trouble. Does politics and business play a role?

It looks that way. The WHO is no doubt planning for the worst and has assembled a consortium of pharmaceutical giants to tackle a new vaccine and mass production of it, just in case.

But there's been some fudging anyway by government agencies on the earlier bird flu H5N1 threat, with the claim that this was a new virus not previously seen. It wasn't. H5N1 surfaced in Hong Kong 3 years earlier in 2003 and it was extremely deadly. If you had it then chances were about 100% you'd die, but it wound up only killing a Hong Kong resident and 3 people in Vietnam. But even now it seems no one cites the work of Keiji Fukuda of the CDC who confirmed the first case of H5N1 avian influenza in Hong Kong in 1997, nine years before Bush's official announcement.**

George W Bush made the first public statement on the antecedents of H5N1 well into the big scare of a new influenza plague, which wasn't new. Doesn't make any sense either that Bush would make the announcement. I'd followed the story and couldn't figure out why the WHO or the CDC didn't tell us about the earlier cases of H5N1. Then Bush told us. Had it been made public before the big bird flu scare, it might have dampened enthusiasm for the medical mega reaction and stockpiling of drugs and masks. Politics of preparedness? Here was a threat that surfaced back in 1997 that never went anywhere, probably because 1.5 million chickens were slaughtered in Hong Kong to stop the epidemic, but a lot of money was spent on it after it the first U.N. alarm in late 2005, the virus proving as deadly but with remarkably few deaths ensuing considering the U.N. outcry of millions potentially dying. Kill rate of those infected is still alarming, from 17% to 100% depending where you get it. But why keep it quiet when on the other hand killing 1.5 million chickens is a big alarm in itself? Because nothing was done since the first outbreak from 1997 to 2005?

It's an odd fudge factor maybe with no correlation to the big spending that followed. Now what we have is another fudge factor at the WHO: Don't cry wolf again 2005, and again 1976-- remember President Ford marshaling America for swine flu then, if you're not sure. And cross your fingers.

--Alan Gillis

Sources

First Detailed Report of New Virus's Promiscuous Past, in AAAS Science

Latest H1N1 Swine Flu News, in AAAS Science

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, in Wikipedia

2009 swine flu outbreak, in Wikipedia

*Book: Flu; The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It, by Gina Kolata 1999, Touchstone

**Book: Secret Agents: the menace of emerging infections, by Madeline Drexler 2002, Penguin Books, p174 ff on Keiji Fukuda's discovery of H5N1 in 1997

The other day The New York Times ran a big story on the demise of newspapers across America. Most towns used to have at least two competing papers and now the trend is down to one or maybe none. The recent disappearance of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver is a painful reminder of how even an excellent daily through no apparent fault of its own can die. Easy to blame this on the recession, fewer advertisers, fewer copies sold, less money.

Though there are other factors that are endangering not only newspapers but journalism. If the Internet has had a powerful effect with many people dropping their newspaper habit for free online editions and newsreaders pumping out headlines on their desktops, one of the key problems has been in the industry itself, the massive expansion of newspaper syndicates buying up their competition and expanding ownership like a drugstore chain, then homogenizing their acquisitions to make them fit in with their chain mentality, from reformatting them to look alike, to cutting back on local and national reporting for cheaper wire service copy they paste in.

Even so the syndicates got away with it and went even further, sometimes buying up a town's two or more papers and then merging staffs and centralizing operations in one building, producing two or more lackluster versions of the same paper, with reduced costs and fewer reporters and support staff to pay, ergo more money to make.

The end of this newspaper acquisitions bubble has arrived. Because of the high costs of buying up otherwise successful and profitable papers some chains and their papers are faced with a debt load that is leading them into the red. The Tribune Company chain has already gone into bankrupcy as well as other major holding companies, leaving the future of many papers in doubt. A number of large papers are up for sale. All rather reminiscent of Detroit's long march in buying up all its smaller competitors and having cornered the market, why worry about what people want? We give them what we want. Though many bought-up papers were good and would have been financially sound on their own if they hadn't been acquired.

If Japan came to the rescue of the American car buyers with better and cheaper cars, still the Big Three weren't impressed.

But Japan is hardly going to drop a compact bombshell into the American newspaper market. We're on our own and it doesn't look good.

Even the biggest and most successful chains and papers are cutting back drastically, laying off more and more reporters and staff like the McClatchy chain recently, perhaps the best of the lot, run by newspapermen and women, not just by accountants. Other chains have cut staff even more brutally in an effort to stay alive. Other papers are simply going out of business, axed by chains as so much dead wood. Some Independents are folding too, no longer able to make it on their own with dwindling revenue and some even without a debt load.

Times are remarkably tough. Even big sucessful papers like The Los Angeles Times have cut back their newsroom staffs to half of what they were a few years ago. It's the slow death of what has been called the Fourth Estate, the major force protecting society, the First Estate being us, to counter the power of the other two Estates, now largely beaten by the Press, the Church and the Nobles, except now we have Big Money instead of the nobility practising Feudalism. Without any critical oversight, new Estates like big government and big business run roughshod over the public interest. Would Watergate have broken without some serious and powerful journalism? Would Bush Administration failures have been tackled without some heavy-hitters in the media? Though the fear factor was great enough to silence or muzzle many papers and TV News outlets. We'll probably hear a lot more when journalists screw up their courage to write some history books on the Age of Terror in America.

Some progressive Darwinian capitalists will say that other news organizations will rise to take up the slack as newspapers fail. There's TV journalism and more news on the Internet. Yeah but there are still fewer journalists working and the local 6 0'clock news usually is about as important as the big fire on Maple Street or the car crash in a feeder lane into town. What goes on in City Hall or at the big plant in town, unless some shooter goes in, isn't going to make any airtime.

Still we've got the big network news and CNN, but they don't cover what these disappearing papers do, your local news, nor do they go after the big news stories like newspaper journalists do. It's the soundbite, the talking heads, the usual bull delivered by PR people that happens so fast, TV journalists let it pass without comment or follow-up questions or follow-up stories. No time for all of that. No time to think and write. Ad lib it and move on to the next story. Though the Big Networks still have their in depth coverage here and there and some dedicated newsmagazines like CBS 60 Minutes that do excellent work. A drop in the bucket of airtime though. The promise of CNN as a dedicated news channel hasn't come through either. It's more towards American info-entertainment than hard hitting news or world news. You get bludgeoned with stories too, out of proportion to their value, like hours and hours daily for 2 years of OJ Simpson.

The Internet is nowhere near to picking up the slack either. When these newspapers fail, so do their online editions like the Rocky Mountain News. As The New York Times says no one has been able to figure out how to keep a digital edition going with the poor revenues it generates. People don't like to pay user fees as they already are burning money with Internet connections and paper and ink costs. The hassle factor of having to live on less and work harder for those still above water is another even bigger handicap. Internet News apart from a few success stories like The Huffington Post, follows the newspaper failures, fewer and fewer news sources and fewer journalists.

Bloggers generally haven't taken up the call either for serious journalism. Opinionizing the news is fine and we certainly need more insightful commentary, much more than an Editorial page covering one or two hot issues. In fact we hope journalists who are out of work will take up blogging, but you can't really expect many to do that when they need to pay bills and don't have an organization to back them up, whether it's support staff like newsroom colleagues they can count on for input and research and editing or friendly advice or coffee handy or most of all when you're blogging, a webmaster who handles all the glitches in software and an art department that pastes it all together and the sales people who find the money. Then how can you operate not having the credentials to call up Mr Big on some story or other and a legal department to back up your story when it gets threatened by Mr Big's lawyers?

Bloggers don't have the resources and then most don't have a feeling for journalism or the ethics involved. Being small scale pundits who cross thresholds of boredom and libel, they're generally immune and so keep on badgering or going on pointless rants thinking they're doing great. But ultra-tabloid reporting goes nowhere when you don't have facts to go on. Finally you can't believe the writing which usually isn't good anyway. A BA in English might be a good idea like journalists usually have or at least have something to contribute. Though if you scan the Net with a passion you can find a lot of good work buried under all the chatter, like 2 Blowhards.

As a blogger and journalist, I do think there are ways out of this mess. Thing is people don't like making changes until it's about too late, like Detroit.

The big chains should sell off some of their papers instead of cutting staff further. If it's not a sellers' market, well a lot of papers have dedicated staff who would if they could buy out their owners as a collective. Why is this kind of socialism still a dirty word in America, when Obama has already made it acceptable with government bailouts on Wall Street and in Detroit?

As for me I love a good newspaper, but I don't like wading through a mountain of newsprint to get to a story buried in ads and flyers. I don't like the smudgy ink and the acid smell which gets worse as they yellow. I don't like all the destruction of trees and waste of paper. Smaller dailies still in business could maybe publish fewer editions, say thrice weekly or less. Spend more time researching and writing local and national stories. Maybe analyzing the news would be the big seller, instead of rewrites of press releases or the same wire service copy published everywhere.

More investigative journalism, more aggressive action on important stories. Sounds like the economics wouldn't work, but they could if given the chance. Some people like me would pay more for a glossy paper that wasn't boring and a futile waste of a Saturday afternoon, usually the best newspaper day of the week.

But if some papers do change not only their style but substance, most look like failing because they or their owners won't change. The chance of purely online papers making a success of themselves is still dicey too. For this you've got to blame the major ad content providers like Google AdSense, that allows their ad clients massive free exposure on other peoples' websites, only charging them for click-throughs and only paying a percentage of that to the content providers, the bloggers, magazines and papers online.

Google puts up a $20 million prize for the first private company landing on the moon, but freezes out the people who make the Internet work. Are you listening Google? We love you but what about the people going out of business and the people who put you in business?

With the Cease-fire in Gaza broken twice in the last few days, the chances for peace without change in the status quo are about zero. It's the only thing that both sides in the conflict are willing to bet on.

An initiative from President Obama might break the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock. In his recent interview with Al Arabiya and his instructions to his new Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, we have the beginnings of a shift in American foreign policy.

"And so what I told him is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating. . ."

The problem is if this is another fact-finding mission, all the facts are already in, and not much can be gained by rehashing what is already well known to everybody involved, except more time to do nothing. The situation in Gaza is critical.

Once the formalities are over like Mitchell's tour (another link to Reuters Video below) through Arab capitals that started with Egypt, and Israel where he is now, are we going to get any new insights or action, when no one seems to know what to do? It's not only true in Washington, it's true throughout the Arab world and right inside what's left of Palestine. Even Israelis are divided. If they want peace, few are willing to make any concessions to Palestine. Some Israeli settlers in the West Bank would even fight their own government if they should be evicted as part of a peace deal with Palestine. In Gaza, the Arabs think all they have been doing is making concessions or being forced into more of them by Israeli influence and its war machine.



In Israel, Mitchell has been confirming the unchanging U.S. position of full support for Israel, though making it clear the U.S. still wants a Two-State solution for Israel and Palestine. Israel could have delivered this solution a long time ago unilaterally, in the same way it launched the recent war on Gaza and then its own cease-fire. Israel must know negotiations with Palestinians will always fail now, because after repeated humiliations, Palestinians can't face conceeding the loss of Palestinian territory for any other State, namely Israel which has been doing the humiliating. In the West we've learned to swallow our pride to avoid conflict, but any student of Arab culture knows that there's only one thing of more importance than saving face: Never submit to any humiliation whatever the cost.

The humiliations suffered by the Palestinians have peaked with the fierce and disproportionate retaliation on Gaza by Israel. There was a chance when Yassr Arafat was alive and a deal was close, but at the last minute, arguably one side or the other backed off, and then Arafat was bombed in Ramallah in a seige calculated to demoralize and humiliate. Falling sick, it wound up costing him his life and the chance for peace.

After his death, Hamas came to the fore, a Muslim brotherhood encouraged initially by the Israelis as a counterweight to Yassr's Fatah. But Obama's positive approach and outlook on Palestine, still looks like a good sign if he follows through. He has an ally within the Israeli Government for his old Two-State solution. The question is will he support the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert?

"I think it is possible for us to see a Palestinian state - I'm not going to put a time frame on it - that is contiguous, that allows freedom of movement for its people. . ."

Here's the CBS full coverage page of Obama and his message to the Arab world on Al Arabiya and a complete transcript of what he said. It's the old Two-State solution. While we're waiting on a time frame, perhaps some people in DC should do some homework.



In an interview on The Real News Network, Jan 6, 2009, Phyllis Bennis, a Senior Analyist with the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, considers (video and transcript) "Historical amnesia and Gaza":

"The key question is where we start, because when you decide to start the clock determines how you define the crisis. If you start the clock on the day that a rocket from Gaza, whether it was Hamas or someone else, hit something in Sderot, then everything Israel is doing is a reasonable response to that reality, to rockets.

If you take a step back, you could begin with one week before the military strikes began, when the six-month-old ceasefire had begun to fray somewhat on both sides. And Israel responded by cutting off all entry and exit to the Gaza Strip—no food, no electrical fuel, no nothing. . .

You could go back six months and look at when the Israeli military, the Ministry of Defense, began planning for this attack, just as they were negotiating the ceasefire, according to the Israeli paper Haaretz. That was the beginning of the planning for this attack. It was not because the ceasefire didn't work. They were planning this attack even as the ceasefire was being implemented.

But ultimately you could go back and back, and you need to go back to 1967, when Israel occupied the Gaza Strip. . .Everything remained under Israeli control. So the occupation continued despite the fact that the settlers had been pulled out and soldiers were no longer permanently on the ground—they would enter, they would kill people, and they would leave.

It's that context and it's that time line that we need to start with. So the question of where do we start is exactly the most important question that is not being asked. . ."

Unfortunately, the 22 day war on Gaza is the bitter end of 60 years of conflict and neglect. It has been so devastating for Palestinians that it is in itself almost an insurmoutable obstacle to peace. In Palestine and in the UN the Israeli war has been seen not as a war against Hamas, but a war against civilians and Palestine itself, so overwhelming and brutal it flies in the face of the Geneva Convention.

The Phyllis Bennis interview continues in "Israel and international law" (transript and video) concluding with:



". . .Israel is the occupying power, and as the occupying power, it has very clear obligations under the Geneva Convention. One of the most clear, Article 33, is a prohibition on collective punishment, and it's absolute. . . you cannot punish any person in the occupied population, except for an act that he or she personally committed. . .Telling people in robocalls to their cell phones, "Your house is going to be bombed in five minutes," doesn't make it okay to then bomb a house. . .

And I would mention that Congressman Dennis Kucinich here in the United States has actually issued a call for the United Nations to investigate the violations of Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions.

Other international laws include the illegality of attacks on civilians. . .It is illegal to target civilian targets. And saying, for example, that the television station is pro-Hamas does not make it a military target; saying that the university is used for Hamas recruiters does not make it a military target. These assertions are simply false, and, unfortunately, in the mainstream Western press, certainly in the United States, they are not being sufficiently challenged.

There's another law, also within the Geneva Conventions and others, against disproportionate military attacks. That applies only when the idea of a military assault is legal. In this case, I think that's a very questionable one. But even if it's legal, you cannot use disproportionate military attacks. And in this case, the level of death and destruction should give very clear evidence that this is absolutely disproportionate."

"Allegations of (Israeli) War Crimes" go forward in this Jan 25 2009 ABC Video.



On the chances for peace, CBS News put together a segment for 60 Minutes, Jan 25, 2009, "Time Running Out For A Two-State Solution?" (Video and transcript)

Fifteen years of negotiations later, even those in Palestine and Israel who think it's the best compromise, don't think it will work now. History has passed them by. Correspondent Bob Simon reports:

"Palestinians had hoped to establish their state on the West Bank, an area the size of Delaware. But Israelis have split it up with scores of settlements, and hundreds of miles of new highways that only settlers can use. Palestinians have to drive - or ride - on the older roads.

When they want to travel from one town to another, they have to submit to humiliating delays at checkpoints and roadblocks. There are more than 600 of them on the West Bank. . .

Demographers predict that within ten years Arabs will outnumber Jews in Israel, the West Bank [280,000 Jewish settlers] and Gaza. Without a separate Palestinian state the Israelis would have three options, none of them good. They could try ethnic cleansing, drive the Palestinians out of the West Bank, or they could give the Palestinians the vote. That would be the democratic option but it would mean the end of the Jewish state. Or they could try apartheid. . .

Apartheid? Israel is building what it calls a security wall between the West Bank and Israel to stop suicide bombers. The Palestinians are furious because it appropriates eight percent of the West Bank. Not only that. It weaves its way through Palestinian farms, separating farmers from their land. They have to wait at gates for soldiers to let them in. Settlers get a lot more water than Palestinians, which is why settlements are green and Arab areas are not. . .

But one very important Israeli says she intends to move them out. She's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, a candidate to become prime minister in elections next month. She's also Israel’s chief negotiator with the Palestinians, and she told 60 Minutes peace is unthinkable with the settlers where they are.

"Can you really imagine evacuating the tens of thousands of settlers who say they will not leave?" Simon asked.

"It's not going to be easy. But this is the only solution. . .As simple as that. Israel is a state of law and order," Livni said.". . ."

Yet the construction of new Israeli settlements and houses authorized and illegal still continues. An Israeli rights group with access to a classified Israeli Defense Ministry database says Israeli authorities are "systematically violating international law and the property rights of Palestinian residents", reported yesterday by AP.

Perhaps Livni is our last chance at peace. But critics say that the Gaza incursion just before Israeli elections, was to boost the popularity of Israeli hardliners like the current Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert and another rival, Benjamin Netanyahu. It seems to have worked with Israeli public opinion soaring in support for Olmert's successful operation in Gaza.

Meanwhile the brutal roadside bombing of Israeli soldiers 3 days ago and another massive retaliation by the Israeli Defense Forces crushes the last lingering hopes both peoples have, as in this Jan 28 2009 BBC Video, "Israel launches attacks in Gaza".

Obama isn't likely to meddle in Israeli internal affairs, like publicly backing Livni and knocking Olmert. Of course this is what all the diplomats are for. Signals in the dark, back off or else. But if Obama doesn't resort to the weapons of diplomacy, the reign of terror in Israel and Palestine will go on, as it has in the long ongoing wars in Iraq and Afganistan, largely a result of total American Foreign Policy support of Israel. Like a gift of $3 billion a year in American weapons and military aid for Israel.

Watching the event with the sound way up, brought the day in Washington zinging into focus. A thousand miles away I wanted the feel of what was happening. A cold bright sky above a people assembling for a moment in history. Not on network TV with nothing happening yet, and Dead Air to be avoided at any cost, it was the usual pre-game chatter session of anchors, reporters and analysts, plus commercials.

Luckily there was an option, 4 CNN news feeds live from Washington you could watch as clear streaming video with no distractions. For about an hour before the Obamas went to church, just the murmurs of the crowd and the sound effects from the City.The vistas and the people and more people were astounding. What makes cities so drab is all the cars and nobody on the streets. Here in Washington the cars were banished, Washington locked down for security, but packed with a million or two million, some still on the march for a better view.

On any other day you wouldn't know why they had come or what they were going to do. It didn't have any flavor of something already visited. Peaceful, polite, well-ordered crowds funneling through the streets towards the Mall. Somehow a FedEx truck managed to get in and park with all the police cars. If it was anything, the City said it was a new day, boding well for a new era.

The People and the City, they were the stars of the bright broad avenues. It wouldn't have worked in another place. The grandeur of the City made it happen, designed in fact for that by a French architect, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, with Paris and Rome in mind, designed as a new imperial city for the new world. One man's vision, like that other gift from the French, the Statue of Liberty. Here in Washington, the people had come for another man's vision, the man they elected, the man they wanted to succeed, Barack H. Obama.

I wondered what he would do for them on this day. I felt since early morning he'd do well as he'd done many times cajoling crowds to get it right. People were expecting that and they were there to root for him. It could also be overwhelming for him and them. The first black president after years of troubles and ruin. It might be a tongue-tied tired event, perhaps with all the security, the 3 and 4 block long lines to get through security checks to get near Barack Obama. Yet it was clearly a day of hope with so many people gathered to witness the passing of one president and the confirmation of another, who brought them together with "Yes, we can."

The first surprise was Dick Cheney in a wheelchair who'd strained his back moving some boxes. I wasn't expecting omens, but on the lookout for them anyway. In our times even with all our rational thinking, omens if they're noted hit us as hard as our ancestors.

George W. Bush on his way out didn't pack an omen, not until it spread over his ashen face as he heard the new president slamin' and dunkin' the last eight years Bush was in office. Flying away in his helicopter, after too many explanations why it wasn't Marine One anymore, going to catch, not Air Force One again at Andrews AFB. But fitting that Bush was whisked away into the blue as though by the Gods never to trouble Washington again. A quiet escape. I don't remember people waving, as I'd heard later on TV. Only a long zoom lens quietly following the ascent and departure.

The first of the radioactive pastors, the conservative Rev Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church, failed to detonate or produce any political fallout with a nice Invocation. The second the ultra-liberal Rev Joseph Lowery, stole the warm-up with a backward thump on the promising present and a future within reach, asking God to:

". . . help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right."

I liked this character a lot, injecting all his warmth and humor into the formalities. Here was a old funky black guy telling us what we and the new president should still be doing. From those who marched so many years ago with Martin Luther King like he did, chanting and praying stuff like this to keep their spirits strong. Lowery easily extracted some southern-fried amens from the crowds around and I think it was about then I heard someone in the crowd yell, "Yes we can and yes we will." A happy moment, a good sign that Lowery had broken the formal ice of the occasion. We'd all be pleased with the day ahead.

Still I had been feeling bad since I'd heard of Senator Ted Kennedy having a seizure at the Statuary Hall Luncheon and the ancient Senator Byrd with his own health issues, but as it turned out both surviving a heady day and a heavy lunch. With cellphones everywhere word must have got out to about everyone flooding the Mall, waiting for Barack Obama. Perhaps it had an unspoken effect, a damper on any vanity showing its face. That turned the Cheney Dr. Strangelove joke around for me. The signs were more like the Grim Reaper haunting the Capitol and maybe Bush next, who during the last few months seemed to be a shadow of his former feisty self, even before his pained departure from the City, which brought back an image of President Richard Nixon getting on his last helicopter the hell out of Washington.

Time will tell as we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off.

But I wasn't prepared for the Oath of Office that both the Chief Justice John Roberts and Barack Obama managed to mangle when Barrack jumped the gun and started leading Roberts. Here was an omen. If we had been in Imperial Rome the Priests of Mercury, first in matters of luck and ill omens, with the backing of Capitoline Jove and the Arval and a dozen more keepers of the Temples would have barged in, and the whole ceremony would have been stopped and repeated, not just the oath, only after a new round of auguries to pick a favorable day. Doubly urgent for a Roman Emperor to get it right, as Pontifex Maximus or pope of the Roman State Religion.

Unthinkable today, but to be on the safe side of the law at least, another swearing in ceremony was done in private that night back at the White House with the Chief Justice in his robes again, no TV cameras, and somehow a Bible missing from the second swearing-in ceremony. If I were an omen-betting man, I'd say this was another one.

But while it was happening on camera at the West Front of the Capitol, the stumbling wasn't aggravated by hushing and shuddering or a plaintive cry say from three old ladies sharing one eye. I did hear cell phones ringing. It was that quiet. And the flub didn't seem to bother either Roberts or Obama who smiled through it.

President Obama, President in any case thanks to the 20th Amendment to the Constitution that might have been written for a moment like this. President Obama was President since noon with proceedings running late anyway, it had been settled by the Constitution 20 minutes before the Oath. Perhaps that's how President Obama felt. Without any nod to the moment of doubt, he launched into his Inaugural Address.

"I stand here today humbled by the task before us. . ."

The energies were high. No one was worried and I was swept along with the words that rang out with the sound way up. It wasn't Berlin or the Obama home team in Chicago. People were listening to catch the beat and the measured breath. It was fine like a fine day, stirring in places where a few buried burning emotions wafted up and away. If he'd wanted to, President Obama could have breathed fire through the Mall.

The commentators on the networks spent the following hour chewing that over, but it seemed to escape their commercial logic. President Obama had poured some water into their wine. It wasn't vintage anything, not really Kennedyesque nor even vintage Obama. He could have done a lot of other things with the speech. But at this time, for these people in this place it sounded right. It felt good. It was the President's pledge renewed for Change, the beat still coming down on the head of 8 long years of a Washington he didn't like or want and nobody there among a million and more demurring either. We had enough. Let's move on.

When it was just over I gave him a 90%. I thought that's about what everybody did, even though there were no great moments of thundering applause or shouts from the brothers, though I'd bet it was close to a 100% from all the choked-up veterans black and white from the days of marching for Civil Rights and from their children too who'd heard the stories and lived through the interminable years of growing up in a White America that had finally opened the doors of the White House to one of their own.

It was a moment of pride, and high emotion. The President hardly mentioned it, standing here in front of Washington, speaking of "a man whose father less than sixty years ago. . ." He didn't have to. It was a given, it was understood, the face of America had changed today.The President didn't have to say "Yes, we can." He wasn't campaigning. He'd won that campaign and then with his wide-ranging speech he was looking to do more. Win friends back abroad, reaffirm America's commitment to justice and people, to a helping hand for any hand that would unclench its fist. It worked. It was the right thing to say in the Land of Liberty, that had taken a powerful smack down by the Bush administration's War on Terror abroad and at home, and the other war against the middle class, the one that brought Wall Street down.

Through the glittering parade in the gathering dark behind schedule like the day, I wondered at his speech. That it was wise, I would have expected. But why with his gifts of oratory, did he tamp down the embers he flourished awhile so they couldn't ignite? But the immense crowds told me why. He had already won, America had won over 8 long years. And a million or two people who were ready to follow him, might just as easily have rushed forward and crushed each other, bringing a calamity on themselves and history. If the President had said "Go on out there and change America, you know what to do." If he'd raised them to a fever pitch, well the omens would have clicked in and nobody would have denied them their force. The cry for Social Revolution was right there on this page.



The Obama video, the full text of his speech and some excerpts:

. . . in the midst of a crisis
. . . a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable
. . . And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account
. . . and do our business in the light of day
. . . a nation can not prosper long when it favors only the prosperous
. . . As far as our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals
. . . the rule of law and the rights of man
. . . Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake
. . . know that America is a friend of of each nation
. . . we are ready to lead once more
. . . power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please
. . . for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken
. . . In the year of America's birth. . .The capitol was abandonned. The enemy was advancing. The snows were stained with blood. At the moment when our revolution was most in doubt. . . Let it be said . . . that we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

With a hard fight ahead. It would now start for all present and be won by all with hope and courage. He didn't have to say it. President Obama got the message from the medium around him before he'd said a word. The context of victory over tyranny in this place now and long ago, the City, the people, all spoke for him. He didn't have to say more.

For another view of what President Obama wisely left out, read Mike Littwin of the Rocky Mountain News.

--Alan Gillis

After 22 days of war on Gaza, Israel announced a unilateral cease-fire to take effect today at midnight GMT. The toll so far over 1300 Palestinians dead, over 5,000 wounded. Israeli casualties 10 soldiers in Gaza and 3 civilians killed by Hamas rockets. A few hours later Hamas announced its own 7 day cease-fire. The fighting has stopped more or less. It might hold, though France 24 reported 17 more rockets fired from Gaza today and retaliatory strikes from the Israelis killing a Palestinian.

A token force of Israeli soldiers and tanks have already pulled out of Gaza back to Israel. The Israelis are leaving behind most of their army to contain Hamas. A peace deal has to be worked out first between Hamas and Israel, before the Israelis will open borders and pull out entirely. Hamas wants it done before its 7 day cease-fire ends. Indirect negotiations are going on with Egypt as the broker. A rushed summit meeting of some world leaders is underway now in Egypt to come up with a plan for a sustainable truce. Though why an Israeli cease-fire?

Israel said that its objectives were met and exceeded, confident it can manage the situation. As the war proceeded fewer and fewer rockets were fired into Israel. With Hamas badly hurt and the Palestinians cowed by Israel's fierce campaign and much of Gaza in ruins, the Israelis have a victory of sorts. Though there are other factors in Israel's decision. The battle for Israel's high moral ground has been lost in the media coverage with world opinion turning sharply against Israel.

Recent hits on the UN Gaza headquarters and food warehouse where 700 people had taken refuge shocked the UN and Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary General. This on top of 4 attacks on schools, 3 of them UN schools, besides offices of The Associated Press and another media center in Gaza City. The terror in Gaza where demonstrably no place was safe from the Israeli Defence Forces alarmed everyone, perhaps even the Israeli government, under pressure itself at home from Israeli human rights organizations. Limiting access to press scrutiny Israel provoked charges of censorship. Foreign journalists couldn't even get in, a few treated to short IDF guided tours across the border and back as a gesture to freedom of the press.

Everyday life had become a nightmare of insecurity. Public places like mosques, even a cemetery, some hospitals, the Islamic University of Gaza, had been hit by Israeli
bombs, shells and missiles. Places where ordinary Gazans had sought sanctuary from the bombardment had been decimated and many killed and injured. According to hospital counts, about half the dead were civilians and that means women and children. Of the men killed and quickly buried, a count of Hamas dead, given the chaos, may never be known. More bodies are now being found in the rubble-strewn towns.

Again and again, no matter how strong the outcry, for the IDF anyplace was a potential Hamas hideout. Professor Akram Habeeb of the Islamic University of Gaza says on the second night of the bombing his own university was hit by F-16's. "I realized", he wrote in protest, "that its (Israel's) target bank had gone bankrupt. . . .Why would Israel bomb a university? Israel did not only target my university last night. It also bombed mosques, pharmacies and homes."

Once the invasion began, instead of going in and sweeping up Hamas resistance (why else have troops on the ground) it was still bomb and burn them out. It minimized Israeli casualties, but the effect was to maximize the destruction and unfortunately the killing of innocents. The situation was so horrendous that Medecins Sans Frontiers or Doctors Without Borders, called the Israeli intervention in Gaza a "massacre".

When the Israeli PM, Ehud Olmert said there was hostile fire coming from the UN and that's why Israeli solders fired on it for 2 hours setting the emergency food depot ablaze, John Ging, head of operations for the UN Relief and Works Agency said the claim was "total nonsense" and "typical misinformation". According to UN officials, the Israeli shells were (banned) white phosphorous.

In Israel 9 human rights groups have condemned the Israeli attacks on Gaza, accusing the military of war crimes: "wanton use of lethal force" and a series of "blatant violations of the laws of warfare". They also accused the IDF of preventing rescue teams from reaching the wounded and failing to care for them as required by international law. Pressure is mounting internationally for an Israeli War Crimes Probe.

Perhaps the spectre of a war crimes investigation and a humanitarian catastrophe raised by the UN worried the Israeli cabinet into a cease-fire. In an Israeli attack on a UN school in Beit Lahiya 2 days ago where 1600 had taken shelter, 2 boys were killed in the shelling. With the UN compound's food stores still smoldering, Ging condemned the attack."The question that has to be asked is for all those children and all those innocent people who have been killed in this conflict. Were they war crimes? Were they war crimes that resulted in the deaths of the innocents during this conflict? That question has to be answered," he said. Added to this a humanitarian crisis looming, the basic necessities of food and water in short supply, all bad press for the Israelis. Food shortages in part due to farmhouses attacked and burned, food trucking a dangerous job, the markets couldn't provide enough, "even for those who do have money," Ging said.

Last Monday the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a resolution accusing Israel of "grave" human rights violations against Palestinians and decided to set up a fact-finding mission to "investigate all violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by Israel."

The IDF's use of colossal force was also due not just to military strategy and the new looser rules of engagement where Israeli units can proceed on their own initiative to destroy a possible target. It's in the types of weapons used. Precision weapons like smart bombs and missiles of course but also with enormous destructive power. Israel denies using banned weapons including white phosphorus, but there's already plenty of evidence on the IDF's use of banned white phosphorus. Besides the phosphorus attack on the UN compound in Gaza, there have been other reports from civilians and doctors treating burns.

If chemical weapons have been banned, what's this if not chemical? Nerve Gas or phosphorus, both are lethal and both burn, the phosphorus burns worst of all. Phosphorus has only been approved as a smokescreen device. The UN has banned the use of phosphorus as a weapon. In clouds for smokescreens but in Gaza also delivered in wide air bursts, dozens of phosphorus tails coming down from one explosion as we have all seen in numerous videos and photos on the news. Banned battlefield weapons used in cities and unfortunately against civilians who can't run away. They get maimed or killed in one sudden explosion or fire.

The IDF knows from experience that Hamas was not massing its fighters in any one place for the convenience of an Israeli bomb. Gone to ground, or in small cells fighting a guerrilla war, taking potshots at the Israelis. How can battlefield weapons be used to stop Hamas? Simple, destroy enough of Gaza and you'll destroy Hamas.

Even worse a new experimental weapon, Dense Inert Metal Explosives or DIME, was apparently being used by the IDF. DIMEs are small but powerful bombs of metal powders that have a short range of 5-10 meters. The exploding metal powders tear bodies to pieces without any evidence of shrapnel. In survivors injuries are brutal as though flesh and limbs have been torn off. So new, DIME hasn't been banned yet. Was it being tested on Gazans like other new weapons have been tested in other wars? It's clear there is no high moral ground from which these horrific weapons are fired.

This was no surgical operation. The war was fought on TV and the Internet. With the war brought home worldwide it certainly dawned on many that this was a brutal war of subjugation of the Palestinians through terror and destruction of Gaza. I suppose like in other wars, this one could have melted away as civilians fled. But the Palestinians had no place to go. Did the Israelis hope that people would flee their towns and cities leaving Hamas behind in the wreckage? Except that Israel and Egypt sealed all the borders. The Israeli campaign didn't spare the countryside either. Everywhere a threat of war, no safety even in farmhouses targeted and destroyed.

Hopefully there will be peace now. Perhaps Israel thoughtfully pulled back from the brink before it had no reputation to loose.

There is one other major factor. In 2 days Barack Obama will be sworn in as President of the United States.

What's happening now? Here's an eyewitness account by Sameh Habeeb, a Palestinian journalist from his blow-by-blow blog GazaToday:

"Thousands of people appeared on the Gaza streets. Everybody is trying to explore what has happened to his relatives, houses and areas. I have documented a massive devastation throughout east, north and west of Gaza Strip.

The devastation storms everything needed for normal life. Houses, schools, hospitals, clinics, police stations, charities, universities and streets totally and partially destroyed.

More than 100 dead corps were found today by paramedics mostly civilians and a family of 8 members. Samouni family which was massacred before found 17 more dead bodies under the rubbles. Many families still seek rest of members and relatives who were lost during the war time."

The photos above are his taken today, Copyright (c) 2009 Sameh Habeeb

Video:

France 24: "Embedded with Gaza medics", a harrowing report from a journalist who tags along with an ambulance driver in Gaza City, http://www.france24.com/en/20090116-gaza-israel-assault-medics-violence-hospital-war-palestinian

Guardian: "Gaza: Lives in ruins", eyewitness accounts of Israeli atrocities including white phosphorous shelling,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jan/16/gaza-israelandthepalestinians

Guardian: "Phosphorus bombs in Gaza -- the evidence", a doctor describes phosphorus burns and a new type of very small shrapnel causing major internal damage, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jan/16/gaza-israel-khan-yunis-white-phosphorus

Reuters: "Gaza doctor in mobile phone plea", while a Gaza doctor is being interviewed on live Israeli TV, his house is hit by a shell, killing 5 of his family, http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=97211&videoChannel=1

Reuters: "UN school in Gaza hit by shells", the fourth school hit, the third and latest UN school shown here where 2 boys died, http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=97207&videoChannel=1

--Alan Gillis

The Israeli Defence Forces are pulverizing Gaza. From the air and sea and now the ground assault with heavy Israeli armour and soldiers carving up Gaza into manageable pieces. The big push is on for Gaza City center, the apparent Hamas stronghold. It's as though the Israelis have mounted a fierce campaign to crush some powerful modern Gaza army threatening Israel, and a hostile people that can't be persuaded to surrender unless they and their cities are smashed. But Gaza has no real army apart from Hamas fighters and police, and ordinary Gazans want peace. So do Israelis.

Day 18 of the IDF's surgical operation against Hamas has been so gigantic and horrific, that you can only call it War. The video and pictures of horror coming out of Gaza tell the real story, contradicting the reasonable sound bites from politicians, diplomats, and key personnel from the IDF. Even the statistics of 870 Gazans dead, maybe 3,000 wounded versus 13 Israelis dead, are misleading. With statistics it looks like the IDF is right. A better idea would be to get the IDF to tell us just how many rockets hit Gaza, how many bombs and shells, just what is the tonnage here? A one ton bomb can wipe out a neighborhood and how many neighborhoods have the Gazans lost? What's the IDF doing anyway, destroying neighborhoods? With few Hamas hard targets, what else are they going to do with all that firepower except destroy the life of Gaza, like gamblers who figure if you hit enough numbers on the roulette table, you're going to win.

To soften this dirty war, the media as usual impose their own family values on the graphic face of war and terror. Understandable, you don't want your real kids to see real blood and guts spilled, real children maimed and killed. Yet it's OK in a horror movie or a nasty video war game. A calm and reassuring media coverage, avoids stirring the outrage people would feel, that people might stop with big demonstrations outside the UN or at embassies and parliaments. There have been some strong protests in France with cars burning in Paris. Perhaps too, if the media published the terrifying reality, it would only blunt our revulsion to violence as movies and games have done. Though shocking images of violence in Gaza are available on the Internet from Gazans themselves. They live with violence. They want it broadcast. Getting the full story in Gaza is difficult. Since November foreign press reporters haven't been allowed into Gaza by the Israelis apart from those already there. A few are now embedded with Israeli Army units. Many more international reporters and photojournalists are still trying to get in. Israel's highest court has agreed they should be allowed in, but not the Israeli government which is ignoring the ruling.

In the West Bank, it's the quiet before the storm, with some orderly demonstrations for peace in Gaza and sporadic violence. Anti-Israel anti-American demonstrations have been suppressed by the Palestinian Authority, including a ban on the Hamas flag. Last week Palestinian riot police broke up a Gaza rally at Birziet University, beating students with clubs and hauling away protesters in vans. A clash between Hamas and Fatah supporters broke out in Ramallah. In East Jerusalem Israeli policemen put down a violent demonstration. It's hard to say how deep the rift is in the West bank between Fatah and Hamas, except there's anger on both sides. The inner breakdown in Palestine, the Hamas-Fatah split certainly hurts all Palestinians. But Hamas has a popular legitimacy even if it's banned in the West Bank, unlike its characterization by Israel and the U.S. as a terrorist organization hiding out in Gaza.

With a long enough preamble, 8 days of heavy bombing, the IDF massing for an invasion, why did governments and media fail to see the inevitable assault on Gaza? Halfway around the world, I saw it coming in "Rockets In Gaza". The Security Council at the UN was quickly alerted by a Libyan resolution for a cease-fire, but the Americans scuttled it. This is an astounding failure in American diplomacy, though it didn't get much media coverage. A strong UN resolution for a cease-fire with some sanctions if it failed, for either Hamas or Israel, might have worked or bought Gaza some time. Now with the invasion in full swing, instead of a bold UN Resolution, there's finally a watered-down one. The U.S. is still not onboard, though only abstaining this time. According to the media, both sides in the conflict shrugged it off. Unworkable say the Israelis. We weren't consulted says Hamas. Yet Hamas did consider the Resolution and Khalid Meshaal replied at length, oddly again not much reported.

Meanwhile people get maimed, people die. If the statistics carted out on casualties are right, 25% civilian, that means about 650 Hamas fighters dead. That's 19,350 to go or maybe a hundred thousand more bombs and rockets and shells, never mind automatic weapons fire that shatters windows and doors, blasting useless brick and stone with an overkill of a thousand rounds a house as in Rafah. Though Israel says it doesn't want to destroy Hamas, just their key people and their capacity to launch rockets against Israel. With the conflict simplified into Israelis versus terrorists, the Israeli position sounds reasonable. But the recent history of Gaza doesn't support it.

The Israelis had launched a campaign to cripple Gaza with a blockade 18 months ago still in effect, to punish Hamas for seizing power in Gaza, though Hamas had won the Palestinian election. Yet there was a cease-fire in effect which Israel claims was broken by Hamas rocket fire while Hamas accuses Israel of breaking the cease-fire first. The rockets from Hamas were the provocation for Israel's overwhelming retaliation.

If Israel broke the cease-fire as Norman Finkelstein says and Hamas retaliated, then Israel's War on Hamas is illegitimate, and Gaza the innocent victim.

If we can believe Israel and only Hamas rockets and Hamas must be stopped, why not stick to that? With all the fancy military surveillance and precision weapons, why not hit these Hamas rocket sites from the air? Why not employ surface to air missiles to shoot down incoming Hamas rockets, say with the Patriot Missile batteries the U.S. delivered to Israel way back during the First Gulf War? American weapons are being used against Gaza instead. Too difficult say the Israelis. Short range missiles aren't in the air long enough to get a fix on them. Hamas has no missile bases, just portable home-made rockets and some Grads or maybe some longer range Iranian Fajr-3s. So it's difficult. Well so what? The simpler expedient of demolishing Gaza is better? Better for Israel minimizing Israeli casualties. Well, Gazans won't think so. The Israelis are turning every Palestinian and their children against them. Israel's war machine is sowing the seeds for Perpetual War. There isn't really a precedent for this. Though it started like this:

A homeland secured by a pair of British and French civil servants instigated by Lord Rothschild in a piece of Palestine the Brits controlled, for a people who'd been absent 2,000 years since the days of the Roman Empire when Trajan booted them out for insurrections.

There's a lesson or two there somewhere, then and now for both sides. If the Jews had kept the peace and waited out a page of history, they could have avoided 2,000 years of tragedy. But it wasn't that simple. Religion played a bigger role than Roman occupation. Caligula duly deified by the Roman Senate, even appointing his horse a Senator, ordered a statue of himself placed in the Jewish Holy of Holies like in other temples throughout the Empire. Augustus started the custom in the provinces where there was no shortage of idol worshippers. It hadn't got as far as Israel. That was the limit until Caligula. Was it madness or a Roman Emperor with a wicked sense of humor? Both certainly, but in any case patience and diplomacy failed because of ignorance. Both sides failed to see the consequences.

Then not happy with the British Protectorate, the Israelis started another insurrection, a war of liberation against the British for a new state of Israel. Then the Six Day War that started the Occupation and scattered the Palestinians.

The closest thing to a precedent is the English colonizing Northern Ireland starting in the 1600s and we know how long that took and how much terror was sown and blood was shed before there was peace. Conflicting religions and cultures also played their part, Catholic Irish, Protestant English, privileged modern English interlopers, impoverished and humiliated Irish traditionalists. Do the Israelis want to follow this sort of model of a 300 year war?

Here's a professional Arab video, no blood and guts, but Palestinian children giving vent to their tragedy. If it's propaganda, it's haunting and it still hits home, showing angry children passionately hit hard by death and destruction throughout their short lives. How would any kid feel growing up without a childhood, knowing only the uncertain terror of the present and a future of war? One day when it's their turn they'll fight. Flat and unemotional but official talking heads in suits giving interviews on the Gaza problem on TV isn't propaganda of course.

What is it with governments anyway? Why don't they employ some historians, some thinkers, some doctors? Why is it that in our democracies the rule is only lawyers and businessmen get elected?

The handwriting is on the wall. The IDF will occupy Gaza. It's the only way they can meet Israel's stated objectives. Get ready for a long bitter history.

--Alan Gillis