Israel demolishes Hamas compounds, over 200 dead - AP and SFGate

More at SF Gate.com: “Israeli warplanes retaliating for rocket fire from the Gaza Strip pounded dozens of security compounds across the Hamas-ruled territory in unprecedented waves of airstrikes Saturday, killing more than 200 people and wounding nearly 400 in the single bloodiest day of fighting in years.”

Pro-Israel Activist and Friend Dan Kilman Will Be Missed On Oakland's Grand Avenue And In The Bay Area

If you remember a year ago in November, I went out with my video camera and talked to two groups: SF Women in Black and SF Voice for Israel. If you shop at the Oakland Farmers Market, you remember a man carrying a large Israeli flag in front of the Grand Lake Theater. That man was Dan Kilman.

This is that video series:

Part One:








Part Two

Well, the person in the video with the beard is one I came to call a friend; this a key part of Oakland culture, died recently. He supposedly died from falling down an elevator shaft after trying to climb out of a car stuck between floors. According to the website for "SF Voice for Israel" and where Dan was an active member, Kilman was found dead on December 1st at the bottom of an elevator shaft in a building located at 55 New Montgomery Street in San
Francisco called the Sharon Building.  

But some think fowl-play in the form of a hate crime had been committed. Red County reports that Kilman had been assaulted by anti-Israel activists before.

Some have made an issue of the fact that Dan was Gay and that perhaps his orientation played a role in his death. I don't think so.  When I met Dan to do the video above, he didn't reveal that he was Gay at all, in fact he was with a woman and a small boy he seemed to tend to with great care, so I assumed he and she were married -- they certainly acted that way -- and I didn't think twice about it (but then I don't know what to look for in those matters anyway).  I later asked Dan about that and he said she was a friend.  The point is Dan didn't wear his sexual orientation on his sleave, that was reserved for his pro-Israel stance. 
  

The investigations under way center on the strong chance Dan's death was a hate crime, a case of antisemitism.  More on this later. 

There's a memorial planned for Dan at this adress:

Please join us Sun, Dec 14, 7:30 PM at
Beth Jacob Congregation
3778 Park Blvd
Oakland, CA 94610

email:  office@BethJacobOakland.org

There's also a Facebook page dedicated to Dan here:  Dan Kilman Memorial on Facebook

Doctor Faust in 2008

The issue is honesty, justice, and fairness in American politics.

Rumors abound questioning Senator Barack Obama's commitment to a free and democratic Israel. Gary Hart says, in this piece at Huffington Post, "I find it outrageous and the height of political cynicism for any other candidate or campaign, Democratic or Republican, to question Senator Obama's commitment to continuation of the U.S.-Israeli partnership and particularly to do so in a sinister, duplicitous, and scurrilous manner by spreading false rumors. When he campaigns against the politics of the past, and attracts hundreds of thousands of young people and independents as a result, that is the kind of politics he means."

Opponents are flinging everything they can at Obama, hoping to find something - anything - that will stick. Lately his wealthy opponents, both veterans of the DC scene for decades (at least if you accept Senator Clinton's math) have had the audacity to suggest he's an out-of-touch elitist. Read about "bittergate" if you've somehow missed it, but rest assured it's backfired. If you don't know the reference to "Faust" you might not get Hart's reference, but it's about hubris, and selling one's soul to the devil.

The issue is honesty, justice, and fairness in American politics. Gary Hart gets it. He knows that Obama gets the bitter voters, and the situation in the middle east.

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