Israel killed John Kennedy- JFK??.
By Hesham Tillawi Ph.d.
more about “Israel killed John F. Kennedy“, posted with vodpod
JFK and RFK died trying to stop the Zionists from controling America
Dr. Hesham Tillawi
Dr. Hesham Tillawi has a Ph.D. in International Relations. He is a Palestinian American writer, Political Analyst and a TV and Radio Talk Show Host. His program Current issues with Hesham Tillawi can be viewed Live every Thursday evening at 6:30PM Central Standard Time on Cox Cable system Channel 15 in Louisiana, Nationwide on Bridges TV, and Worldwide on Amazonas Satellite, as well as Live on the Internet at http://www.currentissues.tv
He can be contacted at tillawi@currentissues.tv Interviews then archived for on demand viewing at www.currentissues.tv Radio show broadcast on RBN www.republicbroadcasting.org every Saturday at 4-6 PM Central Time
The Latest Palestinian Strategy – Clever or Stupid or Both?
By Alan Hart
November 15, 2009
There is a case for saying that those leaders of the discredited PNA (Palestine National Authority) who are proposing to unilaterally declare an independent state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip and seek to get UN Security Council backing for it are being clever.
What they would be doing in effect is asking the Security Council not only to re-affirm its commitment to Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967 but, far more important, to confront that resolution’s fatal flaw on the matter of land for peace.
Yes, 242 did emphasize “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”. But its call was for “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”. The original draft of the resolution contained the definitive article the, so it read “Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the territories occupied in the recent conflict”.
If 242 had stated that Israel’s withdrawal from “the territories” was required, the meaning, with no ambiguity and no wiggle room for Zionism, would have been that, in exchange for recognition and legitimacy, Israel was required to withdraw from all the territories it occupied in the 1967 war. But that was not on so far as Zionism was concerned. It wanted the freedom to be the one, and the only one, who would determine (on a take it or leave basis backed by brute force) the extent of any Israeli withdrawals. Resolution 242 in its final form gave Zionism that freedom.
Many of the diplomats who were engaged behind closed doors in the months of wrangling about the wording of the resolution were privately shocked and publicly embarrassed by the dropping of “the” in the final text. They saw it for what it was – a Johnson administration surrender to the Zionist state and its awesomely powerful lobby. Some came up with words to give the impression that 242 was not a disaster for all who were working for a just and lasting peace. “The full and true meaning of the resolution,” they said, “is in both its letter and spirit.” That was not a point Zionism was ever going to take because it is congenitally incapable of negotiating in good faith.
As events were to prove, 242 effectively gave Israel a power of veto over any peace process.
There’s a case for saying the prospects of overcoming that veto could be improved if the Security Council unanimously backed a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (as they were on 4 June 1967). On the ground nothing would be changed by such a declaration, but if the Security Council backed it, legal and moral pressure on Israel to end its 42-year-old occupation world surely intensify.
That, it seems, is the calculation of those Palestinian leaders who are proposing a unilateral declaration of independence as the only alternative to surrendering to Zionism’s will and accepting crumbs from its table. (The crumbs being two or three Bantustans which the Palestinians could call a state if they wished).
But what if the U.S., unwilling for a showdown with Zionism, blocked moves in the Security Council for a statement which, by recognizing the unilaterally declared Palestinian state, would effectively be a demand (242-plus) for Israel to end its occupation in return for a full peace with the whole Arab and wider Muslim world?
The short answer is that the Palestinian initiative would be in the same boat as President Obama’s current attempt to re-start the peace process – going nowhere. (That the U.S. would be more fully exposed as a client state of Israel on matters to do with ending the conflict is not the point).
So the clever initiative is at best a gamble. (The reason for taking it was put into words by Ghassan Khatib, head of the PNA’s media centre. “I honestly think there is no future for the peace camp in Palestine if this is not going to work.” He spoke those words to Donald Macintyre, the Independent’s correspondent in Jerusalem).
But this latest (proposed) Palestinian initiative could also be stupid.
It could tempt Netanyahu to go for broke and say to the Palestinians something like the following. “Okay. You’ve declared your state. We don’t accept its borders as defined by you, but we will recognize it inside borders defined by us (the two or three Bantustans). Now shut up. The game is over. The file is closed. And there’s nothing you or anybody else can do about it.”
And he, Netanyahu, would probably think but not say, “If you give us any trouble, we’ll have the lot of you removed to Jordan or wherever”.
Alan Hart
Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: The False Messiah (Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews). He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor
See also:
President Obama’s opportunity to speak truth to power: Part 1
Open Letter to President Obama: Change the Rules of the Game
The Israeli Occupation of America: How Israel Gained Control of American Foreign Policy and Public Opinion
By Hesham Tillawi, PhD
”Israel need not apologize for the assassination or destruction of those who seek to destroy it. The first order of business for any country is the protection of its people.”Washington Jewish Week, October 9, 1997
I came from a country occupied militarily by Israel to the land of “the free and the brave” only to find out it too was occupied politically by Israel.
The Palestinian people, holding on to whatever shred of hope they can, are counting on the day Americans see the error of their ways and change their opinion of the whole Middle East situation and understand it for what it truly is–A conquered, oppressed people living a hellish existence under a maniacal, occupying power and who will then contact their representatives in Congress and have them put the heat on Israel in fulfilling the agreements she made years ago with the PLO such as Oslo, Taba, Camp David, Wye River, the Road Map, or even Annapolis.
The sad fact however is that the Americans–as much as they champion themselves as a “free people”–are in no better shape than the Palestinians. On the contrary, the American position is worse than that of the Palestinians. The Palestinians can identify the enemy–he is the one with the gun and blowing away their loved ones. They KNOW they are occupied and oppressed. They KNOW how Israel occupied Palestine, killed its inhabitants and forced the majority of those who survived the carnage out of their homes and lands to then live as strangers in refugee camps.
The Americans however, have no idea. Like a drug addict who thinks he feels great after shooting up, he does not realize he is a slave, to his substance and to his pusher. The history of how the Zionists’ controlled England is not shrouded in mystery. Through Jewish control of the British government the Balfour Declaration was drafted that “gave” the land of Palestine to the Jews after WWI, a land they did not own or possess.
But how in the world did they occupy the United States politically? There is no real “Balfour Declaration” we can point to as proof.
Or can we?
Jewish influence in American politics–while there from the earliest days and certainly apparent during the Wilson, Roosevelt and Truman administrations–did not become the force it is today until the Kennedy era, or, rather, AFTER the Kennedy era.
As all know, in 1961 John Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States, a presidency cut short as a result of his assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Robert Kennedy, the president’s younger brother was Attorney General of the United States and therefore the head of the Department of Justice.
What is little-known is that the Kennedy’s realized early on that indeed the country was in trouble and that something needed to be done about it. The trouble in this case was the influence slithering its way into American political life from a far-away state only about 12 years old known as Israel. Both Kennedy brothers, learning politics at their father Joseph’s knee, understood the dynamic of this thing known as “Jewish interests”, how it would play out and what the repercussions would be for America.
Of the many issues revolving around Israel and the Zionist question the two more important as pertains the Jewish state were (A) Israel’s nuclear program, and (B) the issue of an organization known as the American Zionist Council.
Dimona facility (Archives) Photo: Reuters
According to Pulitzer Prize winning author Seymour Hersh, President Kennedy was profoundly committed to nuclear nonproliferation and was categorically opposed to nuclear weapons in the Middle East, which meant opposing Israel’s nuclear program. Hersh states that JFK exerted heavy pressure on Israel to stop the program and was serious about it. At the time Kennedy was in the middle of crises mode with the Russians in trying to arrange a nonproliferation treaty with them and therefore Israel’s nuclear program would be a big embarrassment. In addition to being an embarrassment it would open up the possibility of a nuclear conflict with Russia, given her allies in the Middle East, something made all the more believable in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis that almost resulted in a nuclear war between the two giants. John Kennedy had nightmares about the prospect of nuclear proliferation, saying “I am haunted by the feeling that by 1970, unless we are successful, there may be ten nuclear powers instead of four, and by 1975, 15 to 20…. I see the possibility in the 1970s of the president of the United States having to face a world in which 15 or 25 nations may have these weapons. I regard this as the possible greatest danger and hazard.”
Secret letters and secret meetings between Kennedy and Ben-Gurion give a clear picture of the difficulty Kennedy faced in negotiating with the Israeli Prime Minister who stated many times that nothing will save Israel but nuclear power. According to author Michael Collins Piper in his book Final Judgment Ben Gurion wrote Kennedy saying: “Mr. President, my people have the right to exist, and this existence is in danger.”
It does not take a skilled translater to figure out what Ben Gurion was saying, namely that Kennedy’s opposition to nuclear weapons in the Middle East was seen as an existential threat to the Jewish people and their newly-formed state. Going further, Kennedy insisted on inspections of Israel’s program as evidenced in a secret letter sent to then-Israeli Prime Minister Levy Eshkol that stated that American support of Israel “could be jeopardized” if the Americans were not allowed to inspect the Israeli nuclear facilities.
As if the aforementioned were not enough, there was another front in this private war between Kennedy and the “Jewish state” equally important in its scope if we are to understand what kinds of forces were at play here that led to America’s change of policy with regards to Israel. It involves the issue of spying, bribery and the direct controlling of American politicians by a foreign power and the one creature at the center of all of it was something known as the American Zionist Council and the Kennedys’ insistence it register as a foreign agent under the provisos of FARA, the Foreign Agent Registration Act passed by Congress back in 1938 to prevent German agents in the U.S. from buying their way into the American system of government and public opinion. The purpose of FARA was “to insure that American public and its law makers know the source of information- propaganda intended to sway public opinion, policy, and laws.”
In other words the Kennedy’s understood the danger of the Zionist Movement on the United States of America and treated it just like Germany was treated during the Hitler years. The Kennedy’s understood the reality of the situation as it existed during their days in government, that the AZC was an agent of a foreign government, Israel, which would prevent it from buying American politicians and exerting the kind of influence over public opinion making that for all intents and purposes is now is a fait accompli.
Negotiations went back and forth between the Department of Justice headed by the President’s brother Robert and the American Zionist Council. The council refused to register and the DOJ tried to exert pressure on them, even going so far in one instance as giving them 72 hours to register, but at no avail. Examining the newly-de-classified documents containing the minutes of those meetings between the DOJ and the AZC one can see the language of gangsters being used. In one of those documents dated May 2, 1963 the head legal counsel Simon H. Rifkind for the AZC explained to the representatives of the DOJ the nature of the AZC, saying “The council is composed of representatives of the various Zionist organizations in the United States” and thereby, in effect, it represented “the vast majority of organized Jewry within this country.” The message was clear here–As far as organizations go it is big and powerful. Judge Rifkind obviously wanted to make sure the Kennedy’s knew they were picking a fight with a gorilla and not some small mouse.
He did not stop there but went further by stating that the vast number of Jews who adhered to the principles of Zionism could not understand how “our administration” could “do such harm to the Zionist movement and impair the effectiveness of the council by insistence on registration.”
Here Judge Rifkind made sure he used the phrase “our administration” instead of “our government” to make a specific point, namely that he was talking about Kennedy personally, that it was the Jews responsible for him getting elected and that if he continued with his agenda he was in effect entering into a war with organized Jewry.
Another meeting very much worth noting was held on October 17, 1963 between DOJ and AZC. In this meeting Judge Rifkind insisted on non registering, citing that fact that “It was the opinion of most of the persons affiliated with the Council that such registration…would eventually destroy the Zionist movement” and adding that he did not believe his clients would “file any papers or sign any papers indicating that the organization was an agent of a foreign principal”. In other words, “Screw You America and your laws, we’ll do what we want” as well as threatening the administration and telling them who really ruled the country, not the Kennedy brothers but rather the persons “affiliated” with AZC. Once translated from Gangsterese into understandable political language, this statement was in effect a direct warning/threat to the Administration that the war was on. It is up for grabs whether or not the Kennedys understood this to be the real threat it was, but nevertheless the Administration decided to continue with its position.
On November 22, 1963 President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. As the AZC went away into the sunset, AIPAC came riding in, born and led by the same persons who created and managed AZC for the same purpose. This time however, the message went out clearly for all on Capitol Hill to hear and understand–“Do not stand in our way of influencing public opinion, policy, or laws.”
Obviously, the message has been effective, as all American leaders save a few such as James Traficant have done as instructed. According to the former Congressman, Israel receives $15 Billion worth of aid from the American Taxpayers without a single discussion or a single argument on the floor of either the house of Representatives or the Senate. Why? Because no one dares to question it. Why is it that most of our politicians make pilgrimage to Tel Aviv and the “wailing wall” in Jerusalem to get the blessing of Israel before they are even approved by their own political parties here in the United States? Why is it our Congress is always split down the middle on all other issues presented to them except when it deals with Israel? We all still remember the comment made by former Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon to his Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in October 2001: “Don’t worry about American pressure, we the Jewish people control America.” When people with eyes to see state that fact they are called anti-Semites, despite the fact that what is being said is the truth.
The “control” Sharon spoke about has been there for a long time now. Consider what the late Senator Fulbright (who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and who held hearings back in 1963 regarding the AZC and the fact it should be registered as a Foreign Agent registration) said when speaking on the CBS television program “Face the Nation” had to say–
“I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy not approved by the Jews…Terrific control the Jews have over the news media and the barrage the Jews have built up on Congress… the Jewish influence here is completely dominating the scene and making it almost impossible to get Congress to do anything they (the Jews) don’t approve of.”
These words were not spoken by a researcher or a reporter but by a brave American hero who actually lived through and experienced the Jewish influence over our political system and media.
This Israeli political occupation of the United States should not go on unchallenged, and American Jewry should understand that secrets cannot be hidden from the people forever. Nothing less than a revolution will correct this situation. The corrective action should be taken at the ballot boxes by electing people who are not afraid to challenge AIPAC and the likes and make America’s Foreign Policy truly American and not Israeli.
As a first step in this process, let us keep the words of our dear martyred President John F Kennedy in mind– “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”.
Source: paltelegraph.com
Dr. Hesham Tillawi
Dr. Hesham Tillawi has a Ph.D. in International Relations. He is a Palestinian American writer, Political Analyst and a TV and Radio Talk Show Host. His program Current issues with Hesham Tillawi can be viewed Live every Thursday evening at 6:30PM Central Standard Time on Cox Cable system Channel 15 in Louisiana, Nationwide on Bridges TV, and Worldwide on Amazonas Satellite, as well as Live on the Internet at http://www.currentissues.tv
He can be contacted at tillawi@currentissues.tv Interviews then archived for on demand viewing at www.currentissues.tv Radio show broadcast on RBN www.republicbroadcasting.org every Saturday at 4-6 PM Central Time
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Spotlight on Palestine: An interview with Stuart Littlewood
By Angie Tibbs
Stuart Littlewood
British writer and photographer Stuart Littlewood talks to Angie Tibbs about his experience of Israel’s occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, and comments on how British and American collusion, under the auspices of the Jewish lobby, is helping to sustain the world’s most lawless, brutal and unjust occupation regime.
“Lawlessness must have painful consequences for the lawless, not their victims.” - Stuart Littlewood
Stuart Littlewood is one of the most consistent and passionate writers on the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestine. His book, Radio Free Palestine, and his frequent articles, focus readers on the plight of the Palestinian people, on the occupiers who are responsible, and on the governments who support Israel’s slow-motion genocide and theft of an indigenous people’s homeland, culture and history. I spoke with him recently.
[Angie Tibbs] Has your active support for the Palestinian people always been a part of who you are or was there a defining moment which caused you to speak out?
[Stuart Littlewood] I’m new to this game. The Palestinians’ struggle for justice isn’t taught in school here and our politicians are afraid to discuss it, so the British people are kept in ignorance.
I knew next to nothing until I had to research the subject for a newspaper column. The more I delved into it the angrier I became. The sheer evil! A short time later, in 2005, somebody who had read my column invited me to visit the West Bank and shoot pictures for a book.
First impressions of Palestine under occupation
[Question] What towns and villages did you visit in occupied Palestine and what were your impressions?
[Answer] Much of the time was spent with Palestinian priests in their parishes. These are the Church’s front-line troops. They are abused and sometimes shot at by the Israelis, yet they remain focused and good-humoured.
The first trip took us to Jericho, Bethlehem and East Jerusalem, including the Old City, as well as smaller towns in the West Bank. We also visited Jenin, which was considered dangerous so we didn’t stay long. The town was a rubble-strewn mess after the onslaught and war crimes three years earlier (Israel denied accusations of massacre). The devastation was massive and brought back childhood memories of London after the Nazi blitz, which my family lived through.
All over the West Bank what struck me most was the resilience of ordinary people under brutal occupation and having to cope with endless restrictions. For them life was a cruel obstacle course, just like the Nazi occupation of Europe… There is no legal protection against the thuggish military. Every Palestinian we met urged us to tell their story when we got home because they felt sure the British people didn’t know the truth … otherwise how could we stand idly by?
These are kind, hospitable and sophisticated people who have done nothing to deserve the misery inflicted on them by the Israeli regime and its supporters in the West.
I was also shocked by the way the Israelis have systematically trashed the Holy Land and many of its antiquities. Once-beautiful landscapes, many with biblical connections, are now crowned with hideous hill-top settlements or military installations. Town and country planning principles are unheard-of. Israel’s vandalism, visible everywhere, has ruined a gentle Arab civilization and its heritage, and that’s something else they’ll never be forgiven for.
[Q] Your initial trip to the West Bank was shortly after the death of Yasser Arafat. Were people talking about him? Remembering him?
[A] No, but his image was everywhere … in village squares, on buildings, inside shops and offices. I noticed in the assembly hall of a Catholic school an enormous portrait of the Pope, and on the adjacent wall an equally large portrait of Arafat. As a symbol of resistance he’s as big as they come.
On the second trip, I visited Arafat’s mausoleum in Ramallah. The family I was staying with were delighted I wanted me to go there and they accompanied me. It was only half-built, so I asked the soldiers who stood guard: “Is he really buried here?” “Yes,” they said, visibly swelling with pride, “he’s under that slab.” For all his faults, it seems the old rascal is greatly missed.
The book project
[Q] Your visits to Palestine resulted in your book, Radio Free Palestine. Tell us about that. First of all, what is the significance of the title?
[A] We were going to call it “This Land is Our Land”, but that title is already used by others. Eventually we settled on “Radio Free Palestine” because that’s what Palestinians need: a broadcasting service that can be heard all over the world.
Proceeds from the sale of the book go to humanitarian projects in the West Bank, by the way.
The original idea was a poems-and-pictures book with me shooting the photos. But it soon became clear that to do the situation justice we needed to report in greater detail how the Israelis had effectively turned the occupied territories into a prison and were creating “facts on the ground” to make their occupation permanent. The least we could do was tell the truth and provide readers with enough information to challenge the propaganda lies.
So I made a second visit at Easter 2006, just after Hamas’s surprise election victory. The place was in turmoil, tension was running high and plans to meet Palestinian Authority officials in Ramallah had to be scrapped. Contacts also advised that it was much too risky to visit the Gaza Strip.
All the same, I gathered a lot of material, and it was a great privilege when Jeff Halper agreed to write the Foreword. I had visited his organization ICAHD (Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions) in Jerusalem and learned a great deal from his team. Jeff is a truly courageous man and a beacon of hope.
Christians and Muslims under Hamas “all Palestinians first”
[Q] You had to leave Gaza out of your book, but nevertheless you provided readers with an in-depth look at 2007 Gaza in your widely published article “See Gaza and weep“, in which you described how Gaza’s people were struggling to survive under the appalling conditions created by Israeli sanctions. What stands out most vividly in your mind today, some two years on, not only about Gaza itself, but about Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and his party, Hamas?
[A] On the third trip, a small group of us went into Gaza and met Mr Haniyeh, but, as you say, that was after the book came out. The Gaza Strip had been under sanctions and siege for about 18 months, so there was already a chronic shortage of food, fuel and essentials. The sick were dying from lack of medicines and hospital equipment spares. Power cuts were a daily fact of life – another Israeli weapon of collective punishment. Some 3,500 licensed fishermen couldn’t put to sea without being shelled by marauding Israeli gunboats.
Mr Haniyeh and his colleagues were courteous and attentive. He gave us a generous slice of his time, considering the problems he faced and the continual emergencies. I was pleased to see a strong sense of unity, with Muslims and Christians standing together against a common enemy. They are all “Palestinians first”.
I think it would be a mistake to underestimate Hamas. These are men who have pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. Most were raised in refugee camps, and have done time in Israeli jails or been exiled for putting up resistance. But they made sure they got themselves a good education at the Islamic University. Some went to universities in Britain and the US. They are as well-equipped as we are to govern, and they have been tested almost beyond human endurance.
When I got home the Health Ministry in Gaza sent me a list of hospital spares they desperately needed. I forwarded it to our own Health Ministry and to my MP. It was ignored, and the disgust I felt – and still feel – towards our political class is beyond words.
In the meantime I was receiving heart-breaking messages from Gazan doctors telling about the difficulties at work and at home, where their shivering children struggled to study by candle-light. What could I say to them? Here we are, two years later, and we are still letting those decent and desperate people down. How despicable is that? I cringe with shame.
[Q] What were your contacts telling you about the conditions in Gaza?
[A] One message in particular still haunts me. Father Manuel Mussallam, the elderly priest in Gaza, emailed to say:
If you wish to really understand what is taking place in the Gaza Strip, please open your Bible and read the Lamentations of Jeremiah. This is what we are living. People are crying, hungry, thirsty, desperate. They need food. Even if there is food for sale, people have no money to buy it. They have no income, no opportunities to bring food from outside and no opportunities to secure money inside Gaza. No work, no livelihood, no future… They have no hope and many very poor people are aimlessly wandering around trying to beg for something from others who also have nothing. It is heartbreaking to see.
He ended: “I beg you, we do not need pity, we need only justice. If you don’t give justice, there will be no peace. Peace is the farthest thing away from the mind of anyone, Christian or Muslim, in Gaza at this time.”
The Hamas “terror”
[Q] Israel has branded Hamas a “terrorist organization” and convinced a few of its friends to do likewise. Is this a valid designation, and what role, if any, has it played vis-à-vis lasting peace?
[A] I suppose it depends where you stand on the fascist spectrum. The Nazis called the French Resistance terrorists; we called them heroes. When a vicious occupier has his jackboot on your throat you have no choice but to fight with any weapon or any method that’s available. Pinning labels like “terrorist” and “militant” on people who are defending their homes and families is ridiculous. Always the little guy with the little gun is the terrorist, never the big guy with big guns, bunker-busting bombs and nukes. This warped mentality is the greatest obstacle to peace.
I call Palestinian fighters guerrillas or freedom fighters. The Palestinians would love to hit back with F-16 jets, tanks, helicopter gunships, armed drones and naval gunboats. That would be nice and conventional and acceptable, yes? But all they have are AK47s, RPGs and rockets made in the garden shed, and they ride into battle in a pick-up truck.
The US administration defines terrorism as “an activity that (i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and (ii) appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking”. And they use the definition to hurt people they don’t like. The laugh is that it fits the US itself, and its special friend Israel, like a glove.
The big guys are going to have to talk to Hamas eventually and when they do, they’ll discover that Hamas is not at all the way it is painted. Britain should lead the way since we caused this mess in the first place, 92 years ago.
The evil wall
[Q] What was your reaction to seeing the illegal wall and the hundreds of checkpoints that are scattered throughout occupied Palestine? What effect is this curtailment of free movement having on the area and its people?
[A] I love Banksy’s graffiti art on this monstrosity. The fact that the wall is still standing – and still being built – five years after the International Court of Justice ordered it to be pulled down tells us all we need to know about our contemptible Western leaders.
Most tourists are waved through crossings in the wall without leaving their bus seats. The last time I stayed in Bethlehem, I caught the ordinary service bus back from Jerusalem and walked with Palestinian workers (those who were lucky enough to have permits) through the sinister maze of steel and concrete barriers and holding pens. It was a thoroughly dehumanizing experience. They often have to queue for hours to get to work and queue again to get home – all part of Israel’s humiliation policy.
The wall is also an insult to Christianity – the way it seals off and imprisons towns like Bethlehem and important holy places like the Church of the Nativity. It shreds and divides communities and prevents access to Jerusalem. It disrupts the life of the Church as well as the livelihoods of ordinary people.
Its other purpose, and the real reason it bites deep into Palestinian territory, is to steal large areas of prime agricultural land and the water resources beneath. If it was purely for security, as the Israelis claim, they should have built it on the internationally-recognized 1967 border.
We have just seen the world’s high-ranking hypocrites celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall but saying nothing about Israel’s apartheid wall.
Lack of respect for non-Jewish faiths
[Q] Let’s talk about the religious dimension in all of this. How important is it?
[A] The three faiths are all in one place, and Jerusalem is vitally important to all of them. What’s lacking is proper respect. How many people in the West realize that Israel doesn’t allow Muslims and Arab Christians living outside Jerusalem to visit the holy places in the Old City?
When Palestine was under British mandate, Christians accounted for 20 per cent of the population. Now, after 61 years of hostilities, dispossession and economic strangulation the numbers have been whittled down to 1 or 2 per cent. At this rate there will soon be no Christians left in the land where Christianity was born. The Israelis are waging a religious war that’s designed to disrupt and paralyse Christianity in the Holy Land. It’s part of their attempt to Judaize everything.
Western Christendom doesn’t seem bothered and keeps quiet. Few churchmen, I believe, have any real clue what’s going on there. Shame on them.
[Q] Are Western church leaders playing a sufficient role in protecting the Holy Land, its religious history and its people?
[A] The Catholic Church, which has a significant presence in the Holy Land and runs a number of schools, appears to be fighting the battle alone. Anglican Church ministers I have spoken to are largely disinterested. Yes, their faith is focused on the Holy Land, they teach the Holy Land texts and they deliver sermons on the Holy Land, but what do they really care about it? One morning they’ll wake up and discover that the Holy Land – the central plank to their existence – has been stolen from under their noses.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem – the Catholic Church in the Holy Land – does its best, but I don’t think it gets the support it deserves from the Vatican. As for the rest, they could unite and surely do much more. While Israel was planning its blitzkrieg against Gaza’s Muslims and Christians – after blockading and starving them with the British government’s connivance – the Archbishop of Canterbury went swanning off with the Chief Rabbi on a visit to Auschwitz, preaching their joint solidarity against extreme hostility and genocide! The archbishop talked about the collective corruption and moral sickness that made the Holocaust possible. But where was his concern for the shattered Christian remnants in Gaza? Or for the murdered, maimed and homeless Muslims who, many claim, are being subjected to a “slow genocide”? Let’s remember that the Israelis’ killing spree left nearly 60,000 homeless and 400,000 without running water, and they still won’t allow cement and other reconstruction materials to be brought in.
Did the Pope visit Gaza to show solidarity with his frightened and impoverished flock there?
Pious wafflers in their palaces make me sick, when genuine men of God – those in the front line, the priests, the nuns and the imams – risk their lives as they work round the clock to bring comfort to the victims of political greed and aggression.
Inhuman bid to starve a population and wreck their fragile economy
[Q] You visited occupied Palestine in 2006 after the landslide victory by Hamas, and again in 2007. Did you get a sense of optimism from the population? Hope for a better future? Or had “the West” and Israel already begun their campaign to ensure that the Palestinian democratic election results would never become a reality?
[A] We were there just after the election in 2006, and the situation was turning nasty. Fatah’s defeat at the polls seemed broadly welcomed, but hopes of a brighter future were scuppered by the West’s childish rejection of the people’s democratic choice, Hamas.
The US and Israel were plotting to bring down Hamas by “starving” the Palestinian Authority and hence all the people it employed and served. It began by axing US-EU aid while Israel stepped up its military attacks on Gaza, killing and maiming, and destroying infrastructure, including the only power station – which was built with UK taxpayers’ money, I understand. Israel also kidnapped eight Hamas cabinet ministers and a quarter of the elected members of the legislative council. On top of that, Fatah collaborators joined the plotting against Hamas and organized strikes and protests.
What spurred me to finish the book as quickly as possible was an email from a girl who worked for the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Daily life was getting worse and she hadn’t been paid for over two months because the West had cut the flow of money and Israel was stealing the Palestinians’ own tax revenues.
Some of my colleagues can’t come to work anymore because simply they don’t have money for the transport. On Thursday we made a protest in front of the entrance of our ministry demanding the international community to end this isolation and asking for our salaries. The mothers are bringing their babies and kids to work everyday because they can’t pay for the kinder yards or the babysitters…
Eventually her emails stopped. Presumably she could no longer get to work and access the internet. Her distress was the final straw.
Hamas misjudged the lengths to which pro-Zionist Western leaders would go to undermine democratic processes that didn’t suit their purpose or Israel’s interests. These same leaders endlessly praise Israel for being “the only democracy in the Middle East” … Everyone must be made to understand that’s because they deliberately snuffed out Palestine’s democracy as soon as it was born.
[Q] How has this ongoing siege affected the lives of the women of occupied Palestine and how are they coping?
[A] The wrecking of the Palestinian economy has made it impossible for the men to work or do business effectively, and this puts a great strain on their women. They are amazingly resourceful, like the women of London during the German blitz. As a child I remember the courage of my mother and our neighbours as they overcame the hardships of being bombed every night. But Palestinian women face the added danger of enemy troops, tanks and armoured bulldozers.
In Palestinian society women hold many important positions. Even Hamas has a woman minister. Nuns too play a big part among the Christian communities. Not only are they very brave and enterprising, they are also great fun to meet.
Visit Bethlehem and Birzeit universities and you’ll see many stunningly beautiful but very determined young women – Christian and Muslim – working hard for a first-class education and running the gauntlet of Israeli checkpoints and other unpleasant obstacles. On every trip I manage to spend some time at Bethlehem University and am always impressed by the sharp minds and outgoing nature of the women students. I salute them.
Palestinians’ voice abroad silenced
[Q] Does Palestine have an official voice in the UK and, if so, how effective is it?
[A] You’d think Palestinians were tormented enough without the added misfortune of being represented in London by the most invisible and silent embassy it is possible to imagine. Little is done to set the news agenda or ensure that the Palestinian case is clearly heard.
In contrast the Israelis are businesslike and proactive. They pump out endless disinformation which is lapped up by the media unchallenged. Their version of events and their definition of the situation is accepted. So it’s a propaganda massacre. Many of us are convinced that the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah has instructed embassies and delegations abroad not to embarrass Israel, and denies them the necessary resources to do an effective job. It’s like a fixed football match. Palestinian “strikers” mustn’t even shoot at an open goal.
Washington-London-Tel Aviv “axis of evil”
[Q] What role, if any, does Britain play in Palestine today?
[A] None that I can see. The country that betrayed the Holy Land and its people does nothing. Our navy used to guarantee the freedom of the seas, but now it won’t even protect mercy ships from attack by Israeli pirates. The MV Dignity, for example, was deliberately rammed and nearly sunk in international waters with 16 civilians aboard, including British citizens. Nor will Britain intervene when Gazan fishermen, lawfully trying to feed a hungry population, are fired on.
[Q] And the UN?
[A] Please don’t talk to me about the UN, Angie… To quote Major Rufus Cobb in that classic Jesse James film: “If we are ever going to have law and order the first thing we gotta do is take ‘em all out and shoot ‘em down like dogs!”
[Q] The UN and most world leaders continue to turn a blind eye to Israel’s crimes against humanity and its occupation of Palestine. What can be done to end what many feel is the slow-motion genocide of the Palestinian people?
[A] This is how my good friend Dr David Halpin, a tireless campaigner for justice, describes the situation, and I couldn’t put it any better myself:
There is an axis of evil with Tel Aviv at one pole and Washington at the other. In the centre is London where barbarity and treachery is clothed in plummy speech and fine spectacle. Power shuttles backwards and forwards along this axis as busily as the jets carrying the psychopaths to these command centres which bring hell to earth.
I call it the axis of greed, but either will do.
Israel is an aggressive military power bristling with nuclear and state-of-the-art weaponry, funded and equipped by the US and run by what British MP Sir Gerald Kaufman – himself a Jew – calls “a gang of amoral thugs”. That is simply terrifying. Those thugs are already threatening another bloodbath in Gaza, as if their atrocities 11 months ago weren’t despicable enough. If the international community doesn’t get a grip and force Israel to observe acceptable standards of behaviour and conform to international law, we can say goodbye to hopes of building a civilized world.
Lawlessness must have painful consequences for the lawless, not their victims.
As for the Palestinians, their internal squabbles play straight into the enemy’s hands. Other nations would find it easier to intervene positively if Hamas were to carry out a convincing “rebranding” exercise and issue a new charter that’s more appropriate in tone to the 21st century and their diplomatic ambitions. They now have democratic credentials and a certain amount of sympathy and goodwill among Western citizens. I hope they’ll build on it, not throw it away.
Citizens of the world must take on the Israel lobby
[Q] What would be a good starting point for us, the citizens of the world, in our efforts to help the Palestinian people in a real and productive manner?
[A] At citizen level we must continue to expose Israel’s propaganda lies and evil intent. The other side uses every dirty trick under the sun and has produced an instruction manual to teach its embassy staff and its army of cyber-activists how to brainwash Western citizens and their politicians. It’ll be a long haul but the truth will eventually break through.
Citizens also need to tackle Zionist infiltration and rid us of its stranglehold on our political and government institutions. Israel has the British government eating out of its hand. Here’s an example. The other day the minister for foreign affairs, in reply to a question in the House of Commons, said:
Israel is a close ally of the UK and we have regular productive exchanges at all levels, going far beyond relations between governments. Our political relations allow us to address openly issues both of common concern and where we disagree. Most recently, on 27 October, I met the Israeli deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon. We will continue to foster this relationship and use it to further the interests of both countries and the wider region.
No prizes for guessing the British minister’s ethnicity.
Israel’s agents of influence are so embedded at the heart of government that signing up to the Zionist cause is a necessary stepping stone to high office. These stooges are fatal to our foreign policy and security, and have cost us dear in terms of world respect and dead and injured. At election time activists need to identify and expose parliamentary candidates who are involved with the Israel lobby.
We are supposed to be governed in accordance with the Seven Principles of Public Life. Principle No.2 is about “integrity” – holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their official duties. The Israel lobby has been powerful enough to ensure this is ignored. Activists need to find ways to reimpose it.
In a sane world…
[Q] What happens next, and where do you fit into the scheme of things?
[A] In a sane world the UN would have guaranteed to keep Gaza’s sea border open and provide a naval escort for ships wishing to trade. And it would have declared Jerusalem an international city as stipulated in the partition plan. I hope the UN might still find the backbone to do these things.
The way America is now trying to rewrite international law to legitimize Israel’s continuing land-grab and settlement expansion, and the way the US House of Representatives voted 344 to 36 to reject the UN-Goldstone report exposing Israel’s war crimes – in which America is deeply implicated – shows more clearly than ever how US politics is corrupted by the power and influence of the Israel lobby.
As for me, I’m not really an activist. I’m more a commentator. I am, however, involved with a campaign group that is part of a rapidly growing global network. There are many, many others and we are linking up. The Zionists know they have a fight on their hands in the battle for hearts and minds.
[Q] Finally, what is your most fervent wish?
[A] That you and I and anybody else can visit friends in Palestine without being molested by Israel’s bad-mannered security officials. We should be able to fly or sail direct, without setting foot in Israel. Citizens of the world must make this crystal clear to the UN: if we want to wander through Old Jerusalem’s souk, holiday on Gaza’s beach, go fishing with Gaza’s fishermen or talk football with Mr Haniyeh over coffee, it should be none of Israel’s damn business.
[Angie Tibbs] Thank you, Stuart.
Source: www.redress.cc
Angie Tibbs is a writer/activist living in Canada. She can be reached at angie4justice@nl.rogers.com
Stuart Littlewood is a writer/photographer living in the UK. Check out his web pages at http://www.wordsandpixels.org.uk and http://www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk/
Bitter Fruit of Palestine
By Richard Morris
A Reflection on Dispossession
A Monologue
Written and Performed
By Richard Morris
Performed by Richard Morris
Filmed by Stefan Werc
After effects by Prasant
Edited + Directed Fil de Void
Filmed at Depot Studios – itistv
Edward Said and Barack Obama: A letter from Gaza
An Open letter from a Palestinian Resident of Gaza to the President of the United States of America, Mr. Barak Hussein Obama
Barack Obama and Edward Said
Dear Mr. President,
You will probably not read this letter due to your busy schedule and the huge number of messages you receive from Presidents, Kings, Princes, Sheiks, and Prime Ministers. Who is a Palestinian academic from GAZA, after all, to have the guts and write an open letter to the President of the United States of America? What has triggered this letter is a picture of your Excellency sitting with the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said. That, of course, happened before 2004.i.e, before you underwent a process of metamorphosis which I personally think is unprecedented in history. Seeing you with Edward Said, I must say, surprised me. Said, a true public intellectual must have said something to you about the suffering of the Palestinian people. In the picture, you and your wife seem to be listening attentively, and admiringly, to him. But the point remains; did you really understand his eloquent, passionate defence of the rights of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine? Judging from your recent policy shifts, I very much doubt it. It is precisely the incongruity between the photograph and these policy shifts that has prompted this letter.
Mr. President,
The whole world celebrated your election as the first African-American president of the US. I did not. Neither did the inhabitants of the concentration camp where I live. Your sympathetic visit to Sderot—an Israeli town which was the Palestinian village of Hooj until 1948 when its people were ethnically cleansed– three years after your first visit to a Kibbutz in northern Israel in support of its residents, and after your pledge to be committed to the security of the State of Israel and its “right” to retain unified Jerusalem as the capital city of the Jewish people—to give but few examples—were all clear indications of where your heart lies.
Another reason for the writing of this letter is shock at the indifference and arrogance with which Secretary of State Hilary Clinton dismissed Palestinian concerns about Israel’s illegal Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank. Only a few weeks ago you made the admirable statement that ALL Jewish settlement must halt, and you made it clear that this included expansion of existing settlements as well as the construction of new settlements. However, when Netanyahu let it be known that he had no intention of stopping settlements, you missed an historic opportunity to draw a line: no more billions and no more weapons for Israel unless and until this condition is met. Now Secretary of State Clinton has the Herculean task of pretending that your position on Jewish settlements has not changed, though it is clear you have chosen not to use the very real power at your disposal to bring Israeli policy into line.
About six months after your election, you gave a speech in Cairo, addressed to the Arab and Islamic worlds; which some people found impressive. I found it impressive in form, but not in substance because your actions have not matched your rhetoric. Why did I not buy the new language of the new American administration? Because while you were giving your speech, we were burying my neighbour, a terminally ill patient, who needed treatment in a hospital abroad, since, thanks to the siege imposed by your own administration and Israel on the Gaza Strip, the facilities that would have saved his life are not available in Gaza. Like more than 400 terminally ill people in Gaza, my neighbour lost his life. In spite of the fine Arabic words of peace, “salaam aleikum,” you made it crystal clear that the point of reference in any negotiations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is Israel’s security. By doing that, Mr. President, you are effectively marginalizing the whole issue of Palestine, and unfortunately setting the stage for renewed Israeli assaults against a starving Gaza, an entity that has, thanks to your “unbreakable” ties with Israel, been transformed into the largest concentration camp on Earth.
Your failure to support the Goldstone report, your indifference, not to say your contribution, to Palestinian suffering and the process of “politicide” against the Palestinian people of Gaza is, to say the least, unfathomable, coming from a man who listened so earnestly to Edward Said. Your advisors must have told you about the cutting off of medicine, food and fuel to the concentration camp where I live. Patients in need of dialysis and other urgent medical treatment are dying every single day. A majority of our children, many the same age as your two beautiful daughters, are badly undernourished. You must have skimmed through the executive summary of the Goldstone report detailing the horror inflicted on 1.5 million civilians for 22 days, horror caused by F16s, Apache helicopters, and phosphorus bombs made in American factories. Hundreds of children were burnt to death by phosphorus bombs; pregnant women were brutally targeted in what Israeli soldiers boasted off on their T-Shirts: “1 bullet, 2 kills.” And yet, not a single word of sympathy, Mr. President! Edward Said had this to say upon his first visit to Gaza: “It’s the most terrifying place I’ve ever been in… it’s a horrifyingly sad place because of the desperation and misery of the way people live. I was unprepared for camps that are much worse than anything I saw in South Africa.” This was back in 1993, Mr. President, before conditions dramatically deteriorated. Gaza has now become, as the leading Israeli Human Rights Organization B’tselem describes it, “the largest prison on Earth.”
Mr. Obama,
Unlike your predecessor, you seem to be a smart man. You must have realized that a two-state solution has been rendered impossible by Israeli colonization of the West Bank, by the war on Gaza, by the construction of the apartheid wall, by the expansion of so-called Greater Jerusalem, and by the increase in the number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank. You must have realized also that there are 6 million refugees, most of whom live in miserable conditions waiting for courageous, visionary leaders committed to true democracy, human rights and international law to implement UN resolution 194. And yet, you and your State of Secretary, like every U.S. president since 1967, have decided to support Israel in creating conditions that made the two-state solution impossible, impractical and unjust.
Were you a supporter of the Bantustan system in South Africa under the Apartheid system? Are you opposed to equal rights and the transformation of Israel/Palestine into a state for all its citizens? The two-state solution means the Bantustanization of Palestine, a solution you, to our knowledge, never supported for South Africa. Are you, Mr. President, opposed to civic democracy, which is the demand of most Palestinian civil society and grassroots organizations? This is what your role models, Martin Luther King and Steve Biko, died for. Was Nelson Mandela wrong to spend 27 years of his life in pursuit of justice by demanding equality for the indigenous people of South Africa? Do you realize that what you are supporting in the Middle East is a racist solution par excellence? A solution based on “ethnic nationalism”. Your Secretary of State and envoy to the Middle East, unashamedly, stood with beaming smiles next to Avigdor Lieberman, who, not only defends openly the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, but also calls for a new genocide in Gaza! Do you realize, Mr. President, that this Hitlerite fascist might become Israel’s next prime minister, thanks to your administration’s complacency and support?
Our only immediate demand is that your administration insures that Israel fulfills its obligations in terms of international law. Is that too much to ask?
Mr. President Barak Hussein Obama,
We, the Palestinian people, are fed up!
Sincerely,
Prof. Haidar Eid
Gaza, Palestine
Source: chicago.indymedia.org
Some Fear Bush Administration Could Become Target in 9/11 Trial
By FOXNews.com
Former President Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney (AP)
Some critics say a civilian trial — instead of a military tribunal — for self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his accomplices could end up targeting the Bush administration and its anti-terror policies.
The Obama administration, in deciding to try alleged Sept. 11 conspirators in a New York courtroom, has said it is setting its sights on convictions, but some critics say a civilian trial — instead of a military tribunal — could end up targeting the Bush administration and its anti-terror policies.
One of those five defendants, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has been at the center of the debate over those Bush-era polices, in particular the harsh interrogation techniques used on Mohammed and others in an effort to obtain information on Al Qaeda and any additional attacks.
“The government is going to try to put Khalid Sheik Mohammed on trial. Defense lawyers will try and put the government on trial,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told Fox News.
The Justice Department says in a 2005 memo that CIA interrogators subjected Mohammed 183 times to waterboarding, a near-drowning technique described by Obama officials as illegal torture. But others disagree with Obama, most notably former Vice President Dick Cheney, who argues that the techniques used have kept the country safe from another attack.
Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, announced in the summer that he would investigate whether CIA officers should be prosecuted for their interrogations, setting off intense debate over the prospect of prosecuting officials from the previous administration.
But on Friday, in announcing a civilian trial for Mohammed and four other detainees, Holder dismissed questions about whether politics was a factor in the decision.
“My job as attorney general is to look at the law, apply the facts to the law and ultimately do what I think is in the best interests of this country and our system of justice. Those are my guides,” he said. “To the extent that there are political consequences, well, you know, I’ll just have to take my lumps, to the extent that those are set in my way.”
“But I think if people will, in a neutral and detached way, look at the decision that I have made today, understand the reasons why I made those decisions, and try to do something that’s rare in Washington — leave the politics out of it and focus on what’s in the best interest of this country — I think the criticism will be relatively mild.”
But Holder already has faced strong criticism from conservatives and some families of 9/11 victims.
Karl Rove, a former top Bush adviser and now a Fox News contributor, said some attorneys in the Justice Department have tried for years to undermine the military tribunals system and “gain for these war criminals the rights that we would accord American citizens who might be accused of knocking over the local 7-Eleven.”
“I think we make a mistake by focusing on the politics of it,” Rove said. “What we ought to do is focus on the real danger this represents to the American interest and to the American security in the years ahead.”
Supporters of trying the detainees in military tribunals note that the tribunals have relaxed standards for presenting evidence and offer minimized risk of disclosing government anti-terror secrets.
Tom Ridge, head of the Homeland Security Department in the Bush administration, warned against using the trials as a means of going after Bush administration officials.
“You’d like to think that … it is simply their interpretation that these individuals are entitled to these kinds of criminal justice protections — rather than using it as a fishing expedition to revisit decisions made during the past six years,” he told FoxNews.com, adding that “time will tell.”
“If we discover later that it’s really just a facade to delve into a fishing expedition, I would find that just unacceptable, outrageous and a further distortion of the system,” he said. “If it’s subterfuge for the fishing expedition, that’s just wrong and unconscionable.”
FoxNews.com’s Stephen Clark and Joseph Abrams contributed to this report.
Warning of Humanitarian crisis coming due to gas depletion – Gaza Strip
By Ayman T. Quader
Gaza City, November 15, 2009, (Pal Telegraph) The ongoing Israeli siege has been gravely suffocating the life of people of the Gaza Strip. The fuel companies in the Gaza Strip have been warning of the imminent humanitarian crises that the cooking gas is about to get depletion after 25 days of cutting access to the Gaza fuel sanitation.
It is warily reported by Mahammed Al Shawwa, the head of the union of fuel companies in the Gaza Strip, that the gas sanitations in the Gaza Strip has stopped supplying people of their needs of the cooking gas.
It is worthily mentioning that the Israeli occupation authority has allowed limited amount of gas cooking in the last few months. Shawwa stated that for 25 days, the Israelis authorities haven’t allowed needed gas amount for the people of the Gaza Strip.
Shawwa clarified that the Israeli occupation authority has recently stopped using Al-Shajaia crossing to enter cooking gas and industrial diesel into Gaza and instead it allows in small quantities through Karam Abu Salem crossing which lacks infrastructure needed to supply Gaza with sufficient fuel shipments.
Shawwa appealed on the international community to put pressure on the Israeli side to allow the needed gas shipments entry in the Gaza Strip and to increase the shipments so as to alleviate part of the Gazans suffering and end the humanitarian crisis.
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Most Grateful Regards From Gaza
Ayman T. Quader
Ayman Quader
About the Author: Ayman Quader is a 23 years old Palestinian born and raised in Gaza, and has a bachelor degree in English Language and Education. Ayman has worked in several different fields’ pre and post of my university studies for almost 4 years. and also worked as volunteer in civil societies where he practiced tasks to help people and educate children, and always trying to highlight the suffering of Palestinians to the whole world.
Palestine and the Art of War
By Bishop Donald Corder
The Art of War
Perhaps the most profound tribute to General Sun Tzu’s work entitled the Art of War is written 1400 years later in the 1988 Vietnam Magazine’s interview with Colonel Harry G. Summers. Colonel Summers shared the following exchange, “But America’s fighting forces did not fail us. You know, you never beat us on the battlefield,” I told my North Vietnamese counterpart during negotiations in Hanoi a week before the fall of Saigon. He pondered that remark a moment and then replied, “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.” Sun Tzu says: ‘The consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success.’
Middle East Online Reported: The Palestinian Authority on Monday November 9, 2009 warned that violence could once again convulse the region if the United States fails to get Israel to halt settlements as part of a resumed peace process. “If America remains unable to assume its required role there will be a destructive effect for which Israel and the United States will be held responsible,” presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said. “Violence will rush in to fill the void left by the failure of efforts to relaunch the peace process if the US administration does not hurry up and exert pressure on the Israeli government,” he added.
Nonetheless, ‘To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself,’ Sun Tzu notes. Knowing the enemy as we know ourselves is a requisite for victory, thus necessitating our quiet respect for ‘Ummah, Either We Change, Die, or Die Trying’ By Mohamed Khodr Special to Salem-News.com. “There is no true political, economic, social or media presence for Arabs and Muslims in America. They are silent, fearful, uneducated and inexperienced in living and dealing with America’s culture, tend to herd themselves by ethnic group and fight whether there should be a barrier between men and women in the mosques, or whether Muslim men and women can gather for a lecture, yet allow such women to mingle, work, and go to school with Non-Muslims.”
Mohamed goes on to say, “I strongly believe that we as Muslims must blame ourselves for our state of affairs and avoid the usual scapegoating that “powerful forces” such as Israel, the E.U., and America hinder our progress or our justified right to reclaim our lands and resources. This position is supported as Sun Tzu declares, ‘We shall be unable to turn natural advantage to account unless we make use of local guides.’
Natural resources and assets of the Arab peoples are best employed and directed by those who are thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war and then they can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on. So, we learn of our opponent and his perceived weakness through actions employed to defend himself and thereafter formulate stratagems of direct assault and indirect maneuvers to achieve our political purposes.
To wit: (1) Published Israeli discussions to deploy security to global network of synagogues (2) Laws prohibiting full disclosure of Israeli business interests in the United States; although Zionist Owners and CEOs of Media Conglomerates and Media Companies was published in an Intifada article entitled: Zionism and the Media: http://intifada-palestine.com/2009/08/16/zionism-and-the-media/. (3) Bloomberg business news states Israel is in the worst recession in their 61 year history after exports of goods and services fell an annualized 46 percent in the first quarter, after dropping 45 percent in the fourth, the bureau said. Imports of goods and services dropped 63 percent, compared with a 19 percent decline the previous quarter.
Fourth: Direct and indirect aid from this year should put the total U.S. aid to Israel since 1949 at over one hundred billion dollars. This capital infusion into Israel is in violation of both The Arms Export Control Act and the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act which stipulates that US-supplied weapons be used only for “legitimate self-defense.” The Proxmire amendment bans military assistance to any government that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or not allow inspection of its nuclear facilities, which Israel refuses to do. [US Aid: The Lifeblood of Occupation By Matt Bowles http://www.wrmea.com/html/usaidtoisrael0001.htm].
Fifth: A simple majority of the UN General Assembly can set aside superpower obstructionism of the Goldstone Report via the Uniting for Peace Resolution ‘UNGA Resolution 377A’ thus preparing the way to go before the International Criminal Court where challenge of Israel’s unilateral assertion of sovereignty can be argued in order to determine appropriate jurisdiction and standing of the war criminals before the court. Sun Tzu says, “Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will be amenable to your will.”
Israel’s employment of Sun Tzu is most clearly seen in the stratagem of causing the nations of the world to chase the tail of some peace initiative dog when Israel’s real design springs from the 16th Century Niccolo Machiavelli model of class privilege, deceit and manipulations of the powerful. Similarly, the Zionist agenda concentrates its focus upon the establishment of a superior and privileged society. Response of the great general Tzu was to employ as few persons as possible to acquire as much space as possible. A maxim practically asserted by Samuel Adams emphasizing, “It does not take a majority to prevail … but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
World War II Normandy Invasion was not won by a great cloud of military might but rather two or three buddies fighting relentlessly side by side and staying under the radar. What unites and binds under moral law is opposition to barbarism, murder, rape and exploitation of the natural resources of the Middle East and underdeveloped nations. Alliances could be investigated and sought out with the types of organizations supporting the Goldstone Amendment (i.e. NGOs Initiative to Endorse and Implement The UN-Fact Finding Mission Report on the Gaza Conflict: http://www.petitiononline.com/EAFORD09/petition.html).
In addition grassroots organizations could seek and attempt to work with the ACLU, pre-law and legal professionals in formulating criteria for actions. These can all mass together to challenge the Pro-Zionist ideologies and their henchmen, business and political cronies via impassioned legal research and preparation of the necessary legal documents while at the same time, living this story out before our children, friends and neighbors. Sincere efforts of a few high school students can become the bedrock employed to challenge the imperialistic status quo. Efforts of students to partner in all manner of research can lend momentum even through the very legal systems of the pro-Israeli lobby supporters. Or, we can simply take our own quiet initiatives within the information age of public opinion.
Energizing access to both the affluent and humble contributor of funds is the strength of the Israeli model and it behooves being studied, employed and dismantled utilizing strategic grassroots operations. Sun Tzu’s adage, “With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery of the Empire, and thus, without losing a man, his triumph will be complete. This is the method of attacking by stratagem.”
Bishop Donald Corder
Don Corder is presiding bishop for Spirit of Life International Believers Fellowship and Senior Pastor of the Pillar of Truth Ministries. Mr. Corder is a published author, grassroots organizer and community activist, in addition to his work in urban and international development as a business consultant and entrepreneur. Email: Corder.Donald@yahoo.com
Goldstone to Haaretz: U.S. Does not have to Protect Israel Blindly
By Tomer Zarchin,
Haaretz Correspondent
Justice Richard Goldstone
Judge Richard Goldstone told Haaretz Thursday that President Shimon Peres’ remarks criticizing him were “specious and ill-befitting the head of State of Israel.”
Peres was quoted Wednesday as calling Goldstone “a small man, devoid of any sense of justice, a technocrat with no real understanding of jurisprudence,” who was “on a one-sided mission to hurt Israel.”
In Thursday’s interview by e-mail with Haaretz, Goldstone said: “I am content to be judged by my actions over the course of my career both in terms of my professional judicial career and my voluntary service.”
Goldstone also said he had anticipated that the report would engender considerable criticism. “After all, no one likes to be accused of committing serious war crimes. However, I was surprised at the many nasty attacks made against me personally. In my view, it was a classic case of attacking the messenger rather than addressing the message.”
Goldstone also rejected the claim that the fact that he is Jewish was exploited to make it more difficult for Israelis to challenge his conclusions. “I was approached because of my experience with regard to the investigation of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.”
The Goldstone report is expected to be raised for discussion in the United Nations Security Council in the near future, and Goldstone Thursday discussed the possibility that the United States would veto any resolution that would hurt Israel when it comes to the implementation of the report’s findings. “I do not believe that any nation should protect another nation blindly. I would prefer to see the United States furnish reasons for criticizing the report. The United States has supported our call for credible investigations by Israel and by the Gaza authorities, whether the PA or Hamas,” he said.
Goldstone reiterated statements he has made, as well as those made by a number of Israeli human rights groups, inviting an open, public investigation and categorically rejecting a probe by the Israel Defense Forces of the Gaza campaign. “It does not suffice for the military to investigate itself. That will satisfy very few people and certainly not the victims.”
However Goldstone stressed that “in any public inquiry, it would be open to the Israeli government and the IDF to have sensitive security information protected from public disclosure.”
When asked how far up the chain of command he felt such a criminal investigation should go, and whether decision-makers in government be its subject, he replied: “A criminal investigation should go as high up the chain of command, both military and civilian, as the evidence justifies.”
Goldstone, who is widely considered one of the fathers of transitional justice and has extolled its virtues in achieving peace and reconciliation in post-conflict societies, was asked what role he thought a truth and reconciliation commission – which received international recognition as a tool for probing the South African government’s actions during apartheid – could play in contributing to a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by establishing accountability in a more constructive fashion than criminal proceedings. Goldstone said he believed it would, “on condition that it is set up to look at allegations on all sides and is established by a democratic process.”
Goldstone was asked how he reconciled his finding that kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit should be accorded the privileges of a prisoner of war, and calling for his immediate release as a humanitarian gesture, with the fact that Hamas is a non-state actor not bound by the Third Geneva Convention, which defines the concept of prisoner of war status. Should not Shalit be defined as an illegal abductee, the victim of a war crime, and his release not subject to the goodwill of Hamas?
Goldstone replied: “In no way did we regard Hamas as a state party. We decided that it was in the interests of giving greater protection to people in the position of Gilad Shalit to extend prisoner-of-war status to them. We extended existing norms in order to do that. We based this decision on the military operations being controlled by the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention, i.e., that it was an international armed conflict.”
In response to the Israeli allegation that Goldstone’s mandate was one-sided, he replied: “This incorrect allegation continues to be made in the attempt to discredit the report despite the fact that it is demonstrably false. The claim is based on a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution that I specifically and explicitly rejected.”
Goldstone also said that he had “demanded and received a balanced mandate to enable me to investigate allegations of war crimes by all sides. The government of Israel clearly knows this, as it is all a matter of public record that I discussed at the press conference announcing the inquiry and its mandate. I believe that the continued reference to the mission’s mandate is yet another attempt to avoid addressing the substance of the report.”
Goldstone said he believed that for Israel, “this is unfortunate because the report contains the clearest finding that Hamas and other militant Palestinian groups committed serious war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity. The acceptance of those findings by the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly has been ignored completely by Israel.
“I suggest that Israel has not acknowledged that because it would confer credibility on the report,” Goldstone also said.
Goldstone called the allegation that the report encourages terror and negates Israel’s right to self-defense “quite untrue and a fallacious attempt to win opposition to what is contained in the report.
“The report is based on the assumption that Israel was entitled to act in self-defense. The investigation was concerned with whether the exercise of the right to self-defense was lawful or unlawful. The condemnation in the report of the rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza is the clearest possible statement against terror, and the endorsement of the report by the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly is probably the first time that the United Nations has recognized Israel’s right to act in self-defense against such terror.”
Goldstone also said: “Many Israelis are right to feel that the United Nations and its member bodies such as the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly have devoted inordinate and disproportionate attention to scrutinizing and criticizing Israel. This has come at the price of ignoring violations of human rights in other countries, some of them members of those very same bodies. The time has come for the investigation of all violations of international human rights law and international law whenever they are committed, in any state.
“However, this disproportionate focus on Israel does not exempt Israel from respecting international law,” Goldstone also said.
“I would suggest that time has come for Israel to look at the allegations not only of the killing and injuring of so many civilians but also the collective punishment meted out to the people of Gaza by the substantial destruction of the infrastructure, and particularly the food infrastructure of Gaza. The debate should continue, not attempt to be silenced.”
Source: Anti-war.com
See also:
Goldstone: Peres Attack on Me Was ‘Specious,’ Ill-Befitting His Post
Nice Soldiers Die First
By Hesham Tillawi, PhD
Now I want you to remember, that no bastard EVER wond by dying for
his country.He won it by making the OTHER poor dumb bastard die for
his country.” - George Patton
It was my first year on television, when one self proclaimed Palestinian-American “leader” requested that I remove his name from my mailing list. The reason he gave was that my guest for that particular week was accused of being –surprise, surprise–an “anti-Semite” “by the ADL,” the largest Jewish organization in the country as well as other Jewish groups in the media and that we “Palestinians” need to be very careful not to be seen or be labeled as “anti-Semitic” despite the fact that we are Semites ourselves.
I obliged him by removing him from the list. As fate would have it, this man and I ended up working together couple of years ago on a committee to advance Palestinian activism in the US and therefore shared an email list. During the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2008/2009 someone on the list suggested that a few volunteers dress up with suits similar to those worn by Jews and others in Germany’s concentration camps in an upcoming demonstration in Chicago. I personally thought it was an awesome idea and would deliver a clear message to the world of the gravity of the situation on the ground in Gaza.
Well, it was not long after that another email came through on the list from this same self-proclaimed “leader”, fetching the same line of “we must at all costs avoid be accused of anti-Semitism”. He bolstered his argument with the notion that the only thing necessary on our part is that we show people the truth about our cause, because the truth is on our side. Another great brilliant publicity opportunity down the drain.
The story of the now-infamous Rabbis of New Jersey being involved in selling organs (believed to have been snatched out of unarmed Palestinians kidnapped by Israeli soldiers) hit the World like a boulder. Mountains of evidence and eye-witness reports more than suggesting this actually was (and probably still is) an Israeli practice. But the “Rabbis and the body snatchers” is not my topic and I am not going to dig deeply into it as there are already plenty of others out there dealing with the topic and my reason for bringing it up is to illustrate something concerning the man who is afraid of being accused as an anti-Semite.
Yesterday an email came through on the list server asking people not to talk much about the organ stealing because some guy wrote an article saying that the Swedish news paper who published the article did not have solid proof that this actually took place. Again, the same line that “the truth is on our side” and we have many massacres and many catastrophes that we can continue to tell the World about and therefore we need to leave the story of the organs alone until we have solid proof it took place.
Personally I was outraged with the stupidity of this line of reasoning. Ok, call it another opinion, but the issue is this–Being a “nice guy” has gotten us NOWHERE. This thing–the story involving the organ harvesters–not only walks like a duck, it quacks, looks and spits like a duck. The darn thing even TASTES like a duck and yet this individual still wants proof.
As much as this may ruffle the feathers of a few out there (no pun intended) let me say this nevertheless to those who agree with this individual–To hell with proof. We have enough information on this to hit Israel bad with this, very bad I might add. Hit them, use it to your advantage, worry about the consequences later. Let the Israelis worry about proving it did not happen. You have one of the largest newspaper in Sweden willing to put its reputation on the line for it. They are supporting their reporter, the government of Sweden told Israel to go to hell, that they believe in Freedom of Press, and you are telling Palestinians not to fight using this weapon? You have people in Palestine testifying that their loved ones came home to them dead with missing organs. IS THEIR TESTIMONY NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU? You have Rabbis arrested for selling organs that they say came from Israel. IS THE TESTIMONY OF THE US JUSTICE DEPARTMENT NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU? What about the Israeli Pathologist under investigation for stealing Palestinians organs from the morgue? What about stories of Israeli doctors cutting open Palestinians after being shot in both Gaza and the West bank and stealing their organs?
Let the Israelis prove this did not happen. In the mean time as a soldier in the field (and you are one) use the weapon given to you. As an activist your job is to fight Israeli propaganda all over the world. It is not the job of a soldier to be “nice”. You must fight with every weapon at your disposal, FEROCIOUSLY, because you can be rest assured (as we all well know) the other side is fighting with nothing but lies and deception, from the start of the Zionist movement to the present settlers movement, and you cannot tell me that they did not succeed. Meanwhile, we are carrying our truth on our backs and roaming the world telling people about it, begging for their sympathy. We are carrying the keys to our homes that we were driven from to show the World we still have our keys, but where are our homes? Yes, we are the land owners, yes, our land was confiscated, our people massacred, and driven out of the land, our trees burnt, our sheep killed, etc. The world knows all that, and yet it is “sensational” stories like the “body snatchers” that grabs attention of people around the World and will remain in their minds as the image of Israel.
As bad as it sounds, the stories involving the organ harvesting are nothing less than a gift from God to our cause and we should not be so ungrateful to Him who sent it to us by hiding it in a closet.
In closing I would ask the reader to think back to a great movie made many decades ago about the life of one of America’s greatest military leaders, Patton. In the opening scene, he is standing, as stiff as a tree and as strong as a mountain in front of a huge American flag as military music is playing. He is addressing the troops under his command right at the start of America’s entry into WWII. His opening lines went like this-
“Now I want you to remember, that no bastard EVER won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the OTHER poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
Patton understood that the nature of conflict requires that its participants enter into the fray with one goal in mind–To win. If you’re not in it to win, then stay out of the way. You will only become a battlefield casualty that will drain resources in the rest of us being forced to “deal” with your injury. Just as nice guys finish last, nice soldiers die first.
Likewise with those who are so timid in this battle–a battle not just for the land of Palestine, but as we can plainly see now, the soul of the entire human race—that they want to be seen as “nice”. Our goal must be TO WIN. TO LIBERATE OUR LAND AND SAVE OUR PEOPLE. I want to know where are all the good Palestinian fighters around the World who came out by the scores earlier this year when Gaza was being massacred? What happened to them all? Do you need pictures of children’s body parts splattered all over TV screens to come out and defend the Palestinian cause? Of course my hat off to all who are working to advance the struggle to total liberation.
Remember the Mossad motto: ‘By Way of Deception, thou shalt do War’. It is (or at least SHOULD BE) now obvious to all that our enemies have no respect for the notion of “fighting nice”.
Neither should we.
Dr. Hesham Tillawi
Current issues with Hesham Tillawi can be viewed Live every Thursday at 6:30 PM Central Standard Time on Cox Cable system Channel 15 in Louisiana as well as Live on the Internet at www.currentissues.tv and can be contacted at Tillawi@currentissues.tv. The show is also broadcast on Bridges TV via cable, satellite, and broadband and on Amazonas satellite World Wide. Current Issues. the radio show airs live around the World on Broadband and shortwave 5.050 and many stations around the U.S. every Saturday 4-6 PM Central Time on www.republicbroadcasting.org.
THE FOUNDING FATHERS……
The Founding Fathers, and Mother, of Israel
By Earlaiman
Only by their actions have they spelled out more clearly their deliberate and premeditated intent, which provides more than adequate self-incrimination for condemnation and conviction as perpetrators of War Crimes, Genocide, and other Crimes Against Humanity.
When will enough be enough? When the last Palestinian is dead? When they go on, and go after the rest of the Arab Middle East? When they continue on, and come after you?
Hear it from their own mouths! See it on your own TV and read about it in your own press today… if you happen to live outside of the USA.
They have already bought, bribed or blackmailed, captured, or enslaved North American, the US and Canadian, Australian and New Zealand politics and public opinion. Do not wait for them to solidify their position of dominating influence in your countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Central and South America.
Resist! Support the resistance in Palestine. Get the word out! The enemy is approaching your gates!
They are inside your gates!
Fight them today in Palestine and you will not have to fight them tomorrow in your own Congresses, Parliaments, Assemblies, on your streets and in your own homes.
And, you will not ever have to send your own children off to fight their wars, to kill and be killed by their chosen and designated “enemies”
Listen to the barking dogs! They bite!
David Ben Gurion
Prime Minister of Israel
1949 – 1954,
1955 – 1963“We must expel Arabs and take their places.”
– David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.
“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”
– David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
“There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
– Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.
“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”
– David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99.
“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.”
–David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.”
– David Ben-Gurion 1938 (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth’s Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).
“…we should remove all Arabs and take their place.”
–David Ben-Gurion, First Israeli Prime Minister.
“If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with zisrael … that is natural: we have taken their country.”
–David Ben-Gurion, Father of Israel
“I don’t see anything immoral in it.”
–David Ben-Gurion, First Israeli Prime Minister
***
Golda Meir
Prime Minister of Israel
1969 – 1974“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.”
– Golda Meir, statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.
“How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.”
– Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.
“Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen.”
– Golda Meir, 1961, in a speech to the Knesset, reported in Ner, October 1961
“This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.”
–Golda Meir, Le Monde, 15 October 1971
***
Yitzhak Rabin
Prime Minister of Israel
1974 – 1977,
1992 – 1995“We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?’ Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said ‘Drive them out!”
– Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.
“[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat.”
Amazon.com Widgets–Yitzhak Rabin (a “Prince of Peace” by Clinton’s standards), explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry. (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen’s remarks to the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.)
***
Menachem Begin
Prime Minister of Israel
1977 – 1983“[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs.”
– Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the ‘Beasts,”‘ New Statesman, June 25, 1982.
“The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized …. Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever.”
–Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.
***
Yizhak Shamir
Prime Minister of Israel
1983 – 1984,
1986 – 1992“The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass aliya (=Jewish immigration), and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country.”
– Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service.
“The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It’s that simple.”
– Yitzhak Shamir, Maariv, 02/21/1997.
“(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.”
– Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
***
Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister of Israel
1996 – 1999“Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories.”
–Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.
***
Ehud Barak
Prime Minister of Israel
1999 – 2001“The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more”….
– Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time – August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000
“If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force….”
– Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000.
“I would have joined a terrorist organization.”
– Ehud Barak’s response to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Ha’aretz newspaper, when Barak was asked what he would have done if he had been born a Palestinian.
***
Ariel Sharon
Prime Minister of Israel
2001 – 2006“It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.”
– Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.
“Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours…Everything we don’t grab will go to them.”
– Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.
“Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.”
– Israeli Prime Minis ter Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online
“No one has the right to put the State of Israel on trial.”
–Arial Sharon, Former Israeli Prime Minister
“Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours.”
–Ariel Sharon, former Israeli Prime Minister
***
“There is a country which happens to be called Palestine … a country without people.”
–Chaim Weismann, Israel’s first President
“We’ve come to conquer a country from people inhabiting it.”
–Moshe Sharatt, Second Israeli Prime Minister
“…There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”
–Moshe Dayan, Former Israeli Defense/Foreign Minister
“There is no more Palestine. Finished….”
–Moshe Dayan, former Israeli Defense/foreign Minister
Sources:
Video : www.thedossier.ukonline.co.uk
Quotes: monabaker.com
President Obama’s opportunity to speak truth to power – Rahm Emanuel does it for him
By Alan Hart
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
November 13, 2009
When I wrote and posted Part 1 of this article, I was, of course, aware that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of President Obama speaking truth to the power of Jewish America as it was represented at the General Assembly of The Jewish Federations of North America. The words I put into his mouth could only have been spoken by him if he was going to be true to his statement to Netanyahu and Abbas – “We must all take risks for peace”.
As it happened, Obama cancelled his scheduled contribution to the proceedings in order to address the memorial service for the 13 who were killed in the shooting on the U.S. Army base at Fort Hood in Texas. (At the risk of giving offense where none is intended, I have to say that I think the conference agenda could easily have been re-arranged to provide the President with an alternative podium slot if he had wanted it. He did, in fact, put in an appearance at a reception for Jewish leaders attending the conference, but he didn’t talk about foreign policy. Instead he delivered a 20-minute homily on Jewish values of charity and the importance of health care reform).
Obama’s place as the main speaker was taken by his chief of staff (and Zionism’s number one minder in the White House) Rahm Emanuel. Reviewing his address to conference as a whole, I saw no reason to disagree with what Paul Craig Roberts wrote. Emanuel “surrendered for his boss”.
It would seem that a very similar thought was in the mind of Uriel Heilman who wrote an analysis piece for the JTA (Jewish Telegraph Agency). Under the headline Obama shifts to Israel’s corner, but tries not to show it, Heilman noted that “when the chief of staff took to the podium… he sounded almost exactly like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day earlier”.
It’s true that Emanuel did say that “Israel must halt settlement construction on the West Bank” (not the occupied West Bank, just the West Bank); but in the context of his whole speech, that was mere lip-service to a presidential call that had been rejected by Netanyahu and served only to confirm that it’s Zionism’s stooges in Congress who call the policy shots on Israel/Palestine, not the White House.
According to Emanuel, Israel seeks a lasting peace. The truth telling of that day was left to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. He said, in Paris, “Israel’s desire for peace seems to have completely vanished.” (That, of course, is not completely true. Israel does want peace, but not on terms virtually all Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept).
Emanuel went on: “Make no mistake, the path toward peace is not one that Israel should be asked to walk alone” (my emphasis added). That, it seemed to me, was the chief of staff’s coded way of saying, “The Arabs are to blame for the fact the President’s efforts to kick-start a peace process are going nowhere”.
At the time of writing there are signs that the growing despair of the occupied and oppressed Palestinians will trigger a third intifada at a not too distant point in a foreseeable future.
In terms of realpolitik, there’s a case or saying that could be a good thing to the extent that Israel’s brutal suppression of it would probably inspire more global sympathy and support for the Palestinian claim for an acceptable amount of justice. But there’s a much stronger case for saying that it could be catastrophic for the Palestinians. A third intifada could give Zionism’s in-Israel mad men the pretext they will one day invent if they are not presented with it on a plate to complete the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
The price of President Obama’s refusal to tell truth to Jewish power might well be blood and destruction on a scale not yet seen in Israel/Palestine and far beyond.
Alan Hart
Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East.
He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor
See also:
President Obama’s opportunity to speak truth to power: Part 1
Open Letter to President Obama: Change the Rules of the Game
An Appeal to the American People
Was Homeland Security Created to Protect Those Who Deceived the U.S.?
By Jeff Gates,
Janet Napolitano, Secretary Homeland Security is greeted on Capitol Hill by Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman.
November 13, 2009
Was Fort Hood really the target of a terrorist attack? The first clue to the real culprit emerged when Senator Joe Lieberman sought to blame this mass murder on the U.S. military. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, he promised hearings on how the Pentagon protects its personnel from domestic terrorists.
Will Lieberman, an avowed Zionist, use this incident to insist that the U.S. do more to protect Jewish nationalists? More importantly, what do his concerns mean for homeland security?
Joe Lieberman has an ally in Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security. In April, this former Arizona governor warned about potential terrorism from U.S. troops returning from deployment in the Middle East. Though roundly attacked, she defended her position, calling it an “assessment not an accusation.”
When Army Major Nidal Hasan killed U.S. troops on the nation’s largest military base, was this evidence of “militant Islam”? Or did this military psychiatrist snap under pressure while treating returning vets on a base averaging ten suicides a month? Is there an undisclosed agenda behind those seeking to portray this act as the work of “Islamo fascists”?
To answer these questions requires a grasp of how “assets” are deployed by those skilled at waging war by way of deception. An asset is someone who has been profiled in sufficient depth that—when placed in a pre-staged time, place and circumstance—the person can be relied on to behave consistent with their profile.
Best Story Wins
Since the end of the Cold War, the predominant geopolitical narrative has been The Clash of Civilizations and its military counterpart: The Global War on Terrorism. How better to advance that storyline than to kill American soldiers even before they leave the U.S.? What’s the motive?
Imagine if the intelligence that induced the U.S. to war was proven “fixed” around a preset goal. What if the common source of that treachery is poised to become transparent? If you were complicit in this deception (an act of treason), how would you obscure those facts? How would you sustain a “Muslim terrorist” narrative once the intelligence “facts” are exposed as pre-staged fictions meant to advance an undisclosed Israeli agenda?
For those marketing The Clash premise, Dr. Hasan’s psychotic break was a blessing. At Family Security Matters, President Carol Taber describes this incident as “the Ft. Hood terrorist attack” by an “Islamist gunman.” Editor Pam Meister promotes “the shocking TRUTH (sic) behind these attacks so that we might ward off those yet to come.” Executive Vice-President Linda Cohen, who also serves as a trustee of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), offers advice certain to appeal to Lieberman and Napolitano:
“No one is safe now. Not you, not the military, not your children, not office workers nor subway riders, nor anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Is there a precedent for combining aberrant behavior and a mass murder to advance a preset agenda? Do you recall the sniper attacks around Washington, D.C. in October 2002?
Those murders commenced one day before debate began on Senate Resolution 46 proposed by Joe Lieberman to authorize the use of U.S. forces in Iraq. In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, Lieberman and Arizona Senator John McCain urged that the U.S. target not Al Qaeda but Iraq.
The nation’s capital became a city under siege when those attacks created insecurity and heightened anxiety as serial murders left ten dead and three wounded over a 10-day period. Those random shootings transformed the terror of 9-11 into a personal reality for Washington residents while Lieberman deployed phony intelligence to promote the invasion of a nation that had no hand in the mass murder of 9-11.
Assets and Sayanim
Once again: assets are profiled personalities catalyzed to act out known dysfunctions in ways that are advantageous based on the time, place and circumstances of their behavior. The totality of the facts suggests that Dr. Nidal Hasan may well have been such an asset.
Assets are typically identified, profiled and developed over lengthy periods of time. Their potential to act out a known personality disorder is held in reserve in the same way that a military commander holds troops in reserve for deployment at an opportune time.
How is an asset developed in plain sight and then tasked at the right moment? Only a careful investigation can identify those influences particular to Dr. Hasan, including what decisions led to his transfer to Ft. Hood and the circumstances there that triggered his behavior.
News reports to date are consistent with this analysis. For instance, his name appears as a participant for public briefings at the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. As a registrant in the Obama presidential transition task force (“Thinking Anew—Security Priorities for the Next Administration”), he would have interacted with a team of nine “task force briefers.” Judging from their surnames, at least seven were Ashkenazim.
As a combat-stress psychiatrist, Dr. Hasan dealt daily with troubled vets at Walter Reed Hospital where the most grievously wounded are sent to recover, many of them amputees, disfigured or otherwise handicapped for life. While coping with that vicarious trauma, he was taunted for his Muslim beliefs and harassed for his Middle Eastern heritage even though he was born, raised and educated in the U.S..
Despite clear indications of internal turmoil, including repeated attempts to resign his commission, he was dispatched to a post known for its huge population of combat-stressed vets. He arrived anticipating orders to deploy to Afghanistan, realizing his worst nightmare. Meanwhile a commander-in-chief promising change made matters even worse in the region.
Israeli psy-ops rely on an extensive cadre of sayanim (Hebrew for volunteers) who are shielded from legal culpability by being told only enough to perform their narrow role when tasked to assist with operations on an as-needed basis. Otherwise, they gather and report useful intelligence. Thus the presence of sayanim throughout the U.S. government. A sayan may well have identified Nidal Hasan as a potential asset who could be developed and, as here, deployed.
At What Cost?
With evidence emerging that Israelis and pro-Israelis were the source of the sham intelligence that induced the U.S. to war, those responsible are scrambling to cover their tracks. Americans will soon realize what the facts confirm: Jewish nationalists deceived the U.S. in order to deploy our military to pursue Israel’s expansionist agenda for the Middle East.
Americans will soon awaken to the cost of this entangled alliance in blood and treasure. U.S. deaths in Iraq could top 4,300 this month with more than one million Iraqis dead from the war and from violence unleashed by those who manipulated this alliance to induce an invasion.
That brings us back to the uncomfortable but essential question: Was Homeland Security created to protect the U.S.? Or was it created to protect those who deceived the U.S.? Was this incident another example of the murderous misdirection deployed to pit Americans against Muslims to advance unacknowledged Zionist goals?
By shifting blame to the military, do Lieberman and Napolitano intend to use federal law enforcement to contain the outraged reaction of an informed public and an awakened military? Was Dr. Nidal Hasan a terrorist? Or was he a troubled pawn in an ongoing psy-ops campaign meant to revive a narrative that—like the fixed intelligence—was losing credibility?
Both the false intelligence and the anti-Muslim narrative feature a theme of fomenting hate and intolerance. On October 28th, President Obama signed into law ADL’s model hate crime legislation. Will that federal law now be deployed by Homeland Security to silence those who make transparent the common source of this deception?
How much longer before a long-deceived public—both in the U.S. and abroad—takes the steps required to ensure that never again is duplicity allowed to operate on such a scale?
Jeff Gates
* Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide; an adviser to policy-makers worldwide; former counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee; and author of numerous articles and books including his latest book Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War, Democracy at Risk and The Ownership Solution. See www.criminalstate.com
Also see:
How the Israel Lobby Took Control of U.S. Foreign Policy
Today’s Ancient Warfare: Facts vs. Beliefs
Dancing To Our Israeli Master: Veterans Today
Abu Mazen Throws in the Towel
By Yacov Ben Efrat
Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen)
Sixteen years after signing the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians have concluded that there isn’t any point in continuing the peace process with Israel. That is the only way to understand the declaration by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) that he won’t run in the next elections for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority (PA). I shall argue that he should have pulled out years ago, but better late than never. The Israeli side refuses to believe him, seeing the announcement as a public relations stunt. Just two months ago his Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, announced his plan “for establishing a Palestinian state within two years,” and here comes the boss and shuffles the cards. The Palestinians went astray, it seems, in their attempt to rescue something from the peace process, given a right-wing government that has arisen in Israel and contradictory signals from Washington.
Abu Mazen’s resignation would be a big blast of no confidence where the peace process is concerned, but more than that, it expresses major disappointment with Barack Obama. Washington is largely responsible for the severe erosion in Abu Mazen’s position with the Palestinian public. It all began with Obama’s very promising speech in Cairo, where he committed himself to act for a Palestinian state with territorial continuity. On the heels of that speech he made a clear demand that Netanyahu stop construction in the settlements. Since then everything has been downhill, to the point where the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, praised Netanyahu for his “unprecedented concessions regarding the settlements.”
Clinton’s statement was the last straw. It came amid a series of humiliations suffered by Abu Mazen, who had expected the Americans to stand by their call for a freeze. Because of the initial US position, Abu Mazen went out on a limb, conditioning the renewal of negotiations on a freeze. However, when the UN General Assembly convened in September, Obama made him sit together with Netanyahu at a three-cornered meeting. Apart from a weak handshake, it produced nothing.
The nadir occurred when, pressed by the Israelis, the Americans demanded that Abu Mazen put off discussion of the Goldstone Report before the UN Committee on Human Rights in Geneva. The claim was that the discussion could delay the resumption of talks between the PA and Israel. Abu Mazen yielded. The result was to stall the anti-Israel momentum that had gathered around the report. The PA president’s accommodating attitude drew fire from the entire Arab world, giving a first-class propaganda weapon to Hamas. Then came Hillary with her praise for Netanyahu, demanding that Abu Mazen enter negotiations with “no preconditions.”
In the light of all this, we should view Abu Mazen’s threat to resign as a message to all interested parties: The game is over! Sixteen years of a sterile process must end now! I am not going to be led down the garden path by the Israelis and the Americans, I am not going to yield to their demands, and therefore I proclaim my withdrawal from the game. He confronts the sides with an ultimatum: The PA in its present form has outlived its purpose. Either it becomes an independent state or finis.
In such an event there are two possibilities. The first is that the international community will have to take over responsibility for the Territories. The second is that Israel will bring back the military administration, with all the political and economic ramifications that implies. The bizarre “co-existence” between the Occupation and the PA will have reached its term, and likewise the odd phenomenon of a peace process serving as cover for settlement expansion.
It seems that the message has been heard by the White House. This was apparent in the chilly reception that Netanyahu got during his most recent visit. Obama refused to confirm the meeting until the last minute. During their late-night private session, no doubt, Obama conveyed who’s boss. Netanyahu’s preening swagger each time he rejected the American entreaties, as well as the endeavors of special envoy George Mitchell, ended in something really “unprecedented”: the humiliation of an Israeli chief of state, when the White House refused to photograph the meeting or stand before the press, demanding instead from Netanyahu that the content of the talk not be leaked. For his part, Netanyahu contributed nothing solid that could lead to renewal of negotiations.
Netanyahu may try to plead innocent. He entered his second term as PM at a time when the Oslo Accords were nothing but a bitter memory. Yet he too contributed to their failure. In his first term, in 1996, he did all he could to torpedo them. The strained agreements about staged withdrawals and percentages, the division of Hebron, the violence after he opened the northern end of the Western Wall tunnel, all played a part in ending the dreams of peace from the days of Yitzhak Rabin. Since then we have gone through the Barak, Sharon and Olmert regimes, which wasted time, expanded the settlements, raised the separation wall, and helped to elevate Hamas to power. It is no wonder, then, that the PA has suffered a loss of credibility. It has fallen to Netanyahu to decide whether to end this conflict or cope with the consequence of not doing so: dissolution of the PA.
To end the conflict seems out of the question. Netanyahu has hamstrung himself with his right-wing coalition. How could he possibly make the demanded concessions—dismantlement of settlements, division of Jerusalem, and an arrangement for the refugees—and still keep Avigdor Lieberman’s party with him in the government, not to mention right-wing fundamentalist Shas (many of whose constituents live in those settlements)? And how, in such a case, could he possibly hold the Likud together, including right-wingers like Benny Begin and Moshe Ya’alon? But the problem is even more difficult. When we read the Israeli political map today, we see that there can’t be a ruling coalition without the right-wing parties. Kadima too, now in the opposition, wasted the time that it had under Olmert; it wasn’t prepared to give Abu Mazen the slightest commitment in writing, for fear of Shas and Lieberman. It’s ironic: Shas, party of the Mizrahi (Eastern) Jews, together with Lieberman’s party of the Russians, together hold the country by the throat. For years the Likud (including many in today’s Kadima) inflamed the public against the Left, cultivating racist hate against Arabs, and now we reap the crop.
Abu Mazen’s step also puts Hamas in a delicate situation. What will happen to the Hamas regime in Gaza and its demand to be recognized as the legal government? Hamas has been playing a two-faced game. It exploited the Oslo Accords in order to participate in the elections of 2006, which brought it to power. Simultaneously, it has done its utmost to undermine these Accords. Hamas used the Palestinian parliament as an umbrella for its legitimacy as a political party, but its military wing acted separately to destroy the agreements that the parliament is based on. If the PA comes apart, what will happen to the Gaza Strip? Will Hamas establish an alternative Authority? Or will it return to its underground days and implement a scorched earth policy?
There remains the question as to why it was necessary to undergo all the deaths, the blockade, the wall, the settlements, the roadblocks, the unemployment, a civil war between Hamas and Fatah, and now the destruction in Gaza—in order to reach a point where the PA collapses. For there was never a justification for the PA’s existence: that should have been obvious in the first place. Why has it taken so long to grasp the fact that the Oslo Accords could not lead to statehood, but merely perpetuated the Occupation? The answer seems simple enough: There are those within Fatah who gain from the perks of office. There is a thin, corrupt layer that has made itself rich on the backs of the people. For this reason we should not be surprised if a last-minute formula turns up once again to rescue the “peace” process. The existence of the PA, after all, isn’t only a comfortable arrangement for Israel, but also a source of easy profit to all who make a living off this hollow apparatus, including the regime that is headed by Abu Mazen.
Source: Challenge
Gazan Journalist reviews Turkish TV Drama on Gaza
We do not leave the injured behind, because we know what the Israelis will do to them.”
says : Mohammed Abed Alhay’s email address is: press5657@live.com
Gilad Atzmon: A new media of the Israeli
Gilad argues (with harsh video examples) that it is the artists that are ahead of the politicos in reflecting and leading the public perception.
Same Song, Different Verse
By Philip Giraldi
Illustration by Matt Mahurin
The American people, barely coping with nearly 20% in actual as opposed to statistical unemployment, a broken health care system, a skyrocketing federal deficit, and a collapse in home values really don’t need another war, but another war is what they are going to get. Blame the usual players in Congress and the mainstream media for a lot of it, but the case being made that Iran is a threat to the remainder of the world is largely being cranked up by Israel and its yapping poodles loosely described as the Israel lobby. That Iran spends only 1% as much on its military as does the United States appears to be irrelevant to the argument because everyone who reads the Washington Post and New York Times knows that those wily mullahs have nukes hidden up the sleeves of those loose gowns that they wear, secret warhead programs, and ballistic missiles that will be able to strike Europe someday for reasons that continue to be somewhat elusive.
Israel, which gets nearly $3 billion in “military assistance” and numerous other perks from Washington annually and spends twice as much as Tehran on its own military gets a free pass even though it has a secret and uninspected nuclear arsenal that undoubtedly contributes to Iranian paranoia. Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has made very clear that he wants the United States to attack Iran. What Israel wants from Washington it usually gets and there is no sign that President Barack Obama has the guts needed to change that sorry history.
Over the past several weeks Israel and its many friends have been particularly busy in beating the war drum. Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon declared emphatically on November 6th that Israel’s frequently stated willingness to attack Iran is not just a bluff. On the previous day, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton again cautioned Iran, pressuring the country to accept a tentative agreement on its nuclear program that would have denied it the right to enrich its own uranium, warning “We will not alter it and we will not wait forever.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen also joined the chorus. On November 8th the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Mullen “said last week in Washington that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel. Mullen said he would prefer that the US work diplomatically to keep the country from acquiring nuclear weapons, but hinted that should such efforts fail, the US air force and navy could be put into action as well.”
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, at the November 3rd Jerusalem Conference, a gaggle of congressmen convened to pledge everlasting loyalty to a foreign nation. Democratic Representative Howard Berman and Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, co-sponsors of the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009 which advocates cutting off gasoline imports, spoke emotionally about the “Iranian threat.” Berman, who reportedly once took an oath of office to represent all of the American people, confirmed “I was a Zionist before I was a Democrat” and added “This administration is serious about preventing a nuclear Iran.” Also present was the ever reliable Senator James Inhofe, who said “There are people who want to take Israel off the map, and the US is next.” He clearly meant Iran though he did not state who those “people” might be or exactly how they were going to do it.
And then there are the good old Southern Baptists, always quick to defend religious freedom worldwide unless it happens to involve Israeli repression of Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land. On November 2nd leading Southern Baptist evangelical Richard Land of the what-must-be ironically named Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission joined Jewish and other evangelical Christian leaders in New York to demand immediate sanctions to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The evangelical and Jewish groups support the Berman proposal to sanction firms or governments that export refined petroleum to Iran to “engender (sic) significant steps toward ending the Iran regime’s murderous pursuit of nuclear weapons.” Richard had apparently not heard about the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that stated that Iran had abandoned its weapon program in 2003. Nor had he read, or had no interest in reading, the June 2009 report by the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor which noted that Israel discriminates systematically against Christians. It protects holy sites under a 1967 law, but only if they are Jewish. The report noted that Christian and Muslim sites are fair game for exploitation by real estate entrepreneurs.
As the Goldstone report on Israeli war crimes in Gaza is about to be debated in the UN General Assembly, Tel Aviv presumably feels a need for some good PR, but some of the recent propaganda coming out of Israel and uncritically replayed in the US media does not pass the smell test. On November 4th, Israel seized an Antiguan registered freighter named the Francop, alleged to be carrying weapons in international waters. Bibi Netanyahu was beside himself, calling the weapons a “war crime” and declaring “Whoever still needed indisputable proof that Iran continues to send weapons to terror organizations got it today in a clear and unequivocal manner. Iran sends these weapons to terror organizations in order to hit Israeli cities and kill civilians. The time has come for the international community to put real pressure on Iran for it to halt this despicable activity and back Israel when it defends itself against terrorists and their patrons.”
One has to be amused when Bibi Netanyahu calls a possible ship load of weapons that had not been delivered anywhere as a “war crime” while at the same time refusing to investigate last January’s carnage in Gaza. Some have also noted that the daring Israeli commando action looked like it might have been staged. In its first press announcement, Israel claimed that the weapons had been picked up when the ship stopped in Syria. But the ship had not yet been to Syria and why would Damascus send Iranian weapons by ship when it would have been far easier to do by land? Later Israel claimed the ship was traveling from Iran to Syria, but the shipowners stated that the vessel’s actual itinerary was Egypt to Cyprus to Lebanon, ending in Turkey. So where did the weapons that were displayed by Israel after its commandoes seized the ship and towed it into the port of Ashdod come from and who was supposed to receive them? It is, to say the least, not clear and the Israeli story has a number of holes in it, most particularly its confident assertion that the weapons were bound for Hezbollah. Immediately after the seizure, the Israelis released the captain and crew, saying that they had had no knowledge of the hundreds of tons of weapons that were alleged to be on board. To keep the story fresh, six days later Israel’s Army Chief Gabi Ashkenazi resurrected the tale, stating, without providing any evidence, that Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets capable of hitting most Israeli cities.
A strange story, but no stranger than the spin about the Iranian nuclear facility located near Qom. Readers will recall that the facility was initially described by the US media as a secret weapons facility, proving that the evil Iranians were producing weapons of mass destruction that would immediately be handed off to terrorists who would then use them to blow up the Statue of Liberty. Even though US intelligence had know about the site for several years and had not been particularly alarmed by it, the Obama Administration quickly jumped on the story, denouncing the Iranians and accepting the premise that the hidden facility automatically means a secret weapons program.
On November 3rd Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Major General Amos Yadlin claimed that the Qom site has “no possible civilian use,” adding that Iran is “horizontally expanding” its nuclear program so it will be able to develop a weapon in the shortest possible time. But it now turns out that the Qom facility was started by the Iranian government in early 2007 when the Bush Administration had combined three aircraft carrier groups in the Persian Gulf region and was threatening to go to war over alleged Iranian interference in neighboring Iraq, a claim that was largely contrived. In any event, the facility was not developed with any urgency by the Iranians and currently, more than two and a half years later, it is little more than a potential back-up site for uranium enrichment clearly constructed over concerns that Israel or the US would attack the main facility at Natanz. The site was recently inspected by the UN’s IAEA and Mohammed El-Baradei described it as a “hole in a mountain” and “nothing to be worried about.”
And let’s not forget about Hamas, also ranked high in the evil incarnate stakes behind Hezbollah and Iran. On November 3rd the ubiquitous General Yadlin also accused Hamas of test firing a missile capable of hitting Tel Aviv, hinting darkly that the weapon might have come from Iran. In reality, the Gaza Strip, 25 miles long and an average of six miles wide and frequently described as “one big prison,” is hemmed in by overwhelming Israeli firepower on three sides and cut off by the Egyptians to the south making the import of new military hardware a bit problematic. As a military threat, Gaza is the mouse that roared.
And so the propaganda campaign, referred to during the cold war as agitprop, continues with Iran in the crosshairs. There are reports that Israel has funded a group of young bloggers who have good English to go onto websites to disseminate the party line, particularly regarding Iran, so it is safe to assume that an Orwellian conflict that has no rhyme or reason will be promoted all over the internet. There will be no rest in Congress, within the media, and in the corridors of power in Israel until Iran is defanged. And if it will take the deaths of a few thousand more young Americans and the total destruction of the US economy to accomplish that objective, so be it. Congress and the White House have not been answerable to the American people for quite some time so why should another war change anything?
Source: American-hijacked.com
Philip giraldi
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D. is the Francis Walsingham Fellow at The American Conservative Defense Alliance (www.ACDAlliance.org) and a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer.
Israel Lobby Routs Obama As Dollar Dies
By Paul Craig Roberts
It did not take the Israel Lobby long to make mincemeat out of the Obama administration’s “no new settlements“ position. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is bragging about Israel’s latest victory over the US government as Israel continues to build illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
In May President Obama read the Israelis the riot act, telling the Israeli government that he was serious about ending the Israeli conflict with the Palestinians and that a lasting peace agreement required the Israeli government to abandon all construction of new settlements in the occupied West Bank.
On November 10 Obama’s White House chief of staff, Rahm Israel Emanuel, surrendered for his boss at the annual conference of the United Jewish Communities.
The ongoing Israeli settlements, he said, should not be a “distraction” to a peace agreement.
Allegedly, the US is a superpower and Israel is a client state whose very existence depends entirely on US military and economic aid and diplomatic protection. Yet, in the real world it works the other way. Israel is the superpower and the US is its client state.
This true fact is proved to us at least once every week and sometimes two or three times in one week. A few days, ago the US House of Representatives voted 344 to 36 in favor of disavowing the UN report by the distinguished Jewish judge Richard Goldstone that found that Israel had committed war crimes in its attack on the civilian population in the Gaza Ghetto. The Israel Lobby demanded that the House repudiate the fact-filled report, and the servile House did as its master ordered.
US Rep. Dennis Kucinich spoke to his colleagues for 2 minutes in an effort to make them see that their vote against the Goldstone report would be a great embarrassment to the US government and demean the House in the eyes of the world.
But none of that matters when Israel gives its servants an order. The US House of Representatives preferred to demean itself and to embarrass the US Government rather than to cross the Israel Lobby.
Retribution quickly fell upon Kucinich for his 2 minute speech. On November 9, Kucinich was forced to withdraw as the keynote speaker for the Palm Beach County (Florida) Democratic Party’s annual fundraising dinner. The Israel Lobby gave the order—dump Kucinich or there’s no money and no one is coming to the dinner. County Commissioner Burt Aaronson called Kucinich “an absolute horror.”
Kucinich is the rare Democrat who stands up for his party’s principles, the working class, and tried to get health care for those Americans the corporations have thrown out on the street. But helping Americans doesn’t count. Israel über alles.
Meanwhile, the US dollar continues to decline relative to other traded currencies. Since spring, anyone could have made a double-digit rate of return betting on most any currency against the US dollar.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently expressed concern that despite the dollar’s continuing slide, it might still be over-valued. The Federal Reserve’s low interest rate policy encourages speculators to use the dollar for the “carry trade.” Speculators, whether individuals or financial institutions borrow dollars at rock bottom interest rates and use the almost free capital to purchase higher yielding instruments in other countries. The demand for dollars to finance the “carry trade” keeps the dollar higher than it would otherwise be.
Last year it was the Japanese Yen that was used for the “carry trade” due to the practically zero Japanese interest rates. The next scare that unwinds the “carry trade” will cause another big drop in financial asset values. This means that the stock market is very volatile. It is based on speculation, not on fundamentals.
When the “carry trade” next unwinds, the demand for US dollars to pay off the loans will temporarily boost the dollar. But don’t be fooled. The large US trade and budget deficits are the dollar’s death warrant.
When the dollar finally goes, so will the government’s ability to conduct wars of aggression, underwrite Israel, finance its red ink and pay for imports. That’s when the printing press will really get going.
Source: Vdare.com
Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.
Israeli Terrorism Against America?? INCONCEIVABLE.
By Amos Harel
Israeli military intelligence figures out what went wrong in Lavon affair – 55 years later
Fifty-five years after the notorious failure of an Israeli sabotage operation in Egypt, Military Intelligence has finally gotten around to figuring out what went wrong. The answer? Pretty much everything.
An educational presentation about the 1954 Lavon affair prepared by the MI history and heritage division found that MI had not sufficiently trained the members of the sabotage unit, who were mostly amateurs and included several Egyptian Jews, and had failed to give them cover stories, plan escape routes or otherwise plan for the possibility that they would be caught.
“First and foremost, this is the story of the failure of Military Intelligence, starting with the choice of targets for the network’s sabotage operations, the operational planning and the superficial and sloppy training, and ending with the method of execution, which totally failed to carry out the pointless mission, which had no chance of reaching the strategic goal its operators had set: the cancellation of the planned British evacuation of the Suez Canal,” stated the MI analysis.
The Lavon affair – also known locally as esek habish, “the rotten business” – was a plan to discredit Egypt’s government, then headed by Gamal Abdel Nasser, by bombing theaters, post offices and U.S. and British institutions, and making it seem as though Egypt was behind the bombings. The thinking in Israel at the time was that if the British were to give up control of the Suez Canal, it would be left in Egypt’s hands, putting Cairo in a better position to exert pressure on Israel.
The agents were told “to undermine the West’s trust in the [Egyptian] government by causing public insecurity” while concealing Israel’s role in the sabotage.
However, the agents were caught. One committed suicide in prison, two were hanged and four got long prison terms.
Only in 1968 were the prisoners exchanged for Egyptian POWs – a time lag the MI analysis attributes to internal bickering and a preoccupation with assigning blame.
“The intelligence community heads’ evasion of responsibility for the operation, like the internal preoccupation with the question of who among the leaders of the political establishment gave the order, led to the fact that over many years, no effort was made to get the ‘rotten affair’ prisoners released,” the analysis found.
Code-named Operation Susannah, the incident led to the dismissal of Binyamin Gibli, the MI chief at the time, and the resignations of then-defense minister Pinhas Lavon and ultimately, the prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. In the years after the incident came to light, public debate centered around the question of who gave the order for the operation to go forward.
The educational presentation, which met with harsh criticism when it was distributed to the MI units in September, states that although at least six external committees investigated the incident, the mistakes had never before been investigated and analyzed within MI, theinstitution responsible for the operation.
Source: Harretz.com
Photo: theuglytruth.wordpress.com
Why I am not a Zionist
By Kevin Coval
Build equality, not walls. (ActiveStills
Last week I was disinvited from my second Jewish conference in two months for poems I’d written in solidarity with Palestinians, poems that make an unapologetic call for justice. Subsequently, I and the poet I was to read with at the J Street conference, wrote a response to being censored. People from all over the country wrote to us supporting free speech, supporting art as a tool for change, supporting real talk about the degradation of Palestinians, and people wrote to let us know they disagreed. Some more thoughtfully than others.
We decided to hold our reading anyway in Washington, DC during J Street’s inaugural conference at an alternative location. We were hosted by the Busboys and Poets space. The room filled with a spectrum of ideas. We read our poems and during the question and answer period, no one was shouted down. Not the Israeli army refusenik, not the liberal Zionist apologist, not the Palestinian student who asked us to include more about the Palestinian people in our poems, not just the land or idea of nation-state, a point beautifully made and incredibly profound. No one shouted down moderator Laila al-Arian, a brilliant journalist and activist, whose father was a Palestinian political prisoner in America, now freed because of his daughter’s persistence. The crowd was cool and civil, though broad in opinion.
Since the second Palestinian intifada I have thought, written and spoken about these issues, but over the course of these last several weeks, I have arrived at a new beginning. Prior to now, I muddled this issue in complexity. But I have come to realize it is actually simple and clear. I am a Jewish-American man in solidarity with the Palestinian people. I am in solidarity with Israeli and American and All people who work and risk their lives and livelihood for justice. I am not restricted to working within the confines of the Jewish-American community. Justice and resistance to imperialism is a global, human concern for all people. For Jews, yes, but not Jews alone. For Palestinians, yes, but not Palestinians alone. It will take us all to push and demand governments and corporate interests to create fair, equitable living conditions. It will take all peoples to hold history accountable for the atrocities that occur.
This is an analogy. America celebrates Columbus day even though Columbus and American settlers killed, enslaved and pushed indigenous peoples off land they lived on. Tragically, indigenous peoples have been nearly wiped out of existence and pushed to the furthest margins of our culture that revels in amnesia. Main St., mainstream American culture does not expect Native Americans to celebrate Columbus, nor care nor know nor imagine if they do or not. Native Americans are not a demographic population Hallmark cares to account for. It is preposterous to think Jews would celebrate Kristallnacht, the night of glass when SS troops stormed and terrorized their German ghettos. In Israel, Independence Day is called Yom Haatzmaut. Communities gather to play music, dance and watch fireworks. The Chief Rabbinate has declared this day a Jewish holiday in which prayers should be said. But Palestinians remember 1948 and the formation of the State of Israel as al-Nakba, the Catastrophe. A day of murder, displacement and forced Diaspora. A day families are torn apart and ripped away from their homes. A state-sanctioned celebration of their dehumanization and second-class citizenship.
For this reason alone, I cannot believe in the integrity of the Zionist project. It’s built on bodies and lies. It denies the existence of people and a people. One of its slogans, rooted in the same malicious revisionism as American history and Holocaust denial, is a land without people, for a people without land. Columbus didn’t discover shit. He enacted the desires of empire and the fetishization of “discovery.” The formation of the State of Israel is rooted in blood and deceit, is the same story as all colonies built in the name of imperialism, capitalism and dehumanization. Therefore, I am not Zionist.
I am not pro-Israel because in January Israel murdered more than 1,400 Palestinians. They bombed schools and hospitals. They bulldozed homes and bodies. Israel builds a separation wall, as Germany did, as the United States does between here and Mexico, as the rich do between themselves and the rest of us. I am not a believer in borders. I have been mistaken for Italian, Puerto Rican, Arab and Muslim, but I am a suburban Jew who sought out hip-hop cultural space across red lines and Chicago segregation. I learned borders are to be contended and crossed. Israel believes in borders. Israel practices apartheid. On one side, irrigated lawns and swimming pools in illegal Israeli settlements. On the other side, Palestinian disenfranchisement, denied access to drinking water, medical assistance, jobs, the ability to earn an income or vote in the country that governs them, that limits their movement with passports, checkpoints and curfews and closes them into open-air prisons. I cannot be in favor of these practices, nor the state that enacts them. These practices are to be resisted, protested and pushed against. Those whose bodies are legislated against, contained, detained and maimed by state-sanctioned terror are to be stood with and listened to.
This week has provided clarity. This is not a complex issue. There is the brutality of governments and the need for the liberation of a people, all people. I am a Jewish person who stands with Palestinian people relegated to second-class citizenship and Israeli soldiers who refuse to enact racist militarism. I am not a nationalist; therefore I am not a Zionist. I am against the oppression of any person and people. I am not a builder of walls. I believe in equity and democratic practice, therefore I am not pro-Israel. I am an advocate for truth, justice and reconciliation. I believe in this. I believe in this now. I believe in the work ahead.
Source: Electronic Intifada
Kevin Coval is the author of Slingshots (A Hip-Hop Poetica) and Everyday People and co-founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival. He can be reached at kc AT kevincoval DOT com.
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Headlines
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Many members of the U.S. Congress have sold their votes to AIPAC for Israel. Consequently, the U.S. will subsidize the decimation of the Palestinians and the cruelty of Israel until some one else buys them for Palestine. Words of the U.S. are empty. The deeds of Israel tell all.
Cathy Regan
Appeasing Israel – At What Cost ?
The Guardian Newspaper is publishing this week a report from Palestine on the subject of the settlements From the various interviews it is clear that a majority of the settlers are comparative newcomers (Like their foreign Minister) with a fanatical belief in the right of Jews to the land of Israel/Palestine as confirmed by the Old Testament I don’t like to tread on beliefs….”tread softly for you tread on my dreams” but there is no hope of reconciliation with such creationist nonsense and bigotry.
Israel must be brought to the conference table and forced into a morally just position by American and European threats to withdraw financial aid. Boycotts played a huge part in bringing to an end apartheid in South Africa
I hope to be broadcasting my monologue Bitter Fruit of Palestine on YouTube shortly as my small contribution to the cause.
Watch this space
Richard Morris
Congressmen tell Israelis: Obama’s approach “troubling”
Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor is trying to keep mended Republican fences and bridges with Israel and Israeli influence, albeit as a US Representative to congress his utterance of such statements outside the House and especially to a foreign audience border misuse of Office if not treason.
It is important to expose the methods which they employ in their chicanery, such as their trip to Israel for personal and party political purposes, which are done in the bad interest of and contrary to US policy as set by the Executive Branch.
Congressman Eric Cantor and his friends treacherous and underhanded methods should be brought before the general public. This is the kind of stuff that should be archived and brought out again at Election time to defeat Cantor and every incumbent Republican Congressman who accompanied him on the trip, and every candidate who carried his next political campaign to Tel Aviv looking for vote$ and support!
- Debbie Menon -
*****************What is troubling is the Zionist AIPAC apparent control over Americas Congress. Israel is trying to push America into a war with Iran. That would be a disaster! Please wake up and take back our American Government.
- Patricia Blair -
I find Rep.Eric Cantor's remarks deeply disturbing, almost treasonous in his obvious efforts to defend Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine and the ever expanding illegal Israeli settlements and violation of the Palestinian human rights.
In regards to Obama questioning the illegal eviction of two Palestinian families, Rep. Cantor goes on to say," I'm very troubled by that, because I don't think we in America would want another country telling us how to implement and execute our laws.
It is obvious that the voters of the state that Rep. Cantor represents should immediately recall him as he obvious represents Israel's interests over Americas. Thinking Americans definitely do not want Zionist dictating policy terms to our Congress or President.
Patricia Blair
***************
“Butchers: The Hidden Truth About Israel’s Kidney Theft Ring!”
An interesting insight on the illegal activities of the Israeli government. It would appear that an International Jewish Mafia is in control. and that Israel and Zionism are merely a cover for a gigantic and worldwide mob operation.
How nice... to own your own country where you and your mob can operate immune from law enforcement because you own the law.
Earlaiman
“Global Elders? Counsel of Elders? “Where They Are?”"
Where are the "Elders?"
They are there.... they may be hidden in the clouds or buried in the depths, or obscured by the lies and deceptions which pass today for history and "News" created ad lib by and for Special Interests on demand.
But Truth is durable and it will survive. The elders will prevail for they are the purveyors of Truth.
In my lifetime I have been, among other things, a submariner and an aviator. I’ve learned a few fundamentals about operating both vehicles. Not wisdom, just plain facts, obvious and ignored at your peril.
Fundamental:
1. Every submarine which dives, must surface. If it doesn’t, you are dead.
2. An airplane, which goes up in one piece, must come down in pretty much the same way. If it doesn’t, you are at serious risk.
Both of these vehicles can be hidden, disguised, and tactically deployed in ways which tend to obscure and con-ceal their presence, objectives and power.
They are not unlike Truth in those respects.
Similarly, Truth is much like both the submarine and the airplane in many ways.
Once submerged, it is a matter of time until it surfaces. Unlike a number of submarines, it has rarely failed to do so.
It may have gathered marine growth, barnacles, weed, etc., and its paint may have faded and ablated from im-mersion but, clean it up, scrape off the surface and the truth will be revealed.
Launch a Truth, and fly as far and high as you may, safely back on the ground, you will find the same Truth that was launched.
Inevitably, Truth will return to the land or the surface. What goes up... must come down! Be patient.
Modern truth, like modern submarines and airplanes, has remarkable endurance and may remain gone for so long, dive so deep and fly so far and high that we may begin to think it has been lost.
But, Truth, unlike submarines and airplanes, cannot be depthcharged, torpedoed or shot out of the skies. It is made of much sterner stuff.
Inevitably, it will return, and again become apparent in all its shining reality.
Stick with the truth and you will survive the passage, the flight, and the battle.
Abandon Truth, or give up the wait, and it’s sink, swim, or pray the parachute works.
Lies and bullshit do not make good parachutes, lifejackets or rafts.
Hang around. Be patent. The truth is out there, and it will surface or land in its own good time.
Mr. Bush, or his navigator Mr. Cheney, may or may not be in command when it returns. Stranger things have happened at sea and in the sky...but, I assure you, Truth is on its way home and will arrive...in its own good time.
Whether we celebrate a homecoming or a wake is yet to be seen. But, we shall see, shan’t we?
but the ?Elders there will always be the Elders, and they will always bear the Truth!
Earlaiman
***************
There are small glimmers of hope when one surveys the global media’s terrain and reads France suspending the licenses of Israel acquisitions of weapons that were used in the Gaza Holocaust or Saudi Arabia decrying the Israeli abandon of meaningful strides towards peace in the Middle East or the Brazilian government’s reprimand of Israeli officials as they embarked upon a South American public relations charade; while yet abandoning all semblance of human decency at home in their Palestinian affairs.
The quiet voice of sanity uttered by the global elders is not altogether falling on deaf or unlearned hearing. What is missing is passion and vision for leadership by the Arab Americans in championing their own cause, when they are abandoned by a largely self-serving United States populace and an immoral government; no longer for the people nor by the people when considering the immeasurable gulf between the will of the people and the failure to have healthcare reform legislation before the American congress went home on their August vacations.
Their must be a marshalling of forces and ideas from a motivated Arabic grassroots constituency as the US military now quietly reviews use of social networks as we voice the sound of our discontent.
Don Corder
***************
***************We are caught in a strange predicament in the USA regarding Israel.
Perhaps we have created an enfant terrible that is on the verge of expanding territory, taking chunks of Iraq (via resettlement of Jewish Kurds) as well as other neighboring nations. Sending Israeli military or mercenaries (as is documented they did in Guatelama in the 1980s) into Iran as "peace keepers" would expand territory and give access to gigantic oil reserves.
The strange predicament mentioned above is that our sources of information are not free to question publicly Israel's motivation or, in fact, to publish facts reflecting Israel's obvious planned expansionism.
How greatly the US has changed: ordinary citizens are disregarded when they pressure for Iran to be allowed to simply get on with its own business nor are common citizens here effective in asking for press or government neutrality with regard to either country.
We enjoy keeping abreast with happenings in the Arab world and the INTIFADA is a great help to accessing a broad range of topics and reliable information.
Sincerely
An American Friend of Sabeel
Moskowitz Dividing Jerusalem With His Millions
Kudos to Ms. Baker. This man Moskowitz's mindset and disregard for truth, justice, and the legitimate rights of others nauseate me.
If this were a justice-first America, he'd be prosecuted for subverting U.S. policy and current negotiations with the nazi-fascist-racist government of Netanyahu and the Bouncer Lieberman. He'd also be prosecuted and vilified for flouting international law, under which every Zionist settlement/colony on Palestinian land is ILLEGAL.
Why should Moskowitz be allowed to export American dollars to Zionist Israel to fund ILLEGALITY -- EVEN AS WE ARE (FISCALLY AND MORALLY) BANKRUPT? THIS IS NOT RIGHT! MOSKOWITZ SHOULD SPEND HIS MONEY IN AMERICA IN SUPPORT OF OUR ECONOMY!
Finally, I love America even as I hate its policies driven by Zionist Israel: I love what my country could be were it not for the Moskowitzes among us.
Robert H. Stiver
***************
When Will Americans Come to the Aid of Palestine?
With the Zionist surrounding Obama, I find it difficult to believe that the American Government will at last do the right thing for the Palestinians, freedom,justice, or peace.
It appears that Obama's "campaign of change" was a myth that the American people and a lot of the world wanted to believe. In reality it was a clever deception that continues to destroy.
Patricia Blair
***************
Hamas’s Choice: Recognition or Resistance in the Age of Obama
I wonder why it is the Palestinians that must prove their right to exist, their right of return, their right to be free? Obama displays a bias when he dwells on the past Nazi Holocaust of the Jews while ignoring the present Israeli Zionist ethical cleansing and seizure of Palestine by the same Nazi model!
A knowledgable world is weary of this excuse on the part of Israel and the US for human rights abuse. Israel must release Marwan Barghouti and the at least 11,000 Palestinians being held in their prisons.
Patricia Blair
“Who Will Hold Us Accountable?”
I read this shocking account of perfidy last evening, and I was moved to copy-and-paste it into President Obama's "Contact us" site. I prefaced the paste with this preamble; my words are harsh but, I believe, warranted. We are being manipulated by -- AND WE ENABLE -- an enterprise of criminal psychosis. That is the only way that I can describe the unrelenting, myriad-faceted Zionist drive to expunge the Holy Land of all residents except "Jews" (many of them of questionable lineage, drafted by ZioIsrael for demographic dominance). It is inhuman, it is surely not a godly action of a "chosen people," and it is...yes, steeped in a dangerous psychosis. Here's my preamble to Ms. Abou Shakra's cri de coeur:
President Obama, if you can read this searing account by Lebanese lady Natalie Abou Shakra and not feel shame, disgust, and loathing, then you are not human. This is a context in which I fully agree with Reverend Jeremiah Wright: God Damn America! God Damn Zionist Israel! God Damn Egypt! The Christians and Muslims of Palestine cry out for truth, justice, freedom, and peace. The goddamned U.S., Zionist Israeli and Egyptian governments are hellbent on not permitting any truth, justice, freedom and peace to be given to them. This day, and every day until the Palestinians are delivered from the criminal psychosis of Zionist Israel, I hate my country for its complicity in this savage, slow genocide being perpetrated before our eyes. ...
Robert H. Stiver, July 17, 2009
***************
Victory For The People of Gaza!
George Galloway after arriving in Gaza
"This is a victory for the people of Gaza. We were determined not to be denied in bringing humanitarian aid to the children of Gaza. The silence of the world is deafening as the people of Gaza suffer, but the two hundred Americans and over one million dollars worth of aide that is going through confirms our commitment to a free Palestine. Long live the people of Palestine."
-VIVA- PALESTINA- USA -
Cynthia McKinney: I Finally Made it to Gaza; No Wonder the Israelis Didn’t Want Photos Taken
Cynthia Mckinney
***************The Viva Palestina convoy, led by George Galloway, is about to leave Gaza after having been permitted to enter for a period of 24 hours after waiting 11 days in Cairo for permission to enter Gaza. That in and of itself is a major story when expanded to include the inability of Gazans to exit The Strip--even if only to enter another part of their country, the West Bank or to move about freely in the fictional "Palestinian State."
I say fictional because it continues to dwindle even while peace talks are underway. Fictional, because Palestinian elections deemed by international observers to be free and fair, don't count if the US- and Israel-approved party loses, and the winners get to sit for years in an Israeli jail. Fictional, because they use Israel's currency here, the shekel, and the international roaming on our US cell phones indicates calls are from Israel.
Gaza is beautiful. Gaza is full of life, despite Israel's Operation Cast Lead. And now, I have seen, Gaza has been bombed to smithereens. I think I've mastered my video camera enough to share some images with you. I'll post them on the sites below when I return.
In the meantime, my fellow Americans and citizens of the world, we have a lot to do to put right all the wrong things done in our name. Much love to all of you who helped me, guided me, prayed for me, to make this successful entry into Gaza happen. Viva Palestina!!Free Gaza!!--
Greta Berlin
Everyone said it couldn't be done, that we were insane, that we would never get into Gaza. But we did, and we got in four more times before Israel began to stop us. But we will go again and again. Never underestimate the power of determined people, especially those people working for justice for the Palestinians.
Greta Berlin,
an American human rights activist
and co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement
Palestine, My Bride (Poem by Shakeel Syed)
Dreams … Aspirations,
Love … Laughter,
Tears … Sorrow,
All in you, yet unrealized,
O Palestine, My Bride …
Your Silwan … screams,
Your Gaza … gagged,
Your Hebron … horrified,
Your Ramallah … wrenching,
All in you, yet in tears,
O Palestine, My Bride …
Your green gardens … brown,
Your flowing rivers … dried,
Your mighty mountains … humbled,
Your dreamy deserts … ruined,
All in you, yet you smile,
O Palestine, My Bride …
O Palestine, My Bride …
You measure yourself not in miles … but in
Checkpoints and Roadblocks,
You name your cities & towns - not by name …
but by Walls, Fences & Barriers,
You visit your Villages and Hamlets … but through
Trenches and over Boulders,
All in you – keep smiling and
All of me - keep dreaming
for your Love & Laughter,
for my Tears & Sorrow,
One Day – O Palestine
You Will Be My Bride
end
The Spirit of Humanity: Poem from Prison by Mairead Maguire
Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire
***************For Gaza and the Palestinian People
‘Spirit of humanity'
As long as
The people of Palestine
Have no liberty, no freedom
Those of us with a voice to speak
Must speak
As long as
The children of Gaza
Live in fear of Israeli
Bombs and occupation
Those of us with a voice to speak
Must speak
As long as
Six million Palestinian refugees
Are deportees around the world
Those of us with a voice to speak
Must speak
As long as
Millions of god's children
Are hungry, imprisoned, and without hope
Those of us with a voice to speak
Must speak
Because it is in speaking
We find our liberty, our freedom
And no prison bars can take away
Our peace, our love
Which is the true spirit of humanity
*****************
(for Gaza and the Palestinian people)
Mairead maguire - Nobel Peace Laureate (in Ramle - Israeli prison) 3lst june, 2009
Source: http://www.propheticimagery.com
Books to Read
If your knowledge about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is fed primarily from the mainstream media from your local newspaper, the Associated Press wire, or maybe the New York Times or the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, or FoxNews - chances are that you are sadly mislead and gravely misinformed about the Middle East crisis.
The short essays in this book will open your eyes to some basic realities that have been safely kept away from you by a timid media unwilling to show you the harsh realities daily suffered by the Palestinian people and will illustrate through some startling examples how the media has repeatedly and systematically downplayed Palestinian suffering. The book will help you gain a better understanding of the subtle ways your opinions, feelings, and perceptions of the conflict are manipulated, and hopefully put you on guard next time you open your newspaper or turn on your radio or television.
Dr. Ahmed Bouzid is founder and president of Palestine Media Watch (PMWATCH.org), and head of the Philadelphia chapter of the National Arab American Journalists Association (NAAJA.org).
The Untold Story of Israel's Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship - James Scott
Jeff Gates explores How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War and how this duplicity operates in plain sight and, to date, with impunity. www.criminalstate.com
Carter explores the history of this volatile conflict
The late Edward Said, author of the groundbreaking work “Orientalism”subscribe to Intifada via Rss
Electronic Intifada- Resisting through education November 16, 2009Ahmad's first day of school was in 1991 during the first Palestinian intifada. Then six years old and living in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, Ahmad was a good student who enjoyed school. He worked hard and was always the first in his year. However, he was to have a different attitude towards education as frequent Israeli violence made completin […]
- Right-wing groups creating climate of fear at Israeli universities November 16, 2009Right-wing groups in Israel want to create a climate of fear among left-wing scholars at Israeli universities by emulating the "witch-hunt" tactics of the US academic monitoring group Campus Watch, Israeli professors warn. The watchdog groups IsraCampus and Israel Academia Monitor are believed to be stepping up their campaigns after the recent publ […]
- Interview: "My film makes you part of Gaza's reality" November 15, 2009Directed by Alberto Arce and Mohammed Rjuailah, To Shoot an Elephant is a documentary film that offers an eyewitness account from the Gaza Strip during Israel's assault last winter. During the attacks, when the Israeli military banned foreign journalists from entering the Strip, Arce managed to stay inside Gaza and filmed how medical teams and hospitals […]
Power Point on Palestine- Policy Briefing 2 2 09 February 15, 2009Arms transfer to Israel during the Bush Administration.gerontios@slideshare.net(gerontios)
- Zgreaterisrael February 7, 2009This is an excellent presentation of Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. What you are about to see will surprise or shock you on events leading to the establishment of Israel. The events that created the state of Israel have been the biggest cover up in modern times. The Corporate News Media rarely presents the truth on the conflictgerontios@slideshare.net(gerontios)
Qwaider Planet- Recovery awaits November 17, 2009Yusuf Mansur added a blog post Recovery awaits The writing is on the wall: the world’s greatest economic crisis in seven decades is over and the world is going into recovery. Jordan cannot and will not...(read more)Latest Activity on Creative Jordan أردن مبدع
- The Fruits of Wisdom November 17, 2009One evening a Cherokee elder told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between the two ‘wolves’ that live inside us all. One is Unhappiness. It is fear...(read more)Perspectives of a Canadian-Lebanese Human
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Due to biased, unbalanced reporting by the corporate Mainstream Media during the Gaza War.
I launched Intifada on January 11, 2009 to present the Palestinian perspective to the present Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Intifada is a fresh breath of air in the polluted biased, Zionist controlled mainstream MediaElias Farhud
