How Low Will Israel Stoop to Win the Propaganda War?

The Israel Project, a US media advocacy group, has produced a revised training manual to help the worldwide Zionist movement win the propaganda war, keep their ill-gotten territorial gains and persuade international audiences to accept that their crimes are necessary and conform to “shared values” between Israel and the civilised West.

It’s a clever document

The manual teaches how to justify the slaughter, the ethnic cleansing, the land-grabbing, the cruelty and the blatant disregard for international law and UN resolutions, and make it all smell sweeter with a liberal squirt of the aerosol of persuasive language. It is designed to hoodwink us ignorant and gullible Americans and Europeans into believing that we actually share values with the racist regime in Israel and that its abominable behaviour is therefore deserving of our support.

Israel is hoping for a PR massacre. The other side — the Palestinian Authority and the PLO — don’t take communications seriously and have neglected to correct Israeli distortion. They are happy, it seems, for Israel’s one-sided definitions to prevail, which of course makes the task for Israel so much easier. This latest propaganda offensive is potentially the ‘coup de grace’ to finish off the tormented Palestinians.

And the manual will no doubt serve as a communications primer for the army of cyber-scribblers that Israel’s Ministry of Dirty Tricks is recruiting to spread Zionism’s poison across the internet.

This quote at the beginning sets the tone: “Remember, it’s not what you say that counts. It’s what people hear.”

Top priority: demonise Hamas

The manual’s numerous messages are aimed at the mass of “persuadables”, primarily in America but also in the UK. The strategy from the start is to isolate democratically-elected Hamas and to rob the resistance movement and the Palestinian population of their human rights….

Clearly differentiate between the Palestinian people and Hamas. There is an immediate and clear distinction between the empathy Americans feel for the Palestinians and the scorn they direct at Palestinian leadership. Hamas is a terrorist organization – Americans get that already. But if it sounds like you are attacking the Palestinian people (even though they elected Hamas) rather than their leadership, you will lose public support. Right now, many Americans sympathize with the plight of the Palestinians, and that sympathy will increase if you fail to differentiate the people from their leaders.

The plight of the Palestinians under Israel’s heel was an international concern long before Hamas appeared on the scene.

But this scorning of leaders is familiar ground. We scorned Bush and Blair and had to differentiate between them and their respective peoples. We now have to do the same with Barack Obama and Gordon Brown. We are tired of having to make that same differentiation between the Israeli people and the dreadful leaders they produce.

ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO DEFENSIBLE BORDERS: With more than three years of violent history since Israel’s agreement to withdraw from Gaza and portions of the West Bank, Americans have had time to take stock of the situation and form opinions. The big picture: they believe that Hamas’ leadership of Gaza has made Israel and the region less safe, while some are more receptive to what they perceive as a moderate approach in the West Bank by Mahmoud Abbas. Based on these experiences, they are willing to grant Israel more leeway in resisting calls to give more land for more peace.

Here we clearly see the motive for demonising Hamas….Israel wants more leeway to continue its land-grabs and other criminal activities.

If… If… If…Then.”: Put the burden on Hamas to make the first move for peace by using If’s (and don’t forget to finish with a hard then to show Israel is a willing peace partner). “If Hamas reforms… If Hamas recognize our right to exist… If Hamas renounces terrorism… If Hamas supports international peace agreements… then we are willing to make peace today.

How daft can you get? Substitute Israel for Hamas.

Words that work

The manual sets out numerous examples of “words that work” — supposedly.

We know that the Palestinians deserve leaders who will care about the well being of their people, and who do not simply take hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance from America and Europe, put them in Swiss bank accounts, and use them to support terror instead of peace.

No mention here of the billions of tax dollars Israel takes from the US and spends on munitions to obliterate and vaporize its neighbours.

Peace can only be made with adversaries who want to make peace with you. Terrorist organizations like Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad are, by definition, opposed to peaceful co-existence, and determined to prevent reconciliation. I ask you, how do you negotiate with those who want you dead?

Hamas and Hezbollah are only regarded as terrorists by the White House and Tel Aviv and by US-Israeli stooges and flag-wavers at Westminster and elsewhere.

In Executive Order 13224 – BLOCKING PROPERTY AND PROHIBITING TRANSACTIONS WITH PERSONS WHO COMMIT, THREATEN TO COMMIT, OR SUPPORT TERRORISM – Bush used this definition: “The term “terrorism” means an activity that —

(i) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure; and

(ii) appears to be intended —

(A) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(B) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(C) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking.”

It describes the antics of the US and Israel perfectly.

There is NEVER, EVER, any justification for the deliberate slaughter of innocent women and children. NEVER…. there is one fundamental principle that all peoples from all parts of the globe will agree on: civilized people do not target innocent women and children for death.

Fine words, but where does that leave Israel, which recently killed 320 children in Gaza and 773 civilians including 109 women? From the start of the second Intifada (uprising against the Israeli occupation) in 2000 to the end of last year Israel had slaughtered 4,936 Palestinians in their homeland, including 952 children, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. In the same period Palestinians killed 490 Israelis in Israel including only 84 children. So Israel’s kill-rate is at least 10 to 1, and rising since the blitzkrieg on Gaza.

Iran-backed or US-backed – take your pick

Use humility. ‘I know that in trying to defend its children and citizens from terrorists that Israel has accidentally hurt innocent people. I know it, and I’m sorry for it. But what can Israel do to defend itself? If America had given up land for peace – and that land had been used for launching rockets at America, what would America do? Israel was attacked with thousands of rockets from Iran-backed Palestinian terrorists in Gaza. What should Israel have done to protect her children?’

Palestinians too have a right to defend themselves. Hamas was the popular choice of Palestinians at the last election and is entitled under international law to take up arms against an illegal occupier and invader. If it is supported by Iran, so what? Israel is extravagantly funded and supplied by the US. Here’s part of their begging-bowl “Military Aid Speech”….

Israel makes the request for military assistance out of self-defense. As a democracy, they have the right and the responsibility to protect our borders. As a democracy, they have the right and the responsibility to protect their citizens.

Israel does not ask for U.S. troops to protect itself. It does not ask for a single American soldier to protect its borders. It only asks for the funds for them to protect themselves. They need the equipment so that their own troops can ensure the safety of their civilian population through this gathering conflict with the enemies of democracy.

They didn’t ask to have our nation built in range of Iranian missiles. They didn’t ask that their nation be a focal point for religious extremists who have declared war on the West and on democracy.

But they are, and they need your help.

And here’s the rationale behind it….

Americans fundamentally believe that a democracy has a right to protect its people and its borders. And while Americans don’t want to increase foreign aid in a time of significant budgetary deficits and painful spending cuts, there is one and only one argument that will work for Israel (in four easy steps):

1) As a democracy, Israel has the right and the responsibility to defend its borders and protect its people.

2) Terrorist groups, including Iran-backed Hezbollah and Hamas, continue to pose a direct threat to Israeli security and have repeatedly taken innocent Israeli lives.

3) Israel is America’s one and only true ally in the region. In these particularly unstable and dangerous times, Israel should not be forced to go it alone.

4) With America’s financial assistance, Israel can defend its borders, protect its people, and provide invaluable assistance to the American effort against the war against terrorism.

It’s evident that Americans don’t believe in democracy enough to allow Palestinian democracy to flourish.

“When the terror ends, Israel will no longer need to have challenging checkpoints to inspect goods and people. When the terror ends we will no longer need a security fence.”

There are no rockets coming out of the West Bank, so why is the security fence still there – and still being built? Why are the occupation troops still there? Why are hundreds of checkpoints still there? Why is Israel still stealing land, demolishing Palestinian homes and building settlements there?

Remind people – again and again – that Israel wants peace.

Reason One: If Americans see no hope for peace—if they only see a continuation of a 2,000-year-long episode of “Family Feud”—Americans will not want their government to spend tax dollars or their President’s clout on helping Israel.

Reason Two: The speaker that is perceived as being most for PEACE will win the

debate. Every time someone makes the plea for peace, the reaction is positive. If you want to regain the public relations advantage, peace should be at the core of whatever message you wish to convey.

Israel does NOT want peace. It has never met its peace agreement obligations. Every action is directed at keeping the conflict going until the Israelis have stolen enough land and established enough ‘facts on the ground’ – Jews-only settlements, highways, disconnected Palestinian Bantustans – to enable them to redraw the map to suit their expansionist agenda and make the occupation PERMANENT.

Gaza in a vice

Israel made painful sacrifices and took a risk to give peace a chance. They voluntarily removed over 9,000 settlers from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, abandoning homes, schools, businesses, and places of worship in the hopes of renewing the peace process. Despite making an overture for peace by withdrawing from Gaza, Israel continues to face terrorist attacks, including rocket attacks and drive-by shootings of innocent Israelis. Israel knows that for a lasting peace, they must be free from terrorism and live with defensible borders.

Israel never left. It still occupies Gazan airspace, coastal waters and airwaves, and controls all borders except Rafah where it nevertheless exerts a veto. Israel has Gaza in a vice, which is crushing the tiny enclave’s economy, starving its 1.5 million citizens and creating a huge humanitarian crisis in an attempt to bring the elected government to its knees.

Draw direct parallels between Israel and America—including the need to defend against terrorism…. The more you focus on the similarities between Israel and America, the more likely you are to win the support of those who are neutral. Indeed, Israel is an important American ally in the war against terrorism, and faces many of the same challenges as America in protecting their citizens.

Note how Israel’s strategy is almost totally dependent on the false idea that they are victims of terror and western nations need to huddle together with Israel for mutual protection. Fortunately, level-headed people are beginning to realize who the terrorists really are.

It is surely obvious by now that allowing parallels to be drawn between Israel and America only serves to increase the world’s hatred of America. US citizens need to wake up to this, and British citizens should avoid falling into the same trap.

Inject with “core values” and repeat over and over again…

The language of Israel is the language of America: ‘democracy,’ ‘freedom,’ ‘security,’ and ‘peace.’ These four words are at the core of the American political, economic, social, and cultural systems, and they should be repeated as often as possible because they resonate with virtually every American.

If so fluent in this language, why won’t Israel acknowledge their neighbours’ rights to democracy, freedom, security and peace and end their military oppression?

A simple rule of thumb is that once you get to the point of repeating the same message over and over again so many times that you think you might get sick—that is just about the time the public will wake up and say ‘Hey—this person just might be saying something interesting to me!’ But don’t confuse messages with facts….

Never let facts get in the way of a good message!

How can the current Palestinian leadership honestly say it will pursue peace when previous leaders rejected an offer to create a Palestinian state just a few short years ago and now refuse to live up to their responsibilities as outlined in the Road Map?

This must be a reference to Barak’s so-called “generous offer”, another of the myths Israelis love to peddle. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip, seized by Israel in 1967 and occupied ever since, comprise just 22% of pre-partition Palestine. When the Palestinians signed the Oslo Agreement in 1993 they agreed to accept the 22% and recognise Israel within ‘Green Line’ borders (i.e. the 1949 Armistice Line established after the Arab-Israeli War). Conceding 78% of the land that was originally theirs was an astonishing compromise on the part of the Palestinians.

But it wasn’t enough for greedy Barak. His ‘generous offer’ required the inclusion of 69 Israeli settlements within the 22% remnant. It was plain to see on the map that these settlement blocs created impossible borders and already severely disrupted Palestinian life in the West Bank. Barak also demanded the Palestinian territories be placed under “Temporary Israeli Control”, meaning Israeli military and administrative control indefinitely. The ‘generous offer’ also gave Israel control over all the border crossings of the new Palestinian State. What nation in the world would accept that? The unacceptable reality of Barak’s offer, contained in the map, was hidden by propaganda spin.

Later, at Taba, Barak produced a revised map but withdrew it after his election defeat. Don’t take my word for it – the facts are well documented and explained by organisations such as Gush Shalom.

Why is the world so silent about the written, vocal, stated aims of Hamas?

Why is the world so silent about the written, stated aims of the racist regime and its political parties? Read their manifestos.

Successful communications is not about being able to recite every fact from the long history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is about pointing out a few core principles of shared values—such as democracy and freedom—and repeating them over and over again…. You need to start with empathy for both sides, remind your audience that Israel wants peace and then repeat the messages of democracy, freedom, and peace over and over again…. we need to repeat the message, on average, ten times to be effective.

Is democracy a shared value? Israel is an ethnocracy. Is freedom a shared value? The world is still waiting for Israel to allow the Palestinians their freedom.

The situation in the Middle East may be complicated, but all parties should adopt a simple approach: peace first, political boundaries second.

Renounce resistance while still under Israel’s jackboot? The correct approach is for the international community to first insist that Israel complies with international law and the many UN resolutions it has contemptuously ignored. The boundaries are already defined. Whatever issues remain to be decided, Palestinians should not have to negotiate under occupation or duress.

Rockets, bombs and atrocities: the language of peace

Bottom line: What will happen if we fail to get the world to care about the fact that Israeli parents in southern Israel need to literally dodge rockets when they drive their children to kindergarten in the morning? What will happen if the world allows Iran, the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, to get nuclear weapons? What will Israel do if bad press causes American citizens to ask [their] government to turn its back on Israel?

Why do I care so much about the success of your communications efforts? I care because I never want our children to live through what my family and yours lived through in the Holocaust.

Only one in 500 makeshift Qassam rockets causes a fatality, small beer compared to the devastation and carnage resulting from Israel’s state-of-the-art rocketry targeted on Gaza. How does it look when Palestinians are forced to pay a heavy price for the Holocaust in Europe? And how much does Israel care about the Palestinian holocaust it has caused?

The manual then gives a long glossary of terms. Here’s a sample….

“Deliberately firing rockets into civilian communities”: Combine terrorist motive with civilian visuals and you have the perfect illustration of what Israel faced in Gaza and Lebanon. Especially with regard to rocket attacks but useful for any kind of terrorist attack, deliberate is the right word to use to call out the intent behind the attacks. This is far more powerful than describing the attacks as “random.”

Israelis know all about bombarding civilian targets. And they are careful not to mention that Sderot, until recently the only Israeli township within range of Gazan rockets, is built on the ruins of an ethnically cleansed Palestinian village whose inhabitants were forced from their homes by Jewish terrorists.

“Economic Diplomacy”: This is a much more embracing and popular term than the current lexicon of “sanctions.” It has appeal across the political spectrum: the tough economic approach appeals to Republicans, and the diplomacy component satisfies Democrats.

This is a game we can all play. Israel is now beginning to suffer “economic diplomacy” in the form of worldwide boycotts.

“Economic Prosperity”: Whenever Israel talks about the “economic prosperity” of the Palestinians, it puts Israel in the most positive light possible. After all, who can disagree?

What sort of prosperity is it when nothing can be imported or exported without Israel’s approval and fisherman can’t even put to sea in their own waters without having their boats shot up by the Israeli navy?

“Human to Human”: “We know that the average Palestinian and the average Israeli want to come together and make peace. They want to live in peace. Israeli leaders have come together with Arab leaders to make peace in the past. But how do you make peace with Hamas and Hezbollah?

Simple. You get off their land and stay off. There can be no peace under occupation. You have to be very stupid not to understand that.

“Humanize Rockets”: Paint a vivid picture of what life is like in Israeli communities that are vulnerable to attack. Yes, cite the number of rocket attacks that have occurred. But immediately follow that up with what it is like to make the nightly trek to the bomb shelter.

Would Israel care to tell the world how many bombs, rockets and shells (including the illegal and prohibited variety) its F-16s, tanks, armed drones and navy gunboats have poured into the densely-packed humanity that is Gaza?

Still more advice….

“Living together, side by side”. This is the best way to describe the ultimate vision of a two-state solution without using the phrase.

Sounds cute but is worn out. Who would want to live alongside bigots and extremists who have made your life a misery for 61 years?

When talking about a Palestinian partner, it is essential to distinguish between Hamas and everyone else. Only the most anti-Israel, pro- Palestinian American expects Israel to negotiate with Hamas, so you have to be clear that you are seeking a ‘moderate Palestinian partner’.

Where are the moderate Israeli partners?

The fight is over IDEOLOGY – not land; terror, not territory. Thus, you must avoid using Israel’s religious claims to land as a reason why Israel should not give up land. Such claims only make Israel look extremist to people who are not religious Christians or Jews.

If the fight isn’t about land, why did Israel steal it at gunpoint? And why won’t they give it back when told to by the UN?

Think PRO-PALESTINIAN. While I have spoken about Israeli casualties, I want to recognize those Palestinians that have been killed or wounded, because they are suffering as well. I particularly want to reach out to Palestinian mothers who have lost their children. No parent should have to bury their child.

Israel won’t even allow cement into Gaza to build the graves.

And so I say to my Palestinian colleagues … you can stop the bloodshed. You can stop the suicide bombings and rocket attacks. If you really want to, you can put an end to this cycle of violence. If you won’t do it for our children, do it for your children.

This is recommended to activists as “an effective Israeli sound bite”.

I want to see a future where the Palestinians govern themselves. Israel does not want to govern a single Palestinian. Not one. We want them to govern themselves. We want them to have complete self-determination.

Israel is desperate to snuff out Palestine’s fledgling democracy and destroy the remnants of its government. For decades Israel has dismissed the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

The big picture approach is this: You must isolate Hamas as:

— A critical cause of the delay in achieving a two-state solution
— The biggest source of harm to the Palestinian people, and
— The reason why Israel must defend its people from living in terror.

Read from the Hamas Charter. Now, here’s how to attack Hamas: indict them with their own indoctrination materials. Yes, people know Hamas is a terrorist organization – but they don’t know just how terrifying Hamas can be. The absolute best way to heighten their awareness is to read from the Hamas Charter itself. Don’t just “quote” from it. Read it. Out loud. Again and again. Hand it out to everyone.

At last Israel makes a good point. After 3 years of ‘government’ Hamas must be mad to persist with its ill-advised charter. They have been severely tested. They have matured. They have earned credibility in many eyes. Israel’s behaviour makes Hamas look good. But all that will count for nothing if they don’t re-write their charter as a matter of urgency.

Regev’s pearls of wisdom. But how safe is the region under the threat of Israel’s nukes?

It’s not just Israel who refuses to speak to Hamas. It’s the whole international community… Most of the democratic world refuses to have a relationship with Hamas because Hamas has refused to meet the most minimal benchmarks of international behavior.

Isn’t that a little cheeky, Mr Regev, coming from a regime widely condemned for war crimes, piracy and mega-lawlessness.

It was the former U.N. secretary general Kofi Anan that put four benchmarks on the table. And he said, speaking for the international community … That if Hamas reforms itself … If Hamas recognizes my country’s right to live in freedom … If Hamas renounces terrorism against innocent civilians … If Hamas supports international agreements that are being signed and agreed to concerning the peace process … then the door is open. But unfortunately – tragically – Hamas has failed to meet even one of those four benchmarks. And that’s why today Hamas is isolated internationally. Even the United Nations refuses to speak to Hamas.

Which of those benchmarks has Israel met, Mr Regev?

Israel is very concerned about the Iranian nuclear program. And for good reason. Iran’s President openly talks about wiping Israel off the map. We see them racing ahead on nuclear enrichment so they can have enough fissile material to build a bomb. We see them working on their ballistic missiles. We only saw, last week, shooting a rocket to launch a so-called satellite into outer space and so forth. The Iranian nuclear program is a threat, not just to my country, but to the entire region. And it’s incumbent upon us all to do what needs to be done to keep from proliferating.

Why is Israel the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Mr Regev? Are we all supposed to believe that Israel’s 200 (or is it 400?) nuclear warheads pose no threat? Would you also like to comment on why Israel hasn’t signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and why it has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention? What proof do you have of Iran’s nuclear weapons plans?

And why do you persist in misquoting Mr Ahmadjinadad?

The Holy City is not up for grabs

The toughest issue to communicate will be the final resolution of Jerusalem. Americans overwhelmingly want Israel to be in charge of the religious holy sites and are frankly afraid of the consequences should Israel turn over control to the Palestinians. Consider:

• 71% of Americans trust Israel most to protect the holy sites in Jerusalem, compared to 6.1% who trust the Palestinian authority most. 8.5% percent trust neither.

• 54% of Americans believe that “Jerusalem must remain united under Israeli sovereignty” while just 23.9% believe that ‘Jerusalem should be divided into Israeli controlled and Palestinian controlled areas’.

Given the choice between the two, Americans of all political and demographic stripes trust Israel to protect and have sovereignty over Jerusalem.

Israel is in control right now and prevents Muslims and Christians from outside the City visiting the holy places. No way can Israel be trusted. The UN’s partition plan decreed that Jerusalem should become a ‘corpus separatum’ under international management. It is unlikely that the UN would wish to see its resolutions torn up or international law re-written for Israel’s sole benefit, regardless of America’s misinformed opinion.

Get the name-calling right

I’ll close with the following extract….

Many on the left see an “Israel v. Palestinian” crisis where Israel is Goliath and the Palestinians are David. It is critical that they understand that this is an Arab-Israeli crisis and that the force undermining peace is Iran and their proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. You must not call Hamas just Hamas. Call them what they are: Iran-backed Hamas. Indeed, when they know that Iran is behind Hamas and Hezbollah, they are much more supportive of Israel.

By the same token we must call the racist regime what it is – US-backed Israel.

Iran’s support for Hamas is difficult to quantify and probably less than we think. It is likely that more funding has come from Sunni Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In any case it is peanuts compared to America’s support for Israel.

Hamas is an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhhod and was founded in 1987 during the first Intifada. Hezbollah came into being in 1982 in response to US-backed Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. So the territorial ambitions of US-backed Israel provoked the rise of both. Israel’s problem is entirely self-inflicted and shouldn’t concern the rest of us.

It’s no surprise that Hamas’s election manifesto in 2006 called for maintaining the armed struggle against US-backed Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories.

Our obligation to respect and promote human rights

The Israel Project describes itself as “devoted to educating the press and the public about Israel while promoting security, freedom and peace”. It provides journalists, leaders and opinion-formers with “accurate information about Israel”.

However its propaganda manual, which runs to 116 pages, is an unpleasant piece of work which recycles many of the discredited techniques used by the advertising industry before standards of honesty, decency and truthfulness were brought in to protect the public.

And it serves to undermine with clever words the inalienable rights pledged by the UN and the world’s civilized nations to all peoples, including the Palestinians.

When you have to stoop this low you simply don’t have a case.

Everyone should bear in mind the following, written nearly 61 years ago:

Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

It would seem that Israel has not read or understood the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration, which all nations signed up to. There can be no excuse. Attempts to wipe out the rights of people who happen to be in the way of the bulldozing Zionist vision of a ‘Greater Israel’ deserve no support whatever.

Meanwhile the Palestinian side needs to de-bunk this Zionist handbook and re-frame the Holy Land situation in the language of truth. If the PA and the PLO won’t do it, who will?

Maybe it’s a job for the churches and mosques.

Stuart Littlewood, after working on jet fighters in the RAF, became an industrial marketeer in oil, electronics and manufacturing, and with innovation and product development consultancies. He also served as a Cambridgeshire county councillor and a member of the Police Authority. He is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society and has produced two photo-documentary books including Radio Free Palestine (with foreword by Jeff Halper). Now retired, he campaigns on various issues, especially the Palestinians' struggle for freedom. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

89 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. John Henry said on September 18th, 2009 at 9:21am #

    Brilliant article. Couple of problems with it though.

    – The qassam/mortar bombardments were inconsequential? OK. same logic is if folks do drive by shooting of your home every day. Maybe 1 in every 30 or 40 shots hits somebody. Not 500 to 1, but a Pretty ineffective ratio, I’d say. How would you like that?

    – Get off occupied land? Small problem is that Hamas/Hezbollah consider Tel Aviv temporarily occupied land. We’re not talking about Gaza or West Bank. So where do you want to put 7,000,000 people? Or you just going to kill them all and push them into the sea?

  2. Michael Kenny said on September 18th, 2009 at 11:03am #

    The bright side: none of this is new and the very fact that Israel’s supporters re-has it now shows just how bad their situation is. Or better yet, just how bad they see their siutation as being.

  3. John Henry said on September 18th, 2009 at 11:15am #

    Good point.
    Also before the Mumblebrains and other dissemblers weigh in, it bears mentioning that anyone who has suffered from terror understands viscerally what Israel is facing. Even today that rabid Pres. of Iran has done the ritual Holocaust denial thing again. It’s quite disgusting.

  4. Noisy Tappet said on September 18th, 2009 at 11:19am #

    Yes JH, but what has the Holocaust to do with the Palestine Question? Absolutely nothing, but a lot of people are pretending it has and using it as a smokescreen.

  5. John Henry said on September 18th, 2009 at 11:55am #

    Noisy Tappet is from Iran I suppose.
    After the Holocaust most countries were closed to Jews anyway. And after such savagery and devastation it made sense for Jews to go there.

  6. kalidas said on September 18th, 2009 at 12:18pm #

    John Henry answered the article’s question as expected. How low indeed.
    Holocaust, anti-semite, holocaust, anti-semite… ad infinitum.

    Preceeded, of course, by rote defamation of anyone else who may disagree.

  7. Noisy Tappet said on September 18th, 2009 at 12:28pm #

    Snide remark, JH. Do try harder to be intelligent. The UK wasn’t closed to Jews and there was a huge influx. Now they think they run the place. They certainly think they run the US too.

  8. B99 said on September 18th, 2009 at 12:58pm #

    JH – Yes, the qassams and mortars are inconsequential except as propaganda for Israel and as a way for the Palestinians to say, pathetically, as it were, that they will not roll over for the Jews.

    The only way your drive by shooting analogy can be made remotely applicable is if we understand that Zionists broke down the door of someone else’s house and now call it there own (which is actually what Jews do in Jerusalem). The Zionists have large guns trained on the home’s true owner. The drive-by shooter is a family member making sure that the Zyonz don’t get the house without a fight.

    You are correct that the Israelis are not talking about the West Bank – that’s because they are busy absorbing it into Israel. So while you merely SAY Hamas wants Tel Aviv, Israel ACTUALLY occupies the West Bank – all the world’s nations are not wrong about this.

    In a two state solution with return of refugees – everybody stays – but you no longer have a ‘state of the Jews’ you have instead a ‘state of its citizens.’ That will mean that the Palestinians will be returning from the desert the Jews pushed them into – but so be it. The end of Israeli state terror will mean peace for the rest of us.

  9. Aquinas said on September 18th, 2009 at 1:29pm #

    John Henry says ‘So where do you want to put 7,000,000 people?’
    The flippant answer is Brooklyn. But the question raises another. How many Israeli Jews have dual nationality or more? I recall an Israeli Jewish lady proudly telling a group she had the passports of four nationalities, one being Portugal. Furthermore, quite a few young Jews travel from the Jewish diaspora to fight in the Israeli Occupation Force. In the old days that was called treason in the UK.

    If a British Muslim does the same to defend his country of origin from bombardment and partition, say Pakistan, he is liable to be incarcerated and tortured by quislings of his own blood.

    But to Mr Henry’s question. Where did the European Jews put 0.8 million of the native Palestinians? Some of those and their descendants are living in Gaza. There are about 4000 humans per square km and 365 square km in all. Would this do for a quarter of the Israeli population.

    V good article Mr Littlewood. Suggest ‘ghetto’ more accurate than ‘bantustan’.

  10. bozhidar balkas vancouver said on September 18th, 2009 at 1:43pm #

    it is likely that imprisoned [or cornered like a rat] gazans deliberately provoked israel into committing a massacre of gazans. It had probably been a tactical move by gazans with a strategic goal to get the world to condemn israel and for the crimes and for laying the siege.
    if that indeed had been the case, hamas has achived.

    For israel there was no strategic value even in killing so many fighters let alone pal’ns.
    never underestimame what a cornered rat migh do.

  11. B99 said on September 18th, 2009 at 2:32pm #

    So JH, here’s the bottom line. Israel illegally occupies the West Bank. There is nothing you can say to make that legitimate. Israel is illegally moving its people onto that land and herding the non-Jewish inhabitants into compounds. There is nothing, nothing you can say to make that legitimate. What can you say? You have no defense – unless you want to portray yourself (and Israel) as a demagogue, but that would defeat your pretense of having a legitimate argument, wouldn’t it?

  12. John Henry said on September 18th, 2009 at 7:07pm #

    “Compounds?” in the West bank and Holocaust denial cartoons….glad I made my point before all the trick-or-treaters showed up!

  13. B99 said on September 18th, 2009 at 7:58pm #

    Jh – you have yet to make a point. Are you denying the Palestinians are relegated to compounds? Any and every mainstream newspaper in America has had a map of the West Bank riddled with its Jewish settlements, its checkpoints and roadblocks. So why bother denying it?

    BTW, you have not answered the real question. Where do you stand on the illegal occupation of the West Bank? Where do you stand on the question of the Jews having ALL of Palestine? Can you confess to us you are a racist and believe that Jews have every right to all of Palestine – or are you going to hide behind an excuse, some exception to basic human rights?

  14. dino said on September 19th, 2009 at 2:04am #

    There are clashes again in Iran between people drove by government and those drove by “reformers”.Is someone who knows what means “reformer” what reforms Mussavi and his supporters want?Are they for “western democracy” or at least for a “Jewish democracy”.What make them so darling for Occident.

    US denied the conclusions of the Humans Right Committee which established that Israel committed crimes against humanity.It is not surprising that US denied the report because the House approved the action in Gaza by an impudent vote 400 for the atrocities and 5 against.

  15. mary said on September 19th, 2009 at 2:38am #

    Quite Dino.

    Obama erred when saying “there is only one president at a time” when questioned about Israel’s Gaza offensive before his inauguration:

    Despite Barack Obama’s persistent pledges as president-elect that he would not meddle in foreign affairs while President Bush was in office, a new report in The New Yorker claims that his transition team worked to persuade Israel to end its offensive in the Gaza Strip before Inauguration Day.

    The article also quoted a former intelligence official as saying former Vice President Dick Cheney started “getting messages from the Israelis about pressure from Obama” before Jan. 20.

  16. mary said on September 19th, 2009 at 3:00am #

    The lines between Tel Aviv and Ms Clinton, Rahm Emanuel and their cohorts in the US Administration have been busy.

    http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1115659.html
    U.S. calls UN Gaza report unfair to Israel

    Ian Kelly of the US State Department at a press briefing yesterday
    MR. KELLY: Okay. So I have a reaction to the report of the fact-finding mission of Justice Goldstone. As President Obama made clear at the time of the events covered by the report, we are deeply concerned about the loss of life and humanitarian suffering in both Israel and Gaza. As we’ve said previously, prior to U.S. membership, the UN’s Human Rights Council set forth a one-sided and unacceptable mandate for this fact-finding investigation.

    Although the report addresses all sides of the conflict, its overwhelming focus is on the actions of Israel. While the report makes overly sweeping conclusions of fact and law with respect to Israel, its conclusions regarding Hamas’s deplorable conduct and its failure to comply with international humanitarian law during the conflict are more general and tentative.

    We also have very serious concerns about the report’s recommendations, including calls that this issue be taken up in international fora outside the Human Rights Council and in national courts of countries not party to the conflict. We note in particular that Israel has the democratic institutions to investigate and prosecute abuses, and we encourage it to use those institutions.

    We believe this report should be discussed within the Human Rights Council, and we look forward to participating in that discussion. We will approach discussions on the report keeping in mind the underlying causes of the tragic events in Gaza earlier this year – the lack of a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and the attacks by Hamas against innocent civilians.

    Our focus right now, as I’ve said before, is to get all sides to take steps to re-launch Israeli-Palestinian negotiations so we can end this conflict and the humanitarian suffering it has caused. We will move forward in discussions of the report while keeping that overriding goal at the forefront. We hope efforts related to the Middle East at the Human Rights Council and other international bodies will look to the future and how we can support the goal of a two-state solution.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Elsewhere Peres called the Goldstone Report ‘a mockery of history’ which is in itself humorous coming from the likes of him.

  17. Mulga Mumblebrain said on September 19th, 2009 at 3:30am #

    The John Henrys of this world are simply racists. For them a one hundred to one ratio of killings between the victims of Israel’s carefully guided weapons, delivering high explosive, depleted uranium, white phosphorus and DIME, targeting women, children, mosques, hospitals, schools etc, and the handful of victims of Hamas’s retaliatory rocket attacks is utterly inconsequential. That is simply because the John Henrys, like all racists, value some human lives greatly, in his case Jews, and others very low indeed, in this case Palestinians. Decent, humane, non psychotic humans value all human life equally, but the John Henrys reject that calculus with fervour. It’s the mentality of all European racists, throughout time. It’s the mentality of Nazism, apartheid, the lynch mob and the pogrom. Owing to assiduous cultivation by Zionism and the Israel Lobby throughout the West, race hatred is running amok in the West. The John Henrys want a religious, race war, because then they can get to see millions of the despised untermenschen, particularly the children, always a preferred target of this type, exterminated. Perhaps John Henry might even get so lucky as to sit in comfort in the US somewhere, while pushing the button to send a ‘Hellfire’ missile crashing into a wedding party somewhere in the world of the ‘raghead’ untermenschen. I’ll bet that the thought of it ‘gives him the horn’.

  18. Rehmat said on September 19th, 2009 at 5:43am #

    There are whole lot of Zionist myths kept alive for over century know. Some of these myths has beome part of Jewish religion and the others – part of western culture. Some of them have become more sacred than Christian Bible and Jesus. You challenge them: You go straight to jail. For example, on February 27, 1998 – a Paris court fined French philosopher Roger Garaudy US$40,000 for questioning some of Zionist myths in his book The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics – challenging the official Holocaust story and citing the awesome Jewish role in the western media.

    Some of the other famous myths I can count on my fingers, include….

    http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/zionist-myths-no-more/

  19. Don Hawkins said on September 19th, 2009 at 6:24am #

    Jerusalem — It’s getting a little, well, funky in Israel these days.

    Israelis have been watering their gardens and flushing their toilets a lot less in recent weeks, following the government’s decision to impose quotas on the amount of water they can use. And some people are even taking the rather unusual step of bathing every second or third day, to the chagrin of their co-workers, and imposing the same routine on their children. Hence the funkiness.

    Following five consecutive years of severe drought throughout this part of the Middle East, there just isn’t enough drinking water to go around. Not that there ever was, really.
    Since biblical times peoples and nations have fought over the region’s scant water resources, which today are shared — uneasily — by Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians.

    Deraa, Syria – The acute drought that has driven an estimated 300,000 Syrian farmers, herders, and their families to abandon home for makeshift urban camps may not be the worst in the region’s history; the Fertile Crescent has often experienced cycles of drought.

    But now climate change, an exploitation of water resources, and higher food prices brought about by the global financial crisis have all severely sharpened the impact of this dry spell, now in its fourth year. The numbers of Syrians affected – an estimated 1.3 million, 803,000 of whom have entirely lost their livelihoods – point to a serious humanitarian crisis.

    We try or we don’t. 9 years if we start today.

  20. Don Hawkins said on September 19th, 2009 at 6:44am #

    Faced with starvation and complete financial ruin, farmers in the drought-ridden region of Bundelkhand are being forced to sell what is often times their only remaining “possession”: their wives.

    The area of central India straddling the states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh suffered from one of the worst droughts in recent memory this summer.

    CHONGQING, China, Sept. 19 (UPI) — A severe drought has led to a shortage of drinking water for 1.5 million people in south and central China, a government spokesman said.

    California
    Messina said to “keep in mind 2009 is the third year of drought condition and surface water availability on the west side of the valley may only be at 40 percent of expected supply amounts, creating a greater demand for groundwater use.”

    LUBBOCK, Texas (AP)–If not for the triple-digit heat, central Texas rancher Debbie Davis could almost think it was a different season entirely.

    “The (pasture) grass looks like it’s the dead of winter,” said Davis, who raises beef cattle and Texas Longhorns northwest of San Antonio. The region is enduring its driest 22-month span going back to 1885. “It’s horrible. It’s probably the worst I’ve ever seen.”

    Usually it’s West Texas that’s hot and dry. Now, central and southern Texas are alone in the nation in experiencing the two most severe stages of drought. About 11 percent of the state was in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought as of June 30, up from 8 percent the previous week.

    I could go on you know. 9 that’s nine years to level off the gases if we start today.

    Just a little something you don’t see on the Nightly News as a whole the big picture. I guess they wouldn’t want to scare the public focus on health care. Oh there will be a need for health care in the coming years.

  21. Annie Ladysmith said on September 19th, 2009 at 8:10am #

    All anyone needs to know about Zionist propaganda is what i stated one month, or so, ago; in 1952 The Zionist took little children from school to go on ‘field trips’ where they would be treated for lice or some such thing. They were little dark skinned Sephardic Jews from a Mediterrean hertitage as apposed to the more European ‘Aryan” look.
    These unsuspecting happy, normal, darling kids were subjected to massive doses of radiation. About 6000 died in the short term, of course, many more died of cancers down the road.

    DOES THIS NOT SAY IT ALL??

    The Zionists are VERY willing to kill even Jews, even little Jewish children, to make their perfect, Aryan, facist state. How can it be good for the Jews, when the leaders are ultimately using ethnic cleansing against the Jews themselves? The Zionists are Nazis.

    They also have no right to the name ‘Israel’. The House of Israel was dispersed 200 years beforw the Jews, as in people from the house of Judah, went as slaves into Babylon. The Jews anywhere in the world are Judan NOT Israelites. They should call the country they stole, from Jews and Arabs alike, JUDEA.
    How dare they pretend they are the only Hebrews on the planet, it is simply ridiculous and makes no historical sense. They are the synagogue of Satan and they plan to rule the world.

  22. Annie Ladysmith said on September 19th, 2009 at 8:21am #

    Don, ‘it’s getting a little funky in Jerusalem’, in the short term it will only makes the fascists go after Iran with renewed gusto.

  23. bozhidar balkas vancouver said on September 19th, 2009 at 8:34am #

    World plutos appear united like never before in their ancient cosa nostra: moneysm and ever greater control of the servile people.
    There appears no more amerika, colombia, israel; ergo, no more americans, colombians, or israelis.
    Shemitic peoples of talmudic cult are made to believe that one day there will be an israel or state for mosheic cultists only.

    But u have noted that ab. 10 mn of these cultists or with connection to mosheic cultists, do not live in israel. Most of them are white!
    So, these white ‘jews’ along with the world plutos are simply using impoverished dark ‘jews’ for a mere feelgood thing.

    Eventually, all white ‘jews’ will leave palestine; leaving the christo-judeo-islamic peoples to cope as best they can with religious differences.
    According to historians, the shemites of the three major ‘religions’ always got along. tnx

  24. John Henry said on September 19th, 2009 at 8:59am #

    It’s surreal. Annie Ladysmith…nice comments! Naturally you have a nice source to show us about this radiation used to treat lice don’t you? Can’t wait to see the source! Maybe from Iraninfo or something… hahhahha!

    Synagogue of Satan…hahahahaha!

    And Mulga….What’s your PROOF that I want a race war or have any wish to exterminate children?

    “..The John Henrys want a religious, race war, because then they can get to see millions of the despised untermenschen, particularly the children, always a preferred target of this type, exterminated….”

    Sick, sick, sick!

  25. Shabnam said on September 19th, 2009 at 9:45am #

    This site is getting crowded with LIES OF zionazis who are pretending to know sh*t about their own war criminal activities in occupied Palestine and around the world.
    The Zionofascists are preparing the international community for ANOTHER 9/11 – have already sent out another fake tape repeating Israelis’ message meaning “Obama is powerless- from Ben Laden who was killed in 2002 and since then is kept in a freezer to be used in the future to fool more Americans, so force Obama to act against Iran because they know he does not want to wage another useless war to expand the interest of Israel and he know that AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE AGAINST WAGING ANOTHER WAR. In addition, people of the world are FED UP WITH THE ZIONIST’S THIRST FOR MORE BLOOD requires for establishment of ‘greater Israel.’ This time, it is more likely that many American soldiers in Afghanistan should be sacrificed to frame Iran for the crime.
    People of the world are determined to send Zionism, worse than fascism, into its GRAVE once and for all.

    Those who are ignorant about their own crimes against humanity and write the following rubbish “What’s your PROOF that I want a race war or have any wish to exterminate children?” is better to take a few minutes to read the following:

    https://new.dissidentvoice.org/2008/07/the-new-york-times-making-nuclear-extermination-respectable/

  26. KL5 said on September 19th, 2009 at 4:21pm #

    “This site is getting crowded with LIES OF zionazis who are pretending to know sh*t about their own war criminal activities in occupied Palestine and around the world.”

    Do you think you are proving anything here with these wretched links you fetch from your laptop as sources of facts? Your remarks qualify you to misuse the concept of Zionism as a pardon for U.S. Imperial ideology and crimes in many parts of the world. I claim, your first enemy sits in Washington, the scond in Tel Aviv. If Washington seriously sings, Tel Aviv will have to accordingly dance.

  27. Suthiano said on September 19th, 2009 at 6:36pm #

    how zionazis create terrorism:

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090917/ap_on_re_us/us_temple_plot

  28. Suthiano said on September 19th, 2009 at 6:40pm #

    zionazis aren’t skilled enought to work the land. they think they’re smart, but they can’t even provide for themselves… they are totally dependent on “lower” classes to do work. soon zionazis will become slaves.

  29. Shabnam said on September 19th, 2009 at 7:50pm #

    The Zionist liars who are coming to this site to divert attention from Zionist Jews’ crimes must be notified:
    If you hesitate to believe the evidence presented by the scientists every day where implicate Israel as the main architect of 9/11 with her accomplice Bush administration, to frame Muslim and wage a phony ‘war on terror’ to kill Muslims around the world, then why don’t you shut up and listen to one of the neocon, Philip Zelikow, George Bush’s advisor who said: “Iraq war was launched to protect Israel. ”
    It shows that, the Jewish Lobby, a fifth column in Washington, was influential enough to fool Americans with a phony charge of WMD, where actually exist in Israel, more than 250 bombs illegally, to remove Saddam and partition the country with the help of another Zionist Jew, Denise Gelb, to create NON-ARAB ALLY SUCH AS THE TERRORIS TRIBE OF KURDS.

    Philip Zelikow, well-connected body was known as the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), which reported directly to the President and served between 2001 and 2003, said that: “The attack on Iraq was launched to protect Israel.”
    Now, a body of another fifth column organization, known as “United Against Nuclear Iran” consists of Zionists pro Israel using their influential positions to wage a war against Iran for interest of Israel. This organization is following the footsteps of “Save Darfur’ – a campaign launched by the zionist Jews to destabilize Sudan for regime change which is well documented – spreading lies and deception to form public opinion against Iran, which is nothing but LIES.
    Basically, the same people who lied to you about WMDs in Iraq have started a campaign lying about Iran legal nuclear program. When you watch the following video prepared by the fifth column, United against Nuclear Iran, remember this:

    “A senior official close to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Mohamed ElBaradei accused unnamed Western powers of using the same ‘hype’ tactics employed against Iraq before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to justify imposing further sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.”

    http://uani.blip.tv/

    The advisory Board of this Cabal dominated by Zionist Jews pro Israel and their puppets are:
    Fouad Ajami, Jack David, Leslie Gelb, Karen Hughes,
    Walter Russell Mead, Gary Samore, Henry Sokolski, R. James
    Woolsey

    President
    Mark D. Wallace ( a Zionist fascist pro Sara Palin, Christian
    right pro Israel)
    Original Co-Founders & Former Co-Chairman
    Richard C. Holbrooke, Zionist and butcher of Afghanistan, Dennis Ross (known as a fifth column who was responsible for ‘peace process’ Zionist style to buy more time for Israel to build more Jewish settlement on stolen Palestinian land.

    The funny part is that the Iranian opposition group, including Hadi Ghaemi, Shireen Ebadi and Payam Akhavan who arranged worldwide demonstration against legitimate re-elected president Ahmadinejad on July 25 2009 are included Under resources and articles under ‘United against a Nuclear Iran.’
    Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate
    Iranian League for Defense of Human Rights (LDDHI)
    International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
    Human Rights Watch
    Reporters without Borders
    Amnesty International
    PeaceJam
    FIDH
    Nobel Women’s Initiative
    Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)

  30. Deadbeat said on September 19th, 2009 at 9:41pm #

    KL5 writes …

    Do you think you are proving anything here with these wretched links you fetch from your laptop as sources of facts? Your remarks qualify you to misuse the concept of Zionism as a pardon for U.S. Imperial ideology and crimes in many parts of the world. I claim, your first enemy sits in Washington, the scond in Tel Aviv. If Washington seriously sings, Tel Aviv will have to accordingly dance.

    Yet another Chomskyite response when Zionism is brought under the lens. Israel as “junior partner” is used to excuse and to divert away from actually confronting the racist ideology of Zionism. This framing is also why the Left has shied away from confronting White Supremacist racism because it is hypocritical for the Left to seem to want to confront White Supremacy in order to fool their constituent while at the same time make excuse for Zionism. “Blame the U.S. and leave Israel and Zionism alone”.

    It is a bogus stance and it reveals such rhetoric that has debased the Left on the issue of challenging racism and equal justice for all.

  31. mary said on September 20th, 2009 at 2:42am #

    They shoot journalists, don’t they?

    Last Wednesday, August 26 2009, the criminal Israeli occupation forces shot the Palestinian journalist Ubayda Maher Al-Qudsi, aged 25, while he was walking on Al-Shuhada Street in the heart of the occupied city of Hebron.

    To justify the murder, the IDF murderers claimed that Al-Dweik had attempted to attack an IDF soldier with a knife. No knife and no injured soldier were found where Al-Dweik was shot, and the things happened very differently from the usual lies of the IDF.

    The Palestinians who witnessed the crime stated that the soldiers stopped Al-Qudsi and were searching him, all the while mistreating and humiliating him. One of the jewish soldiers not involved in the search shot Al-Dweik in cold blood five times. After that, one group of soldiers dragged Al-Dweik like a sack for what was described as several hundred meters, then threw him violently into the back of their jeep and proceeded to beat him with extreme violence. Another group of soldiers present during the crime attacked the Palestinians present in the area, and arrested many children and youth who had witnessed the crime. The soldiers finally declared the crime scene a “military zone”. A Red Cross ambulance was not allowed to reach the victim, and the medical team of the ambulance was attacked by the soldiers. Instead, Al-Dweik was later delivered to the Shaare Tzedek hospital in Jerusalem, where he was held detained by military.

    continues/….
    http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/09/19/the-execution-of-a-palestinian-journalist/

  32. KL5 said on September 20th, 2009 at 3:42am #

    Deadbeat,

    “Yet another Chomskyite response when Zionism is brought under the lens. Israel as “junior partner” is used to excuse and to divert away from actually confronting the racist ideology of Zionism. “Blame the U.S. and leave Israel and Zionism alone”.

    I understand your contempt of racism and assure you that Chomsky is not a teacher of mine. Never did I mean to blame the U.S. and leave Israel and Zionism alone. I rather mean that Zionism is prospering in the U.S. because it finds the right soil; it suits the U.S. Imperial ideology fine. You know, Deadbeat, the marketing of the Holocaust and Jewish victimhood has been very successful. If you raise your voice against Zionist racism, you will immediately be resisted with established pseudomoral values as an anti-Semite. But if you raise your voice against U.S. Imperialism, you would find little or at most a weak “moral” resistance. Of course you would risk being an anti-American, but the “moral” burden would be less here and you would have more chances to initiate some change in the ideological culture of the U.S. I mean, a weakened Imperialism would inevitably weaken Zionism. Attempts in the reverse case would in my assessment fail.

  33. mary said on September 20th, 2009 at 4:01am #

    Uri Avnery writes on the Israeli reception given to the Goldstone report.

    http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1253361627/

    Is he inclusive or is he a Zionist?

  34. B99 said on September 20th, 2009 at 5:34am #

    Well, JH – You didn’t answer the question – Is it Jews and only Jews that have a right to a state in Palestine – all of it? Where do you stand on the right of Palestinians to a state in Palestine?

  35. B99 said on September 20th, 2009 at 5:48am #

    Mary- Avnery is a zionist but he serves a purpose. People on here like Mebosa, Desesche, and JH read him and get the uneasy feeling in their guts that Avnery is right. Avnery’s column would not even be allowed in a US daily for that very reason.

  36. bozh said on September 20th, 2009 at 6:45am #

    I suggest we not use the word “zionism” as a label for what goes on ME; use, instead, the label “theft of land”, or “land robbers”.
    Why call a “spade” and “instrument” when one can call it a “spade”?
    And insteads of calling ashk’m “jews” or “zionists”, call then “ashk’c war criminals” with gradated guilt an dpunishment for each land robber .
    And rejoice when they call u an “antisemite”, because ashk’c melange of peoples and ethnics are not a molecule hebraic. tnx

  37. KL5 said on September 20th, 2009 at 7:17am #

    bozh,

    Zionists are intrinsically land robbers. As you know, British colonialists offered Palestine for Zionist robbery after “freeing” it from the Ottomans. Since 1967 Zionist land robbers are intensively under the protection of U.S. Imperialism where they ideologically fit very well. U.S. Zionists (Jewish and Christian) support land robbery in Palestine financially and politically. This can only change if the course in Washington seriously changes. Playing with names and labels is useless.

  38. bozh said on September 20th, 2009 at 8:47am #

    KL5
    “Playing with labels” are your words not mine. Children understand what a robbery means but do not at all understand what any ism is. In fact nobody understands what any ism is.
    Surely using the label like “colatteral damgae” may be “playing with labels” but not for the dead children nor their living parents.
    And if one misapplies a symbol for an action, a fortiori, it won’t better the world. tnx

  39. jon s said on September 20th, 2009 at 1:30pm #

    A Happy New Year to all the Jewish participants on DV, a year of peace and understanding. Shana Tova!

  40. B99 said on September 20th, 2009 at 3:07pm #

    A very rewarding Ramadan and the happiest Eid al-Fitr to all!

  41. Annie Ladysmith said on September 20th, 2009 at 4:53pm #

    I’m getting a bit tired of the Israel bashing myself, even tough i’v said a few things on the topic. There’s a point were it becomes absurd because people are going around and around making the same points. i would like to say that there are many Jews who are not Zionists. They want to live in peace and send their children to school just like the Palestinians desire, who the Jews actively support. This is very much a big movement in Israel and it’s coming along in the US also. May life win over death, Shalom.

  42. bozh said on September 20th, 2009 at 5:09pm #

    it is an ancient ruse to label proper and much needed criticism and condemnation of crimes by any nation such as japan, china, germany, US, israeli bashing, russia as “bashing”.

    when one says that israel had expelled 700K pal’sn and slaughtered thosands of pal’ns it is not called “bashing Israel” but much needed education for american kids so that they know what happened. tnx

  43. Deadbeat said on September 20th, 2009 at 10:48pm #

    What hasn’t been giving a lot of attention is the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against Israel. Unfortunately Left icons like Chomshy and Finkelstein seem to be against this effort and there is not really much mention of this campaign — since 2005 no less — on Democracy Now!

  44. mary said on September 21st, 2009 at 7:43am #

    B99 The Israelis celebrated Eid al-Fitr by an aerial bombardment of the tunnels at Rafah and by killing two ‘militants’ (as the BBC call those fighting for their existence in Gaza) with tank shells.

    http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=106728&sectionid=351020202

    Elsewhere Palestinians spent hours at some of the 600 checkpoints in the West Bank attempting to get to their mosques. There is a video on the Press TV site which graphically illustrates the difficulties they experience (with some nice views of the ‘Wall’ included).

  45. mary said on September 21st, 2009 at 7:54am #

    Deadbeat – The BDS movement is growing and becoming more effective. This is a recent example – the exclusion of an Israeli university sited on illegal land from a Spanish architecture competition.

    Spain excludes settlement university from academic competition
    Posted by BNC Europe on Sat, 09/19/2009 – 07:06

    Jerusalem/Barcelona sept,20th. – The “University Center of Ariel in Samaria” (AUCS) has beenexcluded from a prestigious university competition about sustainable architecture in Spain. With this move, Spain joins the growing number of European governments taking effective, even though preliminary, steps to upholdinternational law by boycotting or divesting from institutions and corporations involved in or profiting from Israel’s illegal Wall and colonial settlements built on occupied Palestinian land.

    “Ariel UniversityCentre of Samaria” was one out of 21 teams selected last April to compete for the Solar Decathlon-Madrid 2010, the most prestigious competition for sustainable architecture in the world, organized by the Spanish Ministry of Housing together with the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid .[1]

    Selected teams, formedby architects and engineering students are asked to design and build a real house entirely driven by solar energy. Every house should be built in one of fthe 20 sites in the “Solar Villa” planned in Madrid to host them. To facilitate participation of the various teams, the Spanish Ministry of Housing allocated a sum of 100,000 Euros to every project.

    Last Wednesday,September 16th, Sergio Vega, General Director of Solar Decathlon Europe addressed all participant teams to inform them of the exclusion of AUCS:”The decision has been taken by the Government of Spain based upon the fact that the University is located in the [occupied] West Bank. The Government of Spain is obliged to respect the international agreements under the framework of theEuropean Union and the United Nations regarding this geographical area.” It represents the first case of sanctions against an Israeli academic institution in Spain and one of the very first such actions in the West.

    The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) in Palestine has taken up the campaign against official Spanish support of the illegal Israeli university in occupied Palestinian territory following an initiative of the UK based professional association, Architects and Planners for Justice inPalestine (APJP). The support of many individuals and organizations in Spain for the cancellation of AUCS’s participation in the Solar Decathlon had culminatedin a parliamentary question in the Spanish Parliament [2] and the eventual exclusion of the illegal settlement academic institution from the competition.

    This move of the governmentof Spain follows the decisionof the UK government not to rent offices from Israeli settlement builder Lev Leviev and the divestmentof the Norwegian Pension Fund from Elbit Systems, an Israeli companyproviding surveillance equipment to the Wall.

    The BNC congratulates the Spanish university teachers, parliamentarians and organizations for this principled stand with the Palestinian people and international law and calls for sustained support of the Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions(BDS) against Israel and all its complicit institutions, including universities, until it fully complies with its obligations under international law and respects universal human rights, specifically by ending the occupation, facilitating the UN-sanctioned rightof Palestinian refugees to return to their homes of origin and ensuring equal rights for all Palestinian citizens of Israel.

    For moreinformation please see the Palestinian BDS call:
    http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52

    The UK Trades Union Council has just passed a Fire Brigades Union motion that calls for the boycotting of Israeli goods. There are 6.5 million members of the TUC.

  46. dino said on September 21st, 2009 at 8:49am #

    Mary, is worse,the bombardment was an answer for a fire of two missiles to Israel which were not found and the so called missiles was a response for the killing of two Palestinians about whom idf believed that they intended to put explosive devices close to the wall .

  47. MEBOSA RITCHIE said on September 21st, 2009 at 8:54am #

    GOOD NEWS FROM ISRAEL

    The storms over Rosh Hashana set a new rainfall record for September, the Water Authority said on Sunday night, as what fell in just two days equaled the average total for September and October.

    Thirty to 40 millimeters fell on the North, with up to 60 mm. reported on the northern Golan Heights.

    Ten millimeters fell on Lake Kinneret directly. While the water level didn’t actually rise, because water is pumped out of the Kinneret at higher rates on weekends as electricity is cheaper, it was the equivalent of a rise in the water level, which otherwise would have gone down by a centimeter.

  48. MEBOSA RITCHIE said on September 21st, 2009 at 9:03am #

    B99—People on here like Mebosa, Desesche, and JH read him —you are LYING again
    i have never read chomsky;it’s likely he has never read me
    i read the bible–genesis–god gave the land of the canaanites to abraham and his descendents-the jews–for evermore

  49. Noisy Tappet said on September 21st, 2009 at 9:16am #

    And I read Alice in Wonderland.

    So the land does actually belong to the Canaanites. It wasn’t God’s to just give away to his pals……

  50. bozh said on September 21st, 2009 at 9:32am #

    It appears humorous that yahweh wld let a shemitic people possess excanaan for at least 4K yrs and after that give the land to a handful of emigrants from deepest and darkest chaldea [or is it sumer or akkad?] with a cult which chaldeans wld not tolerate and which ab. 6.6 bn earthlings hate or at least do not welcome.

    To make things quite a bit more laughable, the handful of emigrants only stayed on fringes of canaan for some yrs and left later fo egypt.
    And to add more laughter to the mystory, even egyptians hated what by then became a few hundreds of these cutlists.
    And more fun: egyptains didn’t oust the cultists; the cultists escaped; and on foot; and red sea parted to allow crossing into one of the worst area anyone cld go to; and in which by now a few thousand cultists wandered for 40 yrs.

    To make matters even more hillarious, the small number of cultitst have defeated more-advanced cannanites; slew all of them, etc.

    And then left excanaan and spread thru all of europe, asia, americas, and amerikas and are now back, but not the white ‘shemites’, in excanaan.
    and more laughter: in order to defend us from islamofascists; for democracy, nobility, fredoms, etc.
    Oh my devil, what a super people!
    But the funniest thing is that the richest ‘jews’ are whites and some 10 mn don’t want to live among such supranatural melanfge of people.
    Nor wld white cultists ever mary the descendants of dark mesos. tnx

  51. b99 said on September 21st, 2009 at 11:12am #

    Mebosa – Uri Avnery bozo, not Chomsky. Of course, you’ve not likely read Avnery either, but ignorance is bliss.

    Let’s understand this. Your book of tales is not the word of god – there is no god, no tribal god, no god of Jews. Those tales were written by people and based in myths that existed before there was such a thing as the Hebrews. Your book has no legal standing in international law. You got your country via the generous gift of gentile Europe. So you’ll have to forgive the world for their alternative view of how the world works.

  52. b99 said on September 21st, 2009 at 11:17am #

    Yes Noisy – it was the land of the Canaanites – even Mebozo can’t dispute that.

  53. mary said on September 21st, 2009 at 11:32am #

    Such charming night visitors. Imagine the terror that the children experience.

    Bil’in night raid 21/09/09
    http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=195&Itemid=1

    Israeli forces invaded Bil’in once again just before 1am. Six jeeps
    entered the village via the gate in the occupation wall. Two jeeps stopped at the house of Mohammed Ahmed Yasseen (age 21) and searched for him in the ground floor apartment belonging to his mother. Four jeeps stopped at Abdullah Mahmoud Aburahma’s (age 37) house and searched for him there. Two of these jeeps left quickly to search for Yasseen Mohammed Yasseen (age 21) at his home. None of the men were at home and no-one was arrested.

    International and Israeli activists accompanied local Palestinians at all three locations to protest against the invasions and to document events. The house searches were relatively short-lived, compared to the numerous previous invasions. The soldiers delivered letters to all three families demanding that the three men go to Ofer prison to meet ‘Captain Fo’ad’ of the shabak. This was the first time such a demand was written in Arabic.

    The invading forces were particularly aggressive at Abdullah Mahmoud Aburahma’s house. They fired tear gas and shot live ammunition in the air as they exited the village a little before 2am. No-one was injured or arrested.

    There has been speculation that an Israeli lawyer is attempting to show that this long series of night arrests is illegal because no forewarning was given to any of the Palestinians so far seized and detained. These letters may be an attempt by the Israeli army to pre-empt a court order demanding a warning before any arrest.

    Thank you for you continued support,

    Iyad Burnat- Head of Popular Commitee in Bilin
    co-founder of Friends of Freedom and Justice – Bilin

  54. deceschi said on September 21st, 2009 at 11:45am #

    “You got your country via the generous gift of gentile Europe. ”

    Adopted at the 128th plenary meeting:

    In favour: 33

    Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Byelorussian S.S.R., Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxemburg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukrainian S.S.R., Union of South Africa, U.S.A., U.S.S.R., Uruguay, Venezuela.

    Against: 13

    Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen.

    Abstained: 10

    Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia.

    It’s about Res. 189, remember? “Gentile Europe” is another of your rather suggestive historical notions. And by the way: it concerned also your beloved adopted children, the then called “Egyptians” or “Syrians” or Arab “Palestinians” (to distinguish them from the Jewish “Palestinians”). Your “Gentiles” were representing the world – the LAW you appeal so often to in support of your claims.

  55. deceschi said on September 21st, 2009 at 11:51am #

    Of course Res. 181, if you didn’t notice.

  56. b99 said on September 21st, 2009 at 12:25pm #

    Ah, deceschi – you finally recognize ‘law’!!!

    Yes, gentile Europe. A combination of anti-Semites bent on expelling its Jewish population, Christian Zionists entertaining the mad vapors of a Jewish ‘return’ to Palestine, and hardcore ‘real politik’ types with an eye toward using Euro-Jews as a colonial bulwark against Orient despotism and inscrutability. That’s who made Israel possible – led by the Brits who created the first facts on the ground for the eventual Jewish conquest.

    That the UN was run by Europeans and their Anglo-descendents elsewhere should be noted! – but as I’ve already related, flawed as that parochial decision was, it was only a reccommendation, one that WITHIN UN LAW could be rejected by either party and thus rendered null and void. Palestinians rightfully (granted they could not know they would be massacred for more than half a century for their decision) rejected 181. Thus 181 was nullified. The US too gave up its advocacy of it. No matter for the Jews. With Britain’s pull-out, they then began to carry out their pre-conceived (Biltmore Hotel meeting at the latest) effort to expel the native gentiles. They took the gift and ran with it.

  57. MEBOSA RITCHIE said on September 21st, 2009 at 1:58pm #

    b99—of course the canaanites lived there.
    god gave the land to abraham and the jews
    you seem to have a problem with god;you’re gonna have a much bigger problem in the future .
    but it’s not too late.
    you still have time to repent

  58. MEBOSA RITCHIE said on September 21st, 2009 at 1:59pm #

    mary–show some courage for a change
    go and join your friends in gaza,or bilin

  59. Noisy Tappet said on September 21st, 2009 at 2:21pm #

    “…god gave the land to abraham and the jews”
    So God’s a racist too.
    Are you sure he didn’t just lease it to them… and the lease ran out?

    Earlier you said it was the land of the Canaanites. Did God nick it from those nice folks in order to give it to ole Abraham? Broke his own commandments?

  60. deceschi said on September 21st, 2009 at 2:41pm #

    A hard-won gift, B99. And not only a gift – after the Shoah a moral and historical duty . The Jews were persecuted and massacred through the ages, and even after WWII (not only during), they weren’t so welcomed in the rest of the world. Many went to USA, others took their way to Palestine, the Promised Land since the day of the loss of their land by the Romans. (You must not believe it.)

    So you don’t accept the UN partition plan 181, as the Arab Palestinians didn’t either in 1947, because “the UN was run by Europeans and their Anglo-descendents”. I ask you: why should Israel now accept the resolutions of a UN that is in fact run by the Arab/Muslim States?

    And indeed in 1947 Arabs rejected the Partition plan, but surely not only because they didn’t agree with it, but also because they believed it would be quite simple to kick out all the Jews from the land they pretended to be their only. And they didn’t change their mindset yet, only that no longer seems so easy. This is the other side of the coin. And you know well.

    But one thing you are right: it’s a clash of civilisations – in its maximum focal point.

  61. MEBOSA RITCHIE said on September 21st, 2009 at 4:06pm #

    noisy–a lesson for you
    god owns the whole world including where you live
    the caananites who lived in the land worshipped idols and sexually abused their children amongst other digusting crimes.
    god decided that the caananites behaviour was so bad that they lost the right to live there and the land was given by god to abraham and his descendents,the jews.
    abraham was a good bloke who behaved properly.
    try reading the book of genesis–it’s all in there;the land of israel is for the jews.
    if you want to know anything else let me know
    good reading

  62. Jose Garcia said on September 21st, 2009 at 4:20pm #

    Fascinating article! A few further considerations:
    If Hamas considers all of Israel “occupied territory” and does not recognize Israel as a State, where is their will to negotiate ANY agreement?
    If, by any chance, we could turn the clock back to Palestine in its pre-1948 status. What would the author suggest we do with 6 million Israelis? Are you suggesting another Holocaust? Ooops, I forgot, the Holocaust never happened and it’s “just another Zionist piece of propaganda” just like all the ones you mention in your piece…

  63. B99 said on September 21st, 2009 at 4:46pm #

    Nah Mebosa, there not only is no god, there is certainly no god of ethnic groups. Israel exists today because of bad materialist decisions by Europeans. Nothing to do with the supernatural.

  64. dan e said on September 21st, 2009 at 4:47pm #

    JUST checking to see if could post a comment if i wanted… ?

  65. dan e said on September 21st, 2009 at 4:54pm #

    to me it seems like the most reasonable explanation of these absurd posts by Meboser Itchy & this chedesky is that they are stooges in the pay of antisemitic millionaires whose aim is to convince the US public that Jews in general are both evil and crazy. what else could it be, applying Occam’s Razor?

  66. B99 said on September 21st, 2009 at 5:10pm #

    The moral duty was to give the Jews Austria – Hitler’s birthplace. That’s after having failed to take them into the Anglo countries where virtually every last Jew wanted to go (OK a few in Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America). So the original moral duty was to take them in (and that would be a nice gesture even now providing they stay here!) There was and is no duty to abuse a third party. Besides, the plan for a state in Palestine for Jews-only predates the genocide of Jews by several decades. So the gift of the Euro-gentiles was to give the Jews someone else’s land. Ha. They likely regret it now.

    Very few have ever wanted to go to Palestine. Those who wanted to, did so! They lived and died there in relative peace with the majority population. When the Zionists started channeling Jews to Palestine, in some years the exodus was greater than the in-migration, Jews voting with their feet. Things changed only as immigration tightened up, otherwise there likely would be only a few hundred thousand Jews in Palestine today.

    Israeli historians and archeologists now doubt the Romans expelled the Jews in any great numbers. Besides, it was only Jerusalem they were expelled from, if anywhere – they have lived elsewhere in Palestine ever since.

    The Palestinians did not reject 181 because the UN was run by Euros, it rejected it because no self-respecting people would give 55% of their country away to a foreign minority who largely arrived there in the previous dozen years or so. And if the Palestinians thought it was simple to kick out the Jews – so what. They did not no how well connected the Jews were, money-wise and weapons-wise. That does not change the moral equation one iota.

    It’s not a matter of me accepting 181 – hey, if the parties want it, they can bring it back right now. What say? Of course, it is absolutely ridiculous to say the UN is run by the Arab states now. There are 192 members in the UN, out of 195 countries in the world – and they all have one vote. The US sits on the Security Council and is the only thing protecting Israel from WORLD condemnation, not Arab condemnation, not Muslim condemnation- but the world. That diplomatic cover is priceless and enables Israel to behave in a manner that can only be described as sociopathic. (OK, maybe also psychopathic). But unlike human sociopaths, for whom drugs might work, Israel has to be instead removed from two drugs – US cover and US money. Then Israel’s more sober instincts might kick in. They might start behaving like a modern and civilized society who does not wantonly attack women and children for purposes of getting the Palestinian resistance fired up.

    Other than what I just said, I don’t think I said it is a clash of civilizations. That’s Huntington’s shpil.

  67. B99 said on September 21st, 2009 at 5:16pm #

    Mebosa – Really now. Let’s be clear, Moses, Noah, Abraham, Cain, Abel and a host of others in the Bible are mythological creatures. They cannot be the basis for a Judenstaat in Palestine. Besides, notions of Divine Right went out in the modern world with the Enlightenment. Apparently, there are still a bevy of medieval torah/talmud Olympians out there who think otherwise. The least you can do is get with Neturei Karta for some proper instruction.

  68. MEBOSA RITCHIE said on September 21st, 2009 at 5:16pm #

    lying again b99
    do you even know what the truth is or do you read some strange books.
    if you told me it was sunny,i’d check before i believed you

  69. B99 said on September 21st, 2009 at 5:18pm #

    dan e – You might be right, but it’s not as if they have a leg to stand on. They can post here, but can they make any sense? I don’t think so.

  70. Annie Ladysmith said on September 22nd, 2009 at 12:41am #

    To: Salvation USA,
    Yeshua Christ teaches us to love our enemies and to treat them well.
    That is the whole Word in one sentence. The Jews through the Most High God have given the world every single thing that lasts including Yeshua, so don’t be so hard on them, there is a time for all things under heaven. (It is the cross that is a stumbling block, Yahweh taking the curse on himself and becoming sin for us, not a great godly image, not an image worthy of a great temple). The Jews love a temple, they’re ready to build another one even now.

    There are Jews, and there is the synagogue of Satan; people taking the form of Judah but not having the birthright. The synagogue of Satan does much evil in the world and Judah gets the blame. The time for Judah is coming and it is the time of the end, but Judah does not stand alone in Israel, there are 11 other tribes, the lost sheep, (Dan is the serpent’s trail-the traitor, Manassah and Ephraim, Joseph, are split to make the 12). Daniel’s book is now open and his people will be saved, it is written.

    i think i may have called you a moron (about the socialism thing), i’m very sorry about that, please accept my apology.

  71. Annie Ladysmith said on September 22nd, 2009 at 1:05am #

    But beebee, there is no ‘global warming’, it’s been the sun all along, century after century. If Gore has you brainwashed, just think what else you might BELIEVE that isn’t based on reality. Bye-bye.

  72. Noisy Tappet said on September 22nd, 2009 at 1:52am #

    “…try reading the book of genesis–it’s all in there;the land of israel is for the jews.”

    MEBOSA, if you believe the Old Testament you’ll also believe Leviticus 25.23 where God warns the Israelites: “”The land shall not be sold forever for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.” Strangers and sojourners meaning foreigners and tenants (I told you the lease had run out). Even if there was any truth in the God-given land idea, you have to accept that the Palestinians have been God’s tenants for at least 1600 years and have a greater claim.

  73. b99 said on September 22nd, 2009 at 5:56am #

    Mebosa – Are you familiar with Neturei Karta? They are ‘more’ orthodox than you – they will tell you if I’m lying or not. Besides what did I lie about? The fact of the Enlightenment? That Divine Right is no longer recognized (except by self-serving zionists)?

    Truth is that if you, Mebosa had lived more than a century ago you’d have likely been pouring over scripture like there was nothing else in the world, muttering ‘Naext hyear in Yerushaliyim’ – and then emigrating to America like more than a million others from the Pale. If you had been one of the few bent on getting to Palestine, you’d have lived there under Ottoman rule (like everyone else) ‘knowing’ that Zion was a state of mind with the lord – and not possibly a creation of Brits and assimilated atheist Jews.

  74. b99 said on September 22nd, 2009 at 6:03am #

    Socialism (USF) – Jews today understand that Jesus was a Jew. They see him as a Jewish philosopher, one obviously important to world history. They do not see him as Christ, however.

    Trouble is, Jews are going along for the ride on this. Most everyone knows the New Testament was written by unknown authors up to hundreds of years after Jesus supposedly lived. What they wrote was not what Jesus said (if anything) but what they WISH he had said. So while it makes for great philosophy (at least the Gospels do) there is no reason to believe it has any roots in Palestine of the Roman era. It does speak well of the authors though (even if lying about Christ) – those authors NOT being Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

  75. b99 said on September 22nd, 2009 at 6:13am #

    Jose Garcia – Has it occured to you that Israel considers all of the West Bank as Israeli? Maybe that explains to you why Israel has no will to negotiate.

    If we turn back the clock to pre-1948 Palestine, there WERE NO Israelis. The notion of *Israeli* was created out of whole cloth AFTER 1948. The Jews (and Gypsies) of Europe should have been removed to the US and other western countries -which is where they wanted to go. The Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust. The Holocaust is entirely a European thing for which the Palestinians have had to pay with their lives and land. In essence, the Palestinians are our Jesus Christ. They die for our sins (well, the sins of Europeans, anyway).

  76. pat said on September 22nd, 2009 at 7:05am #

    The entire world understands Jesus as the Jewish Messiah ?

    I do not understand Jesus as the Jewish messiah.The statement totally contradicts everything that is understood from the study of ancient texts, cultures, population shifts, the spread and development of languages and the development of traditions and religion.
    Jesus, if he existed, and there is no evidence that he did, would not have been a Jew. Having a Jewish identity is something that developed long after the destruction of the temple and was part of the development of modern Judaism as a cultral as well as religious identity.
    We do not know how Jesus would have identified himself or others, lets not forget both the Jewish and Christian traditions continued to develop and authors write for a contemporary audience in response to contemporary events.
    We also do not know much about the tradition he would have followed.The religious traditions that were known throughout the region were variations of semitic beliefs in yaweh, elohim, Israel and many others, with many of them having spouses. Also developments were spread over a long period of time and were patchy.There was a 200 year gap between the begining of Biblical tradition at the end of the Perian period to the dead sea scrolls. The earliest Hebrew Bible was written in630 c.e. during the Islamic period. Thats nearly 600 years after the New Testament texts and the establishing of the Mishnaic and Talmudic traditions.. And more to the point 600 years after Jesus was supposedly killed. By the Jews!!
    Please speak for yourself.

  77. bozhidar balkas vancouver said on September 22nd, 2009 at 8:11am #

    Pat,
    i am also of the opinion that jesus may have not been- if he even existed- of solely, if at all, hebraich ancestry.
    Even 3K-to 4K yrs ago, hebrews may have been a very small ethnic- but nevertheless a shemitic- group or clans.

    And by ca 2K yrs ago, melted in a huge melting pot, consisting of many shemo-hamitic peoples.
    Even the bible asserts that benjaminim who lived with jebusites in j’lem in 10th century bc were marrying so many jebusitic women, sanhedrind had to change the law who cld be an yehuda.

    Thus when euroasins invaded palestine in ’22-49, they found ONE people but with three cults.
    Thus, a totally a melange of nonshemitic peoples are basically killing and expeling shemites or semites, if one will.
    go figure! tnx

  78. Noisy Tappet said on September 22nd, 2009 at 10:51am #

    Back in 1922, just after the territory had been placed under British mandate, the British government issued a White Paper to clarify the exaggerated claims being made by Zionists about their ‘homeland’…

    “It is contemplated that the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status.”

    The Paper also said that the terms of the Balfour Declaration did not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded ‘in Palestine’. The government “observed with satisfaction” that at in Carlsbad in September, 1921, a resolution was passed expressing as the official statement of Zionist aims the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community, the upbuilding of which may assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed national development… “It is also necessary to point out that the Zionist Commission in Palestine, now termed the Palestine Zionist Executive, has not desired to possess, and does not possess, any share in the general administration of the country.”

    There was never any intention to allow a Jews-only state, and even the Zionist converts in the corridors of power didn’t accept this God-given land claptrap.

  79. b99 said on September 22nd, 2009 at 11:34am #

    Indeed Noisy, there was officially a citizen status known as Palestinian 26 years before there was such a status known as Israeli. Just as there officially was a political entity called Palestine 26 years earlier than one called Israel. Zionists have a way of denying there were Palestinians before the PLO used the term in 1964.

    And yes, whether the British intent was to verbally placate the Arabs, what is on (White) paper is that the Jewish entity was not to take up the whole of Palestine – a position agreed to by the Zionist Executive. In 1948, the Jews over ran all but 22% of Palestine – that is, the 55% alloted to them by UN recommendation and half of the rest including an internationalized Jerusalem.

  80. deceschi said on September 22nd, 2009 at 2:03pm #

    B99: “The Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust.”

    Not quite correct.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd1dmD1Fry4

    A link between Arab islamist anti-Semitism and Holocaust was during the WWII a undeniable reality, and still today radical Islam (for example Hamas & Co., Hezbollah and of course Iran) makes no secret of its genocidal aims toward Israeli Jews. This is an accepted fact – except probably for those who secretly agree with its goal.

  81. deceschi said on September 22nd, 2009 at 2:39pm #

    Errata corrige: the link was between Arab/Plaestinian NATIONALIST (not islamist) anti-Semitism and Holocaust.

  82. Mulga Mumblebrain said on September 22nd, 2009 at 7:48pm #

    deceschi, as a fervent Zionist racist I understand that you have peculiarly selective vision and a fondness for collective punishment based on racial guilt. Certainly there were Arabs who allied themselves with the fascists during WW2. Some did so out of hatred of the Allied colonialists who were giving their land away to alien colonists from Europe (spare us the arrogant and narcissistic mythology that a land inhabited by humans and their ancestors for nearly two million years belongs only to one tribe that invented itself a scant three thousand years ago, to the exclusion of all others)and some, no doubt, out of anti-Semitism. An anti-Semitism that was returned in trumps by the Jews in Islamophobia and Arab-hatred. However one can also find ample evidence of Zionist collaboration with the Nazis, and many Jews actually fought for the Nazi Reich throughout the war. Does that bother you deceschi?
    The accusations against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are just hatemongering lies, that Zionist speciality. Hamas was cultivated by Israel, in the old ‘divide and rule’ tactic, to undermine Fatah. Pure racist contempt, another Zionist perennial. Hezbollah grew out of a brutal, racist, Israeli occupation of South Lebanon, but I suppose a Judaic supremacist like you would have expected the ‘two-legged animals’ to simply submit to the Herrenvolk. Sorry, buddy, but you have created the scourge for your own back. As for Iran, the Zionist lies are just designed to give them the excuse for another Holocaust of Moslem extermination, like Iraq and Afghanistan which are both part of the ‘Zionist Plan for the Middle East’ as outlined by Oded Yinon and others.
    What I find most odious is your obvious appetite for collective punishment. Some Palestinians are, no doubt, anti-Semites, so, in your perverted ‘morality’ the entire several million are to be visited by murder, dispossession, humiliation and every type of sadistic cruelty imaginable. And here that delightful narcissistic self-adulation of the worst type of Jew comes in. Not only must the goy rabble not dare to criticise the Chosen People for their decades of calculated cruelty and terror against the Palestinians, but they must throw themselves onto the ground, singing the praises of the world’s exemplars. If they refuse, even for an instant, they will be vilified and abused as anti-Semites, and accused of desiring another Holocaust, by the very same people who are visiting an unending nightmare of terror and sadism on another people. In short, in a world of vile and cruel hypocrites, the Zionists very nearly take the prize.

  83. mary said on September 22nd, 2009 at 10:48pm #

    An article by the same author – “‘Free yourselves from the shackles of Israeli pressure,’ the man said.” British Zionist minister froths at Ken Livingstone interview with Hamas leader

    LOCATION (URL) –
    http://www.redress.cc/stooges/slittlewood20090922

    SYNOPSIS – Stuart Littlewood views the rabid reaction of a notorious Israeli agent of influence, British Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis, to an interview with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, conducted by former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and published in the New Statesman.

  84. deceschi said on September 23rd, 2009 at 3:16am #

    mulga, your redundant bombastic anti-Zionist style doesn’t impress me at all. Actually, it shows once again that the absence of founded balanced arguments in support of your position must be covered with a thick layer of well-known rhetoric ideological superstructure. Moreover is symptomatic the reversal of values and reality your discours is imbued with: you accuse Israel of things for which in fact Arab-Palestinian extremism and Islamism are to blame for.
    According to your own arguments and logic it was Israel the cause of Hamas and Hezbollah radicalism and terrorism (you call it “resistance”): Israel invaded South Lebanon (in fact it was a security belt against Palestinian terror incursions) and Israel had presence of settlers and military troops in Gaza. Both in both cases Israel withdrew entirely from occupied areas, yet the terror attacks didn’t stop, as it should be if the Hamas and Hezbollah weren’t aggressive and hostile entities on Israel’s Nothtern and Southern borders. Actually, the incursions and attacks increased concomitantly and were finally deterred only after a resolute military reaction by Israel. That means, their intentions are anything but peaceful – and never were.

    Your rose water-view about Arab-Palestinian radicalism, which indeed is rooted already in the time before the birth of the Jewish state of Israel and which like a fil rouge goes with the Palestinian armed struggle against Israel (also when the West Bank was still under Jordan rule), not even remotely grasp the truth of the situation, but rather puts al lot of smoke candles around – deliberately – in order to divert attention to the preferred obvious and sole victim of your hatred.

  85. mary said on September 23rd, 2009 at 5:45am #

    It was ever this. The Zionist tail wags the White House dog. Where is the law?

    Obama drops demand that Israel freeze settlements

    “It is past time to talk about starting negotiations,” President Obama says

    Obama meets separately, then jointly, with Netanyahu and Abbas

    Meetings come as hopes for renewed Israeli-Palestinian talks have dimmed

    September 23, 2009 — Updated 0238 GMT (1038 HKT)

    From Elise Labott
    CNN State Department Producer

    NEW YORK (CNN) — Prodding Israel and the Palestinian Authority to restart talks aimed at a permanent resolution of their decades-old conflict, President Obama dropped a demand for an Israeli settlement freeze, U.S., Israeli and Palestinian officials said.

    “Simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations. It is time to move forward,” Obama told reporters before a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    “It is time to show the flexibility and common sense and sense of compromise that is necessary to achieve our goals,” Obama said.

    Obama first met separately with Netanyahu and Abbas on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in what he called “frank and productive” talks. The session was the first among the three leaders since Obama took office in January.

    George Mitchell, Obama’s envoy for the Middle East, attended Tuesday’s talks. He said the talks were “at all times cordial,” but “direct” and sometimes “blunt.”

    Obama told Abbas and Netanyahu that, “The only reason to hold public office is to get things done,” and that everyone “must take risks for peace,” Mitchell said.

    Mitchell told reporters the U.S. is “not identifying any issue as being a precondition or an impediment to negotiation.”

    But the United States and Israel have publicly disagreed on Israeli plans to build more housing on land the Palestinians regard as theirs. Previous Obama administration demands for a freeze have been ignored by the Netanyahu government. Watch Netanyahu address peace, settlements »

    Abbas has so far rejected resuming talks with Israel until the Jewish state halts all settlement building in the occupied West Bank and in predominantly Palestinian East Jerusalem. Arab states also have balked at the U.S. request to take confidence-building measures toward Israel until Israel freezes settlement construction.

    Sitting with Netanyahu and Abbas, Obama softened his regular language on a settlement “freeze,” saying that Israel has had meaningful discussions about “restraining” settlement activity.

    “But they need to translate these discussions into real action on this and other issues,” he said.

    “Obama told Abbas that he couldn’t get the settlement freeze and promised to keep trying, but that it shouldn’t be a condition for talks and it was time to move on,” one Palestinian aide to Abbas said.

    Several U.S. officials said that Obama told Abbas that although the U.S. believe a settlement freeze would create a better atmosphere for talks to begin, the lack of one should not be used an as excuse not to talk.

    “Let’s not have the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Obama told Abbas, according to the officials. Watch Obama: ‘We have to find a way forward’.

    “It’s been apparent for some time that the Israelis were going to fall short of what is necessary on the settlement freeze,” one senior U.S. official said. “But our view is let’s get to negotiations and settlements will be addressed within those final status issues”

    A senior Israeli diplomat said Israel agreed to not building any new settlements, no outward expansion of existing growth and to only build for “natural” growth within existing settlements. He said Israel also agreed not to encourage Israelis to move to settlements, which would increase the population.

    “A complete settlement freeze wasn’t physically or politically possible, especially in the absence of any Arab or Palestinian concessions,” the Israeli diplomat said. “There was a time the gaps had significantly narrowed, but now they were starting to widen. The administration recognized, rather than have them widen further, we should start negotiating.”

    The Palestinian aide to Abbas said Obama’s failure to secure a settlement freeze has weakened him in the eyes of the Palestinian delegation, because it casts doubt on his ability to move Israel during final status negotiations.

    The Palestinians did win an important point, however, with Obama making clear that the peace talks would not start from scratch, which Netanyahu had favored. Rather the talks would take into account progress made in previous negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, the sources said.

    The Israeli diplomat said that Israel would “take into account” the previous negotiations, but stressed his country’s longstanding position that “nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to.”

    Obama also addressed Abbas’ desire to have the terms for negotiations more clearly defined, asking Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to come to Washington next week for further talks.

    Next week’s talks, to be led by George Mitchell, will center on what issues will be addressed at negotiations, which will present the U.S. with its next big challenge. Palestinians want negotiations to resolve the “final status” issues of the conflict, such as borders, Jerusalem and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Israel wants to begin with talks on a “provisional” Palestinian state.

  86. bozhidar balkas vancouver said on September 23rd, 2009 at 7:56am #

    Negotiating publicly by US/Isr on one side and pal’ns on the other, portends a coming charade behind the closed door.
    I think we all can picture such negotiations: reaching agreements on which side wld use which washroom, dining room, sitting arraingements, no cell phones, etc.

    In fact, US/isr had already put a diktat on the table and in order so that pals cannot but reject it.
    The telos for US/isr being the same: we will under no circumstance establish as yet a state for multos with mosheic cult only, nor any israel.
    Why wld they? Where are pal’n tanks, artillery, jet fighters, navy, mighty backers?
    Or does anyone even fleetingly doubt the soyuz’ capacity for injustice? US had over four century proved its inhumane behavior.
    Hebrews have proven for ca. 1K yrs its enorm cruelty. Followers of their cult in europe have also proved over at least 1K yrs that no people can get along with them.
    These are ominous signs. We are now all injuns and pal’ns!

  87. Mulga Mumblebrain said on September 23rd, 2009 at 5:22pm #

    deceschi, as your latest diatribe shows, you are either a cynical and practised liar, or a totally brainwashed Zionist robopath. Israel attacked Lebanon for years, based on Herzl’s claim that the land up to the Litani was ‘Jewish’ the patrimony of the tribe of Asher, whose tenuous claims, from thousands of years prior, trumped those of the non-Judaic inhabitants, on the usual racist, supremacist grounds. The Israeli invasions, from 1978, were a failed land grab, like the land thefts of the Golan and West Bank. Your mob are thieves, as well as liars and child-murderers par excellence.
    The northern border with Lebanon has mostly been quiet, save for Israeli attacks. Once again you invert reality and truth in your lying. Before the brutal invasion of 1982, with its tens of thousands of civilian murders in Israeli atrocities, culminating in the Israeli organised mass murder of thousands of old men, women and children in Sabra and Shatilla, the northern border had been quiet. The same was true in 2006, when the UN reported that Israeli incursions over the Blue Line in Lebanon were one hundred times more numerous than Hezbollah violations. But this was, as the Israeli Right boasted at the time, ‘The best prepared war in Israeli history’. The pity was that when the Israelis met Hezbollah (not even the best Hezbollah fighters) man to man, they got their arses wiped. It seems years of training in martial valour by terrorising old people, children and pregnant women at West Bank check-points had blunted Israeli military competence. Sure you devastated Lebanon in your trademark cowardly fashion, obliterating women, children, mosques, hospitals, schools, even warehouses for food and shops, from 30,000 feet, but Hezbollah defeated you, again, where it counted. I bet that really rankles, what with your innate belief in your superiority to the rest of humanity.
    As for Gaza, yet more lies. Israel did not leave Gaza, it merely withdrew to the concentration camp wall, instituted an immediate blockade on the camp, which it has steadily tightened, and bombed and terrorised the prisoners from the relative safety of Israel. Your typical total dismissal of Gazan casualties in Israeli bombing, assassination raids and through the siege, is just that vile, racist, Orwellian contempt for the truth and the lives of your victims, who you see as sub-human untermenschen in precisely the same manner as the Nazis looked down on the Jews, Slavs and Roma, that one has become used to from the Judeofascist Right.
    The Gazans were absolutely entitled to resist this vicious and racist imprisonment and siege, and their rocket attacks showed the Israelis that cruelty, racism and brutality will meet resistance. Typically, the Israelis, with narcissistic and maudlin self-pity and no little enthusiasm, began bemoaning the plight of Sderot, as Gazan casualties continued at tens of times the Israeli rate. But as we all know, Judaic religious belief is that Jewish blood is infinitely more precious than non-Jewish, and that the killing of civilians is, as the Yesha Council of Rabbis and Torah Sages proclaimed, in 2006, a ‘mitzvah’ or good deed, ie a religious obligation.
    Face it decrepsi, the world has woken up to Israeli fascism and racism, and to Judeofascist lies. The Gaza abomination was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Israel is now so plainly a religious-fascist terror state of unlimited cruelty and viciousness, that the world, despite frantic efforts of vilification and intimidation from the all-powerful Judaic Lobbies, is waking, and will call your beloved horror state to account, and soon. It may be your last chance. Live in peace with your neighbours, stop murdering and terrorising them, or face growing isolation and contempt. I’d say that it’s an easy choice, but I’m not a fundamentalist religious bigot who thinks his soul is superior to that of any non-Jew, so I could be wrong.

  88. B99 said on September 23rd, 2009 at 6:19pm #

    deceschi – No, entirely correct. For you to blame the Palestinians for the holocaust is like blaming the Jews for slavery or the genocide of Native-Americans just because there was a Jew in the woodpile. Really, I know what you are getting at, and to bring the Palestinians into it is just silliness. Far more import can be attributed to the role Jabotinsky zionists played German-Jewish pre-war relations than anything Palestinians did or said. The currents of central European 20th century history vis a vis European Jews and gentiles renders any Palestinian role no more than that of a butterfly in China.

    So let’s get this straight. I can post FAR more extensive Zionist – Nazi collaboration than you can Palestinian-Nazi collaboration. Anti-Semitism is a European Christian thing, any animosity that Palestinians or other Middle Easterners developed is entirely due to the role of Israel in establishing a state for Jews on Palestinian land.

    As per your reply to Mulga, the growth of Hamas in Palestine is entirely due to Israel’s unwillingness to abandon its militant effort to conquer the rest of Palestine (something you too favor). Israel conquered the WB, failed to deal with the world’s condemnation of this, failed to deal with a less zealous Fatah – and after many decades of Fatah failing to net one single acre, Hamas (with Israeli support) became a counter force.

    Israel invaded South Lebanon because it meant to stay there after it annihilated the Palestinian population which itself was only there because of ethnic cleansing by Jews. Early Zionists wanted an Israel up to the Litani, but were denied – later Zionists (Israelis) merely were fulfilling that goal,

    You don’t get it. The UN has not changed Gaza’s status as ‘Israeli-occupied.’ Palestinians have every right to resist Israel’s occupation of both Gaza and the West Bank – and for that matter, they have every right to allies. Israel does not have its big ally? And Jews in America are not supposed to be concerned with Jews in Israel because it ain’t happening in America? Or is it you just hold Jews to a different standard?

    Hamas attacks DID stop. They held to the truce – Israel did NOT hold to the truce. Israel wants no part of a truce because what’s next – actual negotiations? Your job is to get the eff out of the WB – THAT”S when resistance stops.

    Palestinian intentions are NOT peaceful – you are stealing their country.

    YOu can’t get out of the Deceschi – you guys came from Europe and expelled the natives. The Palestinians did not go to Europe. You owe them a country.

  89. Wounded Knee said on September 25th, 2009 at 5:18pm #

    Here is a simple question If the Muslims wanted to eradicate those of the Hebrew faith then from 638 to 1918 didn’t they do it ? And why would they in 1492 did the Muslims go to all the trouble to get the Jew out of Spain and save them from the inquisition ?. If we good Christian are so moral then from 1914 to 1918 why did good Christian kill other good Christian at a rate of about 10,000,000 ?