Huqul al-Nakhl

Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez Canal and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war as over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid.

The intervention, which enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the sustained life-support system the United States has provided to the Jewish state. Israel was born at midnight May 14, 1948. The U.S. Recognized the new state 11 minutes later. The two countries have been locked in a deadly embrace ever since.

Washington, at the beginning of the relationship, was able to be a moderating influence. An incensed President Eisenhower demanded and got Israel’s withdrawal after the Israelis occupied Gaza in 1956. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes bombed the USS Liberty. The ship, flying the U.S. Flag and stationed 15 miles off the Israeli coast, was intercepting tactical and strategic communications from both sides. The Israeli strikes killed 34 U.S. Sailors and wounded 171. The deliberate attack froze, for a while, Washington’s enthusiasm for Israel. But ruptures like this one proved to be only bumps, soon smoothed out by an increasingly sophisticated and well-financed Israel lobby that set out to merge Israel and American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Israel has reaped tremendous rewards from this alliance. It has been given more than $140 billion in U.S. Direct economic and military assistance. It receives about $3 billion in direct assistance annually, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. Foreign aid budget. Although most American foreign aid packages stipulate that related military purchases have to be made in the United States, Israel is allowed to use about 25 percent of the money to subsidize its own growing and profitable defense industry. It is exempt, unlike other nations, from accounting for how it spends the aid money. And funds are routinely siphoned off to build new Jewish settlements, bolster the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and construct the security barrier, which costs an estimated $1 million a mile.

The barrier weaves its way through the West Bank, creating isolated pockets of impoverished Palestinians in ringed ghettos. By the time the barrier is finished it will probably in effect seize up to 40 percent of Palestinian land. This is the largest land grab by Israel since the 1967 war. And although the United States officially opposes settlement expansion and the barrier, it also funds them.

Full article: www.insight-info.com

The US intellectual Noam Chomsky believes Israel’s appetite for war on Iran and the Gazans will eventually lead to self-destruction.

Source: www.insight-info.com

“I wrote decades ago that those who call themselves ’supporters of Israel’ are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration and probable ultimate destruction,” the prominent linguist told CounterPunch.com in an interview.

“I have also believed for many years that Israel’s very clear choice of expansion over security, ever since it turned down [Egypt's former President Muhammad Anwar] Sadat’s offer of a full peace treaty in 1971, may well lead to that consequence,” said the respected academician.

Chomsky made the remarks when asked by CounterPunch, ‘During the last few months, Israel has accentuated its attacks on Gaza and is talking of an imminent ground invasion. There is also a strong possibility that it is involved in the killing of the Hezbollah leader Mughniyeh and it is pushing for stronger sanctions (including military) on Iran. Do you believe that Israel’s appetite for war could eventually lead to its self-destruction?’

Replying to the same question, the historian Ilan Pappé, known for his anti-Zionist opinions and his analysis of Zionism in the colonial context, predicted that the Israeli regime would head to destruction, especially once the US withdrew its support.

“Yes, I think that the aggressiveness is increasing and Israel antagonizes not only the Palestinian world, but also the Arab and Islamic ones. The military balance of power, at present, is in Israel’s favor, but this can change at any given moment, especially once the US withdrew its support,” he opined.

The remarks come as Israeli deputy prime minister Shaoul Mofaz claimed on Friday that the Israeli regime would attack Iran should the country continue with its nuclear program.

Islamic Revolution Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei Tuesday praised the Palestinian people and the Hamas government for their robust resistance against the stiff pressures and unprecedented crimes of the Zionist regime and its bullying friends.

“The Zionist regime, which once looked invincible, suffers its weakest ever position now, being unable to stand against the shelter-less and lone Palestinian nation that nevertheless has been persevering,” Ayatollah Khamenei told the Hamas Political Bureau Chief, Khaled Mashal and his accompanying delegation.

“May Allah’s peace be upon the Palestinian nation which has stood by like mountains despite all these stunning and unprecedented atrocities,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.

The Islamic Revolution Leader said that the sole way to free Palestine was to keep resistance and faith. He appreciated the elected Hamas authorities, not least the Premier Ismail Haniya, for adopting a brave and resolute stance.

The Islamic Revolution Leader expressed deep sorrow at the current woes of the Palestinian people, especially the inhumane siege of the Gaza Strip coupled with the daily bloodshed of women, children and other defenseless people in the area.

“The tragic scenes are painful. However, the perseverance of the innocent Palestinian people against the usurper Zionist regime which is backed by all sorts of economic, military and propaganda supports, generates hope and proves to be a Divine Promise,” the IR Leader added.

Ayatollah Khamenei elaborated that the Palestinian issue and the frustration of the Zionist enemy and arrogant powers against the nation as well as the ever growing achievements of the Iranian nation despite all pressures in the past thirty years are all the clear interpretation of the God’s promise that ‘if one assists the faith of God and persevere, God too would assist him.’

Ayatollah Khamenei noted that perseverance in the path of God has a price, adding however that those who step in the path and endure any potential hardships would be honored by God whereas those who choose another path would pay the price of being shameful before God.

Khaled Mashal for his part delivered a report on the latest Palestinian developments, especially the disastrous situation in Gaza, adding however that the Palestinian nation takes honor in its perseverance and would not relinquish resistance or support to the Hamas government under any conditions.

Hamas Political Bureau Chief said the Palestinian youths have embraced spirit of martyrdom, adding that the issue had given a large boost to the position of the Palestinian resistance.

Irib

Hezbollah commemorated the eighth anniversary of the Resistance and Liberation Day in a huge central festival in Beirut’s southern suburb.
 

Hundreds of thousands of people flocked from across Lebanon into the Raya playground in the Sfeir region. Representatives of President Michel Suleiman and House Speaker Nabih Berri attended the festival alongside diplomatic, political, religious and Hezbollah figures also took part in the annual event.
 
Waiving yellow Hezbollah flags, people chanted Lebanese and Hezbollah anthems and challenged US-sponsored allegations that Hezbollah’s popular base has diminished.
 
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah appeared on a huge screen amid cheers and pledges of allegiance. 
 
Sayyed Nasrallah began his speech with praising the martyrs, particularly former Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Abbas Mussawi, Shekh Ragheb Harb and Hajj Imad Moghniyyeh.
 
“Our eighth anniversary coincides with the 60th anniversary of usurping Palestine and the establishment of the oppressive entity. It also coincides with the 30th anniversary of the 1978 Israeli invasion to south Lebanon. Hence this is a time to contemplate and draw lessons whether in Lebanon or in the Arab and Israeli worlds.”
 
Sayyed Nasrallah said that the resistance has served as an example and a strategy in two areas: “There is a strategy for liberation and removing the occupation, and a strategy of defending the homeland and people in the face of aggressiveness, threats and an invasion…This is our message today to Lebanon and the Arab and Islamic worlds; it’s a joint message by the resistance in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq to the whole nation. When Israel invaded south Lebanon in 1978, UNSC resolution 425 was issued, we waited for its implementation and we bargained on the international community. In Lebanon, there were suggestions that a united Arab strategy be formed to confront the aggression. None of this happened, neither by the international community nor by Arab governments that had abandoned the choice of confrontation.
Imam Mussa Sadr here in Lebanon had established the choice of resistance with the help of southerners and of course trust in Almighty Allah.”
 
The Hezbollah chief elaborated saying that the consequences of the wrong choices saw Israel deeming Lebanon a weak state and invaded it in 1982, “thus creating a second Arab Nakba (Catastrophe).
“The Lebanese were divided into: a neutral group, a second unconcerned group, a third group of cheap collaborators, a fourth group that had intersecting interests with the Israelis, a fifth already defeated group that was looking forward to cooperate with the occupation on any level in the framework of cutting losses, a sixth group that, politically and through the media, rejects occupation and a seventh group that believes that its national, religious and moral obligation is to take up arms and liberate the country regardless of the price; this is the group of the resistance.”
 
Sayyed Nasrallah stressed such division resulted in a lack of consensus on the resistance.
“I tell anyone whose country is under occupation: Don’t wait for consensus…take up your arms and head to liberation. This is what happened in Lebanon. The resistance that constituted a part of the Lebanese people depended on its will and the strength of its fighters in the battlefield. The Arab and Islamic worlds should have helped them, but many of these governments lagged behind, however Syria and Iran spearheaded the countries that assisted the resistance and consequently the historic victory in 2000; a clear victory for Lebanon, the resistance, the Arabs and the Umma. It was also a clear defeat to Israel and its “from-Euphrates-to-Nile- Rivers” scheme in the region. The strategy of liberation adopted by the resistance was successful while the strategy of negotiations failed to gain back an inch of Lebanese land and the strategy of wait-and-see was making the enemy stronger.”  
 
The Secretary General set other examples.
“In 1948, the Palestinians were waiting in vain for their Arab brethren to form a unified Arab strategy or for the international community to act. The Palestinian resistance was the reason why the world woke up to the fact that there is a Palestinian cause. Every achievement was the achievement of the resistance. The big achievement was in blockaded Gaza where the resistance managed to defeat the occupation and forced it to withdraw unconditionally. “The Gaza Strip is fighting Israel just as we did. The strategy of resistance succeeded in Lebanon and will succeed in Gaza too.
In occupied Iraq, there are those who believe in resistance and others in politics…Today, you must take the decisive position. The resistance has been dealing severe blows to the US occupation army. Iraq is called to follow the strategy of the resistance.”
 
Sayyed Nasrallah added that Hezbollah has also presented a defensive pattern. “Israeli judge Winograd wondered in his report how a few thousand men defeated Israel and withstood week of fighting. Your steadfastness, the blood of your martyrs and the resistance have decreased the possibility of war in the region between Israel and Iran or Israel and Syria. I tell whoever is bargaining on a US or Israeli strike on Lebanon, we fought in 2006 and we will fight in any coming war…I tell (US President George W.) Bush and (US Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice, who spoke of Hezbollah’s defeat, that as long as Hezbollah relies on Allah and his people, you are the ones who will be defeated,” he stated.
 
His eminence called on this occasion all Arab people to reconsider the resistance’s strategy of defense and liberation. “In Lebanon, we talk about defense. What we need now is a liberation strategy for the Shebaa Farms, Kafarshouba Farms and the detainees in Israeli jails. The prisoners are our commitment and Samir Kuntar  and his brothers will soon return to Lebanon.”
 
“On the 25th of May 2000, I stood in Bint Jbeil and declared this a victory for all the Lebanese, the Palestinians and the whole Umma. I said that what we did was our duty and we don’t ask for anything in return. We called upon the authorities to take their responsibilities in all of the country. We did not prosecute the collaborators and we had no armed appearance. We asked them to take care of south Lebanon and the deprived regions like Baalbek and Hermel. We did not ask for reshaping the regime or the Taef Accord. We did not ask for anything. They argue that the resistance in France laid down its arms after liberation. I tell them that throughout history, every victorious resistance in every country took the reins of power, but we did not ask for that. I renew my position today: we do not want to share power in Lebanon and we don’t want to rule the country or impose our thoughts on the people,” his eminence stressed.
“They speak of a coup and bringing back Syria into Lebanon. They also said that Hezbollah is fighting for the sake of Iran’s nuclear program. When the “government” revoked its two black decisions the opposition proved in Doha that it does not want to monopolize power and did not raise the ceiling of demands. We went there to save Lebanon from sedition and (David) Welch’s) hot summer. We did not employ what happened recently in politicas and we did not ask for political gains. Isn’t this enough for those who accuse us of dreaming of power and authority? From the pride Dahiyeh, I renew my call for a national partnership where there is no victor and no vanquished…Hezbollah does not want power over Lebanon, nor does it want to control Lebanon or govern the country for we believe that Lebanon is a special, pluralistic country. The existence of this country only comes about through coexistence, and this is what we are demanding,” he said.
 
“I am in front of two options: Either I explain what happened before the two black decision were taken, and I don’t wish to do that, or I delay discussing the matter, and this is not fair. But I choose to delay the discussion, however I say that there are deep wounds on both sides, so either we irritate the wounds or we swathe them. I suggest the second option. We should draw lessons. Let us postpone this until the wounds are healed and a new phase in the country begins,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.
 
His eminence thanked Arabs, especially Qatar, the Arab Ministerial Committee, Syria and Iran, and everyone who contributed in making the Doha Agreement that ended the Lebanese crisis a concrete reality.
 
On the arms of the resistance, Sayyed Nasrallah said:  “I today reaffirm the Doha agreement clause that precludes the use of arms to attain political goals. When we go to discussion, we will discuss this. The resistance’s arms are to fight the enemy, liberate lands and prisoners, and defend Lebanon – and for nothing else. The government’s arms, or the army and armed forces, is also to defend the nation, the people and their rights, the government, and to maintain security. The government’s arms cannot be used to settle accounts with a political opposition team. The government’s arms cannot be used for foreign projects that prevent Lebanon from facing Israel. The government’s arms cannot be used to nail the resistance and its arms. All arms must remain at the service of the goal they were created for.”
 
The Hezbollah chief stressed the electoral law that has been reached gives better representation that previous ones, and particularly the 2000 law.
“We do not claim that this is the ideal law. This is a law that we all agreed on to bring Lebanon out of the crisis. We hope that a time would come when the Lebanese discuss an up-to-date electoral law to build a state. Those who do not want to build a state are unveiled when they approach the issue of the electoral law,” his eminence said.
 
Sayyed Nasrallah also said that the election of General Michel Suleiman as President renews hope among the Lebanese for a new stage. The presidential oath we heard Sunday reflects the spirit of agreement President Suleiman had promised. What Lebanon needs is agreement, participation and cooperation.
“When I addressed you in the Riyad el-Soloh Square and promise you victory again, I did not mean the victory of one group on the other, I meant the formation of a national unity government; the  victory of May 25, 2000, as well as the victory of July 2006, and the accomplishment in Doha. I promise that the opposition’s representation in the government will not be limited to Hezbollah, Amal and the Change and Reform bloc. We will give other opposition parties shares – and unfortunately we must speak of shares – even if it is at the expense of Hezbollah’s shares.”
 
Sayyed Nasrallah called on “party of former Prime Minister Martyr Rafiq Hariri” to benefit from “the experience of this great man (Rafiq Hariri). ” Whoever is loyal to the martyred Premier must preserve his loyalty. We do not want monopoly or alliance; what we want is cooperation and participation as widely as possible.
 
“There are many names to be thanked today and I apologize for not naming them. It’s a long list, and I thank them for their courageous stances. We thank the Sunni leaderships in Lebanon and the Islamic world because they thwarted the US project which sought to portray any struggle as a sectarian struggle. We thank the Druze leadership for their courageous, wise stances … for their refused to define the struggle as a Shiite-Druze struggle. We thank the Christian leadership that stressed the struggle was political, not confessional. We have lost 14 martyrs whom we are proud of, and there are martyrs from the Lebanese Brigades to Resist the Occupation, the Amal Movement , the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the Democratic Party and other opposition loyalists from all religions. We are proud of all these martyrs. We feel the pain of the victims of the other team as well. The comfort to the families of both sides is that the blood of their children saved Lebanon from the dark tunnel. We the martyrs, for they have put Lebanon before a new summer and a new phase. From our beloved Beirut to the Mount Lebanon, from the South to every area in Lebanon, you have the love and appreciation of the resistance on the anniversary of the liberation of Lebanon,” Sayyed Nasrallah concluded.

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Once again, the Zionist entity closely watches the ongoing political crisis in Lebanon and gives its own analysis. 

 
Hezbollah proved last week that it is the strongest force in Lebanon and could have seized power if it had wanted to, Israel’s military intelligence chief said in remarks published on Thursday.
 
“Hezbollah did not intend to take control… If it had wanted to, it could have done it,” Major General Amos Yadlin said in an interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz.
 
Lebanon was rocked last week by the worst violence since the end of the 1975-1990 civil war between the Lebanese national opposition and the ruling bloc’s militias. But Yadlin said Hezbollah did not want to follow the example of the Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas, which seized power in the Gaza Strip in June by ousting the forces of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
 
Hezbollah, a movement formed after Israel’s large-scale invasion of Lebanon in 1982, “understands that if it took power it would have to assume responsibility and expose its numerous weak points,” he said.
 
“Hezbollah proved that it was the strongest power in Lebanon… stronger than the Lebanese army.” He said Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and Syria, continued to pose a “significant” threat to Israel as its rockets could reach a large part of Israeli territory.

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With spectacular fanfare and a plethora of highlighted events, Israel celebrated its 60th birthday on 18 May 2008.

According to an Israeli government website called Israelfestival.com, the festival included “non-stop entertainment, [a] fashion show, a variety of ethnic food for sale, Israeli folk dancing, arts and
crafts, Israeli and Jewish cultural and heritage pavilions and art exhibits”.

The centrepiece ceremony takes place in West Jerusalem and be attended by Israel’s political and military leaders as well as foreign dignitaries. Among those expected are US President George W Bush,
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Israeli media and non-governmental organisations have already begun celebrations in earnest. For example, Israeli television has begun airing a new series called Shishim (meaning “60″), which looks back at the six decades since Israel was created in May 1948. The series, which began 31 March, is divided into six episodes, each devoted to one of the decades following the founding of the state.

Israel hopes that the high-pitched celebrations will serve as an opportunity to promote Israel and enhance its questionable standing abroad. “It is an opportunity to celebrate our achievements, our
successes, our national being,” boasted Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who was not yet born in 1948.

From the Zionist viewpoint, Israel is a story of success. Today, Israel is a political and military force to be reckoned with, even if its power is based on the patronage of foreign entities. A country of
no more than seven million people, including nearly 1.5 million non-Jews (mainly Palestinians), Israel more or less directs the politics and policies of world’s only superpower, the United States, thanks mainly to powerful Jewish lobbies in Washington.

The power of the Jewish lobby largely explains how massive American financial and military support is to Israel, which is measured in hundreds of billions of dollars. Were it not for this nearly unlimited
financial, economic, technological, political and military backing, Israel would never have been able to survive, especially given its predator tactics.

Israel, which has been mounting a vitriolic incitement campaign against Iran for its acquisition of nuclear technology, is a nuclear power on par with other established nuclear powers, and its military
supremacy — at least until summer of 2006 — has covered the vast bulk of the Middle East from Turkey to Iran and from North Africa to east and central Africa.

Economically, Israel is also a regional economic superpower, with a GNP bordering on $0.5 trillion. In fact, Israel is among a few pioneering states in the field of electronics and the development of
new generations of medicine, with Israeli pharmaceutical firms’ share of the world market reaching billions of dollars.

Notwithstanding all its success and achievements, Israel remains a state based on racism, apartheid and criminality against the Palestinian people whose homeland it seized and whom it is trying to
obliterate to this day. To be sure, Israel has failed. Palestinians remain, both as a human entity and as a national entity.

Israel, in order to achieve its goals, always sought to acquire, by hook or by crook, as much Palestinian land as possible while taking in as few Palestinian people as possible. The policies and tactics employed by Israel to achieve this goal are both blunt and insidious and amount to ethnic cleansing and the international crime of genocide. Israel has institutionalised racism, bulldozed hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages, shamelessly confiscated Palestinian land and property, including private homes, and recently built the so-called “Separation Wall” in the West Bank, aimed first and foremost at annexing to Israel as much Palestinian land as possible.

On top of all of this, Israel has perfected the practice of state-sponsored mass terror; a deliberate policy aimed at making Palestinian life as unbearable as possible with the ultimate goal of forcing Palestinians to leave their homes and land altogether. This is done in broad daylight; in full view of key world powers, such as the US, EU, Russia and China, which either keep silent or issue a few terse and innocuous words about the need to stick to a peace process that has form but very little substance.

Today, as Israel is getting ready to celebrate its 60th birthday, the massive theft of Palestinian land in the West Bank, especially in East Jerusalem and its surroundings, continues unabated. Against all odds, the Palestinian people have survived. Indeed, Palestinian resilience to Israeli oppression is legendary — a trait that continues to baffle and frustrate Israeli strategists. Perhaps it is this resilience that is encouraging influential Israeli political, military and religious leaders to openly call for genocide of the Palestinians.

Recently, Israel’s Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai threatened to “inflict a greater holocaust” on Palestinians. Similarly, a growing number of rabbis associated with the two largest religious camps in
Israel, the Haredi ultra-Orthodox religious sector and the national Zionist religious sector, issuing one edict after the other, permitting soldiers to murder at will Palestinian civilians, including children, on the grounds that in war all among the enemy population ought to be treated as combatants, including children.

One might imagine that this is exaggerated, but it is not. Recently Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, director of the Tsomet Institute, a religious seminary attended by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, declared: “All
of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts.” And the chief rabbi of the City of Safad, Shmuel Eliyahu, urged the state and the army recently to hang the children of
a Palestinian fighter who last month attacked the Merkaz Haarav Centre, run for Jewish settlers in West Jerusalem, killing eight pre-military Talmudic students in retaliation for the killing by the Israeli army of more than 130 Palestinians, most of them innocent civilians, in the Gaza Strip.

The mushrooming of fascist impulses is not confined to the religious sector. In March, the Israeli media quoted Knesset members and former cabinet ministers as threatening to extend discriminatory laws against non-Jews in ways reminiscent of Nuremberg Laws passed in Nazi Germany. One Israeli Knesset member reportedly told his Arab colleague: “the day will come when we will kick you out of this house.”

Such instances raise no eyebrows in a country where some rabbis, like David Batsri, openly teach that non-Jews are animals and donkeys. A recent opinion survey published this week showed that as many as 75 per cent of Israeli Jews support ethnic cleansing of Arabs from mandate Palestine — Israel proper and the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Understandably, the poll drew angry reactions from the Israeli Arab community. Jamal Zahalqa, an Israeli Arab Knesset member, suggested that Arabs are being treated in ways similar to the way Jews were treated in the Third Reich ahead of World War II.

“The hateful smell of racism and fascism is wafting everywhere in this country. You must know that we didn’t come to Israel from abroad… On the contrary; it was Israel that invaded us. We are the indigenous people of the land, and we receive our legitimacy from our belonging to this land, not from having Israeli citizenship,” he said.

Zahalqa described the poll as “additional evidence underscoring the growing rampancy of racism and fascism in Israel as a result of the ongoing waves of hate against everything and anything Arab.”

The fears of Zahalqa and other Israeli Arabs are real. Recently, hundreds of Arab residents from Jaffa, Lod and Ramleh took to the streets to protest against the planned eviction by the state of thousands of Arab residents from Jaffa. Authorities had issued warrants for the evacuation and destruction of hundreds of homes, claiming infringements on building regulations. The state also claimed that, “the families [had] lost the right to continue living in their homes, since these homes belonged to their parents … “

“We are here and we won’t leave. We will either live on this land or die on this land. We will not let you touch our lands or our holy places,” said Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Arab movement in Israel. “All your rulings belong in the trashcan. We are not afraid of you. We will continue to live in our homeland,” he added.

Last year, Richard Falk, a renowned American Jewish professor of international law and practice, wrote an article entitled “Slouching toward a Palestinian holocaust,” in which he warned that Israel was moving towards the perpetration of a holocaust against the Palestinians. “Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalised Nazi record of collective atrocity? I think not,” said Falk.

Justifying the Israel-equals-Nazi analogy, Falk argued that developments in Gaza (the blockade against its estimated 1.5 million inhabitants), were especially disturbing because they expressed
vividly a deliberate intention on the part of Israel and its backers to subject an entire human community to life- endangering conditions of maximal cruelty. “The suggestion that this pattern of conduct is a holocaust-in-the-making represents a rather desperate appeal to the governments of the world and to international public opinion to act urgently to prevent these current genocidal tendencies from culminating into a collective tragedy,” Falk wrote.

In sum, from the standpoint of fascism, Israel has much to celebrate in terms of political and military achievements. But in terms of justice, morality and humanity, one struggles to name a country on
earth that so openly practices oppression and racism. As such Israel, on its 60th birthday, remains what it was when born six decades ago: a state built on blood, murder, theft and lies.

Is Israel about to change its ways? Don’t hold your breath, Israeli leaders might say. Unless, that is, you’re Palestinian.

in Ramallah

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Interesting take on the situation by Lawernce of Cyberia:

“Crying and shooting” is the term used in Israeli political discourse to describe those Israelis who agonize over what they are doing to the Palestinians, but carry on doing it anyway. It’s a way for Israelis to feel better about themselves, by reasserting their liberal, progressive and humanitarian values, even as they carry out illiberal, regressive and murderous actions.

There was a wonderful example of the phenomenon last week in a column written for Ha’aretz by Bradley Burston. He wrote an agonized column - Our Defense Forces, our war crimes, our terrorism - about the disproportionate number of civilians among the Palestinians killed by the IDF, and specifically about Israeli’s collective refusal to acknowledge their responsibility for the killings.

But his column is like one of those non-apologies you make when you know you should apologize for something, but you’re not really sorry. When instead of saying “I’m sorry for what I did”, you say “I’m sorry if you were offended”, as if it’s the offended feelings that are the problem, not the fact that you said something offensive in the first place.

incident that set off Burston’s “soul-searching” was the killing of Myassar Abu Mu’attaq, and her four children - Rudayna (6) Hana (3), Saleh (4) and Mousad (15 months), photo left by Mohammed Abed for AFP - whose home was destroyed by an Israeli shell as the family sat down to breakfast.

(The IDF initially acknowledged the family had been killed by one of their tank shells which had gone off course, but subsequently claimed that they weren’t really responsible because although they had fired the shell, it had not really hit the house, but had struck instead two nearby Palestinian gunmen who were carrying large amounts of explosives that were detonated by the Israeli shell and indirectly
blew up the Abu Mu’attaq house. This is a variant of the “Ghalia Defence” that the IDF came up with when it shelled a Gaza beach in June 2006, but denied any responsibility for the deaths of the Ghalia
family who had been having a picnic there, claiming that although they fired six shells at the beach - one of which they could not account for - the errant shell could not have killed the Ghalia family who
must have been killed instead by Palestinian munitions hidden under the sand that might have been inadvertantly detonated by the Israeli bombardment. That’s a close echo of what the IDF claims about the Abu Mu’attaq killings: the IDF knows it fired the shells, knows the civilians at the receiving end are dead, but subsequently introduces some intermediate mechanism - mines under the beach, exploding backpacks - that deflects responsibility to an intermediate agent, and allows the army that fires the shells to maintain the pretense that even when it kills civilians its intentions are pure. There’s probably a technical name in medical literature for this phenomenon of shifting blame for guilty actions to an intermediate party).

Full article

And they say that free speech exists in the West! That is a crock. The only thing that one is free to say are opinions in line with the government - anything else will be punishable. Here is an article showing how people who criticize the Israeli regime are smeared.

In the US and Britain, there is a campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people. It is an attempt to intimidate and silence – and to a large degree, it works. There is
nobody these self-appointed spokesmen for Israel will not attack as anti-Jewish: liberal Jews, rabbis, even Holocaust survivors.

My own case isn’t especially important, but it illustrates how the wider process of intimidation works. I have worked undercover at both the Finsbury Park mosque and among neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers to expose the Jew-hatred there; when I went on the Islam Channel to challenge the anti-Semitism of Islamists, I received a rash of death threats calling me “a Jew-lover”, “a Zionist-homo pig” and more.

Ah, but wait. I have also reported from Gaza and the West Bank. Last week, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. This isn’t controversial. It has been documented by Friends of the Earth, and I have seen it with my own eyes.

The response? There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile “pro-Israel” writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh, while Melanie Phillips even linked the stabbing of two Jewish people in North London to articles like mine. Vast numbers of e-mails came flooding in calling for me to be sacked.

Any attempt to describe accurately the situation for Palestinians is met like this. If you recount the pumping of sewage onto Palestinian land, “Honest Reporting” claims you are reviving the anti-Semitic myth of Jews “poisoning the wells.” If you interview a woman whose baby died in 2002 because she was detained – in labour – by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint within the West Bank, “Honest Reporting” will say you didn’t explain “the real cause”: the election of Hamas in, um, 2006. And on, and on.

Click to see full article here

Its good to see that there are good Jews out there!

The Iranian Jewish community will not mark Israel’s 60th Independence Day, incoming Iranian Jewish parliamentarian Siamak Morsadegh said Wednesday.

Speaking to Reuters, Morsadegh said this was in protest of Israel’s responsibility for the “murder of totally innocent Palestinian civilians.”

“We are in complete disagreement with Israel’s conduct,” he said. “We are Iranians. We have no relations with Israel.”

The Iranian Jewish leader told Reuters that Israel’s policies toward Palestinians, particularly Gazans, demonstrated “anti-human behavior … they kill innocent people.”

Morsadegh went on to claim that Jews in Iran enjoyed freedom of religion and other rights. “There are no specific problems for Jews in this country,” he said.

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