Category: Israel

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The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians

An important new book by Israeli historian and senior lecturer, Ilan Pappe, is now available. It chronicles one of the last century’s most distressing, neglected crimes against humanity, which crimes and the denial thereof are ongoing, courtesy of the Zionista.

An excellent, lengthy review by Steve Lendman can be found here.

In 1967, Israel excluded the 1948 Nakba and Right of Return from any peace discussions. Thenceforth, it based all negotiations on the notion that the conflict began in 1967 when Israel seized and occupied the West Bank and Gaza in the June Six Days’ War that year. This was how Israel sought to legitimize its 1948 “War of Independence” and all its crimes it wanted erased from the public memory. No longer were they on the table to be considered in any future conflict resolution negotiation. For Palestinians, the 1948 Nakba is their core issue, and without it being settled equitably there can never be closure or a real lasting peace in the region.

The Vogon adulators of the two following defining characteristics of fascism may of course home in on Pappe once they tire of slandering Jimmy Carter.

6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.

…
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

Now where have we witnessed stunted, desperate, far-right behaviour such as the above recently?

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Blatant Discrimination by Israel

From today’s Ha’aretz:

“An Israeli Arab couple petitioned the High Court of Justice this week, asking it to issue a temporary injunction that would allow them to live in the predominately Jewish town of Rakefet.

The couple, residents of Sakhnin, said they were denied residency in the town because they are Arab, but say that local authorities in Rakefet and officials at the Israel Lands Authority found an alternative way to keep them from moving into the town- by stating that according to a “suitability test,” the couple are “not fit to live in the town.””

The couple are Ahmed Zvidat and Fahina Avrik, graduates of the archaeology department at Jerusalem’s Bezalel College. Yet not good enough to live with ‘real’ Israhellis.

“The couple is being represented by Adalah, a non-profit organization which fights discrimination against Israeli Arabs. According to the organization, the couple was refused permission to settle in the town because they are Arab.

…

“In instances where a couple is rejected due to reasons of unsuitability to the way of life of the community in question, the issue of greatest importance is the social unity of the community, not just the couple’s ability to assimilate and contribute to the community,” the Israel Lands Authority stated.”

Wonder how that argument would go down in Georgia these days if a black couple were denied residency in Atlanta?

How long can Israel hide behind its hideous sham democracy before its pathetic house of cards collapses?

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The Return of US Decency and Dignity?

It may not be much longer before we can rename the United Stupids to the United States as the will of the people emerges through a viable Democratic opposition plan for disengagement in Iraq and the dismantlement of the heinous, degrading Doodoo torture facilities is proposed.

“Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense, will formally outline the Democrats’ plan today to antiwar groups agitating for binding action against the war. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a subcommittee member who helped arrange the Internet event, said the plan is aimed at tamping down calls from the Democrats’ liberal wing for Congress to simply end funding for the war.The Murtha plan, based on existing military guidelines, includes a stipulation that Army troops who have already served in Iraq must be granted two years at home before an additional deployment, Marines must be given 14 months at home, and any troops sent to Iraq must be those deemed fully trained and equipped under existing military standards. The idea is to slowly choke off the war by stopping the deployment of troops from units that have been badly degraded by four years of combat.

“They won’t be able to deploy troops unless they extend troops overseas. And if we limit the extension, then it’ll be very difficult for them to continue this surge, which the American people are against and the Iraqis don’t want,” Murtha said on yesterday National Public Radio.

The Democrats also intend to shut down the military prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Abu Ghraib near Baghdad by denying them funds, and to bar funds that would be used to establish permanent military bases in Iraq.

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“The resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq that we passed in fall of 2002 was never intended to authorize the use of American troops to police a civil war,” Ramstad said.”

Not a moment too soon for the United Stupids to regain some appearance of democratic sanity to cloak its imperialism. With criticism from Putin reaching a crescendo as Doodoo militarises countries adjoining Russia, the United Stupids may suffer more than a humiliating defeat in the Middle East if they continue to pursue the fundoneoziocons’ escalation plans for extended military imperialism, which would play into OBL’s hands yet again. Or maybe not. To continue the status quo of an arms-led economic recovery must be very tempting.

Putin, monopolising on a sense of growth in Russian prestige, appears to be increasing his support for the plight of the illegally occupied Palestinian people.

During a meeting with Abbas at Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport, Putin welcomed the Mecca agreements and expressed hopes that the agreements will bring results and promote “formation of an efficient Palestinian government so that an appropriate climate could be established for the lifting of the siege against the Palestinians and for the opening of final status negotiations with the Israelis.”

“The achievement of these goals will create conditions for the lift of the blockade and further steps towards comprehensive settlement of the relations with Israel.”

Putin has also indicated his support for Saudia’s nuclear power plans. As arch-ziotard Netanyahoo preens himself for a new assault on Israel’s top job, these two moves by Putin seem sure to ignite the Zionist lobby who will in turn pressure the United Stupids to confront Russian influence firmly.

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Building a real democracy in Israel

Arabs make up one fifth of the population of Israel. They suffer discrimination, victimisation and otherwise lack equal opportunity in a nation which hypocritically poses as a democracy. In reality, Israel is a rich ghetto for an elite that prospers at the expense of the rest of its citizenry. Such a situation is a potent recipe for ongoing agitation for rights and recognition by disadvantaged minorities.

A new paper compiled by 40 leading Arab Israeli academics sees the way forward to true democracy.

From the NY Times:

“They call on the state to recognize Israeli Arab citizens as an indigenous group with collective rights, saying Israel inherently discriminates against non-Jewish citizens in its symbols of state, some core laws, and budget and land allocations.The authors propose a form of government, “consensual democracy,” akin to the Belgian model for Flemish- and French-speakers, involving proportional representation and power-sharing in a central government and autonomy for the Arab community in areas like education, culture and religious affairs.
…

A 2003 government report acknowledged discrimination by state institutions, and a recent report on poverty published last year by Israel’s National Insurance Institute indicated that 53 percent of the impoverished families in Israel are Arabs.”

The present situation is reviled by the vast majority of Israeli Arabs.

“According to a poll of Arab Israelis by the Yafa Institute, commissioned by the Konrad Adenauer Program for Jewish-Arab Cooperation, only 14 percent of respondents said they thought Israel should remain a Jewish and democratic state in its current format; 25 percent wanted a Jewish and democratic state that guarantees full equality to its Arab citizens. But some 57 percent said they wanted a change in the character and definition of the state, whether to become a state for all its citizens, a binational state, or a consensual democracy.”

According to Shawki Khatib, co-author of Future Visions and Department Head of the Government Political Philosophy Department at the School of Political Sciences at the University of Haifa, the document describes three specific areas for change.

“First is the principle of human rights: the document addresses the fundamental rights of the Palestinians in Israel as human beings – to economic and social development, women’s and children’s rights, to live without violence, etc. – and demands their realization. The second principle invokes civil equality: the basic democratic right to equality before the law and the demand to annul laws, structures and symbols that alienate the Palestinian citizens of Israel and ensure Jewish superiority.

… And the third principle is that of the right of communities to self-determination, including the autonomous right to manage specific areas of life such as their own education and cultural and religious affairs.

In order to realize these foundations, the document’s writers demand the implementation in Israel of a consociational system. This would replace the existing liberal system that is exploited automatically by the Jewish majority and that, indeed, constitutes a “tyranny of the majority” in which, in the name of liberal democracy, that majority takes draconian steps against the Palestinian minority and its fundamental rights.”

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Ziocon Feith Nailed

Although no charges against Feith and his co-conspirators are forthcoming at this stage at least, the truth behind the ziocon push to illegal war against Iraq is being exposed unequivocally for public view at last.

“A leading figure in the Bush administration’s march to war in Iraq helped justify the 2003 invasion by undercutting the CIA with questionable intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s links to al Qaeda, a Pentagon watchdog agency said in a report on Friday.

Former U.S. defense policy chief Douglas Feith presented the White House with claims of a “mature symbiotic relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda as if they were facts, while ignoring contradictory views from the intelligence community, the report by the Pentagon inspector general said.

“They did not show the other, dissenting side,” Defense Department acting inspector general Thomas Gimble told the Senate Armed Services Committee at a hearing.

A claim by Feith’s office that September 11 hijacking ringleader Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi official months before the 2001 attacks could not be verified by intelligence, he said.

Gimble, who produced the classified report after a one-year review, concluded that Feith was authorized by former deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to pursue alternative intelligence conclusions and that the action was lawful.

But Feith’s actions were sometimes “inappropriate” because they “did not clearly show the variance with the consensus of the intelligence community,” said an unclassified two-page executive summary of the report released by the inspector general’s office.

As a result, Feith’s office “did not provide ‘the most accurate analysis of intelligence’ to senior decision-makers,” it said.”

The New York Times presentation on the Inspector General’s report goes into more depth and quotes Gimble more extensively:

“Mr. Gimble told the committee today that, while the Pentagon’s in-house intelligence-gathering was not illegal or unauthorized, ‘the actions, in our opinion, were inappropriate, given that all the products did not clearly show the variance with the consensus of the intel community, and in some cases were shown as intel products.'”

Feith starts covering himself and dragging in his co-conspirators:

“On Thursday, as details of Mr. Gimble’s report were beginning to come out, Mr. Feith issued a statement saying his office’s activities had been authorized by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Deputy Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, and that his office properly shared its findings.”

Further questions remain to be answered:

“However, Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, drew from Mr. Gimble a statement that Mr. Feith had not been entirely consistent in his intelligence briefings, in ways Mr. Gimble said he could not go into for security reasons.’He changed the briefing for his audience?’ Mr. Reed asked.

‘There were adjustments made depending on the audience,’ Mr. Gimble replied.

‘Well, why would he do that?’ the senator asked. ‘Why would he make changes based on the audience?’

‘I don’t think I’m in a position to make a comment on why he would do what he did,’ Mr. Gimble said.”