part1
Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Apartheid in Palestine is OK because it's Jewish apartheid? This is the reasoning that's being shoved down our collective throats.
Saturday, 22 November 2008
Apartheid in Palestine
Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Apartheid in Palestine is OK because it's Jewish apartheid? This is the reasoning that's being shoved down our collective throats.
What "Change" In America Really Means
by John Pilger
My first visit to Texas was in 1968, on the fifth anniversary of the assassination of president John F Kennedy in Dallas. I drove south, following the line of telegraph poles to the small town of Midlothian, where I met Penn Jones Jr, editor of the Midlothian Mirror. Except for his drawl and fine boots, everything about Penn was the antithesis of the Texas stereotype. Having exposed the racists of the John Birch Society, his printing press had been repeatedly firebombed. Week after week, he painstakingly assembled evidence that all but demolished the official version of Kennedy's murder.
This was journalism as it had been before corporate journalism was invented, before the first schools of journalism were set up and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around those whose "professionalism" and "objectivity" carried an unspoken obligation to ensure that news and opinion were in tune with an establishment consensus, regardless of the truth. Journalists such as Penn Jones, independent of vested power, indefatigable and principled, often reflect ordinary American attitudes, which have seldom conformed to the stereotypes promoted by the corporate media on both sides of the Atlantic. Read American Dreams: Lost and Found by the masterly Studs Terkel, who died the other day, or scan the surveys that unerringly attribute enlightened views to a majority who believe that "government should care for those who cannot care for themselves" and are prepared to pay higher taxes for universal health care, who support nuclear disarmament and want their troops out of other people's countries.
Returning to Texas, I am struck again by those so unlike the redneck stereotype, in spite of the burden of a form of brainwashing placed on most Americans from a tender age: that theirs is the most superior society in the history of the world, and all means are justified, including the spilling of copious blood, in maintaining that superiority.
That is the subtext of Barack Obama's "oratory". He says he wants to build up US military power; and he threatens to ignite a new war in Pakistan, killing yet more brown-skinned people. That will bring tears, too. Unlike those on election night, these other tears will be unseen in Chicago and London. This is not to doubt the sincerity of much of the response to Obama's election, which happened not because of the unction that has passed for news reporting from America since 4 November (e.g. "liberal Americans smiled and the world smiled with them") but for the same reasons that millions of angry emails were sent to the White House and Congress when the "bailout" of Wall Street was revealed, and because most Americans are fed up with war.
Two years ago, this anti-war vote installed a Democratic majority in Congress, only to watch the Democrats hand over more money to George W Bush to continue his blood fest. For his part, the "anti-war" Obama never said the illegal invasion of Iraq was wrong, merely that it was a "mistake". Thereafter, he voted in to give Bush what he wanted. Yes, Obama's election is historic, a symbol of great change to many. But it is equally true that the American elite has grown adept at using the black middle and management class. The courageous Martin Luther King recognised this when he linked the human rights of black Americans with the human rights of the Vietnamese, then being slaughtered by a liberal Democratic administration. And he was shot. In striking contrast, a young black major serving in Vietnam, Colin Powell, was used to "investigate" and whitewash the infamous My Lai massacre. As Bush's secretary of state, Powell was often described as a "liberal" and was considered ideal to lie to the United Nations about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Condaleezza Rice, lauded as a successful black woman, has worked assiduously to deny the Palestinians justice.
Obama's first two crucial appointments represent a denial of the wishes of his supporters on the principal issues on which they voted. The vice-president-elect, Joe Biden, is a proud warmaker and Zionist. Rahm Emanuel, who is to be the all-important White House chief of staff, is a fervent "neoliberal" devoted to the doctrine that led to the present economic collapse and impoverishment of millions. He is also an "Israel-first" Zionist who served in the Israeli army and opposes meaningful justice for the Palestinians – an injustice that is at the root of Muslim people's loathing of the United States and the spawning of jihadism.
No serious scrutiny of this is permitted within the histrionics of Obamamania, just as no serious scrutiny of the betrayal of the majority of black South Africans was permitted within the "Mandela moment". This is especially marked in Britain, where America's divine right to "lead" is important to elite British interests. The once respected Observer newspaper, which supported Bush's war in Iraq, echoing his fabricated evidence, now announces, without evidence, that "America has restored the world's faith in its ideals". These "ideals", which Obama will swear to uphold, have overseen, since 1945, the destruction of 50 governments, including democracies, and 30 popular liberation movements, causing the deaths of countless men, women and children.
None of this was uttered during the election campaign. Had it been allowed, there might even have been recognition that liberalism as a narrow, supremely arrogant, war-making ideology is destroying liberalism as a reality. Prior to Blair's criminal warmaking, ideology was denied by him and his media mystics. "Blair can be a beacon to the world," declared the Guardian in 1997. "[He is] turning leadership into an art form."
Today, merely insert "Obama". As for historic moments, there is another that has gone unreported but is well under way – liberal democracy's shift towards a corporate dictatorship, managed by people regardless of ethnicity, with the media as its clichéd façade. "True democracy," wrote Penn Jones Jr, the Texas truth-teller, "is constant vigilance: not thinking the way you're meant to think and keeping your eyes wide open at all times."
Source here.
THE PRICE OF JEWISH BLOOD
November 22, 2008 at 8:32 am (Associate Post, Gaza, Intifada, Israel, Palestine)
The price of Jewish blood Israel’s planned operation to rescue Shalit could spark a new Intifada, writes Khalid Amayreh
There is a growing impression among observers in Palestine-Israel that Israel may be preparing a “rescue operation” to free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli occupation army soldier who was taken prisoner in Gaza by Palestinian fighters more than two years ago.
Israeli intelligence services claim they know the whereabouts of Shalit, specifically the Gaza street where he is being held. However, serious observers here doubt the credibility of these claims, arguing that Israel would have carried out a rescue operation a long time ago had the Israeli intelligence known Shalit’s place of detention.
The rescue operation scenario is described by some Israeli political analysts as “generally politically safe” if the operation ends successfully. Needless to say, “successfully” here means accomplishing the mission of liberating Shalit and bringing him back to Israel alive.
The Israeli intelligence services have been hunting for very conceivable piece of information that would enable Israel to locate Shalit’s place of captivity. This week, the Israeli press, quoting anonymous sources, reported that the Shin Beth was offering potential Palestinian informers the sum of $10,000 in return for providing credible and authentic information that would lead to the liberation of Shalit from Hamas’s custody.
However, Palestinian officials scoffed at the latest Israeli feat, calling it “a reflection of frustration and despair”. Some Israeli security services, relying on information extracted from Gazans rounded up during the repeated Israeli incursions into the Gaza Strip prior to the Egyptian-mediated ceasefire with Hamas, have pointed out that powerful bombs were planted in the vicinity of the building where Shalit is thought to be held. This implies that any prospective rescue operation to free Shalit is expected to end in failure.
There are certain indications that the current transitional government in Israel may well be willing to carry out a rescue operation regardless of the consequences. The reason for this is linked to the upcoming Israeli elections and the end of the Olmert government’s term in office.
The Kadima Party and its erstwhile junior coalition partner, the Labour Party, headed by Defence Minister Ehud Barak, realise that with Shalit remaining in captivity in Gaza, Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu is likely to put them on the defensive and use the issue as an effective propaganda tool in his election campaign.
Hence, a successful or even partly successful rescue operation would serve as a spectacular publicity booster for both the new Kadima leader Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak, the man who would be directly responsible for ordering and overseeing the operation.
Nonetheless, while a decision to carry out an operation can be taken anytime, assuming that Israel does possess sufficient intelligence information to ensure a successful outcome, the Israeli government would have to seriously consider the political and other ramifications of failure since the chances of failure equal if not exceed the chances of success.
In this case, “whoever takes the decision to carry out an operation will have to bear the full consequences,” says Ahmed Youssef, advisor to Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the Hamas-led government in Gaza. “The Israelis have left no stone unturned in a desperate effort to discover Shalit’s whereabouts, but to no avail.”
However, some analysts argue that the Israeli army might very well opt to assassinate or abduct a number of important Hamas figures, including high-ranking officials in order to compensate for the failure of the operation and also to mollify Israeli public opinion. “They [the Israeli army] would abduct ministers and lawmakers and humiliate them publicly in order to compensate the Israeli public for the possible death of Shalit and failure of the operation,” one Israeli journalist intimated to Al-Ahram Weekly.
Israel had already abducted hundreds of Hamas’s members, including some 40 lawmakers, government ministers and other elected officials, in a failed attempt to bully Hamas to release Shalit. Israel had also carried out numerous deadly and devastating incursions all over the Gaza Strip to pressure the Islamist government to free Shalit, prompting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to complain that the Palestinian people have already paid too much for Shalit.
More to the point, the Israeli government is giving the impression that it has nearly exhausted all political efforts to get Shalit released, including exerting pressure on the Egyptian government to in turn pressure Hamas to show “flexibility” and accept a more modest number of Palestinian prisoners who would be freed in exchange for Shalit.
However, the Egyptian leadership has refused to succumb to Israeli pressure. A few weeks ago, President Hosni Mubarak was quoted as telling an Israeli reporter that Egypt expected Israel to address Hamas’s demands with regard to the Palestinian prisoners. Hamas interpreted Mubarak’s remarks as implying that Egypt is rejecting Israeli efforts to instigate President Mubarak against Hamas.
Apart from a possible rescue operation, Israel has two alternatives vis-à-vis the Shalit affair. First, reaching a swap deal with Hamas through Egyptian mediation in which case the Israeli government would have to release most or all Palestinian prisoners Hamas is insisting must be freed before Shalit can be returned to Israel.
This is the view of Saleh Al-Naami, an Israeli affairs correspondent based in the Gaza Strip. “I think Mr Olmert is in a better position now to agree to a swap that would more or less meet Hamas’s conditions without having to pay a devastating political price,” Al-Naami told the Weekly. “Olmert has nothing to lose; he is leaving for good, and he must be contemplating culminating his rule with something he would be remembered for.”
However, this scenario is unlikely to materialise, at least before the Israeli elections slated to take place on 10 February. Indeed, releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, along with the concomitant spectacular celebrations, would be a serious public relations liability for the present government, which would translate into a significant PR asset for the right-wing camp, especially for Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu.
In addition, releasing a large number of Palestinian prisoners would undoubtedly be a great booster for Hamas which could undermine PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s public standing, especially in light of the clear failure of the American-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Hence, it is nearly out of question that Olmert would take such a decision even if Hamas decided to relent on the number and quality of the prisoners Hamas wants to see released. Moreover, the stiff opposition by the Shin Beth, Israel’s chief domestic security agency, to releasing a large number of Palestinian detainees is likely to militate against this scenario.
A third and plausible possibility is that the current Israeli government will simply leave the matter for the next Israeli government to resolve. In this case, the next Israeli prime minister, who many pundits assume will be Netanyahu, will have to resolve the issue, but under less public and political pressure in comparison to the current Kadima-led government.
However, even hawkish Netanyahu would have to consider the consequences and ramifications of a rescue operation, especially with President-elect Barack Obama in the White House. “The scene of murdered and mutilated children in the streets of Gaza wouldn’t be the right thing to begin healthy relations between Netanyahu and Obama,” one Israeli journalist said.
Furthermore, a military operation targeting Hamas would certainly spark off an all-out confrontation with Hamas Israel and Egypt as well.
In 1997, Netanyahu ordered the assassination of Hamas’s politburo chief Khaled Meshaal in Amman. The assassination attempt failed and the two would-be Mossad assassins were captured by Jordanian security. However, the operation prompted then King Hussein of Jordan to demand that Israel release from custody Hamas’s founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Yassin was released and allowed to return to Gaza, contributing to the growing influence of Hamas. He was eventually murdered by Israel on 22 March 2004.
Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
The people we refer to as "Jews" are in the main Khazars
The origins of Zionism and of Israeli jews has nothing at all to do with the Middle East and therefore there's no logical reason why the Jewish State should be super-imposed over the State of Palestine. Instead it's clear that these people who we refer to as "Jews" are derived from a mixture of Mongols, Turks and Fins, all as you would expect, extremely barbaric and blood thirsty.
The kingdom of the Khazars vanished from the map of the world many centuries ago. Today many people have never even heard of it yet in its day the Khazar kingdom [Khazaria] was a very major power, indeed holding sway over a large empire of subjugated peoples. It had to be reckoned with by the two neighboring superpowers of that day. To the south and west of Khazaria the Byzantine Empire was in full flower with its Eastern Orthodox Christian civilization. To the south-east, the Khazar kingdom bordered on the expanding Moslem Empire of the Arab Caliphs.
The Khazar’s influenced the histories of both of these empires but, far more importantly, the Khazar kingdom occupied what was later to become a southern portion of Russia between the Black and Caspian Seas.
As a result, the historical destinies of the Russians and the Khazars became intertwined in ways which have persisted down to the present day.
In case you have never heard of the Khazars, I think I should mention where you can look to learn more about them. In 1976 a book about the Khazars was published by the British writer [a Jew] Arthur Koestler. The book is titled, The thirteenth tribe - The Khazar Empire And Its Heritage. The American publisher is Random House, New York.
History records that the Khazars were derived from a mixture of Mongols, Turks and Fins. As early as the 3rd Century AD, they were identifiable in constant warfare in the areas of Persia and Armenia. Later, in the 5th Century, the Khazars were among the devastating hordes of Attila, the Hun.
Around 550 AD, the nomadic Khazars began settling themselves in the area around the northern Caucasus between the Black and Caspian Seas. The Khazar’s capital of Itil was established at the mouth of the Volga River where it emptied into the Caspian Sea, in order to control the river traffic. The Khazars then exacted a toll of 10% on any and all cargo which passed Itil on the river. Those who refused were attacked and slaughtered.
With the kingdom finally established in the Caucasus, the Khazars gradually began to create an empire of subjugated peoples. More and more Slavonic tribes, who were peaceful compared with the Khazars, were attacked and conquered. They became part of the Khazar Empire, required to pay tribute continually to the Khazar Kingdom. Tribute by conquered peoples has always been a feature of empires, of course, but not in the fashion of the Khazars. The so-called great empires of the world always gave something in return for the taxes they extracted. Rome, for example, made citizens of those they conquered; and in return for the taxes they levied, they brought civilization, order and protection against attack from would-be invaders.
But not so in the Khazar Empire. The people who were subject to the Khazars received only one thing in return for their payments of tribute, and that was a shaky promise - the Khazars would refrain from further attacks and pillage so long as the tributes were paid. Therefore, the subjects of the Khazar Empire were nothing more than the victims of the giant protection racket.
The Khazar overlords were therefore resented universally and bitterly throughout their domain, but they were also feared because of the merciless way in which they dealt with anyone who stood up to them. And so the Khazar Empire expanded northward to Kiev [Kiev now the capital of UKRAINE], on the Dnieper River. It is Ukraine’s largest city and a major port. One of the oldest European cities, it was a commercial centre as early as the 5th century, and became the capital of KIEVAN RUSSIA in the 9th century and westward to include Magyars, the ancestors of modern Hungary.
In about 740AD, a stunning event took place. The Khazars had been under continual pressure from their Byzantine and Moslem neighbours to adopt Christianity or Islam, but the Khazar ruler, called the Khakan, had heard of a third religion called JUDAISM. Apparently for political reasons of independence, the Khakan announced that the Khazars were adopting Judaism as their religion. Overnight an entirely new group of people, the warlike Khazars, suddenly proclaimed themselves Jews - adoptive Jews. The Khazar kingdom began to be described as the ’Kingdom of the Jews’ by historians of the day. Succeeding Khazar rulers took Jewish names, and during the late 9th Century the Khazar kingdom became a haven for Jews of other lands.
Meanwhile the brutal Khazar domination over other peoples continued unchanged. But then a new factor appeared on the scene. During the 8th Century there came coursing down the great rivers - the Dnieper, the Don and the Volga - the eastern branch of the Vikings. They were known as the VARANCIANS, or the RUS. Like other Vikings, the Rus were bold adventurers and fierce fighters, but when they tangled with the Khazars, the Rus often ended up paying tribute like everyone else.
In 862 a Rus leader named Rurik founded the city of Novgorod, and the RUSSIAN NATION was born. The Rus Vikings settled among the Slavonic tribes under Khazar domination, and the struggle between Vikings and Khazars changed in character. It became a struggle by the emerging nation of Russia for independence from Khazar oppression.
Over a century after the founding of Russia’s first city, another momentous event took place. Russia’s leader, Prince Vladimir of Kiev, accepted baptism as a Christian in the year 989. He actively promoted Christianity in Russia, and his memory is revered by Russians today as ’Saint Vladimir;’ and so a thousand years ago Russia’s tradition as a Christian nation began.
Vladimir’s conversion also brought Russia into alliance with Byzantium. The Byzantine rulers had always feared the Khazars, and the Russians were still struggling to free themselves. And so in the year 1016, combined Russian and Byzantine forces attacked the Khazar kingdom. The Khazar kingdom was shattered, and the kingdom of the Khazars fell into decline. Eventually most of the Khazar Jews migrated to other areas. Many of them wound up in eastern Europe, where they mingled and intermarried with other Jews. Like the Semitic Jews some 1000 years earlier, the Khazar Jews became dispersed.
The kingdom of the Khazars was no more.
As the Khazars moved and lived amongst the Jewish people, the Khazar Jews passed on a distinct heritage from generation to generation. One element of the Khazar Jew heritage is a militant form of ZIONISM. In the view of Khazar Jews, the land occupied by ancient Israel is to be retaken - not by a miracle but by armed force. This is what is meant by Zionism today, and this is the force that created the nation which calls itself Israel today.
The other major ingredient of the Khazar Jew heritage is hatred for Christianity, and for the Russian people as the champions of the Christian faith. Christianity is viewed as the force that caused the ancient so-called Kingdom of the Jews; the Khazar kingdom [Khazarial] to collapse. Having dominated much of what is present-day Russia, the Khazar Jews still want to re-establish that domination - and for a millennium they have been trying continually to do just that.
In 1917 the Khazar Jews passed a major milestone towards the creation of their own state in Palestine. The same year they also created the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. There followed a Christian holocaust, the likes of which the world has never seen. The Khazar Jews were once again in control of Russia after more than 900 years, and they set about the task of destroying the Russian Christians - over 100-million of them, at the same time over 20-million religious Jews also died at the hands of the Khazar Jews. This is what the Russian Christians were up against in their 60-year struggle to overthrow the atheistic Bolsheviks, but they finally succeeded in their overthrow program, and now the 1000-year-old war between the Russian Christians and the Khazar Jews is reaching a climax.
On August 19, 1979, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum died in New York. He died in the morning, and was buried the same afternoon. Very short notice, and yet 100,000 Jewish men arrived in time for the funeral. It is hard to imagine how many more hundreds of thousands could not arrive on such short notice. A month later, September 18, his followers placed a memorial tribute by way of a paid advertisement in the "New York Times," and clearly it spoke for many Jews. Among other things it said, quote:
"He was the undisputed leader of all Jews everywhere who had not been infected by Zionism;" and also, quote:
"With a courage all too rare in our time, he called the Zionist state ’a work of Satan, a sacrilege, and a blasphemy.’ The shedding of blood for the sake of the Zionist state was abhorrent to him."
These words were spoken by Orthodox Jews mourning for their fallen leader. And the new Christian rulers of Russia would agree, for they too regard the Zionist state of Israel as a counterfeit, a cruel and dangerous hoax for Christians and Jews alike. The Khazar state called the "Kingdom of the Jews" [Khazaria] a thousand years ago was a parasite, living on the tribute from conquered peoples. Likewise today, Israel depends for its survival on a never-ending flow of support from outside. Left unchecked, the Russians believe that the Khazar Jews will destroy Christianity by means of Zionism; so Russia’s Christian rulers are on the offensive against their enemies of a thousand years - the Khazars.
We Americans who call ourselves Christians have not cared enough to open our eyes to try to save our own country, or to defend our faith. So our land has become the battle-ground of the Christian Russians and their deadly enemies - the Bolsheviks and the Zionists. And like it or not we are caught up in this all-out war.
Friday, 21 November 2008
"Holocaust's unholy hold,"
Source
A most interesting commentary published in the Los Angeles Times, written by Avraham Berg, an Orthodox Jew, a former Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, a past-president of the World Zionist organization and son of a leading Rabbi and leader of the National Religious Party in Israel.
Ed CorriganThe deeper we are stuck in our Auschwitz past, the more difficult it
becomes to be free of it.
Reporting from Nataf, Israel -- Even today, when economic storms are shaking markets around the world, posing a threat to the stability of entire countries and societies, Israel continues to conduct its business far from the turmoil, as if swimming in a private ocean of its own. True, the headlines are alerting the public here about the crisis, and the politicians are hastily recalculating their budgets. But none of this is dramatically changing the way we think about ourselves.
To Israelis, these issues are mundane. What really matters here is the all-important spirit of Trauma, the true basis for so many of our country's life principles. In Israel, the darkest period in human history is always present. Regardless of whether the question at hand is of the future relations between Israel and our Palestinian neighbors in specific and the Arab world in general, or of the Iranian atomic threat and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it always comes down to the same conversation. Every threat or grievance of major or minor importance is dealt with automatically by raising the biggest argument of them all -- the Shoah -- and from that moment onward, every discussion is disrupted.
The constant presence of the Shoah is like a buzz in my ear. In Israel, children are always, it seems, preparing for their rite-of-passage "Auschwitz trip" to Poland. Not a day passes without a mention of the Holocaust in the only newspaper I read, Haaretz. The Shoah is like a hole in the ozone layer: unseen yet present, abstract yet powerful. It's more present in our lives than God.
It is the founding experience not just of our national consciousness but of more than that. Army generals discuss Israeli security doctrine as "Shoah-proof." Politicians use it as a central argument for their ethical manipulations.
The Shoah is so pervasive that a study conducted a few years ago in a Tel Aviv school for teachers found that more than 90% of those questioned view it as the most important experience of Jewish history. That means it is more important than the creation of the world, the exodus from Egypt, the delivering of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, the ruin of both Holy Temples, the exile, the birth of Zionism, the founding of the state or the 1967 Six-Day War.
The Shoah is woven, to varying degrees, into almost all of Israel's political arguments; over time, we have taken the Shoah from its position of sanctity and turned it into an instrument of common and even trite politics. It represents a past that is present, maintained, monitored, heard and represented. Our dead do not rest in peace. They are busy, active, always a part of our sad lives.
Of course, memory is essential to any nation's mental health. The Shoah must always have an important place in the nation's memorial mosaic. But the way things are done today -- the absolute monopoly and the dominance of the Shoah on every aspect of our lives -- transforms this holy memory into a ridiculous sacrilege and converts piercing pain into hollowness and kitsch. As time passes, the deeper we are stuck in our Auschwitz past, the more difficult it becomes to be free of it.
What does the primacy of the Shoah mean in terms of our politics and policy? For one thing, it becomes virtually impossible to find a conversation carried out with reason, patience, self-control or restraint. Take Iran as an example. With regard to Iran, as with any other security matter that has potentially existential consequences, we have no thoughts at all -- only instincts and trauma-driven impulses. Who has ever heard of alternative approaches to the Iranian issue, of strategic arguments underlying the passionate emotions, the old fears and violent rhetoric?
Few people in Israel are willing to try to perceive reality through a different set of conceptual lenses other than those of extermination and defensive isolation. Few are willing to try on the glasses of understanding and of hope for dialogue. Instead, the question is always: Is a second Shoah on the way?
This is one of the strongest reasons why I voluntarily withdrew from political life in Israel. I couldn't help feeling that Israel has become a kingdom lacking in vision and without a prophetic horizon. On the surface, everything is in order; decisions are carried out, life moves on, the ship sails along. But where is this movement heading? No one knows. The sailors are rowing without seeing anything; the lower-ranking officers are holding their eyes up to the leadership, but the leaders are not capable of seeing past each coming, rising, tumbling wave. No one is looking ahead, searching for a new continent. Instead, we are looking backward, held hostage by memory.
I cannot be an accomplice in such a way of life, with no spiritual compass or moral direction. Never -- or so I've been taught from infancy -- have the Jewish people existed only for the sake of existence; never have we survived only in order to survive; never have we carried on for the sole purpose of carrying on by itself.
The Jewish existence was always directed upward. Not only toward our king and father in the heavens, but also our gaze upward was an answer to the great call of humanity; an answer of liberty in the times of enslavement in Egypt, an answer to the need of a righteous and egalitarian law in the days of Sinai when we wandered through the desert, an answer to the call of human universalism manifest in the Scriptures of the great prophets, and finally, an answer to the cry opposing unjust and imperial occupation throughout late antiquity.
Even the Zionist idea was not merely an attempt to rescue the Jews from violent anti-Semitic prosecutors, but rather was a heroic attempt to establish a model society. Zionism meant to create a society that avoided any form of discrimination or oppressive policy toward non-Jews, of the kind under which Jews had suffered for more than two millenniums.
This utopian vision has fallen silent in Israel. Concerns for personal survival and well-being, as well as fear about the ongoing bloodshed and security emergencies, about Gaza and Iran and the realities of demographics and population, have silenced the moral debate and blocked the horizons of vision and creative thinking.
I believe Israel must move away from trauma to trust, that we must abandon the "everything is Auschwitz" mentality and substitute for it an impulse toward liberty and democracy.
I fully understand that this will require a slow process of change. It will take more than one or two years for a new Jewish humanism to be accepted, allowing Israel to become a less traumatic place, a country in which school trips do not only present Israel's high school students with extermination camps. Israel must rethink its strict law of return (which defines Jewishness the same way Hitler did), its relationship
with Germany, and it must reaffirm its commitment to being a democratic state of the Jewish people, a state that belongs to all of its citizens, in which the majority decides on its character and essence, with the utmost sensitivity to all the "others" -- and especially the Arab non-Jewish minority.
I have a vision of Israel as the driving force behind a global peace process and worldwide reconciliation and as a society guided by a deep sense of responsibility to world justice, but it's difficult to accept this vision when we are confronted every day with the hardship and perpetual bloodshed reflected in our newspapers. My hope is for a Jewish people that insists "never again" -- not only for Jewish victims but for
anyone who suffers around the globe today.
Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli parliament, is a businessman and author, most recently, of "The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From Its Ashes," published this month by Palgrave Macmillan.
Now, who is going to step forward and make the obvious point that the problem is caused by:
A most interesting commentary published in the Los Angeles Times, written by Avraham Berg, an Orthodox Jew, a former Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, a past-president of the World Zionist organization and son of a leading Rabbi and leader of the National Religious Party in Israel.
Ed CorriganThe deeper we are stuck in our Auschwitz past, the more difficult it
becomes to be free of it.
Reporting from Nataf, Israel -- Even today, when economic storms are shaking markets around the world, posing a threat to the stability of entire countries and societies, Israel continues to conduct its business far from the turmoil, as if swimming in a private ocean of its own. True, the headlines are alerting the public here about the crisis, and the politicians are hastily recalculating their budgets. But none of this is dramatically changing the way we think about ourselves.
To Israelis, these issues are mundane. What really matters here is the all-important spirit of Trauma, the true basis for so many of our country's life principles. In Israel, the darkest period in human history is always present. Regardless of whether the question at hand is of the future relations between Israel and our Palestinian neighbors in specific and the Arab world in general, or of the Iranian atomic threat and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it always comes down to the same conversation. Every threat or grievance of major or minor importance is dealt with automatically by raising the biggest argument of them all -- the Shoah -- and from that moment onward, every discussion is disrupted.
The constant presence of the Shoah is like a buzz in my ear. In Israel, children are always, it seems, preparing for their rite-of-passage "Auschwitz trip" to Poland. Not a day passes without a mention of the Holocaust in the only newspaper I read, Haaretz. The Shoah is like a hole in the ozone layer: unseen yet present, abstract yet powerful. It's more present in our lives than God.
It is the founding experience not just of our national consciousness but of more than that. Army generals discuss Israeli security doctrine as "Shoah-proof." Politicians use it as a central argument for their ethical manipulations.
The Shoah is so pervasive that a study conducted a few years ago in a Tel Aviv school for teachers found that more than 90% of those questioned view it as the most important experience of Jewish history. That means it is more important than the creation of the world, the exodus from Egypt, the delivering of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, the ruin of both Holy Temples, the exile, the birth of Zionism, the founding of the state or the 1967 Six-Day War.
The Shoah is woven, to varying degrees, into almost all of Israel's political arguments; over time, we have taken the Shoah from its position of sanctity and turned it into an instrument of common and even trite politics. It represents a past that is present, maintained, monitored, heard and represented. Our dead do not rest in peace. They are busy, active, always a part of our sad lives.
Of course, memory is essential to any nation's mental health. The Shoah must always have an important place in the nation's memorial mosaic. But the way things are done today -- the absolute monopoly and the dominance of the Shoah on every aspect of our lives -- transforms this holy memory into a ridiculous sacrilege and converts piercing pain into hollowness and kitsch. As time passes, the deeper we are stuck in our Auschwitz past, the more difficult it becomes to be free of it.
What does the primacy of the Shoah mean in terms of our politics and policy? For one thing, it becomes virtually impossible to find a conversation carried out with reason, patience, self-control or restraint. Take Iran as an example. With regard to Iran, as with any other security matter that has potentially existential consequences, we have no thoughts at all -- only instincts and trauma-driven impulses. Who has ever heard of alternative approaches to the Iranian issue, of strategic arguments underlying the passionate emotions, the old fears and violent rhetoric?
Few people in Israel are willing to try to perceive reality through a different set of conceptual lenses other than those of extermination and defensive isolation. Few are willing to try on the glasses of understanding and of hope for dialogue. Instead, the question is always: Is a second Shoah on the way?
This is one of the strongest reasons why I voluntarily withdrew from political life in Israel. I couldn't help feeling that Israel has become a kingdom lacking in vision and without a prophetic horizon. On the surface, everything is in order; decisions are carried out, life moves on, the ship sails along. But where is this movement heading? No one knows. The sailors are rowing without seeing anything; the lower-ranking officers are holding their eyes up to the leadership, but the leaders are not capable of seeing past each coming, rising, tumbling wave. No one is looking ahead, searching for a new continent. Instead, we are looking backward, held hostage by memory.
I cannot be an accomplice in such a way of life, with no spiritual compass or moral direction. Never -- or so I've been taught from infancy -- have the Jewish people existed only for the sake of existence; never have we survived only in order to survive; never have we carried on for the sole purpose of carrying on by itself.
The Jewish existence was always directed upward. Not only toward our king and father in the heavens, but also our gaze upward was an answer to the great call of humanity; an answer of liberty in the times of enslavement in Egypt, an answer to the need of a righteous and egalitarian law in the days of Sinai when we wandered through the desert, an answer to the call of human universalism manifest in the Scriptures of the great prophets, and finally, an answer to the cry opposing unjust and imperial occupation throughout late antiquity.
Even the Zionist idea was not merely an attempt to rescue the Jews from violent anti-Semitic prosecutors, but rather was a heroic attempt to establish a model society. Zionism meant to create a society that avoided any form of discrimination or oppressive policy toward non-Jews, of the kind under which Jews had suffered for more than two millenniums.
This utopian vision has fallen silent in Israel. Concerns for personal survival and well-being, as well as fear about the ongoing bloodshed and security emergencies, about Gaza and Iran and the realities of demographics and population, have silenced the moral debate and blocked the horizons of vision and creative thinking.
I believe Israel must move away from trauma to trust, that we must abandon the "everything is Auschwitz" mentality and substitute for it an impulse toward liberty and democracy.
I fully understand that this will require a slow process of change. It will take more than one or two years for a new Jewish humanism to be accepted, allowing Israel to become a less traumatic place, a country in which school trips do not only present Israel's high school students with extermination camps. Israel must rethink its strict law of return (which defines Jewishness the same way Hitler did), its relationship
with Germany, and it must reaffirm its commitment to being a democratic state of the Jewish people, a state that belongs to all of its citizens, in which the majority decides on its character and essence, with the utmost sensitivity to all the "others" -- and especially the Arab non-Jewish minority.
I have a vision of Israel as the driving force behind a global peace process and worldwide reconciliation and as a society guided by a deep sense of responsibility to world justice, but it's difficult to accept this vision when we are confronted every day with the hardship and perpetual bloodshed reflected in our newspapers. My hope is for a Jewish people that insists "never again" -- not only for Jewish victims but for
anyone who suffers around the globe today.
Avraham Burg, former speaker of the Israeli parliament, is a businessman and author, most recently, of "The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From Its Ashes," published this month by Palgrave Macmillan.
State of the Art
As long as you stick to the truth, you just have to wait around long enough to find yourself back in the mainstream:
- Avraham Burg on the Zionist misuse of the Holocaust.
- Khalid Amayreh on the comparison between Israelis and Nazis.
- Jeffrey Blankfort on the Jew-controlled American media.
- Hasbara Buster on the political control of language in the case of 'antisemite' (found via here).
- A tiny number of very rich Jews who fund the settlers and the propaganda efforts in favor of the settler movement (blaming rich Jews for anything remains the ultimate taboo);
- A movement whose goals are de facto supported by a healthy majority of the diaspora Jewish population (those who 'stand for' Israel), despite the fact that most of this population would deny that they support the problems caused by the settler movement (it is this mindless support which lies behind my insistence that this is a Jewish, and not just a Zionist, problem)?
Thursday, 20 November 2008
Hebron settlers desecrate mosque
Hebron settlers desecrate mosque
Jewish settlers protesting against an official Israeli eviction order have desecrated Muslim buildings in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron.
They sprayed "Death to Arabs" and an insult to the Prophet Muhammad on a mosque wall and vandalised a cemetery.
Israeli troops were seen painting over the graffiti. A soldier was injured in scuffles with settlers, the army said
The high court has ordered dozens of hardline settlers to leave a house in the overwhelmingly Palestinian town.
The dispute over the strategically located building has raised tensions even higher than usual between settlers and Palestinians in Hebron.
Settlers say they bought the building legally from its Palestinian owner, although he denies the claim.
The Israeli Supreme Court has ordered they must leave the building and set a deadline of Wednesday 19 November for them to go or face a forced eviction
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7739433.stm
My heart fell to read this. Especially since the headline is "Israeli settlers in south Hebron Hills kill donkey." Apparently it is so common for Palestinians in this area to be beaten by settlers that it takes a dead donkey to make the news.
From the PNN:
Ten settlers living in settlements built atop southern Mount Hebron assaulted a number of Palestinians on Saturday.
Farmers were near the southern West Bank town of Yatta this afternoon working on their land. Several activists from the Israeli left were accompanying the Palestinians as the settlers who imposed outposts nearby have a history of extreme violence.
Sources on the scene said that settlers from the Maon Settlement threw stones at the farmers and their supporters while screaming provocative phrases. The settlers referred to the Israeli activists as traitors and spies.
The Israeli settlers also stole a donkey from the farmers and shot him. His lifeless body was found nearby by Israeli soldiers to whom the leftists had filed a complaint against the settlers.
Jewish settlers protesting against an official Israeli eviction order have desecrated Muslim buildings in the flashpoint West Bank town of Hebron.
They sprayed "Death to Arabs" and an insult to the Prophet Muhammad on a mosque wall and vandalised a cemetery.
Israeli troops were seen painting over the graffiti. A soldier was injured in scuffles with settlers, the army said
The high court has ordered dozens of hardline settlers to leave a house in the overwhelmingly Palestinian town.
The dispute over the strategically located building has raised tensions even higher than usual between settlers and Palestinians in Hebron.
Settlers say they bought the building legally from its Palestinian owner, although he denies the claim.
The Israeli Supreme Court has ordered they must leave the building and set a deadline of Wednesday 19 November for them to go or face a forced eviction
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7739433.stm
My heart fell to read this. Especially since the headline is "Israeli settlers in south Hebron Hills kill donkey." Apparently it is so common for Palestinians in this area to be beaten by settlers that it takes a dead donkey to make the news.
From the PNN:
Ten settlers living in settlements built atop southern Mount Hebron assaulted a number of Palestinians on Saturday.
Farmers were near the southern West Bank town of Yatta this afternoon working on their land. Several activists from the Israeli left were accompanying the Palestinians as the settlers who imposed outposts nearby have a history of extreme violence.
Sources on the scene said that settlers from the Maon Settlement threw stones at the farmers and their supporters while screaming provocative phrases. The settlers referred to the Israeli activists as traitors and spies.
The Israeli settlers also stole a donkey from the farmers and shot him. His lifeless body was found nearby by Israeli soldiers to whom the leftists had filed a complaint against the settlers.
Extrajudicial Assassinations As Official Israeli Policy
Extrajudicial Assassinations As Official Israeli Policy
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=48901
November 19, 2008
Extra-judicial killings are indefensible, morally abhorrent, and illegal under international laws and norms. Article 23b of the 1907 Hague Regulations prohibits "assassination, proscription, or outlawry of an enemy, or putting a price upon an enemy's head, as well as offering a reward for any enemy 'dead or alive.' "
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." UDHR also recognizes the "inherent dignity (and the) equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family."
So do "just war" principles that rule out gratuitous violence, assassinations, especially if premeditated, war against civilians, and so on, despite the difficulties of distinguishing between combatants, those who've laid down their arms, and the innocent in times of war - let alone dealing with "terrorism" or what one analyst calls the "twilight zone between war and peace." Others say it's justifiable resistance or "blowback" in response to state-sponsored violence and other crimes of war and against humanity.
In 1980, the Sixth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders condemned "the practice of killing and executing political opponents or suspected offenders carried out by armed forces, law enforcement or other governmental agencies or by paramilitary or political groups" acting with the support of official forces or agencies.
The General Assembly also acted in response to arbitrary executions and politically motivated killings. On December 15, 1980, it adopted resolution 35/172 in which it urged member states to abide by the provisions of Articles 6, 14 and 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights that cover the right to life and various safeguards guaranteeing fair and impartial judicial proceedings.
The first principle of the 1989 UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions states:
"Governments shall prohibit by law all extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions and shall ensure that any such executions are recognized as offences under their criminal laws, and are punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account the seriousness of such offenses. Exceptional circumstances, including a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency may not be invoked as a justification of such executions. (They) shall not be carried out under any circumstances including, but not limited to, situations of internal armed conflict, excessive or illegal use of force by a public official or other person acting in an official capacity or by a person acting at the instigation, or with the consent or acquiescence of such person, and situations in which deaths occur in custody. This prohibition shall prevail over decrees issued by governmental authority."
These articles and provisions apply to occupied civilian populations, and the Fourth Geneva Convention and its Article 3 affords ones (like the Palestinians) under foreign occupation special protection. It covers all actions related to "Violence to life and person, Murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture." In addition, "The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees....recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."
Its Article 32 states: "the High Contracting Parties specifically agree that each of them is prohibited from taking any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishment, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment of a protected person, but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents."
Its Article 85 refers to "Grave Breaches" and defines them as "Acts committed willfully and causing death or serious injury to body or health....making the civilian population or individual civilians the object of attack (or)launching an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects...."
The 2002 International Criminal Court's Rome Statute also defines these grave violations as war crimes that include (in its Article 8):
-- "Grave" Geneva Convention breaches;
-- "Willing killing...."
-- "Intentionally launching an attack" knowing it will "cause incidental loss of life...."
-- "Killing or wounding" combatants who've laid down their arms;
-- extrajudicial killings; and
-- "Killing or wounding treacherously a combatant adversary...."
In 1982, the UN established the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. It was one of several mandates to address disappearances, torture, assassinations and many other human rights abuses and violations of international law.
Philip Alston currently holds the post to investigate extrajudicial killings, hold governments responsible for committing them, failing to prevent them, or for not responding when they're carried out by others. In May 2008, he issued the latest report of his "principle activities" in 2007 through the first three months of 2008. As of March 2008, he requested permission from 32 countries and Occupied Palestine to visit. In spite of "proceed(ing) with plans for a visit," Israel "so far failed to respond affirmatively." The Palestinian Authority (PA) "issued an invitation."
The US Position On Extrajudicial Killings
In 1976, President Gerald Ford signed Executive Order (EO) 11905 banning the practice against foreign leaders in peacetime and by implication against others. Yet Reagan's Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, argued that only "murder by treacherous means" is forbidden so assassinations are acceptable as long as they're unrelated to "treachery."
George Bush then swept aside subtleties, reversed Ford's EO, and authorized the CIA to assassinate Osama bin Laden, his supporters, and publicly stated that bin Laden "was wanted, dead or alive." His Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, concurred and called killing "terrorists" an act of "self-defense."
In June 2008, Philip Alston visited the US. He met with federal and state officials, judges and civil society groups in New York, Washington, Alabama and Texas. He also conducted a fact-finding tour of US prison and detention facilities and presented his findings at a June 30 press conference. He sharply criticized the Bush administration, the country's flawed judicial system, and continued rule of law violations. He cited:
-- racism in the application of the death penalty;
-- the lack of transparency in Guantanamo prisoner deaths;
-- a lack of information about Iraq and Afghanistan civilian deaths; the unwillingness of Department of Defense officials and others to cooperate; his concern about serious human rights violations as well; and
-- the refusal of the US Justice Department to prosecute mercenary contractors (like Blackwater Worldwide) who commit unlawful killings. Or the US military.
Israeli Extrajudicial Killings
Throughout its history, Israel willfully and systematically committed premeditated extrajudicial killings of Palestinians and other Arabs as official state policy - carried out with explicit high-level political, judicial and military authorization and allegedly in "self-defense" against individuals threatening Israeli security. Government officials even admit that certain persons are targeted, and Dan Haluts, former Israeli Army Chief of Staff, once told the Washington Post (in August 2006) that "Targeted killing is the most important method in the fight against 'terrorism.' " In other words, premeditated murder is acceptable as long as it's properly classified.
In May 2007 on Israeli Army Radio, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, former Infrastructure Minister, defended the practice and said: "We decided to carry out more physical liquidation operations against (Palestinian) 'terrorists"....I think this will eliminate the damage caused to Israeli territory due to the launching of Palestinian rockets."
Almost never do Israeli government or military officials show evidence that targeted individuals acted violently or threatened Jewish citizens. Simply calling them "terrorists" is justification enough - to kill them extrajudicially, with no recourse to due process or respect for international law that bans the practice for any reason.
"My crime was to protest Israeli assassinations"
On January 5, 2007, the London Guardian headlined that comment in reporting on Jewish activist Tali Fahima's first interview following her release from Israeli incarceration. Sitting with her arms handcuffed to a chair's legs 16 hours a day, her captors said they wanted to teach her to be a "good Jew." She was imprisoned for 30 months for traveling to the West Bank, "meeting an enemy agent and translating a simple army document."
She explained and said her crimes were for refusing to work with Shin Bet (Israel's secret service), going to see the Palestinians, then protesting the Israeli assassinations policy. She was kept in isolation for nine months. Finally, at the urging of her lawyer, she struck a plea bargain for a shorter sentence, and ended up being "unbowed" by her experience. She learned how Sin Bet "terroriz(es)" people, both Palestinians and Jews. "About the nature of the government, how they do not want us to see what is going on in our name."
On August 8, 2004, she was arrested and placed under administrative detention in September. In December, she was charged with "assistance to the enemy at time of war." It was trumped up and false. In January 2005, the Tel Aviv district court ruled that she should be placed under house arrest during her trial. Jerusalem's high court overruled it on the grounds that she "identifie(d) with an ideological goal." In December 2005, she pled guilty under her plea bargain to meeting and aiding an enemy agent and entering Palestinian territory. In January 2006, she was released.
She felt compelled to make regular Jenin visits. Talk to hundreds of people, including Palestinian resisters, and for the first time heard their point of view and how hard things are under occupation. For showing compassion and disagreeing with Israeli policies, she was imprisoned for nearly 30 months on false charges. Not even Jews are safe from harsh state retribution against anyone showing defiance or daring to resist injustice.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights Documentation of Israeli Targeted Assassinations
The (1995 established) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) functions independently in Gaza and enjoys "Consultative Status" with the UN's Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It's also an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists-Geneva, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) in Paris, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network in Copenhagen, the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Cairo, and the International Legal Assistance Corsortium (ILAC) in Stockholm.
Palestinian lawyers and human rights activists established it to:
-- "protect human rights and promote the rule of law;"
-- create, develop and promote a democratic culture in Palestinian society; and
-- work for Palestinian self-determination and independence "in accordance with international law and UN resolutions."
PCHR issues documents, fact sheets, and reports like its quarterly accounts of Israeli extrajudicial executions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Its latest one is from April through June, and a more comprehensive one covered August 2006 through its latest June 2008 data.
PCHR states: It's "investigated and documented these (killings) in depth (and) concluded that the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces) have consistently acted with utter disregard for the lives of (mostly innocent) Palestinian civilians in the OPT, and that IOF have continued to carry out state sanctioned extra-judicial executions, (in violation of) international human rights law....in the overwhelming majority of cases....suspects could have been arrested, but no efforts were made....and they were instead extra-judicially executed" - according to official state policy.
The Human Toll
Since the second Intifada's September 2000 inception through June 30, 2008, and excluding all other Palestinian killings, the IOF carried out 755 OPT executions. Victims included 521 extrajudicially targeted and 233 bystanders, including 71 children and 20 women. In Gaza, 405 were killed. Another 350 in the West Bank. The methods used included:
-- F-16, unmanned drone, and attack helicopter-launched air-to-surface missiles; tank shelling; missile launchers and gunboats;
-- Israeli military undercover units disguised as Palestinians; first established during the first (1987 - 1993) Intifada; they became more active during the second one; could easily have arrested suspects but instead killed them at short range; and
-- IOF targeted house ambushes in the West Bank.
Most often, civilians are attacked in their homes, vehicles, on streets and at workplaces. Sometimes entire families are killed, including children, women, the elderly, and infirm, and a July 2002 incident was typical. It targeted Salah Shehada, an Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades (the Hamas armed wing) leader.
The IOF knew he was with his wife and children. That they lived in a densely populated residential area, and former Israeli Army Chief of Staff, Moshe Ya'alon, admitted that he knew Shehada's wife and daughter "were close to him during the implementation of the assassination....and there was no way out of conducting the operation despite their presence." An Israeli F-16 bombed his home, and completely destroyed it. Two neighboring ones also and damaged 32 others.
The toll was horrific - 77 injured civilians; 16 others killed, including Shehada, his wife, daughter, assistant, eight children, (one a two-month old baby), and two elderly men and two women. It was an indefensible criminal act of wanton murder.
In May 2007, an air-to-surface missile targeted the Al-Hayia family at his eastern Gaza meeting hall. It scored a direct hit. Killed were seven members of his family, another Palestinian and the object of the attack - Sameh Saleh Farawana, a Hamas activist. In addition, three others were wounded.
In July 2006, air-to-surface missiles destroyed Dr. Nabil Abdol Latif Abu Selmeya's home in Gaza City's Al-Sheikh Radwan district. He, his wife, and seven children were killed. In addition, 34 bystanders were injured, including 5 children and six women. At least 15 neighboring homes were also damaged in an operation Israelis said targeted Mohammed Al-Deif, Hamas' armed wing leader and apparently Israel's most wanted man.
In January 2008, an air-to-surface missile struck a civilian vehicle carrying three members of the Al-Yazji family killing Mohammed Al-Yazji, his five-year old son, and his 40-year old brother. Three bystanders were also injured. IOF sources later admitted the attack was in error and was meant for another vehicle carrying Palestinian resistance activists.
In August 2007, a Gaza operation near the Rafah International Crossing Point killed two civilians, injured 12 others and slightly wounded three targeted activists who escaped. Moments later, another vehicle was struck nearby killing the driver, a civilian bystander, and wounding 12 others, including a child.
In November 2006 in eastern Gaza, a vehicle was struck carrying Bassel Sha'aban Ubeid, an Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades member. He and a colleague were killed. In addition, five Amen family members were injured, including two children.
Throughout the reporting period, there were many more killings in Gaza and the West Bank. In November 2006, four Jenin civilians. In February 2007, three others in Jenin. In March 2008, four Bethlehem civilians. Many others throughout the Territories in Ramallah, Nablus, Rafah, Khan Younis, Tul Karim, north, central and southern Gaza, and elsewhere - against activists, resisters, civilians, women and children for the crime of being Palestinians wanting self-determination, freedom, and respect for their rights under international law. For their part, Israelis, with world support and complicity, continue denying it to them repressively and illegally.
Extrajudicial Executions in the Latest Reporting Period - April - June 2008
During the period, the IOF conducted eight OPT assassinations killing a total of 16 people, including two civilian bystanders. Two operations were carried out in the West Bank. Six others in Gaza.
On April 14, an air-to-surface missile killed Ibrahim Mohanned Abu 'Olba, the National Resistance Brigades' (the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine's armed wing) leader in northern Gaza. Two civilians were also injured, including a 15-year old boy. In addition, a number of nearby houses were damaged.
On April 15, an air-to-surface missile killed Abdullah Mohammed al-Ghassain, an al-Quds Brigades' (the Islamic Jihad's armed wing) activist in northern Gaza. Three others were also injured.
On April 17, the IOF besieged a building in Qabatya village, southeast of Jenin in the northern West Bank. They opened fire at a civilian car, ordered people out of the building, and fired shells and demolished it with a bulldozer. Two dead Palestinians were found inside.
On April 20, an air-to-surface missile killed Nour al-Dibari in Gaza. A second missile targeted a number of Palestinians who just left a grocery shop. Its owner was seriously injured as well as his son. At least one other Palestinian was hurt as well.
On June 29, the IOF entered Tubas in the northern West Bank and set a cemetery ambush for a group of Palestinian children there throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at military vehicles. They opened fire and killed one 16-year old from multiple gunshots to the chest and abdomen.
PCHR "asserts that the Government of Israel continues to act recklessly, and with utter disregard for the human rights of the Palestinian people, including (their) right to life" and safety. Israel also fails "to meet its obligations under human rights law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention." An Israeli government representative wasn't available for comment.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM - 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions on world and national topics with distinguished guests. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=48901
November 19, 2008
Extra-judicial killings are indefensible, morally abhorrent, and illegal under international laws and norms. Article 23b of the 1907 Hague Regulations prohibits "assassination, proscription, or outlawry of an enemy, or putting a price upon an enemy's head, as well as offering a reward for any enemy 'dead or alive.' "
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." UDHR also recognizes the "inherent dignity (and the) equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family."
So do "just war" principles that rule out gratuitous violence, assassinations, especially if premeditated, war against civilians, and so on, despite the difficulties of distinguishing between combatants, those who've laid down their arms, and the innocent in times of war - let alone dealing with "terrorism" or what one analyst calls the "twilight zone between war and peace." Others say it's justifiable resistance or "blowback" in response to state-sponsored violence and other crimes of war and against humanity.
In 1980, the Sixth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders condemned "the practice of killing and executing political opponents or suspected offenders carried out by armed forces, law enforcement or other governmental agencies or by paramilitary or political groups" acting with the support of official forces or agencies.
The General Assembly also acted in response to arbitrary executions and politically motivated killings. On December 15, 1980, it adopted resolution 35/172 in which it urged member states to abide by the provisions of Articles 6, 14 and 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights that cover the right to life and various safeguards guaranteeing fair and impartial judicial proceedings.
The first principle of the 1989 UN Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions states:
"Governments shall prohibit by law all extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions and shall ensure that any such executions are recognized as offences under their criminal laws, and are punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account the seriousness of such offenses. Exceptional circumstances, including a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency may not be invoked as a justification of such executions. (They) shall not be carried out under any circumstances including, but not limited to, situations of internal armed conflict, excessive or illegal use of force by a public official or other person acting in an official capacity or by a person acting at the instigation, or with the consent or acquiescence of such person, and situations in which deaths occur in custody. This prohibition shall prevail over decrees issued by governmental authority."
These articles and provisions apply to occupied civilian populations, and the Fourth Geneva Convention and its Article 3 affords ones (like the Palestinians) under foreign occupation special protection. It covers all actions related to "Violence to life and person, Murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture." In addition, "The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees....recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples."
Its Article 32 states: "the High Contracting Parties specifically agree that each of them is prohibited from taking any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishment, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment of a protected person, but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents."
Its Article 85 refers to "Grave Breaches" and defines them as "Acts committed willfully and causing death or serious injury to body or health....making the civilian population or individual civilians the object of attack (or)launching an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population or civilian objects...."
The 2002 International Criminal Court's Rome Statute also defines these grave violations as war crimes that include (in its Article 8):
-- "Grave" Geneva Convention breaches;
-- "Willing killing...."
-- "Intentionally launching an attack" knowing it will "cause incidental loss of life...."
-- "Killing or wounding" combatants who've laid down their arms;
-- extrajudicial killings; and
-- "Killing or wounding treacherously a combatant adversary...."
In 1982, the UN established the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. It was one of several mandates to address disappearances, torture, assassinations and many other human rights abuses and violations of international law.
Philip Alston currently holds the post to investigate extrajudicial killings, hold governments responsible for committing them, failing to prevent them, or for not responding when they're carried out by others. In May 2008, he issued the latest report of his "principle activities" in 2007 through the first three months of 2008. As of March 2008, he requested permission from 32 countries and Occupied Palestine to visit. In spite of "proceed(ing) with plans for a visit," Israel "so far failed to respond affirmatively." The Palestinian Authority (PA) "issued an invitation."
The US Position On Extrajudicial Killings
In 1976, President Gerald Ford signed Executive Order (EO) 11905 banning the practice against foreign leaders in peacetime and by implication against others. Yet Reagan's Defense Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, argued that only "murder by treacherous means" is forbidden so assassinations are acceptable as long as they're unrelated to "treachery."
George Bush then swept aside subtleties, reversed Ford's EO, and authorized the CIA to assassinate Osama bin Laden, his supporters, and publicly stated that bin Laden "was wanted, dead or alive." His Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, concurred and called killing "terrorists" an act of "self-defense."
In June 2008, Philip Alston visited the US. He met with federal and state officials, judges and civil society groups in New York, Washington, Alabama and Texas. He also conducted a fact-finding tour of US prison and detention facilities and presented his findings at a June 30 press conference. He sharply criticized the Bush administration, the country's flawed judicial system, and continued rule of law violations. He cited:
-- racism in the application of the death penalty;
-- the lack of transparency in Guantanamo prisoner deaths;
-- a lack of information about Iraq and Afghanistan civilian deaths; the unwillingness of Department of Defense officials and others to cooperate; his concern about serious human rights violations as well; and
-- the refusal of the US Justice Department to prosecute mercenary contractors (like Blackwater Worldwide) who commit unlawful killings. Or the US military.
Israeli Extrajudicial Killings
Throughout its history, Israel willfully and systematically committed premeditated extrajudicial killings of Palestinians and other Arabs as official state policy - carried out with explicit high-level political, judicial and military authorization and allegedly in "self-defense" against individuals threatening Israeli security. Government officials even admit that certain persons are targeted, and Dan Haluts, former Israeli Army Chief of Staff, once told the Washington Post (in August 2006) that "Targeted killing is the most important method in the fight against 'terrorism.' " In other words, premeditated murder is acceptable as long as it's properly classified.
In May 2007 on Israeli Army Radio, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, former Infrastructure Minister, defended the practice and said: "We decided to carry out more physical liquidation operations against (Palestinian) 'terrorists"....I think this will eliminate the damage caused to Israeli territory due to the launching of Palestinian rockets."
Almost never do Israeli government or military officials show evidence that targeted individuals acted violently or threatened Jewish citizens. Simply calling them "terrorists" is justification enough - to kill them extrajudicially, with no recourse to due process or respect for international law that bans the practice for any reason.
"My crime was to protest Israeli assassinations"
On January 5, 2007, the London Guardian headlined that comment in reporting on Jewish activist Tali Fahima's first interview following her release from Israeli incarceration. Sitting with her arms handcuffed to a chair's legs 16 hours a day, her captors said they wanted to teach her to be a "good Jew." She was imprisoned for 30 months for traveling to the West Bank, "meeting an enemy agent and translating a simple army document."
She explained and said her crimes were for refusing to work with Shin Bet (Israel's secret service), going to see the Palestinians, then protesting the Israeli assassinations policy. She was kept in isolation for nine months. Finally, at the urging of her lawyer, she struck a plea bargain for a shorter sentence, and ended up being "unbowed" by her experience. She learned how Sin Bet "terroriz(es)" people, both Palestinians and Jews. "About the nature of the government, how they do not want us to see what is going on in our name."
On August 8, 2004, she was arrested and placed under administrative detention in September. In December, she was charged with "assistance to the enemy at time of war." It was trumped up and false. In January 2005, the Tel Aviv district court ruled that she should be placed under house arrest during her trial. Jerusalem's high court overruled it on the grounds that she "identifie(d) with an ideological goal." In December 2005, she pled guilty under her plea bargain to meeting and aiding an enemy agent and entering Palestinian territory. In January 2006, she was released.
She felt compelled to make regular Jenin visits. Talk to hundreds of people, including Palestinian resisters, and for the first time heard their point of view and how hard things are under occupation. For showing compassion and disagreeing with Israeli policies, she was imprisoned for nearly 30 months on false charges. Not even Jews are safe from harsh state retribution against anyone showing defiance or daring to resist injustice.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights Documentation of Israeli Targeted Assassinations
The (1995 established) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) functions independently in Gaza and enjoys "Consultative Status" with the UN's Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It's also an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists-Geneva, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) in Paris, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network in Copenhagen, the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Cairo, and the International Legal Assistance Corsortium (ILAC) in Stockholm.
Palestinian lawyers and human rights activists established it to:
-- "protect human rights and promote the rule of law;"
-- create, develop and promote a democratic culture in Palestinian society; and
-- work for Palestinian self-determination and independence "in accordance with international law and UN resolutions."
PCHR issues documents, fact sheets, and reports like its quarterly accounts of Israeli extrajudicial executions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Its latest one is from April through June, and a more comprehensive one covered August 2006 through its latest June 2008 data.
PCHR states: It's "investigated and documented these (killings) in depth (and) concluded that the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces) have consistently acted with utter disregard for the lives of (mostly innocent) Palestinian civilians in the OPT, and that IOF have continued to carry out state sanctioned extra-judicial executions, (in violation of) international human rights law....in the overwhelming majority of cases....suspects could have been arrested, but no efforts were made....and they were instead extra-judicially executed" - according to official state policy.
The Human Toll
Since the second Intifada's September 2000 inception through June 30, 2008, and excluding all other Palestinian killings, the IOF carried out 755 OPT executions. Victims included 521 extrajudicially targeted and 233 bystanders, including 71 children and 20 women. In Gaza, 405 were killed. Another 350 in the West Bank. The methods used included:
-- F-16, unmanned drone, and attack helicopter-launched air-to-surface missiles; tank shelling; missile launchers and gunboats;
-- Israeli military undercover units disguised as Palestinians; first established during the first (1987 - 1993) Intifada; they became more active during the second one; could easily have arrested suspects but instead killed them at short range; and
-- IOF targeted house ambushes in the West Bank.
Most often, civilians are attacked in their homes, vehicles, on streets and at workplaces. Sometimes entire families are killed, including children, women, the elderly, and infirm, and a July 2002 incident was typical. It targeted Salah Shehada, an Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades (the Hamas armed wing) leader.
The IOF knew he was with his wife and children. That they lived in a densely populated residential area, and former Israeli Army Chief of Staff, Moshe Ya'alon, admitted that he knew Shehada's wife and daughter "were close to him during the implementation of the assassination....and there was no way out of conducting the operation despite their presence." An Israeli F-16 bombed his home, and completely destroyed it. Two neighboring ones also and damaged 32 others.
The toll was horrific - 77 injured civilians; 16 others killed, including Shehada, his wife, daughter, assistant, eight children, (one a two-month old baby), and two elderly men and two women. It was an indefensible criminal act of wanton murder.
In May 2007, an air-to-surface missile targeted the Al-Hayia family at his eastern Gaza meeting hall. It scored a direct hit. Killed were seven members of his family, another Palestinian and the object of the attack - Sameh Saleh Farawana, a Hamas activist. In addition, three others were wounded.
In July 2006, air-to-surface missiles destroyed Dr. Nabil Abdol Latif Abu Selmeya's home in Gaza City's Al-Sheikh Radwan district. He, his wife, and seven children were killed. In addition, 34 bystanders were injured, including 5 children and six women. At least 15 neighboring homes were also damaged in an operation Israelis said targeted Mohammed Al-Deif, Hamas' armed wing leader and apparently Israel's most wanted man.
In January 2008, an air-to-surface missile struck a civilian vehicle carrying three members of the Al-Yazji family killing Mohammed Al-Yazji, his five-year old son, and his 40-year old brother. Three bystanders were also injured. IOF sources later admitted the attack was in error and was meant for another vehicle carrying Palestinian resistance activists.
In August 2007, a Gaza operation near the Rafah International Crossing Point killed two civilians, injured 12 others and slightly wounded three targeted activists who escaped. Moments later, another vehicle was struck nearby killing the driver, a civilian bystander, and wounding 12 others, including a child.
In November 2006 in eastern Gaza, a vehicle was struck carrying Bassel Sha'aban Ubeid, an Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades member. He and a colleague were killed. In addition, five Amen family members were injured, including two children.
Throughout the reporting period, there were many more killings in Gaza and the West Bank. In November 2006, four Jenin civilians. In February 2007, three others in Jenin. In March 2008, four Bethlehem civilians. Many others throughout the Territories in Ramallah, Nablus, Rafah, Khan Younis, Tul Karim, north, central and southern Gaza, and elsewhere - against activists, resisters, civilians, women and children for the crime of being Palestinians wanting self-determination, freedom, and respect for their rights under international law. For their part, Israelis, with world support and complicity, continue denying it to them repressively and illegally.
Extrajudicial Executions in the Latest Reporting Period - April - June 2008
During the period, the IOF conducted eight OPT assassinations killing a total of 16 people, including two civilian bystanders. Two operations were carried out in the West Bank. Six others in Gaza.
On April 14, an air-to-surface missile killed Ibrahim Mohanned Abu 'Olba, the National Resistance Brigades' (the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine's armed wing) leader in northern Gaza. Two civilians were also injured, including a 15-year old boy. In addition, a number of nearby houses were damaged.
On April 15, an air-to-surface missile killed Abdullah Mohammed al-Ghassain, an al-Quds Brigades' (the Islamic Jihad's armed wing) activist in northern Gaza. Three others were also injured.
On April 17, the IOF besieged a building in Qabatya village, southeast of Jenin in the northern West Bank. They opened fire at a civilian car, ordered people out of the building, and fired shells and demolished it with a bulldozer. Two dead Palestinians were found inside.
On April 20, an air-to-surface missile killed Nour al-Dibari in Gaza. A second missile targeted a number of Palestinians who just left a grocery shop. Its owner was seriously injured as well as his son. At least one other Palestinian was hurt as well.
On June 29, the IOF entered Tubas in the northern West Bank and set a cemetery ambush for a group of Palestinian children there throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at military vehicles. They opened fire and killed one 16-year old from multiple gunshots to the chest and abdomen.
PCHR "asserts that the Government of Israel continues to act recklessly, and with utter disregard for the human rights of the Palestinian people, including (their) right to life" and safety. Israel also fails "to meet its obligations under human rights law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention." An Israeli government representative wasn't available for comment.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM - 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions on world and national topics with distinguished guests. All programs are archived for easy listening.
Self-deceivers too: Everybody knows that Hizbollah WON!!!
Self-deceivers too: "The report added that Israel is seeking to complete the move in a way that would make it difficult for Hezbollah to claim the pullout as a victory
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHABut what a bunch of morons!Everybody knows that Hizbollah WON!!!
Contributed by Lucia
Israel mulls pullback from controversial border village
www.chinaview.cn
2008-11-20 04:26:50 Print
JERUSALEM, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Israel has decided to start negotiations with the United Nations over a withdrawal from the northern part of a village spanning the Israel-Lebanon border, local daily Ha'aretz reported Wednesday.
The village of Ghajar went under dispute immediately after Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. Lebanon and its Shiite militant Hezbollah movement have demanded the Jewish state to pullback from the northern half of the village, while Israel have refused to do so for security concerns.
Following consultations with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and other senior officials, caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday gave his nod to kick off the talks with the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
The goal of the negotiations, Israeli officials were quoted as saying, is to ensure that any agreement must take Israel's security concerns into account, and must include working guidelines for cooperation between Israeli forces and the UNIFIL, without which Israel will not pull back.
The report added that Israel is seeking to complete the move in a way that would make it difficult for Hezbollah to claim the pullout as a victory, with one option being to sign a three-way agreement with the UN and Lebanon.
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Yemen seizes 'Israel-linked' Al-queda cell
Yemen seizes 'Israel-linked' cell
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence.
Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group's links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen.
The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.
Israel's foreign ministry has rejected the accusation as "totally ridiculous".
"A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province.
"Details of the trial will be announced later. You will hear about what goes on in the proceedings," he added.
The 17 September attack was the second to target the US embassy since April. Militants detonated car bombs before firing rockets at the heavily fortified building.
Mr Saleh did not identify the suspects, but official sources were quoted saying it was same cell - led by a militant called Abu al-Ghaith al-Yamani - whose arrest was announced a week after the attack.
An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said the Yemeni president's statement was without foundation.
"To believe that Israel would create Islamist cells in Yemen is really far-fetched. This is yet another victory for the proponents of conspiracy theories," Igal Palmor said in remarks reported by AFP. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence.
Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group's links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen.
The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.
Israel's foreign ministry has rejected the accusation as "totally ridiculous".
"A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province.
"Details of the trial will be announced later. You will hear about what goes on in the proceedings," he added.
The 17 September attack was the second to target the US embassy since April. Militants detonated car bombs before firing rockets at the heavily fortified building.
Mr Saleh did not identify the suspects, but official sources were quoted saying it was same cell - led by a militant called Abu al-Ghaith al-Yamani - whose arrest was announced a week after the attack.
An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said the Yemeni president's statement was without foundation.
"To believe that Israel would create Islamist cells in Yemen is really far-fetched. This is yet another victory for the proponents of conspiracy theories," Igal Palmor said in remarks reported by AFP.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7656807.stm
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence.
Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group's links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen.
The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.
Israel's foreign ministry has rejected the accusation as "totally ridiculous".
"A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province.
"Details of the trial will be announced later. You will hear about what goes on in the proceedings," he added.
The 17 September attack was the second to target the US embassy since April. Militants detonated car bombs before firing rockets at the heavily fortified building.
Mr Saleh did not identify the suspects, but official sources were quoted saying it was same cell - led by a militant called Abu al-Ghaith al-Yamani - whose arrest was announced a week after the attack.
An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said the Yemeni president's statement was without foundation.
"To believe that Israel would create Islamist cells in Yemen is really far-fetched. This is yet another victory for the proponents of conspiracy theories," Igal Palmor said in remarks reported by AFP. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence.
Mr Saleh did not say what evidence had been found to show the group's links with Israel, a regional enemy of Yemen.
The arrests were connected with an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa last month which killed at least 18 people, official sources were quoted saying.
Israel's foreign ministry has rejected the accusation as "totally ridiculous".
"A terrorist cell was arrested and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," Mr Saleh told a gathering at al-Mukalla University in Hadramawt province.
"Details of the trial will be announced later. You will hear about what goes on in the proceedings," he added.
The 17 September attack was the second to target the US embassy since April. Militants detonated car bombs before firing rockets at the heavily fortified building.
Mr Saleh did not identify the suspects, but official sources were quoted saying it was same cell - led by a militant called Abu al-Ghaith al-Yamani - whose arrest was announced a week after the attack.
An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said the Yemeni president's statement was without foundation.
"To believe that Israel would create Islamist cells in Yemen is really far-fetched. This is yet another victory for the proponents of conspiracy theories," Igal Palmor said in remarks reported by AFP.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7656807.stm
Jew terrorism in Palestine 1937 - 1949
The Terror that begot Israel
[ 08/05/2008 - 09:13 PM ]
By Khalid Amayreh
“We committed Nazi acts.”
Aharon Zisling, Israel’s first Agriculture Minister
“There is no doubt that many sexual atrocities were committed by the attacking Jews. Many young (Arab) girls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested.”
General Richard Catling, British Army Assistant Inspector after interrogating several female survivors (The Palestinian Catastrophe, Michael Palumbo, 1987)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the evil state of Israel is celebrating sixty years of ethnic cleansing and atrocities against the native Palestinians, many people around the world, especially young generations, will not be fully aware of the manner in which Israel came into existence. Similarly, the younger Zionist generations who don’t stop calling their Palestinian victims “terrorists” should have a clearer idea about Israel’s manifestly criminal past which Zionist school textbooks shamelessly glamorize and glorify
Prior to "Jewish" statehood, three main Jewish terror organizations operated in Palestine, primarily against Palestinian civilians and British mandate targets. The three were: The Haganah, the Zvei Leumi or Irgun and the Stern Gang. The Haganah (Defence) had a field army of up to 160,000 well-trained and well-armed men and a unit called the Palmach, with more than 6,000 terrorists. The Irgun included as many as 5,000 terrorists, while the Stern Gang included 200-300 dangerous terrorists.
The following are merely some examples of Zionist terrorism prior to the creation of the Zionist state in 1948: The list doesn't include the bigger massacres such as Dir Yasin, Dawaymeh, Tantura and others.
1937-1939
During this period, Zionist terrorists carried out a series of terror attacks against Palestinian buses resulting in the death of 24 persons and the wounding of 25 others.
1939
Haganah blew up the Iraqi oil pipeline near Haifa/Palestine. Moshe Dayan was one of the participants in this act. The technique was used in 1947 at least four times.
1940
On 6 November, 1940 , Zionist terrorists of the Stern Gang assassinated the British Minister resident in the Middle East , Lord Moyne, in Cairo .
1940
On 25 November, S.S. Patria was blown up by Jewish terrorists in Haifa harbour, killing 268 illegal Jewish immigrants. The explosion, carried out by the Haganah terrorist group, was only meant to prevent the ship from sailing. However, it seemed that the terrorists had miscalculated the amount of explosives needed to disable the vessel. Other sources reported that this was no miscalculation and was a deliberate mass murder of Jews by Jews aimed at drawing sympathy and influencing British immigration policy to Palestine .
1946
Zionist terrorists blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which housed the civilian administration of the government of Palestine, killing and injuring more than 200 persons. The Irgun gang claimed responsibility for this criminal act, but subsequent evidence indicated that both the Haganah and the Jewish Agency were involved.
1946
On 1 October, the British Embassy in Rome was badly damaged by a bomb explosion for which Irgun claimed responsibility.
1947
In June 1947, a postal bomb addressed to the British war office exploded in the post office sorting room in London, injuring 2 persons. It was attributed to Irgun or Stern Gangs (The Sunday Times, Sept. 24, 1972), p. 8.
1947
In December 1947, six Palestinians were killed and 30 wounded when bombs were thrown from Jewish trucks at Arab houses in Haifa; 12 Palestinians were killed and another injured in an attack by armed Zionists at an Arab coastal village near Haifa.
1947
On 13 December 1947 , Zionist terrorists believed to be members of Irgun Zevi Leumi murdered 18 Palestinian civilians and wounded 60 others in Jerusalem , Jaffa and Lud areas. In Jerusalem , bombs were thrown in an Arab market-place near the Damascus Gate; in Jaffa bombs were thrown into an Arab café; and in the Arab village near Lud, 12 Arabs were killed in an attack with mortars and automatic weapons.
1947
On 9 December, Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village near Safad, blowing up two houses, in the ruins of which were found the bodies of 10 Arabs, including 5 children. Haganah admitted responsibility for the attack.
1947
On 29 December, two British constables and 11 Palestinians were killed and 32 others were injured at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem when Irgun terrorists threw a bomb from a taxi.
1948
On 1 January, Haganah terrorists attacked a village on the slope of Mount Carmel , killing 17 Palestinian civilians and wounding 33 others.
1948
On 4 January, Haganah terrorists wearing British Army uniforms penetrated into the centre of Jaffa and blew up the Sarai, which was used as headquarters of the Arab National Committee, killing more than 40 persons and wounding 98 others.
1948
On 5 January, the Arab-owned Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem was blown up, killing 20 civilians, among them Viscount De Tapia, the Spanish Consul. Haganah admitted responsibility for this outrage.
1948
On 7 January , seventeen Arab civilians were killed by a bomb at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem , 3 of them while trying to escape. Further casualties, including the murder of a British officer near Hebron, were reported from different parts of the country.
1948
On 16 January, Jewish terrorists blew up three Arab buildings, killing 8 children between the age of 18 months and 12 years.
December 13, 1947- February 10, 1948
Seven bombing attacks by Jewish terrorists took place and the targets were innocent Arab civilians in cafés and markets, killing 138 and wounding 271 others. During this period, there were 9 attacks on Arab buses. Moreover, Jewish terrorists attacked passenger trains on at least four occasions, killing 93 persons and wounding 161 others.
1948
On 15 February , Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village near Safad and blew up several houses, killing 11 civilians, including four children.
1948
On 3 March, heavy damage was done to the Arab-owned Salam building in Haifa (a seven-story block of flats and shops) by Jewish terrorists who drove an army truck to the building and escaped before detonation of 400 pounds of explosives, killing 11 Arab civilians and 3 Americans. The Stern Gang claimed responsibility.
1948
On 22 March, Jewish terrorists from the Stern Gang blew up a housing block in Iraq Street in Haifa , killing 17 and injuring 100 others. Four members of the Stern Gang drove two truckloads of explosives into the street and abandoned the vehicles before the explosives went off.
1948
On 31 March, Jewish terrorists mined the Cairo-Haifa Express, killing 40 people and wounding 60 others.
1948
On 16 April, Jewish terrorists attacked the former British army camp at Tel Litvvinsky, killing 90 Palestinians.
1948
On 19 April, fourteen Palestinian civilians were killed in a house in Tiberias, which was blown up by Zionist terrorists.
1948
On 11 May, a letter bomb addressed to Evelyn Baker, former commanding officer in Palestine , was detected in the nick of time by his wife.
April 25, 1948- May 13, 1948
Wholesale looting of Jaffa was carried out following armed attacks by Irgun and Haganah terrorists. They plundered and carried away everything they could, destroying what they could not take with them.
1948
On 17 September, Count Folke Berndadotte, UN Mediator in Palestine was assassinated by members of the Stern Gang in the Zionist-controlled sector of Jerusalem . Bernadotte’s aide Col. Serot was also killed and murdered by Jewish terrorists.
1948
In November, the Christian Arab villages of Igrit and Birim were attacked and destroyed, killing and injuring many unarmed civilians, including women and children. All the Christian Arab inhabitants were forcibly expelled from their homes. The State of Israel still refuses to allow them to return to their villages despite several court orders.
1948-1949
The greatest acts of Jewish terror took place when Jewish terrorists, now called Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), uprooted 700,000-800,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homeland in Palestine . Since then the refugees have consistently been denied the right to return home. After the expulsion, the Zionist terrorist army razed to the ground hundreds of Arab towns, villages and hamlets and obliterated their remains. Eventually, Israeli villages, Kibbutzim and towns were built on the remaining rubble.
[ 08/05/2008 - 09:13 PM ]
By Khalid Amayreh
“We committed Nazi acts.”
Aharon Zisling, Israel’s first Agriculture Minister
“There is no doubt that many sexual atrocities were committed by the attacking Jews. Many young (Arab) girls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested.”
General Richard Catling, British Army Assistant Inspector after interrogating several female survivors (The Palestinian Catastrophe, Michael Palumbo, 1987)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the evil state of Israel is celebrating sixty years of ethnic cleansing and atrocities against the native Palestinians, many people around the world, especially young generations, will not be fully aware of the manner in which Israel came into existence. Similarly, the younger Zionist generations who don’t stop calling their Palestinian victims “terrorists” should have a clearer idea about Israel’s manifestly criminal past which Zionist school textbooks shamelessly glamorize and glorify
Prior to "Jewish" statehood, three main Jewish terror organizations operated in Palestine, primarily against Palestinian civilians and British mandate targets. The three were: The Haganah, the Zvei Leumi or Irgun and the Stern Gang. The Haganah (Defence) had a field army of up to 160,000 well-trained and well-armed men and a unit called the Palmach, with more than 6,000 terrorists. The Irgun included as many as 5,000 terrorists, while the Stern Gang included 200-300 dangerous terrorists.
The following are merely some examples of Zionist terrorism prior to the creation of the Zionist state in 1948: The list doesn't include the bigger massacres such as Dir Yasin, Dawaymeh, Tantura and others.
1937-1939
During this period, Zionist terrorists carried out a series of terror attacks against Palestinian buses resulting in the death of 24 persons and the wounding of 25 others.
1939
Haganah blew up the Iraqi oil pipeline near Haifa/Palestine. Moshe Dayan was one of the participants in this act. The technique was used in 1947 at least four times.
1940
On 6 November, 1940 , Zionist terrorists of the Stern Gang assassinated the British Minister resident in the Middle East , Lord Moyne, in Cairo .
1940
On 25 November, S.S. Patria was blown up by Jewish terrorists in Haifa harbour, killing 268 illegal Jewish immigrants. The explosion, carried out by the Haganah terrorist group, was only meant to prevent the ship from sailing. However, it seemed that the terrorists had miscalculated the amount of explosives needed to disable the vessel. Other sources reported that this was no miscalculation and was a deliberate mass murder of Jews by Jews aimed at drawing sympathy and influencing British immigration policy to Palestine .
1946
Zionist terrorists blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which housed the civilian administration of the government of Palestine, killing and injuring more than 200 persons. The Irgun gang claimed responsibility for this criminal act, but subsequent evidence indicated that both the Haganah and the Jewish Agency were involved.
1946
On 1 October, the British Embassy in Rome was badly damaged by a bomb explosion for which Irgun claimed responsibility.
1947
In June 1947, a postal bomb addressed to the British war office exploded in the post office sorting room in London, injuring 2 persons. It was attributed to Irgun or Stern Gangs (The Sunday Times, Sept. 24, 1972), p. 8.
1947
In December 1947, six Palestinians were killed and 30 wounded when bombs were thrown from Jewish trucks at Arab houses in Haifa; 12 Palestinians were killed and another injured in an attack by armed Zionists at an Arab coastal village near Haifa.
1947
On 13 December 1947 , Zionist terrorists believed to be members of Irgun Zevi Leumi murdered 18 Palestinian civilians and wounded 60 others in Jerusalem , Jaffa and Lud areas. In Jerusalem , bombs were thrown in an Arab market-place near the Damascus Gate; in Jaffa bombs were thrown into an Arab café; and in the Arab village near Lud, 12 Arabs were killed in an attack with mortars and automatic weapons.
1947
On 9 December, Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village near Safad, blowing up two houses, in the ruins of which were found the bodies of 10 Arabs, including 5 children. Haganah admitted responsibility for the attack.
1947
On 29 December, two British constables and 11 Palestinians were killed and 32 others were injured at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem when Irgun terrorists threw a bomb from a taxi.
1948
On 1 January, Haganah terrorists attacked a village on the slope of Mount Carmel , killing 17 Palestinian civilians and wounding 33 others.
1948
On 4 January, Haganah terrorists wearing British Army uniforms penetrated into the centre of Jaffa and blew up the Sarai, which was used as headquarters of the Arab National Committee, killing more than 40 persons and wounding 98 others.
1948
On 5 January, the Arab-owned Semiramis Hotel in Jerusalem was blown up, killing 20 civilians, among them Viscount De Tapia, the Spanish Consul. Haganah admitted responsibility for this outrage.
1948
On 7 January , seventeen Arab civilians were killed by a bomb at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem , 3 of them while trying to escape. Further casualties, including the murder of a British officer near Hebron, were reported from different parts of the country.
1948
On 16 January, Jewish terrorists blew up three Arab buildings, killing 8 children between the age of 18 months and 12 years.
December 13, 1947- February 10, 1948
Seven bombing attacks by Jewish terrorists took place and the targets were innocent Arab civilians in cafés and markets, killing 138 and wounding 271 others. During this period, there were 9 attacks on Arab buses. Moreover, Jewish terrorists attacked passenger trains on at least four occasions, killing 93 persons and wounding 161 others.
1948
On 15 February , Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village near Safad and blew up several houses, killing 11 civilians, including four children.
1948
On 3 March, heavy damage was done to the Arab-owned Salam building in Haifa (a seven-story block of flats and shops) by Jewish terrorists who drove an army truck to the building and escaped before detonation of 400 pounds of explosives, killing 11 Arab civilians and 3 Americans. The Stern Gang claimed responsibility.
1948
On 22 March, Jewish terrorists from the Stern Gang blew up a housing block in Iraq Street in Haifa , killing 17 and injuring 100 others. Four members of the Stern Gang drove two truckloads of explosives into the street and abandoned the vehicles before the explosives went off.
1948
On 31 March, Jewish terrorists mined the Cairo-Haifa Express, killing 40 people and wounding 60 others.
1948
On 16 April, Jewish terrorists attacked the former British army camp at Tel Litvvinsky, killing 90 Palestinians.
1948
On 19 April, fourteen Palestinian civilians were killed in a house in Tiberias, which was blown up by Zionist terrorists.
1948
On 11 May, a letter bomb addressed to Evelyn Baker, former commanding officer in Palestine , was detected in the nick of time by his wife.
April 25, 1948- May 13, 1948
Wholesale looting of Jaffa was carried out following armed attacks by Irgun and Haganah terrorists. They plundered and carried away everything they could, destroying what they could not take with them.
1948
On 17 September, Count Folke Berndadotte, UN Mediator in Palestine was assassinated by members of the Stern Gang in the Zionist-controlled sector of Jerusalem . Bernadotte’s aide Col. Serot was also killed and murdered by Jewish terrorists.
1948
In November, the Christian Arab villages of Igrit and Birim were attacked and destroyed, killing and injuring many unarmed civilians, including women and children. All the Christian Arab inhabitants were forcibly expelled from their homes. The State of Israel still refuses to allow them to return to their villages despite several court orders.
1948-1949
The greatest acts of Jewish terror took place when Jewish terrorists, now called Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), uprooted 700,000-800,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homeland in Palestine . Since then the refugees have consistently been denied the right to return home. After the expulsion, the Zionist terrorist army razed to the ground hundreds of Arab towns, villages and hamlets and obliterated their remains. Eventually, Israeli villages, Kibbutzim and towns were built on the remaining rubble.
The Myth Of Jewish Refugees From Arab Land
Source
By Dr. Elias Akleh
Victimizing the Jews has been the successful old political trick Zionists have been using to gain international political sympathy for the Israeli cause, and to justify all aggression and terror the Israeli army perpetrates on Palestinians and on the neighboring Arab countries. Whenever the international views turn against Israel, due to its aggression, a new Jewish victimizing story pops up.
One such late story I happened to come across on page 106 of March 19th. 2007 issue of U.S. News Magazine, was titled “You deserve a factual look at… The Forgotten Refugees. Why does nobody care about the Jewish refugees from Arab lands?” The article was published as an advertisement by FLAME (Facts and Logic About the Middle East), who claims to “publish the truth about Israel and the Middle East conflict in advertisements and letters to editors nationwide.”
The advertisement claims that there exist what it called Jewish refugees from Arab countries, and makes some comparison between these Jewish refugees and Arab refugees in an attempt to point to alleged international injustice when the UN spends “... many billions of dollars” on the Arab refugees while forgetting the Jewish refugees. The advertisement tries to avoid calling the Arab refugees by their true name: Palestinian refugees, in an attempt to deny any moral and legal responsibility of Zionist Israel in violating Palestinians’ human rights and creating Palestinian refugee problem.
The advertisement attempts to refute “A myth that Jews had an easy life in Muslim/Arab countries”. It claims that Jews under Islam were treated worse than second class citizens “governed by a system of discrimination intended to reduce Jews … to conditions of humiliation, segregation and violence”.
The truth is that Jews were treated, under Islam in the Arab World, better than any other place they had lived in the whole world at the time. They were treated like any other ethnic groups, e.g. Christians, with full citizenship that included freedom and rights like the rest of the citizens. They were allowed to live and worship freely in Jerusalem, where they were barred entrance by ancient Romans and European Christian Crusaders. When European Jews faced persecution since the start of Crusaders campaigns, they did not find any safe haven for themselves except in Islamic and Arab countries in North Africa and in the Middle East. Many of those Jews fought along side Muslim and Christian Arabs against the Crusaders, who called for the slaughter of every Jew for crucifying Jesus. In his book “Bitter Harvest” Palestinian scholar Sami Hadawi described this Jewish haven as follows:
“During the Middle Ages, North Africa and the Arab Middle East became places of refuge and a haven for the persecuted Jews of Spain and elsewhere… In the Holy Land they lived together in harmony, a harmony only disrupted when the Zionists began to claim that Palestine was the ‘rightful’ possession of the ‘Jewish people’ to the exclusion of its Moslem and Christian inhabitants”
The Jewish writer Dan Peretz described this situation in his book “The Arab Israeli Dispute” as follows: “Most Jews in Palestine belonged to old Yishuv, or community, that had settled there more for religious than for political reasons. There was little of any conflict between them and the Arab population. Tension began after first Zionist settlers arrived in the 1880’s”
Although given freedom like any other citizens a group of the Jews, believing themselves to be the elite God’s chosen people, who should not mix and mingle with the others, “Goyims”, as been taught by their prophets, had isolated themselves into ghettos the same way they had lived throughout Europe. Those, who had the courage to venture out of the ghettos, had flourished and reached high employment positions in Arabic governments and societies. Many had become the financial and trade centers of the Arab World. This fact contradicts the advertisement claims that Jews “… were excluded from society, from government, and from most professions ... They were barely tolerated and often… were victimized by vicious violence” Some extremist fundamentalist Jews, who had their noses up in the sky believing themselves to be the chosen people and better than all other nations, had invited rejection and intolerance from all nations, not just from Arabs, to such snobby racist attitudes.
The advertisement goes on further to claim that Jews in the Arab World were subjected to systematic violence and persecution after the establishment of Israel in 1948 and after Six Days War in 1967. “When Israel declared its statehood in 1948, programs broke out across the entire Arab/Muslim world. Thousands died in this violence… The vast majority of those Jews fled from where they had lived for centuries. They had to leave everything behind. Most of those who were able to escape found their way to the just-created state of Israel”
The programs, the advertisement does not clarify, were terrorist acts perpetrated by Zionists against Jewish communities in the Arab World, as well as throughout European countries to coerce the Jews to immigrate to Palestine to establish the alleged safe haven; Israel, on usurped Palestinian land. Zionist zealots and some mercenaries had fire-bombed Jewish synagogues and shops, damaged Jewish cemeteries, and painted hate graffiti to create anti-Jewish climate. Zionist offer of free transportation, free housing, and free salaries had encouraged a lot of Jews to surrender their fate to the Zionist plan. Those, who immigrated, had plenty of time to sell their properties before leaving.
The Arabs, contrary to the claims, did not subject their long-time neighboring Jews to violence since they distinguished between a Jew and a Zionist. Yet those Jews, who were disillusioned by Zionism and became “enemy combatants” and spies within the Arab World, had to be dealt with as such.
The advertisement brags about “Israel received every one of those Jewish refugees from Arab countries with brotherly open arms; it housed, fed and quickly integrated them into Israeli society”. It is true that Zionist Israel had received immigrant Jews, paid all expenses including transportation, rent, and monthly salaries until they were integrated in Israeli society. Yet this reception was not out of brotherly love. Those immigrant Jews were, deliberately, drowned into financial debt so that they could not leave Israel, after discovering the trap set for them, without repaying all the expenses plus interests. Young Jewish immigrants, and every new generation of their offsprings, have been conscripted into the Israeli terrorist army to kill and to be killed for the interests of rich pro-Zionist corporations of the West.
The advertisement repeats the old myth, that had been told and refuted so many times, that Palestinians had fled from Palestine after the Israeli occupation “... following the strident invocations of their leaders …so as to make room for invading Arab armies”, who according the advertisement will kill all the Jews so that Palestinians “could return to reclaim their properties and that of the Jews, all of whom would have been killed ...” by Arab armies.
Palestinians, like any other people, would never leave their homes voluntarily, and Arab leaders had never invoked them to leave. Sami Hadawi refuted this claim in his book “Bitter Harvest” stating the fact that “British Broadcasting Corporation monitored all Middle Eastern broadcasts throughout 1948. The records, and companion ones by a US monitoring unit, can be seen at the British Museum. There was not a single order or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine in 1948. There is a repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put”.
This myth aims to erase guilt and moral responsibilities off Jewish shoulders for perpetrating the cruelest and ugliest massacres against mostly unarmed Palestinian villagers, and parading their women and children in the streets of Jerusalem to terrorize the rest of the Palestinians into fleeing out of their villages for their lives and for their honor when Zionist terror organizations, such as Irgun and Hagana, spread the rumors of their plans to attack Palestinian villages. Jewish historian Ilan Pappe, in his book “The Link”, mentions this fact: “The Israeli forces expelled the Palestinians from every village and town they occupied. In some cases, this expulsion was accompanied by massacres of civilians as was the case in Lydda, Ramleh, Dawimiyya, Sa’sa, Ein Zietun and other places. Expulsion also accompanied by rape, looting and confiscation”.
During wars people panic and flee their homes searching for safety. Yet they have always been able to return to their homes when danger subsides. Military conquest does not abolish private rights to property, nor does it entitle the victor to confiscate properties of civilian population. Even if the claims were true that Palestinians left their homes on the commands of their leaders, they still have the right to return to their homes and properties that had been stolen by Zionist immigrants. This right is protected by international law as noted by the noted Jewish writer and thinker Professor Erich Fromm “In international law, the principle holds true that no citizen loses his property or his right of citizenship; and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which the Arabs in Israel have much more legitimacy than the Jews”.
Israel’s rejection of Palestinians’ right of return has been on the top of their political agenda, which led them to break all UN resolutions regarding this matter, break all international laws, violate Palestinians’ human rights, and reject all Arab peace initiatives.
The advertisement continues with its allegations “… the Arab countries resolutely refused to accept Arab refugees into their societies. They confined them into so-called refugee camps …to keep them as a festering sore and to make solution of the Arab/Israel conflict impossible. These refugees, whose number has by now miraculously increased from their original 650 thousands to 5 millions, are seething with hatred toward Israel, and provide the cadres for terrorists and suicide bombers”
The Arab countries, mainly Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon, had received the majority of Palestinian refugees, who became a burden on the already impoverished economy of these countries, who, unlike Israel, were not receiving three billions of Dollars annually from the US. The majority of these refugees (now numbers about 7.5 million and not only 5 million) want to go back to their own homeland and their homes that were illegally occupied by terrorist Israelis. They fight to regain what is rightfully theirs, unlike the terrorist Israeli army, who fight to usurp lands of other people.
As for the solution of the Arab/Israeli conflict, the Arabs had offered Israel many peaceful solutions, yet Israelis categorically rejected them because without the conflict they could not keep usurping more lands to build “Greater Israel”. The latest Arab peace initiative of last month, March 2007, offered Israel to keep 78% of Palestine for permanent peace and normalization of diplomatic relationships with all Arab countries. Yet Israel, as usual, rejected this offer.
The advertisement acknowledges that “since 1947 there have been over 100 UN resolutions concerning Palestinian refugees, but there has not been one single resolution addressing the horrible injustice done to the nearly one million Jewish refugees from the Arab states”
This paragraph refutes the advertisement’s claim by showing that the international community has recognized and acknowledged the existence of a genuine Palestinian refugee problem, and the non existence of the false called-for Jewish refugees from Arab countries. That is why “a special branch of the United Nation (UNRWA) exists for the maintenance of those refugees” (created by Israelis) as the article notices. Israel, backed by successive American administrations, had ignored those UN resolutions that aimed to solve the Palestinian refugees’ problem, rather than spending billion of Dollars “contributed by the US” as the advertisement objects. It, also, totally ignores the attention the world had focused on the issue of the Holocaust, the compensation in hundreds of billions of Dollars to Israeli Jews, making even the study of the Holocaust an international crime, and sentencing, fining and imprisoning all the renowned historians, who questioned some of its details.
The advertisement criticizes the Arab’s justifiable right to ask for compensations, and the Palestinian refugees’ legitimate right to return to their homeland, “what has been Israel for almost 60 years”, where Palestinian tribes had lived for over than three thousand years. It concludes by stating “But if there is to be any compensation, those forgotten Jewish refugees are certainly entitled to such compensation as much as the Arab refugees. Anything else would be an outrage and a great injustice”
The advertisement neglected to mention the most important point in this refugee issue, namely that the Palestinian refugees were forcefully ejected from their homes according to the Zionist ideology that is based on the idea of “people substitution”; the expulsion ‘transfer’ of Palestinians out of Palestine, and the implanting of Jews in their place. The idiom of “Jewish state is unthinkable without compulsory transfer of the Arabs to the Arab states” had been adopted since the first Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897, and had been repeated by notorious Zionist leaders such as British Zionist Israel Zangwill, Haim Weisman, Theodor Herzl, Nahman Syrkin (founder of Social Zionism), Selig Soskin (director of Jewish National Fund), and many others.
On the other hand the so-called Jewish refugees (Zionist Jews) from Arab countries had plenty of time to plan their leave and to liquidate all their properties, and to be fed, resettled and compensated directly by American tax money, where the annual three billion Dollars financial aid pays almost $3,000.00 monthly for every Israeli, not mentioning all the economic aid and tons and tons of military equipment that are given freely to the terrorist Israeli army to inflict terror on Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis and Iranians.
Finally the advertisement gives a comparison between bogus numbers of the Jews in some Arab countries before and after 1948; countries where Zionists had successfully transferred their Jewish population to occupied Palestine (Israel). It ignores to mention the large number of Jews, who are still living, flourishingly, in Northern African Muslim Arab countries, in Turkey, and even in Iran (the so-called extremist Islamic and terrorist supporting country), that houses the largest Jewish population, 25,000 of them, in the Middle East outside Israel, and are represented by a Jewish MP, Maurice Mohtamed.
The publishing organization (FLAME) of this so-called “factual look”, whose claimed purpose is the research, publication of facts, and exposing false propaganda about the Middle East, seems to do the exact opposite; it distorts the facts and spreads false propaganda instead.
The simple truth of the Arab/Israeli conflict had been reflected by Indian leader and peace teacher Mahatma Ghandi when he stated: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English and France belongs to the French”
Comments:
Arab Jews are the only real jews. Israelites are arab natives, before becoming, Jews, Christians and Muslims... Khazaria Asknazi Jews, like Malawi Muslims are not Arabs and has no relation with Palestine, whatesoever.
Anonymous said...
PA DAILY: ARABS FLED IN '48 HOPING FOR ISRAEL'S DESTRUCTION
10:13 AM, November 18, 2008
Michael said...
10:18 AM, November 18, 2008 
Anonymous said...
11:00 AM, November 18, 2008
Michael said...
11:05 AM, November 18, 2008
Anonymous said...
Michael said...
11:26 AM, November 18, 2008
Anonymous said...
Michael said...
12:10 PM, November 18, 2008
Fad said...
4:21 PM, November 18, 2008
Michael said...
By Dr. Elias Akleh
Victimizing the Jews has been the successful old political trick Zionists have been using to gain international political sympathy for the Israeli cause, and to justify all aggression and terror the Israeli army perpetrates on Palestinians and on the neighboring Arab countries. Whenever the international views turn against Israel, due to its aggression, a new Jewish victimizing story pops up.
One such late story I happened to come across on page 106 of March 19th. 2007 issue of U.S. News Magazine, was titled “You deserve a factual look at… The Forgotten Refugees. Why does nobody care about the Jewish refugees from Arab lands?” The article was published as an advertisement by FLAME (Facts and Logic About the Middle East), who claims to “publish the truth about Israel and the Middle East conflict in advertisements and letters to editors nationwide.”
The advertisement claims that there exist what it called Jewish refugees from Arab countries, and makes some comparison between these Jewish refugees and Arab refugees in an attempt to point to alleged international injustice when the UN spends “... many billions of dollars” on the Arab refugees while forgetting the Jewish refugees. The advertisement tries to avoid calling the Arab refugees by their true name: Palestinian refugees, in an attempt to deny any moral and legal responsibility of Zionist Israel in violating Palestinians’ human rights and creating Palestinian refugee problem.
The advertisement attempts to refute “A myth that Jews had an easy life in Muslim/Arab countries”. It claims that Jews under Islam were treated worse than second class citizens “governed by a system of discrimination intended to reduce Jews … to conditions of humiliation, segregation and violence”.
The truth is that Jews were treated, under Islam in the Arab World, better than any other place they had lived in the whole world at the time. They were treated like any other ethnic groups, e.g. Christians, with full citizenship that included freedom and rights like the rest of the citizens. They were allowed to live and worship freely in Jerusalem, where they were barred entrance by ancient Romans and European Christian Crusaders. When European Jews faced persecution since the start of Crusaders campaigns, they did not find any safe haven for themselves except in Islamic and Arab countries in North Africa and in the Middle East. Many of those Jews fought along side Muslim and Christian Arabs against the Crusaders, who called for the slaughter of every Jew for crucifying Jesus. In his book “Bitter Harvest” Palestinian scholar Sami Hadawi described this Jewish haven as follows:
“During the Middle Ages, North Africa and the Arab Middle East became places of refuge and a haven for the persecuted Jews of Spain and elsewhere… In the Holy Land they lived together in harmony, a harmony only disrupted when the Zionists began to claim that Palestine was the ‘rightful’ possession of the ‘Jewish people’ to the exclusion of its Moslem and Christian inhabitants”
The Jewish writer Dan Peretz described this situation in his book “The Arab Israeli Dispute” as follows: “Most Jews in Palestine belonged to old Yishuv, or community, that had settled there more for religious than for political reasons. There was little of any conflict between them and the Arab population. Tension began after first Zionist settlers arrived in the 1880’s”
Although given freedom like any other citizens a group of the Jews, believing themselves to be the elite God’s chosen people, who should not mix and mingle with the others, “Goyims”, as been taught by their prophets, had isolated themselves into ghettos the same way they had lived throughout Europe. Those, who had the courage to venture out of the ghettos, had flourished and reached high employment positions in Arabic governments and societies. Many had become the financial and trade centers of the Arab World. This fact contradicts the advertisement claims that Jews “… were excluded from society, from government, and from most professions ... They were barely tolerated and often… were victimized by vicious violence” Some extremist fundamentalist Jews, who had their noses up in the sky believing themselves to be the chosen people and better than all other nations, had invited rejection and intolerance from all nations, not just from Arabs, to such snobby racist attitudes.
The advertisement goes on further to claim that Jews in the Arab World were subjected to systematic violence and persecution after the establishment of Israel in 1948 and after Six Days War in 1967. “When Israel declared its statehood in 1948, programs broke out across the entire Arab/Muslim world. Thousands died in this violence… The vast majority of those Jews fled from where they had lived for centuries. They had to leave everything behind. Most of those who were able to escape found their way to the just-created state of Israel”
The programs, the advertisement does not clarify, were terrorist acts perpetrated by Zionists against Jewish communities in the Arab World, as well as throughout European countries to coerce the Jews to immigrate to Palestine to establish the alleged safe haven; Israel, on usurped Palestinian land. Zionist zealots and some mercenaries had fire-bombed Jewish synagogues and shops, damaged Jewish cemeteries, and painted hate graffiti to create anti-Jewish climate. Zionist offer of free transportation, free housing, and free salaries had encouraged a lot of Jews to surrender their fate to the Zionist plan. Those, who immigrated, had plenty of time to sell their properties before leaving.
The Arabs, contrary to the claims, did not subject their long-time neighboring Jews to violence since they distinguished between a Jew and a Zionist. Yet those Jews, who were disillusioned by Zionism and became “enemy combatants” and spies within the Arab World, had to be dealt with as such.
The advertisement brags about “Israel received every one of those Jewish refugees from Arab countries with brotherly open arms; it housed, fed and quickly integrated them into Israeli society”. It is true that Zionist Israel had received immigrant Jews, paid all expenses including transportation, rent, and monthly salaries until they were integrated in Israeli society. Yet this reception was not out of brotherly love. Those immigrant Jews were, deliberately, drowned into financial debt so that they could not leave Israel, after discovering the trap set for them, without repaying all the expenses plus interests. Young Jewish immigrants, and every new generation of their offsprings, have been conscripted into the Israeli terrorist army to kill and to be killed for the interests of rich pro-Zionist corporations of the West.
The advertisement repeats the old myth, that had been told and refuted so many times, that Palestinians had fled from Palestine after the Israeli occupation “... following the strident invocations of their leaders …so as to make room for invading Arab armies”, who according the advertisement will kill all the Jews so that Palestinians “could return to reclaim their properties and that of the Jews, all of whom would have been killed ...” by Arab armies.
Palestinians, like any other people, would never leave their homes voluntarily, and Arab leaders had never invoked them to leave. Sami Hadawi refuted this claim in his book “Bitter Harvest” stating the fact that “British Broadcasting Corporation monitored all Middle Eastern broadcasts throughout 1948. The records, and companion ones by a US monitoring unit, can be seen at the British Museum. There was not a single order or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine in 1948. There is a repeated monitored record of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put”.
This myth aims to erase guilt and moral responsibilities off Jewish shoulders for perpetrating the cruelest and ugliest massacres against mostly unarmed Palestinian villagers, and parading their women and children in the streets of Jerusalem to terrorize the rest of the Palestinians into fleeing out of their villages for their lives and for their honor when Zionist terror organizations, such as Irgun and Hagana, spread the rumors of their plans to attack Palestinian villages. Jewish historian Ilan Pappe, in his book “The Link”, mentions this fact: “The Israeli forces expelled the Palestinians from every village and town they occupied. In some cases, this expulsion was accompanied by massacres of civilians as was the case in Lydda, Ramleh, Dawimiyya, Sa’sa, Ein Zietun and other places. Expulsion also accompanied by rape, looting and confiscation”.
During wars people panic and flee their homes searching for safety. Yet they have always been able to return to their homes when danger subsides. Military conquest does not abolish private rights to property, nor does it entitle the victor to confiscate properties of civilian population. Even if the claims were true that Palestinians left their homes on the commands of their leaders, they still have the right to return to their homes and properties that had been stolen by Zionist immigrants. This right is protected by international law as noted by the noted Jewish writer and thinker Professor Erich Fromm “In international law, the principle holds true that no citizen loses his property or his right of citizenship; and the citizenship right is de facto a right to which the Arabs in Israel have much more legitimacy than the Jews”.
Israel’s rejection of Palestinians’ right of return has been on the top of their political agenda, which led them to break all UN resolutions regarding this matter, break all international laws, violate Palestinians’ human rights, and reject all Arab peace initiatives.
The advertisement continues with its allegations “… the Arab countries resolutely refused to accept Arab refugees into their societies. They confined them into so-called refugee camps …to keep them as a festering sore and to make solution of the Arab/Israel conflict impossible. These refugees, whose number has by now miraculously increased from their original 650 thousands to 5 millions, are seething with hatred toward Israel, and provide the cadres for terrorists and suicide bombers”
The Arab countries, mainly Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon, had received the majority of Palestinian refugees, who became a burden on the already impoverished economy of these countries, who, unlike Israel, were not receiving three billions of Dollars annually from the US. The majority of these refugees (now numbers about 7.5 million and not only 5 million) want to go back to their own homeland and their homes that were illegally occupied by terrorist Israelis. They fight to regain what is rightfully theirs, unlike the terrorist Israeli army, who fight to usurp lands of other people.
As for the solution of the Arab/Israeli conflict, the Arabs had offered Israel many peaceful solutions, yet Israelis categorically rejected them because without the conflict they could not keep usurping more lands to build “Greater Israel”. The latest Arab peace initiative of last month, March 2007, offered Israel to keep 78% of Palestine for permanent peace and normalization of diplomatic relationships with all Arab countries. Yet Israel, as usual, rejected this offer.
The advertisement acknowledges that “since 1947 there have been over 100 UN resolutions concerning Palestinian refugees, but there has not been one single resolution addressing the horrible injustice done to the nearly one million Jewish refugees from the Arab states”
This paragraph refutes the advertisement’s claim by showing that the international community has recognized and acknowledged the existence of a genuine Palestinian refugee problem, and the non existence of the false called-for Jewish refugees from Arab countries. That is why “a special branch of the United Nation (UNRWA) exists for the maintenance of those refugees” (created by Israelis) as the article notices. Israel, backed by successive American administrations, had ignored those UN resolutions that aimed to solve the Palestinian refugees’ problem, rather than spending billion of Dollars “contributed by the US” as the advertisement objects. It, also, totally ignores the attention the world had focused on the issue of the Holocaust, the compensation in hundreds of billions of Dollars to Israeli Jews, making even the study of the Holocaust an international crime, and sentencing, fining and imprisoning all the renowned historians, who questioned some of its details.
The advertisement criticizes the Arab’s justifiable right to ask for compensations, and the Palestinian refugees’ legitimate right to return to their homeland, “what has been Israel for almost 60 years”, where Palestinian tribes had lived for over than three thousand years. It concludes by stating “But if there is to be any compensation, those forgotten Jewish refugees are certainly entitled to such compensation as much as the Arab refugees. Anything else would be an outrage and a great injustice”
The advertisement neglected to mention the most important point in this refugee issue, namely that the Palestinian refugees were forcefully ejected from their homes according to the Zionist ideology that is based on the idea of “people substitution”; the expulsion ‘transfer’ of Palestinians out of Palestine, and the implanting of Jews in their place. The idiom of “Jewish state is unthinkable without compulsory transfer of the Arabs to the Arab states” had been adopted since the first Zionist Congress in Basle in 1897, and had been repeated by notorious Zionist leaders such as British Zionist Israel Zangwill, Haim Weisman, Theodor Herzl, Nahman Syrkin (founder of Social Zionism), Selig Soskin (director of Jewish National Fund), and many others.
On the other hand the so-called Jewish refugees (Zionist Jews) from Arab countries had plenty of time to plan their leave and to liquidate all their properties, and to be fed, resettled and compensated directly by American tax money, where the annual three billion Dollars financial aid pays almost $3,000.00 monthly for every Israeli, not mentioning all the economic aid and tons and tons of military equipment that are given freely to the terrorist Israeli army to inflict terror on Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Iraqis and Iranians.
Finally the advertisement gives a comparison between bogus numbers of the Jews in some Arab countries before and after 1948; countries where Zionists had successfully transferred their Jewish population to occupied Palestine (Israel). It ignores to mention the large number of Jews, who are still living, flourishingly, in Northern African Muslim Arab countries, in Turkey, and even in Iran (the so-called extremist Islamic and terrorist supporting country), that houses the largest Jewish population, 25,000 of them, in the Middle East outside Israel, and are represented by a Jewish MP, Maurice Mohtamed.
The publishing organization (FLAME) of this so-called “factual look”, whose claimed purpose is the research, publication of facts, and exposing false propaganda about the Middle East, seems to do the exact opposite; it distorts the facts and spreads false propaganda instead.
The simple truth of the Arab/Israeli conflict had been reflected by Indian leader and peace teacher Mahatma Ghandi when he stated: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English and France belongs to the French”
Comments:
Arab Jews are the only real jews. Israelites are arab natives, before becoming, Jews, Christians and Muslims... Khazaria Asknazi Jews, like Malawi Muslims are not Arabs and has no relation with Palestine, whatesoever.
The Jews who belonged the region lived with other Arabs in peace for 13 centuries, until eveil Zinism turned Arab Brothers into ememies., Genetically it has proven that Arab Jews and Muslims are Brothers,
Arab Jews still hold their arbic culture, Naeim Giladi, stated "born in Iraq, my culture still Iraqi Arabic, my religion Jewish, my citizenship American."
The Jewish Golden Age was created by Muslims, who were from the historical point of view better to Jews than Christians" Who in their holly wars committed massacres against both muslims and jews in Spain and in ME during the cruasde campain..
The fact of Muslems /arabs cleanhands from the Jewish blood is admitted by the Ben Gorion the founder of Israel who said: "There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.
War criminal Barak got the carraige to Admit that he slolen our Land , Nobody dare to call him an anti-semite, or a self-hating (as Zionists call Jews who dare to critisize Isarael such as Norman Finkelstein) Jew for telling the truth,
What expulsion Zionists are talking about, Arab Jews, were expelled from spain, together with Arab Muslims.. Arab Jews and arab Muslims were expelled from Jeruzalim by Crusadors, and Both reutned to Jerusalim with Sallahideen...
Till now Arab Jews live in peace in Moroco. They are the most powerfull Politically and Ecconomically.
It is Europe who Expelled of khazari Jews while Moslem Turkey rescued of over 100,000 European Jews in the Holocaust and it is Albanian Muslims who protected Jews in the Holocaust while Zionist movement were colabrating with Nazi...
This is not propaganda, it is a fact admitted not only by non-Zionist jews, but by the Zionist Leadors and pioneers. Vladimir Jabotinsky the founder of Revisionist Zionism (Likud party roots) said: "In working for Palestine, I would even ally myself with the devil" in responding to condemnation for his alliance with Ukranian pogromist Petlyura.
"Vladimir Jabotinsky Despite his alliance with Ukranian pogromist Petlyura, it wasn't Jabotinsky who perpetrated the worst alliance with the Nazis, but the Labor Zionists: Ben-Gurion and Weizmann. In 1933 a world boycott German goods spontaneously emerged. Had this boycott been supported by all Jews, Zionists and non-Zionists, some believe that the German economy would have cracked and Hitler toppled. Moreover it is the Labor Zionist "transfer" (ha'avara) agreements with the Nazis, that led to many trade agreements that led to failure of the world boycott against the Nazis. Jabotnisky opposed the transfer agreement, and wanted to champion the boycott. However, during WWII, his heirs (e.g. Begin, Stern, Shamir) attempted their own alliance with the Nazis against the British who were occupying Palestine at the time. "(Paraphrased from "The Wrath of Jonah" by Rosemary and Herman Ruether, 1989). This information can also be found in Brenner's Zionism in the Age of the Dictators; 1983.
"The saving of the Jews in Europe did not figure at the head of the list of priorities of the ruling class. It was the foundation of the State which was primordial in their eyes."
-- Tom Segev. "Le septième million" (the Seventh Million) Ed. Liana Levi, Paris, 1993, p.539"
In 1941, Yitzhak Shamir committed:
"an unforgivable crime from the moral point of view: he preached an alliance with Hitler, with Nazi Germany, against Great Britain."
-- Bar Zohar "Le prophète armé: Ben Gourion." (Fayard. Paris 1966, p.99.)
If if it's considered a crime, Yitzhak Shamir should have been tried in Normberg, not elected to be the leader od Likud, amd a PN in Israel..
Ben Gurion hited tho that fact by saying "If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel."
-- Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth's Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).
He (the first Israeli Prime Minister) admitted: "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs."
The Quote relects besides the courage to admit the fact that palestine was stolen, it relectet how an athiest zionist highjacked "Cod" to justify their crime..
The history is repeating itself, The Zionist are now not collabrating with the American New Nazion, against the whole world, thus endagering the Jews all over the the world. Sharon, immitated the Zionist leader of 1930's and 40's saying: “The best solution to anti-Semitism is immigration to Israel. It is the only place on Earth where Jews can live as Jews.” Jews worldwide started feeling the heat, instead of blaming Evil Zionism placing Jews in danger worldwide, thy are crying Holocaust... Holocaust
UprootedAnonymous said...
PA DAILY: ARABS FLED IN '48 HOPING FOR ISRAEL'S DESTRUCTION
10:13 AM, November 18, 2008
I've seen all this Jew propaganda before and simply repeating it doesn't make it become reality. The truth is that the Arab armies never even arrived on the scene until the Jews had already destroyed over 400 Arab villages and displaced a million people.
The proof of the pudding , as we say here, is that the Arab armies never even entered territory that legally belonged to Jews, in other words proof that the Jews had already attacked before their arrival.
You Jews seem to have increasing difficulty getting your lies believed by anyone
It isn't Jew anything.
Arabs admitted it.
The Arabs DID move into what was supposed to be Jewish areas- the Egyptians in the Negev, The Syrians and Lebanese in the Galilee, and the (Jordanian) Arab Legion as well.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/1948_arab_israeli_war_-_May15-June10.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/1948_arab_israeli_war_-_Oct.jpg
They chose war. They lost. Some fled. Some didn't.
They chose war instead of a state and ended upwith nothing.
Oh well. I love a happy ending.
Rubbish. as I've already made clear, the Arab armies responded to jew terrorism, land grabbing , destruction and murder.
Rubbish. The Jews accepted UN 181.
The Arabs violently rejected it.
They went to war- attacking Israel on all 4 fronts- and they lost.
Some fled. Those who didn't have more rights and freedoms as Israeli citizens than Arabs do in their own countries.
Ironic, eh?
Again, to quote the Arabs who were at Deir Yassin:
11:12 AM, November 18, 2008
Yes right, when have the Jews ever obeyed an UN Resolution? They may have verbally accepted it but their actions speak otherwise.
You're very funny.
The ARABS chose war.
And claimed that the UN had no authority to issue UN 181. Now they're trying to hide behind the same UN.
You're like the guy who murders his parents and then cries for mercy because after all, he's an orphan.
Pathetic.
Jew watch my lips. Your trolling and lie repeating is tiresome. For a while you had a slight amusement value but you had better call it a day now or I will simply delete your crap and ban you from making further entries. Be a good child and toddle off before I totally lose my patience.
You are more than welcome to pop along tomorrow with some more jokes
Why Michael ?
It,s amusing to hear some twisty chants every now and then.
They are doing that everywhere and trying to re-write History of their own, but who is listening?
Some funny Zionist said that Egyptians have occupied Israeli Saini in 1973 !!! aren,t they fun?
Why? because it was getting late here in the UK and I had visions of this blog being filled by porn come the morning. I think we all have to realise that you can discuss facts with these Jews until you are blue in the face, they are never going to admit the truth whatever evidence is presented to them. Frankly on my discussion board I've already taken to banning any Israeli IP address as soon as it becomes apparent. They can hardly complain anyway, they've tried unsuccessfully to wipe out the truth for 60 years or more.
I've opened the door again to this troll in any case.