06/29/10
James Petras
FROM THE PREFACE
"The US Congress and White House are zionized occupied territory."
The Report published by the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, better known by the name of its head, as the “Goldstone Report” was a major breakthrough in three senses. In the first place the Report was the most systematic, detailed study of Israeli violations of international law in its wars against the Palestinian people. Secondly it caught the attention of the broadest sections of world opinion and ignited a firestorm of disapproval of Israel from almost all of the worlds’ leaders.
On the negative side the publication of the Report and the vehement rejection by all of the mainstream American Jewish Organizations, revealed their utterly craven disregard for human rights on the one hand and their absolute power and control over Washington’s policy toward the Middle East on the other. The US Congress voted by a margin of over ten to one to denounce the Report and instead support Israeli war crimes, as did the White House.
The texts and illustrations in this book provide graphic accounts and visual evidence of why Israel has provoked a worldwide ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’ campaign by human rights activists, trade unions and a multitude of other groups, including individuals in Israel and Jewish organizations in Europe and North America. The Goldstone Report is an in depth case study of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, including the blockade of such essential goods, as food and medicine, the systematic and deliberate targeting and destruction of civilian targets, including the murder of civilians in homes, schools and UN facilities; the use of weapons designed to inflect maximum pain and death to civilians (white phosphorous bombs); the gratuitous destruction of the foundations of civilian life including food production, water installations and sewage treatment facilities. Like their Nazi predecessors, the Israeli forces used Palestinian civilians as “human shields”, rounded up thousands of civilians, including women and children who were forcibly detained, humiliated and tortured. The Report concludes that the actions of the Israeli Government could lead to a “competent court finding that crimes against humanity have been committed.” The Report was approved by a vast majority in the United Nations General Assembly.
While it was beyond the mandate of the UN to discuss other Israeli war crimes, the Goldstone Report did give fleeting reference to Israel’s use of the same methods during its invasion of Lebanon in 2006.
What the Goldstone Report described with regard to Israel’s savaging of Gaza has a long and ignoble history, which needs to beaddressed, especially in light of what some liberal Zionists charge as “picking on” Israel.
Most critics especially on the Left condemn all brutal acts of war and torture whenever they are committed, so this charge is a phony cover-up of Israel’s especially brutal conduct from the founding of the state. .Israel holds ‘world records’ in the number of towns and villages ethnically cleansed (over 500 and counting); number of refugees deported (4 million and counting); number of homes demolished (60 thousand and continuing); and has imprisoned more civilians per capita than any other country (250,000 and growing). Israel is the country with the highest number of protective US Security Council vetoes (over 100) preventing the world body from condemning Israeli war crimes.
Here is the great political and moral challenge. How do we explain the US governments’ sustained complicity with Israeli war crimes in the face of worldwide reprobation? How do we explain the utterly depraved conduct of the Obama White House and nearly 90% of the US Congress in denouncing the Goldstone Report? These and other related questions are addressed in the chapters discussing the political, economic and cultural power of the Presidents of the Major American Jewish organizations, including but not confined to AIPAC.
Even as I write these lines, April 25, 2010, the news from Washington is that Congress has passed a new war-sanctions act, by a 95% majority imposing a virtual blockade of Iran, authored by AIPAC and backed by all the major Americans Jewish organizations. With the exception of a handful of writers and anti-Zionist Jewish activists, the vast majority of the progressive leftist, Marxist, anti-war and Palestinian organizations and intellectuals, even those critical of the Congressional vote, in fear and cowardice, refuse to name the intellectual authors and political promoters of this vile act of Congress.
The Goldstone Report energized many, especially young Jews who were reticent to criticize Israel, to speak out against Israeli war crimes. A few cracks appeared in the Zionist monolith, as liberal lobbyists like J Street, condemned the Jewish State’s excesses in Gaza. Hopeful signs, alas which were, in great part, dashed when it came time to raise a hue and cry about AIPAC and mainstream Jewish-organized backing for the war-sanctions act against Iran. The silence was deafening. The saying that the Jewish left’s opposition to Israel war policies ends when a war begins, applies to the present war-sanctions bill.
The terrible power of the Zionist Power Configuration has run amok: the Jewish Congressional lobby, the liberals, progressives and neo-cons all together signed and promoted an act of Congress signed by over 330 Congress people rebuking Obama for publicly disagreeing with Netanyahu over the land grab in Arab Jerusalem. This book not only provides a detailed account and illustration of Israeli war crimes in Gaza but equally important it provides a comprehensive analysis of the reasons why more and more people are recognizing that the US Congress and White House are zionized occupied territory.
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Some recent titles include Unmasking Globalization: Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century (2001); co-author The Dynamics of Social Change in Latin America (2000), Unmasking Globalisation (2001), System in Crisis (2003), co-author Social Movements and State Power (2003), co-author Empire With Imperialism (2005), co-author) Multinationals on Trial (2006). His most recent titles are The Power of Israel in the United States and Rulers and Ruled in the United States, (acquired for Japanese, German, Italian, Indonesian, Czech and Arabic editions), Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of US Power, and Global Depression & Regional Wars. He has a long history of commitment to social justice, working in particular with the Brazilian Landless Workers Movement for 11 years. In 1973-76 he was a member of the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Repression in Latin America.
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Source: http://www.claritypress.com/PetrasV.html
Uprooted Palestinian
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