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U.S. Argument Against Nuclear Abolition Profoundly Flawed

By Ira Helfand | International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War | April 8, 2014

Back in the 1980s there was a very, very widespread understanding of what was going to happen if there were a nuclear war. We’ve lost that understanding, by and large. Certainly, in the general population, there is very little understanding about what nuclear weapons can do or even how many there are in the world.

What is really quite new, I think, is the discovery in the last eight years, starting in 2006, that even a very limited use of nuclear weapons would cause a global catastrophe. In a war in which cities were targeted with nuclear weapons, perhaps as many as 20 million people would be killed in the first week directly from the explosions, from the firestorm, from the direct radiation. In all of World War II, about 50 million people died over eight years. This is 20 million people dying in the course of a single week.

Moreover, this limited use of nuclear weapons—far  less than half of a percent of the world’s nuclear arsenals—causes profound global climate disruption. Temperatures worldwide drop about 1.3 degrees centigrade and this effect lasts for about a decade. As a result of that, there would also be a very significant disruption of global precipitation patterns. And as a result of these combined effects, there would be a very profound impact on food production. We issued a report in April of 2012 suggesting that up to a billion people worldwide could die of famine. Since then, new data shows that there will be widespread hunger in China as well – another 1.3 billion people at risk.

We have never had an event like this in human history where anywhere from 15 to 30 percent of the human population dies over the course of a decade. And this is a real possibility in the event of a war between India and Pakistan, which is itself a real possibility.

The effects of a large-scale war dwarf even these horrors. If only 300 warheads in the Russian arsenal detonated over targets in American urban areas, between 75 and a hundred million people would be dead in the first 30 minutes, and a U.S. counterattack on Russia would cause the same kind of destruction. In addition to killing this many people in half an hour, this attack would also completely destroy the economic infrastructure of this country.

But again, as mind-boggling as this kind of direct toll is, it is not the worst part of the story because a war between the United States and Russia also causes profound climate disruption. A hundred small warheads in South Asia put 5 million tons of debris into the upper atmosphere and dropped global temperatures 1.3 degrees centigrade. A war between the United States and Russia, using only those weapons that are still allowed when New START is fully implemented in 2017 – that war puts 150 million tons of debris into the atmosphere, and it drops global temperatures 8 degrees centigrade on average.  In the interior regions of Eurasia and North America, the temperature decline is 25 to 30 degrees centigrade. We have not seen temperatures on this planet that cold in 18,000 years, since the coldest moment of the last ice age.  In the temperate zones of the Northern Hemisphere, there would be three years without a single day free of frost.  Temperature goes below freezing at some point every single day for three years. And that means there is no agriculture, there is no food production. Most of the ecosystems in this zone collapse. The vast majority of the human race starves to death, and it is possible that we become extinct as a species.

Now, if that is the starting point of the conversation, the next thing that flows from that is these weapons cannot exist. We know that there is a real and finite possibility every day that they will be used. And if that is true, then it is simply a matter of time until they actually are used, and that means they cannot be allowed to exist. And that is a very different starting point than where we are in the current conversation about disarmament. And that’s why this argument, I think, has become so powerful.

The plans of the nuclear weapon states to maintain their nuclear arsenals indefinitely are simply unacceptable, and we need a fundamentally different new approach. They say that politics is the art of the possible. Statesmanship, I think, is clearly the art of the necessary. And it is time that we ask our leaders to act like statesmen, not like politicians. It’s time that we demand that behavior of them. And I think that’s what this whole movement is about at this point. It is calling the nuclear weapons states, saying that we will not accept their behavior anymore, and demanding that they change.

So the question becomes, how do we move the process forward? Well, people could just abandon the NPT, or they could try to engage in some kind of productive international diplomatic initiative to achieve the stated goals of the NPT, which is the elimination of nuclear weapons. And I think the people who have been advocating for a convention to ban nuclear weapons understand this is not the end stage; this is a way of trying to move the ball down the field, of trying to put some pressure on those nuclear weapon states that are using the NPT process, frankly, to preserve their nuclear monopoly. And there’s just no patience left in this idea of acceptable nuclear apartheid.

The nuclear-weapon states can’t have it both ways. They can’t say “it’s OK for us to have nuclear weapons because we’re never going to use them” on the one hand, and on the other hand say “our policy is based on deterrence. For deterrence to work, we have to convince people that we will use them.” You just can’t do this. It’s one or the other. You can’t say we’re never going to use nuclear weapons and then talk about the circumstances in which we can use them legitimately and safely and without it being a humanitarian disaster. Either you’re going to say that you’re never going to use them, or you’re going to say that you are going to use them. And if you’re going to say that you are going to use them, then if it’s OK for the U.S. to use them and to have them so we can use them, then how can you tell the rest of the world that they can’t? And the fact of the matter is, we have lost that argument. The rest of the world rejects that—and rightly so—because the argument is profoundly flawed.

The nuclear ban treaty that’s been proposed is a political tool to try to create pressure to get to a nuclear weapons convention. What has been proposed is a treaty that bans not just use, but also possession, to make the point that these weapons should not be maintained, even when countries say they’re never going to use them, because of the very clear fact that the countries that say they’re never going to use them in fact do have plans for using them. If this administration in the United States, which is so allergic to the idea of a ban treaty, put forward any significant initiative at this point, I think we would all rally behind it. A ban treaty really does move things forward in a very dramatic way and I would encourage people to support that, but I think if other ideas come forward, you know, it’s fine – whatever moves the ball forward. We’ve just got to get some movement in the right direction and we’re not getting it right now.

The humanitarian message, I think, is the key.  The thing that motivated Gorbachev, according to his memoirs, to take the initiatives which he took in the 1980s were the conversations he had with physicians from my organization, in which they explained to him what was going to happen if the weapons were used.  And remarkably, as the head of a nuclear power, he didn’t fully understand what was going to happen if a nuclear war took place. The same is true of most of the leaders of the nuclear weapons states today.

On March 31, IPPNW co-president Ira Helfand participated in a roundtable discussion on the NPT and the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, co-sponsored by the Arms Control Association and IPPNW’s US affiliate, Physicians for Social Responsibility. This article is adapted from Dr. Helfand’s remarks. A complete transcript, including presentations by Ambassador Desra Percaya, Mission of Indonesia to the United Nations; Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova, Senior Research Associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies; and George Perkovich, Director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is available at the Arms Control Association website.

April 9, 2014 Posted by | Militarism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

German forces raid offices of “Hezbollah affiliated” charity

Al-Akhbar | April 8, 2014

German authorities on Tuesday raided the offices of a charity organization that allegedly has ties to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, accusing it of raising money for the group.

Around 150 police officers searched premises across six states and confiscated cash, computers and around 40 boxes of files.

Two bank accounts with a total of around 60,000 euros were frozen but no arrests were made, the German interior ministry said.

The ministry said it had outlawed the “Waisenkinderprojekt Libanon” (Orphan Children Project Lebanon) with immediate effect.

“The name of the group masks its actual purpose,” ministry state secretary Emily Haber said in a statement.

She said the organization based in the western city of Essen had raised 3.3 million euros ($4.5 million) in donations between 2007 and 2013 for the Lebanese Shahid Foundation, which supports families of fallen Hezbollah fighters.

Haber claimed the funds were used to recruit fighters “to combat Israel, also with terrorist measures” and compensate the families of suicide bombers.

The statement did not cite its evidence. Hezbollah used to carry out suicide missions against Israeli occupation forces in South Lebanon prior to their retreat in 2000.

The group has not used that tactic since Israel pulled its army from Lebanon 14 year ago.

“Organizations that directly or indirectly from German soil oppose the state of Israel’s right to exist may not seek freedom of association protection,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said in the statement.

He said the group’s goals violated Germany’s constitution.

The European Union in July last year also listed Hezbollah’s so-called military wing as a “terrorist organization.” But the EU said it would continue to deal with Hezbollah as a political entity.

The German interior ministry said it had put Waisenkinderprojekt Libanon, which has about 80 members, under surveillance since 2009.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

April 8, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

“For me, Palestine is Paradise” – Conversation with Leila Khaled

Le Mur a Des Oreilles – Conversations For Palestine | April 3, 2014

LMaDO talks to Leila Khaled, Palestinian icon and Chief of the Department of Refugees and Right of return in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Frank Barat for LMADO: How are you Leila? What are you doing nowadays in Amman?

Leila Khaled: I am fine as long as I am a part of the struggle for freedom, for our right of return and for an independent State with Jerusalem as capital. I know it is not going to happen in the near future, but I am fighting nevertheless. Here in Amman, I am the chief of the department of refugees and Right of Return in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (P.F.L.P).

LMADO: You are a Palestinian refugee, one of six million. Do you still think that you will return one day? And what do you make of the conditions of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, who are denied their most basic rights and yet, are sometimes criticized for trying to improve their lives in Lebanon as this might affect their right of return to Palestine?

LK: The Palestinians were distributed to different countries. Each country has had an impact on the people living there. Those in Lebanon, in the 70s and 80s, until 1982, were the ones that helped the armed struggle, that helped defend the revolution. Israel was attacking and invading all the time and occupying parts of the country as well. After 1982, the main mission of the Palestinians was to achieve their rights, their civil and social rights, which they are deprived o in Lebanon. This will enable them to be involved in the struggle for the right of return. The Palestinians in general take the Right of Return as a concept and as a culture. Any Palestinian will tell you that he fights for his social and civil rights, but this means that he is preparing himself for his return. The two are inseparable.

LMADO: The question of the refugees, in the negotiations, has, in the last decade, become more and more obsolete, something that is no longer an inalienable right but something that can be negotiated. The same applies to the last round, the “Kerry negotiations”. What do you make of this? And what do you think is going to happen after April 29th when the negotiations are supposed to end?

LK: The PFLP and myself personally have been against the negotiations since 1991. The problem is that the two parties are sticking to their guns. The Israelis think that Palestine is the land for the Jews all over the world. The Palestinians are sure that the land belongs to them and that they were forced out in 1947/1948. When this conflict moves from one stage to the next the two sides are considered as even in their power but the fact is that we are not (this is just an illusion). The leadership chose to go for the Oslo accords, thinking that this was a step forward in achieving the main rights of the Palestinians. Some people believed this, but they discovered, after twenty years, that it was nonsense. It brought catastrophe on us. There are more settlements than ever, twice more than before Oslo, the number of settlers has doubled, more land is being confiscated, and, of course, the Wall has been built. The apartheid wall. Israel is an apartheid state. These negotiations, now, are meant to help Israel and not the Palestinians. We have already experienced what Israel means by negotiate. Israel never respects its promises, its obligations, and simply continues its project of making Palestinians’ lives hell. My party and I are against this last round of negotiations too, of course. Especially now. The Americans are supporting an Israeli project that will only help Israel. There was an agreement, sponsored by the Americans, which said that you had to stop settlements in the West Bank and that 104 prisoners should be released on three different dates. Now, the Israelis have said no, we will not abide by this agreement and we will not release the last batch of prisoners. By the way, those people who are released, are often put back in jail shortly after anyway. This is what the Israelis refer to as the rotating door policy. The politicians say that the prisoners should be released but they are then rearrested. Many of them are already back in jail. It is very clear from this that the Israelis are not ready to make peace with the Palestinians. They are also taking advantage of the fact that the Arabs are occupied with many other issues, and do not support the Palestinians. Nobody is therefore going to condemn Israel when they flout the agreements they sign.

Also, what does Kerry want? What is his plan? Nobody knows. It’s all verbal. Nothing is written. The leadership should refuse what Kerry offers. By the way, Kerry did not go back to Ramallah with another offer. Which means that the Palestinian Authority is going to use its second option and go back to the U.N. Then, today, in the news, the US has again said that it will object to such a move. What does this all mean?

I do think that we need first to consider the nature of the State of Israel. Secondly, we have to understand more about their projects and plans. Thirdly, we know that the Israelis are much more powerful than us in some respects. But we are also powerful. It all depends on our people. We have the will to face the challenges that the Israelis are putting in front of us. There is an English saying that says: “When there is a will, there is a way”. We still believe that this is our right and that we have to struggle for it. We have struggled, we are struggling, and we will struggle. From one generation to another. Freedom needs strong people to go and fight for their dreams. That is why I do not think that there will be a settlement now. The Americans always want to prolong the negotiations. This will not help.

LMADO: If negotiations do not bring peace to the Palestinians, what will? What should the leadership do?

LK: Resist! That’s how you achieve your rights as a People. History has shown us that. No People achieved their freedom without a struggle. Where there is occupation, there is resistance. It is not a Palestinian invention. We are actually going to call for a conference to be held under the auspices of the U.N., just to implement the resolutions taken by this body on the Palestinian question. Resolution 194 calls on Israel to accept the return of the refugees. Fine, let’s put the U.N. on the spot. Let’s have a conference reminding people of this. The problem is that the references to any negotiations that have taken place were drafted by the Americans, which we know are biased towards Israel.

LMADO: P.L.O. stands for Palestine Liberation Organization. Do you think it has lost its true meaning? Bassam Shaka in 2008 told me that the P.L.O, before anything, needed to go back to its roots as a liberation movement.

LK: No liberation is achieved without resistance. My party has not changed. It has stuck to its original program. We are calling to escalate the resistance. People talk about popular resistance. It does not only mean demonstrations. Using arms is also popular. We have people who are ready to fight.

LMADO: What does peaceful and non-violent resistance means for someone like yourself, who chose armed resistance as a mean for liberation?

LK: Resistance takes more than one face. It can be all kinds of resistance. Non violent and violent. I am OK with those who choose non-violence. We are not going to liberate our country by armed struggle only. Other kinds of resistance are necessary. The political one, diplomatic one, the non violent one. We need to use whatever we have got. For more than 10 years now, people have been demonstrating in Bil’in, in Nabi Saleh…. protesting the wall and the annexation of the land. How is Israel dealing with it? Violence, tear gas, bombs… Do you think it is acceptable to have an army with a huge arsenal, against people holding banners? I am OK with using all means of resistance. We cannot say that non-violent resistance alone will achieve our rights. We are facing an apartheid State, Zionism as a movement, the Americans, and in general, the West, which supports Israel. When the balance of forces changes, then we can start thinking about negotiating.

LMADO: It is always easier to advocate for armed resistance when the general public knows who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed. Your actions in 69 and 70 were about that, correct? To put Palestine on the map. Do you think the educational process of showing another face of Palestine, showing that the Palestinians have legitimacy and are in the right, has been done enough since the 70s?

LK: Let’s take the example of Vietnam. Or of Algeria and South Africa. People needed time to convince the whole world of the just cause of their struggle. It took time. In the end, the world realized that those who are oppressed have the right to resist the way they want to. Nobody can impose a form of resistance on us. We chose armed struggle. We did not achieve our goals. Then the intifada broke out and the whole world took us seriously. We gained the support of people all over the world. Still, we did not reach our goals because the leadership was not brave enough at that time to escalate the intifada, to take it to another level. Israel was ready to accept to withdraw from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But our leadership failed us. The intifada was the choice of the people. If you go back to the beginning of the resistance and holding arms. It was a necessity for the Palestinians after 1967. We depended on the Arab countries to restore our homeland. But they failed us too. Israel occupied more of Palestine. So we decided to take our destiny into our hands. By waging an armed struggle. Nowadays people are waiting but they realize that these negotiations will get us nowhere. Our past experiences with Israel have shown us that they cannot be trusted. They do not respect their words. Threaten us all the time. Abu Mazen is not a partner for peace? Who is? Sharon? Netanyahu? This right-wing government? This is not a government, it is a gang, essentially, which represents the settlers, the fascists, the racists. The lie began last century. That this was the land of the Jews. The bible gave it to them. Is this democratic? The world in 1948 accepted this lie. God promised us the land! As if God was an estate agent. This is a colonial project. This is the main issue of the conflict.

LMADO: The struggle is about ending Israel’s settler colonial project, then, ending apartheid. What will happen, in your opinion, the day after? The day after victory? An Algerian like solution, or a South African one?

LK: We have always offered the more human solution. A place where everybody lives on an equal basis. Jewish, Muslims, I do not care about the religion of the person. I believe in the human being itself. Human beings can sit together and can decide together the future of this land. But I cannot accept that I do not have the right, now, to go back to my city. Like six million Palestinians. We are not allowed to go there. We are offering a human and democratic solution. Nobody can tell me that we cannot decide the fate of our country because we are refugees. What happened to us is a first in history, as far as I know. People being chased away from their homes and another people, coming from very far away, taking their places. The Israelis were citizens of other countries. Israel, thanks to various organizations, before 1948, built an army, OK, but there was no society. They brought people from outside. Even now, there are huge contradictions in this country and this society. People come from different cultures, some do not even speak Hebrew. We do not want more blood, but are obliged to resist. We have the right to live in our homeland. When the Israelis realize that as long as they do not budge this conflict will be endless, they should accept our solution. Some Israelis have already understood that. That you cannot go on fighting forever. What for?

LMADO: Can you talk to us about the role of women in the resistance. And do you think your actions, the hijackings in 69 and 70, did more for Palestine, or for women around the world, or both?

LK: The hijackings were a tactic only. We wanted to release our prisoners and were obliged to make a very strong statement. We also had to ring a bell, for the whole world, that we the Palestinians are not only refugees. We are a people that has a political and a human goal. The world gave us tents, used- clothes and food. They built camps for us. But we were more than that. Nowadays there are plans to end the camps, because they are a witness of 1948. Women, are part of our people, they feel the same injustices. So they get involved. Women give life. So they feel the danger even more than men. When they are involved, they are more faithful to the revolution because they defend the lives of their children too. When I gave birth to two children, I became more and more convinced that I had to do my best to defend them and build a better future for them. I felt for women who had lost their children. So I think my actions had an impact on both, to answer your question. The popular front slogan was: “Men and Women together in the struggle for the liberation of our homeland”. The P.F.L.P. implemented that by giving a place to women in the military. At the same time, women also played a big role in defending the interior front, the families. Thousands of Palestinian women are now responsible for their families. After all the wars, the massacres, the arrests, the killings by Israel, these women protected their families from being dispersed. Also, women are now educated, they work, they travel, go to university and so on. Before the revolution, it was not like that. Now it is. And it is a must. You can see that women are involved in many aspects of the struggle and society. Whether it is inside or outside Palestine.

LMADO: Lina Makboul who directed the film “Leila Khaled; Hijacker” implies in her last question in the film that your actions did more harm than anything to the Palestinian people. The film stops right after the question. What did you answer?

LK: She told me she did this for cinematic purposes. But I did not like that. The fact that people could not hear my answer. My answer was no, of course! My actions were my contribution to my people, to the struggle. We did not hurt anyone. We declared to the whole world that we are a people, living through an injustice, and that the world had to help us to reach our goal. I sat with Lina for hours and hours you know, telling her the whole story. She told me afterwards that Swedish TV only wanted the question.

LMADO: Do you sometimes reflect on the past? What was done, what could have been done, what could have been done differently, when you see the current state of affairs? What went wrong?

LK: Recently my party has held its seventh conference and reviewed its positions. We then made a program to widen our relations with the progressive forces around the world, especially on the Arab level. We also decided to strengthen our interior structure. I also learned that I had to review my own positions, my own thinking. Every year, around December, I look back at the past year and then decide to do something for the coming year. This year, I decided to quit smoking, so I did.

LMADO: Mabruck!

LK: I made this decision and it was easy for me to implement it.

LMADO: Why has Palestine, in your opinion, become such a symbol for the solidarity movement?

LK: Palestine for me is Paradise. Religions talk about paradise. For me, Palestine is paradise. It deserves our sacrifices.

Download Transcript

April 8, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Demolitions in Bruqin: “If you really want peace, you wouldn’t take what’s mine”

International Solidarity Movement | April 2, 2014

Bruqin, Occupied Palestine – On the 1st of April, at approximately 5.30 AM, a bulldozer and eight military jeeps arrived in the village of Bruqin close to the city of Nablus. The bulldozer first destroyed a farmers shed, killing the ten rabbits inside. The destruction continued as a caravan belonging to another farmer was also demolished, and finally later the same night, a building belonging to a farmer in the nearby village of Beit Furik was also destroyed.

This is just one of many nights where Palestinian property has been demolished by the Israeli army. Inside the village of Bruqin a girl’s school, recently financed by US Aid, is threatened by a demolition order.

The mayor of Bruqin spoke to an ISM activist after the demolitions:

“I talked to some Israeli settlers one week ago, and told them that we could live in peace, together. But they replied that they want another 700 dunums of land from Bruqin. So, I don’t think that they want peace. If you really want peace, you wouldn’t take what’s mine”.

The resistance in Bruqin against the illegal expansion of settlements continues. The day after the demolitions, men, women and children of the village went out on the hills close to a nearby illegal settlement and planted olive trees.

Photo by ISM

April 3, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Oxfam’s PR firm helping to greenwash Sodastream

By Tom Anderson | Corporate Watch | April 2, 2014

There has been a lot of negative media attention in the last few months on Sodastream, an Israeli fizzy drinks company with a factory in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mishor Adumim. A partnership between Oxfam and Scarlett Johansson ended recently after an international campaign put pressure on the charity to end its relationship with Johansson because she was undertaking ongoing work for Sodastream.

However, a high profile US public relations (PR) firm, which boasts of its “ethical business practices”, is providing services to both Sodastream and Oxfam America. Fenton Communications states on its site that “We do not take on clients that we do not believe in ourselves” and claims that it works “for companies and foundations advocating social change”. Fenton’s corporate social responsibility rhetoric and greenwash doesn’t bear more than a few minutes of scrutiny. The PR firm has a client list which includes large multinationals such as General Mills and Unilever. General Mills jointly own the General Mills (Pillsbury) plant in the Atarot settlement Industrial zone, while Unilever only pulled out of the Barkan settlement industrial zone after years of pressure from the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Both companies are also responsible for selling, marketing and lobbying hard for processed foods globally, which are damaging to people’s health. One of Fenton’s other clients is Oxfam America.

In response to the public campaign about Scarlett Johansson, Oxfam stated: “While Oxfam respects the independence of our ambassadors, Ms. Johansson’s role promoting the company SodaStream is incompatible with her role as an Oxfam Global Ambassador… Oxfam is opposed to all trade from Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law.” Why then does Oxfam America find it acceptable to work with a PR firm that includes Sodastream on its client list?

It is not surprising that Sodastream feels the need for a PR firm. The company sells consumer products, marketing them as ‘green’. It relies on maintaining a positive public image. The international boycott campaign against the company has been growing apace and is taking its toll. Sodastream has reported a loss in the last three quarters and its share price is suffering.

Why not contact Oxfam encouraging them not to work with a PR firm doing business with a company working in Israel’s settlements:

Oxfam America office

226 Causeway Street 5th Floor

Boston, MA 02114-2206

United States

info@oxfamamerica.org

+1 617 728 2594

+1 617 482 1211 (Toll-free 1-800-77-OXFAM)

 

Oxfam GB office

Oxfam House

John Smith Drive Cowley

Oxford OX4 2JY

United Kingdom

enquiries@oxfam.org.uk

+44 1865 472 600

+44 1865 473 727

April 2, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lies and Truths

Qumsiyeh: A Human Rights Web

“Palestine was a land without a people for a People without a land” and “Palestinians do not exist” are not just statements made decades ago by Zionist leaders but are made still today (even a US presidential candidate in 2012). The Israeli newspaper Haaretz (7/15/01) reported that: “… giving his audience (Likud leaders) a bit of advice on how to deal with foreign interviewers (Bejamin Netanyahu said): ‘Always, irrespective of whether you’re right or not, you must always present your side as right.'”

We are all familiar with the incredible PR repeated ad nauseum about Israel. From “security” to “terrorism” to “wanting peace”, we are inundated in corporate media with these images that are divorced from reality. With effort of Zionists, Wikipedia and other internet sites are full of this nonsense. It is not innocuous. Mythologies and lies are used to justify everything from ethnic cleansing to use of white phosphorous on civilians. They are the tools used to keep Jews and people around the world in a state of apathy and to confuse them with things like: Well: these “Arabs” and “Jews” have been fighting and it is almost genetic and nothing can be done to stop it. For an example to the callousness of these lies, see this video and then read the articles and data below that debunks these lies.

This year will mark 64 years since the founding of the state of Israel on the ruins of 540 Palestinian villages and towns. As 7 million of the 11 million Palestinians in the world remain refugees or displaced people denied basic human rights it is more important to debunk myths and lies. I updated this list to now include 64 lies/myths (one for each year). For those who want to further deepen their understanding, I suggest a list of books and documents in my syllabus on human rights and the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

Please send me your contributions/additions whether in other lies not mentioned here or in further quotes and data on the listed lies. Email contributions to mazin@qumsiyeh.org. Suggested use for the data as it accumulates is a handy place for finding information to develop your knowledge in a way that can be used in meaningful discussions and for sending to chat rooms, list-serves, editors, politicians and others.

As Nathan Chofshi wrote in the Jewish Newsletter: “We came and turned the native Arabs into tragic refugees. And still we have to slander and malign them, to besmirch their name. Instead of being deeply ashamed of what we did and trying to undo some of the evil we committed… we  justify our terrible acts and even attempt to glorify them.”(New York, 9 February 1959, cited in Erskine Childers, ‘The Other Exodus’ in Spectator, London, 12 May 1961)

  • 1. Palestine was a land without a people for a people without a land
    – Palestine was not empty and inhabited by nomadic people
    – Zionism at 100: The Myth of Palestine as “A Land Without People”  By Allan C. Brownfeld
    – Palestine photos of the 1930s
    – The Legal Status of Land in Palestine
    -Qumsiyeh, Mazin. Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Pluto Press 2004. – Chapter 2“People and the Land”
  • 2. Israel made the desert bloom/Palestine was destitute
    – Statistical data on Palestine before the Nakba
    – Who made the desert bloom?
  • 3. The myths of national origins, chosenness, collective rights for a religion etc
    – Archaeology refutes the Bible’s claim to history By Daniel Lazare
    – Did Jewish Slaves Build the Pyramids?
    – King David Was a Nebbish: ROCKING ISRAEL TO ITS BIBLICAL CORE
    – Shattering a ‘national mythology’ By Ofri Ilani
    –Israeli Icon under fire
    –The Origins of the Jews By Yossi Schwartz
    –A mosaic of people: …the DNA evidence by Ellen Levy-Coffman
    –Who is a Jew
    –Palestine in Wikipedia
    –Was there a place called Palestine
    Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs’ acts are legendary stories, we did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, we did not conquer the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon. Those who take an interest have known these facts for years, but Israel is a stubborn people and doesn’t want to hear about it Ha’aretz Magazine, Friday, October 29, 1999
    –more here
    -Silberman, Neil Asher and Israel Finkelstein. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. Touchstone, 2002.
    -Greenberg, Gary. 101 Myths of the Bible: How Ancient Scribes Invented Biblical History. Sourcebooks, 2002.
    Whitelam, Keith W. The invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History. New York, Routledge. 1997
    -Raed, Basem. Hidden Histories: Palestine and The Eastern Mediterranean. Pluto Press. 2010.
    -Sand, Shlomo (Author), Yael Lotan (Translator). The Invention of the Jewish People. Verso, 2009.
  • 4. Innocent Jews wanting to “return home” were rejected from the start by local Arabs for no good reason
    – Ahad Ha-Am (Asher Ginsberg) wrote the following in 1891:  “In all things it is our custom to learn nothing from the past for the future. There is certainly one thing we could have learned from our past and present history: how careful we must be not to arouse the anger of other people against ourselves by reprehensible conduct. How much more, then, should we be careful, in our conduct toward a foreign people among whom we live once again, to walk together in love and respect, and needless to say in justice and righteousness. And what do our brethren in Eretz Israel do? Quite the opposite! They were slaves in their land of exile, and they suddenly find themselves with unlimited freedom, the kind of wild freedom to be found only in a country like Turkey. This sudden change has engendered in them an impulse to despotism, as always happens when ‘a slave becomes a king,’ (Proverbs 30:22) and behold they walk with the Arabs in hostility and cruelty, unjustly encroaching on them, shamefully beating them for no good reason, and even bragging about what they do, and there is no one to stand in the breach and call a halt to this dangerous and despicable impulse. To be sure our people are correct in saying that the Arab respects only those who demonstrate strength and courage, but this is relevant only when he feels that his rival is acting justly; it is not the case if there is reason to think his rival’s actions are oppressive and unjust. Then, even if he restrains himself and remains silent forever, the rage will remain in his heart and he is unrivaled in ‘taking vengeance and bearing a grudge.’ (Leviticus 19:18)” “Emet Me-Eretz Yisrael” (Truth from the Land of Israel),  29 May 1891, 21 Iyyar 5651 Translated by Alan Dowty.
    -Mandel, Neville J. The Arabs and Zionism before World War I. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
    -Qumsiyeh, Mazin. Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of hope and empowerment. Pluto Press 2010. Chapter 5 on “Popular Resistance During the Ottoman Rule”
  • 5. Ben Gurion (who became Israel’s first Prime Minister) and Zionist leadership before 1948 war had no intention to drive the native Palestinians out.
    As early as 1917 (when Palestine was 96% Christian/Muslim and 3% Jewish), Ben Gurion stated “Within the the next twenty years, we must have a Jewish majority in Palestine.” (Shabtai Teveth, p. 43). In 1936 he stated that the future Israel must “become a force, and the Arabs respect force..these days it is not right but might which prevails. It is more important to have force than justice on one’s side” (Shabtai Teveth, p. 191). In 1937 he said “The compulsory transfer of the Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had…MORE than a state, government and sovereignty-this is national consolidation in a free homeland.” (Righteous Victims, p. 142). in 1938, he wrote “With compulsory transfer we have vast areas …. I support compulsory  transfer. I do not see anything immoral in it. But compulsory transfer could only be carried out by England …. Had its implementation been dependent merely on our proposal I would have proposed; but this would be dangerous to propose when the British government has disassociated itself from compulsory transfer. …. But this question should not be removed from the agenda because it is central question. There are two issues here : 1) sovereignty and 2) the removal of a certain number of Arabs, and we must insist on both of them.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, 117). In Feb 1948 “The war will GIVE us the land. The concept of ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ are ONLY CONCEPTS for peacetime, and during war they lose all their meaning.” (Benny Morris, p. 170 & Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180). And in early May 1948, Ben-Gurion approved establishing the “Transfer Committee” to oversee “the cleaning up (nikui in Hebrew) of the Arab settlements, cultivation of fields and their settlement, and the creation of labor battalion to carry out this work.” (Benny Morris, p. 137). Yitzhak Rabin wrote in his diary soon after Lydda’s and Ramla’s occupation on 10th-11th of July 1948: “After attacking Lydda (later called Lod) and then Ramla, …. What would they do with the 50,000 civilians living in the two cities … What is to be done with the population?, waving his hand in a gesture which said: Drive them out!. ‘Driving out’ is a term with a harsh ring, …. Psychologically, this was on of the most difficult actions we undertook”. (Soldier Of Peace, p. 140-141 & Benny Morris, p. 207) .David Ben Gurion also recognized that “The (upcoming) war will give us the land. The concept of ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ are only concepts for peacetime, and during war they lose all their meaning”. In his diaries he said regarding Palestinian refugees “We must do everything to ensure they never do return” and to the Sunday Times “The old will die and the young will forget”. Under Ben Gurion’s direction, Transfer Committee was officially set up to effect ethnic cleansing.  I don’t understand your optimism. “Why should the Arabs make Peace? If I was an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural; we have taken their country.” Ben Gurion in 1956 Quoted by Nahum Goldman, former President of World Zionist Congress, in “The Jewish Paradox” Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1978, p99.
  • 6. Palestinians want/ed to drive Jews and Israel into the sea
    (variant: Israel was willing to share)
    –Israel Pushed Palestinians into the Sea
    -Today 7 million of the 11 million Palestinians around the world are refugees or displaced people. Those who remain in Palestine are in shrinking areas that as of 2011 consisted of 8.3% of our historic homeland (they include areas in the Galilee, the triangle, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, teh Negev, and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli population according to the Israeli central bureau of statistics is 7,510,000 of which 5,984,500 are “Jews and others” (presumably the others are Druze, Russian non-Jews, and similar categories) and 1,525,500 Palestinian Arabs (1).  The population of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza is 4 million allowed to live on areas A & B, small parts of the 22% of Palestine occupied since 1967 (2).  The total area allowed for Palestinian use is 2.5% of the area of pre-1967 Israel (3) plus areas A & B of the West Bank .  In total this comes to 2.5% of 78% and 29% of the 22% that is the West Bank and Gaza (4). The total geographic access to all remaining Palestinians(5.525 million) is thus 1.95%+6.38%=8.33% while the Jewish and other population (Zionist preferred) consists of 5.5 million with access to the remaining lands comprising 91.67% of historic Palestine.  What this means is that the Jewish population (most of it new immigrants) has access to about 9 times more land per person than the remaining native Palestinians.  If we add the Palestinian refugees outside the country (total Palestinian population per PCBS is 10.9 million), the disparity only gets more pronounced. When you consider that before the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, 93% of the land was used by Palestinian natives and now only 8.3%, you can see the colossal level of land theft.
    References
    1) http://www.cbs.gov.il/www/yarhon/b1_e.htm
    2) http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=3&id=1746
    3) see http://www.indypendent.org/2007/12/09/israeli-democracy-arabs-need-not-apply
    4) http://www.poica.org/pal-in-a-century/pal-in-century.php
  • 7. Tiny Israel fended off large Arab armies in 1948
    –Click here for detailed answer
  • 8. Land was purchased, Palestinians were not ethnically cleansed
    -See this chapter on refugees in my book which analysis all aspects of this including myths about origins of the refugee catastrophe
    – Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities. New York, 1987, p. 223, citing Record of the Knesset, vol. 1, 1949, session 43
    – Michael Palumbo, The Palestinian Catastrophe: The 1948 Expulsion of a People from their Homeland. London/Boston: 1987, p. 145.
    – See also “How refugee land ended up as Jewish National Fund lands” (and it is not “abandoned” it was confiscated illegally and refugees are being prevented from returning to their lands by an illegal and racist apartheid system).
    –With all due respect for the ‘blue box’ by Meron Benvenisty in Haaretz. In Hebrew
    – THE MYTH that the Arab refugees fled because the Arab radios urged them to do so was analyzed by Erskine B. Childers in the London Spectator May 12, 1961. An examination of British and US radio monitoring records turned up no such appeals; on the contrary there were appeals and “even orders to the civilians of Palestine, to stay put…”
    -see also these books
    Abu-Sitta, Salman. Google for writings available on the internet
    Benvenisti, Meron.  Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948.  Translated by Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta.  Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2000.
    Sami Hadawi. Bitter Harvest: A modern history of Palestine. Olive Branch Press, New York. 1998.
    Masalha, Nur. Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882-1948. Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992.
    Flapan, Simha. The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities. New York: Pantheon, 1987.
    Morris, Benny. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, 2nd ed. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
    Pappé, Ilan. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 2006.
    Shlaim, Avi. Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
    Rogan, Eugene L. and Avi Shlaim, eds. The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
    Segev, Tom. 1949, The First Israelis. New York: Owl Books by Henry Holt, 1998.
  • 9. There was an Exchange of population, Jews came from Arab Countries to Israel in exchange Arabs left Israel
    Variant: Jews of Iraq and Arab Countries were persecuted and expelled
    -See Jews of Iraq
    –and this
    –and this dedicated website
    (see for example an articulation of this by an AIPAC introduced bill in Congress that demands that “any explicit reference to the required resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue is matched by a similar explicit reference to the resolution of the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.” (http://www.standwithus.com/website/news_post.asp?NPI=50)
    – Detailed answers are in resources listed under myth 8 above.  In brief, when Israel was founded, there were 600,000 Jews and 1.6 million Christians and Muslims in Palestine.n 700-800,000 Palestinians were made refugees by a deliberate process. It had nothing to do with the subsequent events in Poland, Morocco or any other country. Israel upon its foundi9ng of course was interested in bringing Jewish immigrants from many countries (these are not called refugees er international law).  To achieve this, the Zionist movement and the nascent state of Israel used all sorts of tactics from propaganda to incitement to even violence to scare Jews to leave their countries and come to occupied Palestine (the new state of Israel).  See for example what happened in Iraq articulated by Iraqi Jew Naeim Gilad in his book “Ben Gurion’s Scandals” (Mossad put bombs in front of Jewish community centers and even a synagogue to scare Iraqi Jews to leave). Also it was the Zionist movement that lobbied the US congress and other Western governments not to increase quoatas for European Jewish migration to those countries so as to leave only one door open: migration to Palestine.
  • 10. The UN Partitioned Palestine creating a Jewish state, Arabs rejected this and Zionists Accepted
    – See The myth of the UN Creation of Israel Detailed analysis
    -In 1947, Private land in Palestine was 93% owned by Christian and Muslim Palestinians and only 7% by Jews (and half of those wee not Zionists but native Palestinians).  Today many people like to cite one (but only this one) resolution of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 181) which included a RECOMMENDATION of partition. This resolution is not a binding resolution and was never implemented but let us deal with it (there were many others that also were not implemented including the one about the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands).
    -The partition resolution was pushed through by the US in violation of the UN Charter and its mandate to allow self-determination of local people.  A referendum was suggested but rejected.  The nascent Arab states also suggested a form of one state with equality and protection of all minorities but this was also rejected by the Zionists and the Truman administration. Truman reversed Roosevelt’s policies on this issue because he wanted to win election (favors wth the Zionist lobby, see Myth 39 below for details and sources). But in any case, the Zionist leadership did not accept most of the points in UNGA 181 (they rejected the borders, they rejected internationalization of Jerusalem, they rejected the admonition not to remove Palestinians from the Jewish state, they rejected economic union etc).  Since there was no leadership of the Palestinian people (decimated by the British by the end of 1939), it is meaningless to speak of rejecting this UNGA resolution by Palestinians.  It is true that the newly independent Arab countries (many of them puppets of Britain and France at the time) rejected it.  There was good reason to reject it by all people of good conscience (it divided a country against the wishes of its inhabitants). We must also recall that the recommendation was to give 55% of Palestine to a Jewish state and 45% to an aRAB STATE
    -The Conciliation Commission got the agreement of both Israel and Arab states on an identical document May 12, 1949 called the Lausanne Protocol. It stated:
    “The United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, anxious to achieve as quickly as possible the objectives of the General Assembly resolution of 11 December 1948 (UNGA 194), regarding refugees, the respect for their rights and preservation of their property, as well as territorial and other questions, has proposed to the delegation of Israel and to the delegations of the Arab States that the working document attached hereto (UNGA Partition resolution 181 of 1947) be taken as a basis for discussions with the Commission. The interested delegations have accepted this proposal with the understanding that the exchanges of views which will be carried on by the Commission with the two parties will bear upon the territorial adjustments necessary to the above-indicated objectives.” For full link click here Lausanne, 12 May 1949)
    -Israel then rejected the partition boundaries and proposed to take over all of Palestine (but leaving the issue of the West Bank for “discussion”).  It also rejected implementing its obligations on the issue of Palestinian refugees .
    – In his guidelines to the delegation in Lausanne with respect to negotiating peace, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Moshe Sharett, pointed out that “it behooves us to do so not with haste and trepidation but by revealing strength and the ability to exist even without official peace”. According to Sharett, since official peace was not a vital necessity, Israel had nothing to lose from procrastination. (Simha Flapan, The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities. New York: 1987, p. 215)
    -In 1970 and 1971, Anwar Sadat approached Israel through the US for terms of peace that were more generous than what Israel accepted a few years later. Israel turned it down and it took a war (October 1973) to jolt them into understanding the limits of military power.
  • 11. Israel respects holy sites of other religions
    -See history erased by Haaretz
  • 12. Jerusalem “reunification” let people be treated equal regardless of religion
    variant: Israel is not Judaizing Jerusalem/Freedom of religion
    -See Former Military Jerusalem Governor confirms: Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians Began Right After the Occupation Arnon Regular, Kol Ha’ir Weekly Magazine, July 26, 2001, Western Jerusalem
    -See this detail on status of Jerusalem
  • 13. The US is an “honest broker”
    -see Book by Naseer Aruri: Dishonest Broker for history of us involvement
    -“Israel’s dependence on the United States is far Greater than suggested by the sum of $3 billion. Israel’s physical existence depends on the Americans in both military and political terms.  Without the US, we would not be equipped with the latest fighter planes and all other advanced weapons. Without the American veto, we would long have been expelled from every international organization not to speak of the UN, which would have imposed sanctions on us that would have paralysed Israel’s International trade, since we cannot exist without importing raw materials.  For the same reason, it is wrong to divide the American money up into military aid of $1.8 billion and civilian aid of $1.2 billion. What we are getting is really unmarked dollar bills…” Nehemia Stressler, Haaretz, May 12, 1989
  • 14. Islam is intent on taking over the world
    A good summary of this Zionist pedaled discourse is in the book “Islamic Imperialism” by Efraim Karsh (2007, Yale University Press, New Haven and London) of which thousands were printed and distributed free to clergy and opinion makers around the US (the Zionist group cryptically named “Institute on Religion and Democracy”, Washington, D.C. was distributing it free). Muslims have been victimized by colonial powers for hundreds of years and have no coherent political or military power.  Most of the countries with Muslim majority are ruled by puppets of the US which are now being toppled by popular demand. US forces are in over 140 countries (at least two dozen Muslim majority). A lot of the fundamentalist groups that are now used as evidence of this pan-ISlamic desire to take on the world were created or supported by the West.  A religion that is the faith and inspiration of 1.6 billion people is like Christianity (2 billion people). Such a large number of people means by nature that some are bad people who use their religion for bad purposes. But in actually, the big wars in the world had nothing to do with religion (WWI and WWII). People use religion occasionally such as happened during the the Crusades and now with Zionist colonization of Palestine.
  • 15. “Israel’s centrality in Jewish life” manifest by the creed developed and advocated by Zionists “Am Yisrael Chai” meaning People of Israel (=Jews) live.
    – For this deep psychological pathos that puts Jews above any other humans, see these books
    Ellis, Marc, Out of the Ashes.
    Braverman, Mark. Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land.  Austin: Synergy Books, 2010.
    Kimmerling, Baruch. The Invention and Decline of Israeliness: Society, Society and the Military. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
    Meyer, Hajo G.  The End of Judaism: An Ethical Tradition Betrayed.  G.MeyerBooks, 2007
    Nathan, Susan. The Other Side of Israel: My Journey across the Jewish-Arab Divide. New York: Doubleday, 2005.
    Reinhart, Tanya. Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948. New York: Seven Stories, 2002.
    – also see My one and only Love
    – and Response to Rosenfeld
  • 16. Zionism had a positive influence on world affairs
    -Bishara Bahbah and Linda Butler, Israel and Latin America: The military Connection, ST Martin’s Press, NY, 1986
    Milton Jamail, Margo Gutierrez, It’s no secret: Israel’s military involvement in central America,
    Association of Arab-American University Graduates, 1986
    –Zionist Terrorists Arrested Inside Mexican Congress
    Israel hand seen in Ivorian clash (and other strives around the world)
    -“BERN, Switzerland – The Swiss government said today it had caught Israel’s spy agency trying to bug telephones on the outskirts of the Swiss capital. It was the second highly publicized Mossad bungle to embarrass the Israeli government in recent months. The espionage effort was aimed at foreigners living in Switzerland, federal prosecutor Carla del Ponte said, without elaborating. Del Ponte denied Israeli media reports that Iranian diplomats were  the target of the alleged spying. She said the targets were not diplomats.  Switzerland has demanded an apology from Israel, the Foreign Minstry said. It said it had had no immediate response from Israel. … At a news conference in Bern, del Ponte said five Israeli agents were  detained as they tried to plant the bugs a week ago. All but one were released and are believed to have left the country.  In Jerusalem today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that an Israeli citizen had been arrested in Switzerland, but declined to comment further. ” Another mess for Mossad: Israeli spy agency accused of bugging Swiss phones. The Associated Press  26 February 1998. by Irene Harnischberg
    -“A senior Israeli intelligence officer says that the hit team arrested in Switzerland were on the trail of two businessmen with Hezbollah sympathies. As contacts continued between Israel and Switzerland yesterday to free a Mossad agent detained in Berne last month, a senior Mossad officer said the true purpose of the bungled operation had been assassination and not bugging as claimed. ” March 3 1998. Times of London
    – There is some evidence that World War One was expanded instead of ending in peace because Zionists pushed Brits and French to continue promising to get US to enter the war IF THEY gave them Palestine after the war. Samuel Landman, a noted British Zionist, carefully articulated in 1936 the machination of the leading Zionists on this front (http://desip.igc.org/1939sLandman.htm Samuel Landman Great Britain, The Jews and Palestine , 1936 New Zionist Press)
    Michael Berkowitz, 2003. Nationalism, Zionism and ethnic mobilization of the Jews in 1900 and beyond. Brill Academic Publishers
    Balfour was a reward for the Zionists getting the US to enter the war entry The Balfour Declaration and the Zimmermann Note By John Cornelius, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 1997, pages 18-20 http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0897/9708018.html
    Lord Sydenham of the British House of Deputies replied prophetically to Balfour: “… the harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country – Arab all around in the hinterland – may never be remedied … what we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend.” (UN: The Origins And Evolution Of Palestine Problem, section IV)
    -see also The origin of the Balfour Declaration
    -Israel’s industrial and military espionage in the US
  • 17. The 1967 war was a defensive war by Israel against enemies who wanted to destroy it
    –Alan Hart on the 1967 propaganda and myth
    –http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/06/04/six_day_war/
    -Moshe Dayan described kibbutz residents who pressed Israel to take Syria’s Golan Heights in a 1997 New York Times interview: “They didn’t even try to hide their greed for the land … We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn’t possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that’s how it was … The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.”
    -From POLITICIDE, Ariel Sharon’s War Against the Palestinians, by Baruch Kimmerling, Verso, 2003, pages 57-59):
    “In May 1967, Gamal Abd al-Nasser made his biggest political miscalculation. After a long and bloody intervention in the Yemeni civil war, he had lost prestige in the Arab world. In order to regain that prestige and affirm Egyptian sovereignty, he made two spectacular moves: he ordered Egyptian military forces to cross the Suez Canal and, at the same time, demanded the withdrawal of UN forces deployed along the 1957 ceasefire lines. After the Yemeni debacle, the Egyptian army was certainly not ready for a war with Israel, but the Israeli General Staff had planned for many years to destroy the Egyptian military, which had been re-equipped and restructured by the Soviet Union after the 1956 War. Nasser’s move was exploited by the Israeli Government, which depicted it as a causus belli and a real threat to Israel’s security. The Israeli armed forces mobilized their full reserve system. While the two armies were positioned face-to-face, the Israeli Government, headed by Levy Eshkol, hesitated, doubting both the reality of the Egyptian threat and the necessity of resolving it militarily rather than diplomatically. Another consideration was the severe economic hardship and social strain that would result from the prolonged mobilization of almost the entire male labor force. While the government weighed its options, military officers (including Sharon) seized the opportunity to convince the public that Israel faced a genuine threat to its existence. Demonstrations called on Eshkol to quit. The increasing public pressure in addition to the hidden pressure from many on the general staff led to the establishment of a new war-oriented Cabinet that included the hawkish Moshe Dayan as Minister of Defense and, for the first time, members of the ultra-nationalist party Herut, headed by Menachem Begin. The war was so well planned and prepared that at dawn, on June 5, the Israeli military intelligence and air force knew the precise location of every Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian aircraft and destroyed most of them on the ground in several hours. Sharon, in his autobiography, briefly mentioned that “on the morning of June 5, Israel’s air force was to launch a pre-preemptive attack on Egypt’s airfields.” When Israeli infantry and tank brigades attacked Egyptian military concentrations, fortifications, and bases, they already had almost absolute air superiority. One of the most significant myths rooted in the collective memory of both the Israeli and Western public is that during the 1967 War (or as the Israelis arrogantly called it, “the Six Day War”), Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, a belief that is used to justify the legitimacy of the occupation to this day.
    -Both Yitzhak Rabin and Ezer Weizman clearly allude in their autobiographies to the fact that, prior to the attack of June 1967, the Israeli general staff organized a putsch, and barred any and all political solutions to the crisis. Rabin, Chief of Staff, admitted that: “Nasser didn’t want war. The two divisions he sent to Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war He knew it and we knew it.” (Le Monde, February 28, 1968).
    Levy Eshkol himself admitted that “the Egyptian layout in Sinai and the general build up there testified to a militarily defensive Egyptian set-up, south of Israel” (Yediot Ahronot, October 16, 1967).
    -On August 8, 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, defending the invasion of Lebanon, said: “In June 1967 we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”(New York Times, August 21, 1982).”
  • 18. The International Solidarity Movement supports violence
    – see Wikepedia, a bit biased but has links
    -See The ISM Website
  • 19. The Road map is an international effort for peace in the Middle East and Palestinians reject it
    -The road map is 2218 words and lacks four key words: International Law and Human Rights. It was drafted in the State Department supposedly based on the speech Bush gave in 2002 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020624-3.html ).  Bush’s speech writers at the time were both Zionists: Michael Gerson and David Frum.
    -The writings of Karen Kwiatkowski who retired from the Pentagon clearly documents the stranglehold of Zionist “group think” on US policy. It is claimed by official US sources that the State Department wrote the Road Map.  If that is the case, this would fall under the purview of then under secretary for Political Affairs (from 2001 to 2005) Marc Grossman who is also Zionist.  Other Zionists who were likely involved or at least had to give their blessings include Elliott Abrams (National Security Council Advisor) and Richard Haass (Director of Policy Planning at the State Department).
    -Despite this bias, Arafat and the PNC accepted the road map and the Palestinian Authority obeys it (getting back in line under threat of withholding their tax money occasionally). Sharon said he would accept it with 14 reservations that basically make it meaningless. The Israeli government violated it regularly most conspicuously on the issue of expanding settlements and refusing to keep the territorial integrity of the WB and Gaza: restrictions on movement etc increased even started to build a wall which is contrary to this document.
  • 20. Palestinians militants use human shields and send their kids to be killed for propaganda
    -such offensive and racist statements are beneath contempt as no mother or father or human being sacrifices their children or their relatives for public relations
    –The reality
  • 21. Arabs only understand the language of force
    –Check this
  • 22. Zionists teach peace and democracy, Palestinian Society teaches hate
    – Anti-Arab racism and incitement in Israel
    – Nathan Brown of George Washington University investigated Palestinian textbooks, his full report is posted here
    – see also related Report by Dr. Fouad Moughrabi
    – See Education and hate  Assay on who teaches what to whom, July 2004.  Also published in French as Education et haine
    -A study by The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs concluded Israeli textbooks and children’s literature promote racism and hatred toward Palestinians and Arabs. (See http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0999/9909019.html.)
    Jewish Settlers’ on the record: racism and bigotry funded by US taxpayers
    – see http://www.qumsiyeh.org/nuritpeledelhanan/ speeches and articles
    – Former Chief Rabbi advocates genocide (this is not an average Israeli Rabbi, this person carries lots of weight and the position was created based on Israeli state laws)
    http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6987.shtml
    – The myth of incitement in Palestinian schools (this is an oft repeated smear by Zionists trying to distract world attention from continued colonization activities and ethnic cleansing of native Palestinians)
    http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=911
    http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/47093.pdf
    http://www.ifamericansknew.org/download/pal_children.pdf
    http://www.geocities.com/nathanbrown1/CAJE.htm
    – http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180527966693&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
    – Israel is as a Theocratic state whee there is no separation between state and religion, see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Politics/relig.html
    – Yesha Rabbinical Council: “During time of war, enemy has no innocents Ma’ariv 30 July 2006 “The Yesha Rabbinical Council announced in response to an IDF attack in Kfar Qanna that “according to Jewish law, during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as ‘innocents’ of the enemy.” All of the discussions on Christian morality are weakening the spirit of the army and the nation and are costing us in the blood of our soldiers and civilians,” the statement said. (Efrat Weiss) ” http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3283720,00.html (Yesha is the name given to the council that oversees the 450,000 settlers in the West Bank)
    – See also “Israel’s house of horrors” By Ali Abunimah http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6975.shtml
    – Harvard Lawyer Alan Dershowitz’ calls for War crimes
    Martin Sherman calls for ending Palestinian rights by giving them money and relocating them all
    -“Israel should have exploited the  repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention  focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the  Arabs of the territories.”Benjamin Netanyahu told students at Bar-Ilan University in 1989
    – “In the old city of Jerusalem they (Palestinians) are swarming like ants. They should go to hell — and the Messiah will speed them on their way,” Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, leader of the influential Shas party in a weekly sermon broadcast on army radio (Reuters, July 27, 2001).
    Ovadia Yosef: “The role of the Gentiles – is to serve the Jews”
    -Another investigation by Le Monde Diplomatique concluded the textbooks’ real error was to refute Israel’s version of Palestinian history. (Log onto http://mondediplo.com /2001/07/11textbook.)
    -While many Israelis and supporters terrorize Palestinians, they demonize all Palestinians as terrorists. While they teach intolerance and hate, they claim Palestinians teach their kids hate. Human Rights Watch documented the discrimination against Palestinian-Arab children in Israel’s schools. (Log onto http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/israel2/).
    -An article by Dr. Peled-Elhanan of the Hebrew University put it this way: “Palestinians, both the lawful citizens of the state and the ones living under occupation, are presented stereotypically, in racist vocabulary and racist visuals, as a demographic threat . . . their discrimination is represented as a national necessity. . . occupied
    territories are depicted as part of the state of Israel but their Palestinian inhabitants, cities and cultural sites are missing from maps, photographs and graphs. The books promote the ideal of an Arab-free land as a condition for the existence of the Jewish state.”
    – Israel’s education system http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/2507
    -Israeli company fires 21 Arab employees at once and gets away with its racism http://972mag.com/israeli-supermarket-fires-21-arab-employees-at-once/
  • 23. Palestinians don’t use nonviolent resistance but instead blow themselves up with innocent civilians
    See the detailed in my book Popular Resistance in Palestine
    Statement to Israeli public on non-violence
  • 24. Israel takes great care not to harm civilians and never targets civilians; Israeli army most ethical army
    – See Targeting Civilians
    – “As a young soldier serving in the Israeli army, I was ordered to commit grave human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. My platoon meted out collective punishment on Palestinian communities, shot and killed unarmed Palestinian civilians, and enforced prolonged curfews on Palestinian villages. I witnessed the arbitrary destruction of Palestinian houses, property and agricultural land. These acts were not rare occurrences, nor were they the result of overly cruel soldiers. It was part of the norm; a habit that an Occupation soldier gets used to doing. These daily occurrences constituted, as I later understood, war crimes.” http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu/why.htm
    – “I participated in the fighting on Temple Mount. I was and also shot at the demonstrations in Umm Al Fahm. But the worst event was the riots in Tiberias. Hundreds of violent Jews closed a main road and also threw firebombs at us. They almost set our car on fire, but luckily we put the fire out on time. There was stone throwing, firecrackers, and glass bottles were thrown and broke between our feet. They crossed all the red lines, my people attacked me with enormous force, and it hurts. The violence there was just like in Umm Al Fahm. According to the open-fire regulations, when firebombs are thrown, there is authorization to shoot. But we handle Jewish riots differently. To a demo like this we know in advance that we come without weapons. These are the orders from above, and we used only gas”. Tal Etlinger, a border police soldier, Yediot Aharonot, 17/11/2000 (translated by Irit Katriel, iritka@internet-zahav.net.il)
    – “The Israeli soldiers who volunteers to serve in the occupied territories are considered heroes, while in truth their volunteering can be compared to that of German volunteers who served in the SS” Moshe Zimmerman, at the time Chair of Department of Germanic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, interview Yerushalayim, 4/28/1995. From the “Founding Myths of Modern Israel by Roger Garaudy
    – We killed (Palestinian) police for revenge, Israeli soldiers confess By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem, The Independent
    Maariv in Hebrew published admissions of Israeli soldiers to committing war crimes
    – Palestinians Continue to be used as human shields (Video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tomdEkOgdKU
    – Use of Palestinians as human shields
    – Amnesty International 2006 report on Israeli violations of Human Rights
    – Article by Jonathan Cook on Targeting Civilians http://mostlywater.org/node/8568
    – Israeli army forces women to strip at checkpoints http://www.imemc.org/article/49215
    – Israel hits center of Red Cross http://whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/ambulancehit.jpg
    – American NLG Lawyers Findings that Israel Violated International Law, US Domestic Law in Gaza
    – Statistics on number of people killed
    – Israeli who revealed “medieval-style” torture of Palestinians faces virulent backlash
  • 25. Israel attacks infrastructure only if it is linked to terrorists
    – Lebanon war
    – Amnesty Report
    – Wanton Destruction of Infrastructure and homes
  • 26. The Deir Yassin Massacre (one of hundreds committed during the ethnic cleansing of 1947-1949) was committed by rogue elements and not mainstream Zionists
    – What happened in Deir Yassin
    – When the Haganah command learned of the plan of the Irgun and Lehi to conquer Deir Yassin, David Shaltiel, Haganah Commander in Jerusalem, asked them to coordinate the timing of the operation with the scheduled renewed assault on Kastel. He dispatched identical letters to Mordechai Raanan (Irgun Commander in Jerusalem) and Yehoshua Zetler (Lehi Commander in Jerusalem), in which he gave their operation his approval:
    To: Shapira (code-name of Zetler)
    From: District Commander
    I have learned that you intend to carry out an operation against Deir Yassin. I would like to call your attention to the fact that the conquest and continued occupation of Deir Yassin is one of the stages in our overall plan. I have no objection to your carrying out the operation on condition that you are capable of holding on to it. If you are incapable of doing so, I caution you against blowing up the village, since this will lead to the flight of the inhabitants and subsequent occupation of the ruins and the abandoned homes by enemy forces. This will make things difficult rather than contributing to the general campaign, and reoccupation of the site will entail heavy casualties for our men. An additional argument I would like to cite is that if enemy forces are drawn to the place, this will disrupt the plan to establish an aerodrome there.
    Ezel website
  • 27. The massacre of Sabra and Shatila in 1982 in Lebanon was not the responsibility of the Israelis
    – Details on website indict Sharon
    – Robert Fisk explains
    – Qumsiyeh Review of book on subject
  • 28. The lies and distortions about the Lavon affair
    – From Mideastweb files
    – Israel’s second Prime Minister Sharret had interesting admissions in his diary including about the Lavon affair, in which Israeli provocateurs exploded bombs in U.S. cultural centers and diplomatic establishments in Cairo and Alexandria in 1954 after being told “to break the West’s confidence in the existing (Nasser) regime… The actions should cause arrests, demonstrations and expressions of revenge. The Israeli origins should be totally covered.” The idea was to provoke mayhem, increase Jewish immigration and with other acts eventually provoke a war to acquire more territory (which happened in 1967). As retired US foreign service officer Richard Curtis wrote in the WRMEA (March 18, 1985): “When the provocateurs (young Egyptian-born Jews trained in Israel and returned to their homeland) were caught and tried, Sharett publicly denied Israeli complicity and accused the Egyptians of ‘vicious hostility to… the Jewish people.'” But in his diaries Sharett not only admitted the affair but lamented Israel’s “unleashing of the basest instincts of hate and revenge…” In another part of the diary we see this interesting tidbit: “Ben Gurion reported to the cabinet … how our four youngsters (Israeli paratrooper reservists) captured the Beduin boys one by one, how they took them to the wadi, how they knifed them to death one after the other… When I arrived in Tel Aviv an officer… came to tell me that the whole revenge operation was organized with the active help of Arik Sharon, the commander of the paratroopers battalion.”
  • 29. Martin Luther King Jr supported Israel and Zionism and equated criticism of Zionism with anti-Semitism
    See Martin Luther King
  • 30. Israel was trying to save Arab Jews
    – Details on Arab Jews
    See also the Lavon Affair (up)
  • 31. Palestinians and other Arabs largely rejoiced after 9/11 attacks/Variant is that Muslims do not denounce terrorism
    – See Arabs and Palestinians on September 11]
    – 9/11 statements
  • 32. Barak Made a generous offer at Camp David, Arafat rejected it and went back and started a bloody intifada
    – See Robert Malley’s Fictions About the Failure at Camp David
    – Uri Avnery on 12 conventional lies [http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story658.html]
    – Gush Shalom data
    – EI myth 5
    – Electronic Intifada
    – Cactus 1948
    – IAP
    – Mideast Facts
    – Gush Shalom
    – Pal Remembered
    – Ottawa summary
    – Aaron David Miller, a senior negotiator on the Clinton team at Camp David and an Orthodox Jew revealed that rather than serve as a true mediator in peace negotiations, successive U.S. administrations including Clinton’s have acted as “Israel’s attorney.” Kathleen Christison, “Anatomy of A Frame-Up: Camp David Redux, Counterpunch, August 15, 2005. On line here
    – Press release showing that the sides were really close to hammering out an agreement at Taba which was a continuation of the negotiations until Israel withdrew (not Palestinians)
    – “The pre-eminent obstacle to peace is Israel’s colonization of Palestine. There were just a few hundred settlers in the West Bank and Gaza when I became president, but the Likud government expanded settlement activity after I left office. President Ronald Reagan condemned this policy, and reaffirmed that Resolution 242 remained “the foundation stone of America’s Middle East peace effort.” President George H.W. Bush even threatened to reduce American aid to Israel. Although President Bill Clinton made strong efforts to promote peace, a massive increase of settlers occurred during his administration, to 225,000, mostly while Ehud Barak was prime minister. Their best official offer to the Palestinians was to withdraw 20 percent of them, leaving 180,000 in 209 settlements, covering about 5 percent of the occupied land.” President Jimmy Carter
    -“The narrative blaming Yasser Arafat now joins a whole string of myths: the Tel Hai myth, the myth of the runaway refugees in 1948, the myth of the War of Independence as a defensive war that broke out because of an invasion by Arab armies, the myth of the few against the many, and the myth of the liberation of the homeland from the British boot – just to mention a few of the many myths that have been created here to deal with the reality that gave birth to many crises and second thoughts about the situation.” Challenging the Camp David myth, By Meron Benvenisti. Ha’aretz, Thursday, August 02, 2001
  • 33. Christians, Jews and others should support Israel because of the Promised land/Bible issues.
    -See Web site on Christian Zionism
    – Hagee preaches support for Israel
    – see also these   Links of Palestinian Christian and others who truly follow Christ’s teachings
  • 34. The people of the West Bank benefited from Israeli rule
    – In September 1967 Moshe Dayan told senior staff in the Israeli Occupation Army in the West Bank that some 200,000 Palestinian Arabs had left the West Bank and Gaza Strip: “we must understand the motives and causes of the continued emigration of the Arabs, from both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and not to undermine these cause after all, we want to create a new map.” (Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, p. 338).
    -“The guideline of our policy has always been the idea that a permanent situation of no peace and a latent war is the best situation for us, and that it must be maintained at all costs. … we are becoming stronger year by year in a situation of impending conflict where it is possible that actual fighting may break out from time to time. Such wars will usually be short and the results guaranteed in advance, since the gap between us and the Arabs is increasing. In this way we shall move on from occupation to further occupation. … this criminally mischievous policy has led us into the crisis we are living through today…We have not been seeking peace for twenty-five years — all declarations to that effect have been no more than coloured statements or deliberate lies. There is of course no assurance that we could have made peace with the Arabs if we had wanted to. However, it has to be heavily emphasized that we have not only made no attempts to seek peace, but have deliberately and with premeditation, sabotaged every possibility of doing so.” (Yeshayahu Leibowitz, 30 November 1973)
    -From former Israel Attorney General Michael Ben Yair who wrote on 3/3/2002: “We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupie territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one – progressive, liberal – in Israel; and the other – cruel, injurious – in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.”
  • 35. Christians are leaving Palestine because of persecution by Muslims not because of Zionist occupation and colonization
    – See links and resources from all main Palestinian Christian denominations and other Christians around the world.
    – The Christian presence in Palestine under Israeli military rule. A short clip from the award-winning film from Occupation 101 titled Voices of the Silenced Majority.
    – Palestinian Christians make action against construction of Israel’s separation barrier on Palestinian Christian lands in Wadi Nis village (South of Bethlehem area,) marking Good Friday
    -Christians and Muslims join hands to march on Palm Sunday insisting on right of freedom of movement. Many were arrested.
    Example here
    and here
    and here
    – In Arabic,  report about Christianity in the Middle East
  • 36. The 1967 Occupation follows International law
    -Aruri, Naseer H., ed. Occupation: Israel over Palestine, 2nd ed. Belmont, MA: AAUG Press, 1989.
    -Benvenisti,  Eyal “The Applicability of Human Rights Conventions to Israel and to the Occupied Territories”, Israel Law Review, Vol. 26, 1992, pp. 24-35
    -Convention relative to the Protection of Civilians Persons in Time of War, Geneva, 12 August 1949.
    -Also see General Assembly Resolution 64/92, Applicability of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the other occupied Arab territories, 19 January 2010
    -International Court of Justice, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004
    -Nasrallah, Rami and Rassem Khamaisi (ed.)  The Jerusalem Urban Fabric.  Jerusalem: A publication of the International Peace and Cooperation Center, 2003
    -Playfair, Emma, ed. International Law and the Administration of Occupied Territories: Two Decades of Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Oxford, UK: Clarendon; New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
    -Qafisheh, Mutaz M. The International Law Foundations of Palestinian Nationality (Boston and the Hague: Brill, 2008).
    -Segal, Rafael and Eyal Weizman (editors). A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Architecture. Babel (Tel Aviv) and Verso (London). 2003.
    -Shehadeh, Raja. From Occupation to Interim Accords: Israel and the Palestinian Territories. London; Boston: Kluwer Law International, 1997
  • 37. Iran’s President is a Jew-hating, Holocaust-denying, Islamo-fascist who stated he will “wipe Israel off the map”
    -The actual quote from Ahmedinujad: Imam (Khomeini) ghoft (said) een (this) rezhim-e (regime) ishghalgar-e (occupying) qods (Jerusalem) bayad (must) az safheh-ye ruzgar (from page of time) mahv shavad (vanish from).
    An article explaining the effort to put words in his mouth
    and this
    and another analysis
  • 38. Zionists did not push for the war on Iraq and the conflict with Iran is also about US security not Zionist perceived self-interest.
    –Letter by leading Zionists and neoconservatives asking US to attack Iraq and change its regime January 26, 1998
    -See Book by Mearsheimer and Walt “Israel Lobby”
    -“Groups Push For Sanctions, Fear US Will Falter on Iran,” By Ori Nir, Forward – Sep 1, 2006 issue
    -“Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat and actually has been since 1990 – it’s the threat against Israel.. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t  want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.” Pentagon -Defense Intelligence Board Member Philip Zeikow, 10 September 2002
    –Declassified Documents show early manipulation of US media and attempts to shape public opinion
    –Contrary to Chomsky, the US has no interest in supporting Israel
    -Challenging the power of the Israeli lobby: what should be done
    -VIDEO: from Jewish Telegraphic Agency: The power of AIPAC and what they pushed for
    -Lengthy but important analysis of Israeli power
  • 39. Israel is beneficial to US interests in the Middle East
    – Cost of Israel to the US
    – Declassified: Massive Israeli Manipulation of US Media Exposed
    – “Israel secretly maintains a large and active intelligence-gathering operation in the United States that has long attempted to recruit U.S. officials as spies and to procure classified documents, U.S. government officials said.” Los Angeles Times, 3 September 2004
    – see  target=new>[The Lobby]
    – [Michael Lind] Article on the Lobby’s negative influence
    – Jewish Groups To Challenge Ethics Reform, By Nathan Guttman, Forward [http://www.forward.com/articles/jewish-groups-to-challenge-ethics-reform/]
    Does the Israeli Tail Wag the American Dog?
    – If the United States is unable to distinguish the world’s or its own real needs from those of another state and that state’s lobby, then it simply cannot say that it always acts in its own best interests. By Kathleen and Bill Christison (ex CIA Analysts) [http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17217.htm]
    – Is Americans’ support of Israel unshakeable? By Linda S. Heard, Online Journal
    – Israel and US interests aren’t identical By Antony Loewenstein [http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4387]
    – [http://www.muckrakerreport.com/]
    – Excerpt from the secret CIA assessment released November 28, 1947 on the eve of the UN “vote” and titled “The Consequences of the Partition of Palestine” (Declassified document)
    “Armed hostilities between Jews and Arabs will break out if the UN General Assembly accepts the plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states…. The Jews are expected to be able to mobilize some 200,000 fighters in Palestine.. The Jewish armed groups in Palestine are well equipped and well trained in commando tactics.  Initially they will achieve marked success over the Arabs because of superior organization and equipment… The US by supporting partition has already lost much of its prestige in the Near East In the event that partition is imposed on Palestine, the resulting conflict will seriously disturb the social, economic, and political stability of the Arab world, and US commercial and strategic interests will be dangerously jeopardized. … The poverty, unrest, and hopelessness upon which Communist propaganda thrives will increase throughout the Arab world. (and later in the document, p. 6) US prestige on the other hand has steadily decreased with each new indication that the US supports the Zionists. The good will enjoyed by the US at the time of the Rosevelt-Ibn Saud Conference and following backing of Lebanese and Syrian claims for independence was short lived as a result of President Truman’s support of Jewish immigration to Palestine and of the Anglo-American Committee report. Because of the long standing cultural ties between the US and the Arab world, the friendly role that the US played in the achievement of Syrian and Lebanese independence, the partial dependence of certain Arab states on oil royalties from US companies, and the promise of increased royalties in the future, the Arab states would like to maintain friendly relations with the US. … Little of this (positive) development will be possible, if the US supports a Jewish state in Palestine.”
    [http://tinyurl.com/2c4kh3]
    Or original here
    – Truman helped establish Israel (actually was the critical element in arm-twisting countries to vote for partition which was contrary to the UN Charter of self determination). Zionist propaganda has it that this support was because of deeply held beliefs in that cause (Jews were persecuted so need a country of their own).  But facts are otherwise.  Truman himself admitted in a private cabinet meeting that he is doing it for money and votes. – “when the election was coming up in 1946 in New York, the group of New York Jews called upon Mr. Truman. [Alan Taylor, op. cit. p.93] Emmanuel Cellar was the head of this committee. Rabbi Steven Wise and several others were in it. They called upon Mr. Truman and said, “We have just been talking with Mr. Thomas Dewey. He is willing to come out and declare for a Jewish state, and we are going to turn our money and urge the Jews to vote for him unless you beat him to it.” Then Emmanuel Cellar pounded upon Mr. Truman’s desk and said, “And if you don’t come out for a Jewish state we’ll run you out of town.” This, I’m sure, is the threat that Mr. Truman refers to in his book, saying, “The extreme Zionists threatened me.” They were Emmanuel Cellar, Rabbi Steven Wise, etc. These are not the extreme Zionists, these are just the run of the mill Zionists. What Mr. Truman did was to cave in to these threats that they would support Mr. Dewey. In that way he got the Jewish money and the Jewish vote. His decision was not made from the point of view of what was going to result in the Middle East, but what was going on in the United States.” Edwin M. Wright at the time of the State Department (source [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/wright.htm] )
    – See also [http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/26309.html] and Truman diaries which show how he really thought:
    [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40678-2003Jul10]
    -Israel stole US nuclear technology [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/washington/29nixon.html]
    – “How the Israel Lobby Took Control of the U.S. Congress” (most people have no idea how methodically AIPAC & Co. went about this):
    http://criminalstate.com/2009/07/how-the-israel-lobby-took-control-of-us-foreign-policy/
    – A longer analysis appears in the introduction to Guilt By Association which appears on the Criminal State website (just above Chomsky’s blurb):
    http://criminalstate.com/guilt-by-association/
    – Prof. Wm. Robinson stood up to the ADL Thought Police at UC Santa Barbara when he refused to fold his hand (he’s Jewish): http://criminalstate.com/2009/07/treason-in-plain-sight/
    Note the background role of UC President Mark Yudof and his wife. In an Information Age, if the conduct described is not treason, what is?
  • 40. Israel accidentally attacked the USS Liberty in International waters because it was mistaken for an Egyptian ship
    – CIA Director Richard Helms said: “The board of inquiry (concluded) that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing …”
    See [http://ussliberty.org] for lots of other data including testimony of survivors.
    – Alison Wier on USA Today and USS Liberty [http://counterpunch.org/weir06232007.html]
    – WHY SHOULD MY FAMILY STILL LOVE ME?
    [http://ussliberty.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/why-should-my-family-still-love-me/]
  • 41. Zionist in America are loyal to the US Constitution and have no Tribal allegiances to contradict US interests
    – Secret trials for terrorists, says US judge: A TOP-RANKING US judge has stunned a conference of Australian judges and barristers in Chicago by advocating secret trials for terrorists, more surveillance of Muslim populations across North America and an end to counter-terrorism efforts being “hog-tied” by the US constitution. Judge Richard Posner, a supposedly liberal-leaning jurist regarded by many as a future US Supreme Court candidate, said traditional concepts of criminal justice were inadequate to deal with the terrorist threat and the US had ‘over-invested’ in them…”
    [http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ftheaustralian.news.com.au%2Fstory%2F0%2C20867%2C21986986-2702%2C00.html%3F]
    – The New Israel Lobby in Action (David Noble)
    http://canadiandimension.com/articles/2005/11/01/209/
    – See this cartoon by Bendib on the clamour of presidential candidates to suck up to the Zionist lobby.
    http://www.bendib.com/newones/2007/june/small/6-9-The-Race.jpg
  • 42. Rachel Corrie was accidentally killed while protecting the house of terrorist
    [http://www.rachelcorrie.org/]
    [http://www.criticalconcern.com/rachelcorrie.html]
    [http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/309199_corrierebut28.html]
    [http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=DF899DD539B2344385256CEC007008D5]
  • 43. Israel did not deliberately attack a UN Compound in Qana, Lebanon.  “We want it to be clear it was not a deliberate attack because Israel would never target a UN force. It is not part of our policies; it is not part of our values”  Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
    – From Robert Fisk’s April 19, 1996 article “Massacre in Sanctuary” in The Independent (UK): “Qana, southern Lebanon – It was a massacre. Not since Sabra and Chatila had I seen the innocent slaughtered like this. The Lebanese refugee women and children and men lay in heaps, their hands or arms or legs missing, beheaded or disemboweled. There were well over a hundred of them. A baby lay without a head. The Israeli shells had scythed through them as they lay in the United Nations shelter, believing that they were safe under the world’s protection. Like the Muslims of Srebrenica, the Muslims of Qana were wrong. In front of a burning building of the UN’s Fijian battalion headquarters, a girl held a corpse in her arms, the body of a grey- haired man whose eyes were staring at her, and she rocked the corpse back and forth in her arms, keening and weeping and crying the same words over and over: “My father, my father.” A Fijian UN soldier stood amid a sea of bodies and, without saying a word, held aloft the body of a headless child. “The Israelis have just told us they’ll stop shelling the area”, a UN soldier said, shaking with anger. “…
    [http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/robert_fisk_qana.html]
  • 44. The “security barrier” Israel is building is not a land grab and is about Security
    Facts about “the wall”
    -After most of the residents were ethnically cleansed, a wall of fences was built around remaining 3500 Palestinians in Al-Majdal to starve them until they agreed to leave “voluntarily” in 1951 (long after the end of the 1948 war). The city was renamed Ashqelon
    -The wall around Gaza was completed before even the first Palestinian suicide bombing
    -The wall was less than 25% complete when Hamas made a political decision to stop bombings and run for elections in 2006. Hamas held on to its end of this even though they were not allowed to govern.
    -International court of justice ruled it illegal regardless of any consideration since it is built in the occupied areas (just like the colonies illegal and subject to 4th Geneva convention)
    -Even today in 2013, the wall is actually less than 70% complete; nearly 10,000 Palestinians cross to the Israeli side without Israeli permission to work DAILY and so any person interested in doing violence could do it
    -The wall zig zags in ways clearly intended to capture maximum agricultural lands and natural resources instead of being more secure straighter lines in most of its currently built course.
    -There are Palestinians on both sides of the wall (hundreds of thousands on the so called “Israeli side”)
    -There are Israelis on both sides of it so it cannot be a security issue.
    – See Stop the wall resources and fact sheets
    – Video
    – see also this discussion in electronic intifada on the naming issue
  • 45. Israel Demolishes Homes for security
    – [http://www.icahd.org/eng/faq.asp?menu=9&submenu=1]
    – Rafah Aerial maps before and after
    [http://www.poica.org/casestudies/Rafah-16-10-03/Gaza%20segregation%20wall.jpg]
    [http://www.poica.org/casestudies/Rafah-16-10-03/Rafah.jpg]
  • 46. Israel only imprisons those responsible for terrorism
    – Over 11,000 political prisoners are held by Israel today.  Over the past 40 years, Israel imprisoned nearly 40% of male population of the occupied areas. One third are/were held in administrative detention without charge or trial. Hundreds of minors are also held at any one time.
    – See “A regrettable indifference” By Amira Hass Haaretz  [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/797419.html]
  • 47. Israel does not make or use weapons of mass destruction
    – Dai Williams’ report on the use of uranium weapons by Israel in Lebanon last summer is at: UN priorities for investigating uranium and other suspected illegal weapons in the Israel/Lebanon conflict. – by Dai Williams – 2006-09-01  [http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20060901&articleId=3123]. The weapons were flown by the US to Israel.  The airplane was supposed to land for refueling at Ireland’s shannon Internation Airport, but the Irish government refused permission for it to land on Irish soil, so the plane landed at Prestwick, a small airport in Scotland, south of Glasgow. This subsequently caused some difficulties for the Blair Government. At that time, Dai Williams, an internation expert on DU, advised the Scots that if the plane crashed on landing or take-off, all of southern Scotland would be contaminated by the radioactive weapons on board. This incident was not known in the US.  If you need more information on it, look at
    [http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/campanas/stopwar/uranium_weapons/index.html].
    – William Broad, “The Hidden Travels of The Bomb,” NY Times, 12/9/08: “Thomas C. Reed, a veteran of the Liverpool weapons laboratory in California and a former secretary of the Air Force and Danny B. Stillman, former director of intelligence at Los Alamos, have teamed up in “The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and its Proliferation” to show the importance of moles, scientists with divided loyalties and – most important – the subtle and not so subtle interests of nuclear states… It also names many conflicted scientists, including luminaries like Isidor I. Rabi. The Nobel laureate worked on the Manhattan Project in World War II and later sat on the board of governors of the Weizmann Institute of Science, a birthplace of Israel’s nuclear arms… A lesser pathway involves France. The book says it drew on Manhattan Project veterans and shared intimate details of its bomb program with Israel, with whom it had substantial commercial ties. By 1959, the book says, dozens of Israeli scientists “were observing and participating in” the French program of weapons design. The book adds that in early 1960, when France detonated its first bomb, doing so in the Algerian desert, “two nations went nuclear.” And it describes how the United States turned a blind eye to Israel’s own atomic developments. It adds that, in the autumn of 1966, Israel conducted a special, non-nuclear test “2,600 feet under the Negev desert.” The next year it built its first bomb.  Israel, in turn, shared its atomic secrets with South Africa. The book discloses that the two states exchanged some key ingredients for the making of atom bombs: tritium to South Africa, uranium to Israel. And the authors agree with military experts who hold that Israel and South Africa in 1979 jointly detonated a nuclear device in the South Atlantic near Prince Edward Island, more than one thousand miles south of Cape Town. Israel needed the test, it says, to develop a neutron bomb.”
  • 48. Israel complies with International law and International obligations
    – [http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/un.html]
    – [http://www.muckrakerreport.com/id396.html]
  • 49. Arabs in Israel are treated equal.  Variant, Israel is a Democracy
    – See detailed analysis of some Israeli laws here: [http://www.mediamonitors.net/mazin6.html] and her [http://qumsiyeh.org/chapter7/]
    –Database of Discriminatory Israeli laws compiled by Adalah
    – Amnesty International reported: “In Israel several laws are explicitly discriminatory. These can be traced back to Israel’s foundation in 1948 which, driven primarily by the racist genocide suffered by Jews in Europe during the Second World War, was based on the notion of a Jewish state for Jewish people. Some of Israel’s laws reflect this principle and as a result discriminate against non-Jews, particularly Palestinians who had lived on the lands for generations. Various areas of Israeli law discriminate against Palestinians. The Law of Return, for instance, provides automatic Israeli citizenship for Jewish immigrants, whereas Palestinian refugees who were born and raised in what is now Israel are denied even the right to return home. Other statutes explicitly grant preferential treatment to Jewish citizens in education, public housing, health, and employment.” ‘Racism and the Administration of Justice’, Amnesty International (2001), also found at [http://www.amnestyusa.org/stoptorture/racismreport.pdf]
    – Human Rights Watch on an aspect of Israel racist structures
    “The state controls 93 percent of the land in Israel, and a government agency, the Israel Land Administration (ILA), manages and allocates this land. The ILA lacks any mandate to disburse land in a fair and just fashion, and members of the Jewish National Fund, which has an explicit mandate to develop land for Jewish use only, constitute almost half of the ILA’s governing council, occupying all the seats not held by Israeli government ministries.” [http://hrw.org/reports/2008/iopt0308/]
    – To quote Israeli Arab writer and Knesset Member, Ahmed Tibi: “…dutifully defining the state [of Israel] as ‘Jewish and democratic,’ ignores the fact that in practice ‘democratic’ refers to Jews, and the Arabs are nothing more than citizens without citizenship.” (Ma’ariv, 1.6.2005)
    – Jewishness versus democracy – By Azmi Bishara
    – Is Israel a democracy
    – U.S. State Department report on International Religious Freedom: “Arabs in Israel…are subject to various forms of discrimination.. (the government)  does not provide Israeli Arabs…with the same quality of education, housing,  employment opportunities as Jews.”
    – Ronnie Kasrils, minister for intelligence in the South African government and of the Jewish faith: “The Palestinian minority in Israel has for decades been denied basic equality in health, education, housing and land possession, solely because it is not Jewish. The fact that this minority is allowed to vote hardly redresses the rampant injustice in all other basic human rights. They are excluded from the very definition of the ‘Jewish state’, and have virtually no influence on the laws, or political, social and economic policies.  Hence, their similarity to the black South Africans [under apartheid].” (The Guardian, 25 May 2005)
    – “The Committee [UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights] notes with grave concern that the Status Law of 1952 authorizes the World Zionist Organization/Jewish Agency and its subsidiaries, including the Jewish National Fund, to control most of the land in Israel, since these institutions are chartered to benefit Jews exclusively. Despite the fact that the institutions are chartered under private law, the State of Israel nevertheless has a decisive influence on their policies and thus remains responsible for their activities. A State party cannot divest itself of its obligations under the Covenant by privatizing governmental functions. The Committee takes the view that large-scale and systematic confiscation of Palestinian land and property by the State and the transfer of that property to these agencies constitute an institutionalized form of discrimination because these agencies by definition would deny the use of these properties to non-Jews. Thus, these practices constitute a breach of Israel’s obligations under the Covenant. [http://www.unhchr.ch:80/tbs/doc.nsf/Symbol/df35bf5b5ee94d01802566d5003dd6cd?Opendocument]
    – “The Israeli-Arab sector suffers from discrimination with regards to government services”, outgoing Israeli Northern Police District chief, Commissioner Ya’akov Borovsky to Maariv newspaper, 8/31/04 [http://www.maarivintl.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=printArticle&articleID=10778]
    – Israel’s Strategic Threat by NEVE GORDON (on the persecution of anyone trying to change Israel to a democratic state for its citizens), The Nation, 4/30/07
    [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070430/gordon]
    – “Unrecognized Palestinians” (on the racism and oppression of Palestinians within the “Green line”/Palestine 1948) [http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6719]
    – Israel: Multiple patterns of internal displacement affect several ethnic and religious groups.  Summary report in PDF: [http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004BE3B1/(httpInfoFiles)/179CDBD849DB9626C125734700336ADC/$file/Israel_Overview_Aug 07.pdf]
    Full report in PDF: http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004BE3B1/(httpInfoFiles)/19DE321CE3CA6F50C125734700346BA5/$file/Israel+-August+2007.pdf
    – Click here for very interesting program (four videos) about Palestinians in ’48. It’s called Blue ID and is a 5 part program being shown on an Israeli TV channel. In Artabic and Hebrew
    – Palestinians in Israel: You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet By Anton Shammas
    [http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/journal/vol3no1/palest.html]
    – “The following lists may not run in the elections: A list which acts directly or indirectly against the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people ….”
    [http://www.knesset.gov.il/deSCRIPTion/eng/eng_mimshal_beh.htm#6]
    In other words, if you oppose Israel being “the state of the Jewish people” (ie. advocate that it be a state of its citizens) you cannot run.
    – Ehud Olmert, then Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, commented in April 2004 that; “More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against ‘occupation,’ in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle – and ultimately a much more powerful one. For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state.”[29] Olmert made a similar remark in November 2007: “If the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then the State of Israel is finished.”[30][31][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_apartheid_analogy]
    -¨Hazem Jamjoum: Not an Analogy: Israel and the Crime of Apartheid.¨http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10440.shtml
  • 50. Israel does not torture Palestinian Prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions
    -[http://www.stoptorture.org.il/eng/]
    –Israeli torture specialist telling lies
    –Truth on Torture by Amnesty International
  • 51. Zionists believe in and allow free speech
    – [The case is closed]: How human rights activists are targeted
    –Zionism’s first political assassination: When Dutch poet and journalist Jacob Israel de Haan became too vocal with his anti-Zionist writing in Mandatory Palestine, the Haganah silenced him
  • 52. Zionism was a response to anti-Semitism (corollary Palestinians are anti-Semites)
    – I urge everyone top read Lenni Brenner’s book “51 Documents: History of Nazi-Zionist Collaboration”. Click here for a take. Here is an example of a message to Nazi Germany asking for alliance by a group led by a future Prime Minister of Israel (Menachem Begin) and a leader of Likud (Sharon’s party).
    -Who broke the boycott of Nazi Germany in the 1930s (yes, it was the Zionists), see Edwin Black, the Transfer agreement.
    – FDR, Ruth Gruber and me: Zionists stymie WWII rescue plan, by Ronald Bleier October 2006
    – See also this from Kasztner
    – Bauer, Yehuda, Jews for sale?: Nazi-Jewish negotiations, 1933-1945, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1994.
    – There are lots more data.  A summary is in Chapter 6 of my book.
    – “Escaping Auschwitz: A Culture of Forgetting” by Ruth Linn, Cornell U. Press, 2004. It’s about Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler who escaped from Auschwitz in 1944 and gave detailed information to the Jewish Council of Slovakia that could have saved a large proportion of the Hungarian Jews who had not yet been deported. But the Jewish Council suppressed the information in order to get a trainload of their own (Zionist) people out and aided in the death of 437,000 Hungarian Jews.
    -Holocaust survivors speak out on Israel (videos): Hajo Meyer (author of The End of Judaism: An Ethical Tradition Betrayed.  G. MeyerBooks, 2007) and Hedy Epstein (strip searched at Ben Gurion’s airport)
    -This note from Hajo G. Meyer, 85 y.o. survivor of the concentration camps: “Are you aware that besides the Ha’avarah agreement the terrorist and murderer Avraham Stern had written to the Nazis on January 11th 1941 to fight with his Irgun forces together with the Nazis against the British! That is, I think, still stronger stuff.  Cordial regards. Hajo “
  • 53. Zionists do not deny other peoples sufferings (other than Palestinians)
    The long term denial and lobby against recognition of the Armenian Genocide remains the classic example.
  • 54. Israel is not an apartheid regime
    – Read the study:  Apartheid; Ancient, Past, and Present: Systematic and Gross Human Rights Violations in Graeco-Roman Egypt, South Africa, and Israel/Palestine, Vienna: Gesellschaft fur Phenomenologie und kritische Anthropologie, 2007, 3 rd edition, [http://www.dada.at/gems/gesellschaft/Apartheid.pdf]
    – “Brothers in arms – Israel’s secret pact with Pretoria,” By Chris McGreal,  The Guardian, February 7, 2006
    [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/feb/07/southafrica.israel]
    -In March 2002, former attorney-general, Michael Ben-Yair even admitted Israel’s apartheid essence: “We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one “progressive, liberal” in Israel; and the other “cruel, injurious” in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.”
    -The architect of apartheid in South Africa — Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd  — wrote in 1961: “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state” [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hendrik_Verwoerd]
    – Israeli laws is an apartheid state [http://www.badil.org/al-majdal/2008/summer/articles02.htm]
    -The collaboration between apartheid Israel and the apartheid regime of South Africa. “During the second world war the future South African prime minister John Vorster was interned as a Nazi sympathiser. Three decades later he was being feted in Jerusalem. In the second part of his remarkable special report, Chris McGreal investigates the clandestine alliance between Israel and the apartheid regime, cemented with the ultimate gift of friendship – A-bomb technology” [http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1704037,00.html]
    – [http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1703245,00.html]
    -“Disengagement in Gaza, Consolidation in the West Bank”.. Ariel Sharon and his right hand man Dov Weisglass
    -“Us here, them there” Ehaud Barak
    –Arnon Sofer calls for an explicit policy of “geographic separation and ethnic separation” to solve the “demographic problem”
    -From former Israel Attorney General Michael Ben Yair who wrote on 3/3/2002: “We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupie territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one – progressive, liberal – in Israel; and the other – cruel, injurious – in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.
    -Desmond Tutu on israeli apartheid [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1957644.stm]
    Apartheid Israel: A Beacon of Hope? By Prof. VIRGINIA TILLEY Counterpunch, 5 December 2006 [http://counterpunch.org/tilley12052006.html]
    – Shulamit Aloni, a former minister of education in Israel, confirms, in an article in the Israeli daily, the aparheid nature of Israeli policies: “The US Jewish Establishment’s onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practises a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp. … Indeed Apartheid does exist here. …” { Yediot Acharonot, Jan. 5, 2007}
    – Derek Tozer, an Israeli thinker, stated: “The official policy of the government (of Israel) is unequivocal. Arabs, like the Jews in Nazi Germany, are officially “class B citizens, a fact which is recorded on their identity cards.”
    – The late Professor Israel Shahak, a Holocaust survivor and chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, summed it up accurately in his statement: “It is my considered opinion that the state of Israel is a racist state in the full meaning of this term. In this state, people are discriminated against, in the most permanent and legal way and in the most important areas of life, only because of their origin. This racist discrimination began in Zionism and is carried today mainly in co-operation with the institutions of the Zionist movement.” (Quote taken from “The Racist Nature of Zionism and of the Zionist State of Israel”, an article published in Pi-Ha’aton, the weekly newspaper of the students of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Nov. 5, 1975.)
    – the architect of apartheid in South Africa — Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd  — wrote in 1961:  “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state”. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hendrik_Verwoerd
    – http://www.badil.org/al-majdal/2008/summer/articles02.htm
    Recommended Books
    – Settler Colonialism in South Africa and the Middle East, George Jabbour, 1970;
    – Israel and South Africa: The Progression of a Relationship, Richard Stevens and Abdelwahhab Elmessiri, 1976;
    – Undercutting Sanctions: Israel, the U.S. and South Africa, Jane Hunter, 1986;
    – Besieged Bedfellows: Israel and the Land of Apartheid, Benjamin Joseph, 1988
  • 55. Israel won the confrontation with Hizballah in summer 2006
    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ12Ak01.html
    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ13Ak01.html
    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ14Ak01.html
  • 56. Muslims cannot assimilate in Western countries
    On Muslims in America: “Assimilation is Not a Disappearing Act”
  • 57. Jihad and Mujahideen refers to violence against infidels/non-muslims
    – Partial Translation of Sunan Abu-Dawud, Book 37: Book 37, Number 4330: Narrated AbuSa’id al-Khudri:
    The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: The best jihad in the path of Allah is (to speak) a word of justice to an oppressive ruler.
    http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/abudawud/037.sat.html#037.4330
  • 58. Israeli academics are generally liberals who support human rights
    Silence means a boycott is justified: Israeli academics are not standing up for their Palestinian counterparts, and a boycott is the best way forward, says Amjad Barham May 24, 2007
    http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/catindex28
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1003-05.htm
    http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/2011/education%20book.pdf
  • 59. Israel seeks peace with Syria
    Operation peace for the winery: Israel does not want peace with Syria by Gideon Levy [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/769339.html]
    CCR client Maher Arar was changing planes at JFK on his way home to Canada from a family vacation when he was detained by the U.S. authorities (themselves collaborating with Israel) and ‘rendered’ to Syria, where he was tortured and held for nearly a year video: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ufVGy]
  • 60. The mainstream media is biased against Israel
    The reverse is true. There are lots of objective and documented evidence to the bias against Palestinians.
    Great analysis with statistical data  is found at [http://ifamericansknew.org]
    Buying the War on Palestinians: The US Media, The New York Times and Israel by Patrick O’Connor [http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=12742]
    Video [http://www.ifamericansknew.org/about_us/goldberg.html]
    American Media Miss the boat: For USA Today Freedom of the Press Means the Right to Report It Wrong” [http://ifamericansknew.org/media/misslib.html]
    [http://www.ameu.org/page.asp?iid=262&aid=530&pg=1]
    Article on Israel-centric media folks pushing teh war on Iraq with an appendix compiled by Jewish American writer on list of Zionist Jews in the media [http://desip.igc.org/ConvergingAgendas.html]
  • 61. Boycotts and Divestment are immoral and anti-Semitic
    – Visit [Boycotts and Divestment] for compilations of websites and information
  • 62. Zionism represent Jews or at least mainstream Judaism
    – There are literally hundreds of books on the subject of Jewish Anti-Zionism. A Statement to the 1919 Peace Conference by prominent U.S. Jews (including one Congressman): “We raise our voices in warning and protest against the demand of the Zionists for the reorganization of the Jews as a national unit, to whom, now or in the future, territorial sovereignty in Palestine shall be committed. This demand not only misrepresents the trend of the history of the Jews, who ceased to be a nation 2000 years ago, but involves the limitation and possible annulment of the larger claims of Jews for full citizenship and human rights in all lands in which those rights are not yet secure. For the very reason that the new era upon which the world is entering aims to establish government everywhere on principles of true democracy, we reject the Zionistic project of a “national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.” … As to the future of Palestine, it is our fervent hope that what was once a “promised land” for the Jews may become a “land of promise” for all races and creeds, safeguarded by the League of Nations which, it is expected, will be one of the fruits of the Peace Conference to whose deliberations the world now looks forward so anxiously and so full of hope. We ask that Palestine be constituted as a free and independent state, to be governed under a democratic form of government recognizing no distinctions of creed or race or ethnic descent, and with adequate power to protect the country against oppression of any kind. We do not wish to see Palestine, either now or at any time in the future, organized as a Jewish State
    Quoted in Roselle Tekiner, Samir Abed-Rabbo and Norton Mezvinsky, eds., Anti-Zionism: Analytical Reflections, (New York: Amana Books, 1988). [http://www.codoh.com/zionweb/ziondark/zionopp01.html]
  • 63. Arabs oppress women
    – The forgotten “-ism”: An Arab American Women’s perspective on Zionism, Racism, and Sexism [http://www.awsa.net/forgottenism.pdf]
  • 64. Zionsits have been honest (Many more lies uncovered)
    – Israel’s surprising best seller contradicts founding ideology, Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada, 8 October 2008
    [http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9884.shtml]
    – Book refuting Jewish taboo on Israel’s bestseller list[http://thenational.ae/article/20081006/FOREIGN/279853798]
    – 12 Conventional lies by Uri Avnery [http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story658.html]
    – The fake Lebanese
    – Zionist Rabbi fakes his own stabbing
    – Delusional fabrication: Propaganda tools of Israel and American Zionists By Paul J. Balles
    -The many false flag operations from the Lavon Affairs to assasinations of faction leaders blaming it on other leaders.
    -‘Undercover Israeli combatants threw stones at IDF soldiers in West Bank’: Testimony by commander of the Israeli Prison Service’s elite ‘Masada’ unit sheds light on IDF methods in countering demonstrations against barrier. By Chaim Levinson
    – French women sentenced for faking anti-Semitic attack
    “The IDF acknowledged Friday that Israeli gunfire was responsible for the wounding of the American photographer shot last week in Bethlehem. Yola Monakhov, 26, was on assignment for The Associated Press last Saturday when she was shot in the abdomen. She suffered extensive internal injuries and fractures to the pelvis … Previously, the army said it had no evidence of a journalist being shot that afternoon. An army spokesman, Yarden Vatikay, had said a soldier fired only one live round very accurately at the leg of a Palestinian man. The army also had suggested that Monakhov may have been shot by a Palestinian bullet.” Associated Press November 17, 2000
    – “The (Israeli military psychological warfare) unit’s activities have been controversial for years. In October 1999, Aluf Benn revealed in Haaretz that members of the unit used the Israeli media to emphasize reports initiated by the unit that it managed to place in the Arab press. He reported that the news reports focused on Iranian and Hezbollah involvement in terror activity. Psychological warfare officers were in touch with Israeli journalists covering the Arab world, gave them translated articles from Arab papers (which were planted by the IDF) and pressed the Israeli reporters to publish the same news here.” IDF reviving psychological warfare unit, Haaretz 1/25/05 [http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/531712.html]
    – Mossad Exposed in Phony Palestinian Al-Qaeda’ Caper
    – Israeli torture specialist telling lies
    – In an article in USA Today titled “Let our kids alone, Arafat told,” Matthew Kalman reported (December 8, 2000) that “In a rare letter of protest sent this week to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a Palestinian women’s group demanded that the Palestinian Authority stop using children as cannon fodder.”  He goes on to state that this group is a Women Union in Tulkarem.” I took the liberty to investigate this outrageous claim and the messages I got so far from Women Associations in the West Bank in general and Tulkarm in specific showed no evidence for his claim.(contacts Suheir Azzouni watcorg@palnet.com  and gupw@palnet.com (letter of Dec 19, 2000)
    – “The Secretary-General has reviewed the report by the Investigation Team from the Secretariat which has inquired into the Israeli allegations against UNRWA personnel. The Secretary-General takes note of the Team’s conclusion that the allegation that a rocket was loaded into an UNRWA ambulance was unjustified as the object, in fact, was a folding stretcher of the type carried as normal equipment in UNRWA ambulances. He also takes note that, following the Team’s visit, the Government of Israel has admitted that it wrongly identified the stretcher as a Qassam Rocket and has publicly withdrawn the allegations.” SECRETARY-GENERAL NOTES ISRAEL’S WITHDRAWAL OF ROCKET ALLEGATION AGAINST UNRWA Report, UN News, 27 October 2004
    – Darfur used for Israeli PR efforts [http://ww4report.com/node/2582]
    – Israel use of “targeted killing” is defended by Israeli spokesperson but is extrajudicial executions that are illegal under international law (see reposrts by Human rights organizations like Amnesty, Human Righst Watch etc)65. Palestinian law implements a death penalty on anyone who sells lands to Jews.We are a people under occupation and remain so.  The Palestinian authority does not legislate anything that is contrary to Israeli wishes because they do not have that kind of authority (read Oslo I and Oslo II accords).  The Palestinian authority does recognize Jordanian laws operating in this area before and after 1967.  This is because International law says that laws cannot be changed by an occupier (in this case Israel) and Israel indeed could not change any of the operating Jordanian laws. Of course they did selective enforcement of these laws.  There happens to be a Jordanian law of 1973 which proscribes selling lands to the enemy as treason because such lands would be used as bases for infiltration.  The enemy is Israel not Jews.  For example native Samaritans bought and sold lands in Nablus area in the West Bank from/to fellow Palestinians (Christians and Muslims) before and after 1967 and before and after this law of 1973.  Selling to Jews is not the same as selling to the enemy. Imagine what would happen in the US if a US citizen sold a track of land in 1942 to non US citizens who are citizens and supporters of the Third Reich.  Treason is treason. The Jordanian law that proscribes selling land to the enemy (Being Israel is an enemy) is posted here http://www.lob.gov.jo/ui/laws/search_no.jsp?no=30&year=1973
    And it does not mention death penalty but does mention treason (which I guess can carry death penalties in most countries depending on severity of treason)I myself am against the death penalty but the US has death penalty including for for severe acts of treason and it was carried out fairly frequently.  Nearly half the countries on earth still do. To my knowledge no Palestinian was executed under this Jordanian law (one from Hebron who was buying lands from fellow Palestinians and selling it systematically to Zionists was convicted under the law but to my knowledge he was not executed). Now you have to realize that Israel is a colonial state built by theft from Palestinians.  Only a very tiny fraction of the 93% of the land of Palestine (less than 2%) was actually purchased from Palestinians (and no they were not executed).  Most of the land now under control by the Jewish National Fund and Israel Land Authority and most of the private lands controlled by Jewish Israelis was acquired via the usual colonial methods (there are about 101 such ways other than a willing commercial transaction). Finally, International law says the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza are occupied territories subject to the fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its population to the occupied lands.  Such violations of International law are considered crimes against humanity.  So even if a Palestinian was willing to sell knowingly to a colonial occupier, both the buyer and the seller are engaged in crimes against humanity. BTW, colonized people in the past all behaved the same in that most of them condemned treason and some of them did engage in treason (Algerians, South Africans, Vietnamese, Native Americans etc).As for “Sharia law” (and most common law), I do not know what this person is talking about or its relevance here.  If you injure someone you should compensate them for the injury.  When you kill someone, you do not only pay money.  If you steal something and still have it, restitution means return of stolen property (plus punishment per common law). In the case of Palestinian property taken from them, there is basic International law (applicable to inhabitants and their descendants of the 534 Palestinian towns and villages that were destroyed and ethnically cleansed in the process of creating a “Jewish state” in Palestine).For the right of refugees to return to their homes and lands (a totally unrelated subject), see
    http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/ref-qumsiyeh.html
    http://qumsiyeh.org/chapter4/-For other issues on lands etc, see http://qumsiyeh.org/liesandtruths/

    Finally I do feel these issues are mostly distractions from the core issues such as role of Zionism among Jews, tribalism, racism, colonialism etc. Those are the issues that should be discussed. I suggest that Ron read books like those by Jewish theologian Marc Ellis and Jewish intellectual Mark Braverman instead of trying to reiterate typical (and long discredited) Zionist talking points… We are 12 million Palestinians, 7 million of us are refugees or displaced people. Trying to vilify the victims with red herrings just does not work in the 21st century (unfortunately it partially worked in 16-18th century North America).

    66. We left Gaza only to continue to be attacked
    “The Gaza Bombshell”, by David Rose in “Vanity Fair”, APRIL 2008
    SYNOPSIS: “After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, the author reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever”
    [http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804]

    ———————–
    U.S. Army Officers Say: ‘Mossad May Blame Arabs

    No more heroes? Digging deeper into the Masada myth
    50 years after the first archaeological digs, mystery remains: Did any battle happen there at all?
    http://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium-1.563888

    “In what may be part of a systematic effort by Israeli internal security forces to use journalism as a cover for intelligence-gathering, agents from Israel’s General Security Services, also known as the Shin Bet, impersonated a veteran Israeli television news correspondent.”
    Committee for the Protection of Journalists, 1997

    Statement by prominent American Jews to the Paris peace conference 1919 stating their opposition to a Jewish state

    CRITICISM OF ISRAEL ANTI-SEMITIC? Shooting the messengers [http://MondeDiplo.com/2007/09/06carter]

    Whose arming Israel? (a concise report that could be made into a flyer)

    “I have always said that if the deepest and profoundest hope symbolizing redemption is the re-building of the Jewish Temple . . . then it is obvious that those mosques (al-Haram al-Sharif and al-Aqsa) will have, one way or another, to disappear one of these days . . . Had it not been for Deir Yasin – half a million Arabs would be living in the state of lsrael. The state of Israel would not have existed. We must not disregard this, with full awareness of the responsibility involved. All wars are cruel. There is no way out of that. This country will either be Eretz Israel with an absolute Jewish majority and a small Arab minority, or Eretz Ishmael, and Jewish emigration will begin again if we do not expel the Arabs one way or another”. (Israel Eldad (Scheib), leader of LEHI terror group with Shamir. ‘On the Spirit That Was Revealed in the People’, De’ot, Winter 1968; as quoted in Davis and Mezvinsky (eds.) Documents from Israel (1967-1973, pp.l86-7).

    Besides the lies, there is what is not permitted to be told.  Facts long suppressed
    Huntleigh USA that oversaw security at Newark and Boston airports during 9/11/01 is a wholly-owned subsidiary of an Israeli company called International Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS) International N.V., a Netherlands-based aviation and transportation security firm headed by Israelis.

    Other lies (we will collect documents on these in due time)

    Mavi Marmara report (challenges the Israeli lies about their murders) http://coldtype.net/Assets.11/pdfs/0311.Mavi.hr.pdf

    The Checkpoint: Terror, Power, and Cruelty by Oded Na’aman (an insight into the thinking of the Israeli occupation soldiers) http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.4/oded_naaman_israeli_defense_forces_palestinians_occupation.php

    Palestinians (e.g. the Mufti of Jerusalem) supported Hitler because they hated Jews.
    Which was more important: Mufti-Nazi or Zionist-Nazi collaboration?
    http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_56434.shtml

    Israel attacked Lebanon in the summer of 2006 because Arabs were holding Israeli soldiers captive.  These soldiers had never strayed onto Lebanese territory.

    There is no partner for peace
    Arab League proposal)

    Israel accepted partition plan
    Israel didn’t accept the partition plan/ they violated it immediately)

    Palestinian Muslims are responsible for any measurable decrease in the Christian population of the occupied areas

    ============
    In follow-up to the issues of organ trading in Israel and by Israel-linked individuals, I compiled a few relevant links:
    Translation of the Swiss Article:
    http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8390&lg=en
    And other relevant stories/articles that illustrate that there is more to this subject than meets the eye:
    AlisonWier’s examination of Israeli organ theft and trafficking has just been published by CounterPunch:¨http://www.counterpunch.org/weir08282009.html
    Gilad Atzmon – Organ Donation and Theft in Contemporary Jewish Folklore
    http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/08/30/gilad-atzmon-organ-donation-and-theft-in-contemporary-jewish-folklore/
    Khalid Amayrah analyzes the Israeli frenzied attack on the newspaper
    http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/962/re53.htm
    The Hidden Truth About Israel Kidney Theft Ring (Tying in the New Jersey arrests)
    http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2009/07/butchers-hidden-truth-about-israels.html
    Israeli suspected of organ trafficking
    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1178020745802
    Suspect in international organ trafficking ring testifies Israeli government financed transplants
    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0YUG/is_2_14/ai_n17208591/
    Portrait of Gaddy Tauber: Organs Trafficker, Holocaust Survivor

    Click to access CLASFall2006-ScheperHughes-small.pdf

    International organ trafficking scheme has transplant community scrambling.
    http://www.thefreelibrary.com/International+organ+trafficking+scheme+has+transplant+community…-a0129565045
    http://www.thefreelibrary.com/_/print/PrintArticle.aspx?id=129565045     (same as above link)

    There are maps at (see Geopolitical Map of Jerusalem)
    http://www.arij.org/eye-on-palestine/maps.html

    For a report on Silwan, see
    http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=1053
    For a report on Sheikh Jarrah, see
    http://www.poica.org/editor/case_studies/view.php?recordID=1472

    For additional information, visit:
    Silwan Information Center http://silwanic.net/
    Civil Coalition for Defending the Palestinians’ Rights in Jerusalem http://www.ccdprj.ps
    Jerusalem Legal Aid & Human Rights Center  http://www.mosaada.org/

    13 Israelis on world’s billionaires list
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4200001,00.html

    Who are the world’s richest Jews?
    http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/who-are-the-world-s-richest-jews-1.284252

    Example of World billionaires and their political views on Israel
    Bill Gates Microsoft invested heavily in apartheid Israel and Gates think Israel is part of Silicon Valley
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3159576,00.html
    Warren Buffett Thinks Israel best place to invest
    http://www.takeapen.org/Takeapen/Templates/showpage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=84&FID=733
    Bernard Arnault: Jewish and supporter of Apartheid Israel (numerous statements and investments)
    Larry Ellison (of Oracle): Jewish and strong supporter of Zionism http://jn1.tv/video/israel?media_id=18408
    Stefen Persson (H&M) findis Israel vogue
    http://mondoweiss.net/2010/03/pressure-mounts-on-swedish-clothing-chain-that-finds-israel-vogue.html
    Karl Albrecht gave numerous seminars in Israel and considers Israeli businessmen (most of tehm ex-military officials) to be ethnical leaders
    Charles Koch funds islamophobia to help Israel
    http://alexbkane.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/koch-brothers-also-funding-islamophobia/

    Ben-Yehuda, Nachman, The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Myth-
    making in Israel (U of Wisconsin, 1995)
    Fox, Edward, Palestine Twilight: The Murder of Dr. Albert Glock and the
    Archaeology of the Holy Land (Harper Collins, 2001)
    Gottwald, Norman, The Tribes of Yahweh (Maryknoll, 1979)

    A review of the film by Yotam Feldman “The Lab” which discusses how Israel tests weapons on us the Palestinians so that they can make billions selling these weapons to other oppressors. Palestinians as Laboratory Guinea Pigs

    Israelis Turning Blood into Money: The Lab Review

    Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state’s possession of nuclear weapons
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons

March 31, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Americans protest US police shootings

356640_Albuquerque-Protest

Press TV – March 31, 2014

Hundreds of American demonstrators held a march in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Sunday to protest fatal shootings by the police, including the one that led to the killing of James Boyd, a homeless man who lived on the foothills of a mountain outside the city.

The protest came days after the emergence of a YouTube video which threatened retaliation of the police shooting of Boyd and called for protest marches.

The demonstration began Sunday afternoon and continued into the early evening as people marched around the city and chanted “no justice, no peace!” Police said the march was an unlawful assembly.

Alexander Siderits, 23, said he was “fed up” with how police treat citizens. “It has reached a boiling point,” he said, “and people just can’t take it anymore.”

A similar demonstration was also held last Tuesday during which protestors chanted “We want justice,” holding signs “APD is guilty,” and demanded justice for Boyd.

Boyd, 38, was killed on March 16 by police officers while camping in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains on the east side of Albuquerque. Police accused him of setting up an illegal camp in an open space and fired six times at him.

A helmet camera video showed the homeless gathering his belongings and turning away to leave the area just before the police shot him.

Last week, Albuquerque police shot another man dead at a public housing complex.

Since 2010, the city’s police officers have been involved in 37 shooting incidents, 23 of them deadly, with critics saying that is far too many for a department serving a city of about 555,000.

The police department has been under investigation by the US Justice Department for more than a year. It now faces complaints of civil rights violations and allegations of excessive use of force.

~~~

See also: Tear gas & batons: Albuquerque riot police disperse protesters

March 31, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Ecuador does not recognize Ukraine’s ‘illegitimate’ govt – Correa

RT | March 30, 2014

Ecuador has said it will not deal with the coup-appointed government in Kiev and has called for fair elections. President Rafael Correa declared he would only negotiate with a “legitimate government” that represents the will of the Ukrainian people.

In his weekly address to the Ecuadorian people, Correa explained why Ecuador had abstained from the UN General Assembly vote Thursday that passed a resolution condemning Crimea’s union with Russia.

“We will not fall for a farce, we will only deal with a legitimate government,” said Correa, adding that Ecuador does not recognize the current government that is the product of a coup d’état. To win the support of Ecuador, Ukraine should hold democratic elections and establish a legitimate government chosen by the Ukrainian people, Correa said.

Moscow has also decried the coup-appointed government that came to power in Kiev at the end of February following weeks of bloody protests in the Ukrainian capital’s Independence Square.

“The current government is the product of devious machinations, to put to it mildly, clearly supported by hypocritical rhetoric from the West,” Correa said.

On Crimea’s decision to become a part of Russia and break from Ukraine, he said the region was “historically Russian,” but the Crimean referendum “does not change the constitution.”

With this in mind, Correa explained that Ecuador could not accept the stance of the Ukrainian government – which he described as an extension of the United States – or Moscow’s position until Crimea’s status had been clarified.

Ecuador, along with 58 other nations, abstained from a UN General Assembly vote Thursday that condemned Crimea’s referendum to join Russia as “illegal.” The resolution was supported by 100 nations, while 11 opposed it.

Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe all voted against the resolution.

Unlike UN Security Council resolutions, a General Assembly resolution is not legally binding.

Russia condemned the UN assembly vote as “confrontational” and undermining the referendum and the right to self-determination of the Crimean people. The initiative for Crimea to reunite with Russia came from the Crimean people themselves, not from Moscow, said Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin.

Russia also previously vetoed a Security Council resolution that said the Crimean referendum to join Russia would have “no validity” in an emergency session held the day before Crimea headed to the polls.

On March 16, an overwhelming majority of Crimean residents voted in favor of joining the Russian Federation, in the wake of bloody protests in Kiev that ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.

March 30, 2014 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Latin American Revolution: Chile’s New Government Wants To Open Up TPP

By Glyn Moody | Techdirt | March 28, 2014

Last year, the US government was adamant that TPP would be finished by the end of 2013. And yet here we are, well into 2014, with no sign that things are anywhere near completion. That slippage is more than just embarrassing: it could have major implications for the treaty. TPP has dragged on for so long there’s a new President in Chile, Michelle Bachelet, and she’s more doubtful than her predecessor about the value of TPP to her country and its people.

Those doubts are starting to make themselves felt. In a recent speech (original in Spanish), Bachelet said that she wanted Chile to regain its role as a promoter of Latin American integration. That would represent a turning away from TPP, which is based on the Pacific Rim, and only includes two three other countries from Latin America — Mexico, Colombia and Peru. In an interview with El Mercurio, Bachelet’s new Minister for External Relations, Heraldo Muñoz, echoed this policy shift by emphasizing the importance of improving his country’s relations with Brazil and Argentina. He also revealed some of Chile’s new thinking on TPP (original in Spanish):

“In my meeting with [USTR] Michael Froman, I expressed Chile’s position, which is to examine the content of the [TPP] negotiations with care, and to act transparently. We are going to consult with businesses, with civil society, so that these aren’t closed negotiations. In addition, I said to Froman that Chile has sensitive areas where we are not prepared to go beyond the FTA [free trade agreement] with the US. There are areas such as intellectual property, the regulation of state-owned companies, or the Central Bank, which are red lines for us.”

The theme of transparency was picked up in another interview, this time with the new director of Chile’s Department of International Economic Relations, Andrés Rebolledo, which appeared in La Segunda (original in Spanish):

“We received some criticism (for how the [TPP] negotiations were conducted previously) and it appeared to us that there’s an important opening for creating greater transparency with the various stakeholders who are involved and who are interested in the negotiations.”

Rebolledo aims to do this by creating a new advisory group, which will include not just business interests, but also NGOs and other civil society groups:

We will establish a dialog with them and we are going to hand over elements of the negotiations — those which are on the table, and of interest.

For us, as the government, it’s beneficial from the perspective that we will obtain inputs that will help us better conduct the negotiations.

For TPP, whose negotiations have been some of the most secretive ever, with almost no real transparency, the plans of Chile’s new President are not just a breath of fresh air, they are little short of revolutionary.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

March 28, 2014 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | , , , | Leave a comment

Should the left call for Taliban victory?

Socialist Worker | August 18, 2009

talibanAS SOCIALISTS, we support the right of oppressed peoples to fight for self-determination unreservedly, just as we oppose imperialism, without caveat.

This perspective is generally accepted by the left without question in contexts such as Latin America or Africa, where bitter fights against U.S. and European imperialism have been fought and, in some cases, won.

Yet, when it comes to the Middle East and Afghanistan today there is suddenly much less clarity about what radicals and Marxists should be saying. Nowhere is that more evident than in the case of Afghanistan, which has suffered under the yoke of U.S. imperialism since 2001 (with active U.S. interference in the country since at least the 1970s).

The idea that the Taliban, as a movement fighting against U.S. occupation, is a force we should be supporting is, unfortunately, a somewhat controversial position to hold, even on the far left. This is a serious mistake and speaks both to the extent to which Islamophobia has penetrated the left, as well as to the lack of understanding of the social dynamics of an oppressed and devastated country like Afghanistan.

We are all familiar with the lies and excuses used to justify the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Bush and his coterie of crooks and warmongers told us that only a military invasion could liberate the people, and especially the women, of Afghanistan from the brutal, misogynistic and “medieval” Taliban movement.

There was no mention, of course, of the substantial support offered to the Taliban regime in the late 1990s when Clinton was president and in the early days of the Bush presidency, nor of the long and ugly history of U.S. intervention in Central and South Asia, which was an important precondition for the rise of Islamism.

We should condemn unreservedly the oppression of women and the general social conservatism of the pre-2001 Taliban regime, as well, of course, as their efforts to cut deals with regional and global superpowers against the interests of the vast majority of Afghans. However, we must also unreservedly condemn the racism and Islamophobia used as an ideological fig leaf to justify invasion and imperialism, and it is the left’s weakness on this issue, which has blinded many to the new realities on the ground in Afghanistan.

Before addressing the important question of who the Taliban actually are, it is important to understand the material conditions Afghans face. Afghanistan is a devastated country. It is ranked at or near the bottom of a broad range of social indicators, such as levels of poverty, infant mortality, literacy, per capita income, prevalence of easily preventable diseases and so forth. Most major cities in Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul, are in ruins (despite claims of “reconstruction” by NATO imperialists) and decent roads, electricity, clean water, sanitation and basic social services are unheard of for most of the population, especially in the rural areas. The majority of the population ekes out a living on a subsistence basis, and the struggle for survival is the overarching concern for most Afghans.

In a nutshell, there is no Afghan working class or progressive petit bourgeoisie to speak of, and the major social classes (aside from the puppet regime and it’s assortment of bandits and thugs) are the poor peasantry and the Islamic clergy.

THE SIGNIFICANCE of this to a discussion of anti-imperialist resistance in Afghanistan should be obvious to any serious historical materialist. This question cannot be thought about in the abstract, it must be considered in light of the material realities on the ground. Such realities necessarily shape the kinds of social forces and the character of class struggle in that country and make it highly likely that any grassroots resistance will have a strongly religious character, given that the rural clergy are the only force capable of uniting the peasantry against the comprador ruling class.

The following point cannot be stressed enough; whilst the U.S. remains in Afghanistan, economic and social development will not occur much beyond current levels. This in turn means that the Taliban, as a broad-based movement of poor farmers and lower clergy, is the face of anti-imperialist resistance in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.

To put it another way, if we, as avowed anti-imperialists, intend to wait around for a resistance movement that agrees with us on every issue, including the need to fight the oppression of women, gays, racial and religious minorities, etc., we’ll be waiting a long time. The Taliban is the resistance in Afghanistan and we must support it, critically, but unreservedly.

The Taliban that ruled Afghanistan prior to the U.S. invasion no longer exists. The U.S. and NATO routinely refer to any act of resistance as the work of the “Taliban” (meaning the followers of Mullah Omar), much as every act of resistance in Iraq was the work of “Baath loyalists.”

To be sure, there are attacks being carried out by people who support the former regime, but many, perhaps most, resistance fighters have no particular loyalty to the former leadership and some are actively hostile to it.

Anand Gopal, one of the few independent journalists actively trying to find out what is actually happening in Afghanistan has written some very useful and insightful work on this, and as he points out, the ranks of the Taliban have been swelled in recent years by rural peasants who have been radicalized as a result of US/NATO brutality, including the indiscriminate air attacks which have killed thousands of Afghans.

The Taliban are increasingly espousing a strong nationalist message and, in some cases, have substantially moderated their social conservatism in order to build a more broad-based and effective resistance movement.

It is also the case that the “Taliban” is effectively a blanket term for a coalition of groups, some drawn from the tiny strata of educated middle class Afghans, which aim to eject foreign troops from their country. In short, when the U.S. and its allies use the term “Taliban” they want us to think of public stonings, music bans and ultra-conservative clerics–and if we follow their lead we do a grave disservice to the Afghan resistance and only help to perpetuate Islamophobic caricatures of “crazed, bearded extremists.”

There is no fundamental difference between the liberation theology movements in South America and the popular Islamist resistance movements in the Middle East and Asia, movements such as Hezbollah, Hamas and the Taliban. To be sure, the former were less socially conservative, but as religiously colored grassroots resistance movements they are essentially the same kind of manifestation of class resistance.

The left needs to ask itself why it is much more critical of Muslims expressing class anger in a religious form than of South American Christians; to my mind, unexamined Islamophobia explains much of this discrepancy.

March 25, 2014 Posted by | Islamophobia, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Is the BDS Democratic?

Open letter to Omar Barghouti, Co-founder, PACBI

By Paul Larudee | Dissident Voice | March 23, 2014

Dear Omar,

Let me start by saying that you have done a lot for BDS and that BDS has done a lot for the Palestinian cause.  It is perhaps for this reason that we should all be concerned with potential corruption of the movement, and you most of all.  I refer to changes of wording, changes of direction and changes of priority within the movement.

The change of wording is the infamous four words “occupied in June, 1967″ inserted into the first of three objectives in the mission statement portion of the 2005 BDS Call signed by 173 Palestinian organizations, such that the statement now demands of Israel:

“Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall…” (added phrase in italics)

I understand your argument that this phrase only clarifies the meaning of the original statement, and that it changes the meaning not at all.  Even so, who gave you the right to make the change without consulting and getting the approval of the signatories to the original call?  Why was it inserted without even telling anyone, such that no one but you even knows when it was done?  If it is so uncontroversial, why not get it approved?

Why is the phrase needed, anyway?  You argue that it results in no change of meaning.  Why, then, is it not superfluous?  Since it is a bone of contention, just remove it and be done with it.

I also understand that the offending phrase occurs only in the ”Introducing the BDS Movement” section of the website and that the original wording is preserved elsewhere.  However, this is at best misleading and at worst disingenuous.  The “Introducing the BDS Movement” section reproduces the three demands from the 2005 Call completely verbatim, except for the added four words, and then proceeds to make the claim that this wording is endorsed by the signatories of the 2005 BDS Call.

This is deceptive and even fraudulent and must be corrected.  The altered wording has even been mistakenly quoted by Max Blumenthal in his book Goliath as being the wording of the original BDS Call.  Your misrepresentation has led directly to his error.

However, the wording is not merely a technical problem.  The wording is apparently important to you.  But why?  Could it be that the wording was needed in order to satisfy individuals or groups or interests that demanded this wording?  Was it meant as an assurance that BDS would not demand the return of all lands stolen from Palestinians but only those lands that were stolen outside the Green Line?

If this is the case, it would explain why many “soft” Zionists, who want to maintain a Jewish state but give back the West Bank, now participate in BDS, but only against institutions that support the Israeli presence in the West Bank.

In fact, that is the current priority of the movement, with little or no Boycott, Divestment or Sanctions aimed at institutions that deny equal rights to Palestinian citizens of Israel or the Right of Return to Palestinians in the shatat (“diaspora”).

Is this a coincidence or is BDS headed in a different direction than its origins would indicate?  Is it no longer a Palestinian movement, but rather a “soft” Zionist movement?

Obviously, people join movements for different reasons, and if Zionists want to boycott organizations that do business with Israel – even if only in the West Bank – their contribution is welcome.

However, it is quite another matter to effectively turn over the reins of the movement to them or to accommodate them by changing the wording of the mission statement.  A Palestinian movement that welcomes Zionists that have limited objectives is quite different from a Zionist movement that wants to limit its mission but accepts Palestinians that have wider goals.

Is that what is going on?  Perhaps not.  Perhaps my concerns are exaggerated.  But in that case, please dispel all doubt by removing the four words.

Paul Larudee

Paul Larudee is one of the founders of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine Movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.

March 24, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Forces Kill 2 Palestinian Civilians and Armed Group Member and Wound 12 Civilians in Jenin Refugee Camp

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights | March 23, 2014

In excessive use of force, on Saturday, 22 March 2014, Israeli forces killed, 2 Palestinian civilians and a member of a Palestinian armed group and wounded 12 civilians and a member of the Palestinian National Security Forces in Jenin refugee camp, west of the northern West Bank town of Jenin. Israeli forces claimed via the Israeli media that they killed 3 Palestinians during armed clashes in the aforementioned refugee camp. However, investigations conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) investigations refute the Israeli claim and confirm that the two civilians were killed as Israeli forces opened fire heavily at dozens of civilians who were trying to pull and carry the militant’s body to the centre of the camp.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 02:00 on the Saturday, 22 March 2014, an Israeli special military force from “Alimam” Unit in the Israeli military, which is described as “an anti-terrorism unit” infiltrated into the south of Jenin refugee camp, west of Jenin. The Israeli force surrounded a two-story house belonging to the family of ‘Azmi Mohammed Mahmoud al-Hasaniyah (67) in Tal’et al-Ghabes area. Israeli forces then sent large military back-ups, which were deployed throughout the camp while Israeli drones were hovering overhead. Israeli snipers ascended roofs of nearby houses after they received information that Hamzah Jamal ‘Abdel Salam Abu al-Heijah (22), the local leader of the Izziddin al-Qassam brigades (the armed wing of Hamas), was in the house.

After the military back-ups had arrived, Israeli forces blew up the main door of the houses and opened fire. They then yelled at residents of the house to get out. When the residents were about to come out and Mohammed (23), the son of the house’s owner who is member of the Palestinian National Security Forces, opened the external door, he was shot in the left shoulder. Amidst the screams of his family, the shooting stopped and the residents began to get out one by one while Abu al-Heijah stayed in a room on the second floor. Israeli forces arrested Mohammed and his brother, Majd (18), and took the rest of the family members to a nearby house. They then entered a tracker dog into the house, but Hamzah killed it and this made the Israeli forces certain that he is in the house. As a result, Israeli forces showered the house with live bullets and shells fired by machine guns and then used shoulder-fired missiles. As a result, the house was partially destroyed. Meanwhile, armed clashes broke out between Palestinian militants, who were stationed in the areas of al-Sahah and Abu Thahir Mountain areas, and Hamzah from the house from one side and the Israeli forces, which were surrounding the house, from the other side. Hamzah took advantage of this and jumped from one of the western windows of the house. As soon as he stepped a few meters, snipers opened fired and immediately killed him. They left him for two hours and he bled to death in the alley. Young men then tried to pull his body, and Israeli forces opened fire at them. However, they managed to pull it. When they were passing by al-Sahah area, Israeli forces opened fire killing two of them: Yazan Mahmoud Basem Taha “Jabarin” (20) who was hit by a bullet to the chest; and Mahmoud ‘Omer Saleh Abu Zeinah (24), who also was hit by a bullet to the chest. When the news of the death of 3 persons spread out, the camp residents started coming out of their houses. Immediately, the Israeli snipers opened fire at these civilians wounding 11 of them, including a 65-year-old woman. Thus, the number of wounded persons mounted to 12 civilians. It should be mentioned that Hamzah Abu al-Heijah is the son of Jamal Abu al-Heijah, who is serving a sentence of 9 life imprisonments in the Israeli jails. Hamzah had been subject to several extra-judicial execution attempts, the last of which was on 18 December 2013 when an Israeli special unit targeted him. However, he managed to escape and Nafe’a Jamil Nafe’a al-Sa’adi was killed.

PCHR strongly condemns this crime, which further proves the use of excessive force by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians in disregard for their lives. PCHR calls upon the international community to take immediate and effective action to stop Israeli crimes and reiterates its call for the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their obligations under Article 1; i.e., to respect and to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances, and their obligation under Article 146 to prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. These grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and Protocol (I) Additional to the Geneva Conventions.

March 24, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment