Posts with the tag ISRAEL

Israel Palestine Peace Treaty

"Voice for Humanity" — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:05:19 EST

By Padmini Arhant

The fate of the two state solutions is hanging in balance and the peace process has once again come to a screeching halt. Initially, there appeared to be momentum on both sides until the controversial yet credible issues surfaced and ignored by the parties in default.

The contentious issues are -

Freezing Jewish settlements in West Bank and East Jerusalem in its entirety.

Honoring the Gaza report compiled by the Head of the UN Fact Finding Mission, Justice Richard Goldstone, overwhelmingly approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council and the U.N. General Assembly recently.

Article continued @http://www.padminiarhant.com

Thank you.

Padmini Arhant

You Are Blessed - A Message To Iran, Israel and Others

Queen E — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:58:12 EST

Dear Mr. President:

Please deliver this message to the people in the country of Iran, Israel, Africa and other countries you deem appropriate. There are victims of war who have lost their family and friends who are in pain. There are no psychiatrist, social workers, or counselors to help them heal from their pain in their country. I just feel that these few words may give a little comfort and help them calm down their anxiety and stress levels.

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

YOU ARE BLESSED – A Message To Iran, Israel, and Others

I am with you for justice, I am with you for freedoms, I am with you for the love of your God, your Allah, and your Jesus and I feel your pain.

I don’t pretend to know how you feel when someone raids your home and injures your family. I can only guess that your loss would cause you to want to strike back. And I don’t blame you. I blame your leaders of yesterday for the pain of today and so should you. The past years of bad leaders have contributed to so many of our family’s heartache, pain and suffering and there is no excuse for that.

I just would caution you to blame those past bad leaders and let your present leaders move you into a new age of health, freedom and justice for you all. I ask you to be patient with your new leaders of today and allow our new leaders to assist you with your new God given life because you are blessed. You were blessed to survive the bad leaders of the past and you should take pride of this blessing to work with your new leaders to promote peace, love, prosperity for living to not let the memory of your love one die but live forever in you.

You have been blessed with your health and strength by your God, by your Allah, by your Jesus. You are Blessed. How do I know? You are alive today and standing right here and now demanding respect. You are blessed by your God, your Allah, and your Jesus and you can testify to your new family of today about the past. You are blessed. Take your blessings seriously and work with your neighbor, work with your new government, work with your new leader in peace. Take your blessings of life and freedom and build up your neighborhood, build up your home and build up your life in peace.

You have withstood the test of time and war and therefore, you are blessed. I too am blessed. I have survived just as you have survived bad leaders of the past. I have survived just as you have survived wars of the past and I have survived just as you have survived discrimination of one’s race, discrimination of one’s beliefs. Yes, we are blessed.

We are blessed because we are alive and have survived. We must take our blessings from God and Allah to the future, to our future. We must take our blessings from God, from Allah, from Jesus and make peace for our future. We must take our blessings from God, from Allah, from Jesus and make our love ones who lost their life proud. Our Blessings from God and from Allah is not given to us without sacrifice or without loss or pain. It was given to us by our Gods for his paradise of peace and love. We are blessed.

We are chosen by Allah and God and Jesus for peace and for his love. I cannot take back what our bad leaders did in the past. I can only try to take my blessings into the future of hope for peace and love. I can only take my blessings to build a home for my family and build a peaceful and loving home for our country. You must take your blessings of life from God and Allah and Jesus to make a happy home and peaceful country for your family and to rebuild your home into the future because you are blessed.

Peace Be Unto You. Sincerely, Esther Mayberry

Click For Obama

Click For Obama — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:24:53 EDT

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Worship from Aiea, HI — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:36:38 EDT

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A Discussion on Israel . . .

"NERVIE" — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:13:04 EDT

As we all know, the situation in Israel is still being discussed by The Obama Administration and individuals are anxious that the Iran has a nuclear program. We need to know the facts behind the battling in Israel. This is not my event, however, I encourage those seeking answers to meet this great groups of folks and attend:

Global Exchange

Ventura County Supporters

present

A Recent Visit to Gaza

Wednesday, October 28

7:00 P.M- 8:30 P.M.

Thousand Oaks Library

Laila Al-Marayati, MD, will share her experiences of her recent visit to Gaza and will address some of the major political issues that impact the ongoing situation.

Dr. Al-Marayati is the chairperson of Kids in Need of Development, Education and Relief (KinderUSA), a non-profit humanitarian organization dedicated to helping Palestinian children and their families in Gaza, the West Bank and refugee camps in Lebanon. And on behalf of KinderUSA, she traveled to the Gaza Strip in May of this year where she had the opportunity to witness first hand the degree of destruction caused by the Israeli offensive in December of 2008. She visited with numerous Palestinians who continue to suffer under a regime of collective punishment that targets all members of society including those most vulnerable, children. The effects of the ongoing siege of Gaza combined with the trauma caused by the Israeli attack have imposed serious challenges on Palestinians living in Gaza. Yet their resourcefulness and faith help them survive and endure, hoping against all hope for a better future.

Dr. Al-Marayati has served on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom as an appointee of former President Bill Clinton. She is a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist and is the Medical Director of Women's Health at the Eisner Pediatric and Family Medical Center. She serves as the spokesperson of the Muslim Women's League based in Los Angeles which seeks to strengthen the role of Muslim women in society by disseminating accurate information about Islam and women to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

A question and answer period will follow the presentation.

The program is free and open to the public.

GLOBAL EXCHANGE Ventura County Supporters
www.globalexchangeventuracountysupporters.org

For further Information, Contact: 805-498-9401 or GlobalExchangeVCS@yahoo.com

The Global Exchange Ventura County Supporters is a group of people - a community of conscience -
dedicated to providing local monthly public forums, supporting and working with other local organizations committed to social and economic justice, human rights and ecological sustainability
Global Exchange, headquartered in San Francisco, is an international human rights
organization dedicated to promoting environmental, political and social justice.
Since our founding in 1988, we have increased the US public's global awareness while building partnerships worldwide.
Visit: www.globalexchange.org

The 64th Session of the UN General Assembly and G-20 Summit

"Voice for Humanity" — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:47:09 EDT

By Padmini Arhant

Welcome to the forum on the important global gathering of nations to discuss the issues confronting the international community at large.

A humble request to all visitors to the website http://www.padminiarhant.com to take a moment and view the featured videos that speaks volume of the serious humanitarian crisis in hand. As we all know that pictures are worth thousand words and a confirmation of the reality.

Again, the visuals may not be appropriate for all, given the graphic content. The dire situations in these parts of the world beckon the worldwide condemnation and put an end to these atrocities against humanity and bring the perpetrators irrespective of stature to justice as an evidence there is still hope for goodness to prevail in the ever deteriorating immoral world.

Please remember silence is the worst act of crime.

The general debate by the United Nations began early this week with President Barack Obama addressing the General Assembly for the first time since elected to the office of Presidency. The debate continued then onwards with the address by the undemocratically nominated authorities like the Islamic Republic of Iran and The Great Socialist People’s Libya…

The UN Security Council Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was the highlight of the UN session. The objective of this particular conference was aimed at bringing the States that have not yet agreed to or ratified the treaty for the Non-Proliferation Treaty to come into effect.

For the remaining content please refer to http://www.padminiarhant.com

Thank you.

Padmini Arhant

BUTT OUT! (a commentary)

Rebellion Into Reason — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:30:26 EDT

In the course of a political argument with a neurofeedback therapist as to the virtues of Hugo Chavez, I was told that "the Jews should leave Venezuela". Are the Jews not true Venezuelans after centuries of residence? Guess not. Are we true British, Americans, or anything other than Jews? Probably not. So we belong to Israel, our ancient homeland. But I read in another psychotherapist's blog that Jews are distinguished as being the only people without a homeland, and that our identity is a collective atonement for the death of a great Egyptian in another land where we were guests. Of course, this presupposes we have an identity to start with. A little circular, I think.
Of course, when we attach ourselves to Israel, we are told that it is not ours, because we are supplanting a group of people whose ancestors settled there after we, as a group, were kicked out.
All this leads me to question who, or what I am. What I come up with, is that I am the nation-less soul (which I use figuratively, because I am an atheist) who belongs nowhere except in a land that I have no right to inhabit. The convenient Nowhere Man, whose butt is a convenient target for anyone afraid to kick his own.
I am thus led to the following little bit of dogmatism:
I am a Jew.
The nation of Israel lives.
To make any sense of this at all, I am a committed Zionist.

Those who object, may take a flying f**k. Of course, if you choose to eliminate us (as you have repeatedly), you will have only yourselves to kick in the Butt. OUCH! If we choose to eliminate you, we will also have to kick our own selves in the Butt. DOUBLE OUCH!
So, we might as well leave each other alone, and admit that ultimately, we are all one, under the greater umbrella of man. And try to conquer something else. Like Mars. We could all use the room, and reviving the spirit of mutual growth and exploration could benefit us all. After all, Medieval is just sooo last year, and hard as hell to spell.

Expansion of Jewish Settlements’ Impact on Mid-East Peace Process

"Voice for Humanity" — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 07:54:51 EDT

By Padmini Arhant

Israeli authorities’ determination to expand Jewish Settlements in Palestinian West Bank along the borders and on the private Palestinian land as well as the colonization of East Jerusalem is provocative. Besides, it is reflective of the Likud Party hard line policy to disregard the universally applicable International treaty on territorial issues and the will of the Israeli democracy for a viable two state solution necessary to end the half-a-century old conflict.

Remaining @http://www.padminiarhant.com

Thank you.

Padmini Arhant

They are good at it...

EGB — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 18:29:32 EDT

Credit where credit is due: this Israeli government is one of great ingenuity. I am awed by their creativity in putting a halt to any process that might in any way lead to detente and beyond. They tell Obama, in so many words, to go pound sand. They escalate hostile possibilities on the Lebanese border. They exacerbate ill will in E. Jerusalem. And on and on.... Now they insist on direct talks with Syria (without Turkish mediation) knowing well that Syria will not talk to them.
The problem, I fear, is that they have no sense of how precarious their position is. They live in a house of cards and refuse to reinforce it to secure the Jewish homeland. Here is how it will fall: a million Arab women and children will line up on the border and march 50 yards into Israel and sit peacefully down. Think of India, S. Africa and the American south in 1960. You are prepared only for battle, not struggle. (If all you have is a hammer, then all problems look like nails.)

Israelis turn ugly toward President Obama

EGB — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:57:44 EDT

If you're looking for venomous comments about President Obama, check out the readers' comments on articles published in The Jerusalem Post (online). They are very often of an intensity that we read among the most hateful, vehement right-wingers ('the base') commenting on him on American sites. In a word, they are ugly. The reason: Obama's opposition to the expansion of settlements in the occupied territories and his reaching out to Islamic people and nations as part of a process to reshape our foreign policy. The comments to which I refer did not draw my attention because of their political stances (who cares?), but rather because of their name-calling and personal attacks on the President. I recommend that anyone interested in getting insight into Israel and Israelis include a thorough reading of the JP as part of his/her study.

U.S. Foreign Policy in the 20th and 21st Century

"Voice for Humanity" — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:57:48 EDT

By Padmini Arhant

The United States foreign policy in the twentieth and twenty first century viewed by allies and adversaries differently depending upon the U.S. engagement viz. modus operandi in the conflicts of the affected regions.

Throughout the twentieth century, the United States direct and indirect dominant role brought peace and chaos to the world order, ominously the Cuban crisis and the infamous Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos war combined with constant interventions in the Korean Peninsula, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa as well as South and South East Asia...

Remaining article @http://www.padminiarhant.com

Thank you.

Padmini Arhant

The Issues we have with the Arab-Muslim world

Unknown user — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:48:45 EDT

The Issues we have with the Arab-Muslim world - What Pres. Obama should mention

- Teaching that non-Muslims are non humans, such as Christians are "pigs" and Jews are "apes".

- Sharia law (implementation) horrors, including oppression of women.

- Honor killings epidemic.

- Playing "victim" while being the aggressor, such as the Arab "Palestinians", Taliban, etc.

- The Genocide campaign by radical Islam (Hezbollah, Hamas, Ahmadinejad, etc.) on Israel / Jews.

- Bigoted Islamism: Persecution, oppression of and apartheid against all non Muslims in the Islamic world (including in S. Arabia, Palestinian Hamas, etc.).

- Racist Arabism: Persecution, oppression of and apartheid against all non-Arabs in the Arab world, especially of native Egyptians (Nubians), Kurds, Copts, Assyrians, Berbers (native N. Africans), Jews (not just inside Israel), Africans (Africans living in Arab countries and the racist slavery in Sudan, Mauritania... genocide in Darfur). The wide justification of Islamic violence all over the world.

- Squeezing the world economy by power of oil prices (OPEC).

- From the 22 Arab countries so far, they all range from totalitarianism to corruption, not even one has managed to be real free, equal and democratic.

- The global Islamic radical campaign to dominate the world - untamed by "moderate" Muslims.

Islamic countries said that their relations with Israel depend on its willingness for peace

Unknown user — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:07:01 EDT

May 25, in Syria ended 36 th session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).

The meeting adopted a final declaration in which the Islamic countries criticized Israel, but at the same time expressed their readiness to improve relations.

"Developing ties with Israel should be linked to its compliance with specific obligations in reaching a just and comprehensive peace that guarantees the restoration of rights (the Palestinians) and the return of occupied territories", - says the paper, which is called the Damascus Declaration.

Representatives of countries stated that they do not have to reward Israel for its crimes. The final document, they strongly condemned the actions of the Jewish state to change the character of the occupied Arab land in East Jerusalem, continued his siege of the Gaza Strip and settlements in the West Bank.

The Foreign Ministers of 57 member countries of OIC also reaffirmed the right to an occupied people to struggle for the liberation of their land and noted that this can not be called terrorism.

In the Damascus declaration condemning the attacks on Islam, inciting religious hatred and hostility, states that terrorism is a "dangerous international phenomenon that has no national, religious or cultural affiliation."

Remember, today reported on the initiative of one of the parties represented in the Israeli Knesset, to oblige Israel to swear allegiance to the state.

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The U.S. Department of State is not supported Netanyahu's stance on the status of Jerusalem

Unknown user — Sun, 24 May 2009 18:18:24 EDT

A decision on the final status of Jerusalem must be reached in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, said the circulated today, 24 May, the statement of the American dipvedomstva.

"The question of the final status of Jerusalem unresolved. Israel and the Palestinians agreed to resolve its status in the negotiations", - noted in a statement.

As noted in the Washington, DC, United States will maintain "their efforts to reach agreement on final status issues."

That statement, U.S. Department of State had been circulated to journalists in connection the statement of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that Jerusalem would remain under Israeli sovereignty and will never be divided. "

Remember, May 22 at the ceremony celebrating the 42 th anniversary of the city under the rule of Israel during the Six Day War, the head of the Israeli Government declared that Jerusalem will forever remain the undivided capital of the Jewish state.

These statements have caused a sharp reaction from the Palestinians insist that East Jerusalem was recognized as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Thus, the assistant head of the Palestinian National Authority Saeb Arikat stated that "Netanyahu's statements are tantamount to a declaration that the state of conflict will be eternal," and his colleague, Rafiq Husseini stressed that "the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem is illegal."

As reported, 18 May, after a bilateral meeting in Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has promised U.S. President Barack Obama to immediately start negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on the peaceful settlement of the region.

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Racism – The Durban II, Geneva Conference

"Voice for Humanity" — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:55:19 EDT

By Padmini Arhant

www.padminiarhant.com

Racism – The Durban II, Geneva Conference

The past week - April 20 -24, 2009, Geneva, Switzerland hosted ‘The Durban II conference’ on racism. The preceding event in 2001 held in Durban, South Africa marred by racial overtones and negative attacks against the state of Israel evidently led the United States and Western allies to boycott the recent U.N meeting.

It was a United Nations gathering to address the persisting contemporary discriminatory practices often transforming into persecution, oppression and even genocide in some parts of the world. According to the White House and media reports, the reason behind United States and allies’ absence at the symposium was the blue print content notably against Israel by the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, the United Nations’ assurance to eliminate any anti-Israeli inflammatory remarks from the Iranian President’s speech failed in convincing the United States, Israel and others to attend the world forum.

Meanwhile, predictably the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad’s rhetorical speech caused spectacle prompting other European diplomats to briefly abandon the summit. To the United Nations’ credit, the subsequent address by the Iranian President modified to reflect reality on the tragic holocaust previously denied by the political figure.

Whenever a consortium organized to deal with sensitive humanitarian issue of great magnitude, the stage is set for fireworks and doesn’t require more than a spark to ignite the flame into blazing fire. All those refuting the one nation’s contentious repetitive conduct, regrettably ignored the wide spectrum of humanitarian crises around the world. The objection against a particular nation’s demeanor effectively dismissed the urgency for unanimous solutions to global problems affecting humanity.
Further, such action conspicuously displayed hierarchy prevalent in the humanitarian priorities.

Every continent has nations with dark legacy and embarrassing episodes of human rights violation. In the new millennium, the global community challenged to empathize with those currently enduring incessant suffering due to lack of freedom, inequality, injustice including intolerance.

The Geneva conference was a great platform for the nations that boycotted the meeting exclusively the United States and Israel to express serious commitment in resolving the age-old Middle East conflict between Israel and Palestine. Any glimpse of hope in the two states solutions approved by vast majority of population on both sides with a free Palestine comprising West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem alongside the democratic Israel unequivocally accepted as a sovereign state in the entire region would have instantaneously gained credibility in the large presence of the United Nations.

Needlessly, as holocaust victims Israel was better qualified to condemn any crime against humanity and set an example by leading the world in the establishment of peace and democracy with its neighbor Palestine. Israel had a unique opportunity in Geneva to demonstrate solemn pledge and action to aid those, relevantly the Palestinians deserving similar liberty granted to Israel predominantly with the support and solidarity among the nations around the world. Israel’s unprecedented humanitarian gesture would have made it incumbent on the Arab nations at the conference to forge alliance in promoting regional unity and peace.

If the world would not have heeded to the humanitarian call for an Independent Israel, it could have resulted in the devastating annihilation of a specific human race. Likewise, South Africa proudly declaring results from a democratic election today would have succumbed to oppressive apartheid without the international community’s involvement in the freedom of that nation.

There is immense misery and extreme hardships in various parts of the world. People in these regions generally exposed to despair, depression and death at infancy consider themselves fortunate if they live beyond the short life expectancy because of poverty, disease, war and deprivation of basic human rights.

Geneva conference reached a broad based consensus against racial and gender discrimination, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia other than human rights abuses across the globe. An international assembly by governments from most parts of the world had the moment and venue to review pertinent matter concerning different nations and people. Unfortunately, the U.N committee presumably under intense pressure from nations prioritizing political agenda in their allegiance to a single ally, did not layout the importance of relieving humanity from the perpetual violence through war, invasion and occupation reminiscent of the twentieth century’s imperialism and colonialism .

Is there deficiency in related topics involving the remaining population on the planet seeking entitlement to the international representation, rescue and relief from burgeoning crimes against innocent civilians?

Only if rationality and utilitarianism prevailed over popular political dogma of individualism, the desirable goals for fairness and justice are attainable in human affairs.

Is the struggle for peace and independence by the population in Palestine, Burma, Tibet, and North Korea any less significant than the international feud between Israel and Iran?

What about the status quo of civil wars contributing to genocides in Rwanda, Darfur, Congo and other parts of Africa?

Should the world ignore the escalating ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka as an internal matter rather than an international moral issue?

Where was the denunciation of the pervasive Taliban abuse of women in Afghanistan now dangerously spreading to the Northwestern regions of Pakistan?

Why did the summit not extensively focus on the various abuses in Latin, Central and South America and China, notwithstanding the denial of equal status to women in the Middle East and other Islamic nations?

On the generic concept of racism, xenophobia - typically the fear of the unknown, homophobia - the overt hate crimes against gay and trans-gender community and other horrific incidents in human trafficking, child pornography and numerous offenses were excluded during the five-day long international meeting.

Apparently, the interpretation of ‘tolerance’ in the crimes against humanity is subject to the relationship among existing and emerging economic and political powers in the global society.

The protocol on protests, boycott and co-operation alike varies depending on the nations along with political and economic repercussions arising from such action.

For example, the Iranian President’s controversial stance against Israel held responsible for the Western nations’ boycott of the latest Geneva conference on racism while implying the other attendees’ motive questionable.

Nevertheless, the human rights activists’ plea to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics to draw attention towards the plight of the Tibetan population persecuted by the hour and suppression of the democracy movement in the People’s Republic of China rejected by the participating nations prominently those who recently boycotted the Geneva conference.

It is widespread knowledge that the emerging economic power China being the treasury and
Exchequer for the world economy, a nuclear nation possessing veto power routinely exercised against common benefit in the U.N. Security Council decisions, privileged with supreme diplomatic immunity in all things inhumane.

In the recent G-20 summit, call for globalization over protectionism dominated the theme for global economic revival. Synonymously, in the environmental matter and international security collective effort embraced as a successful strategy. Henceforth, collaborative action regarded imminent to resolve international crises.

Ironically, abstaining from leadership at the summit to formulate policies in the restoration of human rights, freedom and civil liberties, the fundamental requirements for peace, progress and prosperity, creates a vacuum rather than serving the real purpose.

History is testimony to the rise and fall of civilizations that fair well when guided by wisdom, compassion and courage for universal good.

Thank you.

Padmini Arhant

Getting Michelle Obama to Support the Palestinian Doctor

Tom Luce — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:07:31 EDT

Hello, I heard Dr. Isseldin Abuelaish, MD, MPH, speak here in the East Bay last Friday. He is the man whose daughters and niece were killed by Israeli bombs. He is the first doctor to practice in Israeli hospitals, a peace maker. He has asked for support for the establishment of a fund for women and female children in his family's name. He would like to get a meeting with Michelle Obama and talk with her about supporting his effort.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

Tom

Adolf Hitler / Nazis hated Arabs "inferior race," yet used them as disposable tools against Jews

Unknown user — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 02:04:10 EDT

Adolf Hitler / Nazis hated Arabs as an inferior “race”, yet praised Islam in its ‘war like’ TOTALITARIAN ideology He saw them as a great disposable tool to be used against the Jews, the mufti fell for it.

SPLCenter.org: The Swastika and the Crescent, Although he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped“), Hitler understood that he and the Mufti shared the same rivals, British and the Jews… http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=242

ESSAY - May 2002 By Martin A. Lee …Ahmed Huber: Neo-Nazi, Islamic convert… The roots of the Muslim Brotherhood and, in many ways, the Nazi-Muslim axis go back to the organisation’s formation in Egypt in 1928. Marking the start of modern political “Islamic fundamentalism,” the Brotherhood from the outset envisioned a time when an Islamic state would prevail in Egypt and other Arab countries.

The growth of the Muslim Brotherhood coincided with the rise of fascist movements in Europe - a parallel noted by Muhammad Sa’id al-’Ashmawy, former chief justice of Egypt’s High Criminal Court, who decried “the perversion of Islam” and “the fascistic ideology” that infuses the world view of the Brothers. Youssef Nada, current board chairman of Al Taqwa, had joined the armed branch of the Muslim Brotherhood as a young man in Egypt during World War II. Nada and several of his cohorts in the Sunni Muslim fraternity were recruited by German military intelligence. Hassan al-Banna, the Egyptian schoolteacher who founded the Muslim Brotherhood, also collaborated with spies of the Third Reich. Advocating a pan-Islamic insurgency in British-controlled Palestine, the Brotherhood proclaimed their support for the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, in the late 1930s.

The Grand Mufti, the preeminent religious figure among Palestinian Muslims, was the most notable Arab leader to seek an alliance with Nazi Germany. Although he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped”), Hitler understood that he and the Mufti shared the same rivals - the British, the Jews and the Communists. They met in Berlin, where the Mufti lived in exile during the war. The Mufti agreed to help organise a special Muslim division of the Waffen SS. Powerful radio transmitters were put at the Mufti’s disposal so that his pro-Axis propaganda could be heard throughout the Arab world. http://www.aijac.org.au/review/2002/275/essay275.html

War aims in the second world war: the war aims of the major belligerents …‎ - by Victor Rothwell - History - 2005 - 244 pages (Page 41) However, the Nazis were clear in their minds that the Arabs were racially inferior, and there would, therefore, be no pleasure to be had from helping them in anything except for the extermination of Jews in their region. http://books.google.com/books?id=XfgLbSc94MEC&pg=PA41

Islam, Nazism, and Totalitarianism

During an interview conducted in the late 1930s (published in 1939), Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychiatry, was asked “…had he any views on what was likely to be the next step in religious development?” Jung replied, in reference to the Nazi fervor that had gripped Germany We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Muhammad. The emotion in Germany is Islamic; warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with wild god. That can be the historic future. Albert Speer, who was Hitler’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, wrote a contrite memoir of his World War II experiences while serving a 20-year prison sentence imposed by the Nuremberg tribunal.

Speer’s narrative includes this discussion, which captures Hitler’s racist views of Arabs on the one hand, and his effusive praise for Islam on the other:

Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of distinguished Arabs. When the Mohammedans attempted to penetrate beyond France into Central Europe during the eighth century, his visitors had told him, they had been driven back at the Battle of Tours. Had the Arabs won this battle, the world would be Mohammedan today. For theirs was a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament. Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire. Hitler usually concluded this historical speculation by remarking, “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?” http://www.andrewbostom.org/content/view/61/55/

The roots of Arab Anti-Semitism - By David Greenberg - Slate Magazine Oct 31, 2001 … As he notes, anti-Semitism in Arab countries (and non-Arab Islamic states such as Iran) …. East—they were eager to make common cause with Hitler, despite Nazi belief that they, like the Jews, were inferior to Aryans. … http://www.slate.com/id/2057949/

The third Reich & the Palestine question - Francis R. Nicosia - 2000 - History - 319 pages (Page 85) Most Arabs never realized that the Nazis would consider them racially inferior as well and that Germany had no intention of undermining British authority in … http://books.google.com/books?id=xh4m-OMrhJUC&pg=PA85

The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj … Chuck Morse - 2003 - History - 188 pages (page 53) … as Hitler was known to have described the Arabs as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped,” to a lower race … http://books.google.com/books?id=HGkthBwbNg8C&pg=PA53

Despite Hitler’s personal antipathy towards Arabs, who he once described as lacquered half apes who ought to be whipped, he nevertheless was prepared to … http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/An%20unholy%20alliance%201801%20original.doc

The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters …Martin A. Lee - 1999 - Political Science - 560 pages (page 122) Even though he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped”), Hitler was nonetheless the idol of the paramilitary … http://books.google.com/books?id=SX4B7pNG3W8C&pg=PA122

A few points about the racist UN - Durban "anti-racism" conference

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:38:40 EDT

A few points about the racist UN - Durban "anti-racism" conference

1) When will Arab racists & Islamic bigots let go of the UN and stop hijacking it with it's lobbies (silencing Arab racist genocide in Darfur, yet daming innocent Israelis who merely try to survive)?

2) Why is Arab terror singling out Jews not racist?

3) Why is the essence of the entire "conflict'" in the M.E. not a form of bigotry by Arab Muslims who can't "accept" the non Arab non Muslim pluralistic democratic Israel?

4) Are Jews living, or even allowed to live in racist "Palestinian" controlled territories (Judenrein - ethnic cleaning)?

5) When will lefty radicals (Meretz/B'Tzelem) talk about preferential treatments to Arabs OVER Jews inside Israel, like in Hebron and in other cases?

6) Why are (Arab Palestinian or Hezbollah) the ones using its own kids as cannon fodders considered "innocent victims"?

7) Is Israel battling just terrorism or an ARAB MUSLIM CAMPAIGN OF GENOCIDE since the 1920's?

8) Since Muslim nations (OIC & Iran) push to criminalize criticism of Islamists' bigotry, doesn't it mean that anything being said in that conference is the opposite of tolerance and of truth?

9) How can the UN avoid the largest practitioner of racism, which is Arabism (against: Kurds, Berbers, Africans, Jews, Assyrians, Asians, etc.), but focuses on the so called "anti-Arab racism"?
[ http://geocities.com/panarabism - Arabism is racism! ]

10) How more racist can the Durban-conference get, If the two oppressive regimes: Libya & Iran are the "stars"?
Libya - whose Muamar Qaddafi (besides his own persecution of non-Arabs, especially blacks in his country) the one of the champions in today's racist Arabization, and Arabist racism against Africa (whose "vision" has been compared to Hitler's "lebensraum"), in: Chad, Nigeria, etc., ultimately his crimes in the Sudan region helped in leading the current Al-Bashir's genocide on Millions of Africans (financed mainly by Libya and S. Arabia).
Iran, the regime of Islamic bigotry's oppression on its own population with an added special persecution on all on-Muslims: Christians, Baha'i, Jews, etc. or on non-"pure-Persians" like: Ahwazi - Arabs, Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis, etc. now under the leadership of: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [EichmannJihad - the Islamic Hitler] who plays as if he "denies" the holocaust only in order to prepare for (his wishful) the second, "wiping off Israel".
Thus, the shame of the UN, kidnapped by the epitome of intolerance today, the infamous twin fascism: Arab racism, as in Gadhafi, and Islamic bigotry as in Amadinejad, are going to be "preaching" (and determine) to the world on tolerance.

Send the Salt from Israel to North America

The Idea Girl — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:02:10 EDT

IDEA- Israel has many desalination plants and loads of salt. We need salt for our roads in the winter. Do they sell it to us, or would they be interested in trading the salt for something that they require from North America? Any ideas to add what they could use?

Twitter Me http://www.twitter.com/theideagirl and let me know if you post a comment! Thanks :)

The Islamo Arab CRIME on the 6,000,000 holy innocent victims of the [real] HOLOCAUST

Unknown user — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:11:41 EDT

The Islamo Arab CRIME on the 6,000,000 holy innocent victims of the [real] HOLOCAUST

It seems that there's serious desperation on the parts of Arab racist & Muslim fascist propaganda machine, wether originating from 'Palestinian' Pallywood or using the Arab "palestinians" to further the radical Jihadization of their people by the false perception of being the "victim".

Not so long ago it was the usual tirade of terminology like: "massacres", translation, each time the Arab Palestinian butchers (in the name of bigoted Islamism and and/or racist Arabism) failed, or rather succeeded in causing civilian casualties, the Zionists are automatically blamed for the deaths, the higher the civilian casualties, higher is rated their propaganda, such "massacres" have been orchestrated for years.

Then it grew to the term "genocide", it doesn't help how careful Israelis are to minimize civilian casualties by notifying civilians to leave and by risking young soldiers' lives in going door to door on a selective mission to root out terrorists, Israel was, still is, blamed for Palestinians dirty tricks to cause casualties, seeing that the term "massacre" is no longer "fresh", the "genocide" slogan started to appear more and more on 'Palestinian', Islamic mainstream media.

The latest "bombshell" they came up with, all in an attempt to "shock" us is shouting: "Holocaust", translation, Israel's fight against Arab Muslim genocidal campaign in a clear set out goal of total annihilation, is branded so "atrocious", labeling that unique crime title on cowardice (their powerful weapons, which Israel does NOT have are the women and children they hide under) Palestinian (or Hezbollah) lost battles.It entails a few fascist points, First: it seeks to dramatize the fallen as if it is not a battle but a "cold blooded campaign", second: it seeks to diminish the uniqueness of that most outrageous crime in history, that of WW2 (where there was a clear plan to erase an entire creed from the face of the earth, there were no attacks from Jews upon Germans, nor were there any "battles" between the Nazis and all the 6 million or the 1.5 Million Jewish kids slaughtered only for pertaining to a certain origin), third: it seeks to hurt feeling of ALL Jews in the world.

Why? You ask? because they hate, because their hatred of the "other", in particular of the one that is neither all Arab nor all Muslim but pluralistic democracy (though primarily a shelter for Jews seeking refuge), this tiny innocent "entity" in the middle east is too "different" from the Arab Muslim reign of racism, bigotry.

The only silver lining in it is that, they have used up all our sensitivity by now, there's no room for more drama since they have pretty much "used" it all, including the ultimate word though so ridiculously in even mentioning it on their desperation in between their lost attacks on innocent Israelis.

Here we go again, Fake "war crimes" by Israel bashers exposed - damning effect still on

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:16:38 EDT

Here we go again, Fake "war crimes" by Israel bashers exposed - damning effect still on

Reports of IDF Crimes: Fiction Based on Rumors - Defense/Middle ...Claims that IDF soldiers deliberately killed civilians during Operation Cast Lead were based in hearsay, a military investigation has concluded. The two soldiers who first reported the alleged incidents several weeks ago had not seen the incidents themselves, and had no personal knowledge to support the allegations... B'Tselem, accused the IDF... ...
www.israelnationalnews.co...

Then again, it (false accusations by the infamous un-reliable radical political group: B'tzelem) reminds us all the UN's such loud & harsh "accusation" of Israel of "killing Kids in Gaza", then later on "woke up" told the truth, AKA retracted it ,

UN retracts claim over Gaza school attack [Feb 4, 2009] ... The UN has retracted a claim that an Israeli strike, which killed more than 40 people in northern Gaza last month, hit a school run by a UN ...
www.rte.ie/news/2009/0204...
www.abc.net.au/news/stori...
news.yahoo.com.au/a/-/wor...
www.worthychristianforums...
yet, the damage of the false accusations on innocent Israel is still there, full force.

Gaza Holocaust survivors search for justice

Unknown user — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:22:55 EDT

I wish them the best... this world has not clue about what is the meaning of justice

please watch the report here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpksyMmSWlE

More revelations on Arab Palestinians fake "victimhood" - Israel's Gaza toll far lower than Palestinian tally (Pallywood, Jeninitis)

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:45:46 EDT

More revelations on Arab Palestinians fake "victimhood" - Israel's Gaza toll far lower than Palestinian tally (Pallywood, Jeninitis)

Israel's Gaza toll far lower than Palestinian tally (Pallywood, Jeninitis)
Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:56am EDT
JERUSALEM, March 26 (Reuters) - Israel says far more armed fighters and far fewer Palestinian civilians were killed during its 22-day offensive in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in January than reported in widely-used Palestinian figures.
In the first Israeli death tally to appear in an official publication since the Dec 27-Jan 18 war, it said a total of 1,166 Palestinians were killed, not 1,417 as reported by Palestinian human rights activists.
The figures were contained in a briefing paper issued by the public affairs department of the Israeli embassy in London on Wednesday (http://london/mfa/gov/il). They were later confirmed in a press release by the Israeli army.
The tally says 295 civilians lost their lives -- about a third of the figure of 926 reported by Gaza's Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (www.pchrgaza.org), which published a full list of names earlier this month.
The army statement, citing data gathered by its research department, said its count was based on "the names of Palestinians killed". It said at least 709 of the dead in Gaza were armed militants, not 236 as reported by the Palestinians.
The Palestinian group said "255 police and 236 fighters" died in Israeli bombing and shelling -- a total of 491.
Israel has made clear it regards police under the control of the Islamist Hamas rulers of Gaza as the equivalent of armed fighters.
The Israeli embassy paper said the "degree of involvement" in the armed conflict of a further 162 killed in its offensive was "still under investigation". The army statement said they are "162 names of men that have not yet been yet attributed to any organisation".
It did not say how the list of names was obtained.

DIED NATURALLY
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights on Thursday reaffirmed its own figures, saying "extensive investigation and cross-checking .. determined that a total of 1,417 Palestinians died in the offensive" of whom 926 were civilians, including 313 children and 116 women.
The group's Hamdi Shaqoura told Reuters the centre took a long time and employed great efforts to research the numbers and identities of Palestinians killed.
"We have the numbers and the names of the victims. The process was very well and carefully researched and our numbers reflected the truth," he said.
"International law regards policemen who are not engaged in fighting as non-combatants or civilians," he added.
An Israeli security source said the army's research made clear "about a quarter" of those killed were uninvolved in the fighting "and that's relatively low on any scale" for conflict in an urban environment.
The source suggested that the Palestinian count may have included death by natural causes during the period, which he said statistically would account for approximately 400 deaths.
Shaqoura said Palestinian researchers made sure not to include deaths caused by "internal events" or natural deaths.
He added: "When speaking about Israeli people, Israel regards all people under 18 years of age as children. But when speaking about the Palestinians Israel lowers the age to 16, in order to provide a cover for its army."
The central aim of the Israel embassy briefing paper was to reject charges of war crimes by Israeli forces in Gaza from human rights groups.
Human Rights Watch said this week Israel's use of white phosphorus shells over densely populated Gaza areas was evidence of war crimes, and United Nations investigators said Israel had targeted civilians. Israel rejected both charges.
The embassy paper said there was so far no adequate ethical code of war "to regulate the war on terror" in which "amoral" adversaries flouted the rules of war and used human shields with total indifference to human suffering.

http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSLQ977827

This cannot be called anything but 'A New Holocaust'

Unknown user — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:08:25 EDT

If you hate reading just watch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGITh9HPJ7g

ISRAEL ADMITS GAZA WAR CRIMES

JERUSALEM — An increasingly disturbing picture of the Israeli Defense Forces' (IDF) misconduct in the Gaza invasion has emerged as confessions from Israeli troops describe wanton destruction of Palestinian homes, humiliation of civilians, and loosened rules of engagement that resulted in high civilian casualties.

An Israeli defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to make the information public, said the IDF used 120-mm mortar rounds, among the largest, on a large group of civilians who had taken refuge for safety in a hospital. At least five blast patters indicating direct hits were found on the hospital floors.

Revelations of the IDF Gaza crimes have set off alarms in a nation where the military is revered. They also confirm Palestinian allegations that the IDF did not distinguish between civilians and combatants, and the admissions also confirmed international human rights groups' contention that Israel deliberately violated the humanitarian laws of war.

Israel launched the Gaza offensive on Dec. 27, 2008 in what it explained was an effort to end Palestinian rocket attacks in which four Israeli citizens were hit. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which conducted casualty count, reported a total of 1,417 people killed during the offensive, including at least 930 civilians.

Israel originally denied the findings, saying the most of the dead were legitimate targets, but offered no evidence to back up that allegation.

The Israeli government has insisted it did everything it could to prevent civilian casualties. But the IDF has now ordered a criminal inquiry into its own soldiers' reports that IDF troops deliberately targeted civilians, including children, by shooting them or by calling in air strikes, confident that the Israeli relaxed rules of war would protect them.

The inquiry is based on postwar testimony from IDF soldiers who were involved in the Israeli offensive and who were eye-witnesses. The findings were published in a military institute newsletter and leaked to two Israeli newspapers. The Haaretz daily published additional details. A transcript of the IDF soldiers' confessions was obtained by The Associated Press.

According to one account, an Israeli sniper killed a Palestinian woman and each of her two children after they misunderstood another soldier's shouted order and turned in the wrong direction. The sniper was not told that the family had just been released, and so he opened fire on them as they walked toward him.

In another account, an elderly woman was shot dead while walking alone on a road. The soldier who described the incident, identified only as "Aviv," said the woman was not a threat. "I simply felt it was murder in cold blood," Aviv said, according to the transcript. "The order was to take that woman out the moment you see her."

Aviv admitted in another instance his unit was sent to take over a house by bursting in, going up floor by floor and shooting to death anyone they saw alive.

"I call this murder," he said. "...they told us it was permissible because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City, was in effect condemned to death as a terrorist, because they hadn't yet fled." In the end, he said he managed to change the order so residents would be given five minutes to leave their homes, drawing protests from other soldiers. "Anyone who's in there is a terrorist, that's a known fact!" he quoted another soldier as saying.

(Note: The borders were closed and tenants had no place to flee to/ blogger)

In another incident, a large group of Palestinian civilians were herded into a school building and forced to stay inside "for their own safety." A few minutes later, Israeli artillery strikes were called in on the building.

Some 15,000 Palestinians packed the UN's 23 Gaza schools because their homes were destroyed, or they were designated a safe haven from the fighting. The UN had provided the IDF with GPS coordinates for all of them so they could be avoided.

The IDF reported the shelling of the school - the deadliest single episode in the first two weeks of the IDF invasion of Gaza - was a response to mortar fire from within the school building, and that Hamas militants were using the civilians as cover. The IDF had no additional comment.

During the fighting, the military acknowledged it loosened the rules of engagement aiming to reduce casualties among IDF troops.

At one point, six hundred Palestinian civilians were trapped under fire when Israeli forces refused to allow them to leave Gaza in safety.

Another soldier, "Ram", described what appeared to be a rift between secular and religious soldiers. "What I do remember in particular at the beginning was the feeling of an almost religious mission," he said.

"Their message was very clear: 'We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle. God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land,'" he said.

(This kind of talk about God I find it funny/ blogger)

Earlier the IDF "severely reprimanded" an officer for distributing a religious booklet urging soldiers to show no mercy to their enemies. The army said the chief military rabbi had not yet approved it.

The published accounts revealed debate and soul-searching among the soldiers. Discussing the death of the old woman, one soldier, Zvi, said the shooting could be understood in the context of the battle zone. "Logic says she should be there," he said.

(Another funny remark about LOGIC!/ blogger)

IDF trooper Yossi said his unit was forced to clean up a home it had occupied on the same day that a Palestinian rocket wounded a mother and baby in an Israeli city. He said soldiers were unhappy, but they complied. "In the end, I was convinced it was the right thing to do," Yossi added.

(I thought Hamas' problem is that it fires rockets... it seems the real problem is that HAMAS DO NOT FIRE ROCKETS ENOUGH/ blogger)

Danny Zamir, the head of the military institute, called the discussion "instructive," but also "dismaying and depressing. You are describing an army with very low norms of value," he said.

The heavy Palestinian civilian casualties and widespread destruction during the three-week war provoked international outcry against Israel, which ceased fire on 18 Jan. 2009.

IDF soldiers ordered to shoot at Gaza rescuers, note says

Unknown user — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:06:45 EDT

source: Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072830.html

GAZA STRIP - "Rules of Engagement: Open fire also upon rescue," was handwritten in Hebrew on a sheet of paper found in one of the Palestinian homes the Israel Defense Forces took over during Operation Cast Lead.

A reservist officer who did not take part in the Gaza offensive believes that the note is part of orders a low-level commander wrote before giving his soldiers their daily briefing. One of the main themes in news reports during the Gaza operation, and which appears in many testimonies, is that IDF soldiers shot at Palestinian and Red Cross rescuers, making it impossible to evacuate the wounded and dead.

As a result, an unknown number of Palestinians bled to death as others cowered in their homes for days without medical treatment, waiting to be rescued.

The bodies of the dead lay outside the homes or on roadsides for days, sometimes as long as two weeks.

Haaretz has reported a number of such cases, some of them as they happened.

The document found in the house provides written proof that IDF commanders ordered their troops to shoot at rescuers. The sheet of paper entitled "Situational Assessment" was found by a field researcher of The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in the home of Sami Dardone's family in Jabal al-Rayes, east of Jabalya.

The extended Dardone family lives in about 40 homes in this neighborhood, built on a hilltop. Some of the homes were taken over by the army to house troops during the offensive and to serve as sniping positions, or for shooting in general.

Most of the homes were seriously damaged when the IDF directly bombed them or other targets nearby at the start of the ground operation. This was also the reason the homes' residents fled on January 4. When the residents returned to the neighborhood at the end of the offensive on January 18, they found that the IDF had completely destroyed some of the homes, in addition to those that had been damaged by shelling and others that were wrecked when soldiers broke in through the walls.

Sometimes the soldiers needed explosives to break in. A military source told Haaretz that "the document that was found is not an official document signed by a particular commander, and as such the IDF cannot comment on fragments of sentences that were jotted down on a piece of paper, and asks that this not be interpreted as directives and instructions that were issued by commanders."

'Situational assessment'

According to the reservist officer who did not participate in Operation Cast Lead and who received a copy of the document via fax, the "Situational Assessment" was written by a platoon commander, or at the highest level a company commander. The reservist says the author of the "Situational Assessment" was making notes to brief his soldiers based on a briefing that low-ranking commanders receive from senior officers.

The date on the sheet is "16.1.08," clearly an error because it should read one year later. It comments on political and military events that occurred in mid-January 2009. It's possible to conclude that the author is discussing the possibility of a cease-fire, which was being discussed publicly by Israeli officials at that time.

"The next 24 hours are important; there is a likelihood they [Hamas] will not accept the agreement," the author writes. He also mentions the "Interior Minister." The reference is probably to Hamas Interior Minister Said al-Sayam, who was killed on January 15 when the IDF bombed his home. Four members of his family and five members of a neighbor's family were killed. Among the dead were four children.

(so that is how Hamas members hide among civilians? by staying at home?/ it is me)

The commander's notes toward the top of the sheet are largely a short political briefing - for example, "the local leadership wants [a cease-fire], the external [Hamas leadership] is out of touch" - and an assessment of the enemy's intentions - "the enemy would like to achieve a kidnapping [of soldiers], the destruction of homes."

"Rules of Engagement" is written in the lower half of the sheet, along with one other category: - "Operational Routine." The following is written: "Rules of Engagement: Fire also upon rescue. Not on women and children. (they forgot to read the last sentence/NewHolocaust) Beyond the tantcher - incrimination."

"Tantcher" is what the IDF calls Salah al-Din - the route that runs the length of the Gaza Strip. The home of the Dardone family is east of the route, so it is possible to assume these are instructions on shooting at anyone crossing the route to the east into areas held by the IDF.

A reservist soldier who did not participate in Cast Lead says that to the best of his knowledge "incrimination" refers to the process of identifying whether a person approaching is a terrorist.

The reservist officer who did not take part in the Gaza operation spoke with reservists who said "incriminating" was a shoot-to-kill order, contrary to "suspect procedure," in which shots are fired in the air and then at the legs. (they also missed shots, people were found shot in the heads/ NH)

The IDF spokesman said in response that "IDF forces were given unequivocal instructions not to fire at those identified as not being involved in the fighting, and to assist as much as possible injured Palestinians under battle conditions."

The reservist officer told Haaretz that "according to the details mentioned in the paper it appears the author was a low-ranking officer who dealt with the affairs of about 30 soldiers - like organizing their platoon equipment and oiling their weapons."

He says the author might have taken part in an earlier briefing by more senior officers and took notes for his political and military briefing. That is where he received his instructions on the rules of engagement.
"The rules of engagement are not something the platoon or company commander makes up," the reservist officer said.

According to the graffiti left in the Dardone homes, and based on what is known about the IDF's deployment in the Strip, the unit involved was part of the Golani Brigade. The last portion of the document is entitled "Operational Routine - Fighting Timeline," and includes things such as guard duty, responsibility for platoon equipment and briefings.

Under "Operational Routine" a note is included whose title can be translated as "Shitting of Houses." The reservist officer and soldier with whom Haaretz spoke said they were not aware of that term. Many of the homes the IDF troops took over were left in particularly unsanitary conditions; the residents of Sami Dardone's home found their clothes in piles with obvious signs of human feces. (Nevermind, it is a blessed feces... feces of the most moral troops/ NH)

Sealed bags

Haaretz asked the IDF spokesman whether "Shitting of Houses" refers to "an intentional action of turning the homes into latrines, or whether the commander wanted to talk to his soldiers about the fact that they had turned their living space into latrines."

A reservist soldier who took part in Cast Lead told the reservist officer that "going to the toilet was part of the briefing, and perhaps 'Shitting of Houses' is a reference in the briefing to where to pile up the sealed bags the IDF provides the soldiers for relieving themselves."
(let us pray that they found it really relieving/NH)

The IDF spokesman said that "soldiers who were in the homes were instructed to relieve themselves in areas where it did not endanger their lives, mostly inside the house, and which allowed them to carry out their operational activities in the best possible way, and for as long as it would be necessary."

The other side of the "Situational Assessment" sheet shows that it was written on a letter sent to the troops by a child. "To the Golani soldiers, good luck in the war," the letter reads in the hand of a young child. In the middle of the page there is a drawing of an armed soldier. "Love, the S. family."
---------

Comments written between brackets are by me not in the article.

What is bias in the middle east conflict? [March, 2009]

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:57:01 EDT

What is bias in the middle east conflict? [March, 2009]

Arabs’ racist killing (specifically) Jews *, is accepted “freedom fighting’'.

Israelis worried of Arab terror *, branded as “racists”.

War crimes, crimes against humanity by Palestinian Arab leadership - regime in Gaza * * * of using Arab civilians, making sure their kids die, for the “greater good (Jihadi-fascism’s goodness) of making Israel look bad…” * * * * * * *, using hospitals *, schools, UN medical vehicles * *, even aid material sent by humanitarian Israel * for murder, targeting at Israeli civilians, - shoved aside, ignored *.

Israel’s humane army’s extreme measures not to hit civilians (including 250,000 warning phone calls to Arab residents to evacuate a particular area designated to be included in an op., knowing full well terrorists can cease the opportunity and flea, as well as risking young soldiers’ lives in going door to door) * * * * aiming only at Hamas terrorists is denounced of “random shooting” and “war crimes”.

[Arab led pressure forcing Israel to conduct] Uprooting Jews from their homes and their ancestors’, AKA Transfer * * AKA Arab Palestinian Apartheid * is “good for peace”.

Transfer of Arabs (who don’t have more than 2 or 3 generations of history in Judea / Israel / Palestine * * * *) is “apartheid, fascist and racist” * (AKA Avigdor Lieberman).

While Hamas or even “Moderate” Fatah refuses to recognize Israel *, international aid is flowing their way.

UN is “busy” condemning Israel * * on whatever is being told (forced) by the global Arab Muslim oil lobby.

Anti-Zionism is hate, racism

Unknown user — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:33:40 EDT

Anti-Zionism is hate

By Judea Pearl March 22, 2009

In January, four longtime Israel bashers were invited to the University of California, Los Angeles, to analyze the human rights conditions in Gaza, and used the stage to attack the legitimacy of Zionism and its vision of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.

They criminalized Israel’s existence, distorted its motives and maligned its character, its birth, even its conception. At one point, the excited audience reportedly chanted “Zionism is Nazism” and worse.

Jewish leaders condemned this hate-fest as a dangerous invitation to anti-Semitic hysteria. The organizers, some of them Jewish, took refuge in “academic freedom” and the argument that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.

I fully support this mantra, not because it exonerates anti-Zionists from charges of anti-Semitism but because the distinction helps us focus attention on the discriminatory, immoral and more dangerous character of anti-Zionism.

Anti-Zionism rejects the very notion that Jews are a nation - a collective bonded by a common history - and, accordingly, denies Jews the right to self-determination in their historical birthplace. It seeks the dismantling of the Jewish nation-state: Israel.

Anti-Zionism earns its discriminatory character by denying the Jewish people what it grants to other historically bonded collectives (e.g., French, Spanish, Palestinians): namely, the right to nationhood, self-determination and legitimate coexistence with other indigenous claimants.

Anti-Semitism rejects Jews as equal members of the human race; anti-Zionism rejects Israel as an equal member in the family of nations.

Are Jews a nation? Some philosophers would argue Jews are a nation first and religion second. Indeed, the narrative of Exodus and the vision of the impending journey to the land of Canaan were etched in the minds of the Jewish people before they received the Torah at Mount Sinai. But philosophy aside, the unshaken conviction in their eventual repatriation to the birthplace of their history has been the engine behind Jewish endurance and hopes throughout their turbulent journey that started with the Roman expulsion in A.D. 70.

More important, shared history, not religion, is today the primary uniting force behind the secular, multiethnic society of Israel. The majority of its members do not practice religious laws and do not believe in divine supervision or the afterlife. The same applies to American Jewry, which is likewise largely secular. Identification with a common historical ethos, culminating in the re-establishment of the state of Israel, is the central bond of Jewish collectivity in America.

There are, of course, Jews who are non-Zionists and even anti-Zionists. There are also Jews who find it difficult to defend their identity against the growing viciousness of anti-Israel propaganda.

But these are marginal minorities at best; the vital tissues of Jewish identity today feed on Jewish history and its natural derivatives - the state of Israel, its struggle for survival, its cultural and scientific achievements and its relentless drive for peace.

Given this understanding of Jewish nationhood, anti-Zionism is in many ways more dangerous than anti-Semitism.

First, anti-Zionism targets the most vulnerable part of the Jewish people, namely, the Jewish population of Israel, whose physical safety and personal dignity depend crucially on maintaining Israel’s sovereignty. Put bluntly, the anti-Zionist plan to do away with Israel condemns 5.5 million human beings, mostly refugees or children of refugees, to eternal defenselessness in a region where genocidal designs are not uncommon.

Second, modern society has developed antibodies against anti-Semitism but not against anti-Zionism. Today, anti-Semitic stereotypes evoke revulsion in most people of conscience, while anti-Zionist rhetoric has become a mark of academic sophistication and social acceptance in certain extreme yet vocal circles of U.S. academia and media elite. Anti-Zionism disguises itself in the cloak of political debate, exempt from sensitivities and rules of civility that govern inter-religious discourse, to attack the most cherished symbol of Jewish identity.

Finally, anti-Zionist rhetoric is a stab in the back to the Israeli peace camp, which overwhelmingly stands for a two-state solution. It also gives credence to enemies of coexistence who claim that the eventual elimination of Israel is the hidden agenda of every Palestinian.

It is anti-Zionism, then, not anti-Semitism, that poses a more dangerous threat to lives, historical justice and the prospects of peace in the Middle East.

Judea Pearl is a professor at UCLA and the president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.israel22mar22,0,72685.story

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Terrorists - justifier Rashid Khalidi has a "new" book - yet he's the same old "average Arab racist"

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:08:57 EDT

Terrorists - justifier Rashid Khalidi has a "new" book - yet he's the same old "average Arab racist"

Rashid Khalidi (on c-span 2, books) (Author: 'Sowing Crisis') wants us to believe that Islamic republic of Iran is "not" linked to the terror organizations: Hamas, Hezbollah and that these groups have "legitimate" concerns.

Desperate as he is to act as if he's on a 'research' row and making a show of someone who's really "looking at the region from a broader angle", he did talk at first quite smoothly, dancing around and mentioning "other" problems we the USA have (supposedly) created in the region, like Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran (no, he didn't mention Carter's role in indirectly overthrowing the Shah, that led to the current Islamofascistic totalitarianism), you almost thought that Rashid might really be an academic, in the real sense of the word.

But as an average Arab Muslim "academic" he can never escape his burning Arab-racism against the Jews, though polishing his way to the maximum, he had to come to his essential venomous point, all in all, his punch line is really, the same old hateful cliche theme, "It's all Israel's fault", especially towards the end, when he was asked some questions, you could see how he was "lit" as if by a switch that turns on the Arab "moderates" hatred flames - they can never seem to resist, and fall into it each and every time.To his credit, most Arab propagandists are less patient... you don't have to wait even that long to see their outbursts.It was a small room, filled by either Arabs, or the gullible, one Arab "American" journalist is even a brazen open Jihadists-Hamas-Hezbollah supporter, none has asked about his propaganda statement that Iran fears Israel's nukes - as a "reason" for why they might be pursuing nuclear weapons, no one has asked the obvious: Did (democratic) Israel ever threaten to wipe out (oppressive) Iran like the Islamic fascist genocidal Republic did? or did Israel ever attack Iran like Iran attacked Israel via Hezbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad?

Never mind his Pro-Jihad statement defending Hamas, Hezbollah, portraying them as "political" movements with "concerns", and no one was refuting him - pointing to the true nature of these Jihadists that openly declare their real goal - to erase Israel.If you were to turn in towards the end, all you could hear is repeated word "occupation", more than a few times... (as you know), all crimes under the sun are all washed by this excuse, used by the children of Arab immigrants, (that have invaded the land of Israel - "Palestine," since the 1800's), and is being heard by him, as by any Arab "journalist" like a spiral.

_______________________

Related:
Khalidi's New Book and Old Story
http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2009/03/khalidis-new-book-and-old-story.html

Solomonia Archive: Columbia Watch: Rashid Khalidi On the other hand, this is Rashid Khalidi, and he does represent Columbia ... .
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/009032.shtml

Rashid Khalidi's Appointment at Columbia University...
http://www.danielpipes.org/1234/rashid-khalidis-appointment-at-columbia-university

Jan 20, 2009 ... Hamas's Academic Cheerleaders [incl. Hamid Dabashi, Rashid Khalidi, Fawaz Gerges, Joseph Massad, Muqtedar Khan, Mark LeVine, et al.
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6708

Camera-Ready Victims [incl. Rashid Khalidi]: Hamas practices human sacrifice; the world shrugs. - Campus Watch.
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6622

We are the Nazis of our time and we are proud of it

Unknown user — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:34:19 EDT

We are the Nazis of our time and we are proud of it

By Uri Blau (Israeli writer)

The office at the Adiv fabric-printing shop in south Tel Aviv handles a constant stream of customers, many of them soldiers in uniform, who come to order custom clothing featuring their unit's insignia, usually accompanied by a slogan and drawing of their choosing. Elsewhere on the premises, the sketches are turned into plates used for imprinting the ordered items, mainly T-shirts and baseball caps, but also hoodies, fleece jackets and pants. A young Arab man from Jaffa supervises the workers who imprint the words and pictures, and afterward hands over the finished product.

Dead babies, mothers weeping on their children's graves, a gun aimed at a child and bombed-out mosques - these are a few examples of the images Israel Defense Forces soldiers design these days to print on shirts they order to mark the end of training, or of field duty. The slogans accompanying the drawings are not exactly anemic either: A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex," next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him.

A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills." A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."

There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!" A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies - such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.

Advertisement In many cases, the content is submitted for approval to one of the unit's commanders. The latter, however, do not always have control over what gets printed, because the artwork is a private initiative of soldiers that they never hear about. Drawings or slogans previously banned in certain units have been approved for distribution elsewhere.

For example, shirts declaring, "We won't chill 'til we confirm the kill" were banned in the past (the IDF claims that the practice doesn't exist), yet the Haruv battalion printed some last year. The slogan "Let every Arab mother know that her son's fate is in my hands!" had previously been banned for use on another infantry unit's shirt.

A Givati soldier said this week, however, that at the end of last year, his platoon printed up dozens of shirts, fleece jackets and pants bearing this slogan. "It has a drawing depicting a soldier as the Angel of Death, next to a gun and an Arab town," he explains. "The text was very powerful. The funniest part was that when our soldier came to get the shirts, the man who printed them was an Arab, and the soldier felt so bad that he told the girl at the counter to bring them to him." Does the design go to the commanders for approval? The Givati soldier: "Usually the shirts undergo a selection process by some officer, but in this case, they were approved at the level of platoon sergeant. We ordered shirts for 30 soldiers and they were really into it, and everyone wanted several items and paid NIS 200 on average."

What do you think of the slogan that was printed? "I didn't like it so much, but most of the soldiers wanted it." Many controversial shirts have been ordered by graduates of snipers courses, which bring together soldiers from various units. In 2006, soldiers from the "Carmon Team" course for elite-unit marksmen printed a shirt with a drawing of a knife-wielding Palestinian in the crosshairs of a gun sight, and the slogan, "You've got to run fast, run fast, run fast, before it's all over." Below is a drawing of Arab women weeping over a grave and the words: "And afterward they cry, and afterward they cry." [The inscriptions are riffs on a popular song.]

Another sniper's shirt also features an Arab man in the crosshairs, and the announcement, "Everything is with the best of intentions." G., a soldier in an elite unit who has done a snipers course, explained that, "it's a type of bonding process, and also it's well known that anyone who is a sniper is messed up in the head. Our shirts have a lot of double entendres, for example: 'Bad people with good aims.' Every group that finishes a course puts out stuff like that." When are these shirts worn?

G. "These are shirts for around the house, for jogging, in the army. Not for going out. Sometimes people will ask you what it's about." Of the shirt depicting a bull's-eye on a pregnant woman, he said: "There are people who think it's not right, and I think so as well, but it doesn't really mean anything. I mean it's not like someone is gonna go and shoot a pregnant woman.

" What is the idea behind the shirt from July 2007, which has an image of a child with the slogan "Smaller - harder!"? "It's a kid, so you've got a little more of a problem, morally, and also the target is smaller."

Do your superiors approve the shirts before printing? "Yes, although one time they rejected some shirt that was too extreme. I don't remember what was on it." These shirts also seem pretty extreme. Why draw crosshairs over a child - do you shoot kids? 'We came, we saw' "As a sniper, you get a lot of extreme situations.
You suddenly see a small boy who picks up a weapon and it's up to you to decide whether to shoot. These shirts are half-facetious, bordering on the truth, and they reflect the extreme situations you might encounter.

The one who-honest-to-God sees the target with his own eyes - that's the sniper." Have you encountered a situation like that? "Fortunately, not involving a kid, but involving a woman - yes. There was someone who wasn't holding a weapon, but she was near a prohibited area and could have posed a threat.

" What did you do? "I didn't take it" (i.e., shoot).

You don't regret that, I imagine. "No. Whomever I had to shoot, I shot."

A shirt printed up just this week for soldiers of the Lavi battalion, who spent three years in the West Bank, reads: "We came, we saw, we destroyed!" - alongside images of weapons, an angry soldier and a Palestinian village with a ruined mosque in the center. A shirt printed after Operation Cast Lead in Gaza for Battalion 890 of the Paratroops depicts a King Kong-like soldier in a city under attack. The slogan is unambiguous: "If you believe it can be fixed, then believe it can be destroyed!"

Y., a soldier/yeshiva student, designed the shirt. "You take whoever [in the unit] knows how to draw and then you give it to the commanders before printing," he explained. What is the soldier holding in his hand? Y. "A mosque. Before I drew the shirt I had some misgivings, because I wanted it to be like King Kong, but not too monstrous. The one holding the mosque - I wanted him to have a more normal-looking face, so it wouldn't look like an anti-Semitic cartoon. Some of the people who saw it told me, 'Is that what you've got to show for the IDF? That it destroys homes?' I can understand people who look at this from outside and see it that way, but I was in Gaza and they kept emphasizing that the object of the operation was to wreak destruction on the infrastructure, so that the price the Palestinians and the leadership pay will make them realize that it isn't worth it for them to go on shooting. So that's the idea of 'we're coming to destroy' in the drawing."

According to Y., most of these shirts are worn strictly in an army context, not in civilian life. "And within the army people look at it differently," he added. "I don't think I would walk down the street in this shirt, because it would draw fire. Even at my yeshiva I don't think people would like it." Y. also came up with a design for the shirt his unit printed at the end of basic training. It shows a clenched fist shattering the symbol of the Paratroops Corps. Where does the fist come from? "It's reminiscent of [Rabbi Meir] Kahane's symbol. I borrowed it from an emblem for something in Russia, but basically it's supposed to look like Kahane's symbol, the one from 'Kahane Was Right' - it's a sort of joke. Our company commander is kind of gung-ho.

" Was the shirt printed? "Yes. It was a company shirt. We printed about 100 like that." This past January, the "Night Predators" demolitions platoon from Golani's Battalion 13 ordered a T-shirt showing a Golani devil detonating a charge that destroys a mosque. An inscription above it says, "Only God forgives." One of the soldiers in the platoon downplays it: "It doesn't mean much, it's just a T-shirt from our platoon. It's not a big deal. A friend of mine drew a picture and we made it into a shirt." What's the idea behind "Only God forgives"? The soldier: "It's just a saying." No one had a problem with the fact that a mosque gets blown up in the picture? "I don't see what you're getting at. I don't like the way you're going with this. Don't take this somewhere you're not supposed to, as though we hate Arabs." After Operation Cast Lead, soldiers from that battalion printed a T-shirt depicting a vulture sexually penetrating Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, accompanied by a particularly graphic slogan.

S., a soldier in the platoon that ordered the shirt, said the idea came from a similar shirt, printed after the Second Lebanon War, that featured Hassan Nasrallah instead of Haniyeh. "They don't okay things like that at the company level. It's a shirt we put out just for the platoon," S. explained. What's the problem with this shirt? S.: "It bothers some people to see these things, from a religious standpoint ..."
How did people who saw it respond? "We don't have that many Orthodox people in the platoon, so it wasn't a problem. It's just something the guys want to put out. It's more for wearing around the house, and not within the companies, because it bothers people. The Orthodox mainly. The officers tell us it's best not to wear shirts like this on the base." The sketches printed in recent years at the Adiv factory, one of the largest of its kind in the country, are arranged in drawers according to the names of the units placing the orders: Paratroops, Golani, air force, sharpshooters and so on. Each drawer contains hundreds of drawings, filed by year.

Many of the prints are cartoons and slogans relating to life in the unit, or inside jokes that outsiders wouldn't get (and might not care to, either), but a handful reflect particular aggressiveness, violence and vulgarity. Print-shop manager Haim Yisrael, who has worked there since the early 1980s, said Adiv prints around 1,000 different patterns each month, with soldiers accounting for about half.

Yisrael recalled that when he started out, there were hardly any orders from the army. "The first ones to do it were from the Nahal brigade," he said. "Later on other infantry units started printing up shirts, and nowadays any course with 15 participants prints up shirts."

From time to time, officers complain. "Sometimes the soldiers do things that are inside jokes that only they get, and sometimes they do something foolish that they take to an extreme," Yisrael explained. "There have been a few times when commanding officers called and said, 'How can you print things like that for soldiers?' For example, with shirts that trashed the Arabs too much. I told them it's a private company, and I'm not interested in the content. I can print whatever I like. We're neutral.

There have always been some more extreme and some less so. It's just that now more people are making shirts." Race to be unique Evyatar Ben-Tzedef, a research associate at the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism and former editor of the IDF publication Maarachot, said the phenomenon of custom-made T-shirts is a product of "the infantry's insane race to be unique. I, for example, had only one shirt that I received after the Yom Kippur War. It said on it, 'The School for Officers,' and that was it. What happened since then is a product of the decision to assign every unit an emblem and a beret. After all, there used to be very few berets: black, red or green.

This changed in the 1990s. [The shirts] developed because of the fact that for bonding purposes, each unit created something that was unique to it. "These days the content on shirts is sometimes deplorable," Ben-Tzedef explained. "It stems from the fact that profanity is very acceptable and normative in Israel, and that there is a lack of respect for human beings and their environment, which includes racism aimed in every direction." Yossi Kaufman, who moderates the army and defense forum on the Web site Fresh, served in the Armored Corps from 1996 to 1999.

"I also drew shirts, and I remember the first one," he said. "It had a small emblem on the front and some inside joke, like, 'When we die, we'll go to heaven, because we've already been through hell.'" Kaufman has also been exposed to T-shirts of the sort described here. "I know there are shirts like these," he says. "I've heard and also seen a little. These are not shirts that soldiers can wear in civilian life, because they would get stoned, nor at a battalion get-together, because the battalion commander would be pissed off.

They wear them on very rare occasions. There's all sorts of black humor stuff, mainly from snipers, such as, 'Don't bother running because you'll die tired' - with a drawing of a Palestinian boy, not a terrorist. There's a Golani or Givati shirt of a soldier raping a girl, and underneath it says, 'No virgins, no terror attacks.' I laughed, but it was pretty awful. When I was asked once to draw things like that, I said it wasn't appropriate."

The IDF Spokesman's Office comments on the phenomenon: "Military regulations do not apply to civilian clothing, including shirts produced at the end of basic training and various courses. The designs are printed at the soldiers' private initiative, and on civilian shirts. The examples raised by Haaretz are not in keeping with the values of the IDF spirit, not representative of IDF life, and are in poor taste. Humor of this kind deserves every condemnation and excoriation. The IDF intends to take action for the immediate eradication of this phenomenon. To this end, it is emphasizing to commanding officers that it is appropriate, among other things, to take discretionary and disciplinary measures against those involved in acts of this sort." Shlomo Tzipori, a lieutenant colonel in the reserves and a lawyer specializing in martial law, said the army does bring soldiers up on charges for offenses that occur outside the base and during their free time.

According to Tzipori, slogans that constitute an "insult to the army or to those in uniform" are grounds for court-martial, on charges of "shameful conduct" or "disciplinary infraction," which are general clauses in judicial martial law.

Sociologist Dr. Orna Sasson-Levy, of Bar-Ilan University, author of "Identities in Uniform: Masculinities and Femininities in the Israeli Military," said that the phenomenon is "part of a radicalization process the entire country is undergoing, and the soldiers are at its forefront. I think that ever since the second intifada there has been a continual shift to the right. The pullout from Gaza and its outcome - the calm that never arrived - led to a further shift rightward. "This tendency is most strikingly evident among soldiers who encounter various situations in the territories on a daily basis. There is less meticulousness than in the past, and increasing callousness. There is a perception that the Palestinian is not a person, a human being entitled to basic rights, and therefore anything may be done to him."

Could the printing of clothing be viewed also as a means of venting aggression?
Sasson-Levy: "No. I think it strengthens and stimulates aggression and legitimizes it. What disturbs me is that a shirt is something that has permanence. The soldiers later wear it in civilian life; their girlfriends wear it afterward. It is not a statement, but rather something physical that remains, that is out there in the world. Beyond that,I think the link made between sexist views and nationalist views, as in the 'Screw Haniyeh' shirt, is interesting.

National chauvinism and gender chauvinism combine and strengthen one another. It establishes a masculinity shaped by violent aggression toward women and Arabs; a masculinity that considers it legitimate to speak in a crude and violent manner toward women and Arabs."

Col. (res.) Ron Levy began his military service in the Sayeret Matkal elite commando force before the Six-Day War. He was the IDF's chief psychologist, and headed the army's mental health department in the 1980s. Levy: "I'm familiar with things of this sort going back 40, 50 years, and each time they take a different form. Psychologically speaking, this is one of the ways in which soldiers project their anger, frustration and violence. It is a certain expression of things, which I call 'below the belt.'" Do you think this a good way to vent anger? Levy: "It's safe. But there are also things here that deviate from the norm, and you could say that whoever is creating these things has reached some level of normality. He gives expression to the fact that what is considered abnormal today might no longer be so tomorrow." (end)

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This article was written by an Israel journalist. I wonder how come he is so calm?

A group of crazy jerks are released to spread their insanity and some psychological ans sociological pimps rationalizing what they are doing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews

Unknown user — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 00:05:25 EDT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUh067U7E1A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jITO32SgYcE&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu1barPiRN0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMlC22Og8UM&feature=related

Arabism - Racism virus spreading in... Venezuela under Dictator Chavez

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 20:20:56 EST

Arabism - Racism virus spreading in... Venezuela

So... is Hugo Chavez "arab" enough now?

---

From a 2000-2001 Report of Antisemitism And Racism, Responses to the intifada in the media, in wall graffiti and by Arab organizations in Venezuela such as FEARAB (Arab Federation for Latin America) were directed at de-legitimizing the State of Israel, which was accused of causing the Palestinian tragedy.
The radical language used against Israel was not infrequently antisemitic, for example, the comparison of Israeli soldiers with Nazis *.

In January 2009, Venezuela expelled Israeli ambassador over Gaza, due to influence by Chavez's government's Justice Minister Tarek El Aissami, who is of Arab descent * and a sizable population of Arab descent, hundreds of people who marched against Israel * (at Israel's anti terror operation of cast lead * *, Descendants of Arabs thriving in S. America, Venezuela has a flourishing Arab community of about 1.5 million, business and commerce. Shop names like Flower of Palestine are a common *).

In Jan. 1, 2009, Antisemitic graffiti was painted on the corner of Cristobal Colon Sinai Jewish School in Caracas *.

There was worldwide condemnation pouring down on Venezuela After Synagogue Attack in Caracas, with written racist messages like: "Jews, get out," in the worst ever attack on the Venezualan Jewish community *, Death threats against rabbis and the menacing of the Jewish community has apparently led to vandalism of a synagogue in Caracas. Marauders entered the temple and profaned the Torah and Ark, strewing them on the floor and fired shots in the air *, it has been said that 'Palestinian' and Arab supporters in Venezuela were responsible * and Chavez's (described by many as a dictator * * ** * * * * *, who is a new "hero" in the Arab world *) close ties with the radical Islamic Republic of Iran's leader Ahmadinejad (that has called for genocide, to 'wipe out Israel' *** ) * *.

Hugo Chavez - extreme Arabism, he also forged alliances with dictators of rogue Arab states such as Libya' s Qaddafi, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Exhorting his countrymen to return to their "Arab roots" *, he has illegally given more than 270 Venezuelan passports to Arab extremists *, Waleed al-Tabtabai A Kuwaiti Islamist MP called for moving Arab League headquarters from Cairo to Caracas after he expelled the Israel's ambassador, Tabtabai said that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez "has proved that he was more Arab than some Arabs"
*.

Beyond Gaza: An Abrahamic Peace

Curtis — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:16:36 EST

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow 01-29-2009

http://blog.sojo.net/2009/01/29/beyond-gaza-an-abrahamic-peace/

Beyond anguish, what can we say about the massive death and destruction in Gaza and the traumatic fear of falling rockets in Israel? How do we shape not just the temporary palliative of “cease-fire,” but a true alternative? Not just in pretty theory, but in political practicality?

The Obama administration could start by insisting that the Israeli and Egyptian governments open the borders of Gaza to shipments of food and medicine and fuel, while improving the prevention of importing weapons. At the same time, it could refuse to supply Israel with white phosphorus and other weapons that the Israeli government illegally used against the civilian population of Gaza.

But such changes –- only the beginning –- will not happen without public demand for change from a new political alliance inside the U.S. and a new nonviolent campaign by Palestinians, Israelis, and Europeans.

First of all, Palestinians could change reality on the ground by mounting vigorous, assertive, nonviolent resistance to the blockade/embargo. In the weeks just before the invasion of Gaza, small boatloads of people were bringing food and medical supplies to Gaza, ignoring or violating the Israeli blockade. After the invasion began, two more such boats were forced to turn back by the Israeli Navy.

These “ship-ins” were building support in much of the world, pointing out the injustice and violence of the blockade. Instead of canceling the cease-fire and firing rockets once again, Hamas could have turned those boats into a multitude. They might have built an enormous popular pressure in Europe and the U.S. for an end to the blockade and negotiations between Israel, the various powers, and Hamas.

Even now, with or without support from Hamas, European doctors, academics, clergy, political leaders, and peace activists could sponsor a flotilla of “ship-ins.” And Palestinians who live in Israel and in the allegedly “annexed” East Jerusalem could start blockading Israeli roads in a strictly nonviolent way –- not even stone-throwing. They could and would be joined by some Israelis.

Such an effort to challenge in a new way the assumptions behind Israeli power could galvanize a new response from the world at large –- even from the United States. But even if such a nonviolent campaign does not emerge, there are the beginnings of a more conventional approach to peacemaking.

Any effort to heal the wounds of the Middle East must include the Palestinian-Israeli relationship but cannot stop there. For years, the Arab League, led by Saudi Arabia, has proposed a regional peace settlement that would bring peace to Israel in exchange for the recognition of a new and viable Palestinian state. The Israeli government, with support from the U.S. government, has ignored the proposal. But for many Israelis, this would actually be the fulfillment of the dream of a secure and peaceful life.

Can an Israeli government now say, “We are ready to join in these negotiations”? We are ready to deal with a new Palestinian government of national unity that includes Hamas, which obviously has considerable strength among the Palestinian community. For us the deal must include only very small symbolic numbers of Palestinian refugees returning to Israel itself, and control of the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Perhaps now, after the Gaza invasion, any Israeli government can do this and say that they have not rewarded terrorism, are not negotiating from weakness, have shown they can be bloody. But would they want to? That would require a deep rethinking because it would mean a serious commitment to ending the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as the blockade of Gaza. Settlers and other opponents of doing this, though fewer in numbers than those who will support it, will be much more intense in their opposition. So the government is likely to be paralyzed, refusing to do what is necessary for peace, resorting to old slogans and the institutional and cultural power of the military to justify paralysis.

So the necessary counterweight for this domestic paralysis will have to come from outside -– that is, the United States. Appointing George Mitchell, the weaver of the Irish peace settlement, as peace envoy to the Middle East is an excellent start. But it will mean little unless the U.S. adopts a whole new policy toward the region.

The alternative policy for the U.S. government would be to use the disaster of Gaza to insist on a regional Middle East peace conference; to insist that even a Netanyahu government of Israel and even a Hamas leadership of Gaza or Palestine take part and accept a decent peace; to connect the end of the U.S. occupation of Iraq with serious diplomacy with Iran and a political settlement of the Afghan agony; and to move swiftly off the fossil fuel addiction that drives a planetary disaster and drives American policy into corruption or conquest in the Middle Eastern oil pools.

Only the biggest response can meet the need. Half-measures, the normal response of governments facing complex conflict, will not work.

And what might make such a break with automatic U.S. policy possible? The presidency of an unusual person chanting “change” is not enough. There are only two clusters of power in the U.S. with enough passion about the Middle East to matter. One is Big Oil. The other is the ethnic and religious passion of American Christians, Jews, and Muslims. If sizeable parts of these groups could work together for such a policy, it might be possible.

For many Jews and Muslims, that is even harder now than it was a month ago. But for others, the shock of so much blood has already brought about unexpected alliances -– and could make it possible.

At the grassroots in some American communities, some Jews have joined with some Muslims in local demonstrations calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. The peace-oriented American Jewish organizations might be willing to take their previous positions one step further. They might be able to work with American Arabs, Muslims, Christians, and others to press the new administration toward a grand peace.

The building blocks for such a coalition now exist. Can they be mortared together? A roused Muslim-American community, not yet well organized for political action but speedily getting more so; the beginnings of an independent base in the Jewish community (Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, J Street, Americans for Peace Now, The Shalom Center, the Israel Policy Forum, Tikkun, Jewish Voice for Peace) that could draw strength from the majority of real live American Jews – who support such a result but whose politics are unvoiced by the big American Jewish organizations; mainstream Protestant groups that are raring to go and will be effective if they can focus on changing U.S. policy instead of parading their own personal purity as in the divestment campaigns, and if they have Jewish allies so as not to be accused (or accuse themselves) of anti-Semitism; a vague Roman Catholic support for the same result, which might be stimulated into action; black community support, pro-peace and ready to affirm Palestinian self-determination, but so far not focused on this issue because there are other urgencies and they feel the need for Jewish allies to address those urgencies; and non-religiously or ethnically identified progressives, if they can get over their habit of treating the word “Zionist” as a curse word and start clearly condemning terrorist attacks on civilians by the underdogs, as well as military attacks, occupation, and blockade by the uber-dogs.

The effort to shape such a Grand Abrahamic Alliance should begin now.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow is director of The Shalom Center, which voices a new prophetic agenda in Jewish, multireligious, and American life. He is co-author of The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, as well as the author of many books on Jewish thought and practice and U.S. public policy.

A Real Pro-Israel Policy Helps Palestine, Too

Curtis — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:09:47 EST

Stephen Zunes wrote this article as part of A Just Foreign Policy, the Summer 2008 issue of YES! Magazine. Link: http://www.yesmagazine.org/other/pop_print_article.asp?ID=2683

Peace between Israelis and Palestinians is possible悠sraeli security and Palestinian rights are not mutually exclusive, but rather each is impossible without the other.

The Palestinian Authority and virtually all the Arab states are now on record expressing their willingness to recognize Israel and to provide security guarantees in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands conquered in the June 1967 war. This would leave the Palestinians with just 22 percent of historic Palestine. Nonetheless, the U.S.-backed Israeli position is that the Palestinians should be allowed an independent 都tate・on even less territory and only in a series of non-contiguous cantons surrounded by Israel and with the Israeli government controlling the air space, water resources, and the movement of people and goods.

Unlike some earlier periods in Israel痴 past, the country痴 survival is no longer at stake. The Israeli military is far more powerful than any combination of Arab armies. Despite the threat of periodic shelling and suicide bombings from Islamic extremists, most Israelis are relatively secure within their country痴 internationally recognized borders. Where Israeli soldiers and civilians are most vulnerable is in the occupied Palestinian territories. In these areas, illegal Israeli settlements and roads 650;eserved for Jews only幼reate an apartheid-like situation, and make it extremely difficult for Israeli forces to defend against a population angry at the occupiers who have confiscated what is often their best land. Israel would be far more secure defending a clearly defined and internationally recognized border than an archipelago of illegal outposts within Palestinian territory.

It is the ongoing Israeli occupation and colonization of the West Bank, along with the siege of the Gaza Strip, which creates the hopelessness and desperation that breed extremist violence. Only when the occupation ends will the threat from Palestinian terrorism finally have a realistic chance of being controlled.

U.S. policy in this troubled region has become increasingly controversial, but it should not be criticized as being too 菟ro-Israel.・U.S.-backed Israeli policies are not only jeopardizing the human rights of their Arab victims, they are hurting Israel痴 legitimate interests as well.

撤eace・proposals that allow Israel to annex large swathes of occupied Palestinian territory様ike those the Clinton administration pushed at Camp David in 2000 and the Bush administration has been supporting subsequently幼annot provide rights or security to either side. A truly pro-Israel policy would maintain the U.S. commitment to the security and well-being of the Jewish state, but would insist that Israel end its occupation, withdraw from its illegal settlements, and allow for the emergence of a viable, contiguous, independent Palestinian state.

This may require that the United States apply pressure 768;uch as withholding military and economic aid擁f the Israeli government continues to violate its obligations under international humanitarian law. Such aid does not help Israel much anyway. Indeed, most of the more than $2 billion in annual 杜ilitary assistance・to Israel amounts to a credit line to American arms manufacturers and actually ends up costing Israelis two to three times that amount for personnel, training, and spare parts. The additional $2 billion in U.S. economic aid is little more than the interest Israel is required to pay American banks from loans for previous arms purchases.

Many of those in Washington who call themselves supporters of Israel are supporting Israel痴 hawks who are making the country more dependent upon the United States. This increases Israel痴 vulnerability by preventing it from recognizing its natural alliance with the world痴 Afro-Asian majority. Within Israel, there is a solid progressive minority that supports the necessary compromises for peace and a similar-sized militaristic minority that does not. Most Israelis are in the middle and, as Israeli scholar and peace activist Galia Golan describes it, 典hey will lean left when Israel is feeling pressure from the United States but lean right in situations like today when there is no U.S. pressure.・

The combination of Israeli technology, Palestinian entrepreneurship and industriousness, and Arabian oil wealth could result in an economic, political, and social transformation of the Middle East. This would be highly beneficial to the region痴 inhabitants, but not necessarily to powerful U.S. interests who benefit from the current policy of divide-and-rule. An Israel at peace with its neighbors would be far less likely to be willing to serve as a reliable ally in support of U.S. hegemonic designs in this critical region.

If the United States really wants to be a friend of Israel, the U.S. government must apply some 鍍ough love.・This would entail unconditional support for Israel痴 right to exist in peace and security, but with an insistence that Israel uphold its international obligations and withdraw its settlers and troops from the occupied territories. Only then can the violence end and peace become a reality. And only then will the United States be a true friend of Israel.

Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, where he chairs the Middle East Studies program. He is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage, 2003) and a member of the advisory board of the Tikkun Community. www.stephenzunes.org

Israel's Original Sin

Unknown user — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:11:43 EST

Israel's Original Sin

Jeet Heer

National Post

May 7, 2008

As part of our series of opinion articles marking the 60th anniversary of Israel, Jeet Heer offers a radically different --and less celebratory --perspective

Sixty years ago, a 12-year-old boy witnessed the slaughter of his family. His name was Fahim Zaydan, and he lived in the Arab village of Deir Yassin in Mandate Palestine, which was attacked on April 9, 1948, by Irgun and Stern Gang troops, paramilitary forces allied with the right-wing of the Zionist movement. These troops swooped into the village and started machine gunning civilians. Those that survived this initial attack were then forced by the troops to gather outside.

"They took us out one after the other," Zaydan recalled. "Shot an old man and when one of his daughters cried, she was shot too. Then they called my brother Muhammad, and shot him in front of us, and when my mother yelled, bending over him -- carrying my little sister Hudra in her hands, still breastfeeding her -- they shot her too."

Irgun commander Ben Zion-Cohen offered a more succinct account of what happened: "We eliminated every Arab that came our way." This statement glosses over the fact that some of the Arab women were raped by Irgun and Stern Gang troops before they were killed. At least 93 civilians in the village were murdered that day, not just women and children but also babies.

The massacre at Deir Yassin is one of the most famous atrocities of 1948, but it was not the only one nor the largest. In fact, if one were cynical one could argue that Deir Yassin gets publicized only because its perpetrators were Irgun and Stern Gang troops, easy scapegoats who can be blamed for the violence in order to make the mainstream Labor Zionism of David Ben-Gurion look more respectable.

Deir Yassin was in fact a microcosm of what happened in Palestine as a whole in 1948: Zionist troops, including those under Ben-Gurion's command, used terror tactics to force the indigenous population to flee. Israel was founded through an act of ethnic cleansing, of a type all too familiar in recent history.

The creation of the State of Israel was both a triumph and a tragedy. The triumph is well known: how the fledgling and precarious Zionist movement, still recovering from the horrors of the Holocaust, waged a war of national liberation in Palestine, creating a new Jewish state while fending off hostile Arab armies. It's an inspiring story of a scrappy underdog who wins against the odds. This triumph is often celebrated in religious and mythical terms (think of the title of Leon Uris's hugely popular novel Exodus, evocative of Moses).

But there was a tragic side to Israel's founding. The ethnic cleansing that allowed Israel to emerge was a terrible trauma for the Arab victims, and it continues to haunt the Jewish state to this day. The external war against Arab armies was mirrored by an internal war against Arabs living inside Palestine. Because of this tragic legacy, uncritically celebrating 1948 does a disservice to Jews and Arabs alike.

I know many readers will be shocked by my use of the words "ethnic cleansing," which seem so harsh to those raised on the myth-making of Leon Uris. But the fact is that the best recent historians of Israel's founding, some of whom are ardent Zionists, have made it clear that the events of 1948 were an ethnic cleansing. The only serious debate is whether this ethnic cleansing was a deliberate policy by Zionist leaders or an accidental byproduct of the fog of war.

To understand what happened, consider the situation that the Zionist movement faced in Palestine before 1948: They had too few Jews (less than half the population of Mandate Palestine), too little land (Jews owned less than 6% of the land) and too many Arabs.

In 1938, David Ben-Gurion told the Jewish Agency Executive, "I am for compulsory transfer; I do not see anything immoral in it."

Ben-Gurion and his followers were remarkably successful in this policy of "compulsory transfer." By 1949, more than 700,000 Palestinians had been made into refugees, more than 500 villages had been destroyed and many Arab urban neighbourhoods were depopulated. As Israeli military commander Yitzhak Pundak recalled in 2004 of events he participated in, "There were 200 villages and these are gone. We had to destroy them, otherwise we would have had Arabs here [in the Southern part of Palestine] as we have in Galilee. We would have had another million Palestinians."

If you look at Zionism from a Western perspective, its logic is clear and compelling. Anti-Semitism has deep roots in European history and the Holocaust demonstrated what happens to Jews when they don't have the protective shield of their own state. And the guilt for the Holocaust belongs not just to the Germans, who were the primary perpetrators, but also their many collaborators in Poland, Ukraine, France and elsewhere. Nor were the English-speaking peoples innocent: England, Canada, the United States and the other members of the anglosphere made extraordinary efforts to keep out Jewish refugees. Western civilization committed terrible crimes in the 1930s and 1940s, and the West owes the Jews a state.

But if you look at Zionism from a global perspective, one that acknowledges that Arabs are human beings, then the morality becomes much murkier. Unlike the peoples of Europe, the Palestinians weren't direct participants in the Holocaust. Why should Palestinians lose their land because of crimes committed by Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and other Europeans? It's difficult to look at the founding of Israel, the displacement of the indigenous population and the ongoing occupation, and not conclude that the Palestinians are paying a huge price for other people's sins.

In an interview with the newspaper Haaretz, the historian Benny Morris, a mainstream Labour Zionist, offered a partial justification of the ethnic cleansing of 1948. "There is no justification for acts of rape," he admitted. "There is no justification for acts of massacre. Those are war crimes. But in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands."

Morris went on to say: "There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide -- the annihilation of your people -- I prefer ethnic cleansing." (One might question whether in 1948 the indigenous Arab population of Palestine, a peasant population far less organized than their Jewish rivals, wanted genocide or were even capable of it.)

The events of 1948 continue to shape Israel's destiny. In many ways, Israel has been a remarkably successful nation. When I visited it in 2004 I was struck by the good humour and decency of Israel's citizens, the liveliness of its political culture, its prosperity and its cultural achievements. Still, Israel is very different from what the original Zionists wanted. Their dream was that it would become a normal nation, a Jewish counterpart to England, France or Canada.

But in fact, because of its unique security situation, Israel is far from a normal country. Politically, socially and economically, it is hugely militarized (arguably, its recent economic boom has come in part from the new market for arms created by global instability) . Like ancient Sparta, the citizen-soldiers of Israel have to constantly be on guard lest the helots revolt. The Arab population, both those who live in Israel as citizens and those under military occupation, are a constant source of worry. Israel's greatest point of pride, its claim to be a democracy, is undermined by the decades old occupation of Palestinian lands, a situation that resembles apartheid-era South Africa.

Moreover, Israel is completely dependent for its survival on the goodwill of the United States, a diminished imperial power. If the United States were ever to turn its back on Israel, as the superpower did to other controversial allies such as South Vietnam and apartheid-era South Africa, the Jewish state would face a friendless world.

Throughout the globe, Israel is losing legitimacy. This can be seen among young Jews in Canada and the United States, who are much colder toward Zionism than their parents and grandparents.

Despite all its great achievements, Israel's situation 60 years after its founding is deeply problematic. The best solution for Israel's problems is to make restitution for the ethnic cleansing of 1948 and help create a viable Palestinian state. Only when this happens will the dream of Israel as a normal nation be fulfilled

Courage vs Arab Muslim racist hijacking of Durban

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 04:27:41 EST

Courage vs Arab Muslim racist (anti Jewish apartheid) hijacking of Durban

European states consider boycotting Durban 2 summit - Haaretz ...Mar 1, 2009 ... following United States' footsteps...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1067540.html

Canada: Durban II Promotes Racism
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/016733.php

Denmark threatens boycott of Durban II ... Other European countries have warned against crossing EU "red lines."...
http://www.cjnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15657&Itemid=86

Danish foreign minister threatens Western boycott of Durban II ...Oct 28, 2008 ... Why the UN's Durban Review Conference Must Be Boycotted ... European MPs earning £1 million profits in a term, report finds ...
http://europenews.dk/en/node/15473

Learning the lessons from the Arab racist hijacking of the UN
link...

At least one case of "Moderate" Arab Muslims' bigotry - defeated [Arabism's racism]

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 04:53:39 EST

At least one case of "Moderate" Arab Muslims' bigotry - defeated [Arabism's racism]

Bret Stephens on http://www.foxnews.com/journal/"hits & misses", The Fining of UAE over denial of visa to Israeli tennis player is a "defeat for bigotry"

WTA fines Dubai Open organisers after Israeli Shahar Peer denied visa - Feb 20, 2009 The Women's Tennis Association has fined the Dubai Open organisers $US300,000 ($A465,000) after the United Arab Emirates refused to grant a visa to Israeli ...

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,25086276-23209,00.html

Under-fire UAE likely to give Israel's Andy Ram a visa
Israeli doubles specialist Andy Ram is likely to be granted a visa by the United Arab Emirates to play in the Dubai Championships next week, which could prevent a major crisis for tennis...
"To discriminate as the UAE did against one player in this way smacks of bigotry and racism," the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations said in a statement. "This must be declared unacceptable by the WTA and all international sporting associations. As we learned in the past, failure to condemn such actions and take corrective measures, proves destructive to international sporting competition."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/atptour/4692024/Under-fire-UAE-likely-to-give-Israels-Andy-Ram-a-visa.html

Sponsors pull out of Dubai Open after UAE deny visa to Israeli
RACISM ROW: The Wall Street Journal Europe and the Tennis Channel have revoked their sponsorship of the WTA Dubai Open because the UAE denied a visa to Israeli player Shahar Peer.

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,25072951-5005401,00.html

Tennis: Racism Rears Its Ugly Head Shahar Peer is an Israeli tennis player. The United Arab Emirates barred her from participating in the Barclays Dubai tournament

http://ballhype.com/story/tennis_racism_rears_its_ugly_head/

United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has no diplomatic links with Israel, denied her an entry visa into the country. "To discriminate as the UAE did against one player in this way smacks of bigotry and racism,"

http://www.javno.com/en-sports/jewish-leaders-call-on-wta-to-sanction-dubai-event_235390

Will Obama’s stimulus plan work……… NO

Luth-fi Khakad — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:35:36 EST

Will Obama’s stimulus plan work……… NO

You don’t need to be great economist to figure it out. First look into why US went into this recession. Is it just irresponsible sub-prime lending by financial institution??? …….NO. That is just one of the superficial reasons which brought recession. The main reason is overall US foreign policies. For the US economy to sustain and grow, it has to do business with ALL over the world. The stimulus plan will create only short term growth. For long term sustained growth, it has to sell its products & services all over the world. To sell all over the world it has to make friends & allies. Thanks to US foreign polices over the years and mainly during George “W” Bush tenure, it has made more adversaries than allies. Even the last biggest recession in 1970’s came thanks to US foreign policy of unilaterally supporting Israel by air lifting more than 25,000 tons of military equipment for its war against its neighboring countries, which made them turn against US and block sale of oil to US. This time, its direct war with Iraq which cost it more than 600 billion and counting. Why did US did attack on Iraq when Atomic energy agencies had given it clean chit that it doesn’t have any nuclear war heads or WMD? (Till not a single was found). Effortless answer is to get rid of tyrant Saddam Hussein………..NO It was to demolish a country that was challenging the existence of Israel. US fought on behalf of Israel and itself into recession for second time. Zionist lobbies in US capitol is making US take those decision which just benefitting Israel become a more and more diabolic & regional terror, by which it not just making 57 Muslim countries adversary of US but also many other countries are becoming its foe. What is US getting in return from Israel …….. nothing except recessions & enemies. Till the time US does not close this hole in the economy, till will never grow to true potential and long term sustained growth.

In-depth Study: How much is US Tax payers are funding Israel????

Generous as it is, what Israelis actually got in U.S. aid is considerably less than what it has cost U.S. taxpayers to provide it. The principal difference is that so long as the U.S. runs an annual budget deficit, every dollar of aid the U.S. gives Israel has to be raised through U.S. government borrowing.

In an article in The Washington Report for December 1991/January 1992, Frank Collins estimated the costs of this interest, based upon prevailing interest rates for every year since 1949. I have updated this by applying a very conservative 5 percent interest rate for subsequent years, and confined the amount upon which the interest is calculated to grants, not loans or loan guarantees.

On this basis the $84.8 billion in grants, loans and commodities Israel has received from the U.S. since 1949 cost the U.S. an additional $49,936,880,000 in interest.

There are many other costs of Israel to U.S. taxpayers, such as most or all of the $45.6 billion in U.S. foreign aid to Egypt since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979 (compared to $4.2 billion in U.S. aid to Egypt for the preceding 26 years). U.S. foreign aid to Egypt, which is pegged at two-thirds of U.S. foreign aid to Israel, averages $2.2 billion per year.

There also have been immense political and military costs to the U.S. for its consistent support of Israel during Israel's half-century of disputes with the Palestinians and all of its Arab neighbors. In addition, there have been the approximately $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees and perhaps $20 billion in tax-exempt contributions made to Israel by American Jews in the nearly half-century since Israel was created.

Even excluding all of these extra costs, America's $84.8 billion in aid to Israel from fiscal years 1949 through 1998, and the interest the U.S. paid to borrow this money, has cost U.S. taxpayers $134.8 billion, not adjusted for inflation. Or, put another way, the nearly $14,630 every one of 5.8 million Israelis received from the U.S. government by Oct. 31, 1997 has cost American taxpayers $23,240 per Israeli.

It would be interesting to know how many of those American taxpayers believe they and their families have received as much from the U.S. Treasury as has everyone who has chosen to become a citizen of Israel. But it's a question that will never occur to the American public because, so long as America's mainstream media, Congress and president maintain their pact of silence, few Americans will ever know the true cost of Israel to U.S. taxpayers.

The only members of Congress who even suspect the full total of U.S. funds received by Israel each year are the privileged few committee members who actually mark it up. And almost all members of the concerned committees are Jewish, have taken huge campaign donations orchestrated by Israel's Washington, DC lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or both. These congressional committee members are paid to act, not talk. So they do and they don't.

The same applies to the president, the secretary of state, and the foreign aid administrator. They all submit a budget that includes aid for Israel, which Congress approves, or increases, but never cuts. But no one in the executive branch mentions that of the few remaining U.S. aid recipients worldwide, all of the others are developing nations which either make their military bases available to the U.S., are key members of international alliances in which the U.S. participates, or have suffered some crippling blow of nature to their abilities to feed their people such as earthquakes, floods or droughts.

Benefits to Israel of U.S. Aid
Since 1949 (As of November 1, 1997)

Foreign Aid Grants and Loans
$74,157,600,000

Other U.S. Aid (12.2% of Foreign Aid)
$9,047,227,200

Interest to Israel from Advanced Payments
$1,650,000,000

Grand Total
$84,854,827,200

Total Benefits per Israeli
$14,630

Cost to U.S. Taxpayers of U.S.
Aid to Israel

Grand Total
$84,854,827,200

Interest Costs Borne by U.S.
$49,936,680,000

Total Cost to U.S. Taxpayers
$134,791,507,200

Total Taxpayer Cost per Israeli
$23,240

Since 1992, the U.S. has offered Israel an additional $2 billion annually in loan guarantees. Congressional researchers have disclosed that between 1974 and 1989, $16.4 billion in U.S. military loans were converted to grants and that this was the understanding from the beginning. Indeed, all past U.S. loans to Israel have eventually been forgiven by Congress, which has undoubtedly helped Israel's often-touted claim that they have never defaulted on a U.S. government loan. U.S. policy since 1984 has been that economic assistance to Israel must equal or exceed Israel's annual debt repayment to the United States. Unlike other countries, which receive aid in quarterly installments, aid to Israel since 1982 has been given in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year, leaving the U.S. government to borrow from future revenues. Israel even lends some of this money back through U.S. treasury bills and collects the additional interest.

In addition, there is the more than $1.5 billion in private U.S. funds that go to Israel annually in the form of $1 billion in private tax-deductible donations and $500 million in Israeli bonds. The ability of Americans to make what amounts to tax-deductible contributions to a foreign government, made possible through a number of Jewish charities, does not exist with any other country. Nor do these figures include short- and long-term commercial loans from U.S. banks, which have been as high as $1 billion annually in recent years.

Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world's population and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes. Indeed, Israel's GNP is higher than the combined GNP of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. With a per capita income of about $14,000, Israel ranks as the sixteenth wealthiest country in the world; Israelis enjoy a higher per capita income than oil-rich Saudi Arabia and are only slightly less well-off than most Western European countries.

AID does not term economic aid to Israel as development assistance, but instead uses the term "economic support funding."

For the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, the U.S. has given Israel $6.72 billion: $6.194 billion falls under Israel's foreign aid allotment and $526 million comes from agencies such as the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Information Agency and the Pentagon. The $6.72 billion figure does not include loan guarantees and annual compound interest totalling $3.122 billion the U.S. pays on money borrowed to give to Israel. It does not include the cost to U.S. taxpayers of IRS tax exemptions that donors can claim when they donate money to Israeli charities. (Donors claim approximately $1 billion in Federal tax deductions annually. This ultimately costs other U.S. tax payers $280 million to $390 million.)

Military aidIsrael has received more U.S. military assistance than any other country, both in terms of grant aid and military sales on a concessional basis. Since 1987, the U.S. has provided an average of $1.8 billion annually in the form of Foreign Military Sales (FMS), Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and funds to support research and development.[2]A bilateral memorandum of understanding was signed in January 2001, at the end of the Clinton administration, under which defense aid was increased to $2.4 billion annually from $1.8 billion, while the $1.2 billion of economic aid would be eliminated. This was predicated on the basis of the defense aid being increased by $60 million per year until the full amount was reached in 2008, while the economic aid is decreased by $120 million per year until eliminated. In 2007, the United States increased its military aid to Israel by over 25%, to an average of $3 billion per year for the following ten year period (starting at $2.550 billion for 2008, growing by $150 million each year) The package is scheduled to start October 2008, when regular economic aid to Israel's economy is to end. U.S. President George W. Bush assured Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the U.S. would help keep a "qualitative advantage" to Israel over other nations in the region

Israel, whose troubles arise solely from its unwillingness to give back land it seized in the 1967 war in return for peace with its neighbors, does not fit those criteria. In fact, Israel's 1995 per capita gross domestic product was $15,800. That put it below Britain at $19,500 and Italy at $18,700 and just above Ireland at $15,400 and Spain at $14,300.

All four of those European countries have contributed a very large share of immigrants to the U.S., yet none has organized an ethnic group to lobby for U.S. foreign aid. Instead, all four send funds and volunteers to do economic development and emergency relief work in other less fortunate parts of the world.

The lobby that Israel and its supporters have built in the United States to make all this aid happen, and to ban discussion of it from the national dialogue, goes far beyond AIPAC, with its $15 million budget, its 150 employees, and its five or six registered lobbyists who manage to visit every member of Congress individually once or twice a year.

AIPAC, in turn, can draw upon the resources of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, a roof group set up solely to coordinate the efforts of some 52 national Jewish organizations on behalf of Israel.

Among them are Hadassah, the Zionist women's organization, which organizes a steady stream of American Jewish visitors to Israel; the American Jewish Congress, which mobilizes support for Israel among members of the traditionally left-of-center Jewish mainstream; and the American Jewish Committee, which plays the same role within the growing middle-of-the-road and right-of-center Jewish community. The American Jewish Committee also publishes Commentary, one of the Israel lobby's principal national publications.

Perhaps the most controversial of these groups is B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Its original highly commendable purpose was to protect the civil rights of American Jews. Over the past generation, however, the ADL has regressed into a conspiratorial and, with a $45 million budget, extremely well-funded hate group.

More recently, FBI raids on ADL's Los Angeles and San Francisco offices revealed that an ADL operative had purchased files stolen from the San Francisco police department that a court had ordered destroyed because they violated the civil rights of the individuals on whom they had been compiled. ADL, it was shown, had added the illegally prepared and obtained material to its own secret files, compiled by planting informants among Arab-American, African-American, anti-Apartheid and peace and justice groups.

The ADL infiltrators took notes of the names and remarks of speakers and members of audiences at programs organized by such groups. ADL agents even recorded the license plates of persons attending such programs and then suborned corrupt motor vehicles department employees or renegade police officers to identify the owners.

Although one of the principal offenders fled the United States to escape prosecution, no significant penalties were assessed. ADL's Northern California office was ordered to comply with requests by persons upon whom dossiers had been prepared to see their own files, but no one went to jail and as yet no one has paid fines.

Not surprisingly, a defecting employee revealed in an article he published in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs that AIPAC, too, has such "enemies" files. They are compiled for use by pro-Israel journalists like Steven Emerson and other so-called "terrorism experts," and also by professional, academic or journalistic rivals of the persons described for use in black-listing, defaming, or denouncing them. What is never revealed is that AIPAC's "opposition research" department, under the supervision of Michael Lewis, son of famed Princeton University Orientalist Bernard Lewis, is the source of this defamatory material.

But this is not AIPAC's most controversial activity. In the 1970s, when Congress put a cap on the amount its members could earn from speakers' fees and book royalties over and above their salaries, it halted AIPAC's most effective ways of paying off members for voting according to AIPAC recommendations. Members of AIPAC's national board of directors solved the problem by returning to their home states and creating political action committees (PACs).

Most special interests have PACs, as do many major corporations, labor unions, trade associations and public-interest groups. But the pro-Israel groups went wild. To date some 126 pro-Israel PACs have been registered, and no fewer than 50 have been active in every national election over the past generation.

An individual voter can give up to $2,000 to a candidate in an election cycle, and a PAC can give a candidate up to $10,000. However, a single special interest with 50 PACs can give a candidate who is facing a tough opponent, and who has voted according to its recommendations, up to half a million dollars. That's enough to buy all the television time needed to get elected in most parts of the country.

Even candidates who don't need this kind of money certainly don't want it to become available to a rival from their own party in a primary election, or to an opponent from the opposing party in a general election. As a result, all but a handful of the 535 members of the Senate and House vote as AIPAC instructs when it comes to aid to Israel, or other aspects of U.S. Middle East policy.

There is something else very special about AIPAC's network of political action committees. Nearly all have deceptive names. Who could possibly know that the Delaware Valley Good Government Association in Philadelphia, San Franciscans for Good Government in California, Cactus PAC in Arizona, Beaver PAC in Wisconsin, and even Icepac in New York are really pro-Israel PACs under deep cover?

Hiding AIPAC's Tracks

In fact, the congress members know it when they list the contributions they receive on the campaign statements they have to prepare for the Federal Election Commission. But their constituents don't know this when they read these statements. So just as no other special interest can put so much "hard money" into any candidate's election campaign as can the Israel lobby, no other special interest has gone to such elaborate lengths to hide its tracks.

Although AIPAC, Washington's most feared special-interest lobby, can hide how it uses both carrots and sticks to bribe or intimidate members of Congress, it can't hide all of the results.

Anyone can ask one of their representatives in Congress for a chart prepared by the Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress, that shows Israel received $62.5 billion in foreign aid from fiscal year 1949 through fiscal year 1996. People in the national capital area also can visit the library of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Rosslyn, Virginia, and obtain the same information, plus charts showing how much foreign aid the U.S. has given other countries as well.

Visitors will learn that in precisely the same 1949-1996 time frame, the total of U.S. foreign aid to all of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean combined was $62,497,800,000--almost exactly the amount given to tiny Israel.

According to the Population Reference Bureau of Washington, DC, in mid-1995 the sub-Saharan countries had a combined population of 568 million. The $24,415,700,000 in foreign aid they had received by then amounted to $42.99 per sub-Saharan African.

Similarly, with a combined population of 486 million, all of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean together had received $38,254,400,000. This amounted to $79 per person.

The per capita U.S. foreign aid to Israel's 5.8 million people during the same period was $10,775.48. This meant that for every dollar the U.S. spent on an African, it spent $250.65 on an Israeli, and for every dollar it spent on someone from the Western Hemisphere outside the United States, it spent $214 on an Israeli.

Shocking Comparisons

These comparisons already seem shocking, but they are far from the whole truth. Using reports compiled by Clyde Mark of the Congressional Research Service and other sources, freelance writer Frank Collins tallied for The Washington Report all of the extra items for Israel buried in the budgets of the Pentagon and other federal agencies in fiscal year 1993.Washington Report news editor Shawn Twing did the same thing for fiscal years 1996 and 1997.

They uncovered $1.271 billion in extras in FY 1993, $355.3 million in FY 1996 and $525.8 million in FY 1997. These represent an average increase of 12.2 percent over the officially recorded foreign aid totals for the same fiscal years, and they probably are not complete. It's reasonable to assume, therefore, that a similar 12.2 percent hidden increase has prevailed over all of the years Israel has received aid.

As of Oct. 31, 1997 Israel will have received $3.05 billion in U.S. foreign aid for fiscal year 1997 and $3.08 billion in foreign aid for fiscal year 1998. Adding the 1997 and 1998 totals to those of previous years since 1949 yields a total of $74,157,600,000 in foreign aid grants and loans. Assuming that the actual totals from other budgets average 12.2 percent of that amount, that brings the grand total to $83,204,827,200.

But that's not quite all. Receiving its annual foreign aid appropriation during the first month of the fiscal year, instead of in quarterly installments as do other recipients, is just another special privilege Congress has voted for Israel. It enables Israel to invest the money in U.S. Treasury notes. That means that the U.S., which has to borrow the money it gives to Israel, pays interest on the money it has granted to Israel in advance, while at the same time Israel is collecting interest on the money. That interest to Israel from advance payments adds another $1.650 billion to the total, making it $84,854,827,200.That's the number you should write down for total aid to Israel. And that's $14,346 each for each man, woman and child in Israel.

It's worth noting that that figure does not include U.S. government loan guarantees to Israel, of which Israel has drawn $9.8 billion to date. They greatly reduce the interest rate the Israeli government pays on commercial loans, and they place additional burdens on U.S. taxpayers, especially if the Israeli government should default on any of them. But since neither the savings to Israel nor the costs to U.S. taxpayers can be accurately quantified, they are excluded from consideration here.

Further, friends of Israel never tire of saying that Israel has never defaulted on repayment of a U.S. government loan. It would be equally accurate to say Israel has never been required to repay a U.S. government loan. The truth of the matter is complex, and designed to be so by those who seek to conceal it from the U.S. taxpayer.

Most U.S. loans to Israel are forgiven, and many were made with the explicit understanding that they would be forgiven before Israel was required to repay them. By disguising as loans what in fact were grants, cooperating members of Congress exempted Israel from the U.S. oversight that would have accompanied grants. On other loans, Israel was expected to pay the interest and eventually to begin repaying the principal. But the so-called Cranston Amendment, which has been attached by Congress to every foreign aid appropriation since 1983, provides that economic aid to Israel will never dip below the amount Israel is required to pay on its outstanding loans. In short, whether U.S. aid is extended as grants or loans to Israel, it never returns to the Treasury.

Israel enjoys other privileges. While most countries receiving U.S. military aid funds are expected to use them for U.S. arms, ammunition and training, Israel can spend part of these funds on weapons made by Israeli manufacturers. Also, when it spends its U.S. military aid money on U.S. products, Israel frequently requires the U.S. vendor to buy components or materials from Israeli manufacturers. Thus, though Israeli politicians say that their own manufacturers and exporters are making them progressively less dependent upon U.S. aid, in fact those Israeli manufacturers and exporters are heavily subsidized by U.S. aid.

Although it's beyond the parameters of this study, it's worth mentioning that Israel also receives foreign aid from some other countries. After the United States, the principal donor of both economic and military aid to Israel is Germany.

By far the largest component of German aid has been in the form of restitution payments to victims of Nazi atrocities. But there also has been extensive German military assistance to Israel during and since the Gulf war, and a variety of German educational and research grants go to Israeli institutions. The total of German assistance in all of these categories to the Israeli government, Israeli individuals and Israeli private institutions has been some $31 billion or $5,345 per capita, bringing the per capita total of U.S. and German assistance combined to almost $20,000 per Israeli. Since very little public money is spent on the more than 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are Muslim or Christian, the actual per capita benefits received by Israel's Jewish citizens would be considerably higher.

Till the time US does not close this hole in the economy, till will never grow to true potential and long term sustained growth.

Philip Slater: A Message to Israel: Time to Stop Playing the Victim Role

Unknown user — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:21:07 EST

I can understand that after centuries of persecution it's satisfying for a Jewish state to be the aggressor for a change, but there's a codicil that goes with that role. You don't get to act like a victim any more. "Poor little Israel" just sounds silly when you're the dominant power in the Middle East. When you've invaded several of your neighbors, bombed and defeated them in combat, occupied their land, and taken their homes away from them, it's time to stop acting oppressed. Yes, Arab states deny your right to exist, threaten to drive you into the sea, and all the rest of their futile, helpless rhetoric. The fact is, you have the upper hand and they don't. You have sophisticated arms and they don't. You have nuclear weapons and they don't. So stop pretending to be pathetic. It doesn't play well in Peoria.

(Yes, I know, we Americans should talk--always trembling in our boots about terrorists and 'rogue states' and 'evil empires' when we have enough nukes to blow up entire continents, and spend more on arms in an hour than most of the world's nations spend in a year. But just because we're hypocrites and Nervous Nellies doesn't mean you have to be).

Calling Hamas the 'aggressor' is undignified. The Gaza strip is little more than a large Israeli concentration camp, in which Palestinians are attacked at will, starved of food, fuel, energy--even deprived of hospital supplies. They cannot come and go freely, and have to build tunnels to smuggle in the necessities of life. It would be difficult to have any respect for them if they didn't fire a few rockets back.

The Israel lobby has a hissy fit when anyone points out that Israel has been borrowing liberally from the Nazi playbook, but to punish a whole nation for the attacks of a few--which Israel has been doing consistently in Gaza--is a violation of international law--a law enacted in response to the Nazi practice. And please, spare us the hypocrisy--borrowed, I'm ashamed to admit, from my own government--of saying 'every effort is made to avoid civilian casualties'. When you drop bombs on a crowded city you're bombing civilians. Bombs don't ask for ID cards. Bombs are civilian killers. That's what they do. They're designed to break the spirit of a nation by slaughtering families. They were used all through World War II by all sides for that very purpose. And that's what they're intended for in Gaza.

And please, Israel, try to restrain yourself from using that ridiculous argument, borrowed again from Bush (how low can you get?), that Hamas leaders "hide among civilians", by living in their own homes. Apparently, in the thinking of Israelis, they should all run out into an uninhabited area somewhere (try to find one in Gaza), surround themselves with flares and write in the sand with a stick, "Here I am!"

Yesterday you shelled three UN-run schools, killing several dozen children and adults, despite the fact that the UN had given you the precise coordinates of all its schools in Gaza. So much for 'taking every care to avoid civilian casualties'. You seem to feel you can kill whomever you like, whenever you like, and wherever you like, just because you have a blank check from the United States. Every day this assault goes on you're demonstrating contempt for the UN, the international community, and human life. Talk about a rogue state.

You might also pay attention to the fact that your outdated policy of macho bullying--the policy you've been following for decades--isn't working! The Palestinians are human. They're not dogs you can beat into submission. The worse you treat them, the more they'll fight back. That's what it means to be human. The more you oppress people, the more people resist. We dropped more bombs on Viet Nam than all the bombs dropped by all nations in World War II. Not to mention napalm, herbicides and all kinds of sophisticated land mines. But did they bow down and kiss the feet of their conquerors? They did not.

You'll have to kill them all. And when you do, you may finally lose the support even of the United States.

Remember that American support is based entirely on the notion that no politician can win without the Jewish vote. But not all American Jews think Israel is on a divine mission from God. A great many American Jews believe in international law and justice.

I can understand how Israel could resent this lecture coming from an American. After all, isn't this what we Americans did? Came into someone else's country, slaughtered 95% of its inhabitants and took over? And didn't we go all Nervous Nellie whenever they fought back, accusing them of aggression to justify even more genocidal slaughter? And didn't we get away with it?

Yes, but I'm sorry to tell you, Israel, you came on the scene too late. Genocide just doesn't fly any more. I know it isn't fair, you have every right to feel aggrieved about this, but the world's smaller, cowboys are passé, and bullies aren't heroes any more.

...a world without Islam...

The Ranting Dream — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:57:46 EST

…quoting Graham Fuller’s thought provoking article which asserts that the ’terrorism’ that our corrupt goons in politics so desperately want us to believe as being at the ‘root’ of Islam, isn’t about Islam at all - it is about Western imperialism and oppression, and had Islam never existed, the world would look about the same as it does today…

Similarities of dictators' tolalitarianism, Chavez & Islamofascists

Maria from New York, NY — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:26:59 EST

Similarities of dictators' tolalitarianism, Chavez & Islamofascists

'You better say I am "nice" or you are "out".'

__________

Dictator Chavez: "You better say I am "not" a dictator... or else.

Venezuela ousts EU politician for insulting Chavez
Story Highlights Venezuela ousts Spanish EU member Hugo Chavez's opposition had asked EU member to observe upcoming election Spaniard called Hugo Chavez a dictator Venezuelans to vote Sunday on whether to remove president's term limits CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) - Venezuela on Friday expelled a Spanish member of the European Parliament after he called President Hugo Chavez a dictator and criticized Chavez's handling of a referendum on term limits that the lawmaker had been set to observe.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/02/14/venezuela.chavez.expelled.dictator/

Islamofascism: "You better say Islam is 'peace', or else..."

Behead All Those Who Insult Islam by Michelle Malkin on National ..."Slay those who insult Islam. Butcher those who mock Islam."... They'll eventually pay lip service to The Religion of Peace

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGI4MGU4NjUxZDRmZWQwOGEyMTA1NWM0NDcxYTcwYTQ=

The 'Qassam Kindergarten' Jihad

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:51:05 EST

The 'Qassam Kindergarten' Jihad

'Palestinians' Islamic Hamas, "loves" children, well, in their special 'death cult' type of way anyway.You already know how they love their own children... to die for propaganda, and make every effort in succeeding in it - unfortunately.But there are also other children under the "wings of Jihadi love" of Hamas, the Israeli children in schools, in kindergartens, they are "favorites", favorites in Hamas' targets that is, planning the time/place when/where they go to school, thank God for so many miracles where children weren't harmed.Call it 'Qassam kindergarten', 'Kindergarten Jihad', or plain 'Jihad on kids' the broader reality.

---

Qassam Kindergarten
[Dec 2007]
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2007/12/qassam-kindergarten/index.shtml

May 15, 2007 ...Major Injuries In Sderot Rocket Barrage. Children Wounded As Rockets Score Direct Hits On School and Home.
http://www.mererhetoric.com/archives/11273760.html

The reality of Sderot, the city where I live
By Noam Bedein January 22, 2008
Barrage of rockets hits Sderot as kids go to school ... ...
http://web.israelinsider.com/views/12586.htm

Kassam alert- kindergarten http://sderotmedia.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFss6p5sTPE

SderotMedia - 'Kindergarten'
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4HPID_enCR310US204&q=site%3Asderotmedia.com+kindergarten

Qassam hits kindergarten; 2 children lightly wounded - [Jul 28, 2006] ... News: Rocket lands next to kindergarten in town south of Ashkelon; 2 children hurt, 8 suffer shock. Earlier a number of rockets hit central ...
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3282603,00.html

Qassam lands near Sderot kindergarten
Rocket hits neighborhood in southern town, causes damage to private house located near kindergarten; several people suffer from shock, one woman loses consciousness. Military sources say IDF policy in Gaza may change
[Published: 05.07.07]
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3396608,00.html

12 Sderot Children Hospitalized for Shock After Kassam Attacks ...Sep 3, 2007
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123570

Two IDF soldiers, civilian lightly hurt as Gaza mortars hit Negev
Three rockets struck the Eshkol region, two of them landing in open fields and the third between two kindergartens. [01/02/2009]
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/1060562.html

Rocket hits Ashdod kindergarten - "Thankfully, no children were in the kindergarten, and no one was badly hurt... [Jan 11, 2009 8:08 | Updated Jan 12, 2009 2:37]
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1231424913241

Pat Dollard | Hamas Violates Humanitarian Cease Fire, Shells Kindergarten ... hit a house next to a school in the Israeli southern city of Sderot, ... Children would also drill evacuating their class rooms...
http://patdollard.com/2009/01/hamas-violates-humanitarian-cease-fire-shells-kindergarten/

[January 6, 2009] a Hamas leader warned that the Islamists would kill Jewish children anywhere in the world
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5454204.ece?Submitted=true

STRATEGIC QASSAM vs. DIPLOMATIC BLITZ Harari, now an analyst at the Herzliya Center, warned that if a Qassam rocket hits a crowded synagogue or kindergarten it will trigger a massive IDF ...
http://www.isracast.com/article.aspx?ID=769

---

The "brave" masked "freedom fighters" Islamic butchers

The Israeli innocent Victims

Slave Labor - Israel's Construction Industry

Unknown user — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:22:17 EST

Israel is a Western-style democracy in which the rights of all individuals are protected by law. If you believe that, guess again! Like many other Western democracies, Israel has relied on a slave class to do the hard labor to create a society in which the "decent people" can enjoy a comfortable standard of living.

It wouldn't be fair to single Israel out for its shortcomings; even the United States turned a blind eye and allowed slavery from the time of its founding and denied a sizeable segment of the population rights under the Constitution that was designed to ensure those rights to all persons living within the borders of the country. However, it is also far from praiseworthy for a society to assume a facade of being a democracy when it continues to build its economy on the backs of men -- and only men -- who provide slave labor to build the country while the "good Israelis" regard the tasks that these men perform as beneath their dignity.

Nowhere is slave labor more obvious than in the construction industry. This problem was not born when the young state was created, as comedian Dudu Topaz pointed out in his Slip of the Tongue routine in the 1980's; one of his jokes included a man telling his grandson about how he helped build so many buildings in Tel-Aviv, which prompted his grandson's question: "Grandpa, were you an Arab?" In truth, one of the legacies of the 1967 Six Day War was a large Arab population living under Israeli military rule in the occupied territories; the male residents of these territories, anxious to profit from the new political realities, were only too willing to enter Israel to seek work, and Israeli employers, who knew that the spending power in the territories would enable Arab laborers to work for competitively low wages, were prepared to take the risk of hiring workers whose political sentiments might be hostile in order to build up their empires within Israel.

For close to two decades, this arrangement worked for the most part; all over the country, areas that became known as the "slave markets" sprang up, where Arabs from the territories stood and waited for Israeli entrepreneurs in need of laborers to come by to offer them work, whether on a daily or weekly basis. Technically, every Arab laborer was supposed to be registered with the Israeli government to be allowed to work within Israel; in practice, not always did the employers go through the trouble to register their fly-by-night hires. Because not all the Arab laborers regarded the Israeli-Arab dispute as something they wanted to forget, violent clashes often occurred; just as often, Israeli employers, fearful of such reprisals that could harm or incriminate them, saw fit to lock the Arab workers inside their temporary sleeping quarters. This latter practice could, and did, result in tragedy if a fire or other hazard broke out; the male slave laborers were helpless to flee the danger.

The intifada brought this arrangement to an end rapidly. Contractors, suddenly faced with a glaring lack of workers to complete their construction projects, made a desperate attempt to encourage young Israelis looking for career vocations to turn back to the construction industry in the hopes of solving both the problem of the labor shortage and the risk that employing residents of hostile areas had posed. This attempt, while well intended, did not gain sufficient popularity to return the construction industry to a "respectable" status in the eyes of Israelis; to them, construction was still too lowly for them to allow their children to do.

Faced with no alternatives locally, building contractors turned abroad to look for men desperate to feed their families to offer them contracts for work in Israel. In Romania, Israeli contractors found a sizeable audience of men who could not make a living in their own country. The contractors made arrangements to pay for their passage to Israel, to pay their wages, to provide them with living quarters, and to pay for their return passage at the completion of the work. All the laborers worked according to a contract properly drawn up, so the arrangements looked acceptable.

Unfortunately for the men who came to work in Israel, soon they were to learn the meaning of what Israelis call "Israbluff". Soon, they learned that the employers would confiscate their passports to prevent them from abandoning the project once they discovered that they would be living in conditions unfit for human habitation, that they would have meager quantities of food shoved into their quarters under doors or through bars, as if they were in a cage in a zoo, and that they would receive what was written in their contracts minus several onerous deductions about which the employers had not mentioned a word at the time the contracts were signed. Worse yet, they would soon learn that while the Israeli media would put them on display as subjects for stories, nobody would come to their assistance; either they were "those foreigners" or they were "stealing jobs from Israelis." Either way, nobody cared enough to fight for the rights of these men.

It must be noted that only men fall into this category; women are noticeably absent. Part of the reason for the indifference of the Israeli public towards the plight of these men is because they are men and not women; these men are expected to accept slave labor conditions graciously because otherwise they would not be able to support their families and, consequently, would fail as men. Of the few Israeli politicians who have shown empathy with the plight of these slave laborers, the absence of female politicians is even more conspicuously absent. The message is clear: men are beasts of burden to Israelis, creatures who are on the earth just to spawn children, work until exhausted to provide for others, be locked away like animals at any time someone sees fit to do so to them, and to jump on live grenades to prove that they are "heroes." Any man who deviates from this stereotype is not worthy of being called a man -- which may explain why women do not try to compete!

The slave labor trade in Israel will continue to exploit men unless men speak up to stop the slavery. Before they do that, they have to redefine manhood and to seek their own liberation from the slavery that every man faces in a world that seeks to "put men in their place." It is easy to say, "It's not my problem," just because a man isn't a Romanian locked in some hovel while he works to support a family in Timisoara; the truth is that it is every man's problem, because the original problem would never have occurred if men were freed of their role as slaves to their families who can desert them the moment that they are no longer able to produce any more.

All the ills that affect men living in Israel can be seen in the case of these foreign laborers: exploitation, denial of human rights and dignity, denial of the right to travel freely, and the worst nemesis of them all: public apathy towards the plight of men in general. How about it, men? Who'll pick up the glove?

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...is peace out of reach???...

The Ranting Dream — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:30:17 EST

From CBS' 60 Minutes:...has peace in the Middle East become nothing more than a pipe dream? As Bob Simon reports, a growing number of Israelis and Palestinians feel that a two-state solution is no longer possible...

Secretary of State Clinton on Hamas

Joseph from Bronx, NY — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 12:37:26 EST

I cannot stand by and watch Ms. Clinton continue the legacy of the Bush administration when it comes to Israel. I was shocked this week when I saw that she intends to continue the support of Israel's blockade policy of Gaza and refuses to talk to Hamas until Hamas meets certain conditions. Hamas must accept Israel's right to exist and foreswear violence, but they have made indications already that they recognize a two-state solution as long as it is all voted on by referendum by the Palestinian people. How are we ever going to know what they are thinking if we don't sit down and talk with them? What happened to talking to our enemies? I guess all of this talk of "change" just goes out the window when it comes to Israel.

No peace will ever exist in the Middle East without sitting down with all interested parties in the region. I remember when Fatah was the pariah in the Middle East that we wouldn't deal with, and now, along with the PLO, they are the party that we and Israel have decided we will talk to at the exclusion of Hamas, even though it's clear that Hamas has tremendous support among Palestinians. This support was shown in democratic elections in which Hamas was voted into power by the Palestinians because they were unhappy with the representation they were getting by Fatah and the PLO.

Ms. Clinton has to learn to deal with her enemies as well as her friends if there is ever going to be peace in the Middle East. Especially when she is supporting a blockade that is starving Palestinians, turning Gaza into a concentration camp and violating international law.

Joseph Goldman - Bronx, NY

Disgraceful 'Jihad Appeaser' Jimmy Carter LIES openly on CNN's Larry King and no one refutes him?

Unknown user — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 01:43:20 EST

Disgraceful 'Jihad Appeaser' Jimmy Carter LIES openly on CNN's Larry King and no one refutes him? Sat. (Feb. 7, 2009) night, Jimmy Carter said: ’Israel, it could have responded to the rocket attacks without firing on churches (excuse me, what churches in Islamic Gaza is he talking about???) and on Mosques’.

A short while after that Larry confronted the worst-ex-president “You said earlier that Israel fired on mosques and on schools, what was Israel supposed to do as they responded to where the FIRING CAME FROM”?

Jimmy, "I don’t known I wasn’t there, I only know that the UN said that Israel fired on them and there were only civilians there".

Hey, Jimmy, so what if we show you now the updated version by the UN where they retracted their false accusation on Israel will you have the guts and say the truth about humane Israel that Israel was (as always is) humane on targeting only Islamic terrorists but Palestinian (”legitimate voted govt in Gaza - Hamas”.) Muslims commit crimes against humanity - target civilians?

—

UN: IDF did not shell UNRWA school Feb. 4, 2009. A clerical error led the UN to falsely accuse Israel... http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1233304687916&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

UN retracts claim strike hit Gaza school …The United Nations has retracted a claim that an Israeli strike which killed more than 40 people in northern Gaza city of Jabaliya last month hit a school … http://www.republicanoperative.com/forums/international-politics/17399-un-retracts-claim-strike-hit-gaza-school.html

Jimmy, "I don’t known I wasn’t there, I only know that the UN said that Israel fired on them and there were only civilians there".

—

Gaza fishermen face daily dangers

Egyptian Civil Engineer — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:04:49 EST

Weeks after Israel's war on Gaza, the suffering of people in the Strip has not ended.

Israel maintains a blockade, on land, in the air and at sea. For fishermen in Gaza, making a living has become harder and more dangerous, as Al Jazeera's Mike Kirsch reports.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNG0updjaX4

Israel VS Genocide (updated Feb. 2009)

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:39:38 EST

Israel VS Genocide

Israel VS Islamo Arab campaign of Genocide.

Attempted Genocide From the Start [1] Israel has always faced (radical) Arab genocide, To fully understand current conflicts in the Middle East, history must be recalled. [2] It exist a common phrase: 'If the Jews would just lay down their weapons there would be no more Israel' [3].

Table of Contents

1 1920s
2 1967
3 Current
4 Radical Islam (as a whole)
5 Mainstream [Palestinian & other] Arabs
- 5.1 Genocidal Agenda under 'Pro Palestinian' propaganda

1920s

The first Arab sponsored terrorist attacks upon Jews occurred in 1920 [4] a highlighted tragedy is The Hebron Massacre of 1929 where thousands of Arabs descended from Har Hebron, shouting "Kill the Jews!" in Arabic [5] [6].

This was not the first mass racist attack by Arabs against unarmed civilian Jews in British Mandate ‘Palestine,’ nor would it be the last attempted extermination. [7].

It was the Mufti who sought to annihilate the tiny State of Israel [8], The Palestinian Mufti's Deal with Hitler: 'Kill All the Jews in the Middle East' [9].

1967

Though Haim Weizmann declared he would accept a Jewish state even with the size of a tablecloth — still, even that was rejected by the Arabs who swore to "throw the Jews into the sea" and attacked in force to fulfill that oath. [10].

What the Fight in Israel Is All About... Spring of 1967 the Arab countries, led by Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, prepared to attack Israel and, in their own words, “throw the Jews into the sea. [11] [12], the Arab leaders' slogan : We’ll Throw Them into the Sea" [13]

CurrentRadical Islam (as a whole)

New Radical Islamic Thinking Justifying The Genocide of Infidels [14], Specifically Radical Islam's Threat of Genocide against the Jews is more and more revealed [15][16] [17].

The Palestinians Encourage Genocide [18] and on Palestinian TV openly call: Kill All The Jews [19], Palestinian Muslim cleric urges all Arabs to kill Jews, Christians [20], (Even calling to Kill all Americans [21]), Islamic sermons broadcast on Palestinian Authority have also been openly genocidal [22] An ideology of genocidal radical Islamism - Jihad-Islamism.[23]

At the second Palestinian violent Intifada, they came up with a new (tool in) Genocide: Suicide Bombing, designed to massacre the most masses of civilians possible [24] [25].

An emphasis in radicals' work is indoctrinating Palestinian Children to Genocidal Hate, Imams are extremely influential in successfully emphasizing the goals of jihad and martyrdom [26] Especially the Islamic party: Hamas promotes Islamic supremacy over the world, "The Hamas Ideology of Hatred and Genocide: Islamic supremacy over the world, destroying Israel and Jews [27], vows to 'drink' Jewish blood, group would drink the blood of Jews [28], Hamas Mickey-Mouse-like character to incite for genocide [29], Genocide of Jews remains Hamas goal [30] and declare: "The Final Goal of the Resistance is to Wipe This Entity Off the Face of the Earth" "We are making the preparations for a confrontation. This is not because we need to be prepared for an Israeli act of aggression - after all, aggression is intrinsic to this entity - but because the final goal of the resistance is to wipe this entity off the face of the Earth. This goal necessitates the development of the capabilities of the resistance, until this entity is wiped out." [31]

Hamas, the Muslim-Brotherhood-linked terror group dedicated to the annihilation of Israel through jihad [32], The people who comprise Hamas are dedicated to the annihilation of Israel and the slaughter of every Jew who lives there [33] in its Charter 1988 it states: 'Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it' ... Hamas wants the ‘islamisation’ of all the Middle East (as a first phase) [34].

Al Qaeda

In Al-Qaeda's Intellectual Legacy - Islamic Thinking justifying the genocide of infidels, According to al- Ali, all citizens of Israel are to be considered combatants. [35].

Hezbollah

In her book 'Lebanon's Hezbollah' (2003, Page 49) Ann Byers writes: 'In the 1990s, Hezbollah was training members of the terrorist groups Al Qaeda... (it supported the PLO as) in its early days the PLO was dedicated to the annihilation of Israel'. [36].

The Hezbollah Founding Statement contains a section titled “The Necessity for the Destruction of Israel,” which reads as follows: “We see in Israel the vanguard of the United States in our Islamic world. It is the hated enemy that must be fought until the hated ones get what they deserve . . . Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is obliterated. [37]

Hezbollah calling on Muslims to kill all Jewish Israelis with firearms, knives and poison [38]

The widening arena of Hezbollah's attacks stemmed from Nasrallah's perception that Jews anywhere are legitimate targets. In fact, Hasan Nasarallah has said: If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide. (Daily Star, Oct. 23, 2002) [39].

More from Hassan Nasrallah, Leader of Hezbollah on Al Manar: "Let the entire world hear me. Our hostility to the Great Satan, America, is absolute. Regardless of how the world has changed after September 11, death to America will remain our reverberating and powerful slogan: Death to America." (House Record: 'war is ugly but tyranny is uglier'). [40], "Martyrdom operations -- suicide bombings -- should be exported outside Palestine. I encourage Palestinians to take suicide bombings worldwide. Don't be shy about it." [41]

Hezbollah’s renewal of Jihad Genocide on Global “Jewish Targets” (June, 2008) [42].

The Muslim Brotherhood

The 'Muslim Brotherhood's Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi: 'There is No Dialogue between Us and the Jews Except by the Sword and the Rifle' [43]

Ahmadinejad

Islamic Republic of Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be "wiped off the map" has triggered a sharp international response and widespread condemnation [44] [45] (It was not mistranslated [46]). has been described as wanting to carry out another genocide aimed at destroying the State of Israel [47], He 'faced genocide case', in 14 Dec 2006 was expected to be the target of a lawsuit which accuses him of inciting genocide against Israel. [48] [49].

In 2007, Ahmadinejad has threatened (again) the State of Israel with annihilation, Iran: 'Israel, US will soon die' [50]

Mainstream [Palestinian & other] Arabs

Even many of 'moderate Arabs' have been accused of this [51], in a poll of February 16, 2007 '75% of Palestinians do not think that Israel has the right to exist' [52].

Jerusalem Post's C. Glick: No Tolerance for Genocide , Genocide: The Spirit of Palestine... in Palestinian society today. It is not just Hamas or Tanzim or Islamic Jihad that we must fight, but Palestinian society itself must be transformed for there to be peaceful coexistence. Poll after poll shows that a solid majority of Palestinians from all socio-economic levels supports suicide bombers and other forms of terrorism against Israel. In fact the polls show that the higher the socio-economic level of the respondents, the stronger their support for terrorism. Virulent, Nazi-style Jew hatred and dehumanization has become for the Palestinians, as for the Germans before them, the central unifying theme of society. The best-seller lists in the PA for years have included such works as Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. [53] [54] [55] [56].

Genocidal Agenda under 'Pro Palestinian' propaganda

On the so called 'Palestinian documentaries'. T. Menaker: 'College Film Festival: Kill the Jews', It is understandable that the mere existence of Israel in such close proximity is unbearable. What is strikingly serious in all these films is that if one were to count the most often used words, these words would be "humiliation" and "Kill the Jews!" Even in the most peaceful and idealistic documentary... a young boy asked what he wants to do when he grows up is prompted by his father: "Kill the Jews!" When asked to draw a picture of his future he draws himself killing Israelis. [57]

The International Solidarity Movement - a 'Palestinian' propaganda machine, organized many activities, including on US campus, both, the ISM and PSM support in thinly veiled language suicide bombings... in their gatherings the audience chanted "Kill the Jews" - "Ittbach al yahood" in Arabic [58].

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), its American, student affiliate the Palestinian Solidarity Movement, and other radical left-wing groups label every inch of Israeli territory as “occupied Palestine,” advocate destroying the Jewish State by “any means necessary,” and openly condone terrorism and Muslim suicide bombers as a means for accomplishing this goal. These groups are working to eliminate a population of six million Jews. [59].

At Israel's operation against Hamas terrorists in 'cast lead' [60] December 2008-January 2009, anti Israel Arab Muslim protesters called for Jews to 'Go Back to the Oven', to 'kill all the Jews', or: “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” [61], Other demonstrators held signs that said "Nuke Israel," and a number made comparisons to the Holocaust [62] [63] [64] [65] [66] [67].

Phyllis Chesler: Today, we have grown used to seeing Palestinian and Hamas supporters goose-step, Nazi-style, shoot out their arms as they deliver the Hitlerian "Sieg Heil" salute. They also chant and scream: "Jews to the ovens," "Hitler did not kill enough of you," "Jews to the gas chambers." [68].

Re: Prez. Obama's intervierw on Al Arabiya

Ginah from Washington, DC — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:26:14 EST

Obama: U.S. not your enemy “I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries,” Obama said, according to a White House transcript. ...Obama's shift Monday was one of tone, not of policy, and he also affirmed America's support for Israel.

"Israel is a strong ally of the United States. They will not stop being a strong ally of the United States. And I will continue to believe that Israel's security is paramount," he said. "But I also believe that there are Israelis who recognize that it is important to achieve peace. They will be willing to make sacrifices if the time is...
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/18016.html

____________________________________

The answer to these spinning words (hinting a possiblity to interpret it by the Muslim world, as if peace and pro Israel are contradictory), in fact, you can be pro democracy, pro freedom, pro Israel (anti Jihad) and wanting to achieve peace.

How about some true words, like: 'Pro Palestinian' means more Jihadism, oppression and dictatorship in the name of Islam, terrorism masked as "freedom fighting", war using kids in the theater of war under the banner of "freeing land"?

Next time Mr. Obama, please be clear in what you say don't intentionally mislead and create room for different "versions".

JENINITIS

Unknown user — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 20:45:33 EST

JENINITIS

Jeninitis is Islamic Palestinian Pallywood’s syndrome of lying, 1) inflating numbers of casualties, collateral by-standers in Israel’s anti terrorists operation (heck, they even had the audacity to add dead bodies dug out of graves),

2) Lying about the authentic percentage of combatants vs non-combatants, all as part of its staged drama hype, their strategy is, first lie, after the anti Israel bigoted tarnishing bombarding propaganda is done, whatever real facts surface later on, don’t matter, as the damage to Israel is already done.

In Jenin 2002, the Arab Palestinians have been exposed as inflating the numbers of casualties on Israel’s operation, Saeb Erekat initially claimed on CNN that there were more than 500 dead, at the end it turned out that there were no more than (around) 50, mostly combatants.
When confronted on CNN on the ‘numbers’, he stuttered, spun, and changed subject.
So was the case in Dec. - Jan. 2009, at operation ‘Cast Lead’ against Palestinian Islamic terrorists Hamas (who openly seeks annihilation of all Jews in the area) rockets targeting of Israeli southern zone, where about a Million civilians were under their range, fear of terror, and using Arab civilians to mingle with them and as shields to cause as many civilian casualties, the world TV have been broadcasting constantly from Jihadists’

Hamas hospitals with invented exaggerated numbers up to 1,200 and up.

Later on it turned out that no more than 500-600 have died, and of course, 90% were Hamas terror combatants.

Point is, that a death cult “people” that are willing to murder

(directly or indirectly) its own civilians for the sake of gaining sympathy

to its fake victimhood, there is never a shred of logic to take seriously

anything coming from their “source”.

Augean Stables » Jenin Redux: Casualty Figures Reconsidered
22 Jan 2009 … The UN’s humanitarian chief began a tour of the Gaza Strip on Thursday to examine the extent …
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/01/22/1610/

‘Maximum 600 Palestinians died in Gaza’ , (Jan 22, 2009) Israel Cremonesi interviewed Gazans who echoed Israel’s insistence of how Hamas gunmen used civilians as human shields. One Gazan recalled civilians in Gaza …
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1232292939271&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Gazan doctor says death toll inflated - Ynetnews
22 Jan 2009 …Gaza’s Shifa Hospital claimed that Hamas has intentionally …
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3660423,00.html

Gaza doctor: Hamas exaggerated Gaza death toll – 500 to 600 killed, mostly fighters, not 1,250
January 22, 2009
* Italy’s leading newspaper, after a thorough investigation in Gaza, reports that the Gaza death toll was 500 to 600, mostly fighters, not 1,250 as other media have claimed. Other media relying on thoroughly impartial, bigoted UN sources
* “Hamas using UNRWA school buildings and hospitals as torture centers”

* Torture by Hamas of Palestinian opponents continues at a children’s hospital, but Western media and NGOs are suddenly silent

* Pro-Gaza demonstration in Ramallah canceled for a lack of protesters. Third Intifada? Not anytime soon

* New polls show only a minority of Americans now think Palestinians should have their own state

[This is a further dispatch on this month’s Israel-Hamas mini-war. This dispatch contains various notes and comments, mainly by myself. Another dispatch with articles by others on the war’s outcome, provisionally titled “Israel refuses to win,” will follow over the weekend. (Previous dispatches can be read here.)
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001004.html

IMRA - Saturday, April 27, 2002 The Palestinians in the Jenin ...
investigate the happenings in the Jenin refugee camp, Palestinians are ... bodies recently added, those from the hospital cemetery, bring the number up ..
http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=11656

The Truth About Jenin [PPT]
File Format: Microsoft Powerpoint
Israel’s casualties in Jenin were the highest of all West bank fighting: 23. … The bodies recently added, those from the hospital cemetery, …
http://www.deolhonamidia.org.br/includes/redirect.asp?URL=../Slides/TruthJenin.ppt

The Big Jenin Lie
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/218vnicq.asp

Jenin Lie
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/Jenin_Lies.asp

Anatomy of Anti-Israel Incitement:Jenin, World Opinion and the Massacre That Wasn’t. International organizations, non-governmental agencies and many foreign …
http://www.adl.org/Israel/jenin/

Jenin: Massacring Truth
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/mediaobjectivity/Jenin_Massacring_Truth.asp

Radio Show Update

"Voice for Humanity" — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 20:01:25 EST

Schedule Update:

January 24, 2009, Air time - 8.00 - 10.00 P.M(PST)

Category: Current Events

Topic: Wall Street Bailout

Discussion:

What should financial institutions do with taxpayers’ bailout?

Why haven’t the financial institutions invested funds to stimulate economy?

What is public demand from them and the legislators?

——————————————————————————————————————-

January 25, 2009, Air Time 2.00 - 4.00P.M (PST) - (5.00 - 7.00P.M EST)

Topic: Free Palestine

Discussion:

1. How can we help to expedite independent state for Palestinians free of Israeli blockade, occupation and aggression?

2. What should the new administration do to be a trustworthy partner and unbiased peace broker in the Middle East conflict?

3. How can we help Israeli population elect a moderate government in early February favoring peace and diplomacy over military action for their national security and sovereignty?

——————————————————————————————————————

January 30, 2009, 120 minutes 2.00P.M - 4.00P.M - Cancelled due to restrictions on segments at frequent intervals.

Category: Current Events

Topic: Economy and Health Care - Please refer to blog post on www.padminiarhant.com for details and I invite you to post comments.

What should the new administration do for you and the economy?

How do we fix the Health Care system?

———————————————————————————-

Podcast live : http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Padmini-A

Guest Call-in-number: (646) 727 -3778

I invite you all to participate in the public forum and share your concerns, ideas and knowledge.

Your comments and thoughts are welcome in the political discourse.

Let us keep democracy alive and help our new President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in rebuilding our nation.

Your participation is a huge encouragement and always appreciated - Thank you again.

Look forward to the session.

Thank you.

Padmini Arhant

Has Israel Abandoned Its Ideals?

Ricardo — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 22:12:25 EST

Israel is being condemned by all and sundry for its latest incursion or as some would define it, invasion of Gaza. The shelling of UN compounds sheltering innocent civilians, the bombing of a UN school, the destruction of UN facilities storing much needed and scarce supplies and the use of phosphorous shells proscribed for use in civilian and populated theatres make some of us wonder what happened to Israel, the land we used defend till blue in the face?

I am saddened especially by the latest debacle and I seem to have the most peace when Israel is not in the news, because it would appear that the last decade or so has only brought about negativity for that young state.

A sad testament to what happens when a nation abandon its ideals under the ubiquitous guise of security.

If there ever was a nation on God's Earth, which should be very sensitive to attacks on civilians, women and children that state ought to be Israel. A just cause must carry world opinion. And yes, world opinion does matter, especially to places like Israel!

But then again, when you can get away with impunity time and again it becomes habitual. "The Palestinians started it", I can hear the apologists say. But what makes a nation civilized, is that it maintains its human decency especially in the face of unwarranted provocation.

When we stoop to the same levels of barbarity as those we seem to chastise, we reduce ourselves to a level even lower than that of which we chastise others and with that comes the erosion of our moral authority. Being the most powerful state or nation does not necessarily engender respect. Ask George W Bush.

The World is changing and Israel will do very well to change with it! And if anything Israel ought to listen to its friends and note that as others are already tagging this latest adventure as genocide or extermination demonstrates one thing; This world, our world, would not sit idly by and witness the wiping out of the Palestinians as an entity or as a people, only for a car or an aircraft to be named after them, generations down the line. No mas!

This is a very sad period in Israel's current state that the only way a once beacon of hope, excellence and freedom, in an otherwise pitiful ocean of despotism can maintain political cohesion is in a bogus and fatuous adventurism not borne out of necessity but expedience. Now that is not growing out of childish things and it is very dangerous!

Israel Faces War Crimes Charges Following Gaza Slaughter

Mark C. Eades — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:51:27 EST

(Your Tax Dollars at Work in the Middle East)

The state of Israel is facing charges of war crimes following the slaughter of innocent civilians including hundreds of children in its recent campaign against Palestinian militants on the Gaza Strip. Israel's powerful ally, the United States, also faces charges of complicity in the slaughter as Palestinians declare: "This Damage Made in USA."

UN human rights expert Richard Falk said on Thursday that the recent Israeli military operation on the Gaza Strip "raises the specter of systematic war crimes" and needs to be investigated. Falk told journalists in Geneva from his home in California that he had little doubt as to the "unavoidably inhuman character of a large-scale military operation of the sort that Israel has initiated... against an essentially defenseless population." Charging that "unlawful targets have been selected" by Israeli forces during the fighting, Falk insisted that Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip including children and the wounded were effectively trapped in a war zone and prevented from fleeing.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has issued demands for a full explanation of "outrageous" Israeli attacks on UN facilities on the Gaza Strip including a school used as a refuge for civilians, killing dozens. The UN chief noted that Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert had promised to provide results of an Israeli inquiry into the attacks "on an urgent basis" and said he would then decide on "appropriate follow-up action." On January 12, the 47-member UN Human Rights Council voted by a large majority to launch an investigation into "grave" human rights violations by Israeli forces against Palestinians. Israel is also facing questions from human rights groups regarding the use of illegal weapons, including white phosphorus munitions, against Palestinian civilians on the Gaza Strip.

These charges come amid renewed calls for a global boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel from groups such as the Global BDS Movement. Recently, Canadian journalist Naomi Klein wrote in support of such a boycott: "The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa." Some are also calling for a boycott of US exports for its continuing support of Israeli actions against Palestinians.

The Palestinian death toll from Israel's recent war on Gaza currently stands at around 1300, most of whom were innocent civilians, and around a third of whom were children. Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians were killed in Israel during the same period, an indicator of Israel's massively disproportionate response to Palestinian attacks on Israelis. A total of twenty-eight Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip since 2001, a tiny fraction of the number of Palestinians killed in Israel's recent Gaza actions alone. These numbers echo casualty figures from the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict which consistently show innocent Palestinian dead including children massively outnumbering Israelis.

Rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip deserve both condemnation by the international community and a proportionate response by Israel. The killing of one Israeli in a rocket attack does not, however, entitle Israel to respond by slaughtering twenty, thirty, or forty innocent Palestinian civilians. Such slaughter, furthermore, will no more stop Hamas' rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip than it stopped Hezbollah's rocket attacks from Lebanon in 2006. Just as Hezbollah could declare victory in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war simply by surviving to fight another day, so Hamas can declare victory in Gaza this day. Meanwhile, Israel increasingly becomes a pariah state in the eyes of the world, as does the United States for its complicity in the slaughter. Ever-growing anger particularly in the Arab world serves America's national security interests no better than it serves Israel's.

Behold, America: Your tax dollars at work in the Middle East.

Out of the tragedy of Gaza, perhaps, will come renewed opportunity to hold Israel accountable for its actions, to press for a new US policy on the Middle East, for peace, and for an end to Israel's long and bloody occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Boycott, divestment, and sanctions efforts such as those promoted by the Global BDS Movement have a proven track record of success as in the case of South Africa, and deserve our support. UN efforts to hold Israel accountable for its actions also deserve our support, but are likely to require UN Security Council action of the type America with its power of veto most often and most notoriously obstructs. Pressure, therefore, needs to be applied to the White House and Congress for a new US approach to the conflict and a new US attitude in the UN Security Council. Whether our new ambassador to the UN offers active support with a "yes" vote or passive permission by abstaining on UN efforts to hold Israel accountable for its actions, our message to the new administration regarding these efforts can be stated clearly and briefly as follows: NO VETO!

Sources: Agence France Presse, Time, Los Angeles Times, Haaretz, New Straits Times, Bay Area Indymedia, B'Tselem, Human Rights Watch.

Slide show: Gaza Massacre by Sabbah.

Photo gallery: Child victims of Gaza violence.

Contacts:

The White House

US Mission to the UN

Contact your US Senators

Contact your US Representative

Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com

More Palestinian Crimes on their kids - Hamas TV calls Gaza Children to form a human shield [video] liveleak.com — News flash on Hamas TV - following a threatened air strike, Hamas calls all Gaza CHILDREN to gather near the house of Abu Hatai to form a hu

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:16:47 EST

Hamas TV calls Gaza Children to form a human shield [video] liveleak.com — News flash on Hamas TV - following a threatened air strike, Hamas calls all Gaza CHILDREN to gather near the house of Abu Hatai to form a human shield. (Jan 2009)
Video - http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=351_1231430391 Hamas calls upon all Gaza children to gather near a house to form a human shield
http://digg.com/world_news/Hamas_TV_calls_Gaza_Children_to_form_a_human_shield_video

---

Then we will see the dead Arab kids parading on global TV screens again!

Palestinian Muslims' crimes on their people never stops!

How the BBC does it - legitimizing monsters in the M.E. (Hamas palestinian bloody Jihad, etc.)

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:26:28 EST

BBC's way of how to legitimize monsters in the middle east

Forget BBC bias, BBC is totally anti Israel committed, 100% on the side of most radical Islamic group on the middle east, the Genocidal Hamas!

When it interviewed (Jan 18, 2009) the Hamas spokesperson in Syria Osama Hamdan (the monster who said that the purpose of the "resistance" is to wipe off Israel) it handled him in such a manner as if he is a "normal" and average statesman.

Despite the 'big words' by the jihadi group who on top of all has that stupidity of arrogance that is only laughable if it weren't such a serious bunch of bloody murderous thugs, but BBC's audacity of replaying Hamas' phrase of: '"giving" Israel a week to pull out', as if we all don't know that Israel pulls out or back in, when it sees the situation fit to do so.

Later on (on the same day) BBC said: who is responsible for the civilian causalities in Gaza will be disputed between Israel and Hamas, (besides the fact that BBC never to explain that its all Hamas fault, but I want to talk about BCC's worse part than just bias anyway) again this "en par" equation between a democratic free for all unique country in the middle east (where an Arab can get to highest position in Israel's govt.) vs the Islamic group that oppresses any non Muslims and acts towards a totalitarian repressive Caliphate.

PEACE IN JERUSALEM

WEBMASTER — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 22:53:22 EST

Jewish and Arab Neighbors Hold Hands for Peace

Last Saturday 300 Jews and Arabs from the Wadi Ara region of Israel demonstrated against the harming of innocent civilians in Gaza and the surrounding Israeli region. The rally was organized by NIF grantee Awareness for You, which runs empowerment courses for Arab women in the village of Kfar Kara.

"I only expected about 90 people to attend the rally," explained Amna Ka'anana, "so I was surprised when we had 300 people all dressed in white and holding olive branches, about half and half Jews and Arabs. Many of the drivers who passed by, both Jews and Arabs, called out their support."

In addition to being a forum to voice concern over the conflict in Gaza, the rally was also an opportunity for the Jews and Arabs of Wadi Ara to come together. Among the many banners, one carried by an Arab read "Neighbors call for peace," while another carried by a Jew said "Jews and Arabs hand in hand."

Amna Ka'anana hosts Jewish neighbors in her home in Kfar Kara.

Ka'anana said: "We sent a message of peace and coexistence to all of Wadi Ara, to all of Israel and to the entire world."

Ka'anana, who is an Orthodox Muslim, received NIF's London-Yaari Scholarship in 2007 for her work in women's empowerment. Last year she received the Knesset Speaker's Prize for Quality of Life.

When the fighting erupted in Gaza last month, she feared that the tensions could spill over into violent conflicts between Jews and Arabs in Wadi Ara. She invited several dozen Jewish and Arab activists to her home to discuss the situation, and they hit upon the idea of the Shabbat rally.

"I have always wanted to initiate social activities that bring Jews and Arabs together," explained Ka'anana, "so that we can understand one another's culture. Now the war has taken matters in a different direction. At the end of last week's rally many people started crying and that started me crying."

The rally ended with Jewish and Muslim prayers. Awareness for You plans similar peaceful rallies, with increased expected turnout, every Shabbat while the fighting continues.

barackobama.com sources:

1. http://arabamericans.barackobama.com/page/community/post/president/gGxbx3
2. http://jewishamericans.barackobama.com/page/community/post/president/gGxbx3
3. http://faith.barackobama.com/page/community/post/president/gGxbx3

Also see Spirit of Reconciliation

Obama, I'm disappointed in you.

Jedidiah Palosaari — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:00:06 EST

I've been waiting. I've been thinking, "There's still some time for him to say something. He's biding his time." I've been believing him when he says there can only be one President at a time. Then he spoke out on the economy during the transition, and I believed him when he said, "Especially on foreign affairs, there can only be one President at a time." That makes sense. Sure, he spoke out against the terrorists in Mumbai, but that was more of an expression of sadness for those who lost their lives, as the terrorist action was relatively short. I could justify that. And there were so many others who were already speaking out against the atrocity better than I could.

Then Obama, while still President Elect, began speaking on foreign policy, letting it be known he'd negotiate with Hamas, and would be closing the Guantanamo Prison. Yet, still, nothing. Nothing from the man who ran on the principle that he's for justice, because his Lord is for justice. Nothing on the man who spoke of equality, and bringing righteousness back to American foreign policy.

So President Obama, I ask you, if you do not speak out when 1,000 people are murdered by a foreign power in only three weeks, when at least 50% and probably 70% of them are civilians, when the population of the area is 50% below the age of 15 and 75% of the population is below the age of 25, leading to a high percentage of those killed being children, when that population is refused the right to leave the small, concentrated area that's being bombed, so that we can not refer to this in any other way than to say it is localized ethnic cleansing- if you do not speak out now, Obama, then when? We now know you actually do speak out on foreign policy issues, even when you are still only the President-Designate. Where is your voice? What are you waiting for?

For if you wait too long you face the same situation that Martin Neimoller experienced:

In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me -
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

How long will you wait, President Obama? For we are starting to get the sinking impression, that you are not actually waiting, but instead, will not bring the change we hope for- you will do the same as nearly every President before you, and support the actions of Israel, no matter what they do.

Or is there actually something Israel could do that you would disapprove of? Or will you surprise us all in your inaugeration speech, and finally speak out against the apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Ghaza? Give me hope again, Obama.

JEWISH ANTI-SEMITISM

WEBMASTER — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:32:55 EST

Amid anti-Semitic storm, Europe’s Jews stand for Israel
By Dinah Spritzer · 13 January 2009

see http://jta.org/news/article/2009/01/13/1002216/amid-anti-semitic-storm-europes-jews-stand-for-israel

PRAGUE (JTA) -- Confronting a rising storm of anti-Semitism as the conflict in Gaza intensifies, European Jews are grappling with the best way to express their support for Israel's fight against Hamas.

Recent assaults on Jews in European capitals range from the beating of a Jewish teenager in a Paris suburb by assailants who vowed she would “pay for Israel's acts” to the compilation on an Islamist Web site of a hit list of prominent British Jews. Jewish monuments in France and Sweden have been firebombed. And in Italy, a workers’ political party called for a boycott of Jewish stores.

While Jews have taken to the streets in the hundreds or thousands to demonstrate for peace and Israel’s right to defend itself, they are dwarfed by the tens and hundreds of thousands participating in protests against Israel. In many cases, top European political figures have supported the protests. Sometimes the rallies have turned violent.

The 27-country European Union has approximately 1.8 million Jews and 17 million Muslims, and that difference is keenly visible in the size of events relating to the war in Gaza and southern Israel.

After some 1,000 Jews turned out last week for a rally in Brussels in support of Israel -- held opposite the Embassy of Iran, which funds Hamas -- tens of thousands showed up Sunday for a march against what they called Israel's “massacre in Gaza.” The pro-Palestinian rally was organized by three of the four main political parities in the French-speaking part of Belgium, along with some 100 or so nongovernmental organizations.

Chanting “Death to Jews!” in Arabic, the crowd burned Israeli flags and carried signs calling Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni “Hitler's wife.”

“In a way, Jews feel alone,” said Joel Rubinfeld, the president of the umbrella group of French-speaking Jews in Belgium, known by the acronym CCOJB. “But lots of non-Jews are disgusted, too” with the anti-Semitic messages, he added.

Massive anti-Israel demonstrations last weekend in France, Brussels and Madrid have included anti-Semitic chants such as “Jews to the gas” and swastikas paired with the Star of David.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry, the European Jewish Congress, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League have implored European officials to acknowledge and combat the importing of the Middle East conflict to Europe and the scapegoating of Jews.

Countries with large Muslims populations, including France, Belgium and Britain, have seen the largest number of anti-Semitic incidents.

Britain's Community Security Trust, which monitors Jewish security issues, recorded a huge surge in anti-Semitic attacks -- 80 in total -- since Israel began bombing Hamas targets in Gaza on Dec. 27.

Undeterred, British Jews staged the largest European demonstration in support of Israel's right to security in this conflict. Sunday's demonstration, which also expressed sympathy for Palestinian civilians, drew 17,000 people to London's Trafalgar Square.

“I decided to do something after watching too much television and seeing the huge coverage of the anti-Israel demonstrations,” said one Jewish Londoner, Matt Freelander, who participated in a pro-Israel rally last week.

In France, Nicole Yardeni, the president of the CRIF Jewish umbrella group in Toulouse, decided not to hold a pro-Israel rally in the region after a car filled with Molotov cocktails rammed into the front gate of a synagogue Jan. 5.

“It's not that we are afraid,” she said of the community of approximately 20,000. But faced with consistent pro-Palestinian rallies that outnumber Toulouse Jews, Yardeni said the community “could not hold its own on the street” and thus could not have a “successful” protest.

In recent days, the CRIF held pro-Israel rallies in Paris, Marseilles and near Lyon.

The Marseilles rally was unusual in that every major local politician joined the crowd of about 4,000. The Paris rally did not have the same political backing. Many attendees said they left family and friends behind because they were afraid of publicly supporting Israel after seeing the violence and virulent anti-Zionism in a pro-Palestinian protest a day earlier.

"Once again, when in trouble, we've found ourselves alone," Patrick Gaubert, the president of the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, wrote in a letter published Jan. 8 in a French Jewish weekly.

In Italy, whose prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has been honored by Jewish groups for being pro-Israel, pro-Israel rallies drew government officials.

In Germany, anti-Israel marches were relatively calm, but some marchers carried signs reading “Out with Jews” or "Israelis are child murderers.”

German Jews have turned out for pro-Israel rallies, too, albeit in small numbers. A rally in Frankfurt drew 2,000, while one in Berlin had 1,500 participants.

“When people see our small group,” said Sharon Adler, who co-organized the Berlin rally on Sunday, "perhaps they will understand that Israel is also a much smaller country than all the Arab countries around it, and that Jews in Germany are also a small minority."

In Stockholm, where the Jewish community numbers 5,000, a peace event in support of Israel held Saturday night at a church drew 800 people -- about half of whom were not Jewish, according to Lena Posner, the president of the Swedish Jewish community.

“There were about 100 people outside the church shouting insults against Israel,” Posner said. “The police had to close off the whole area around the church and we were escorted back to our cars in groups of 15.”

Earlier in the day, 8,000 protesters chanting anti-Israel slogans gathered for a mostly Muslim demonstration in Stockholm that included the head of the Swedish Socialist Party and the country’s former foreign minister. A Liberal Party legislator attended the pro-Israel event.

Elsewhere in the country, a burial chapel in the Jewish cemetery in central Malmo was firebombed for the third time since Israel began its operation in Gaza.

In Spain, violent incidents have been minimal, although an anti-Israel rally there on Saturday was Europe’s biggest such rally thus far, with crowd estimates ranging from 50,000 to 250,000.

Representatives of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and his ruling Socialist Party were among those who participated. Some participants called for jihad, or holy war, praised Hezbollah and cursed Israel. The Israeli Embassy in Madrid took the rare step of openly chastising the prime minister for fueling anti-Israel anger.

“There was hate speech definitely, and a few marched to the Israeli Embassy and threw stones and the police had to intervene,” said Derek Wise, the general manager of Madrid’s Jewish community. “Our prime minister incited what was going on.''

Wise said Spanish Friends of Israel was planning a public pro-Israel event for Jan. 18.

“I understand there might be people afraid to come," he said, "but we want to show it is not only Jews, it's normal Spaniards who also understand that a democratic state like Israel has a right to defend itself.”

(JTA correspondents Devorah Lauter contributed to this story from Paris, Toby Axelrod from Berlin and Daphna Vardi from London.)

source: http://jewishamericans.barackobama.com/page/community/post/president/gGxbN2

The Final Two-State solution

Israel for Obama — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:04:10 EST

Recently, a new two-state concept has been proposed to the upcoming Obama administration. The report-proposal was released by Rabbi Howshua Amariel and the conflict-resolution department of the Yisraelite Organization of Unity in Israel. It is being review by the Obama transition team and also Israelis as a posibility, but it basically states that original agreements made by Philistine and Israel ancestors at the well of Beersheba insured that the those territorial borders would be respected. However, the report also blames the UN for inproperly dividing the territories correctly between the Israelis and Palestinians in 1947 not considering that Israelis would continue to settle in the West Bank because it is the core of ancient Israelite land; also that Palestinians would continue attacks Ashkelon because it is was Philistine territory given away to Israel.

The report-proposal suggest that the final two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to establish the Palestinians (whom have identified themselves as descendants of Philistines) in the former territory of the Philistines and give them the cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod (forming a new State of Philistine). In return, the proposal states that the territory of the West Bank (including Jerusalem) should be re-absorbed completely into the State of Israel.

map of the ancient Philistine State.

There is an obvious religous theme to this proposal yet the full version basically suggest that the proposal is a trade concept of an extended territory of two wealth cities for Jerusalem and the West Bank region. As far as I know a few Israeli officials are aware of this proposal at this time, but it is under review by the Obama foreign policy team. I suggest readers that a look at it at http://younation.bravehost.com/peace1.htm

Rabbi Amariel, the Israel director of the Yisraelite Organization of Unity has also stated that he supports the State of Israel in its current battle with Hamas, but the proposal is a final solution to the idea of two separate states when that point is reached.

…a letter to the official opposition party of Canada…

The Ranting Dream — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:09:52 EST

...I have yet to see a single politician muster the courage to do the right thing and to 'tell the "TRUTH" like it is' - they've chosen to silently side with the 'spin' and let the status-quo be - either they're afraid of consequences to their political careers, or they're simply corrupt, or they're just plain stupid - or all of the above (and beyond) - whatever the reason, while I'm not shocked or surprised at the behavior of the puppet morons in politics, I'm disgusted at their complete lack of integrity and conscience...and to not have a SINGLE one of them telling the 'real' story behind this attack on humanity is just ticking me off...

Interfaith Vigil to End the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis - TOMORROW, Tues. 1/13

Hayyim Feldman — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:02:50 EST

Dear Friends,

There has been a growing cry for a community gathering about the Gaza crisis that calls for an end to the violence while expressing our anguish for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

Boston-area Muslim, Christian, and Jewish leaders have jointly written a statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and expressing our desire to demonstrate that during these most difficult of times we are prepared to stretch our hands out to each other. The statement with initial signatures can be found at the URL below.

Join us for a silent INTERFAITH VIGIL to make the declaration public and stand shoulder to shoulder with members of Boston’s Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities. Signs (drawn from the statement) will be provided. No other signs please.

Drawing a parallel between Israel and India

Piyush Dhawan — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 03:50:40 EST

US President elect Obama, during a visit to Israel, said:

"If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

Drawing a parallel between this and what happened in Mumbai on 26/11, don't you think we Indians also have a right to bring to justice the people who carried on the attacks.

Indians have been the victims of terror for over 5 decades now and we have been considered as a soft state because our government has not taken any concrete action all these years... and in most probability we wont act even now...

We would expect the new president to instil the same confidence trust in India as you have in your mid-east ally, Israel, so that the root of terrorism in the world, the state of Pakistan is made to act against its state/non-state actors...

Hope this post meets the eye of the people that matter.

-In anticipation...

Piyush

MITT ROMNEY, A MAN OF GREED:

Alex Karoub — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:20:31 EST

If you have read my post on the Auto Industry, then the following couple of paragraphs about Mitt will not surprise you. ( Here is an actual quote from his father that he said in 1963: "The Big Four Automakers don't have to worry about giving the Unions what they want, as long as the benefits will not be due for decades. By that time the labor plants will be outside the U.S.")

Not surprising to hear Mitt Romney, son of George Romney, and his states version of mandatory medical insurance. Mitt's approach goes pretty much like - You'll get only what you can pay for, and move to another state if you undeserving poor don't like it. Massachusetts has worked long and hard to become one of the wealthiest per capita states and does not want the burden of 'lower income individuals’. Best to wash our hands of them by financially crowding them out. If you are ‘in’ with the wealthy, you will find that "financially crowding them out" is a favorite. This is not a direct quote of Mitt; but, after rubbing elbows with enough aristocratic politicians in private you would be aghast to hear how dehumanizing they speak of those below their ‘class’, or as they prefer to call it ‘standing in the community’.

Incidentally, it’s interesting how George and Mitt Romney amassed tremendous wealth, $80 billion or so privately held now by Mitt et al. And how did they originally do that; they did it by becoming suppliers to the Big 3 from the Romney parts plants in Mexico; true leaders in forging the path to Mexico and overseas. It's also interesting to view the ancestral history of the Romney family and Mexico, as to why they originally moved there and still have strong ties there, all on Wikipedia. A common theme that shows in multiple generations of Romneys is disregard for fundamental American laws and ways they sneak around them. Also, shown at corporate websites, are interesting ties between Mitt Romney and the fanatical right wing radio talk shows that he owns for propaganda purposes.

For the spread of propaganda Mitt Romney owns 'Clear Channel Communications' with 1,100 stations including all the 'Premiere Radio Channel' programs with Limbaugh, Beck, Noory, Hannity, .… All are talk radio shows that use propaganda to sway the masses. It is so much more than the false wrapping of throwing it up against the wall and seeing what sticks. They actually use highly professional underlying tactics of sophistication, complexity, planning, and decisiveness that the average Joe the plumber would never catch on to, nor George the political 'sideline hobbyist?'. It's not all the fun and silly games that they wrap it up in, for simple entertainment, all for ‘free’ delivery to you. Give yourself a quick introduction to propaganda tactics by reading a bit of what's written in Wikipedia under ‘Propaganda’, look at ‘Techniques’ as a first preview. You will begin to recognize the rightwing tactics used on their talk shows, lots of trickery and deception, far beyond the wrappings of bias. You will easily see the professional use of propaganda if you become knowledgeable of the methods of propaganda. Fox cable television News is closely associated. Talk about greed of control, influence, ideology, and knowledge.

Whether Mitt Romney returns to again run for higher office or remains behind the scenes driving GOP political directions, he will continue, and continue with greed.

(Has anyone looked to see how much of Bush's original $700 billion dollars has gone to the web of companies that Romney has woven? I really don't know, but wonder if the good old boys network continues?)

Also, see my other posts about Libertarianism, a driving force at the top of the Republican Party. I have focused my education of Libertarianism to come directly from what they have written themselves, such as their own websites, rather than what others have said about it. I am finding Libertarianism to be immoral; I believe most Americans will find it offensive when looked at in depth. As it is thought through, there are hard-nosed uncaring consequences for those not in control and for those who don’t have power. A game to Libertarians, Survival of the Greediest.

Reply here if you are a member, or anyone is welcome to email me at: Alex.Karoub@gmail.com

How Islamists (Palestinian Hamas & Hezbollah) murders its own kids to blame Israel (human shields of its own population)

Unknown user — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 01:02:25 EST

Photos showing Palestinian use of its own kids as shields

How Islamists make sure Arab kids die, so they can kill more innocent Israelis!

The death cult of radical Islamists (Hamas/Hezbollah) that murders its own children for the sake of tarnishing Israel

While humane Israel asks Arabs to stay away from Hamas areas, goes from house to house searching for terrorists only - risking their lives to minimize civilian casualties, the animalistic Jihadists keeps on using women and children so that more 'dead Arab kids' can show on Al Jazeera and galvanize the Islamo Arab world towards the (sick) Palestinian victimhood and to hate the "common zionist enemy", thus legitimizing their real goal, which is Genocide of course.

Angst

James — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:34:35 EST

The pall of the departing administration hangs darkly above this new fallen snow. A foot of snow, on top of the previous layers, set down with a regularity that abolishes all ideas, or news, about global warming. Intense white cold on the ground, while up in the sky a grayness, matched by our political scene, persists. Cheney and Bush stay on television, for what purpose I cannot fathom. To possibly give some shred of substance to a fairytale (of their own, and Condollezza's, making) in which they were passable leaders. They were, and continue to be, worse than the proverbial Emperor With No Clothes. Even naked, he would have been preferable. Bush has signed an Executive Order (what the hell are those ridiculous secret and scantily published things, anyway?) which makes all his papers his and nobody else's. This, in spite of the law, now year's old, about how all Presidential papers are owned by the country itself. Cheney actually said that Osama's capture or killing was not a dead issue for the departing Forces of the Dark Side. He said "we have a few days left!" More material for Letterman, who is about to be bereft of such vastly entertaining segments as his 'great speeches of the President,' routine.

As these gray clouds of the previous dark and dreadful administration finally pass, the sun of the Obama organization must shine through, if only by contrast. What a great act to follow. What can Barack, and team, do that would be worse, or even equal to Cheney, Bush and the rest? His talk lately, laced with truth and reality (it appears) is a bit grim. When this guy says the situation is 'dire,' which he did yesterday, we better be listening. I could not agree more, although I have tried to stay away from being too much of a doom and gloom forecaster in this blog. We are going to be effected by this economic downturn. Each and every one of us. And not just by the loss of jobs. We are going to go through some loss of services we are not ready for. In communication. In energy. In food. In areas we cannot even contemplate right now. But we are going to have to. We are in the last thirty days of life as we knew it, unless something happens (like maybe aliens landing and taking over!) which I cannot foresee at all. There is no percentage in making such predictions, however. Who cares if one knew and wrote about it, after it happens? People don't think that way. Our culture reacts to forecasters who are wrong in the same way. We really don't care. We are just entertained by the forecasts themselves. It is like crossword puzzles. We really don't learn from them. We just puzzle over them and then complain that they are too easy (if we can work them without helpl) or too hard (if we can't). If we really learned better English or history or anything from them, then we would be able to remember what the word for the covering of a seed is. Or the word for a needle case. Or what city the Taj Mahal is outside of (or inside of, I can't even remember that either). We keep 're-learning' those words, but never to the point where we have them available next time we need them. And so this is why we end up with a Bush and Cheney in the first place! We keep forgetting that we have seen these characters before, and what they were like. Star Wars even showed us all about them in those movies! We even called Cheney 'Darth Vadar,' and Cheney himself liked that (which was a giant clue!). Bush was the emperor of the Imperium, but not quite so debauched looking. It was, and is, all right there, for us to see and know, just like the word for the case of needles ride around in.

Governor Rod, one of the people on this planet selected by God to keep us from thinking about the tsunami that is gathering out there, and coming for us, is at it again. He gave another speech. He quoted some ridiculous poetry. Oh please. My blogs have convinced him that he is not only powerful enough to defeat his Federal enemies, but that he is right. And righteous. Well, keep reading Blago. To your distress. You are not right. You are powerful. But you are wrong as hell. You conducted yourself like George Bush, but you were not given a surrounding team, and aura, nearly as powerful as that man's. You have been just as ignorant and stupid as he was. Not by what you did (as he was) but in how you did it. You thumbed your nose at the very people who put you in office. Then you thumbed your nose at the people who thought to investigate you. It is not like Fitzgerald (in spite of being the typical out of control righteous Federal Prosecutor he is) did not give you fair warning. You knew you were bugged and went ahead and said terribly things anyway. Hubris. You are being placed firmly above the sharpened point of the Sword of Hubris, and you are going to be slowly lowered onto it. My advice, Governor Rod, is to make your 'deal' as quickly as possible and get your butt to that ranch in Texas, where Bush and his stable of idiots will be holding up. You are dumb enough to know the password without looking it up (Open Sesame!). This public is merely entertained by your antics right now. But trouble is coming. And fear and misery are great motivators. When the public is sufficiently stimulated, it is, indeed, going to remember that the Taj Mahal is in Agra and that you, and a good number of other executives and leaders, need to be tracked down and barbecued. Make your deal and then spend the money on hiding out and getting plastic surgery (and not the kind that will make your chest look like your hairdo!).

There is good news. Geico news, I call it. Baseball players, and other sportsmen are signing for contracts entailing ever larger benefits and salaries. Contracts of a hundred and eighty million, for five years, are becoming common. If you will recall, Geico (the auto insurance company) recently ran some off color ads in which terrible scenarios were set up for certain individuals (like a guy appearing before a judge for sentencing). Somebody, other than the individual announces that there is great news. Our individual perks up and says "good news? What is it." The news turns out to be a silly break on auto insurance premiums for one of the side players (like the judge or the prosecutor, I can't remember). Life in the news world is like that, just now. Since life in general is not good, and there are only gloomy clouds forming above our immediate future, we are being asked to share the great fortune of a few. Those people are safe. Maybe we might become one of them. Win the lottery. That sort of thinking. Part of life. Not a part I buy into, but then, I am not 'normal.' At all.

There is also good news coming out of the Middle East! In the same vein. The Israeli's today agreed to stop bombing the Gaza Strip for three hours. This so that the residents could go out and find the dead bodies of their families and get them inside or interred, or whatever. Then, after the three hours, the Israeli's have agreed to bomb the hell out of them once more. I mention this not because of the bizarre reality of it. No, I mention it because CNN played this news, about an hour ago, as if the Israeli's, in their role of 'bombers,' were also being beneficent and sympathetic to the plight of the poor Palestinians living there. The analogy of a few blogs back comes to mind. What is this 'measured mercy' being dispensed over there? It reminds me very much of a phrase that was trotted out last year called "trust with verification." Whoever created that one had never heard of the word oxymoron, or learned it's definition. You see, there can be no trust with verification. Verification defeats the trust part of the phrase. Not by me or to me. But by logic. Unless you are talking to somebody really stupid, I mean. Like somebody who can never remember what the word is for a seed's covering.

from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com

Peace Plan Redux

Mark Levin — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 22:11:01 EST

I'm not sure the French-Egyptian plan will hold unless a full lifting of the economic blockade (while excluding arms shipments) is also implemented. I think the conflict (this and the larger conflict) can be settled without a single drop of blood being shed if these steps were followed:

Step 1:

Israel announces a unilateral, partial, temporary week-long truce and an end to the blockade, but will reserve the right to bomb Qassam teams that are on the road or in the act. No buildings will be bombed. Full humanitarian supplies go in.

Step 2:

Next, through Syrian and or Egyptian intermediaries, Israel negotiates an 18-month truce with Hamas and Fatah to allow time to negotiate a final deal. Hamas takes full responsibility of stopping rocket attacks from Gaza and returning the IDF soldier. Israel ends overflights, drone flights, and control of borders and sea access - handing it all over to Abbas' PA. Any rocket that is launched from Gaza would result in a "fine" that is deducted from the PA's treasury. Israel withdraws its troops.

Step 3:

Fatah negotiates with Hamas' political wing to figure out how to unify - with some gesture that will be an acknowledgment that Hamas won elections in 2006. Failing agreement, there would be elections within 6 months. This would come after the Israeli elections, so there would be pressure to not elect hardliners which is likely to result in hardliners winning on the other side. This would proceed simultaneously with PA negotiations with Israel (and including Arab states as needed) that work on some amalgam of the Taba Plan, the Arab Peace Initiative and Geneva Accord. Both sides would determine the composition of a bipartisan committee of academics and psychologists that will, after a final deal is signed, determine how history textbooks should describe the conflict for the children of both nations. Standards on what is "acceptable dialogue" on TV and in newspapers may also be suggested, but with some deference to free speech. The Syrian track on Golan will continue in parallel, and a US-Iran-Lebanon-Hezbollah dialogue that will result in absorption of Hezbollah into the Lebanese army if Golan and Palestine are resolved.

Step 4:

Israel and the PA announce they will accept land formulas based on the Geneva Accord or some variation of it, based on the negotiations in Step 3. The refugee return level to Israel hasn't been specified. It should offer approximately the 10% (who still wish to live in a Jewish-majority Israeli state) of the 4 million refugees the right to do so, with priority given to first and second generation refugees. Unless the "return" to Israel proper is significant enough, about 400,000, it will not be a stable equilibrium and may allow Hamas and other extremist groups to continue underground on the emotional "right of return" angle. The rest of the 90% of refugees would be resettled in Palestine, and receive some compensation from US, EU and Israel for helping Israel remain mostly Jewish. The same level of compensation will be paid by Arab countries to the descendants of Jewish refugees from Arab lands who left their homes in the 1940s (or later, under duress). If property compensation formulas can be worked out as well, great. Refugees from both sides should be allowed to visit their old homes if they wish, for some nostalgia/closure. Israel would be free to financially incentivize Israeli Arabs to move to Palestine, but they'd be under no obligation to go. Both sides would need to ratify the agreements with a referendum in each territory within six months of signing. The refugee diaspora should also be part of the Pal referendum, to declaw the rejectionists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Accord (overview)

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=349832 (Haaretz's special section and links)

http://www.geneva-accord.org/mainmenu/geneva-initiativeisrael-palestine-permanent-borders (final status maps after land swaps)

I believe something like this will be the eventual deal, even if it isn't signed next year. It may take another 10 - but it has to be generous enough to be stable. Otherwise we'll be left with a one state problem that Olmert, despite his many faults, well anticipated: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/929439.html

The first two steps can be easily finished in a week and the other two within six months of intense activity. The power lies with Obama to push this kind of a solution by out-smarting those in our establishment that may resist such a plan. Will he? No idea. But he could make a final deal happen by 2010 if he's smart about it. He'd win a Nobel by 2011 and get re-elected by 2012. Unless the economy's still in a recession!

I'd be interested in everyone's feedback and comments.

Mark

Op ' cast Lead' Israel/Gaza: Triple Islamic Crime: 1) Firing upon Israeli civilians, 2) using its own populations' women and children to make sure they die, so they can bash Israel even more, 3) Calling for genocide on Israelis or on all Jews.

Natalia from Acampo, CA — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:41:37 EST

December, 2008 - January 2009

Triple Islamic Crime: 1) Firing upon Israeli civilians, 2) using its own populations' women and children to make sure they die, so they can bash Israel even more, 3) Calling for genocide on Israelis or on all Jews.

Operation 'Cast Lead' - Israel decided it had (1) - enough of: Years of Islamic 'Palestinian' Hamas' barrage of rocket attacks aimed intentionally on Israeli civilians, preferably children (at the times they go to schools and kindergartens), around a Millions Israelis are under this threatening range.
(2) - The Islamic terror Hamas fights the Israeli humane anti-terror defensive forces via most inhumane tactics - using its own civilians, women and children as human shields in order to cause Arab kids' deaths and then parade with them on global TV cameras.

(3) - An expolsion of Islamofascism's hatred and call for genocide on (all) Jews in wordlwide demonstrations under the flag of "free Palestine".

On Dec. 27, Israel began defensive operations to dismantle Iran-backed Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and stop the terrorist group from its 8-years-long campaign of attacking Israeli civilians with 10,000 rockets, missiles and mortars.

Despite Hamas’s unrelenting rocket attacks, Israel continues to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, warning the civilian population to stay clear of terrorist sites. Said Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, "Israel has made it clear that we are fighting against terrorism, not the Gazan residents, and the extremists are the ones who are taking advantage of the concern of the humanitarian organizations and the international community as a means of pressuring Israel."
http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=689705&ct=6479 919

Harris noted that Israel has always gone to great lengths in an attempt to avoid civilian casualties, but that, tragically, Hamas uses civilians "as human shields," making Israel's efforts still more challenging. (Dec 27, 2008)

http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/12-27-2008/00049 47081&EDATE=

Hamas Prepares 15,000 Soldiers, Civilian Human Shields For Full Confrontation With Israel (Dec 27, 2008)

http://www.mererhetoric.com/archives/11275253.html

Hamas took no heed of the plight of their own brethren, "and just as they have used human shields in their terror operations, they are now taking the whole ...

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1229868820574&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Israel's Challenge Family Security Matters, NJ - Dec 26, 2008 Why is criticism never leveled at Hamas or Hezbollah who regularly use children as human shields to protect their leaders and their weapons? ...

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.2115/pub_detail.asp

Israel retaliation in Gaza, Hamas hit hard Canada Free Press, Canada Any suspected hideouts of Hamas leadership must be taken out. Israel had opportunities in earlier decades to do this and refused because of the human shield

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/7171

Hamas Explains Use of Civilians as Human Shields
By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
"We desire death as you desire life."
The UN announcement that 51 civilians have died in the conflict in Gaza must be understood in the context of Hamas's declared ideology to use civilians as human shields for Hamas fighters. Indeed, Hamas continues to emphasize and promote the religious ideology that death for Allah is an ideal to be actively pursued.
The goal is to convince Palestinians, including women and children, not to fear death but even to face it at the front to protect Hamas fighters. Hamas's placement of its military installations and fighters among civilians reflects this ideology, and has led to these 51 deaths.
A Hamas representative in the PA legislative council this year expressed pride in the fact that women and children are used as human shields in fighting Israel. He described it as part of a "death industry" at which Palestinians excel, and explained that the Palestinians "desire death" with the same intensity that Israelis "desire life."
The following is the full text of the comments by Hamas representative Fathi Hamad: "For the Palestinian people death became an industry, at which women excel and so do all people on this land: the elderly excel, the Jihad fighters excel, and the children excel. Accordingly [Palestinians] created a human shield of women, children, the elderly and the Jihad fighters against the Zionist bombing machine, as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: We desire death as you desire life."

http://newsblaze.com/story/20081229092838zzzz.nb/topstory.html

Injured Palestinian girl: Hamas is the cause of all wars
A haunting clip from an outfit that specializes in them: Portrait of a human shield, her four-year-old sister one of 60 civilians killed...

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/12/30/injured-palestinian-girl-hamas-is-the-cause-of-all-wars/

The suffering that Hamas causes (Dec 2008) ...
But it isn't only Israelis whose fundamental human rights Hamas is violating. It is those of the Palestinian population about whose welfare Hamas professes to care.
In direct contravention of international law, Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, utilizing homes, schools and community centers as launching pads, content in the knowledge that if innocent Palestinian civilians are caught in the cross-fire, it will be Israel that is criticized. This amounts to a sort of Daily Double of human rights violations: the use of innocent Palestinians as human shields for the infliction of violence upon innocent Israelis.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/12/30/the_suffering_that_hama s_causes/

The Father of the Human Shield Dead
DigitalJournal.com - 2 Jan 2009
Nizar al-Rayyan invented the Human Shields method. IsraelPolitik reports that Hamas has released an official statement “declaring that Dr. Nizar al-Rayyan, ...

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/264390

Ground push / Mission: Break Hamas Ha'aretz - Jan 3, 2009
Hamas may also use children as "human shields" for weapons caches inside mosques.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052336.html

IDF launches Gaza ground operation
Ha'aretz - Jan 3, 2009
Those who use civilians, the elderly, women and children as "human shields" are responsible for any and all injuries to the civilian population.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052341.html

They Asked For It! Hamas goads Israeli military to invade Gaza Strip
Gather.com - Jan 3, 2009
They're showing no regard for the high, civilian casualties due to the upcoming, street fighting. They're using their countrymen as human shields.

http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/35544

NETANYAHU: This humanitarian crisis is the direct result of the Hamas tactic of firing at our civilians and hiding behind their civilians, and it’s something that we cannot tolerate. No nation would tolerate 6,000 rockets fired on its cities, and Israel finally decided to take action.

We have to make sure that we don’t just have a cease-fire, but that this criminal rocketing of our cities is not resumed a few months from now. Because that’s exactly what happened a few months ago. They were firing rockets at us, the Hamas. We had a cease-fire. They used the cease-fire to get further range — longer-range rockets, which they have now fired at Beersheba and Ashdod and into the southern suburbs of Tel Aviv. So obviously, we have to remove the threat, not just stop the firing. And that’s what Israel is engaged in right now.

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000003002618

Crush Hamas and brave the backlash | The Australian - But as was pointed out - Israel attempts to target military and political sites. hamas attacks civilians. there is no such thing as disproportionate attacks …

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24853482-7583,00.html

Rocket alert sends New York’s Bloomberg running for cover in Sderot…
the onus of the civilian deaths was on Hamas for using them as human shields.
“They have been the main victimizers of the innocent Palestinian people by inviting these kinds of attacks,” he said.

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052557.html

IDF coordination chief: There is no humanitarian crisis

Hamas terrorists are using civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip - including hospitals, mosques and areas next to offices of international aid groups - to conduct terrorist activity and fire rockets at Israel, Col. Moshe Levi, commander of the IDF’s Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), said Thursday.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1230733138893

Hamas Exploitation of Civilians as Human Shields
Right Side News
This study examines how Hamas and the other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip make extensive use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. ...

http://rightsidenews.com/200901063218/global-terrorism/hamas-exploitation-of-civilians-as-human-shie lds.html

'Hamas is guilty of war crime'
BBC News
... artillery attack near a UN school in the Gaza Strip. On Radio 4's The World Tonight he claimed that Hamas were guilty of using civilians as "human shields".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7814762.stm

Yes, free Gaza — from terrorist tyranny
By REDA MANSOUR
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Some of the Arab and Muslim demonstrators who recently came to our offices were holding signs that said “Free Gaza.” Many Israelis would raise that same sign, me included, but for different reasons. People tend to forget that as of August 2005, Israel has not been in Gaza, and that the Gazans have been under Hamas control since June 2007. Indeed, Gaza needs to be freed from many different extremist forces.
Gaza should be freed from Hamas, a terrorist organization that seized the strip by force. Since the takeover, Hamas has run Gaza’s economy into the ground and now nearly half of the work force is unemployed. Hamas has built a Taliban-style state in Gaza and introduced many of the Islamic Shari’a laws, institutionalizing the persecution of women and minorities.
Hamas has transformed Gaza from a free territory to a large bunker, a place where rockets are stored under families, schools and places of prayer. Unfortunately, Gazans not only live among this militarization, but are now a tool in Hamas’ aggression. The terrorist organization has developed a strategy of using innocent civilians as human shields. When Israel warns that the houses of Hamas operatives and commanders will be targeted, the terrorists bring in innocent citizens, often by force, in an effort to increase the likelihood of civilian casualties. Hamas’ leaders rely on the strict Israeli moral code, hoping to avoid being attacked or that a strike will allow them to score points in the media by sacrificing their own people, creating what looks like acts of Israeli military aggression.
Gaza should be freed from the intervention of Iran, a state that openly admits to financing Hamas. Iran is also helping Palestinian terror organizations with training, intelligence and equipment. Some of this “aid” is channeled through Hezbollah in Lebanon — yet another Iranian proxy organization. Hezbollah and Iran use the Gazans to maintain regional political relevance in their empty agenda against Israel.
Gaza should be freed from some of the Arab satellite channels like Al-Jazeera. These television stations engage in the direct incitement of the Arab and Muslim world. Everything is acceptable in their eyes to raise their ratings: including long shots of bodies and injuries. Some of these channels do not dismiss any editing trick and consider propaganda as a normal part of their news reporting.
As far as Israel is concerned, Gaza is free and it is the decision of its inhabitants what the area’s destiny will be. They can continue to buy into the self-defeating promises of terrorist organizations and extremist ideologies. Even worse, they can continue to let these organizations use them as human shields and demolish their hopes and futures.
Gazans can only truly be free by declaring Gaza a terror-free zone. The people of Gaza have many resources in their hands to achieve success. Gaza could use its beautiful Mediterranean coast to attract Israeli and Egyptian tourists. It can renew the flower and fruit exports to Europe that Israel left behind. The airport that was built there can be reopened. The seaport that is planned and even the natural gas fields in its waters could be built.
The people of this region need to make the decision that Gaza will become a model of peace and stability and hopefully, the beginning of the two-state solution: Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2009/01/07/mansoured_0107.html

Hamas uses people as shields
Updated: 01/06/2009 06:53:52 AM EST
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has heated up again. A cease-fire agreement has collapsed and Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization, immediately renewed its rocket attacks from Gaza into Israeli civilian areas.
Hamas does not attack military targets. They openly declare their intent to kill civilians, including women and children.
These rocket attacks have gone on for years and have steadily increased in intensity. The range of these weapons has increased as well, bringing more civilian areas in Israel under attack, with an increase in danger to civilians.
There is no warning for these attacks, no air-raid sirens, just the sudden explosion of a rocket missile in your neighborhood with the possibility of death and destruction.
During the several years that these rocket attacks have continued, never has anyone raised a voice condemning these attacks, which are knowingly directed against civilians.
Hamas deliberately sets its rocket launchers and mortars in densely populated areas using their own people as human shields against retaliation.
Now that Israel is striking back, the Israelis are being condemned for causing civilian casualties. Where were these voices during the years that Hamas was deliberately and admittedly killing Israeli civilians? Where were these voices when Hamas implemented its policy of using its own people as human shields against retaliation?
Two facts become obvious:
Israel values the lives of its citizens and is now doing and will continue doing what is necessary to protect its citizens.
Hamas views its own people as expendable pawns and willingly and knowingly places them in danger in order to gain a propaganda victory against Israel.

http://www.newstimes.com/ci_11376001

Hamas at fault, not Israelis
Sir:It amazes me that every time Israel makes a move to protect its citizens and sovereignty, bleeding hearts at the CBC continue to pester Israel over its alleged unbalanced response.
Even when the ceasefire was signed, Hamas militants fire rockets haphazardly into Israel.
Hit a military compound, that's nice. Hit a school or hospital, equally nice.
This is terrorism on a daily basis.
To feel sorry for the Palestinian people is a stretch considering they voted for Hamas, knowing the blow-back they would receive not only from their immediate neighbours but from most western powers as well.
As a matter of fact, Palestinians should be thankful that Israel still considers its targets as carefully as it does and not use the laissez faire targeting of Hamas.
The reason why there are civilian casualties at all is again due to the cowardice of the militants using civilians as human shields.
I would certainly hope that those at the liberal CBC that think Israel should open its borders to incoming Palestinian workers when such a threat exists for suicide bombers never end up with the job of minister for public safety in this country.
Hard hats and bomb shelters for all!

http://www.chathamdailynews.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1374059

The Volokh Conspiracy - Human Shields in Gaza:
But it takes a special kind of depravity to use your own civilians as human ... If the Hamas civilians *know* they are acting as human shields for the ...

http://volokh.com/posts/1230756039.shtml

Children of Hamas
Hamas has been firing these rockets from within densely populated areas using the Palestinian people as human shields. Mosques, hospitals, kindergartens

http://anadafreepress.com/index.php/article/7366

Peres: Europe must 'open eyes' on Gaza
United Press International
Peres blamed Hamas for the deaths of innocent civilians in the siege, saying the militants use them as human shields...

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/01/06/Peres_Europe_must_open_eyes_on_Gaza/UPI-94771231247258/

Hamas exploits public opinion
Newstimes Updated: 01/06/2009 07:23:35 PM EST
It is time to support Israel in her time of need. After living in a war zone with relentless rockets firing on innocent citizens even in a "cease-fire" agreement with Hamas, Israel has no choice but to destroy the terrorists who have one goal and that is to destroy Israel.
If the press would comment on Hamas' tactics of using women and children as human shields, of firing rockets from residential neighborhoods, of dressing Hamas officials in medical uniforms in hospitals, the tragic deaths of innocent Palestinians may be understood.
Israel has no choice but to destroy the point of rocket fire. If it comes from a mosque, a hospital, a home, a school, it is designed that way by the terrorists to hurt Israel.
They have no regard for their citizens and use them as propaganda tools to affect world opinion.
It would be helpful if the press would mention the tactics at the same time as they mention the tragic deaths of innocent bystanders. It is all calculated by Hamas and unfortunately not everyone is aware of their depth of cruelty.
Our tradition teaches us, "He who saves a single life, it is as if he saved an entire world." Israel reveres life and the terrorists revere death. It is unfortunate and tragic.
When the terrorists will show the same passion for peace as they do for death and hatred, there will be peace.

http://www.newstimes.com/ci_11387960

We have counseled our ally Israel to be very cautious about protecting innocents, and I do think that the Israelis take great care to do so. I saw the reports about the school. I don't have any information about that. I think that we should not jump to conclusions, and we should wait to find out what the evidence says. What we do know is that Hamas often hides amongst innocents, and uses innocent people, including children, as human shields.

http://www.enewspf.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5435:press-briefing-by-p ress-secretary-dana-perino-&catid=88888933&Itemid=88889535

Evidence of Hamas Use of Human Shields

http://yaakov.newsvine.com/_news/2009/01/06/2278116-evidence-of-hamas-use-of-human-shields

Global Islamo fascism's Genocidal Anti - Jewish demonstrations using the Gaza anti terror operation ' cast lead' as a cover (Dec 2008 - Jan 2009)
(Jan 2009) Jihad Watch reports that in the Netherlands, anti-Israel demonstrators have once again been chanting
Hamas Hamas, Jews to the gas
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024231.php
Atlas has pictures of the Muslims that have taken over Europe chanting “Jews to the gas.”
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/01/video-anne-fran.html
Demonstrators cry 'nuke Israel,' carry Hezbollah flags at U.S. ... 6 Jan 2009 ... ... Florida last week featured demonstrators carrying signs reading ...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052901.html
Florida demonstrator: Jews - you need a big oven' - 6 Jan 2009 ... Florida demonstrator: Jews - you need a big oven' ... Nuke, nuke Israel," followed by "Go to hell; go to hell; go to hell!" ...Another woman, wearing a (Muslim) headscarf, shouted: "Go steal other lands. Go! Murderers! Go back to the oven! You need a big oven."
Other signs accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing." "Israel is the terrorist," read a second, while a third wondered whether Israel had taken "notes during the Holocaust?"
An imam led the crowd in prayer. "Allahu Akhbar," they chanted before prostrating themselves on their prayer mats.
"We want to educate the people about what Islam really is so that they can appreciate the beauty of it," the imam told a reporter. "Once people understand the real beauty of Islam they will have no choice but to accept it because they will realize that it's part of their nature."
Following their (Islamic) prayers, the crowd crossed the road and confronted the pro-Israel group
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2606
Genocidal hatred from pro-Hamas demonstrators -- "Nuke, nuke Israel." Chilling video from Tom Trento of WatchObsession.org. .... Florida A Tampa highway was lined with anti-Gaza War demonstrators on ...The stone, which is thrown at the Jews, hates these Jews, these Zionists, because Allah .... Muslims in American mosques praying for destruction of Israel ...
http://www.israelmilitary.net/showthread.php?p=36183
Protesting Against Israel or Hating Jews? - 6 Jan 2009 ... 'Muslim American Society'... The anti-Israel demonstration of some 200 to 300 people outside the ... for instance, carried signs saying "Nuke Israel,"...Now the notion of using of a nuclear device to eliminate Israel and thereby attempting to kill its roughly 5 million Jews is not a unique one, since words to that effect are regularly uttered, among others, by Iran's raving president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who dreams of such apocalyptic final solutions. What is unique is the morally-defective logic that would enable someone to justify a second Holocaust, the mass murder of Jews, on the basis of Israel having defended itself from years of rocket attacks and having killed several hundred murderous terrorists in the process. Making the Middle East free of Jews, Judenfrein, is exactly what Hamas, the group of murderous thugs being cheered on by the demonstrators here, ardently longs for; Hamas' charter, in fact, expresses as one of its core tenets that Israel should be eliminated, that "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/protesting_against_israel_or_h.html
December 31, 2008
"Death to all juice": Calling for genocide with plausible deniability?
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024163.php
January 4, 2009 chill and evil wind is blowing over the world. Genocidal Eurabia Alert
Denmark (Islamic banner reads): "Kill Jewish people evry where in ther world"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024235.php
The banner reads, "Jews go to hell." Attached Images ...
http://www.goldtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=226463
Indonesian Muslim protesters hold a banner during a rally against . ... The banner reads, 'Jews go to hell.' REUTERS/Beawiharta. (INDONESIA) ...
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Israel--Indonesian-Muslim-protesters-hold-banner-during-rally-again st-Israeli-attacks-Gaza-Strip-Jakarta-January-2-2009-banner-reads-Jews-go/ss/events/wl/20070128_isra el/im:/02012009/6/photo/photos-n-news-indonesian-muslim-protesters-hold-banner-during-rally-against- israeli.html/
That Old Lovable “Jews Are Apes And Pigs” Canard
http://outoftheblu.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/that-old-lovable-jews-are-apes-and-pigs-canard/

Stephen Views the News 1/7/09

Stephen from Elkins Park, PA — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 17:21:52 EST

Stephen Views the News 1/7/09

http://stephenviewsthenews.blogspot.com/

* Israeli government not always right ~ Palestinian people not always wrong, but often wronged by their leadership – Many of us in the United States have a cultural and/or emotional connection to Israel. Others see a political connection to Israel as an American ally and some Christian fundamentalists see the connection as biblical. Regardless of the connection it would be unbalanced to say that Israel can do no wrong. The defense of Israel’s actions in Gaza predominates in the mainstream media in America. Bush’s neocon support of Israel and Obama’s silence about the attacks further the one-sided American perception of this conflict. I suggest that the debate encompass contrasting views such as Glen Greenwald at Salon.com in an article titled “Orwell, blinding tribalism, selective Terrorism, and Israel/Gaza,” the website Dissident Voice that discusses Top 5 Lies About Israel’s Assault on Gaza and Jstreet.org “the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement.” In Israel there are strong demonstrations against the Gaza military action and Consenting Adult offers some insight including the observation that the attacks are really about Israeli domestic politics.

Marty Kaplan writing at Huffington Post soul searches the myriad moral and political dilemmas confronting the long-suffering Israelis and Palestinians. For those wondering why Israel launched their Gaza attack at this particular time Lisa Gans writing at Huffington Post suggests: “But the fact that Israel decided to launch this massive attack on the Gaza strip in the waning days of the Bush administration suggests that Tel Aviv, at least, thinks that the days for such an action might be limited… Nothing in the events leading up to the now nine day long assault (as of January 5th) on Gaza created a sense of urgency that justifies the scale and speed of the Israeli action… Rather than being a sign of support for the Gaza offensive, Obama's refusal to comment at all may suggest that, while he is unwilling to interfere in the White House's ability to conduct foreign policy, he may not be supportive of Israel's actions, and that he intends to take a different tone from the current administration tone in office.”

A final thought, at least for the moment. Let us not forget, although the Arab world will, that Hamas (like Hezbollah in Lebanon) chose to secret their armies and weapons in hospitals, schools and mosques and use civilian populations as shields. Let us not forget the suffering imposed upon the people of Gaza through Israeli blockades and policies prior to the current hostilities. And let us not forget the decades-long abandonment of the Palestinian people by the surrounding Arab governments who see the Palestinians as pawns. There are no heroes.

* Quote of the Week ~ On Monday Barack Obama announced the appointment of Dawn Johnsen to serve as the next Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). It is the office that issued the torture memo justifying the behavior of the Bush administration in Guantanamo and other venues of disgrace. In an article in Slate on April 3, 2008 Ms. Johnsen said the following: “But we must regain our ability to feel outrage whenever our government acts lawlessly and devises bogus constitutional arguments for outlandishly expansive presidential power. Otherwise, our own deep cynicism, about the possibility for a President and presidential lawyers to respect legal constraints, itself will threaten the rule of law--and not just for the remaining nine months of this administration, but for years and administrations to come.” Contrary to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, whom I spoke about last week, Dawn Johnsen gets it. Thanks to Think Progress and Salon’s Glenn Greenwald for bringing this to our attention.

Greenwald is a constitutional lawyer who I have come to highly regard. He points out that “The Office of Legal Counsel, inside the Justice Department, is probably the most consequential federal government office that remains relatively obscure. The legal opinions which it issues become, more or less automatically, the official legal position of the Executive Branch. It is his opinion that Johnsen may be Obama’s best pick yet to serve in his administration.

* Hobby of the Week ~ Navel Maniac – The name does not refer to pirates off the coast of Somalia. Navelmaniac.com is a web site featuring photos of peoples’ navels. Since 1999 the photographer and web author stops men and women on the streets of Brussels and, with their permission, takes a photo of their belly button. On behalf of my readers I spent two hours looking at the vast collection and concluded that Belly Button Identification (BBI) could potentially replace finger prints and DNA in crime investigations. I sheepishly and salaciously concentrated on female buttons but sometimes could not tell the difference. I do not know if this brings into question my eyesight, my sexuality or the admonition to “get a life.” Since my travel agent Sheila reads my blog please consider this as a request to provide airfare and hotel accommodations for Brussels and a digital photo of your navel. In a world increasingly burdened with one crisis after another such a benign activity may prove beneficial to one’s mental well-being.

* Question answered ~ a moment of “a hah” – I have wondered why the Republican Party suffered dislocated shoulders throwing their arms around Sarah Palin in support of her vice-presidential nomination. Her Alaskan proximity to Russia seemed lame in establishing her foreign policy credentials. Her almost total lack of experience was a weak argument for “the fresh face” syllogism. Not every Republican is a religious fundamentalist. Finally, I have an answer to my quandary that makes sense. She understands how Republicans do political business (okay, Democrats too). An investigation of Palin appointments by the LA Times found: “More than 100 appointments to state posts — nearly 1 in 4 — went to campaign contributors or their relatives, sometimes without apparent regard to qualifications; Several of Palin’s leading campaign donors received state-subsidized industrial development loans of up to $3.6 million for business ventures of questionable public value.” In being guilty of being redundant I repeat the mantra that until we have public financing of elections, pay-to-play politics will prevail. You betcha!

* When the cupboard is bare one alternative is to eat crow – Marty Weisberg at Slate.com maintains an updated list of Bushisms, comments made by the President that usually do not make much sense. A Bush comment made this week but not yet added to the list is perhaps iconic of all that has gone before it. During a luncheon meeting with the Weekly Standard: “On domestic policy, Bush was asked if he made progress in some areas for which he hasn't and probably won't get credit. Topping his list was his unsuccessful drive in 2005 to reform Social Security.” By “reform” Bush meant “privatize.” He invested considerable time, energy and expense to sell this program to the American people. It proved to be a thorough dud that never came close to acceptance. Given the collapse of financial markets we can only say, “Thank goodness.” Given that a failed initiative tops his list of “making progress” we can only say, “Good riddance.”

* Clean Coal mythology – I recently noted the sludge spill from a coal-fired electric plant in Tennessee could wind up being an environmental disaster. It has not received that much attention in the mainstream news. However, the NY Times learned from the Tennessee Valley authority that in 2007 the plant’s byproducts included: “45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems.”

The holding pond that yielded the spill contained byproducts accumulating for decades. For days after the spill authorities maintained that the spill was not toxic. We now learn that, “Elevated levels of lead and thallium and what the EPA called “very high” levels of arsenic have been found in water samples taken near the site of the spill.” What should have taken hours to test took days. No surprise and screw the public. “The spill has reignited a debate over whether coal ash should be regulated as a hazardous waste. In 2000, the E.P.A. backed away from its recommendation to do so in the face of industry opposition, promising instead to issue national guidelines for proper ash disposal, though it never did.” No surprise and screw the public.

It is important to note that the Tennessee ash dump is not unique. There are 1300 similar coal ash dump sites across the U.S., most of them unregulated and unmonitored and that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal. “In 2007, an E.P.A. report identified 63 sites in 26 states where the water was contaminated by heavy metals from such dumps, including three other Tennessee Valley Authority dumps. Environmental advocacy groups have submitted at least 17 additional cases that they say should be added to that list.” This raises two questions: how many other locations are being contaminated since regulation and monitoring is lax to non-existent?; when will the EPA become as responsible to the American people as it is to the energy industry?

A final thought, at least for the moment. The standard for determining the cost of any fuel is the amount of energy it generates. It does not account for the real cost to our society that must include the cost of cleaning up the toxic effects of these fuels. It appears that the cost of addressing the toxicity from coal use in our air, our water and our bodies has yet to enter the calculation. It will be substantial.

* We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

Native American Proverb

* It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.

Ansel Adams

End the Assault on Gaza!

Sheldon Laskin — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:14:17 EST

Dear President-Elect Obama,

I write as an American Jew who is deeply opposed to Israel’s unjustified and wanton assault on the civilian population of Gaza.

We learned today of the Israeli bombing of a school clearly labeled and identified by GPS, as a UN shelter for refugees. At least 40 innocent civilians were killed while seeking shelter from the Israeli assault that has killed hundreds of innocent civilians.

Yes, Israel has been the victim of Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza that threaten Israel’s civilian population. But once again, the attack on the UN shelter reminds us that violence merely begets more violence; how many Palestinian terrorists have been created as a result of that attack?

Whether the US or Israel like it or not, by all accounts Hamas fairly won democratic elections in Gaza. While Hamas has refused for now to recognize Israel, it has nevertheless repeatedly indicated its willingness to abide by a long-term truce in Gaza, as long as Israel stops its efforts to strangle the Gaza government by starving and harassing the civilian population. Hamas largely abided by the truce that ended last month, launching missiles at Israel only when Israel assassinated Hamas leaders.

It is time for the US to lead the international community in forcefully asserting that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is at the root of the conflict and must end now. Furthermore, the international community should clearly state that the basis of a lasting peace is a two-state solution with a Palestinian state on all of the territory occupied by Israel in 1967, with the exception of mutually negotiated border adjustments. Furthermore, the US should declare that the capital of that state should be East Jerusalem, although the city of Jerusalem would remain one undivided city under joint Israeli-Palestinian administration. Finally, Palestinian refugees in 1948 and 1967 should be compensated for their losses, and allowed to return to the new State of Palestine. A symbolic number should be allowed to return to Israel proper, as long as they are prepared to live in peace under Israeli law.

The window within which to implement a two-state solution is rapidly closing. If there is no solution soon, Israel will become a single state with a Jewish minority ruling a hostile Palestinian majority. This apartheid solution will be a disaster.

I urge you to reconsider this country’s unqualified support for Israeli government action and to adopt a policy that addresses the causes of the conflict. Otherwise, Israeli and Palestinian civilians will continue to needlessly die because of the cowardly obtuseness of their leaders.

Thank you.

Very truly yours,

Sheldon H. Laskin

“A Letter from a Diaspora Jew ”

hindy — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:29:26 EST

Dear Israel:

This is the kind of letter that a loving child would send to a parent in order to clear the air. First of all - like a child to a parent - I love and cherish your joy of life and the feeling of freedom I’ve always had on my numerous prolonged visits. I admire the fact that, despite all of the terror and hardships and threats that are always lurking, you cling to democracy. In spite of so many fanatics both within and outside of your borders, you maintain the separation of synagogue and state as well as freedom for all religions. I know that there are many countries in your position who would have long ago curtailed individual and religious freedoms and felt somewhat justified in doing so. With all of the wars and fighting and terror you have contributed disproportionately to the sciences, medicine and technology - more than many nations who live in relative peace. I also love your contrasts that span centuries and ideologies and include everything from ancient ruins to gay day parades and nude beaches.

As a child of holocaust survivors I understand your fears, your insecurities, your determination to defend Israelis and, for that matter, Jews around the world from fanatics who despise us - even more than they hate others in the west.

Now that I’ve established my affection, I want to lovingly share my discomfort, both as a Jew and as a citizen of the free world. As everyone who has gone through trauma knows, outsiders often see the situation much clearer than those who are immersed in it.

In some ways my personal experience mirrors Israel’s. Despite the benevolent views of my survivor parents, I grew up feeling that the world would always be an unreceptive place for Jews. As a result I immersed myself in the Jewish community. I lived, worked and socialized there. Ghettos can be warm and welcoming. Most importantly they feel safe. They can also reinforce unwarranted suspicions and fears.

It wasn’t till ventured into the broader world, that I saw people for what they are. Most are open. Many are interested. Bigots do exist - even among our own. However, often they too are willing to take a critical look at themselves.

What I’ve seen more recently is that, with the threat of terrorism facing so many, Jews and Israelis are finally being understood at a more profound level. I, who had never gone looking for compassion or understanding - was suddenly receiving it from many - until Gaza! Here’s my take on why we‘re losing support - yet again.

There’s no doubt for most that Hamas is a terrorist organization. Few question that Hamas uses civilians as human shields. Few doubt that they worship martyrdom and won’t give up till either they or we die. Few question whether Israel has a right to defend its citizens - as do Americans, Brits, Indians and all nations that have been victimized by this scourge. It’s probably true that none have experienced as much terror as Israel has. What saddens me no end however, is that even now - when the world finally understands - Israel still holds onto the holocaust mentality that says “we can’t count on anyone but ourselves”.

At a time when so many nations are cooperating in the global war on terror, Israel - like the wandering stateless Jew - still goes it alone. Rather than eliciting understanding and cooperation like India and Britain do, Israel marches in like an orphaned child and takes it upon itself to bomb Gaza. That’s what Bush did in Iraq. It didn’t bring him many allies either. On the contrary, by acting like the Lone Ranger, he simply fanned the flames of anti-Americanism from allies and foes alike. For every Moslem he killed in his self-proclaimed war on terror, he created hundreds of fanatics.

In this world, its no longer simply about being justified. Everyone claims justification. Its about being smart, strategic and cooperative. When it comes to PR and long term strategy, it pains me to tell you, my beloved country, how short-sighted and hasty you can be. That old saying that the definition of neurosis is engaging repeatedly in the same behavior while expecting a different result couldn’t be more true.

Let me paint an alternative scenario for you. What would have happened if you had launched your PR machine a month before you launched your bombs on Gaza? What if you would have invited the international press to southern Israel and armed them with images of innocent Israeli victims of terror? What would have happened had you brought this problem with Hamas (who everyone recognizes as a terrorist organization) to the attention of the free world - shortly after Mumbai - while there was so much empathy? What would have happened if you humbly asked for their assistance and, let them know that only failing that, would you be forced to act unilaterally? The results likely would have been the same - but your case would have been so much stronger.

Instead, as usual, there was no advanced PR campaign. There was no public consultation with potential allies. As usual Israel, the perennial resistance fighter, took on the enemy alone - just like they did in the ghettos and forests of Europe.

Now instead of empathy, the world cringes at the images - not of Israeli victims - but of Palestinian victims. And who can blame them? I certainly can’t. Its difficult for me to see children being killed and injured - despite the fact that Hamas has put them in that position. Hamas may be purposely indoctrinating them - but Israel is inadvertently killing them. Indoctrinated or not, they are still children and as such are innocent.

It matters little to the world, whether they are being targeted or are simply collateral damage. The end result is they are dead.

Instead of punishing Hamas after all international options failed, Israel again did it on their own timeframe and under their own conditions. In doing so you have played right into the hands of your enemies’ strategy and regrettably superior PR machine.

For those of you who will say that the world has a double standard - one for the Jews and another for the rest of the world, well…maybe they do! Maybe they have bought the myth which we ourselves perpetuated, that “Israel will be a light unto the nations” and that Jews, because of the catastrophes we suffered throughout history, are a bit more fair, a bit more understanding and a bit more humane than most.

If that’s the case, what would be so terrible if we actually behaved that way? What about Obama’s principle that you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Instead of hoping that, as a result of collective punishment, Gazans would turn against Hamas, what would happen if we dropped food and medicine rather than bombs? What if we rewarded civilians with Jewish benevolence instead of punishing them with Jewish might? Think of the amazing message that would have sent to the world and the ensuing PR Israeli‘s and Jews would have benefited from. Instead, you are inadvertently playing the game of our enemy while fanning the flames of anti-Semitism - exactly like Bush fanned the flames of anti-Americanism.

The Holocaust is over. We’re not homeless wanderers anymore. For the first time in thousands of years, Jews have their own country as well as one of the world's most powerful armies. And despite what some Israeli’s and Jews still believe, we do have legitimate standing - especially now when we‘re all victims of the same plague. Its time to stop squandering it with impulsivity, arrogance and self-righteousness. Its time to stop giving the world the finger then wondering why the world points it right back at us. Its time to start practicing the higher values of Judaism that may enable us to get closer to that fabled “light among the nations” myth that we continue to perpetrate and so many continue to expect.

Israel if you are as smart, strategic, mighty and idealistic as you claim to be, it may be time - for the sake of all of us - to start behaving that way.

If you’re going to reach out to the terrorists with a bomb in one hand, you had better reach out to the moderates (if there are any left after this incursion) with firm handshake of peace. Its time to bring an end to all of this - with the help of nations who also suffer from terror. We need guarantees for Israel’s security as well as its new neighbor. Its time to implement a two state solution - one with which neither side will be happy but that will grant both parties a somewhat equitable divorce.

That means that Palestinian radicals will have to let go of their pipe dream of a return to ‘48 borders as well as the right of return for millions of so-called refugees who should have been resettled by Arab nations decades ago. It also calls for the dismantling of settlements and the Israeli radicals’ dreams of a greater Israel. If it takes other countries to implement this, so be it. Its time for all to swallow their pride and let go of their fantasies! If, at that point, Israel accepts and its neighbors don’t, then at least the world will see what’s really happening and they can help deal with it.

Hindy Nosek-Abelson

Toronto, Canada

My Advice to Israel: Think HYDRA.

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:55:13 EST

After spending a year studying guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency strategy, it's hard not to cringe when watching Israel's handling of the situation in Gaza. So, as a Jewish American with family in Israel, my two cents on the issue: think "hydra."

For those who are unfamiliar with what a hydra is, please watch this video I have posted after a quick YouTube search. It is from the Disney movie, Hercules (and skip ahead to 1:20 into the clip to save time, and stop after 3:20):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=079Z1CRXDmM

And if you're not going to watch the video, I'll put it in writing: when bombing Hamas missile sites and UN schools alike in the Gaza strip, Israel needs to keep in mind the Herculean foe that grew two heads every time one of its heads was chopped off. Yes, we all (should) support Israel's right to exist. And Hamas provoked Israel by firing hundreds of missiles into Israeli territory during what was, at least ostensibly, a cease fire. But the collateral damage from targeted bombs against Hamas is not going to make the majority of Gaza residents (who voted for Hamas in the first place, remember) turn against Hamas because of group's provocation of Israel (as Israel seems to be hoping for). One Israeli died during the missile attacks on Israel, four have died since the invasion. Wouldn't it have been a better PR move (and less deadly for Israelis) to create a big fuss about the missiles and demand foreign intervention? The inability for the latter to happen (foreign intervention) would show that Israel has to do something to defend itself because no one else is going to step in, and if four Israelis die on Israeli territory instead of dozens more Israeli and Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas would suffer from a drop in public support (infinitely more damaging than missile attacks), not Israel.

To quote General Petraeus, "an operation that kills five insurgents is counterproductive if the collateral damage or the creation of blood feuds leads to the recruitment of fifty more."

Stay tuned for my solution to the conflict (psyche), or just beg me to send you my senior thesis.

-Nate