Looking Back on 40 Years of Occupation

Israel captured and occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank 40 years ago this week. The victory was celebrated as a great triumph, at once tripling the size of the land under Israeli control, including East Jerusalem. It was, however, a Pyrrhic victory. As the occupation stretched over the decades, it transformed and deformed Israeli society. It led Israel to abandon the norms and practices of a democratic society until, in the name of national security, it began to routinely accept the brutal violence of occupation and open discrimination and abuse of Palestinians, including the torture of prisoners and collective reprisals for Palestinians attacks. Palestinian neighborhoods, olive groves and villages were, in the name of national security, bulldozed into the ground.

AP Photo / Emilio Morenatti

With part of the separation barrier built by Israel, seen in the background, a Palestinian woman walks next to a vendor selling fruits at the Kalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, Tuesday, April 12, 2005.

Israel’s image has shifted from that of a heroic, open society set amid a sea of despotic regimes to that of an international pariah. Israel’s West Bank separation barrier, built ostensibly to keep out Palestinian bombers, has also been used to swallow huge tracts of the West Bank into Israel. Palestinian towns are ringed by Israeli checkpoints. Major roads in the West Bank are reserved for Israeli settlers. The U.N. estimates that about half the West Bank is now off-limits to Palestinians. And every week there are new reports of Palestinian produce that is held up until it rots, pregnant women giving birth in cars because they cannot get to hospitals and even senseless and avoidable deaths, such as one young woman who died recently when she couldn’t get through a checkpoint to her kidney dialysis treatment.

“We are raising commanders who are policemen,” former Israeli General Amiram Levine told the newspaper Maariv. “We ask them to excel at the checkpoint. What does it means to excel at the checkpoint? It means being enough of a bastard to delay a pregnant woman from getting to the hospital.”

The occupation was benign at the beginning. Israelis crossed into Palestinian territory to buy cheap vegetables, eat at local restaurants, spend the weekend in the desert oasis of Jericho and get their cars fixed. The Palestinians were a pool of cheap labor and by the mid-1980s, 40 percent of the Palestinian workforce was employed in Israel. The Palestinians flowed over the border to the shops and beaches of Tel Aviv. But the second-class status of Palestinians, growing repression by Israeli authorities in the West Bank and Gaza and festering poverty saw Palestinians, most of them too young to remember the moment of occupation, rise up in December 1987 to launch six years of street protests. The uprising eventually led to a peace accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasir Arafat. Arafat, who had spent most of his life in exile, returned in triumph to Gaza.

The Oslo Accords that followed momentarily heralded a new era, a moment of hope. I was in Gaza when they were signed. The Gaza Strip was awash in a giddy optimism. Palestinian businessmen who had made their fortunes abroad returned to help build the new Palestinian state. The radical Islamists seemed to shrink away. Palestinian women threw off their head scarves and beauty salons sprouted on city streets. There was a brief and shining sense that life could be normal, free from strife and violence, that finally Palestinians had a future. But it all swiftly turned sour. The 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, coupled with mounting draconian restrictions on Palestinians to prevent them from entering Israel and keep them in submission, led to another uprising in 2000. This one, which I also covered for The New York Times, was far more violent. This latest uprising has led to the deaths of more than 4,300 Palestinians and 1,100 Israelis. It ushered in an Israeli policy that saw Jewish settlers relocated from Gaza. Gaza was then sealed off like a vast prison. Israel also began to build a security barrier—at a cost of about $ 1 million per mile—in the West Bank. When it is done, the barrier is expected to incorporate 40 percent of Palestinian land into the Israeli state.

Israeli air strikes have, over the past year, decimated the infrastructure in Gaza, destroying bridges, power stations and civilian administration buildings. The breakdown in law and order, coupled with the growing desperation in Gaza, has triggered an internecine conflict between Hamas and Fatah. There are some 200 Palestinians who have died in clashes and street fighting between the two factions during the past year—more than one-third of those killed by Israel during the same period.

The Israeli abuses have been well documented, not only by international human rights organizations, but Israeli human rights groups such as B’Tselem. On June 4, 2007, Amnesty International released a new 45-page report called “Enduring Occupation: Palestinians Under Siege in the West Bank,” which again illustrates the devastating impact of four decades of Israeli military occupation. The report documents the relentless expansion of unlawful settlements on occupied land. It details the ways Israel has seized or denied crucial resources, such as water, to Palestinians under occupation. It documents a plethora of measures that confine Palestinians to fragmented enclaves and hinder their access to work, health and education facilities. These measures include the 700-kilometer barrier or wall, more than 500 checkpoints and blockades, and a complicated system of permits to heavily restrict movement.

“Palestinians living in the West Bank are blocked at every turn. This is not simply an inconvenience—it can be a matter of life or death. It is unacceptable that women in labor, sick children, or victims of accidents on their way to hospital should be forced to take long detours and face delays which can cost them their lives,” said Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Program.

“International action is urgently needed to address the widespread human rights abuses being committed under the occupation, and which are fueling resentment and despair among a predominantly young and increasingly radicalized Palestinian population,” said Smart. “For 40 years, the international community has failed adequately to address the Israeli-Palestinian problem; it cannot, must not, wait another 40 years to do so.”

Of Gaza’s 1.4 million residents, a staggering 1.1 million now depend on outside food assistance. The World Food Program has identified Gaza as one of the world’s hunger global hotspots. The WFP is a principal food aid provider to Palestinians, providing assistance to 640,000 Palestinians, more than a third of them in Gaza.

The desperation—with young men unable to find work, travel outside the Gaza Strip or West Bank and forced to sleep 10 to a room in concrete hovels without running water—has empowered the Islamic radicals. The desperation has led the Palestinian population, once one of the most secular in the Middle East, to turn to radical fundamentalism. The more pressure and violence Israel employs, the more these radicals are empowered.

The Israeli lobby in the United States is captive to the far right of Israeli politics. It exerts influence not on behalf of the Jewish state but an ideological strain within Israel that believes it can crush Palestinian aspirations through force. The self-defeating policies of the Bush administration are mirrored in the self-defeating policies championed by the hard-right administration of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. Israel flouts international law and dismisses Security Council resolutions to respect the integrity of Palestinian territory. It has instead trapped Palestinians in squalid, barricaded ghettos where they barely survive.

It is not in Israel’s interest—or our own—to continue to fuel increased Palestinian strife and rising militancy. Economic sanctions and an arms ban against Israel are our last hope. These were the tools that toppled the apartheid regime in South Africa. And it was, after all, the sanctions imposed by the first President Bush—he suspended $10 billion of loan guarantees for resettling Russian immigrants in Israel—that prodded right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to attend peace talks in Madrid.

A trade embargo—even if imposed only by European states—would be a start. It is outside pressure that can alone halt the inexorable slide into a conflict that could become regional. And a new regional conflict with Israel could spell the end of the Zionist experiment in the Middle East. It may be quixotic, perhaps even impossible, but it is the last measure left to save Israel from itself.

Chris Hedges, who graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, is the author of “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.”

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35 Comments so far

aymon June 4th, 2007 1:29 pm

SOME BACKGROUND HISTORY
The exclusivist myth that Jews are the Chosen People and everybody else in the world is trash (”goyim”) to be exploited for use by the Chosen People and discarded as their “souls” are far lower than those of Israelis/Jews has done more harm to the Jewish people than any other belief they have. First of all, the concept of a “Jew” was coined somewhere around the 5th century BC whilst the “Habiru”(corruption - - Hebrew) as they were called at that time were held captive in Babylon. It was the Persians under Cyrus the Great who freed them and gave them money and protection to build or rebuild the second or third “Temple of Solomon”.
Also the people led out of Egypt in the Exodus were not “Jews” but a large group of settlers who had come with Joseph about 300 years ago. They were followed by very unsavoury characters from the other the other clans and tribes of the region stretching as far as Syria. The whole bunch of Semitic groups later morphed from peaceful sheperds that the generous Egyptians respected and welcomed into their midst into the warlike Hyksos (Heka-ka-Sut) who mass murdered Egyptians and took over the Delta region. The Pharoah Ahmose from Thebes defeated them after suffering nearly 150 years of brutality and ethnic cleansing by the Hyksos. Much later, Akhenaten, from the line of Ahmose, brought in the worship of One God, but made such a mess of governance of Egypt that the military Pharoah HoremHab who followed him inflicted a lot of cruelty on the followers of the new religion, especially the remnants of the Hyksos. These followers were a heterodox group numbering tens of thousands, and consisted of Egyptians, Libyans, Arabs, Canaanites, Hebrews, Phoenicians, Syrians, etc., They were led out by a high priest of Akhenaten called “Moshi” which means “born of”. Thus there was another name preceding Moshi, most likely “Aten” or “Habu” (meaning the Nile) to get “Habu-Moshi”. Thus Moses was an Egyptian “learned in all the arts of Egypt” ( the Old Testamant says).
Again, Joseph being a true man of God, descended from Abram the Uruki( Iraqi) could not call himself chosen and everyone else the “unchosen” of God. That is why he and his clan, namely the clan of Yakub (Jacob ) - - later called “Israel”, and hence the clan of Israel - - settled in Egypt through the generosity of the Pharoah who must have been a strict adherent of the law of Maat - - peace, compassion, justice and truth - - that was the central code of Egyptian religion of Light( Rah). Later, Joseph, now Vizier (prime minister) to this Pharoah, married the daughter of the high priest of On ( Heliopolis).
Let me repeat: Joseph married an Egyptian nobility, the daughter of the High Priest of Heliopolis which was the centre of the religion of Rah- Maat. (Light of Justice, Compassion, Social order and Fairness and Truth). And during their 300 year stay( NOT CAPTIVITY) in Egypt, the other clan members also must have married Egyptians also. Thus the issue of a pure blooded “Jew” does not even arise anthropologically. As I said, the exodus consisted of a large, heterodox group of One God worshipers and not “Jews” led out by an Egyptian, most likely called Habu-moshe ( hence the Nile River legend about him).
If only the modern Judeo - Christian peoples get themselves educated in their origins, then the “exclusivist” nonsense would disappear and we will have peace in Middle East, rather than waiting for Armageddon and the “Return of Christ” mumbo-jumbo.
CURRENT HISTORY
Anti-Semitism is a Euro- Christian problem (Christians who are not Europeans have very little systemic anti-Semitism.) since the dispersal of the Jewish peoples by the Roman Empire turned Catholic Christian - - the “Diaspora”. Jews have had to live with the most virulent anti-Semitism in Europe for over 1800 years as “Christ killers”. This was official Catholic Church doctrine up till 1940’s (and NOT Arab Christian or Arab Muslim doctrine). European knights, kings and feudal lords, to curry favour with the Pope killed Jews in pogroms at every opportunity. The Nazi Holocaust was the culmination of a long series of such massacres of Jews in Europe, and the most horrific of all. Millions of innocents were killed in cold blood in a span of 6 years!
A couple of other examples. At the start of the First Crusade in the 11th Century, the Christian soldiers massacred tens of thousands of Jews in Southern France to warm up their murderous spirits, and later when they reached the “Holy Land”, killed both Muslims and Jews with equal enthusiasm. When Spain was “liberated” from Moorish/Jewish civilization, by Isabella and Ferdinand in the 15th Century, all “Orientals” - - Jews and Arabs were driven out or killed.
During and after World War II, thousands of Jews tried to escape to Canada, the UK, the US, and other non-Nazi European countries. They wanted to settle there because they were European, having contributed so immensely to European culture and science. None of these countries would give refuge to hundreds of thousands of Jews because of their virulent anti-Semitism. This anti-Semitism of Christian European people, always there under the surface, surfaced at this crucial time and Jews received no refuge or help of any military kind to allow them to fight the Nazis.
The British (the ultimate imperialists) came up with a clever plan. Create a state within the midst of Arab peoples by force and the Europeans have their Jewish “problem” solved as well as Islam held in check to ensure oil flows from the ME. It has worked out perfectly for the anti-Semites among the elites in Europe and America. And this is the provenance of the troubles in the ME. However, as I stated above, if the Jewish people were to look at their distinguished history and recognize that they are a mixture of more or less all the peoples, especially the Palestinian people, in the ME and North Africa, then they will shed their exclusivist mentality and become friends with their neighbours. Is this too much wishful thinking?
Probably, but I am an optimist because there are thousands of Jewish intellectual leaders and tens of thousands of Israelis who would like to live in peace. Also, it is important for the Arab people’s to extend their traditional generosity, ask the US and other European countries to fertilize the Sinai peninsula, and resettle Palestinians there in an economically viable state.

Bolondvero June 4th, 2007 1:48 pm

“The occupation was benign at the beginnig”

Are you nuts?

RMouse June 4th, 2007 3:00 pm

Why is it that no one ever talks about the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank? Remember, the Jordanian Army invaded the West Bank in 1948 and stayed there until ousted by the Israelis during the 6 day war.

jbs June 4th, 2007 3:56 pm

yes to all said. the history of the area is very rich with many layers. but, why-o-why, does ‘everybody’ demand that we have to ‘honor’ the past at the cost of the present? it is the here and now, the present that has to be addressed. not yesterday. not tomorrow. you can not apply today’s standards/morals on yesterday behavior. todays standards can only be applied to today. this knee jerk diplomacy is done! it would be to all’s benefit to sit down! besides, israel has more in common with its neighbors than it does with anybody in the western world. and that includes jews that live in the u.s.

dcbeltway June 4th, 2007 3:58 pm

The photo says it all.

Stilba June 4th, 2007 4:28 pm

I’m so happy to be religion-free. Fascinating whirlwind history, aymon (better than the article itself). You mention Christians who are not Europeans as having virtually no anti-semitism …remember that the same goes for Europeans who are not Christian. Religion is the center of this and endless other problems. Superstition over rationalism! Can’t say it enough.

breehmichael June 4th, 2007 4:29 pm

Actually DC, the photo doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’ve crossed into Ramallah through the Qalendia checkpoint many many times and that photo only shows a small fraction of the walls surrounding Ramallah and the rest of the West Bank and the angle makes the wall seems smaller than it actually is (I am NOT saying that it was taken that way on purpose!). The wall there is almost thirty feet high and stretches as far as the eye can see in both directions, not including the sections that extend into Ramallah.

JBS - Agreed! As a Jew, I am constantly amazed by how many people point out that we have some claim to the land because we lived on it two thousand years ago! Of course, as a Jew, I support Israel, but not its policy of repression and genocide. Those who blindly support the state’s war against the Palestinians cannot not honestly, in my opinion, claim to actually support the state, since it is this continued occupation that so imperils Israel!

Aymon - perhaps this is a difference between my sect of Judaism (Reform) and others, but I was not brought up or taught to believe that the idea of being the “Chosen People” is an exclusivist myth designed to exploit non-Jews. I will not deny that many over the millenia have taken this view, but as JBS points out, I think it’s important to bring some modern context into the idea. The way that my rabbis over the years and others in books have explained it is that “the Chosen People” refers primarily to the Jews choosing to accept God and God’s rites (specific things like not eateng cloven-hoofed animals, temple requirements, etc - admittedly, I’m reform and we aren’t necessarily all that observent, so I’m drawing a blank on some of the particulars). The idea is not that Jews are the only humans who receive God’s favor, but that Jews chose to go the “extra mile” so to speak in worship. Many rabbis have described it to me to mean that WE chose GOD, not the other way around. Midrashic lore teaches that the Jews were actually not the first people to whom God was revealed, but that the Jews were the first to accept it; literally, God went shopping around for peeps to call is own and spread his message. This was never intended to mean that Jews are the only people who can experience God or that non-Jews cannot be wonderful, spiritual creatures. Again, I fully understand that many Jews over the millenia have used this designation to discriminate against others, but I would think, given their history of oppression and discrimination (at least amongst Ashkenazi Jews - those of Europea descent) they can at least be somewhat forgiven for choosing an exclusivist attitude.

Something that is slightly obscured in this article - a great majority of Israelis want the occupation to end and are willing to do just about anything, including pulling back to 1967 lines, dismantling the settlements, etc, to end the Occupation. However, just like in the US, those who have the power to actually end it are held hostage by the far-right of Israeli politics.

Last but not least (sorry for such a long post!), I would have to agree with JBS that, at least theologically, Jews and Muslims have much more in common with each other than either does with Christians.

tmbluesbflat June 4th, 2007 6:07 pm

Recent history (50yrs) only goes to show that the treatment of Palistinians by Israel exceeds even the Holocaust. An exquisitly slow starvation and deprivation and of course theft of all valuable assets, makes the holocaust look almost humane by comparison. Very nasty people as history records and getting more nasty by the day.

NMBill June 4th, 2007 6:11 pm

Have to agree with JBS.

The settlement after WWII should be the standard we should work from.

aymon June 4th, 2007 6:19 pm

stilba;

Thanks. Its taken me nearly 30 years of research to put all this together.

breechmichael;

I agree with you about Reform Judaism. If there is any hope for a reasoned and fair solution that does not deprive anybody living there of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, it will most likely be from Reform Judaism reacing out across all barriers to their Semitic neighbours. If I am not mistaken, did not the council of Reform Rabbis condemn the unjust occupation and war in Iraq? I though I read it last year.

chet June 4th, 2007 6:40 pm

IMO, the burning question in North America is why the media ignore articles such as Mr. Hedges’ or fail to report the brutal apartheid treatment of the Palestinians themselves.

It is now beyond dispute that AIPAC has so much control over Congress that they are practically able to dictate legislation and policy, but who or what is able to manipulate the media into such a pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian position? A prime example exists at present- after a series of targeted assassinations and the detention of Palestinian legislators, Qassam attacks and Israeli reaction intensified. In the course of the tit-for-tat, two Israelis were killed by those glorified fireworks while over sixty Palestinians were killed. However, in the media one only hears of Israelis suffering from these “rocket” attacks while the disproportionate number of Palestinians killed is virtually ignored. Why?

To end on a side-note with a little-publicized fact - in all the years of Qassam firings, only five Israelis in total have been killed. FIVE!!

justin June 4th, 2007 8:20 pm

Amen to Aymon.Now if only these thirty years of scholarly study could penetrate the minds of right-wing Judaism.I must admit to a scant knowledge of who is right wing (are they the ones talking to the wall?)or who is centre or left,but the solution to the problem is obviously not a continuation of present policy.

waiguoren June 4th, 2007 8:22 pm

chet writes : To end on a side-note with a little-publicized fact - in all the years of Qassam firings, only five Israelis in total have been killed. FIVE!!

Have you ever been on the business end of “glorified fireworks”?

Are you complaining of poor marksmanship?

macchendra June 4th, 2007 10:01 pm

“isn’t it strange how little we change
isn’t it sad we’re insane
playing the game that we know ends in tears
the game we’ve been playing for thousands and thousands and thousands…”

Occupied territories.
How to play: exterminate the natives, move in, build a border fence to save us from the horrible evil “other” people.

luckylefty June 4th, 2007 10:01 pm

You’re a good bunch and thank you Aymon for the background history, I have saved it. Wouldn’t care to post a short bibliography, wudja? Some Americans still read books.

I have worked for some time with the understanding that there was never an Egyptian captivity and the Joseph character I am aware of from the stories pimped his wife to get into land and business deals in Egypt, a practice not unheard of even in our own age, including the selling of children in Hollywood for the right price. But there were a couple of Joseph’s in Egypt, I might have them confused.

What has always struck me was the marked similarity between, as you call them, the Habiru, and my own Aryan ancestors and cousins. For those unfamiliar, there are five Aryan families (like the Five Mafia Families): Brahmin; Persian; Greek; Latin (from the Rome of the Caesars to Phillip of Spain & Henry the Navigator to the W. Hemisphere); & Celt (from the Ural Mts. to the Emerald Isles to the W. Hemisphere) - Compton’s Encycl. ’96.

The cold blooded, deliberate, ruthless, genocidal extermination of indigenous people in this hemisphere by my Celt ancestors and my Latin cousins is available history for anyone who ever bothered to read Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Chomsky, Ward Chamberlain, or a host of authors who have documented our history and practices so well.

And yes, before my ancestors arrived in the British & Emerald Isles, there were people living there from time out of mind. After we arrived, there is not a trace of them left. Not even a marker in the gene pool. America was not our first genocide and the Palestinians are not the first for the Habiru either.

Both groups got their start as pastoralist, tribal, killer nomads. Flocks & herds, mobile homes, slaves, wives, concubines, weapons & trade goods. My people rode their ponies and had mules and sometimes camels. The Habiru moved with their donkeys, camels, whatever. In both cases when we met someone who was militarily weak we got out our weapons, killed everybody we could, made the survivors into slaves and took everything they had. When we met someone who was militarily strong we got out our trade goods and probed for weakness.

There are six hallmarks of every Aryan society for the last 3,500 years: Aryan Supremacy (bred to the bone); Gender Slavery; Human Slavery; Massive child abuse (40% of population at least – both genders - installs free-floating rage essential to war based society); Constant War; & Genocide.

Every society and empire we ever constructed was ruled by psychotic killer families and clans (see: the Bush Crime Family, et al) back to Day 1. Every society and empire we ever constructed was a one trick pony designed to transfer wealth from the subject population to the ruling families through constant war and by owning our labor (see: Slavery). Every male got a small taste of the Master’s power when he took a breeding female to wife. He owned her life and her labor as well as the lives of the children she produced for him. Wives were disposable like all slaves. That’s why the priests of the RC Church even to this day will tell the husband to “let the bitch die” in childbirth and save the child. Women are fungible, goes with the gender slavery. Theology always follows practice.

Into this toxic brew mix equal portions of the following: Patriarchy; Paternalism; Authoritarianism; a granular, fixed Absolute cosmology; & Dualistic perceptual filters. What else would you expect from pre-literate flat-earth tribes of killer nomads or their deities? What difference does it make if they can read if they’ve been programmed to run from critical thinking of any kind?

By the same token, xenophobia is part and parcel of any tribal group, but my Brahmin cousins codified it (based on skin color) approx. 3500 years ago when they militarily imposed the Caste System after their conquest of The Pale. They said they were different from and superior to all other humans on the planet. That ‘System’ runs India to this day. Pick any of the major political or economic names in India for the last 3 millenia – All Brahmin Caste. My Aryan cousins both here and in Europa say the same thing universally to this day – with their actions, “We are different from and superior to all of you and we’ll kill you to prove it.” Fortunately for the species, American Celts are past the tipping point on our way first to minority status across the USA and then to extinction as a ‘people’. All wet-dream fantasies aside, melanin deficiency is not a dominant ‘color’. Sorry. See: US Census population projections 2000.

I cannot find it in me to blame the Habiru for tribal “Exceptionalism” when such madness runs through the very souls of my own people, especially when we could end the madness by turning off the money spigot, and we refuse. Kind of says, “Yeah, do’em again, that was a good one.” We ain’t changed much in the last 3 millennia.

As a sign my words are true, to this day, a majority if not a super majority of Aryan males in the US would jump at the deal offered to Tommy Jefferson so long ago. He was a very bright and literate white guy with no family, no station, no status, no holdings, and no future in 18th century Virginia. Then he takes possession of a white breeding female from a rich VA slaveholder and Tommy gets a dowry of 200 black humans in forced labor and one diminutive 14 yo black girl named Sally (mother of his black children) Hemmings. That ‘dowry’ was his ticket to a lifetime of Wealth, Power, & Privilege over the rest of America. That’s what Wealth, Power, & Privilege are about: Oppression. That is what he sold his soul for. Next time you say the words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” imagine Tommy taking a break from his labors, walking right past his white wife and going to that little back room so he can fuck that child again before he finishes his glowing words. His words are the hypocritical trash of a slave holding child raper with clean fingernails who knows what fork to use.

When people acquiesce to tyranny they are full participants. Silence & inaction is also an affirmation. The Palestinians may die but they have not acquiesced. Watching Gaza, and Hebron, and Jenin from the relative safety of the US is much like watching the underground ‘snuff’ films that came out of Argentina during their ‘dirty’ war. When the images are devoid of context, the faces devoid of identity as humans, it’s all just porn. Our fate here will be determined by what we actually do, by what actions we take, and by the fate of the Palestinians. 6 degrees of separation. No justice, no peace, not ever.

It is my hope that very shortly that lovely butterfly in the rain forest will soon begin to beat her wings, that starts the breeze that becomes a wind, that becomes…..Inspiration.

But first, you gotta let it hurt you. You have to be able to see it, to hear it, to feel it, to know it, and to understand something about the suffering of ‘those’ people - in your guts until it drives you mad. Then you might find you are able to experience the suffering a little closer around you. And then maybe you will feel your own suffering with new eyes. When the inside pain and the outside pain connect, something powerful will connect inside your core in that moment of crisis, producing a clarity, your clarity from your resources and a greater understanding than you have never known before. That or your mind will break or you’ll want to die. Or maybe all three? Who knows? Promise.

But you will see the threads of connection between obese Americans, dying Palestinians, and the destruction of Ice Caps. On this logical level, together we will work out new solutions, less toxic, more life affirming, that will become the problems that our great grandchildren will have to resolve. But at least there will be great grandchildren to be challenged. The current situation does not promise great grandchildren for anyone.

Real simple, four words: Humans are not food.

And where I stood in the hour of change
And how I stood in the moment of transformation
And when I move out from that place in Mind
I flow like Grace on the Waters of Eternity.
TLD ‘94

If the wine is bad, throw it out. Start over.
Thank you Aymon (is there a translation for the name?) and all of you…

Peace

aquietman June 4th, 2007 10:11 pm

Chet said:
“IMO, the burning question in North America is why the media ignore articles such as Mr. Hedges’ or fail to report the brutal apartheid treatment of the Palestinians themselves.”

Well, in his last book, Jimmy Carter referred to it as ‘apartheid’ and he was crucified (okay, probably not the best term to use when speaking of the reaction)…. lost associates, was called anti-semitic, etc. and etc…..

Maybe that is why nobody in the media has the guts to call it what it is..

I am a great admirer of Reform Judaism. They’ve done great things…

duchaspa June 4th, 2007 10:35 pm

We need to pray for the Jews of Israel.
They were the chosen people to be God’s holy people (not religious,holy c’est differend).They were called to holiness
Now they have become torturers and killers,robbers and they let the common people suffer unnecessaraliy. They deny Palestinians their humanity.They are doing wrong in the eyes of God.
We need to ask God’s mercy for the Jews of Israel.

Paul M June 4th, 2007 11:14 pm

“Israel’s West Bank separation barrier, built ostensibly to keep out Palestinian bombers, has also been used to swallow huge tracts of the West Bank into Israel.”

Land is not the primary goal. The primary goal is the water - the subterranean aquefiers.

kalia June 5th, 2007 12:32 am

If any one wants to understand Israel let them read the Bible. Even if are a non-believer the important thing to remember is what comes to pass over the ages.

It is a delicious irony that most people who would not give a hoot for biblical prophecies end up giving their wealth and lives in fulfilment of these prophecies. Case in point this war in Iraq - three thousand and counting.

vets June 5th, 2007 2:14 am

I wonder why commondreams publish so many articles on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. I counted four of them in the front page alone.

By far it is one of the smallest conflicts. Maybe number 11 or 12th only in the middle east (Sudan is #1, followed by Iraq, Syria, Iran’s revolution, Civil war in Lebanon, Civil war in Algeria, Occupation of Spanish Sahara by Morocco, Chad etc…) . Some other conflicts (such as Iraq, Sudan, Congo and Tibet) have millions of casualties, and are taken place on disputed territory bigger by a factor of a few hundreds…

If all victims of violence in the world were equal, then for every 500 article about Sudan, and 200 articles on Iraq, and 10,000 articles on other conflicts - I would have expected to see one article on the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

Why so much focus is given to Israel?

An answer to that question may be found in Noam Chomsky book - “manufacturing consent”
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/105-5596944-4169214?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=manufacturing+consent&Go.x=9&Go.y=15

BugsBBunny III June 5th, 2007 3:03 am

Habiru an egyptian word meaning nomads. Moses is an egyptian royal name akin to thutmoses, rameses, etc. The Hyskos were invaders and the delta was a forested swampland where many peoples settled in times of famine, drought and turmoil. there was food and work in egypt as well as a stable royal state. the pharoahs were not known to be kindly in general and the word jew derives from judea. The indo european (aryan) peoples, took a long time to differentiate and we are talking about linguistic changes. Beakerware folk. Languages disappear but genetics do not. it was believed that anglo saxon invaders wiped out british celts but genetics prove otherwise. they did wipe out the celtic languages in england but genetically the original peoples still remain. Male sky god worship, zeus, odin or whomever came to dominate, female earth mother religions were once common … st bridget in ireland is a celtic goddess… who is st. bridget since no such person actually existed. Lastly, it is an illusion to confound hazy details of past eras with behavioral determinants of modern peoples. As if to say, if they only can see their shared history or shared biological origins then everyting would be nice? Yeah sure… so then romans would not have conquered the other latins nor and modern religious sects wouldn’t make war on each other because they are related in the dim past? But they do as we see. The past is only history and no excuse nor a valid determinant for the present.

BugsBBunny III June 5th, 2007 3:28 am

forty years of occupation is a long time to ignore that we would not want to live under the heel of another. An impoverished generation offered little hope will be unable to teach hope to succeeding generations. Grievances become what is discussed not hope.

vets June 5th, 2007 3:44 am

aymon :
First of all I would like to say that I’m impressed by your knowledge, the intensive research that you took, and your optimism.

Did you ever commit any research about The Weizmann-Faisal Agreement?
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/faisaltext.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weizmann-Faisal_Agreement

This was an agreement between Haim Weizmann - the future first President of Israel, and the Amir Faisal of Hedjaz (The Great Grandfather of Kind Abdallah of Jordan). It was signed in 1919, after the end of World War I.

Some highlights:
1. Jews will be allowed to immigrate freely to Palestine.
2. Jews will have their national Jewish home land in Palestine.
3. Non of the Arab resident of Palestine will be expelled of his land.
4. Jews will help develop the economy throughout the Middle east.

That agreement was subject to the creation of an independent Arab state in the ME. Eventually, because of Sykes-Picot agreement that divided the M.E between Britain and France, Faisal backed off that agreement.

So much suffering and death could have been prevented if that agreement wouldn’t have been disposed.

aymon June 5th, 2007 3:53 am

BugsBunny III

“Moses is an egyptian royal name akin to thutmoses, rameses, etc. The Hyskos were invaders and the delta was a forested swampland where many peoples settled in times of famine, drought and turmoil. there was food and work in egypt as well as a stable royal state. the pharoahs were not known to be kindly in general and the word jew derives from judea.”

There are no facts in the above paragraph. “Mosi” is not an “Egyptian royal name” - - it is a common qualifier meaning “born of” among all Egyptians throughout their history. Thus Tuthmoses means “born of Toth” The Egyptian god of Knowledge and of scribes, brother of Maat, messenger of Rah, later identified with Hermes Trismegistus and Mechizidek, high priest of God in the Old Testament, “whose beginning no man knows . . .”.

The Delta was and is one of the primary cultivable areas of Egypt, and was called Lower Egypt, a separate kingdom until unified by Pharoah Narmer with Upper Egypt (the red and white crowns) about 3000BC. People just didn’t wander in and out in their thousands without Pharoah’s permission - - the Egyptian state was very well run and every hectare of cultivable land was kept track of throughout Egypt by a very competent civil service. The law of Maat was applied to both Pharoah and citizen, and the concept of judgment before Osiris, whether king or pauper, was terrifying enough to make the pharoah’s mummy clutch a confession of virtue as the “Great bull of Maat”. Why do you think the Pharoahs spread money around in massive public works every year, and stored grain in silos for times of famine? The Pharoahs did not keep a standing army until the Hyksos occupation and destruction. For a king to rely on his nobles to raise troops from their jurisdictions required both to be observant of Maat, and the priests, the arbiters between the people and Pharoah, made sure that the rich and powerful did not mistreat the ordinary citizen.

The word “Jew” does not come from “Judea”. Prior to the Babylonian captivity, there were two minor tribal kingdoms - - Israel and Judah - - constantly at war with each other. The word “Jew” as denoting a cultural group was coined in Baylonian captivity, probably by Ezekiel.

I really do not want to go into the details here, but I do not see the point of your comments, erroneous as they are. At any rate, you should read up Egyptian history and civilization before you put pen to paper.

vets June 5th, 2007 4:32 am

aymon :
“The word “Jew” does not come from “Judea”. Prior to the Babylonian captivity, there were two minor tribal kingdoms - - Israel and Judah - - constantly at war with each other. The word “Jew” as denoting a cultural group was coined in Baylonian captivity, probably by Ezekiel.”

Don’t presume you know it all. It is you who is wrong.
There is no difference between “Judea” and “Judah”.
In Hebrew both “Judah” and “Judea” are called “Yehuda” and are pronounced and spelled the same.
“Yehuda” is also a name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel, and the of one of the sons of Jacob. (Or shell I say “Ya’acov”)

Jew is called in Hebrew “Yehudi”, which mean a person of “Yehuda”
It’s the same Hebrew grammatic rule that calls a Cna’anian person “Cna’ani”, Hitai person “Hiti”, German person “Germani”, Hungarian person “Hungari” Arabian person “Aravi”, and American person “Americai”.

So you see - The word “Jew” precisely come from the word Judea.
Maybe your confusion comes from the different pronunciation of the word “Yehuda” in Aramaic, Greek, Latin and English.

WmC June 5th, 2007 8:37 am

“The Israeli lobby in the United States is captive to the far right of Israeli politics. It exerts influence not on behalf of the Jewish state but an ideological strain within Israel that believes it can crush Palestinian aspirations through force.”

Neo-cons rule. In Israel, the US, and in Palestine.

macchendra June 5th, 2007 10:22 am

luckylefty,
Supremacy, Gender Slavery, Human Slavery, Massive child abuse, Constant War, Genocide are hallmarks of all human races.

Why do you have such a strong need to say that one race is inferior and another is superior? Is it your human nature showing?

therzal June 5th, 2007 10:23 am

vets @ 2.14am.. If you really have to ask that question you are not abreast of world affairs over the last, say, 60 years, however erudite your postings.
aymon.. fascinating piece.. have you read the book by Finkelstein and Silbermann, “Bible Unearthed”..

IMHO one of the most burning questions is why it is now illegal to query historical data, “facts” and interpretation around the Holocaust.. This is the ONLY event in 5000+ years of human history that is so circumscribed.. The ONLY event. A truly Extraordinary situation. What are the Zionist/far Right afraid we will learn, what are they hiding??

Siouxrose June 5th, 2007 10:53 am

Lucky Lefty: I thought your “essay” was inspirational. IT shows that an aspect of human nature is resistant to spiritual evolution, and THAT element common to all is what is holding back the human race. Currently these tendencies have brought us to the precipice of collapse (environmental) or calamity (greater war in the middle east). One thing that few consider relates to the premise of reincarnation which is believed by a large percentage of people (and Eastern religions). Souls incarnate in different genders, ethnicities and regions presumably to grow through exposures. It could well be that the Southern slave holder in the U.S. prior to the Civil War is now living in Rwanda learning by direct experience a more enlightened version of compassion. The theory of reincarnation means we all eventually get to walk in all moccassins. Thinking of earth as a “time share,” that you will return to presents the motivation to keep it in good shape. This is a gigantic learning center, and were individuals not force-fed the same self-limiting beliefs (I find religion high on this list), they might be able to overcome their collective past and lower natures and truly rise to a new kind of shared experience. This is the ideal behind the World Social Forum, is consistent with the inspired ideas in the book, The Turning, and presents a model of change that is a lot more compelling then End Times. As Christ taught, you can’t pour new wine (thought) into old wineskins (belief systems/traditions). Therein lies the cognitive rub.

baska June 5th, 2007 11:01 am

REPLY TO HEDGES #1:

AGREED THAT ISRAELI REPRESSION FEEDS PALESTINIAN FUNDAMENTALISM. BUT…

Yes, I agree with the widespread criticism of Israeli occupation: not only is it unjust, but ongoing repression generates extremist funamentalism among Palestinians.

BUT - although, from a peace perspective, extremism is not in the interests of Israel or the US, from a right wing American and Israeli perspective, Palestinian extremism is desirable.

For right wing Israelis, Palestinian extremism/violence against Israelis becomes the justification for continued repression, which they represent as necessary and inevitable. The whole political culture of Israel is twisted into a bellicose mentality that can represent itself as justified self-defense against atrocities.

Further, although control of Palestinian territories is the key issue, it also strengthens right wing domestic rule of Israel.

baska June 5th, 2007 11:19 am

REPLY TO HEDGES #2:

AGREED THAT ISRAELI REPRESSION FEEDS PALESTINIAN FUNDAMENTALISM. BUT…

But - as discussed above - not only does it strengthen the Israeli right, it strengthens the entire AMERICAN right.

That is, it

a) forms a wedge issue that can domestically split off right wing Jews from the Democrats - a splitting that serves the domestic goals of the American right; and

b) it serves US foreign policy by becoming a justification for military aid and “presence” abroad.

Again - although from an American peace perspective, it is not desirable to foment Middle Eastern extremism against the US, from an American right wing perspective, it is desirable: for, just as with the Israeli right, an external threat twists the political culture of the US into a beleagured, us-vs-them mentality, and the view that a military mindset and ‘preparedness’ are a necessary and inevitable response to a foreign threat.

Unfortunately, this needs to be added to Hedges’ statement that “It is not in Israel’s interest—or our own—to continue to fuel increased Palestinian strife and rising militancy” - on the contrary, it is in the American and Israeli right’s interest, as they imagine their interests.

baska June 5th, 2007 11:45 am

REPLY TO HEDGES #3: ON THE QUESTION OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE “ISRAELI LOBBY” - THE ISRAELI LOBBY IS ONLY AS STRONG AS THE RIGHT WING AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY INTERESTS THAT SUPPORT IT

HEDGES WRITES:

The Israeli lobby in the US is essentially the creation of the US’s long term Israeli foreign policy. It is not powerful in and of itself, only insofar as it serves the interests of its right wing ‘parent state,’ the U.S.

That is - U.S. foreign policy fosters and supports the most right wing elements of Israel, including the Israeli lobby…

That is - the right wing Israeli lobby could only be influential in a right wing country like the U.S., that fundamentally supports it.

That is - Israel has only become “captive” to the Israeli lobby because the U.S. supports the Israeli right.

baska June 5th, 2007 11:53 am

REPLY TO HEDGES #3 CONT.:

ON THE U.S. ROLE IN ‘ENABLING’ ISRAEL AND THE ISRAELI LOBBY

The best commentary I have read on these questions is developed in in the on-line journal, bookmarked on Commondreams, Foreign Policy in Focus (http://www.fpif.org/).

I think these commentaries are key, because - as I’ve argued - I don’t think Israel’s actions can be understood outside the greater framework of U.S. politics, both its actions and its inactions.

In particular, re US foreign policy influence on Israel’s military response in Lebanon, see:

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3444

How Washington Goaded Israel into War
FPIF Policy Report
Aug 21, 2006

And re US foreign policy as underpinning the supposed power of the Israeli lobby, see:

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3270

The Israel Lobby: How Powerful is it Really?
FPIF Discussion Paper
May 16, 2006

vets June 6th, 2007 1:59 am

Paul M June 4th, 2007 11:14 pm
“Land is not the primary goal. The primary goal is the water - the subterranean aquefiers.”

Wall is expensive. the barrier is estimated to cost $2,000,000,000
War is expensive, the cost of war can precede $100,000,000 / day.

Today Israel have the desalination technology, that lowers the cost of 1 cubic meter of fresh water desalinated of salty Mediterranean water to less than $1.

Water will not be a cause for future wars.

fd32 June 6th, 2007 10:35 am

consider the glass half full…these defenders of a vicious Zionist occupation are the answer to any global shortage of fertilizer that might one day threaten agriculture and food production.

Reading their comments I am reminded of a quoatation from Euripides…”shamelessnes is the ugliest scar on the face of humanity”.

aymon June 4th, 2007 1:29 pm

SOME BACKGROUND HISTORY
The exclusivist myth that Jews are the Chosen People and everybody else in the world is trash (”goyim”) to be exploited for use by the Chosen People and discarded as their “souls” are far lower than those of Israelis/Jews has done more harm to the Jewish people than any other belief they have. First of all, the concept of a “Jew” was coined somewhere around the 5th century BC whilst the “Habiru”(corruption - - Hebrew) as they were called at that time were held captive in Babylon. It was the Persians under Cyrus the Great who freed them and gave them money and protection to build or rebuild the second or third “Temple of Solomon”.
Also the people led out of Egypt in the Exodus were not “Jews” but a large group of settlers who had come with Joseph about 300 years ago. They were followed by very unsavoury characters from the other the other clans and tribes of the region stretching as far as Syria. The whole bunch of Semitic groups later morphed from peaceful sheperds that the generous Egyptians respected and welcomed into their midst into the warlike Hyksos (Heka-ka-Sut) who mass murdered Egyptians and took over the Delta region. The Pharoah Ahmose from Thebes defeated them after suffering nearly 150 years of brutality and ethnic cleansing by the Hyksos. Much later, Akhenaten, from the line of Ahmose, brought in the worship of One God, but made such a mess of governance of Egypt that the military Pharoah HoremHab who followed him inflicted a lot of cruelty on the followers of the new religion, especially the remnants of the Hyksos. These followers were a heterodox group numbering tens of thousands, and consisted of Egyptians, Libyans, Arabs, Canaanites, Hebrews, Phoenicians, Syrians, etc., They were led out by a high priest of Akhenaten called “Moshi” which means “born of”. Thus there was another name preceding Moshi, most likely “Aten” or “Habu” (meaning the Nile) to get “Habu-Moshi”. Thus Moses was an Egyptian “learned in all the arts of Egypt” ( the Old Testamant says).
Again, Joseph being a true man of God, descended from Abram the Uruki( Iraqi) could not call himself chosen and everyone else the “unchosen” of God. That is why he and his clan, namely the clan of Yakub (Jacob ) - - later called “Israel”, and hence the clan of Israel - - settled in Egypt through the generosity of the Pharoah who must have been a strict adherent of the law of Maat - - peace, compassion, justice and truth - - that was the central code of Egyptian religion of Light( Rah). Later, Joseph, now Vizier (prime minister) to this Pharoah, married the daughter of the high priest of On ( Heliopolis).
Let me repeat: Joseph married an Egyptian nobility, the daughter of the High Priest of Heliopolis which was the centre of the religion of Rah- Maat. (Light of Justice, Compassion, Social order and Fairness and Truth). And during their 300 year stay( NOT CAPTIVITY) in Egypt, the other clan members also must have married Egyptians also. Thus the issue of a pure blooded “Jew” does not even arise anthropologically. As I said, the exodus consisted of a large, heterodox group of One God worshipers and not “Jews” led out by an Egyptian, most likely called Habu-moshe ( hence the Nile River legend about him).
If only the modern Judeo - Christian peoples get themselves educated in their origins, then the “exclusivist” nonsense would disappear and we will have peace in Middle East, rather than waiting for Armageddon and the “Return of Christ” mumbo-jumbo.
CURRENT HISTORY
Anti-Semitism is a Euro- Christian problem (Christians who are not Europeans have very little systemic anti-Semitism.) since the dispersal of the Jewish peoples by the Roman Empire turned Catholic Christian - - the “Diaspora”. Jews have had to live with the most virulent anti-Semitism in Europe for over 1800 years as “Christ killers”. This was official Catholic Church doctrine up till 1940’s (and NOT Arab Christian or Arab Muslim doctrine). European knights, kings and feudal lords, to curry favour with the Pope killed Jews in pogroms at every opportunity. The Nazi Holocaust was the culmination of a long series of such massacres of Jews in Europe, and the most horrific of all. Millions of innocents were killed in cold blood in a span of 6 years!
A couple of other examples. At the start of the First Crusade in the 11th Century, the Christian soldiers massacred tens of thousands of Jews in Southern France to warm up their murderous spirits, and later when they reached the “Holy Land”, killed both Muslims and Jews with equal enthusiasm. When Spain was “liberated” from Moorish/Jewish civilization, by Isabella and Ferdinand in the 15th Century, all “Orientals” - - Jews and Arabs were driven out or killed.
During and after World War II, thousands of Jews tried to escape to Canada, the UK, the US, and other non-Nazi European countries. They wanted to settle there because they were European, having contributed so immensely to European culture and science. None of these countries would give refuge to hundreds of thousands of Jews because of their virulent anti-Semitism. This anti-Semitism of Christian European people, always there under the surface, surfaced at this crucial time and Jews received no refuge or help of any military kind to allow them to fight the Nazis.
The British (the ultimate imperialists) came up with a clever plan. Create a state within the midst of Arab peoples by force and the Europeans have their Jewish “problem” solved as well as Islam held in check to ensure oil flows from the ME. It has worked out perfectly for the anti-Semites among the elites in Europe and America. And this is the provenance of the troubles in the ME. However, as I stated above, if the Jewish people were to look at their distinguished history and recognize that they are a mixture of more or less all the peoples, especially the Palestinian people, in the ME and North Africa, then they will shed their exclusivist mentality and become friends with their neighbours. Is this too much wishful thinking?
Probably, but I am an optimist because there are thousands of Jewish intellectual leaders and tens of thousands of Israelis who would like to live in peace. Also, it is important for the Arab people’s to extend their traditional generosity, ask the US and other European countries to fertilize the Sinai peninsula, and resettle Palestinians there in an economically viable state.
Bolondvero June 4th, 2007 1:48 pm

“The occupation was benign at the beginnig”

Are you nuts?
RMouse June 4th, 2007 3:00 pm

Why is it that no one ever talks about the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank? Remember, the Jordanian Army invaded the West Bank in 1948 and stayed there until ousted by the Israelis during the 6 day war.
jbs June 4th, 2007 3:56 pm

yes to all said. the history of the area is very rich with many layers. but, why-o-why, does ‘everybody’ demand that we have to ‘honor’ the past at the cost of the present? it is the here and now, the present that has to be addressed. not yesterday. not tomorrow. you can not apply today’s standards/morals on yesterday behavior. todays standards can only be applied to today. this knee jerk diplomacy is done! it would be to all’s benefit to sit down! besides, israel has more in common with its neighbors than it does with anybody in the western world. and that includes jews that live in the u.s.
dcbeltway June 4th, 2007 3:58 pm

The photo says it all.
Stilba June 4th, 2007 4:28 pm

I’m so happy to be religion-free. Fascinating whirlwind history, aymon (better than the article itself). You mention Christians who are not Europeans as having virtually no anti-semitism …remember that the same goes for Europeans who are not Christian. Religion is the center of this and endless other problems. Superstition over rationalism! Can’t say it enough.
breehmichael June 4th, 2007 4:29 pm

Actually DC, the photo doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’ve crossed into Ramallah through the Qalendia checkpoint many many times and that photo only shows a small fraction of the walls surrounding Ramallah and the rest of the West Bank and the angle makes the wall seems smaller than it actually is (I am NOT saying that it was taken that way on purpose!). The wall there is almost thirty feet high and stretches as far as the eye can see in both directions, not including the sections that extend into Ramallah.

JBS - Agreed! As a Jew, I am constantly amazed by how many people point out that we have some claim to the land because we lived on it two thousand years ago! Of course, as a Jew, I support Israel, but not its policy of repression and genocide. Those who blindly support the state’s war against the Palestinians cannot not honestly, in my opinion, claim to actually support the state, since it is this continued occupation that so imperils Israel!

Aymon - perhaps this is a difference between my sect of Judaism (Reform) and others, but I was not brought up or taught to believe that the idea of being the “Chosen People” is an exclusivist myth designed to exploit non-Jews. I will not deny that many over the millenia have taken this view, but as JBS points out, I think it’s important to bring some modern context into the idea. The way that my rabbis over the years and others in books have explained it is that “the Chosen People” refers primarily to the Jews choosing to accept God and God’s rites (specific things like not eateng cloven-hoofed animals, temple requirements, etc - admittedly, I’m reform and we aren’t necessarily all that observent, so I’m drawing a blank on some of the particulars). The idea is not that Jews are the only humans who receive God’s favor, but that Jews chose to go the “extra mile” so to speak in worship. Many rabbis have described it to me to mean that WE chose GOD, not the other way around. Midrashic lore teaches that the Jews were actually not the first people to whom God was revealed, but that the Jews were the first to accept it; literally, God went shopping around for peeps to call is own and spread his message. This was never intended to mean that Jews are the only people who can experience God or that non-Jews cannot be wonderful, spiritual creatures. Again, I fully understand that many Jews over the millenia have used this designation to discriminate against others, but I would think, given their history of oppression and discrimination (at least amongst Ashkenazi Jews - those of Europea descent) they can at least be somewhat forgiven for choosing an exclusivist attitude.

Something that is slightly obscured in this article - a great majority of Israelis want the occupation to end and are willing to do just about anything, including pulling back to 1967 lines, dismantling the settlements, etc, to end the Occupation. However, just like in the US, those who have the power to actually end it are held hostage by the far-right of Israeli politics.

Last but not least (sorry for such a long post!), I would have to agree with JBS that, at least theologically, Jews and Muslims have much more in common with each other than either does with Christians.
tmbluesbflat June 4th, 2007 6:07 pm

Recent history (50yrs) only goes to show that the treatment of Palistinians by Israel exceeds even the Holocaust. An exquisitly slow starvation and deprivation and of course theft of all valuable assets, makes the holocaust look almost humane by comparison. Very nasty people as history records and getting more nasty by the day.
NMBill June 4th, 2007 6:11 pm

Have to agree with JBS.

The settlement after WWII should be the standard we should work from.
aymon June 4th, 2007 6:19 pm

stilba;

Thanks. Its taken me nearly 30 years of research to put all this together.

breechmichael;

I agree with you about Reform Judaism. If there is any hope for a reasoned and fair solution that does not deprive anybody living there of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, it will most likely be from Reform Judaism reacing out across all barriers to their Semitic neighbours. If I am not mistaken, did not the council of Reform Rabbis condemn the unjust occupation and war in Iraq? I though I read it last year.
chet June 4th, 2007 6:40 pm

IMO, the burning question in North America is why the media ignore articles such as Mr. Hedges’ or fail to report the brutal apartheid treatment of the Palestinians themselves.

It is now beyond dispute that AIPAC has so much control over Congress that they are practically able to dictate legislation and policy, but who or what is able to manipulate the media into such a pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian position? A prime example exists at present- after a series of targeted assassinations and the detention of Palestinian legislators, Qassam attacks and Israeli reaction intensified. In the course of the tit-for-tat, two Israelis were killed by those glorified fireworks while over sixty Palestinians were killed. However, in the media one only hears of Israelis suffering from these “rocket” attacks while the disproportionate number of Palestinians killed is virtually ignored. Why?

To end on a side-note with a little-publicized fact - in all the years of Qassam firings, only five Israelis in total have been killed. FIVE!!
justin June 4th, 2007 8:20 pm

Amen to Aymon.Now if only these thirty years of scholarly study could penetrate the minds of right-wing Judaism.I must admit to a scant knowledge of who is right wing (are they the ones talking to the wall?)or who is centre or left,but the solution to the problem is obviously not a continuation of present policy.
waiguoren June 4th, 2007 8:22 pm

chet writes : To end on a side-note with a little-publicized fact - in all the years of Qassam firings, only five Israelis in total have been killed. FIVE!!

Have you ever been on the business end of “glorified fireworks”?

Are you complaining of poor marksmanship?
macchendra June 4th, 2007 10:01 pm

“isn’t it strange how little we change
isn’t it sad we’re insane
playing the game that we know ends in tears
the game we’ve been playing for thousands and thousands and thousands…”

Occupied territories.
How to play: exterminate the natives, move in, build a border fence to save us from the horrible evil “other” people.
luckylefty June 4th, 2007 10:01 pm

You’re a good bunch and thank you Aymon for the background history, I have saved it. Wouldn’t care to post a short bibliography, wudja? Some Americans still read books.

I have worked for some time with the understanding that there was never an Egyptian captivity and the Joseph character I am aware of from the stories pimped his wife to get into land and business deals in Egypt, a practice not unheard of even in our own age, including the selling of children in Hollywood for the right price. But there were a couple of Joseph’s in Egypt, I might have them confused.

What has always struck me was the marked similarity between, as you call them, the Habiru, and my own Aryan ancestors and cousins. For those unfamiliar, there are five Aryan families (like the Five Mafia Families): Brahmin; Persian; Greek; Latin (from the Rome of the Caesars to Phillip of Spain & Henry the Navigator to the W. Hemisphere); & Celt (from the Ural Mts. to the Emerald Isles to the W. Hemisphere) - Compton’s Encycl. ’96.

The cold blooded, deliberate, ruthless, genocidal extermination of indigenous people in this hemisphere by my Celt ancestors and my Latin cousins is available history for anyone who ever bothered to read Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Chomsky, Ward Chamberlain, or a host of authors who have documented our history and practices so well.

And yes, before my ancestors arrived in the British & Emerald Isles, there were people living there from time out of mind. After we arrived, there is not a trace of them left. Not even a marker in the gene pool. America was not our first genocide and the Palestinians are not the first for the Habiru either.

Both groups got their start as pastoralist, tribal, killer nomads. Flocks & herds, mobile homes, slaves, wives, concubines, weapons & trade goods. My people rode their ponies and had mules and sometimes camels. The Habiru moved with their donkeys, camels, whatever. In both cases when we met someone who was militarily weak we got out our weapons, killed everybody we could, made the survivors into slaves and took everything they had. When we met someone who was militarily strong we got out our trade goods and probed for weakness.

There are six hallmarks of every Aryan society for the last 3,500 years: Aryan Supremacy (bred to the bone); Gender Slavery; Human Slavery; Massive child abuse (40% of population at least – both genders - installs free-floating rage essential to war based society); Constant War; & Genocide.

Every society and empire we ever constructed was ruled by psychotic killer families and clans (see: the Bush Crime Family, et al) back to Day 1. Every society and empire we ever constructed was a one trick pony designed to transfer wealth from the subject population to the ruling families through constant war and by owning our labor (see: Slavery). Every male got a small taste of the Master’s power when he took a breeding female to wife. He owned her life and her labor as well as the lives of the children she produced for him. Wives were disposable like all slaves. That’s why the priests of the RC Church even to this day will tell the husband to “let the bitch die” in childbirth and save the child. Women are fungible, goes with the gender slavery. Theology always follows practice.

Into this toxic brew mix equal portions of the following: Patriarchy; Paternalism; Authoritarianism; a granular, fixed Absolute cosmology; & Dualistic perceptual filters. What else would you expect from pre-literate flat-earth tribes of killer nomads or their deities? What difference does it make if they can read if they’ve been programmed to run from critical thinking of any kind?

By the same token, xenophobia is part and parcel of any tribal group, but my Brahmin cousins codified it (based on skin color) approx. 3500 years ago when they militarily imposed the Caste System after their conquest of The Pale. They said they were different from and superior to all other humans on the planet. That ‘System’ runs India to this day. Pick any of the major political or economic names in India for the last 3 millenia – All Brahmin Caste. My Aryan cousins both here and in Europa say the same thing universally to this day – with their actions, “We are different from and superior to all of you and we’ll kill you to prove it.” Fortunately for the species, American Celts are past the tipping point on our way first to minority status across the USA and then to extinction as a ‘people’. All wet-dream fantasies aside, melanin deficiency is not a dominant ‘color’. Sorry. See: US Census population projections 2000.

I cannot find it in me to blame the Habiru for tribal “Exceptionalism” when such madness runs through the very souls of my own people, especially when we could end the madness by turning off the money spigot, and we refuse. Kind of says, “Yeah, do’em again, that was a good one.” We ain’t changed much in the last 3 millennia.

As a sign my words are true, to this day, a majority if not a super majority of Aryan males in the US would jump at the deal offered to Tommy Jefferson so long ago. He was a very bright and literate white guy with no family, no station, no status, no holdings, and no future in 18th century Virginia. Then he takes possession of a white breeding female from a rich VA slaveholder and Tommy gets a dowry of 200 black humans in forced labor and one diminutive 14 yo black girl named Sally (mother of his black children) Hemmings. That ‘dowry’ was his ticket to a lifetime of Wealth, Power, & Privilege over the rest of America. That’s what Wealth, Power, & Privilege are about: Oppression. That is what he sold his soul for. Next time you say the words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” imagine Tommy taking a break from his labors, walking right past his white wife and going to that little back room so he can fuck that child again before he finishes his glowing words. His words are the hypocritical trash of a slave holding child raper with clean fingernails who knows what fork to use.

When people acquiesce to tyranny they are full participants. Silence & inaction is also an affirmation. The Palestinians may die but they have not acquiesced. Watching Gaza, and Hebron, and Jenin from the relative safety of the US is much like watching the underground ‘snuff’ films that came out of Argentina during their ‘dirty’ war. When the images are devoid of context, the faces devoid of identity as humans, it’s all just porn. Our fate here will be determined by what we actually do, by what actions we take, and by the fate of the Palestinians. 6 degrees of separation. No justice, no peace, not ever.

It is my hope that very shortly that lovely butterfly in the rain forest will soon begin to beat her wings, that starts the breeze that becomes a wind, that becomes…..Inspiration.

But first, you gotta let it hurt you. You have to be able to see it, to hear it, to feel it, to know it, and to understand something about the suffering of ‘those’ people - in your guts until it drives you mad. Then you might find you are able to experience the suffering a little closer around you. And then maybe you will feel your own suffering with new eyes. When the inside pain and the outside pain connect, something powerful will connect inside your core in that moment of crisis, producing a clarity, your clarity from your resources and a greater understanding than you have never known before. That or your mind will break or you’ll want to die. Or maybe all three? Who knows? Promise.

But you will see the threads of connection between obese Americans, dying Palestinians, and the destruction of Ice Caps. On this logical level, together we will work out new solutions, less toxic, more life affirming, that will become the problems that our great grandchildren will have to resolve. But at least there will be great grandchildren to be challenged. The current situation does not promise great grandchildren for anyone.

Real simple, four words: Humans are not food.

And where I stood in the hour of change
And how I stood in the moment of transformation
And when I move out from that place in Mind
I flow like Grace on the Waters of Eternity.
TLD ‘94

If the wine is bad, throw it out. Start over.
Thank you Aymon (is there a translation for the name?) and all of you…

Peace
aquietman June 4th, 2007 10:11 pm

Chet said:
“IMO, the burning question in North America is why the media ignore articles such as Mr. Hedges’ or fail to report the brutal apartheid treatment of the Palestinians themselves.”

Well, in his last book, Jimmy Carter referred to it as ‘apartheid’ and he was crucified (okay, probably not the best term to use when speaking of the reaction)…. lost associates, was called anti-semitic, etc. and etc…..

Maybe that is why nobody in the media has the guts to call it what it is..

I am a great admirer of Reform Judaism. They’ve done great things…
duchaspa June 4th, 2007 10:35 pm

We need to pray for the Jews of Israel.
They were the chosen people to be God’s holy people (not religious,holy c’est differend).They were called to holiness
Now they have become torturers and killers,robbers and they let the common people suffer unnecessaraliy. They deny Palestinians their humanity.They are doing wrong in the eyes of God.
We need to ask God’s mercy for the Jews of Israel.
Paul M June 4th, 2007 11:14 pm

“Israel’s West Bank separation barrier, built ostensibly to keep out Palestinian bombers, has also been used to swallow huge tracts of the West Bank into Israel.”

Land is not the primary goal. The primary goal is the water - the subterranean aquefiers.
kalia June 5th, 2007 12:32 am

If any one wants to understand Israel let them read the Bible. Even if are a non-believer the important thing to remember is what comes to pass over the ages.

It is a delicious irony that most people who would not give a hoot for biblical prophecies end up giving their wealth and lives in fulfilment of these prophecies. Case in point this war in Iraq - three thousand and counting.
vets June 5th, 2007 2:14 am

I wonder why commondreams publish so many articles on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. I counted four of them in the front page alone.

By far it is one of the smallest conflicts. Maybe number 11 or 12th only in the middle east (Sudan is #1, followed by Iraq, Syria, Iran’s revolution, Civil war in Lebanon, Civil war in Algeria, Occupation of Spanish Sahara by Morocco, Chad etc…) . Some other conflicts (such as Iraq, Sudan, Congo and Tibet) have millions of casualties, and are taken place on disputed territory bigger by a factor of a few hundreds…

If all victims of violence in the world were equal, then for every 500 article about Sudan, and 200 articles on Iraq, and 10,000 articles on other conflicts - I would have expected to see one article on the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

Why so much focus is given to Israel?

An answer to that question may be found in Noam Chomsky book - “manufacturing consent”
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/105-5596944-4169214?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=manufacturing+consent&Go.x=9&Go.y=15
BugsBBunny III June 5th, 2007 3:03 am

Habiru an egyptian word meaning nomads. Moses is an egyptian royal name akin to thutmoses, rameses, etc. The Hyskos were invaders and the delta was a forested swampland where many peoples settled in times of famine, drought and turmoil. there was food and work in egypt as well as a stable royal state. the pharoahs were not known to be kindly in general and the word jew derives from judea. The indo european (aryan) peoples, took a long time to differentiate and we are talking about linguistic changes. Beakerware folk. Languages disappear but genetics do not. it was believed that anglo saxon invaders wiped out british celts but genetics prove otherwise. they did wipe out the celtic languages in england but genetically the original peoples still remain. Male sky god worship, zeus, odin or whomever came to dominate, female earth mother religions were once common … st bridget in ireland is a celtic goddess… who is st. bridget since no such person actually existed. Lastly, it is an illusion to confound hazy details of past eras with behavioral determinants of modern peoples. As if to say, if they only can see their shared history or shared biological origins then everyting would be nice? Yeah sure… so then romans would not have conquered the other latins nor and modern religious sects wouldn’t make war on each other because they are related in the dim past? But they do as we see. The past is only history and no excuse nor a valid determinant for the present.
BugsBBunny III June 5th, 2007 3:28 am

forty years of occupation is a long time to ignore that we would not want to live under the heel of another. An impoverished generation offered little hope will be unable to teach hope to succeeding generations. Grievances become what is discussed not hope.
vets June 5th, 2007 3:44 am

aymon :
First of all I would like to say that I’m impressed by your knowledge, the intensive research that you took, and your optimism.

Did you ever commit any research about The Weizmann-Faisal Agreement?
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/faisaltext.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weizmann-Faisal_Agreement

This was an agreement between Haim Weizmann - the future first President of Israel, and the Amir Faisal of Hedjaz (The Great Grandfather of Kind Abdallah of Jordan). It was signed in 1919, after the end of World War I.

Some highlights:
1. Jews will be allowed to immigrate freely to Palestine.
2. Jews will have their national Jewish home land in Palestine.
3. Non of the Arab resident of Palestine will be expelled of his land.
4. Jews will help develop the economy throughout the Middle east.

That agreement was subject to the creation of an independent Arab state in the ME. Eventually, because of Sykes-Picot agreement that divided the M.E between Britain and France, Faisal backed off that agreement.

So much suffering and death could have been prevented if that agreement wouldn’t have been disposed.
aymon June 5th, 2007 3:53 am

BugsBunny III

“Moses is an egyptian royal name akin to thutmoses, rameses, etc. The Hyskos were invaders and the delta was a forested swampland where many peoples settled in times of famine, drought and turmoil. there was food and work in egypt as well as a stable royal state. the pharoahs were not known to be kindly in general and the word jew derives from judea.”

There are no facts in the above paragraph. “Mosi” is not an “Egyptian royal name” - - it is a common qualifier meaning “born of” among all Egyptians throughout their history. Thus Tuthmoses means “born of Toth” The Egyptian god of Knowledge and of scribes, brother of Maat, messenger of Rah, later identified with Hermes Trismegistus and Mechizidek, high priest of God in the Old Testament, “whose beginning no man knows . . .”.

The Delta was and is one of the primary cultivable areas of Egypt, and was called Lower Egypt, a separate kingdom until unified by Pharoah Narmer with Upper Egypt (the red and white crowns) about 3000BC. People just didn’t wander in and out in their thousands without Pharoah’s permission - - the Egyptian state was very well run and every hectare of cultivable land was kept track of throughout Egypt by a very competent civil service. The law of Maat was applied to both Pharoah and citizen, and the concept of judgment before Osiris, whether king or pauper, was terrifying enough to make the pharoah’s mummy clutch a confession of virtue as the “Great bull of Maat”. Why do you think the Pharoahs spread money around in massive public works every year, and stored grain in silos for times of famine? The Pharoahs did not keep a standing army until the Hyksos occupation and destruction. For a king to rely on his nobles to raise troops from their jurisdictions required both to be observant of Maat, and the priests, the arbiters between the people and Pharoah, made sure that the rich and powerful did not mistreat the ordinary citizen.

The word “Jew” does not come from “Judea”. Prior to the Babylonian captivity, there were two minor tribal kingdoms - - Israel and Judah - - constantly at war with each other. The word “Jew” as denoting a cultural group was coined in Baylonian captivity, probably by Ezekiel.

I really do not want to go into the details here, but I do not see the point of your comments, erroneous as they are. At any rate, you should read up Egyptian history and civilization before you put pen to paper.
vets June 5th, 2007 4:32 am

aymon :
“The word “Jew” does not come from “Judea”. Prior to the Babylonian captivity, there were two minor tribal kingdoms - - Israel and Judah - - constantly at war with each other. The word “Jew” as denoting a cultural group was coined in Baylonian captivity, probably by Ezekiel.”

Don’t presume you know it all. It is you who is wrong.
There is no difference between “Judea” and “Judah”.
In Hebrew both “Judah” and “Judea” are called “Yehuda” and are pronounced and spelled the same.
“Yehuda” is also a name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel, and the of one of the sons of Jacob. (Or shell I say “Ya’acov”)

Jew is called in Hebrew “Yehudi”, which mean a person of “Yehuda”
It’s the same Hebrew grammatic rule that calls a Cna’anian person “Cna’ani”, Hitai person “Hiti”, German person “Germani”, Hungarian person “Hungari” Arabian person “Aravi”, and American person “Americai”.

So you see - The word “Jew” precisely come from the word Judea.
Maybe your confusion comes from the different pronunciation of the word “Yehuda” in Aramaic, Greek, Latin and English.
WmC June 5th, 2007 8:37 am

“The Israeli lobby in the United States is captive to the far right of Israeli politics. It exerts influence not on behalf of the Jewish state but an ideological strain within Israel that believes it can crush Palestinian aspirations through force.”

Neo-cons rule. In Israel, the US, and in Palestine.
macchendra June 5th, 2007 10:22 am

luckylefty,
Supremacy, Gender Slavery, Human Slavery, Massive child abuse, Constant War, Genocide are hallmarks of all human races.

Why do you have such a strong need to say that one race is inferior and another is superior? Is it your human nature showing?
therzal June 5th, 2007 10:23 am

vets @ 2.14am.. If you really have to ask that question you are not abreast of world affairs over the last, say, 60 years, however erudite your postings.
aymon.. fascinating piece.. have you read the book by Finkelstein and Silbermann, “Bible Unearthed”..

IMHO one of the most burning questions is why it is now illegal to query historical data, “facts” and interpretation around the Holocaust.. This is the ONLY event in 5000+ years of human history that is so circumscribed.. The ONLY event. A truly Extraordinary situation. What are the Zionist/far Right afraid we will learn, what are they hiding??
Siouxrose June 5th, 2007 10:53 am

Lucky Lefty: I thought your “essay” was inspirational. IT shows that an aspect of human nature is resistant to spiritual evolution, and THAT element common to all is what is holding back the human race. Currently these tendencies have brought us to the precipice of collapse (environmental) or calamity (greater war in the middle east). One thing that few consider relates to the premise of reincarnation which is believed by a large percentage of people (and Eastern religions). Souls incarnate in different genders, ethnicities and regions presumably to grow through exposures. It could well be that the Southern slave holder in the U.S. prior to the Civil War is now living in Rwanda learning by direct experience a more enlightened version of compassion. The theory of reincarnation means we all eventually get to walk in all moccassins. Thinking of earth as a “time share,” that you will return to presents the motivation to keep it in good shape. This is a gigantic learning center, and were individuals not force-fed the same self-limiting beliefs (I find religion high on this list), they might be able to overcome their collective past and lower natures and truly rise to a new kind of shared experience. This is the ideal behind the World Social Forum, is consistent with the inspired ideas in the book, The Turning, and presents a model of change that is a lot more compelling then End Times. As Christ taught, you can’t pour new wine (thought) into old wineskins (belief systems/traditions). Therein lies the cognitive rub.
baska June 5th, 2007 11:01 am

REPLY TO HEDGES #1:

AGREED THAT ISRAELI REPRESSION FEEDS PALESTINIAN FUNDAMENTALISM. BUT…

Yes, I agree with the widespread criticism of Israeli occupation: not only is it unjust, but ongoing repression generates extremist funamentalism among Palestinians.

BUT - although, from a peace perspective, extremism is not in the interests of Israel or the US, from a right wing American and Israeli perspective, Palestinian extremism is desirable.

For right wing Israelis, Palestinian extremism/violence against Israelis becomes the justification for continued repression, which they represent as necessary and inevitable. The whole political culture of Israel is twisted into a bellicose mentality that can represent itself as justified self-defense against atrocities.

Further, although control of Palestinian territories is the key issue, it also strengthens right wing domestic rule of Israel.
baska June 5th, 2007 11:19 am

REPLY TO HEDGES #2:

AGREED THAT ISRAELI REPRESSION FEEDS PALESTINIAN FUNDAMENTALISM. BUT…

But - as discussed above - not only does it strengthen the Israeli right, it strengthens the entire AMERICAN right.

That is, it

a) forms a wedge issue that can domestically split off right wing Jews from the Democrats - a splitting that serves the domestic goals of the American right; and

b) it serves US foreign policy by becoming a justification for military aid and “presence” abroad.

Again - although from an American peace perspective, it is not desirable to foment Middle Eastern extremism against the US, from an American right wing perspective, it is desirable: for, just as with the Israeli right, an external threat twists the political culture of the US into a beleagured, us-vs-them mentality, and the view that a military mindset and ‘preparedness’ are a necessary and inevitable response to a foreign threat.

Unfortunately, this needs to be added to Hedges’ statement that “It is not in Israel’s interest—or our own—to continue to fuel increased Palestinian strife and rising militancy” - on the contrary, it is in the American and Israeli right’s interest, as they imagine their interests.
baska June 5th, 2007 11:45 am

REPLY TO HEDGES #3: ON THE QUESTION OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE “ISRAELI LOBBY” - THE ISRAELI LOBBY IS ONLY AS STRONG AS THE RIGHT WING AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY INTERESTS THAT SUPPORT IT

HEDGES WRITES:

“The Israeli lobby in the United States is captive to the far right of Israeli politics. It exerts influence not on behalf of the Jewish state but an ideological strain within Israel that believes it can crush Palestinian aspirations through force.”

The Israeli lobby in the US is essentially the creation of the US’s long term Israeli foreign policy. It is not powerful in and of itself, only insofar as it serves the interests of its right wing ‘parent state,’ the U.S.

That is - U.S. foreign policy fosters and supports the most right wing elements of Israel, including the Israeli lobby…

That is - the right wing Israeli lobby could only be influential in a right wing country like the U.S., that fundamentally supports it.

That is - Israel has only become “captive” to the Israeli lobby because the U.S. supports the Israeli right.
baska June 5th, 2007 11:53 am

REPLY TO HEDGES #3 CONT.:

ON THE U.S. ROLE IN ‘ENABLING’ ISRAEL AND THE ISRAELI LOBBY

The best commentary I have read on these questions is developed in in the on-line journal, bookmarked on Commondreams, Foreign Policy in Focus (http://www.fpif.org/).

I think these commentaries are key, because - as I’ve argued - I don’t think Israel’s actions can be understood outside the greater framework of U.S. politics, both its actions and its inactions.

In particular, re US foreign policy influence on Israel’s military response in Lebanon, see:

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3444

How Washington Goaded Israel into War
FPIF Policy Report
Aug 21, 2006

And re US foreign policy as underpinning the supposed power of the Israeli lobby, see:

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3270

The Israel Lobby: How Powerful is it Really?
FPIF Discussion Paper
May 16, 2006
vets June 6th, 2007 1:59 am

Paul M June 4th, 2007 11:14 pm
“Land is not the primary goal. The primary goal is the water - the subterranean aquefiers.”

Wall is expensive. the barrier is estimated to cost $2,000,000,000
War is expensive, the cost of war can precede $100,000,000 / day.

Today Israel have the desalination technology, that lowers the cost of 1 cubic meter of fresh water desalinated of salty Mediterranean water to less than $1.

Water will not be a cause for future wars.
fd32 June 6th, 2007 10:35 am

consider the glass half full…these defenders of a vicious Zionist occupation are the answer to any global shortage of fertilizer that might one day threaten agriculture and food production.

Reading their comments I am reminded of a quoatation from Euripides…”shamelessnes is the ugliest scar on the face of humanity”.

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