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War creates a world without empathy. Those who have empathy cannot, as did Palestinian gunman Alaa Hisham Abu Dheim, coldly murder students in a Jerusalem library. Those who have empathy cannot drop tons of iron fragmentation bombs on crowded Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza, killing more than 120 Palestinians in a week, of whom one in five were children and more than half were civilians. Those who have empathy do not, as Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai did, thunder at the Palestinians that they face a shoah, meaning catastrophe or holocaust. Those with empathy are unable to rejoice, as many leaders of Hamas did, over slaughter, as if the murder of the other's innocents is justified by the murder of your innocents.
We live in a world, at home and in the Middle East, hardened and distorted by hate. We communicate in the language of fear and violence. Human beings are no longer viewed as human beings. They are no longer endowed in our eyes, or the eyes of those who oppose us, with human qualities. They do no love, grieve, suffer, laugh or weep. They represent cold abstractions of evil. The death-for-death means we communicate by producing corpses. And we are all guilty, Americans, Palestinians, Iraqis and Israelis. But we are not all guilty equally.
Israel and the United States bear the responsibility for a world that has unleashed twisted killers such as Abu Dheim. It is the decades of repression in Gaza, as well as the callous occupation in Iraq, that has bequeathed to us a new generation of jihadists and gunmen who walk into yeshivas and spray automatic fire at people bent over books. For as the poet W.H. Auden pointed out:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
The long, slow drip of collective humiliation and abuse, along with the tiny and large indignities that go into transforming human beings into fanatics, is rarely understood by those on the outside. It ticks away like a clock until it suddenly explodes in our face. Because we do not know where it came from, it strikes us as incomprehensible, irrational, the product of a demented form of humanity. These killers, however, are not formed by the Quran or Islam or a culture that is morally inferior to our own. They are formed by a 40-year occupation, by the continued expansion of Jewish settlements, by the refusal to allow the return of expelled refugees, by the use of fighter jets to bomb squalid refugee camps and by an Israeli siege of Gaza that has blocked fuel, electricity and essential supplies and created a humanitarian crisis for 1.5 million Palestinians. It is what the Israelis have done to the Palestinians, what we have done to the Iraqis, that has brought us to this impasse. We unleashed this violence and only we can end it.
Hamas was a nonentity, a tiny group of radicals who wielded no influence and had little following when in 1988 I first reported from Gaza. But the steady drumbeat of Israeli repression and violence, aided by the corruption and incompetence of Yasser Arafat, led to Hamas' slow rise to supplant Arafat's Fatah party. By 2006 Hamas was elected to power. This election, by all accounts free and fair, saw Jerusalem and Washington begin a covert effort to overthrow Hamas, according to documents obtained by Vanity Fair and the Guardian. The Fatah leader Muhammad Dahlan was, according to these documents, given cash, weapons and assistance through Egypt and Jordan to start a Palestinian civil war. Hamas stepped in to thwart the attempted coup. It drove Dahlan and Fatah out of Gaza. The current bifurcation of Palestinian territories, with Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah in control of the West Bank, began.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, unable to break Hamas with the siege and frustrated by the Palestinians' spontaneous rupture of the barricades that separate the Gaza Strip from Egypt, is trying to pound Gaza into submission. During the past three months of unrelenting Israeli strikes, over 300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have died in Israeli attacks. The strikes have done nothing, however, to halt the rocket attacks on Israeli towns or end Hamas rule.
Amnesty International, CARE International and Oxfam UK, along with other humanitarian aid groups, in a report last week said that living conditions in Gaza are at their worst point since Israel occupied the strip in 1967. The report estimated that 80 percent of the residents of Gaza are now dependent on food aid, compared with 63 percent two years ago. It noted that unemployment is about 40 percent among the general population and 70 percent in the private sector. The aid groups document power cuts to hospitals of as long as 12 hours a day, 50 million liters of sewage pouring into the sea daily, and water and sewage systems on the brink of collapse. The groups have called on the European Union and the British government to pressure Israel to open border crossings and begin negotiations with Hamas.
Washington and Jerusalem have little interest in a peaceful settlement. They are blinded by their own military prowess. They do not grasp that a continuation of violence and a tightening of the siege will spur more desperate and embittered young men and women to acts of vengeance. The only route left is to hear the cries of all the victims, Israeli and Palestinian, to recapture empathy. Hamas' offer to negotiate a truce, an offer backed by 64 percent of Israelis, is the only escape route. There is no option other than to finally give the Palestinians control over their lives and land. It is the only option that will, as well, save us in Iraq. The occupation of Palestinian territory, like the occupation of Iraq, is illegal, increasingly violent and counterproductive.
I was in Gaza in 1993 after the Oslo peace accord was signed. It was as if, after years of suffocation, Palestinians and Israelis could breathe. But Oslo, in the hands of former Israeli Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, was strangled and thwarted. Peace eludes us in Palestine, Israel and Iraq not because people do not want peace but because we are governed by moral and intellectual trolls.
The Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by the Fatah party, was once considered a terrorist organization. It was illegal for an Israeli to have contact with the PLO. Those Israelis who called for negotiations with the Palestinian group were attacked and vilified. The Israeli government, however, under the pragmatism of Yitzhak Rabin, violated its own ban and began secret negotiations with the PLO. These negotiations led to the Oslo peace agreement. Fatah, today, is touted by Jerusalem and Washington as an ally in the war against Hamas and a partner for peace.
The dynamics of power have changed. They will change again. Hamas is a reality that, however distasteful, is not going to go away. Any peace deal reached without Hamas is doomed to fail. The only question left is how many more people are going to die needlessly in Israel, in Palestine and in Iraq before Israeli and American leaders begin to deal with the world as it is, not as they wish it to be.
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."
©2008 TruthDig.com
54 Comments so far
Show Allthis is just wrong. Of course Israel knows that violence won't bring about a just or peaceful settlement. It's not interested in a settlement at all.
riverman: hate may be the most powerful weapon in the world but it is not the most powerful force in the world.
I guess I'll stick with the Enstein quotes in this blog: "The most fundamental question that we must ask ourselves is whether or not the universe we live in is friendly or hostile?"
True, lots of people are ignorant (as you say) and there is SOOOO MUUUUCH hate all over the world, but that is chemical energy by comparison to the nuclear reactor of love that everyone is capable of discovering inside of them. Yes, the greatest power is inside of you and I at this very moment.
Let your love go nuclear! We need an organized resistance across this country and the world. Playing politics will do nothing I'm afraid.
Their chaos is small potatoes compared with the beautiful order of the universe that I witness daily.
HATE IS A LIE;TRUTH IS LOVE.
On a one-handed scale, that is an infinity of LOVE.
Pretty darn good, for us mere mortals. Thank you.
namaste: Einstein had a quote on his wall that said,
Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.
PEACE and LOVE amen
I have beautiful children and I SO want their future to be more than the abomination that we currently have to offer them.
There is no formula for PEACE and LOVE amen. As Gandhi said, "We must BE the change we want to see in the world." If not me, then who?
One day my son Benjamin was being cute and needy and I was instantly overcome with fatherly love for him and from the abundance of my heart asked him if he had any idea how much I loved him? He shrugged and smiled. Playfully, I asked him to guess how much... he shrugged again and answered, "Five?"
_ W O N D E R _ again as childlike innocence,
with one's vessel empty seeking knowledge.¿ How can one receive wisdom,
when full of themselves ?
What is wondrous is the plethora of questions,
while having so few answers.
The children should well inherit the world,
if we would REALLY care for them, which is a kindness
As is kindergarten, or a children's garden.
Is being right a better thing,when that future is an abomination
Ask any child,
they'll always go with kindness over
self-inflated righteousness
namaste: I love your spirit/soul. You are so beautiful. It makes me wonder why?
Our WAR of EGOs is the common fault line, as each will take their position that is making them feel better (having control over, undercutting the other, invalidating their basis).
The sickest part of this reality, is the illogical "being right" (but evil) actions taking precedent over actions that actually would have been consistent with the apparent possible solutions and stated objectives. This inconsistency on both sides of any war, make everything so much harder to unravel.
Per P O G O, We are our own worse enemies, when the EGO reins supreme
The endless violence is resolved through human understanding and empathy, but how to get there? The dissolution of the EGO is what softens the battle lines enough to again see the other (eventually) as ONE with us.
Let us all fight the ultimate evil EGO within each of us, and the rest of the details will actually take care of themselves - once we get out of the way of healing life force and common humanity.
Each of us associates themselves with the EGO (and brain machinations), while we are really so far beyond that intrinsically, as quintessentially spiritual beings living an apparent physical existence. The wars are always being fought by the biggest EGOs, and as Doom n Gloom, we clearly pointed out, it does take a lot of blood and pain to have the shell of EGO fall way in common suffering:
"Until the thirst for blood is rendered in common pain, and each and every heart is broken beyond repair, and the dark spirits lay face down in the mud, there will not be peace in the Middle East."
There is an abundance of truth and common vision herein this thread, and ultimately it always comes down to exactly ONE person. _ O U R S E L F _.
As Margret Mead is famously known for saying about world transformation:
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
Please become the change _ Y O U R S E L V E S _, and we can then all live together in PEACE and abundant harmony.
Namaste (Celebrate the LIGHT within each of us)
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK
Why is this not on the front page of every major newspaper in the country?
http://www.ryanhartman.wordpress.com
Competition and violence are NOT norms.
They sometimes are between species. Our problem is that we have ceased to view other human beings as members of the same species. (Present example: Obama supporters vs. Clinton supporters vs. Nader supporters vs. McCain supporters.) And I believe that's because too many of us weren't taught to view ourselves as human beings, or had that view beaten out of us in childhood. If your parents make you serve their needs rather than serving yours, as is natural, how is one not going to view he world as a violent and competitive place? It's possible, but it takes more alternative experience than many feel safe risking opening themselves up to.
The _ G r e a t __ A w a k i n g _ that is now occurring, closes the shattered circle that SIOUXROSE mentions.
Descartes was quite in error "thinking" that thought was the true basis for existence, and not until John Paul Sartre came along did anyone begin to question exactly 'who was it that was doing/being the "I AM" part'. So typical of our modern world, we've missed the essential aspect of the SPIRIT that imbues the mind/body "dichotomy". Both of which are aspects of the non-physical being that we ALL are, that is the hidden owner of our thoughts and bodies.
¿ Have you ever wondered who is it that possesses the thought "I AM THINKING", as we know similarly each of us possesses a body and experiences ?
The answer is what finally closes the circle, and places us back into the grace of the ONE that IS. TAT SWAM ASI = THAT WE ART THAT.
Our balance has been so distorted with ego and broken roles, all as a misplaced turmoil to (hopefully) find solace and PEACE - while all along the center of the circle has laid just beneath the circus of chaotic thinking, hardly noticed (other than by a few special saints and mystics).
The techniques of biofeedback (goto Wild Divine) and meditation are easily accessible for ALL now, and we will out of this transform EVERYTHING in this beautiful world (life goes on within and without me).
Each of us is within our heart of hearts, the same as the precious source of all beauty, love, and vibrant exuberant joyous living. Find yours, and join in celebrating this fantastic life we share in common dreams.
Namaste
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK
" Peace eludes us ... because we are governed by moral and intellectual trolls." It follows that the next question is, "Why are we governed by trolls?" I don't know the answer, but I think it has something to do with the instinct for self-preservation and the brutal truths of evolution. Not that evoloution doesn't admit the possibility of a peaceful, compassionate society, but it doesn't guarantee our survival, let alone a happy world to live in.
ALASKAMAID: It's not male-female per se, I am speaking about over-arching energetic patterns. The pattern of aggression is more suitable to men, they are BUILT for it; but women can certainly adapt to it. According to myth the heavens ("as above, so below") are comprised by a wide assortment of archetypal beings. Because gender polarity is a given on this planet, the Yin/yang planetary equivalents are moon-sun (parental archetypes) and Venus-Mars. I have noted men with many YIN planets posture the most macho, because they know they lack the masculine stuff on interior planes. Women with a lot of Yang emphasis identify with power, and given the long historical lineage of war and brutality, they can adapt to those behaviors quite readily. So it's not so much what gential we're wearing, it's about these energetic imprints. There is a wisdom to the circle... the shape of the womb, the trajectory of every atom in orb, and ditto every planet; its metaphysical equivalent the karmic truth that all things come full circle. In the Zodiac circle, the imprint of Mars, warrior, is kept in check by the 11 counterbalancing principles, Venus set as its key counterpart and potential antithesis. Under the rubric of monotheism, the concept of ONE god became a Mars-SAturn (angry father) god... and because this concept came to rule as the deity, behavior was shaped to suit it.
Competition and violence are NOT norms. They are behaviors that have emerged from a narrow thesis on what is Divine, and by extension, what behaviors human beings are expected to emulate to become more like their Creative "father-mother" source. Religion has told so many lies for so long, and most of Western civilization emerged from the church-state. Even academe supposedly rooted in logic and empiricism is derived from the church and so many of its theses are consistent with a Mars-view of the world, the self, Creation and the relation of these 3 "dimensions."
Not4Prophet -- Yes, we need to lengthen the timeline of history so that all of us have more historical perspective, I am reading a history of the Laura Ingalls (author of the famous 'Little House' books) family, and what was really going on was that her father was one of the land speculators in on the first wave of land grabbing in the wake of the Indian 'treaties'. That was in the early 1870's. Not very long ago.
Until we gain a better understanding of who the God (?) of the Old Testament really was, and why the Jews were his Chosen, we're all (including the Chosen) pretty much screwed. Like they say, the truth is out there. In more ways than one.
SiouxRose -- It is easy to see the masculine as being the force that is out of balance. But is that because something wants us to see things that way ? I have learned that the occult powers usually manifest as their opposite (we don't notice the real goods that way). My mother used to say that men can be evil, but it takes a woman to be truly malevolent. I didn't believe her. Until I finally realized the sick games my mother-in-law was playing behind my back. Americans are so brain-
washed into the motherhood ideal. The Slavic societies are much more aware of the powers which women can wield. IMHO, men are rightly afraid of the misuse of female power. They know that is what controls them. If you wanted to hide someplace no one would ever look, an old woman would be the ideal place. e.g. Barbara Bush. (BTW, there are rumors that her biological father is Aleister Crowley. That would explain a LOT; there is a strong physical resemblence).
There is a very small, very powerful subspecies (supraspecies?) of females who will do ANYTHING to feed themselves (on many levels). To them, men are just feeding tubes, and humans are the food.
"Israel bombs ONLY military targets like rocket launching sites" says kbrm
If that was so why did thousands of stone throwing kids get killed by Israeli troops during the first intifada. Since when were stones thrown in the occupied territories a threat to any Israeli civilians?
Israel is persuing a war of extermination through its siege of Gaza. Israel's collective punishment is against international law. All sympathy and all power to the genuine Palestinian resistance and not to those Palestinians bought off by the USA.
After their parents experienced the Holocaust, Jewish people who are supporting inflicting a holocaust onto others will go down in history as the ultimate hypocrits and the most loathsome of people.
STOP CRUCIFYING PALESTINIANS
.
In times of peace and intifadas Israel forever builds more settlements. Surely any fool can see that the landgrab has always been what Israel is all about.
There is a huge proportion of Jewish Israel supporters who materially support Israel's armed robbery of Palestinian land. In comparison only a tiny percentage of Muslims materially support the resistance to Israel's robbery.
So who is the more violent in this wrestling over the land? Who has killed the greater number over the years? Even in the first intifada thousands of stone throwing Palestinian youths who themselves were killing no-one were killed by the Jewish controlled Israeli army. Since then some five or more times more Christian and Islamic Palestinians have been killed than Jewish Israelis.
And which nation materially supports such one sided carnage for this land grab. This ultimate supporter of Israeli Terrorism is the so-called "Christian" USA. People in the USA who dare challenge its pro Israel policy will never prosper politically because the pro Israel lobby will crucify them and their reputation.
People aren't game to say the truth in the USA for "fear of the Jews". So can anyone ever say to the USA that the "truth will set you free"?
Stop crucifying Palestinians!
.
Garbage in, garbage out. The lies begin in the third sentence. Israel does NOT bomb Palestinian refugee camps. Unlike the Arab terrorists, Israel bombs ONLY military targets like rocket launching sites. (Some of you may not believe that, but it is a fact.) Civilian casualties occur because the terrorists embed themselves in civilian areas, knowing that they can then cry out for world sympathy when Israel strikes at them. Now tell me who has empathy and who doesn't.
This is genocide of the the Palestian people. They are a nation of refugees that are systematically being exterminated. http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9380.shtml
Clarity writes:
"I agree the 1948 partition was a raw deal for the Palestinians- but they should have taken it! The pre-67 borders were a raw deal- but they should have taken it! Oslo is a raw deal, but by God they oughta take it because sure as you can say Israeli nuke it's the only one they'll ever see become reality."
Created facts on the ground Clarity eh? Canuckchuck is of course correct about the swiss cheese of a deal they had better take, raw and all as it is right? For the Palestinians who have suffered an unimaginable Zionist onslaught it is a slip for Cee Miracles meaty piece to bracket 40 years for it is over 60 years. And lest anyone forget, the original deal was not accepted by both sides and no authority on earth had the right to deport through terrorism a native population in Palestine. It was not legal and certainly not moral nor ethical. The Zionists have no right whatsoever to claim any attachment to that land. None! True the Serphadic Jewish population can trace ancestry to the middle east but the overwhelming majority of Jews worldwide have no attachment other than that they converted to Judiasm. The origin of these people is not semetic. The great fraud perpetrated is going to unravel because as Clarity is so fond of the world as it is, so it is Clarity. I would defy anybody to produce evidence (not psudo science) to the contrary. Oh, and one more thing Clarity, since many on this site have more or less come to the same realistic view of affairs for the Palestinians is it also realistic, the world as it is, that those natives expelled and deported, exiled and languishing in dreadful refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Gaza and that diaspora beyond are to be expected to simply accept the world as it is and move on? You obviously don't begin to understand this reality is this that they are not going to disappear nor are they going to become peace, loving neighbours of their Zionist (they understandably call Jews) masters? They will not accept, Clinton or Bush, or anyone else including Mubarak, Hussain, or the Saudi royals for they well anticipate that their days are numbered too. And great is the pity that illegitimate expansionist criminal outlaw State choses to speak for the Jewish people, many of whom it has rightly been stated are the best and finest of mankind. Would that they could use their organisational skills and confront this dreadful State and all the dangers it is certain to bring upon us all. Look to the root of evil and there you'll discover its nest. No sane person could swallow their crap anymore and it will be too late when lawlessness has been so obviously condoned and supported to say we didn't really realise?
Facts on the ground and airwaves:
The '67 war was pre-planned and expertly executed, with expansionism in mind. Its been relentless ever since. Israel provoked planned, engineered deliberately and was well prepared and primed for wars against its neighbours Syria and Egypt. It knew it couldn't possibly lose and turned this into a magnificent victory against all the odds for the little state that was attacked. Claiming Egypt was about to join Syria in an attack so they had to preempt and anyhow Nassar had as much as declared war by closing the gulf to shipping.
It is well and truely documented this was utter fiction. Israeli tanks had moved north to the egyptian border and were observed there by UN observers prior to the air assault that wiped out the Egyptian air force. They in the north had encroached on land and intentionaly provoked and goaded a few Syrian Guns from the Golan to respond by firing on them. They then blew them all to high heavens in no time at all inflicting such far higher casualties with their planes in what was a cakewalk. Nassr was goaded by radio and through the foreign and defence ministries for days before the planned atack and fell right into their trap by expelling the UN and moving troops closer to the border closing the shipping in the Gulf of Aquaba. But he gave orders that no Israeli military ships were to be attacked and had no intention whatsoever of daring to attack his much stronger foe.
Unfortunately for the fiction, there were still a small group of UN observers at one strategic outpost to the north. Why were their reports sealed by the UN and more importantly how was this achieved? Answer please??? Nassar had no intention of attacking Israel, he was just reacting to outraged public opinion and showing bravado. Israel as stated afterwards by Dayan among others, knew it was unbeatable and decided to goad and conjure up their war to strike while they were so much stronger in every way and to be absolutely certain of total victory. Then the western media jumped into high gear and the fiction of the Arabs attacking Israel nay declaring war by Nassar closing the straights as the most incredible victory against all the odds. All that is total bullshit to go along with the same ever since. The semetic bit, The land fo ra people fo ra people without a land, their purity of arms, self defence, no partner for peace, Israels security, wiped off the map, driven into the sea, making the desert bloom, only democracy in the middle east, the peace process, The Holy Land of our ancestors, the right of return, Israels right to exist. And what that glorious victory in 67 did for the exulsion and eradication the murder mayhen disposession and second diaspora of antives in the following couple of years and beyond was so dreadful it is hardly ever spoken about. Villages razed to the ground and largescale massacres murder rape and pillage mayhem and theft dispossession and cruelty through victorious purity of arms merchants on the defencless natives, hundreds of thousands again driven such desperate exile. No possessions no passport nationality nothing. 60, 40, years phew! Something stinks.
Only in '73, was Israel given a fright but never again, and the monster has grown and with the US elite support it devours. Almost everything about this entrerprise is based on Lies, Deceit, Theft, Expansion, Crime, War, Greed, Racism, Suffering and Fiction. A final question. How many US citizens hold Israeli passports? Or European ones for that matter? Good old dual nationality eh? Life as it is Clarity? There will come a day there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth in future generations for our cowardice in allowing such injustice and crime. We are all responsible. God Bless America!
Whats happening between Israel and the Palestinians, the US and it's GWOT, the NWO and the globalist power elite, is all related.
It is easy to conclude that the human race is made up of monsters, at least American and Israeli based on recent history alone. Yet this is not true. Most of the people, I would say 95%, are essentially good, but are easily manipulated by a small group who make up less than 0.001% of the population, who are very intelligent and powerful, and who pretend to be gods. Some of the elite, perhaps most, may believe they are doing good, but also believe they must do evil at times to attain the good they seek for us, and others are, well, evil. The end justifies the means in either case, at least for them.
Their methods of controlling the human machine are simple. Divide and rule. Religion, Race, Sex (M/F, gay/hetero), Politics (Left/Right), Age (Young/Old), etc. The construction of the machine starts with the essential material, Money (which they got control of in the US in 1913), which then leads them to collect the tools of Politics, Media, Food, Oil, Education, Entertainment, followed by assembly of the totalitarian machine, national and global. Wars and Financial crisis are critical for them to control the machines human engine and the speed to the final destination. They are the driver. There is no steering wheel since they can not see where they are going, although they may imagine they do. When they hit some obstacle the machine is damaged, so they "fix" the machine, do a bit of planning (upgrade) and then set it on a slightly different course in the direction they want to go and give it a go, a little bit left, or a little bit right, but all headed for one world government. If they want to go faster, they give us a War, to slow down they arrange a Financial Crisis.
As for the topic at hand, some blame the Jewish or Israeli lobby for our policies and support of their actions against the Palestinians, but since they were not elected, how can they be blamed. I do not believe they represent the Jewish American people in any event, anymore than I believe our leaders in Washington represent the American people. The Israeli lobby represents the interests of right wing Israeli leaders as well as non Jewish business interests and elite which profits from Israeli-Arab conflict, the War on Terror, wars in general, etc. The Israeli leaders do not represent their citizens any better than our own leaders in the US represent us.
The biggest victims of the Zionist elite for over 100 years, besides the Palestinians, have been the Jewish people. It was this elite that promoted anti-semitism following the first Zionist conference. Anti-semitism in the 20th century was a tool to unite the Jewish people and promote Zionism, it had largely subsided in Europe in the 19th century and even in Russia until Czar Alexander II was asssinated by Lenins brother in 1881. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was plagarized from previously published work of non-Zionist globalists was distributed to promote anti-semitism in Russia prior to the first Bolshevik revolution in 1905. It served to unite the large number of Russian Jews to the Bolsheviks cause. It's work is attributed to the Czar Nicholas II by the elite who control our history, but the rationale made no sense, and clearly benefitted those who supported the Bolsheviks, which included Zionists in London who were responsible for the Balfour Declaration in WW I promising the Zionists a homeland in Palestine, well before the holocaust, as well as New York's bankers associated with the House of Rothschild, both of whom helped finance the revolution.
At the end of WW I it was then translated and distributed in Europe and the US, absorbed by nuts like Hitler in the 1920's, which was the basis for Mein Kamph and fueled the anti-semitism in Europe and the US in the 20th century, and the rest was history, sadly to say for millions of Jewish and non Jewish people (British and American financial assistance and appeasement allowed Hitler to rebuild a broken Germany and set the stage for WW II and the holocaust). The holocaust was their 9/11, which was essential to the creation of the Zionist homeland known as Israel, just as our 9/11 was necessary for us to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. The end justifies the means, so they say.
The elites version of history suggests a combination of Coincidence Incompetence and Accidents (CIA) were responsible. Funny how the CIA coin flip never seems to come up tails, and give us world peace or elimimate poverty, but it always seems to give us wars, genocides or depressions. Must be using a 2 headed coin.
We are all victims of a small elite group of men, Zionists or not, who are so powerful they think themselves gods. Jews, Christians, Muslim, American, British, Israeli, etc are all victims. They control us by dividing us. Only when we unite can we overcome this evil. Before this can happen you must see through the deception.
starofthesea - thank you ...
++++++++++++
clarity: "I agree the 1948 partition was a raw deal for the Palestinians- but they should have taken it! The pre-67 borders were a raw deal- but they should have taken it!"
++++++
From my reading and understanding, Jews and Palestinians lived fairly peaceably before the ZIONISTS arrived in Palestine and then years and years later after a Great War, the GREAT POWERS of the Security Council of the United Nations DECIDED to award a nation to Zionist Israel, and I say Zionist Israel, because the Zionist movement was a separate animal from religious Jewry from the late 1920's on, and Zionists were generally secular.
The Zionists made a deal with Hitler and got out of Europe as Hitler began his drive to conquer the world with and for the superior ARYAN "RACE." The Zionists were not concerned with the fate of the religious Jews/citizens of European countries, and, in fact, according to my understanding [research] had contempt for them.
Religious Jews were dispersed in many nations and considered themselves good citizens of those nations. The Zionists were another animal and were hankering for a nation of their own. A chunk of land in Africa was strongly considered and then whomever decided or encouraged it ... A chunk of land in Palestine should be rightfully ours because it was OUR original homeland. The truth of even that is up for grabs.
Let's keep in mind there never was a nation of Israel.
Yes, the persecutions, the pogroms in many countries had gone on for centuries against the particular Jewish populations, but Jews by their emphasis on education and the arts and their own ability to rise in the "ranks," so to speak, led them to careers in Universities, in important jobs in many commercial areas, in government also, and in many other venues. Let us remember, EINSTEIN came from a prosperous family and attended University and did pretty well for himself eventually.
Yes, there was anti-semitism ... and racism in many countries and in particular areas of the more settled and citified United States. Anti-semitism primarily came from White Christians, the more "holy," it seems, the deeper the bug up their respectives asses.
I grew up with it in an otherwise delightful, prosperous German-American family with many German friends. The jokes, epithets, and making fun of accents and customs of the Jews was ordinary fare at get-togethers. I never bought into it, even as a little girl. I don't know why that is, but it just is who I am.
Personally I am convinced that after the tragic horror of the Holocaust was revealed in photographs and films, with both the United States and most European - white/Christian - countries not wanting an influx of Jews, voting to create the nation of Israel was a guilt vote and a convenient way of dealing with the "Jewish problem." Interestingly, the Jews from the Holocaust did not all immediately set sail for Israel. It was just a small percentage. They preferred to stay in their own "homelands" in Europe or try to get to the U.S. or the more affluent cities of South America.
How convenient it was to vote to create a nation of Israel, except it wasn't so convenient for the Palestinians.
I've fantasized of late that Israel should be moved to the Crawford Ranch in Texas with adjoining range land bought up or awarded to equal the area of Israel. Just solve the problem that way, especially since so many Republicans and the Religious Right, and so many left and liberal Democrats somehow see the Jews of Israel, Zionist or religious, somehow more human and deserving than the semitic Palestinian peoples. But also, let us not forget, money is the grease that makes politicians oily.
Now, how do you think the Texans would respond, especially if those settled and living on that land for generations were told to pack up their belongings and go to "temporary" refugee camps? [Think 40 years in a refugee camp.] And they'd be allowed a few goats and maybe a few of their cows or steers.
How would you feel about that, clarity, if that happened to you and your family? Would you have taken "that deal" and felt grateful and comfortable about it? ... Just askin'.
This is what that 1947-48 U.N. GREAT POWER pow-wow and vote did to the Palestinians who had generational farms, lands, ... olive groves and homes and traditions going back several thousand years.
How arrogant and cruel the GREAT POWERS of Christian White ancestry have been and are.
And how arrogant and cruel were the members of the Zionist movement who now use The Holocaust as the righteous shield to justify their abominable actions when, in fact, the original members left Europe and what happened to their religious brethen ... well, that was tough, but they, the Zionists, got away and proceeded to cheat, dupe, and oppress the Palestinians so they could grab their land and have a nation. Interestingly, the Orthodox Jew eschews the idea of a permanent, land-based NATION of ISRAEL. It's not Scriptural.
It was ignorance on the part of the leadership of the GREAT POWERS of the White, Christian establishment. They didn't know the difference between Zionist Jews and the Religious Jews of the Diaspora Nation of Jewry.
It is the same kind of ignorance that knows so little of the history, traditions, customs and religions of the Mid-Eastern peoples.
What we don't know, we often dismiss ... as odd, inferior, and frequently, less than human those whom we don't understand and cannot relate to from our small and narrow personal worlds.
And then we make up labels, nasty labels, which makes it much easier to push them aside or kill them and take what they have.
It's all in the history books, perhaps the most prevalent destructive theme ...
WE and THEM ...
... and WE being WE somehow have the right to hurt, exploit or get rid of THEM ...
Stupid, huh?
peace ...
How can the Palistinians have a "state" that is non-contiguouis and contains severel hundred foreign controlled settlements connected by private, foreign, heavily militarized highways?
Look at the Olso Accords maps of the West Bank...looks more like a like "Greater Israel" containing a bunch of Palistinian Prison camps...how long till the showers are set up and the gas starts flowing?
fuck Israel
CATCH: I'm glad you raised the issue of the dearth of empathy as per the wrath of other nations (besides US & Israel). Mystics call ours a polarity planet, it's most evident in the fact that 2 genders were devised by the great creative plan so that life through coitus, would continually reproduce. Just as DNA takes equal sums from BOTH parents to suggest a balance of gender input, there are mystical counterparts that speak of the forces of yin and yang. I have often related on Commondreams that the obscene investment in weapons, the obviously contorted priorities that place bombs before children's lunch programs, suggests a homage to the god of force, which the mystics call Mars. I believe the Divine equation is dangerously off kilter as even poor nations buy arms and fail to feed their populaces. An article on CD relating to US aid to Columbia sited that charities dole our whatever their booty is through the military, and we have seen many articles about the militarization of our society. Every dollar invested in war/weapons/military/force/Mars is a dollar taken from the Divine counterpart: Venus. The lack of empathy is one reflection of this Venus deficit as I term it... how much $ goes to peace programs, the arts, women's rights, councils of reconciliation? Note the way Hillary has to "out-tough" the bad boys to be seen as a viable candidate, the way idiot boy Bush dances around in military digs to look powerful, the way so much of US film media celebrates the ejaculatory force of explosive displays of war and its varied and sundry fares.
I believe the programming of societies to see god as a male deity has diminished the value of women, Mother Earth, and the Divine feminine. The result is this over-identification with masculine raw displays of power. EVERY weapon is phallic in shape... and even the inane concept of Creation as a big bang is some kind of teenage boy fantasy of how this magnificent universe works. Unfortunately these beliefs are sewn into the fabric of church, state, academe over so many centuries, the vast majority take them to be real, and/or the only possible form of mankind's expression.
Perhaps the combined sums of US bankruptcy (as the chief arms exporter and maker of wars), global warming, and this tragic theater of unending war will bring about a dire paradigm shift. It may be mankind's only chance. We cannot live by the old warring ways... Einstein said the NEXT war will be fought with sticks and bones. He well understood where a piss contest over big weapons would take us. WE are on that cusp. Today I read that REpublicans changed their ranks to vote for Hillary so that they'd have better odds of getting mr. bang bang himself into office. And these idiots who listen to right wing radio and go to churches are calling for the murder of more innocents... it is obscene. What the world needs now, is love... is VENUS... is empathy... is compassion and not more stuff!
CeeMiracles---a very moving and beautiful post---thanks for being a voice of wisdom and love on this site. It isn't always an easy assignment. (smile)
Time to focus on the big picture. These wars by in large are over ideologies and resourses, and the shortage of resourses is exacerbating the intolerance of ideological hatred. If you lengthen the historical timeline enough the only statements left standing are; "those to whom evil is done do evil in return." and, "We are all guilty." Until we all win the battle within, hatred and greed will never see enough as enough or peace as an option.
Sanity must be DEMANDED by those who are sane.
The relative suffering of either side is statistically shown at this site, updated as of 8 February 2008: http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
The real tradgedy, as Bill Clinton has pointed out, is that we already know what the final status, if there ever is one, will look like- just about like Oslo: More or Less the pre-67 borders with some give and take. That's it folks.
If you want to talk about the way it "is", you can talk about the Palestinians in abject poverty and despair; and the Israelis with a per capita GDP greater than that of France or Italy- a veritable high-tech Singapore of the Middle East (plenty of which is Arms Trade!).
I agree the 1948 partition was a raw deal for the Palestinians- but they should have taken it! The pre-67 borders were a raw deal- but they should have taken it! Oslo is a raw deal, but by God they oughta take it because sure as you can say Israeli nuke it's the only one they'll ever see become reality. As the Chris Hedges says:
The World As It Is
Chris Hedges puts it very succinctly, that violence leads to even more violence, and I couldn't agree more. There are those in Hamas, Fatah and Hezbollah who will never be content, until they see every Jew removed from Israel, and all of the land returned to the Palestinian people. This will never happen, but Zionist (FUNDAMENTALIST) Jews, must see that the settlements must be dismantled, and the land returned to the Palestinians.
I have often talked about the lack of diplomacy in the World today, and it is all too evident in the Middle East, not just from Israel, but from the US and UK. If we are to see real progress towards peace, then the West has to be seen as impartial, or as a last resort, excluded from peace talks.
There can be no half measures, if we are going to find a solution, but there has to be a degree of honesty on all sides.
We humans are a despicable lot really! The tragedy in Palestine proves it. Why have we allowed it to happen? Why have we looked the other way while a race of small-minded religious fanatics oppress another, take their land, kill their children?
It is yet another indictment of the human race, of its stupidity, its double-standards, its hypocrisy, its brutality.
I reckon it's time to change things, starting with ourselves. If we don't, we'll destroy ourselves!
www.dangerouscreation.com
It is false that Hamas is unreasonable. They have offered a 50 year truce which the Israelis turned down. It is Israel who finds excuses to avoid peace. Israel wants land, not peace.
gdebs: You are very wrong. This is not like 2 children bickering, this is like a child being tortured by an adult. Do I really have to tell you which is which? If I do, you must not understand at all.
"Catch" muses as follows: I don't know that the word "hate" is even the correct word anymore. Perhaps some sort of global psychopathy?"
I reply: I think the correct word is "population overshoot" - by humans, worldwide. Read this: http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/10/750515.aspx
It's an article built around an interview with a Gazan WHO HAS TWELVE CHILDREN. Ever hear of Thomas Robert Malthus?
We're getting what we've sown, all right. What we've sown is /humans./ Six and a half thousand million of them.
"Human beings are no longer viewed as human beings. They are no longer endowed in our eyes, or the eyes of those who oppose us, with human qualities. They do not love, grieve, suffer, laugh or weep. They represent cold abstractions of evil."
---
Admiral William Fallon, head of U.S. Central Command on potential illegal war with Iran:
"Get serious. These guys are ants. When the time comes, you crush them."
That's approximately 75 million "ants" living in an ant colony founded over 4000 years ago.
Soon to be crushed under foot by "serious" Americans...
I followed and cared about this situation for about 45 years. And then I just gave up on caring. A pox on both their houses. They are worse than kids fighting in the back seat of the car. "Ma,he started it,didn't,did,didn't did-----------------------------------------------------.
Go ahead and kill each other if you must.
Cee Miracles: your reference to psychopaths - I'm currently re-reading "The Blank Slate" by Steven Pinker and just finished the chapter titled "The Many Roots Of Our Suffering" where the author recounts studies that suggest that "Several biologists have adduced evidence that psychopathy is a cheating strategy that evolved by frequency-dependant selection" that has produced two kinds of psychopaths. The first are those that are predisposed to psychopathy no matter how they are raised and the second are those so predisposed to psycopathy only in certain circumstances "namely when they percieve themselves to be competitively disadvantaged in society and find themselves at home in a group of other antisocial peers.
Individual actors such as the gunman at the seminary may fall into the second category (in my layman's opinion) but I doubt the leaders of Israel or the Palestinians fall into either category. U.S. leaders on the other hand, are another story...
Yes Mr. Hedges, the lack of empathy is enough to break the hearts of observers safely removed from the continuing escalating cycle of violence. How would I respond were I either an Israeli or a Palestinian? I don't know, and I'm not sure I want to know.
"War creates a world without empathy..... It is the decades of repression in Gaza, and the callous occupation in Iraq, that has bequeathed to us a new generation of jihadists and gunmen....."
W H Auden (quoted by Chris Hedges) puts it perfectly and concisely from the standpoint of all those in the actual combat zone: do evil, and expect evil in return - reprisal for reprisal, atrocity upon atrocity, an eye for an eye for an eye or two until it's time for a breather or until the whole world has indeed gone blind.
How to break the cycle?
End the war by ending first the occupation.
This should be far easier for the United States to do in Iraq (five years into the neocolonial process) than it is for the state of Israel to do after sixty years in the heart of what has traditionally been called the Holy Land of the Middle East. And of course, it's easier said than done.
But empathy is possible between the occupier from afar and the occupied. All you got to do is end the US occupation of Iraq, in order to end the war in Iraq.
So just do it, the sooner the better.
Bill from Saginaw
"Human beings are no longer viewed as human beings."
To me, that was the key line in the story. Because, that's a warning sign to look out for. You see it so often in political discourse today. Its the rhetoric that's designed to make us think of people as anything other than human beings.
You see it when people rant about 'terrorists'. Its a part of the debate over 'torture'. Because the first step in making people ok with the idea of 'torture' is to make them stop thinking of other people as 'human beings'.
If you think of someone as a father of two who's loved by his wife and family, its harder to torture them. But if you just think of someone as a 'terrorist', it becomes possible.
You see this all through modern political rhetoric. The constant stereotyping. The constant assaults on gays and muslims and terrorists and drug dealers. And from the left all the talk of fascists and right-wingers. I probably do some of that too.
That's not always evil. When I'm talking about fascists, I'm usually talking about getting control back of our political system. I'm not talking about murdering and torturing them. But that's not always true. There's always hate speech that's designed almost entirely to make you think of someone else as anything other than a human being. Only then can the purveyors of that speech get people to steal their land, destroy their homes, murder their families, torture them, disappear them and so on and so on.
Be aware of that hate speech. Watch for it. Watch for when someone is talking in terms to make you think of someone else as something other than a human being. When you see it, be very wary. Look for the agenda behind it. There's usually one, and usually the dehumanizing speech you here is a pre-requisite for carrying out that agenda.
Those are the people you must never ever vote for our support.
To put it in the mythic Hollywood terms that anyone can understand:
"Israel has been seduced by the Dark Side of The Force"
Until the thirst for blood is rendered in common pain, and each and every heart is broken beyond repair, and the dark spirits lay face down in the mud, there will not be peace in the Middle East.
Read the final chapter (17) of "The Portage to San Cristobal of A. H." by George Steiner, published in 1979. In this novel, an old Adolf Hitler speaks very plainly to the Mossad agents who have just captured him in the depths of the Amazon basin. It begins:
"Erster Punkt. Article one. Because you must understand that I did not invent. It was Adolf Hitler who dreamt up the master race. Who conceived of enslaving inferior peoples. Lies. Lies. It was in the doss house, in the Maennerheim that I first understood. It was in. God help me, but that was long ago. And the lice. Large as a thumbnail. 1910, 1911. What does it matter now? It was there I first understood your secret power. The secret power of your teaching. Of yours. A chosen people. Chosen by God for His own. The only race on earth chosen, exalted, made singular among mankind. It was Grill who taught me. Do you know about Grill? No. You know nothing about me. Jahn Grill. But that wasn't his name. Do you hear me? Called himself Jahn, said he was a defrocked priest. For all I know he may have been. That too. But his real name was Jacob. Jacob Grill, son of a rabbi, from Poland. Or Galicia. Or. What does it matter. One of yours, yours, yours. We lived close. One soap sliver between us. It was Grill who taught me, who showed me the words. The chosen people. God's own and elect amid the unclean, amid the welter of nations. Who shall be chastised for impurity, for taking a heathen wife, who shall have bondsmen and bondswomen from among the goyim, but stay apart. My promise was only a thousand years. "To eternity" said Grill; lo, it is written here. In letters of white fire. The covenant of the election, the setting apart of the race, das heilige Volk, like unto no other. Under iron law. Circumcision and the sign on your forehead. One law, one race, one destiny unto the end of time..."
There is much more. Read it. Steiner, for the record, was Jewish.
"secretarybird: The IRA enjoyed unfetered support from many Irish Americans."
Jaysus! Don't get me started on Irish-Americans. Hannity, O'Brien, Coulter - need I say more? (Well, there is Maureen Dowd, and I do have a soft spot for PJ O'Rourke)
#
Mordechai Shiblikov March 10th, 2008 11:48 am
"To my fellow American Jews I ask this: How long do you think the gentile majority in this country is going to support Israel?, i.e., the Jews, whose guts they largely hate and despise."
Evidently 64% of Israeli Jews oppose what Ehud Olmert & his Nazi Zionist Cabal is doing to the Palestinians, especially when it is announced by a leader within that cabal that Shoah for the Palestinians is coming. Shoah means Holocaust.
I cannot help but wonder whether those in power in Israel and those like them in the administration of the United States are an aberrant strain of human being. Try Psychopaths with their misconfigured brains that do not allow for feeling emotions in any normal sense. An emotional sensibility or response is evidently very weak and flat.
So essentially, it is just out-of-control ego-minds with a predilection toward cruelty, domination, and winning that we are confronted with. That mental condition is not limited to those who govern Israel, but those particular leaders MUST GO! just as the sorry leaders of the Bush Administration MUST GO! ... sooner rather than later.
When the cries of anti-semiticism ring out when the Nazi Zionist government continues its program of exterminating the Palestinians, let us remember and teach that the Palestinians are also Semitic peoples as are most peoples in the Middle East, and that there are many brave, good souls in Israel trying to turn the tide ...
www.gush-shalom.org
... and there are many brave, good souls in the United States who are trying to do the same regarding our own government and its heinous policies.
I am not a Jew, Mordechai. I am someone who celebrates the goodness of the human heart, and I know it when I experience it no matter what ethnicity, race, culture, religion, etc., that someone or a people are labeled with.
I also know the cruel darkness of the human heart when I experience it no matter what the label.
May we hope that someday we will be grown up enough as a species to see past the labels and open our collective hearts to each other as individuals ... before it is too late in the day for the sun to ever shine again.
and we live in a country where people with one point of view demonize those of a different point of view and where you can regularly see on internet message boards people from within the democratic party demonize each other for supporting either obama or clinton. heavy sigh...
Zero Zion Train
When I was just a boy 1984 seemed so far away
but it hitched a ride on the zero Zion train just one digit late
I dreamt a terrorizing thought crime that preempted hate
and the stormland home troupers soon were at my gate
Naught was trashing tables for the money temple changers
as the mount and the shining city on a hill were spewing sulfur
'bring em on' echoed in the valley with four horsemen spurred
while the greenback lost a third and the rock of ages stirred
And I was humming get your spot on the zero zion train
one digit is all it takes so we've lots of fare to spare
secretarybird: The IRA enjoyed unfetered support from many Irish Americans. Also, Israel & Jewish Americans are the strongest lobby on Capitol Hill.
I cannot see the Northern Ireland example working in Israel/Palestine setting.
I think it would take changes in the popular sentiment in both Israel & the US to change policy in Gaza & West Bank.
I object! We should hate those who won't vote for the candidate we support!
Good to hear someone with the courage to speak out strongly on this. I am personally appalled at the way the US and Israel have been treating the people of Gaza - as if they were subhuman.
We call for free and fair elections, they hold them, we don't like who they elect and ever since, we've done everything we can to make their government fail by sticking it to the Palestinian people. Hamas fires off terribly inaccurate missiles that mostly land in the dirt and that's our excuse to go on doing what we want to do: not negotiate with the elected leaders of the Palestinians.
To say this sort of thing out loud is, of course, to invite the inevitable jingoistic and chauvinistic charges of being anti-Semitic and unpatriotic. I'm neither; I'm sure that neither are you. It takes guts to call your own government and allied governments to task when their behavior is abhorrent. I'd say that it also requires authentic patriotism as an American and authentic concern for Israel as an ally to speak out in this manner.
Or maybe it takes being a divinity school grad… Me too, U of Chicago, 1982.
Paul - originalfaith.com
Mordechai - "To my fellow American Jews I ask this: How long do you think the gentile majority in this country is going to support Israel?, i.e., the Jews, whose guts they largely hate and despise."
First, I think it is a gross exaggeration to say that the gentile majority in the U.S. despise jews - just as it is irresponsible to conclude that most muslims in the world hate americans. Many gentiles (and jews, too) are frustrated with the policies and actions of the Israeli GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, while personally liking many jews. Just as muslims are frustrated with the policies actions of the U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, while personally liking many USAns.
Second, and I hate to perpetuate a stereotype, but in this case, I speak from experience. Many, many, many jews in the U.S. are of the wealthy elite. And has been said over and over again on this site, the wealthy elite couldn't give a tinker's damn about those not of their class. As I see it, what we're experiencing right now in the U.S. (and in the world) is a class war. Jews are heavy hitters in the wealthy elite class and they exert tremendous power.
I don't think the question is about gentiles supporting jews in their religious ideology - that's just a convenient excuse that the wealthy elite have used to divide and conquer. It's about the have-nots taking back their power from the haves and working for a more equitable distribution of the wealth that the planet has so generously provided us.
As a gentile, I recognize the need for a safe-haven for Jews. What form this
will take has seemingly been settled in 1967, but has it really? I am naive
enough to think that Martin Buber's vision of an Israel/Palestine still has a chance, however much damage has been done in the meantime.
The tendency toward seperateness between Arabs and Jews is not helpful. You
tend not to hate people you know...and the call to "love the stranger" could
be very useful in practice.
The issue of empathy(as "Catch" avers) is very much relevant. It is not too late!
It's clear that Israel remains a "reality" only because of massive US support, whereas the Palestinians (Hamas or otherwise) would have some sort of state in any case. Given the difficulties in getting the Israelis and Palestinians to recognize each others' rights and settle their differences, Israel would have been overrun decades ago without US aid. Neither side is innocent in this conflict. Hamas shooting rockets into Israeli towns is a Bad Thing. Israeli use of cluster bombs that effectively target civilians (and children) is every bit as abhorrent. It's pretty hard to feel much sympathy for anyone who would do these things to others, wherever and whenever.
Worse, the empathy issue is by no means limited to the Middle East! How about Darfur? How about the recent Bosnian crisis? How about the recent random multiple civilian shootings in the US? How about increasing episodes of police brutality? How about the recent US presidential veto of a bill that would have banned the more extreme forms of torture? I don't know that the word "hate" is even the correct word anymore. Perhaps some sort of global psychopathy?
To my fellow American Jews I ask this: How long do you think the gentile majority in this country is going to support Israel?, i.e., the Jews, whose guts they largely hate and despise. The reactionary/fascist right in this nation supports Israel only because of their Biblical looniness about the End Times or Armageddon or whatever that bullshit is they believe in. If they could get rid of all the Jews, they would. So considering what Israel is costing this nation, how long do you think they're going to support it before they finally say, fuck 'em all; let 'em die? Even AIPAC won't be able to lobby that one out of existence.
Thank you, Mr. Hedges for your honest, sane, truth-telling. There are so few journalists who know the facts, much less have the guts to report them. There will be justice when the US finally makes Israel obey the law. Or more likely, when the rest of the world rises up against the US and Israel to protect the planet.
Israel is using the Gaza situation and the Yeshiva killings (and its like) to keep on expanding its presence in the west bank. Nothing else really seems to matter, peace for Israel was never that big a concern historically, in its short history it has launched war after war against far weaker neighbors, the only real exception was '73, the 48 war was a rope-a-dope, the zionist forces always had a major upper hand and were quite happy for the fight (all this is in Avi Schlaim's, the Iron wall).. The weird part of this is that Israel, by essentially annexing the west bank is sowing the seeds of destruction for a strictly jewish state, which is fine by me, but is more than passing strange when all Israeli Jews seem to worry about is exactly the demographic problem.
After 30 years of violence, and 10 more of political stalemate, Northern Ireland has ended up being run by a coaltion of the two most extreme parties at either end of the political spectrum. Their relentless intransigence wore out the more moderate politicians and left everyone faced with no other choice.
And yet - so far - it has worked reasonably well. It's far from perfect; while some men of violence are ministers in charge of the education system, others are Mafia-style gangsters. It will be decades before before memories fade, if even then - face it, the US has unfinished business dating from the end of its Civil War.
And the first step - in secret or in public - is negotiating with your enemies.
Hate is bad, but at least get the cause and effect right. Israel (not Hamas) is the reality, that however distasteful is not going to go away.