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TechnoratiIsrael’s ‘Crime Against Humanity’
Israel's siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalem's refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It comes close to the horrors visited on Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs. It has disturbing echoes of the Nazi ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw.
"This is a stain on what is left of Israeli morality," I was told by Richard N. Veits, the former U.S. ambassador to Jordan who led a delegation from the Council on Foreign Relations to Gaza to meet Hamas leaders this past summer. "I am almost breathless discussing this subject. It is so myopic. Washington, of course, is a handmaiden to all this. The Israeli manipulation of a population in this manner is comparable to some of the crimes that took place against civilian populations fifty years ago."
The U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, former Princeton University law professor Richard Falk, calls what Israel is doing to the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza "a crime against humanity." Falk, who is Jewish, has condemned the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza as "a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention." He has asked for "the International Criminal Court to investigate the situation, and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law."
Falk, while condemning the rocket attacks by the militant group Hamas, which he points out are also criminal violations of international law, goes on to say that "such Palestinian behavior does not legalize Israel's imposition of a collective punishment of a life- and health-threatening character on the people of Gaza, and should not distract the U.N. or international society from discharging their fundamental moral and legal duty to render protection to the Palestinian people."
"It is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe that each day poses the entire 1.5 million Gazans to an unspeakable ordeal, to a struggle to survive in terms of their health," Falk said when I reached him by phone in California shortly before he left for Israel. "This is an increasingly precarious condition. A recent study reports that 46 percent of all Gazan children suffer from acute anemia. There are reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children. Gazan children need thousands of hearing aids. Malnutrition is extremely high in a number of different dimensions and affects 75 percent of Gazans. There are widespread mental disorders, especially among young people without the will to live. Over 50 percent of Gazan children under the age of 12 have been found to have no will to live."
Gaza now spends 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication. Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza's three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died. Of the 230 Gazans estimated to have died last year because they were denied proper medical care, several spent their final hours at Israeli crossing points where they were refused entry into Israel. The statistics gathered on children-half of Gaza's population is under the age of 17-are increasingly grim. About 45 percent of children in Gaza have iron deficiency from a lack of fruit and vegetables, and 18 percent have stunted growth.
"It is macabre," Falk said. "I don't know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times."
"There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances," the rapporteur added. "The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable."
The point of this Israeli siege, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade. It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel. Palestinians have launched more than 200 rockets on Israel since the latest round of violence began. There have been no Israeli casualties.
"This is a crime of survival," Falk said of the rocket attacks. "Israel has put the Gazans in a set of circumstances where they either have to accept whatever is imposed on them or resist in any way available to them. That is a horrible dilemma to impose upon a people. This does not alleviate the Palestinians, and Gazans in particular, for accountability for doing these acts involving rocket fire, but it also imposes some responsibility on Israel for creating these circumstances."
Israel seeks to break the will of the Palestinians to resist. The Israeli government has demonstrated little interest in diplomacy or a peaceful solution. The rapid expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an effort to thwart the possibility of a two-state solution by gobbling up vast tracts of Palestinian real estate. Israel also appears to want to thrust the impoverished Gaza Strip onto Egypt. There are now dozens of tunnels, the principal means for food and goods, connecting Gaza to Egypt. Israel permits the tunnels to operate, most likely as part of an effort to further cut Gaza off from Israel.
"Israel, all along, has not been prepared to enter into diplomatic process that gives the Palestinians a viable state," Falk said. "They [the Israelis] feel time is on their side. They feel they can create enough facts on the ground so people will come to the conclusion a viable state cannot emerge."
The use of terror and hunger to break a hostile population is one of the oldest forms of warfare. I watched the Bosnian Serbs employ the same tactic in Sarajevo. Those who orchestrate such sieges do not grasp the terrible rage born of long humiliation, indiscriminate violence and abuse. A father or a mother whose child dies because of a lack of vaccines or proper medical care does not forget. A boy whose ill grandmother dies while detained at an Israel checkpoint does not forget. All who endure humiliation, abuse and the murder of family members do not forget. This rage becomes a virus within those who, eventually, stumble out into the daylight. Is it any wonder that 71 percent of children interviewed at a school in Gaza recently said they wanted to be a "martyr"?
The Israelis in Gaza, like the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, are foolishly breeding the next generation of militants and Islamic radicals. Jihadists, enraged by the injustices done by Israel and the United States, seek to carry out reciprocal acts of savagery, even at the cost of their own lives. The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.
118 Comments so far
Show AllG-d predicted in Ezekial that we would return to our land, and that our Nation would be reborn.
He predicted the ingathering of our Diaspora from the 4 corners of the earth.
He predicted that the world would hate us for being in possession of OUR land.
I mustn’t get upset – G-d will deal with everyone according to his deeds.
Bereshit 12:3 – “ I will bless those that bless you. Those that curse you, I will curse”.
The Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Nazis etc etc etc etc are all gone – who’s still standing?
Just a minute there:
The Egyptians, several million of them, are in Cairo.
The Greeks and the Romans are still in their respective regions.
Babylonians are now Iraquis.
And YOU--and other zionist maniacs just like YOU--are committing genocide daily and patting each other on the bum for it.
De-countrify Israel NOW!
.As long as you are ruled by hatred you will not be a part of any rational solution. Certainly the Palestinian peoples deserve justice, but justice is a two edged sword and pleading for one side while denying the rights of the other side is not a solution that can occur or endure.
It is not as if the entire nation of Israel is comprised of evil doers, any more than it is true that the USA is populated solely by evil people. Just as it is probably untrue to believe you driven mad with anger because you scream with rage in every single post.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
When you commit crimes against humanity, usually you are put in prison.
Not extolled by platitudinal plastic progressive posters.
The GOVERNMENT of Israel is committing genocide daily. I don't feel comfortable applauding that.
Apparently you do.
Anais Nin was a sexually abused pisces narcissist.
.You, on the other hand, are a curmudgeonly and probably self loathing twit with aspirations of intellect you fail to demonstrate. Do me a favor and ignore my posts here, they are meant for those who respond with civility not to you .
Edited to remove the worst of my opinions of this scurrilous poster.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
The Egyptians in Cairo today are arabs – completely different race and genealogy to those who built the pyramids etc etc. I thought everybody knew that!
Yes the Greeks and the Romans are still in their regions – but they don’t have a military of cultural empire that dominates the known world now do they?
Ditto – the Iraqis/Babylonians!
This really wasn’t a difficult point to understand – incredible that I had to spell it out.
I suggest you look up the meaning of the word “genocide” – perhaps that way you wouldn’t throw it around so mindlessly, belittling and insulting the suffering of the millions of people who have suffered genocidal campaigns against them!
The only genocidal ambitions in the Middle East today are with the arabs and Persians – neither have made any attempt to disguise their ghastly ambitions.
On the contrary, one only needs to read the Hamas Charter, listen Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah and any assortment of other fanatics to appreciate how open and proud they are of their aims and goals.
Buzz off, zionist fanatic.
I spend a fair amount of time in the Middle East--certainly enough to know your propaganda is as stale and bankrupt as zionism itself.
And I sure as hell do know about genocide--since 20 million of my fellow Native Americans were subjected to it!
What an asinine comment. You quote a text with dubious origins, at best, and use unrelated historical references to make a dead point; and you give yourself away quoting from Bereshit.
Your ignorance is only surpassed by your arrogance, and Zionists such as yourself, are doomed to failure, without support and assistance from an even more corrupt world order than that which you quote and emulate ; such as the U.S.A., and its vassell the UN.
The former world powers you refer to fell apart as a result of their own short comings and if you believe that a mean, vindictive, jealous insecure concept of "God" had anything to do with it; you are indeed a fool, in need of close supervision, most effectively administered in either a mental institution or correctional facility, or a combination of both.
The possession of "your" land is tenuous, and because of your excesses will most likely be short lived, and end in a terrible conflagration which you most likely will start yourselves. The "Chosen ones" are a delusional imagination by a desperate, and defective people who without true historical integrity; have been living in their present state, in a stolen land; on borrowed time. And the note will be due in due time, and you will be found in default.
And like the other "powers" of which you are a very lacking comparison, you will be a footnote in history, and most often refered to as a "negative example".
This is not a "prediction" or a "prophecy", it is a historical repetition of others who have gone before you, and like you, were too foolish to learn from history; because you "believed your own propaganda", and the great lie that you were " the chosen ones".
countcoup:Who are you calling "a desperate, and defective people"?
Of course the Zionists----
If one is born a Jew, this is one matter. To be a Zionist is quite another.
One is born what they are not out of choice (unless of course you are a Hindu, then you might wish to argue that point, but that would require a different forum than provided here) one chooses what they will be . A Zionist is one who believes that they are one of "God's Chosen Ones" and the history of the Zionists will reveal that they have contributed considerable misery to the world out of their belief, i.e. to be the "Chosen Ones".
So with that arrogant and destructive concept, the Zionists believe that to occupy Palestine while expelling the rightful occupants, with force, is acceptable behavior. The USA has been the major supporter of this concept, and this has led to more misery for the innocent in Palestine. All of this because the Zionists cannot live in peace with others; because they have designated themselves "God's Chosen". They Zionists love to recall the atrocities committed against them by the Nazis, while they perform the same type of atrocities against the Palestinians, and receive 10 Billion in aid from the USA,each year, who have and are doing the same to the Native American Tribes.
The Zionists are desperate, since they illegally and forcefully occupy territory that they have no legal claim to except that they "believe" they were granted this by some mean, vindictive, jealous, insecure God. Defective, because, that God did not deliver them to their present territory, the USA and the UN did. If the USA withdrew its multi billion dollar support, the Israelis would turn to dust and blow away with the winds.
Your question makes me realize that YOU must be a Zionist, which explains all of your former postings lack of intelligent input. You show just how desperate and defective the Zionists are, when you take offense at another's observations.
Of course there are several groups of "Americans" who support the Nazi atrocities, many of them are organized into groups that usually are comprised of individuals with low intelligent quotients, low income potentials, and some would argue, possibly "inbred Southern White Trash". Fortunately for the rest of the population they are few in numbers and marginalized; but no less dangerous. The are called, "Neo-Nazis, Skin Heads, KKK, etc.
So, to answer your question: I'm calling YOU desperate and defective, and anyone else who defends the Zionists crimes against humanity. And since there is yet no name to refer to "Zionist Supporters" they most likely should be called: 'desperate, defective, fools'................
And "if the shoe fits wear it"
Also, when anyone quotes the "Bible" or Torah, or any other publication attributed to "Gods" word; they should be asked the question. When did "God" write that book, and who was the first publisher"? Of course the answer is always, "well it was divinely inspired"; to which there is only one answer. If you are speaking of the "God" mentioned (often) in the "text", and this "God", according to the "text", created the Earth, and the rest of the Universe in only six days ---why would he need help in writing a book?
countcoup:I am a Jew. Based on my question, one line,"Who are you calling a desperate and defective people?" you write "I'm calling YOU desperate and defective...",which is revealing about you.
If you are a Jew and not a Zionist, you have my utmost respect. If you are both, then you "morph", into a desperate and defective person, who is a member of the desperate and defective people.
To be a Jew is to be member of a rather exclusive group, since Semitic DNA is very distinctive. To be a Zionist is to use that exclusivity to artificially* gain an advantage and to justify stealing an entire country that has been in the hands of others for over 2000 years. So, being a Zionist is advocating the theft of an entire country. The Zionists advocate this theft because they believe themselves to be "Gods Chosen". So they treat others, like they are the "Chosen". So now the Zionists are committing the same crimes they complain that others commit against them.
* To make this as simple as possible. I own a house, and have clear title to it.
The state and city collect taxes on that ownership based on the title, showing the "Mr. Countcoup" owns that house, clear, without encumbrances.
The Zionists have not produced a Title to Israel, either on paper, or if you like to believe the popular myth, on stone, in "Gods" hand writing, etc. Now if you submit the Torah, or the Old Testament then you open the door for the examining body to "question the Title" and then, well we could go on forever.
So if you are a "Jew", good for you, if you are a Zionist, then your days most likely are numbered, and you just may get a chance, soon, to find out if you are right about all that "God" stuff. You know, being "Gods Chosen" and all.
I hope this helped you some, and that chip on your shoulder is typical of insecurity. If you are one of "Gods Chosen" why would you be insecure?
.I seem to recall something called the "Balfour Declaration" which was the impetus for the giving of that territory to the holocaust survivors as a homeland. Is this not true? Was Balfour a Zionist? Was the British government abetting Zionism when the gave over their former colony to the survivors?
There are very real reasons to criticize the government of Israel for its treatment of the Palestinian people, some very real reasons indeed. Why not confine yourself to those reasons and leave the silly Zionism is the evil empire stuff alone?
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
countcoup: Why? You said some things I never heard before. " Jews are a people and genetically different", you said,yes? Are there other groups of people who are genetically different also? Would this Jewish genetic difference have required my father to have different treatment during his surgery in a VA hospital? You said some Jews, Zionists are "defective" and have an "inferiority complex",as "chosen people", is that right? Are all Jews born with this and if they become Zionists, the inferiority complex is triggered or is it acquired?
Incredible!
Talk of religious fanaticism!
And on that basis all the suffering in Gaza is justified?
Yes yes yes – I am sure all this self righteous indignation is only because you really really care about the Palestinians!
Breaks your heart doesn’t it.
Darfur, Chechnya, the Congo, Zimbabwe – nah!!! Don’t really give a monkeys do you!
What about the 300,000 palestinians expelled from Kuwait after Arafat supported Saddam Hussein – do you even know about it, let alone give a ****?
How about that CLOSED border Gaza shares with Egypt? Arranging a boycott Egypt campaign are we? I didn’t think so.
What wonderful humanitarians you are? Just selective humanitarians, that’s all
This poster DOES care about the Palestinians.
I routinely teach them in universities in the Middle East.
Just as I teach Latin Americans in Latin America.
Tell us about your goody goody shopping trips to the mall.
.Unnecessary and mean spirited of you.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Oh?
Hit home with my arrows, as always.
YOu know what you can do with the skeleton of Anais Nin.
.How does your unending hatred and name calling help anyone or anything? You are simply a miserable clown with a heart as big as a shriveled raisin. Oh, and you detract enormously from the forum's honest debate.
I had hesitated to even address you because you seem to lack even the most elementary self control or maturity....Yeeeeech!
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
saffron97,
The existing of a some crisises does not execuse another trajedy.!!
The examples of "Darfue , Chechnya ..etc etc " are temporary crisises and fade in
comparison to the immense human trajedy caused by the creation of Israel and expelling almost of one million Palestinian from their homes and their country sixty years ago.
The conditions in the blockaded Gaza strip are no different from the conditions
that existed in the Warsaw ghetto. People are fading slowly from lack of food
and basic health care.
SUFFERING IN GAZA JUSTIFIED!!!
You are deluded, is it not fact that Israel withdrew all civilians and military from Gaza. Is it not true that Gaza was handed back to the PA. Is it not true that the Palestinians continued to fire rockets and infiltrate soverign Israel. I have no idea where in the world you sit in your ivory tower, but I am sure that if that happened in your country you would want to defend your borders. Is it not true that Gazans chose a path of terror and not peace by allowing Hamas to take control. Is it not true that Hamas wishes to drive Israel into the sea. Is it not accepted within the moderate Arab world that this is an organisation of terror. Is it not true that you make no mention of the Egyptians not wanting terrorists on their doorstep and that the Rafah crossing is CLOSED AND CLOSED BY THE EGYPTIANS. THe Arabs have been offered peace a thousand times. They wanted Gaza they were given Gaza. But then in the words of Golda Meir: " The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity"
.Someone is deluded, for certain. Are you aware that Israel has denied access to the Shekels held by Palestinians in Israeli banks? Are you aware that Israel has embargoed humanitarian aide to the people of Gaza? Are you aware that all this began when, in 1948, the new State of Israel kicked out 750,000 residents , confiscating their homes, farms and businesses without a single cent in payment? In "The Red House" written by an Israeli historian, Ben Gurion is said to have called for the ousting of one million Arabs from what would become Israel, and that was in 1937!
Let us speak about the dropping of two five hundred Lb. bombs on an occupied apartment complex in order to kill an Hamas official, which was accomplished, along with the murder of his wife, two daughters and several residents of that building. Didn't the news just report that Israeli settlers had occupied a building in Gaza they claimed to have bought? How so if there are none in Gaza?
A fanatic sees only that which reinforces his fanaticism , most here see both sides of this sadness and understand that homeless and despairing, desperately poor Palestinians are certainly prone to sympathize and support violent reprisals , just as you support the same thing from Israel.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I’m going to try something different here, I’m only going to quote only Israeli sources and give them the benefit of the doubt. Let’s see what happens.
“I am sure that if that happened in your country you would want to defend your borders”
Isn’t that what the Palestinians believe they are doing? And for good reason. Let’s quote the father of modern Israel, David Ben-Gurion who noted, but not for publication, that: “In our polititcal argument abroad, we minimize Arab opposition to us, but let us not ignore the truth among ourselves. The truth is that politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves…the country is theirs because they inhabit it. Whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country, while we are still outside.”
“Is it not true that Gazans chose a path of terror and not peace by allowing Hamas to take control?”
Let’s quote Amos Elon a well-known Israeli writer who wrote of the “panic and unease among our political leadership” because of Arab peace proposals. Israel has in fact rejected any realistic peace overtures simply because it has most of what it wants already, illegally retained according to international law, and won’t give it up.
As for the ‘path of terror’ - any knowledge of the Deir Yassin massacre where 250 defenseless civilians were massacred (more than 100 women and children) by Menachem Begin? Or how about the massacre near Qibya where Ariel Sharon and his Israeli commandos destroyed a village, machine-gunning and hand-grenading innocent women and children ‘in reprisal’ for the killing of an Israeli woman and two children by nobody knows who. Or how about Sharon’s attack on El-Bureig refugee camp south of Gaza in 1953 where according to Isreali military sources bombs were thrown in windows of huts where refugees were sleeping and the refugees machine-gunned as they ran out of their huts.
How about the 2000 or so massacred in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps under the control, and observation by the IDF, about which Professor Yeshyahy Leivbovits of the Hebrew University wrote: “The massacre was done by us. The Phalangists are our mercenaries, as exactly as the Ukrainians and the Croations and the Slovakians were the mercenaries of Hitler, who organized them as soldiers to do the work for him. Even so have we organized the assassins in Lebanon in order to murder the Palestinians.”
Or let’s quote former chief IDF education officer Mordechai Bar-on who wrote: “There is no doubt that the war’s central aim was to deal a crushing blow to the national aspirations of the Palestinians and to their very existence as a nation endeavouring to define itself and gain the right to self-determination.” Any comments? But I guess if terrorist acts are done by your side, they don’t amount to terror.
‘But then in the words of Golda Meir: " The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity"’
But let’s not stop there, let’s quote other things by Golda Meir: “The borders of Israel are where the Jews live, not where there is a line on a map.” This explains the justification for the extension of illegal settlements; the system of bypass roads that serve as pivots of the road grid devised to ensure Israeli control and to fragment what is left of ‘Palestine’ so Israeli citizens can move from settlement to settlement without ever seeing a Palestinian village. It has been Israeli policy since Ben-Gurion to terrorize, marginalize and/or destroy the Palestinians.
Or let’s quote Prime Minister Rabin who urged that Israel: “create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein AND NOT WITH YASSAR ARAFAT.” I guess that amounts to Palestinian rejections of peace.
The Meir government in 1969 established as one of its ‘essential goals’ the ‘acceleration of the installation of military settlements and permanent agricultrual and urban settlements in the territory of the homeland.” Seems reasonable until you define the ‘homeland’ as Moshe Dayan did this way: “the settlements established in the territories are there forever, and the future frontiers will include these settlements as part of Israel.” The frontiers he had in mind? From the Golan Heights in the north to the southernmost part of the Sinai at Sharm el-Sheikh and from Gaza and northeastern Sinai to the Jorden river. All areas where the Labor government had established settlements.
Or another quote by the illustrous Milwaukee grandmother: “It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.” Somewhat problematic given the above comment by David Ben-Gurion. in her mine the Palestinians ‘did not exist’. Wishful thinking on her part.
“Is it not true that the Palestinians continued to fire rockets and infiltrate soverign Israel.”
How about the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 of which David Shipler wrote: “…this has been a different kind of war for Israel. Never before did Israel go to war when its actual existence was not threatened. Never before was it clearly responsible for initiating the fighting without being provoked by some Arab military move with devastating potential.”
You know, I could go on this way for pages – there’s such rich material by Israeli sources describing their actions and intentions, but frankly I’m wearying of it and I think you get the point. Any observations?
So you are accusing me directing personal abuse at you.
Self-awareness and irony are not one of your strong suits are they?
And by the way, ‘Palestine’ is an ancient term describing the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan – it isn’t another name for Israel. Human remains have been found there dating back to 5000 BCE. They were not ‘Jewish’ remains. The earlist non-biblical evidence suggests that Egypt (around 1200 BCE) was the first nation to mention the area we now call Palestine. Their references to the ‘Isrealis’ were as a ‘nomad people’ – not a nation. So where is the ‘claim’ for the possession you suggest – other than political actions in the 20th century to address the (well-earned) Western guilt at their ignoring of, or their complicity in, the holocaust - the Old Testament of the Bible? Neither reliable nor sufficient.
As I have mentioned before the Egypt you may be referring to is not the Egypt of today ie an arab country.
The earliest nation (still around today) that was a Nation in Israel, is the Jewish People.
Jospehus might be worth a read, among many other historical writings at the time.
The New Testament also is quite clear that jesus came from Judea (ie the Land of the Jews), not Palestine because the word itself was not invented yet.
Evidence? One more quote until you respond to the others I posted will suffice, I think; from Wikipedia: 'Niels Peter Lemche, of the Copenhagen School of Biblical Studies, submits that the picture of ancient Israel "is contrary to any image of ancient Palestinian society that can be established on the basis of ancient sources from Palestine or referring to Palestine and that there is no way this image in the Bible can be reconciled with the historical past of the region."'
The word “Palestine” was invented by the Emperor Hadrian after the Bar Kochba revolt around 130 BCE. It came from the Judean’s ancient enemies, the Philistines and was designed to obliterate the Jewish people’s nationhood – it didn’t really work now did it.
He also renamed Jerusalem, “Aolia Capitolina”, but that didn’t really stick.
BTW maybe you should google Titus’ Arch – it stands in Rome today!
I am not anti-Israel, dear Saffron. I support Israel as a nation but detest their government's aggressive behavior in the region. (Much like my relationship to the US and other imperial powers) If you think what Israel does is okay, then perform a little thought experiment. Reverse the roles between Israel and the Palestinians for a moment and see if it would be okay for the Palestinians to do to Israelis what the government of Israel does to them. And honestly let me know what you think.
And finally, dear Saffron, what I find most interesting, and revealing, about the 'dialogue' concerning Israel is that though I've held to the same position throughout the various threads, I have been attacked by bigots on opposing extremes who claim variously that I am a 'Nazi' because I suggest that the government of Israel has a dark past and a problematic present to which it must admit if it wants a realistic peace with the world, or that I am somehow a 'Zionist apologist' because I don't call for the destruction of Israel as a nation state. I am personally gratified that I hold a middle position between these two dangerous, irrational, and bigoted extremes.
Your obvious passion in the matter is not an adequate substitute for facts. Such irrational and unwarranted assumptions as yours about others’ are always trotted out when one has no rational responses. Try to do better next time.
I love the bit about you not being “anti-Israel” – made me chuckle.
I have come across trendy leftie types like you before – all cliches, unable to think beyond the Guardian op ed pages, because their friends might not talk to them anymore.
The fact is this conflict is not about borders, settlements or refugees. From day one it was about the arabs’ refusal to accept Jewish independence within any borders whatsoever. They havent exactly been shy about telling the world what their aims are.
If the only bone of contention was the contours of the new Palestine, then it could be resolved in half an hour over a cappuccino and a muffin in starbucks. 45 minutes if there is a big queue.
Meanwhile you can suggest opening the borders to let Hamas in, and you can suggest doing nothing while the missiles rain down on sderot, you can suggest any amount of unilateral concessions that Israel must make for the sake of “peace”.
You can do sure in the knowledge that you will never have to face the consequences of these actions.
Have you ever put a gas mask on during an air raid?
Have you heard a suicide bomb go off?
Have you ever seen the aftermath of a bus bombing?
Have you walked on sidewalks stained red with blood?
Do you know what its like to be unable to get hold of someone you care about in the aftermath of yet another suicide attack.
Does your family know what it is like to be a Jew living under Arab rule (as my family did in Iraq before they escaped)?
How brave you are with other peoples lives.
You know nothing about this conflict, save from what you read on the internet. For you its just a hobby isnt it?
My my tirebiter, we are in a condescendingly bitter mood arent we.
Tirebiter December 19th, 2008 1:41 pm
“Another BS quote made from many many hate sites you obviously frequent.”
A cheap shot intimating some dispicable activity in lieu of an actual response. A totalitarian-inspired technique meant to dismiss any legitimate argument, and deride its adherent, without actually having to address it. Where have I seen that technique before? Oh yeah, Germany circa 1933. Nice one.
Sorry but I am not biting – give me the sources of those quotes please. If they didn’t come from one of the hate sites I suspect your frequent then why are you being so coy?
I see, so I am trying to “deride” you am I? In the next sentence you have accused me of Nazi tactics (“Germany, circa 1933”)
Didn’t really think that one through did you?
Ah, dear Saffron, they are not 'BS' quotes as you suggest. You may not like what they reveal, but I didn’t make them up, I only reported them. That they are what they are, and reality is what it is, don’t blame me.
I know YOU didn’t make them up! I am still asking where you got the from.
And actually, no. I’ve never visited nor had to visit any hate sites. But one never has to, since you seem to bring all the hate one ever needs to see right here. And by the way all the quotes were taken from “Fateful Triangle”, by Noam Chomsky - a pretty interesting and well-documented history of the conflict. But then Chomsky, one of my favorite intellectuals, is Jewish – described by some hard-core believers as a ‘self-hating Jew’ simply because he dares to be honest in suggesting that Israel is not always the victim and its history is not as pure and innocent as it suggests.
I cant say I am surprised you like Chomsky so much.
Would this be the same Chomsky who wrote an introduction to book by an anti-Semite named Robert Faurisson who denied that the Holocaust took place, that Hitler’s gas chambers existed, that the diary of Anne Frank was authentic, and that there were death camps in Nazi occupied Europe. He claimed that the “massive lie” about genocide was a deliberate concoction initiated by “American Zionists” “and that “the Jews” were responsible for World War II. Chomsky described these and other conclusions as “findings” and said that they were based on “extensive historical research.” He also wrote that “I see no anti-Semitic implication in the denial of the existence in gas chambers or even in the denial of the Holocaust.” He said he saw “no hint of anti-Semitic implications in Faurisson’s work,” including his claim that “the Jews” were responsible for World War II.
Big fan are you?
We can trade quotes all day if you like, but please comment on the ones I posted since they responded directly to the claims you already made. Then, if you like, I'll respond to the ones you made. But my guess is you won't - save with more accusations.
Provide me with sources and I will comment.
“Did anyone notice how my quotes have sources attached to them.”
Did anyone notice how quickly you dismissed the quotes without response and started with the personal abuse simply because you don’t like anyone reporting what Jews/Israeli’s have honestly said about their relationship with the Palestinians? I apologize, dear Saffron, for making the mistake of assuming that you, being an obvious scholar of Israel, would know what mere Prime Ministers and leading intellectuals have said and written.
“The earliest nation (still around today) that was a Nation in Israel, is the Jewish People. Jospehus might be worth a read, among many other historical writings at the time. The New Testament also is quite clear that jesus came from Judea (ie the Land of the Jews), not Palestine because the word itself was not invented yet.”
Evidence other than the rather self-serving bible babble? What other 'historical writings' do you offer outside of the bible?
“The word “Palestine” was invented by the Emperor Hadrian after the Bar Kochba revolt around 130 BCE.”
This seems to contradict what you suggested above about ‘jesus came from Judea…not Palestine’, because the word ‘Palestine’ was not invented yet. How do you explain or resolve this?
“I have come across trendy leftie types like you before – all cliches, unable to think beyond the Guardian op ed pages, because their friends might not talk to them anymore.”
"Trendy leftie types?", "All cliches?", "Unable to think beyond the Guardian op ed pages...?" LOL. Say, that's pretty good. Incorrect, dismissive, but pretty good anyway. Rather than your amateurish attempts at 'pop-psychology' why not just try to respond to what I post if you can. After all, you can believe what you will about who and what I am - rightly, wrongly, and fairly or not - I can't stop you. And you can dismiss what I post just as easily - and no one will know or care - because again, I can't stop you. But if that's your only intention, then why bother?
As an aside, would you like me to post what I ‘think’ about you? It isn't particularly flattering, and I generally try to keep personalities out of it. But sometimes...
Anyway the upshot of all this verbal wrangling is you still haven't responded to what I sent - which is, I think, the point of your strategy.
“Meanwhile you can suggest opening the borders to let Hamas in, and you can suggest doing nothing while the missiles rain down on sderot, you can suggest any amount of unilateral concessions that Israel must make for the sake of “peace”.”
Never suggested any of this, but it makes for some nice fiction to support your blind and unquestioned beliefs, doesn’t it? Another neat little strategy - trying to have me defend that which I did not claim.
“Sorry but I am not biting – give me the sources of those quotes please. If they didn’t come from one of the hate sites I suspect your frequent then why are you being so coy?
Oh, Saffron, I think you underestimate yourself, you try very hard to be biting. I provided the source. Try reading what I posted – but you might actually want some context to the quotes so try reading the book, you might learn something - or you might not. Who knows? Read it, then take it or leave it. It makes no difference to me.
And some more about hate sites. My, my, same old trick of the totalitarians. How is my denying I ever visited a hate site being ‘coy’? You expect an affidavit? I think you’ve got this backwards. Shouldn’t proof of such a claim, that is, that I visit or have visited hate sites, be your burden? But it’s the same clever trick you tried earlier; immediately putting someone on the defensive to make them defend a position they never so you won't have to reply to what was suggested. Another nice one. Your masters would be proud that you learned their lesson so very well. And another nice avoidance. Not even a comment about the quotes I posted? No reaction at all? No denial that such thing were possibly said? Just pretend it didn’t happen – that’s the best way to deal with unpalatable facts. Isn't it?
But if you don't accept anybody speaking about Israel's problematic past, let's keep it simple. Do you deny the Deir Yassin massacre? Or the massacre near Qibya? Or Sharon’s attack on El-Bureig refugee camp south of Gaza. Or the massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps?
“Would this be the same Chomsky who wrote an introduction to book by an anti-Semite named Robert Faurisson who denied that the Holocaust took place....”
Ah, the Faurisson Affair. I was waiting for that. And the same technique - you don't like what is revealed so rather than addressing that, you dismiss the revealer. The fact is, Chomsky wrote the introduction to Faurisson's hateful work explaining that while Faurisson’s position was obviously that of a lunatic, he had a right to his opinion. He did not support Faurisson’s position as you suggest.
It was in a book published in France, a country which has no concept of free speech, and that was Chomsky’s point. It is a typical claim, and a typical distortion, that the propagandists you apparantly read, perhaps support, have promulgated. He didn’t agree with what Faurisson wrote, but he did support his right to say it. It is a subtle difference, but a real one. I supppose you would ban speech with which you disagree. But more importantly, it says nothing about those he quotes in Fateful Triangle. Those are what I would like your response to.
“I see, so I am trying to “deride” you am I? In the next sentence you have accused me of Nazi tactics (“Germany, circa 1933”) Didn’t really think that one through did you?”
On the contrary, dear Saffron, I wanted to get your attention (as I obviously did) and I apparently made my point. You don't like the reference - well neither do I like the one you twice accused me of. But I am only responding in kind. You want to have a nice neutral conversation about the facts surrounding the conflict, that’s fine. In fact, I’d prefer it. But I doubt that you can - at least not about Israel. You started with ad hominim attacks, and you reap what you sow. If you don’t like the technique, then don’t use it.
Another BS quote made from many many hate sites you obviously frequent.
Lets get some facts straight her.
1. There has never been an independent arab state of Palestine…..EVER! It has not existed from the dawn of time until this very day.
2. pre 48, it was the Jews who were called “Palestinians”. The arabs were called “arabs”. The largest English daily newspaper in Israel today is The Jerusalem Post – then it was called the “Palestine Post”. Bank Leumi was called the “Anglo-palstine Bank”
3. This was a war of Genocide against the Jews from the very beginning. The arabs had made no attempt to hide it.
“This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”
- Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League
(BBC, May 15, 1948)
“In demanding the return of the Palestinian refugees the Arabs mean their return as masters, not slaves, or to put it more clearly – the intention is the extermination of Israel.”
- Salah al-Din, Egyptian Foreign Minister
(Al-Misri, Egypt, October 11, 1949; quoted in Harris O. Schoenberg, A Mandate for Terror: The United Nations and the PLO [Shapolsky Books, 1989], p239)
“... collective Arab military preparations, when they are completed, will constitute the ultimate practical means for the final liquidation of Israel.”
- Arab League
(Summit Declaration, January 1964; quoted in Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World [Penguin, 2001], p230)
Did anyone notice how my quotes have sources attached to them.
No response, dear, dear Saffron? Gee, there's a shock.
“Another BS quote made from many many hate sites you obviously frequent.”
A cheap shot intimating some dispicable activity in lieu of an actual response. A totalitarian-inspired technique meant to dismiss any legitimate argument, and deride its adherent, without actually having to address it. Where have I seen that technique before? Oh yeah, Germany circa 1933. Nice one.
Ah, dear Saffron, they are not 'BS' quotes as you suggest. You may not like what they reveal, but I didn’t make them up, I only reported them. That they are what they are, and reality is what it is, don’t blame me.
And actually, no. I’ve never visited nor had to visit any hate sites. But one never has to, since you seem to bring all the hate one ever needs to see right here. And by the way all the quotes were taken from “Fateful Triangle”, by Noam Chomsky - a pretty interesting and well-documented history of the conflict. But then Chomsky, one of my favorite intellectuals, is Jewish – described by some hard-core believers as a ‘self-hating Jew’ simply because he dares to be honest in suggesting that Israel is not always the victim and its history is not as pure and innocent as it suggests.
We can trade quotes all day if you like, but please comment on the ones I posted since they responded directly to the claims you already made. Then, if you like, I'll respond to the ones you made. But my guess is you won't - save with more accusations.
“Did anyone notice how my quotes have sources attached to them.”
Did anyone notice how quickly you dismissed the quotes without response and started with the personal abuse simply because you don’t like anyone reporting what Jews/Israeli’s have honestly said about their relationship with the Palestinians? I apologize, dear Saffron, for making the mistake of assuming that you, being an obvious scholar of Israel, would know what mere Prime Ministers and leading intellectuals have said and written.
And by the way, ‘Palestine’ is an ancient term describing the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan – it isn’t another name for Israel. Human remains have been found there dating back to 5000 BCE. They were not ‘Jewish’ remains. The earlist non-biblical evidence suggests that Egypt (around 1200 BCE) was the first nation to mention the area we now call Palestine. Their references to the ‘Isrealis’ were as a ‘nomad people’ – not a nation. So where is the ‘claim’ for the possession you suggest – other than political actions in the 20th century to address the (well-earned) Western guilt at their ignoring of, or their complicity in, the holocaust - the Old Testament of the Bible? Neither reliable nor sufficient.
Evidence? One more quote until you respond to the others I posted will suffice, I think; from Wikipedia: 'Niels Peter Lemche, of the Copenhagen School of Biblical Studies, submits that the picture of ancient Israel "is contrary to any image of ancient Palestinian society that can be established on the basis of ancient sources from Palestine or referring to Palestine and that there is no way this image in the Bible can be reconciled with the historical past of the region."'
I am not anti-Israel, dear Saffron. I support Israel as a nation but detest their government's aggressive behavior in the region. (Much like my relationship to the US and other imperial powers) If you think what Israel does is okay, then perform a little thought experiment. Reverse the roles between Israel and the Palestinians for a moment and see if it would be okay for the Palestinians to do to Israelis what the government of Israel does to them. And honestly let me know what you think.
And finally, dear Saffron, what I find most interesting, and revealing, about the 'dialogue' concerning Israel is that though I've held to the same position throughout the various threads, I have been attacked by bigots on opposing extremes who claim variously that I am a 'Nazi' because I suggest that the government of Israel has a dark past and a problematic present to which it must admit if it wants a realistic peace with the world, or that I am somehow a 'Zionist apologist' because I don't call for the destruction of Israel as a nation state. I am personally gratified that I hold a middle position between these two dangerous, irrational, and bigoted extremes.
Your obvious passion in the matter is not an adequate substitute for facts. Such irrational and unwarranted assumptions as yours about others’ are always trotted out when one has no rational responses. Try to do better next time.
-The violence unleashed on Palestinian children will, one day, be the violence unleashed on Israeli children. This is the tragedy of Gaza. This is the tragedy of Israel.-
Isn't it true that all this is an Israeli reaction to decades of terrorism against them and their children? Do you think that only Gazans remember injustices? If Israels schools and coffee shops and buses werent besieged, this discussion would not be taking place.
I abhor all the violence aimed at civilians, but it is a fact of modern political conflict. And you must remember, Israel is an occupying force. All occupiers, whatever their intentions, end up brutalizing the occupied and create a legitimate reaction to occupation. Iraq and Afghanistan currently come to mind, but history is filled with legitimate armed struggle against occupation.
And yes, I agree, the decisions made by current and past leaders always have consequences paid for by subsequent leaders - and their people. Israel, unless it changes its course of action - something I think now impossible to do for domestic political reasons - wlll be a pariah nation - save in the US where self-delusion is king. If countries had souls, I would venture to guess that Israel has lost its soul in pursuing what it calls its security.
I was there when ALL the Jews--forcibly in many cases--were yanked out of Gaza so that the Israelis could make it into Auschwitz.
For more than 30 years before then Gaza was a pesthole of Palestinian poverty.
You don't sit in an ivory tower, as you have no academic credentials--but sitting there in your Barcalounger watching the world roll by on Fox News is hardly knowing what's happening around the world.
Gringo ignorance, which goes hand in glove with arrogance, knows no bounds.
"You don't sit in an ivory tower, as you have no academic credentials-but sitting there in your Barcalounger watching the world roll by on Fox News is hardly knowing what's happening around the world."
And you know all of what's happening around the world do you? I wonder. And what relevant academic credentials do you possess?
"Gringo ignorance, which goes hand in glove with arrogance, knows no bounds."
Still singing the same tune eh, Serena.
'Gringo ignorance'? My you tend to the abusive, don't you? And repetitive as well. Didn't you say you were at one time an American? My Spanish isn't particularly good, but wouldn't that make you a gringa? If so, what's the difference except sex? All I read here is your own bitterness and accusations.
I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist. The angry and only marginally rational parts of your posts, not to mention your reflexive hostility, make you such an easy, and well-deserved, target.
signed,
tar baby
Tarpaper:
We have had this conversation already.
'Tarpaper' now, well, at least it's something. Not the quality of insult from you I expect to hear, but then I probably overestimate your abilities. My mistake for assuming that you were more than childishly petulant. Serena, you disappoint - probably not the first time you've heard that in life is it?
And it's not conversation dear Serena, it's therapy. You trot out your neuroses for all to see and we just point them out for you. What I find truly astounding is that with all the time you obviously spend saving the world, at least acording to you, is how you find the time to stoop to repeatedly reveal your obvious shortcomings to us poor mortals for such easy ridicule. What next? I wonder.
signed,
tar baby
Keep believing in fairy tales and feed your wishful thinking.
I am amazed that in the 21 st. century, there are still people
like you who are so blinded by ignorance and hate.
A rather naive and self-serving view, I think, and one from which legitimate international borders should not automatically be drawn in the current world.
"The Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Nazis etc etc etc etc are all gone – who’s still standing?"
You seem to presume that history is at an end and all will be as it is forever. I suggest this defies even a brief acquaintance with history's perfidy. Contrary to your passionate claim, there are still Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and yes, even Nazis alive and 'standing' in the world; but if what you believe is your 'victory' over them makes you happy or gives you satisfaction - well, you're welcome to it.
Angry response deleted by author.
yes, quite hopeless. vengeance continues to make the world go round.
MICHAEL ROLOFF
Member Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute and Society
this LYNX will LEAP you to all my HANDKE project sites and BLOGS:
http://www.roloff.freehosting.net/index.html
"MAY THE FOGGY DEW BEDIAMONDIZE YOUR HOOSPRINGS!" {J. Joyce}
Tirebiter - "I suggest that right now the best that can be done by Americans is to compel their government to withdraw US support for Israel's expansionism and illegal actions. Because as it is now, America and Israel, behave with the same disregard for international norms and as long as the US gets away with it, Isreal will."
It is a while since I posted on Common Dreams, and this comment sums up why I keep coming back here. This is the only place where you will find people with straightforward, sensible suggestions to sort out the Israel/Palestine problem. Why did we the British, appoint Tony Bliar as "special envoy to the Middle East"? It can't be because we wanted to help, cure or solve. Every time the US gets involved at official, state level, they send someone like John Bolton over there. When Jimmy Carter tries to find some common ground and speak words of wisdom, he is ridiculed by the US administration and the Israeli government. The US control the UN, so that the UN is incapable of acting fairly. In order for things to happen on the World stage, the US needs to have it's "big stick" taken away. If Israel is continually backed by the US, then nothing will ever change or improve for the Palestinians.
Well said and a "direct hit"; the U.S.A. has had a tenuous hold on its own territory, when taking into consideration their own short comings in regards to the many "unanswered questions" concerning the "title" to their possessions.
It would be absurd to expect Israel to be fair and even handed when their largest supporter , 10 billion annually, has the market cornered on illegal possession of territory with little or no truth to the acquisition.
When Jimmy Carter was president he showed a very poor performance. See Howard Zinn's 'A Peoples History of the United States', where he also elaborates upon the U.S. history of the same behavior as the Israelis.
If you take the Old Testament version of the "Jews History",* they have been some blood thirsty savages from the begining; who most likely got exactly what they deserved from the Romans, that is, expelled from their own country, because they would not keep their word, could not be trusted, and were delusional about 'divine authority' ( wait, that sounds like the U.S.A. doesn't it?)
* In reality the "Jews" or "Israel" cannot prove antiquity any farther back than the Hellenistic era, and Alexander the Greats scribes/chroniclers had little to say about the "Jews", so how powerful could they have been even then. After 80ad, no Jew was allowed to enter Jerusalem except for one day each year; for 500 years (the late Roman era). This was a powerful statement the Romans were making to others. The Jews had not been a powerful military force, but a troublesome faction of fanatics who could not be trusted and the Romans used them as a very pointed statement; Keep your word, or loose it all.
Then in 1948, the U.S.A. and its puppet the UN made a terrible mistake and reestablished a blood thirsty savage "pox" upon the Middle East; and there has been no peace since. And the Americans lament often that nobody likes them.
Boycott Israel
http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-faq.html
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
An Islamic Jihad militant has been killed by Israeli forces near the West Bank city of Jenin.
According to the Israeli military, 20-year-old Jihad Nawhda was shot while trying to escape arrest and died on the way to the hospital.
Palestinian witnesses said he was ambushed outside a cafe and the Israeli forces fired without warning.
Islamic Jihad fired a number of rockets into southern Israel from Gaza in retaliation for the killing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now the Jews of Israel have created another excuse to starve the children of Palestine.
Let's put our hearts, bodies, & brains to work in snuffing out anti-Muslimism Hate Speech, terrorism against all Islamic people, murder & carnage in Iraq, engineered ethnic cleansing in GAZA ... all of it almost as Vicious and Hateful as HORRIBLE AND UGLY ANTI-SEMITISM.
"Bomb tossing Isamofascists want to kill us," is downright hateful... anti-Palestinianism wow, is that ever hurtful even to the point of outright murder; and Zionist cries to bomb and murder innocent Iranian children ...and ...
But Abraham Foxman and ADL are on the job - protecting innocents from hateful hate speech and hurtful acts, as you know
And Google is doing great market research on responses to Chris Hedges tears for humanity; and ...
It is interesting to note that we in Canada have a theocratic Prime Minister who supports this absolutely and without any question whatsoever.
For ideological reasons, you understand.
George C. Brown - When are we in this country wake up to the inhumane behavior of the Israeli government? Hardly any of the folks inside the Beltway act as if they are aware of the "Planned Attrition" that is the overt policy of the Israeli government almost from the beginning of the modern State of Israel - even ben Gurion, who originally talked of having peaceful and neighborly relations with the Palestinians of the West Bank (and also of the Gaza Strip), within his first year of office changed his tune, and actually used the term "Planned Attrition." Still, no one speaks out against this kind of policy for fear of being called "Anti-Semitic"; but here we are, seeing The Holocaust revisited. Forget AIPAC; create Justice!
Our local newspaper never mentions Israel, except perhaps to announce that Simon Peres has received a humanitarian peace prize in the UK. Five years ago they ran an AP story about the Palestinian uprising which included a photo of some Palestinians running around a big fire in the middle of the night with their faces smeared in black grease-paint looking like a bunch of godless heathens. If they could have found a photo of some wild-eyed Palestinian person biting off the head of a snake it probably would have made the newspaper. Israeli Intelligence probably couldn't find any actors willing to do that for union scale.
I find the whole "God told us we were allowed to steal X's land" thing just slightly hard to get my brain around.
If God told me to butcher George Bush and feed his corpse to the pigs, I would be locked up in a nuthouse - and rightly so.
But God tells Moses to slaughter the Amalekites (their sin: they defended their property from trespass). 3000 years later that's the basis for a claim to a chunk of Judea.
As Chris Rock might say: That shit ain't right. In fact, that shit's fucked UP.
The Eastern-European riffraff that is now claiming a connection to 'Israel', is about as much Semite as I am Zulu. The Palestinians are the ethnic Semites.
It's shameful that a decent chunk of the population of the relatively-enlightened civilised West still cling to primitive tribalism and belief in a Sky Wizard who likes eating the ends of foreskins.
That shit ain't right.
Cheers
GT
GT's Market Rant
AGREE....
much of the Bible is a bunch of MYTHS , superstitious NONSENSE elevated to mythical "blessedness" and "chosenhood"...to justify rape, pillage, and theft of land from other inhabitants.
it doesn't really matter which peoples did that -- but in the case of the "god of israel" and "the chosen people" -- that is the way it is justified.
"this land is ours because god said so".
modernize it 3 thousand or so years later:
Europeans come to the americas - particularly the USA - and what happens?
"GOD SAID we have to escape europe because the Kings were too oppressive by claiming GOD TOLD THEM SO...so here WE are in america to tell the native indians to give up this land...because god SAID SO...and of course god said black people are subhuman so we can make them work like cattle so we can live FREELY and HONOR god with OUR hard WORK".......
modernize it some more and "GOD BLESS AMERICA" -- she Goes abroad in search of people who hate US "because of our freedoms"....over there THOUSANDS of miles away, east, west and south .....because GOD BLESSED AMERICA in her ways of gathering the world's resources unto ourselves in our Land of the Free.......and god TOLD US to tell that to other people, .........OR ELSE!!!
even our friends in Israel that GOD chose agree with us....although israelis and jews really will HAVE to one day ACCEPT the Lord Jesus as their personal lord and savior ........or ELSE.......
teddy:your last line suggests James Carroll's "Constantine's Sword", a really fine book, for the history and basis of the Church's hatred of Jews. Another version of it, same title, is documentary.
It certainly ain’t right. One problem is that the term ‘religion’ is applied to beliefs that are totally different in their objectives. And we can easily throw the baby out with the bathwater. For example, tribal monotheism (my God is bigger than yours) was set up to maintain morale, cohesion and order among the Israelites. Islam is very similar and was set up for similar reasons. A lot of ritual is just common sense but is made out to be God’s law to make sure people do it. No boy wants to have a piece of his dick cut off but it actually makes sense in a desert culture because if you don’t then after a few years of having sand under your foreskin you are very likely to get a very bad infection. Or, roast pork tastes real good but without refrigeration pork goes off and you can die if you eat it so just don’t eat it, and so on. On the contrary, if people actually followed ideas like the golden rule or the eight-fold path (from religions that originally were set up around the idea that my God is your God) things would probably get a lot better.
Considering the tragic history of the Jews for the last (is it three?) thousand years, having suffered persecution, evictions, inquisitions, and recently, the holocaust, it seems that this shameful behavior would be unimaginable for an Israeli citizen to even consider. But here we have, once again, the horrible brutality of man against man, with the meek inheriting the earth in order to continue persecuting the meek. It's such a vicious cycle, and yet, you would think that if anyone had learned that tragic mistake, it would have been the Israeli's.
rebelnow: I accidentally "lost" my first draft as I looked for Amos Oz memoir title,"A Tale of Love and Darkness". Oz is an Israeli novelist, born a year before me,1939. His memoir was a point of view I'd not heard:kind of mixed.
I came into learning about Israel and Palestine very reluctantly, as a NYC Jew, an American. The US media is one sided, as we know. I learned from Pacifica's WBAI www.wbai.org radio station in NYC, which includes DemocracyNow. It took me awhile, but I really like Phyllis Bennis' work at Institute for Policy Studies, www.ips-dc.org Chomsky has done a lot on the subject. Both are Jews. I suggest people look at the website of Jews Against the Occupation of Palestine www.jatonyc.org. A good group.
My main point was/is that governments are not " people". "The state" turns into something. I would have thought Israel would not do what it's done/doing after the Holocaust in Europe. But, alas no.
I started with this in first draft: it's 2000 years. James Carroll, lays out the story in "Constantine's Sword", why the Church hates Jews,a long history culminating in the Holocaust in Europe. I read a lot of the book, stopping when it got theological. (I am an atheist Jew.) There is a documentary, same title, but not a direct "book into movie". The book is very good. James Carroll is often on CD, happily.
(trying to erase double post)
Jews are some of the best and worst people. From the most scientific, artistic, literate, egalitarian, peaceful and liberal to the most superstitious, jingoist, greedy, warmongering and conservative.
In short, Jews are just like everybody else.
This is TRUE -- on both ends. jews have given the world some of the most exemplary demonstrations of utter humanity ...and now some of the most heinous crimes. i am speechless at what is happening in gaza imposed by israel.
i had told some israeli friends long ago:
in my opinion -- what israel has slipped into is it has become its own version of the germans against jews 50 years ago..just that you found your own justifications for it...you found your OWN "jews to exterminate" or oppress and treat as subhumans -- the palestinians.
¿ Does anyone know of a morally "good" Zionist ?
Saudi Arabia offered a peace treaty to Israel in which all Arab governments would recognize Israel, and Israel never accepted it. Then the Likudniks will still say, "The Arabs want to threaten Israel's right to exist."
What's happening in Gaza demonstrates why religions of all kinds should be banned, thrown on the scrapheap of history.
In Gaza we have fanatical Jews battling fanatical Muslims with no end in sight to the hatred and killing. In India we have Muslims battling Hindus. In Iraqi we have Christian capitalists killing two separate groups of Muslims to get oil.
Let's give religion a miss. It's all a bunch of silly, fanciful superstition anyway!
www.dangerouscreation.com
Banning religions would change nothing. People who want to dominate others will use ‘the best tools in the box’. In many cases this includes religion. But there are many other tools. If religion was banned crimes against humanity would continue only the methods would change. Most political ideology – communism, for example – looks OK in theory but is a disaster when in the hands of tyrants. The problem is not religion, not politics, not resources – it is those people who are self-centred, greedy and morally bankrupt. And there happen to be a lot of them in leadership positions.
ABSOLUTELY brilliant in pinning down how greedy, selfish , powerhungry folks will always find a way to twist things .
religion of course is one of the most EFFECTIVE, and for that reason alone might best be gotten rid of or at least relegated to a status of cultishness that they mostly are anyway, especially those that claim a certain "divine" PERSONALITY that controls everything. but it is true that any ideology can be made to serve selfish , tyrannical designs.
I agree about the religious ban.
What is happening in Gaza and in particular the Mid East is not religious in origins but Geo-political.
The Jews were expelled from Jerusalem in 79 CE (current era) after having broken treaties with Rome three times. They were 'reestablished" by the Allies in 1948 as a method to permanently place an Allied presence in the area. They have enjoy a tremendous amount of support with money and technological aid and none of the assistance has been legally supportable. Zionism is simply an another method for the world powers to maintain an illegal hold on what in 1948 was known to be the future area of conflict.
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and several other smaller "nations" were established by the same allies who would win WWI.
Now the religious fanatics are lining up to die for their cause, without really understanding that they are just players, much like chess pieces that others move at will for their own enrichment.
Israel does not have the right to exist at the expense of the Palestinian people, any more than any other people have the right to do the same.
Even the U.S.A. exists at the expense of the Native Peoples.
All of these injustices compel others to justify terrible acts of violence in the quest for "justice".
If there were the existence of a God, it would be difficult even for a God to justify one people existing at the expense of another.
Human kind has a very long way to go to reach enlightenment, Religion has never been anything but a poor excuse for one group to hold power over another. "If" humankind can keep from destroying itself it may out grow the need for a "God", and accept repsonsibility for their own actions.
As Mark Twain once said "If is the middle word of l-if-e"
Brilliantly stated.
I agree about the geo-political dimensions but that doesn't exclude the religious aspect, Countcoup. It's a mixture of many things.
Your comment about religion being a poor excuse for one group to hold power over another is right on!
Religion is a money-making fraud that makes what Madoff did a mere trifle.
Cheers.
Harvey,
The Zionist War Party In America
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=234
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5061.htm
'Israelization' of U.S. Middle East policy proceeds apace !!!!!!
Its only 60 years of Ethnic Cleansing supported by the USA with $10 Billion/year !!!
Most of the comments show that people have drunk the "religion" kool-aid... wake up, it's the [control of] oil and oil pipeline routes.
http://freepublictransit.org
The idea that we Americans are collectively responsible for the genocide of middle eastern goyim may have some merit....especially among those who are being arrested, tortured and murdered by our (ahem)ally, Israel. If we really enjoy freedom of speech and assembly...and if we really object to the Nazi-like behavior of Zionist Jews toward (non-Jews), in this case, Palestinians, then who or what is keeping us from screaming boody murder from our own rooftops? Maybe we are, but the preponderance of Jews in the American corporate media propaganda stream mitigates against the dissemination of that information. Say, who owns the airwaves, anyway?
"So, maybe the same will happen to Palestine-Israel. They'll get tired of the killings and live with one another, side by side -- Muslim by Jew."
Oh. You mean like before the Eastern European Khazar invasion which began in the early 1900's, culminating in the declaration of the Theocratic "Jewish" State of Israel, when indigenous Jews and Arabs lived together in peace. Please re-read Graeme's comment from above, reproduced below.
Graeme December 15th, 2008 1:34 pm
Yeah, except the Jews fought on the side of the Muslims during the Crusades, defending their common cities against European aggression. This is worse.
-- EKATON --
Maybe we can learn from the English--they never conquered the Irish, as they conquered the Scots and the Welsh. So they kept on fighting for hundreds of years. Finally, each side got tired of the killings and decided to live and let live. So, the Irish live side by side with the British--protestant by catholic.
So, maybe the same will happen to Palestine-Israel. They'll get tired of the killings and live with one another, side by side--Muslim by Jew. A neutral 3rd party to get the two sides together will help as would the US withdrawing all its military and financial help to Israel.
The english did not conquer the Scots. In the 1600s it was a Scottish King who took the throne of England; James I. They are a very canny bunch, the Scots, for centuries now the english think they have ruled their own country.
Taking as given the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank amount to 'crimes against humanity', what can be realistically done about it?
Condemn Israel in the UN? Been done before - so what? What did it change? Nothing but give hard-line Isreali-imperialists a laugh.
Mount a 'coalition of the willing' to join forces into a military expedition into Israel? Not likely to happen. Most nations don't care about the Palestinians - not even the Arabs who use the plight of the Palestinians to rightly condemn Israel but do nothing to acutally address the conflict. And the US? Until the US works out its own paranoia and imperialism we are not the ones to 'fix' the conflict in Palestine. We're largely responsible for its existence.
Since the first infitada, Palestinians have rejected Isreali hegemony in 'Palestine' but have not had the power to change the situation. In their comparative military impotence they use the weapons of the weak - comparatively ineffective missiles, suicide bombers, and terror. They don't have the high-tech weapons we give.sell the ISraelis. But at one time they had the opportunity to use world opinion as a weapon, but Arafat pissed it away while posing as the great leader.
The whole world bewails the plight of the Palestinians, but nobody really gives a damn. Nobody is going to do anything about it. It is and will remain a running sore reminding us all .
The same thing was true of the 1 millon victim Armenian genocide 100 years ago, the 20 million killed by the Soviet government 80 years ago, the 12 million killed by the German state sixty years ago, the 3 million killed by Cambodian madness thirty years ago, the 2 million killed in SE Asia by American madness thirty years ago - not to mention the hundreds of thousands of killings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not to diminish the plight of the victims, but in light of these disasters, Israeli's killing madness is frankly second-rate.
I suggest that right now the best that can be done by Americans is to compel their government to withdraw US support for Israel's expansionism and illegal actions. Because as it is now, America and Israel, behave with the same disregard for international norms and as long as the US gets away with it, Isreal will.
"Most nations don't care about the Palestinians - not even the Arabs who use the plight of the Palestinians to rightly condemn Israel but do nothing to acutally address the conflict."
I'm glad someone is in the real world here and realize there are a lot of folks involved in this mess..
( you left out the approximately 2 million Vietnamese killed by the NVA and Viet Cong)
And the reason that America is telling Isreal to bottle up Gaza? I still don't know what the possible reason could be.
wellll...if some people are going to remind us of the millions killed by the vietcong -- to somehow diffuse how many were killed or caused to die by the americans in Indochina...we might as well not forget how at least 10 million native indians were genocidally gotten rid of by america -- and we might as well remember the 20 million africans demanded by the american slave trade and plantations and industries to build its wealth foundation.........
u know, just trying to make sure EVERYONE's story is here......
i mean if we're going to talk about GENOCIDE as it came to be known by the 20th century - where we are counting in the MILLIONS --
20 million by stalin from georgia once he made himself dictator in russia -
the 12-16 million by hitler
the millions others in their respective regions...
in the "modern" era of NATIONS that we recognize today ....
which ONE has had the greatest number collected?
it's the USA.
10 million indians , plus 20 million africans that died as slaves.
30 million PLUS.
PRECEDING hitler, stalin , pol pot, idi amin , vietcong, the french in morocco, and modern day israel.
"to somehow diffuse how many were killed or caused to die by the americans in Indochina"
How did you reach that conclusion?
"not forget how at least 10 million native indians were genocidally gotten rid of by america"
Simply not true. See above.
By the way, you should check out your figures on slaves in Anerica. There were about 22 million slaves taken from Africa and about 4% at most were brought to America. 20 million slaves were killed? Don't think so.
.Thomas, Your figures fail to include those enslaved who were already residing here. I have seen estimates of millions slaughtered by the invading and conquering conquistadors, especially, Cortez, Pizarro and Ponce de Leon.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
bligh4
I assume that when you say "Americans" killed all the slaves of the slave trade, and killed many of the natives of North American and South American continent- you are not talking about only what happened in the future and current borders of the United States.
Anyone that has cracked a history book would know that fully 95% of the slaves in the slave trade (not counting the 11-20 million in the Arab slave trade) went to other places in the hemisphere than the future United States. The most concentrated Native American societies were likewise mostly located elsewhere.
Not to excuse the behavior of the US government- but if you want to find the prime perpentrators look to the Spanish, Portuges, Brazilian, and English. Probably in that order.
I believe that I requested a reference from you about the statement that you made in a recent posting that the stories of Americans slaughtering the innocent Native Peoples was, I believe your words were to the effect, an overblown rumor, etc.
Now that you have mentioned 2mil Vietnamese killed by the NVA and Vietcong, I am moved to rebut that figure, with the simple statement that it was the Americans who killed that many Vietnamese, which would have been slightly half of the over all population of Vietnam in 1960 (UN estimates). So if your assertion is correct, there should not have been anyone left in Vietnam when the Americans finally left in 1975.
Please help me with my lack of information with some references; or forgive my ignorance.
You seem to make many postings often using conjecture and "misinformation", is there a particular reason for that?
Thank you
First, by historical record most native Americans died from disease, not Genocide as was being claimed. Sort of like the smallpox claim for example, no one at that time knew anything about germs, seems strange that settlers would be practicing a form of warfare that no one knew anything about.
I simply was rejecting the genocide fabrication put out by Churchill and others. I did not say at any time there weren't many native Americans killed by settlers and vice versa. These guys were't defenceless little cowards. Most were warriors even before they were hunters. And skilled warriors. Read the histories of the tribes themselves, what we have left and you'll find they were usually fighting each other. Many people miss that some of these fights were traditional and weren't for killing exactly. I believe you know what I mean.
"Now that you have mentioned 2mil Vietnamese killed by the NVA and Vietcong"
That was my bad. Never post when you are in a hurry. Two million was the total number of civilian casualties, not the number killed by the NVA and VC. My apologies.
We estimated we killed around 1.1 million soldiers, the Viet Namese claimed it was 1.2 million, an NVA col. told me it was a little over 1.25 million so I'd believe its around that figure.
We estimated that around 1 to 1.25 million civilians were killed at the time, the Viet Namese claimed two million. It could easily be anywhere in this range.
Our estimates of those killed by the NVA and VC ranged from 650,000 to 800,000. 650,000 is a minimum based on reports at the time...I personally have no doubt of these figures.
I have no idea why the UN would say Viet Nam had a population of about 6-8 million. Our information then was around 57 million. Hanoi claimed 50 to 60 million. Its over 80 million today.
"You seem to make many postings often using conjecture and "misinformation", is there a particular reason for that?"
A well phrased insult. My congratulations.
The reason is I'm not writing a term paper with footnotes or attribution. And in case you missed it, very few things posted here are. But you can check my figures or thoughts (other than opinions) most anywhere. The Smithsonian has the best information on the "Indian Wars", though you can find a lot of information in Army historical files.
Thomas - they were here all over the country. Now they are not. What happened?
There were diseases, of course. Europeans' ranks had been severly thinned and culled leaving the more immune to carry the diseases. Europeans, while not knowing the formal germ theory of disease, had enough practical knowledge to shun and stay away from people with communicable diseases. They knew diseases were catchy.
And I agree that some tribes knew how to fight, but did not own guns at first. Some did not and were agrarian people with plenty of space.
But you cannot deny the formal forcible evictions to far away places, such as the Trail of Tears. You cannot deny the ubiquitous smaller evictions scattered all over as new folks moved in and WANTED. So many had guns and an attitude of being the real human beings.
I have seen the orders that George Washington issued to evict the people from the Finger Lakes region in New York or, if they refused to move, kill them. That document survived. How many others were there that were followed and then were discarded and crumbled and flew away in a field?
Joe
TM:
You are like a broken record denying genocide against Native Americans.
Next you will have us believe that you have personally spent the last 30 years in a jail cell with Leonard Peltier.
And The Trail of Tears never existed.
And Kit Carson was just a t.v. actor.
Where DO they find folks like you, anyway?
YOU (plural) are the reason that the US is such a pesthole of racism and hatred of everybody else on the planet.
bligh4
Actually, the total killed for the Vietnam War (American Phase) was approximatley 1.7 million-including NVA -VC kia, civilians killed by the NVA-VC, civilians killed by US, SVA troops kia, and civilians killed by the SVA.
These totals do not include the french-Indochina war, the 100,000 civilians killed by the NVA in the final 1975 offensive, the 170,000 killed in the re-education camps, or the 600k that perished fleeing Vietnam.
So, unless you want to count EVERY death in Vietnam as caused by the US, the killing was enthusiastically participated in by all parties involved.
Thanks for your time, but do you have a reference/citation which could be refered to?
bligh4
Sure, one of them is Twentieth Century Atlas -death tolls. Gives a wide range of death tolls for various wars and events by citation- and then gives a median.
The only truly realistic thing that can be done about these crimes , by Israel and the U.S.A., is to take the perpetrators to trial.
The only truly just act would be to take the U.S. Criminals, i.e. G.W. Bush and Co., then the Israeli culprits. Build a prison especially for them, and keep them there for long sentences.
Just to make a small comparison,
Millions of U.S. and world citizens thought for ten years that O.J. Simpson "got away with Murder". But when he was eventually convicted it was for a crime that would have netted a very small amount of money, over material items that would eventually turned to dust, unless more was spent to artificially preserve them.
O.J. in his arrogance thought that he was "untouchable" and the amount of sympathy he now has from the world would if converted to "matter",e.g.. powder or dust, would not even fill a thimble.
At least now O.J. is not a threat to anyone, outside of a state correctional facility in Nevada; far away from the rest of us. The same should be the case for all who commit crimes, whether nations or "old football stars". The sentences should reflect the crimes.
Justice always finds a way to bring itself to light. Whether it is an acceptable form depends upon who is applying it, and to whom.
Here is a toxic mix: religion, nationalisn, fear, and the Jewish collective memory of the searing Holocaust. The solution (that word has a such an ugly connotation) will come when one gives in, surrenders. Something bad will probably have to happen to create the dialectic that will finally spur the end to this madness.
Is there a diplomat out there who can broker a peace with such enemies?
This situation in Gaza is NOT comparable to the ghetto in Warsaw. In the Warsaw ghetto folks could go in and out to work and there was access for food.
This situation is more like Auschwitz--it is a giant concentration camp!
You folks should start reading-- or re-reading what Edward Said had to say about Gaza--even back in the 1990s before they moved out the Jews so that they could seal it up like Auschwitz.
And I didn't have to say a word. How satisfying. I'm curious to see the quality of your next 'last post' - or how long it is before you start the name-calling.
signed,
Tar baby - from this point on, and for your benefit only, an apt epithet. How fortuitous that your choice of insult coincides with my predilections.
bligh4
"In the Warsaw ghetto folks could go in and out to work and there was access to food"
Are you kidding? On what planet was this true?