Israel DOES target civilians and has before. Lebanon is a prime example. I will be urging urging investigations into war cimes by Israel on the Palestinian public, as well as investigations and criminal actions against the U.S. for supplying the weapons, including phosphorous, used in both attacks. Shame on Israel and the U.S. who think they are above international law. I think global public pressure to hold both accountable may change that -- maybe not tomorrow, but hopefully in the future there will be charges in the International Criminal Court for murdering a defenseless population of civilians with no where to run, no resources with which to live normal lives -- thanks to Israel. It is important to note that there are many Jewish/Israeli people who do not agree with what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinian people.

Gaza To Be The Undoing Of Zionism

"Based on?"

"Gaza looking more and more like the Warsaw Ghetto."

The Zionists are so bat shit crazy they would bomb their own Israeli civilians and nuke their own cities if Hamas managed to fire rockets from within Israel.

Hey guys, the only way to deal with the likes of Zionist shills like Liobhan and Letto is to ignore them. They only vomit up the lies with which they are indoctrinated. Even the most passionate defenders of the Palestinian cause (like Edward Said) have acknowledged the exceptional nature of the Jewish predicament(i.e. European antisemitism and its culmination in the Hitlerian extermination program) that gave rise to the creation of Israel and admit that these historical facts, like the fact of Israel's creation itself, must be dealt with in as compassionate and realistic a fashion as possible, because in any case they're not going to go away. All the invocations of genetics cited in the above posts (both pro and contra Israel) are exercises in futility, proving nothing and adding only to the fairy-tale approach to history typical of the worldviews of both Zionists and antisemites. It means nothing, in any moral or metaphysical sense, that an Israeli-born Jew might have more Slavic or Germanic blood than his solidly Semitic Palestinian neighbor, or that the same Palestinian's cousin might have the blue eyes of some Crusader who raped an ancestor of his or hers, or that another Israeli might be as Semitic as the scribes who wrote the Hebrew Bible. A good number of today's Greeks are "genetically" as Turkish as the Turks they hate, many of whom are themselves part Greek. Many of the remains of Early Christians found in Italian tombs have proved "genetically" Semitic (i.e., belonging to Christianized Jews), but this certainly doesn't mean that Italians have any right to settle the Holy Lands. An Israeli who is born an Israeli cannot help that fact, and cannot help that injustices may have been committed for him or her to be born an Israeli; by the same token a Palestinian is born into his or her world without choice. We become what we are by what we do, not by who our distant ancestors were. And it is precisely in this respect that today's Israel sins grievously, regardless of fantastical divine rights granted by scribes or the historical political rights granted by guilt-ridden European politicians. For it is in the simple lack of human compassion, the adamant refusal to accept the tragic historical circumstance of the people alongside whom destiny has placed the Jews of Israel (which mirrors their own prior and current tragedy), the cynical manipulation of Palestinian acts of despair to "justify" the systematic destruction of a people, their land, their history, their culture, their very ability to live lives that we could call acceptably human, that the political class of Israel, and their supporters and enablers at home and abroad, in the U.S., Europe, the Arab lands, and anywhere else, deserve the harshest reprobation that we in our unbowed consciences reserve for them. May History prove more clement to them than they have been to their victims.

Falk's statement is wholly right, excellent; even explicitly making it clear that in his, while I'll add also my and many other people's views, the treatment of Saddam Hussein was and remains condemnable! Excellent way to complete this statement of condemnation of Israeli leadership's extremely criminal, rogue conduct, and that of every government complicit with Israel's crimes. EXCELLENT! Brief, but says all we really need to understand.

Actually, and regarding the article by Prof. Francis A. Boyle for which there's a link in my prior post in this page or on this article at CD, I take my words back in part. I just read the article and agree that the Israeli leadership, government [and] military, needs to be prosecuted; but I disagree with Boyle about former Yugoslavian President Milosevic. Perhaps I'm mistaken in that latter respect, but having read what I have read and from [respectable] analysts, ..., who are independent, unlike Boyle, for he is prof. of intl law, etc., and that means that he's to be considered as more potentially biased in terms of the so-called value of the intl law governing body, the UNSC, ICC, etcetera; well, having read what I have read, from respectable independent persons, I disagree with Boyle on President Milosevic, who was not tried by the ICC, but [assassinated]. That [was] the purpose of the ICC; to basically assassinate him and in a way that would not have the immediate apparence of assassination, but, instead, a supposedly fair, just process of law and through which his health simply could not withstand the duress. The ICC made sure to intensify the duress to the point of making it of a killing nature, or perhaps used medications, whatever, that made the process of killing him easier, while maintaining the apparence of non-inflicted death. One way or another, it was a process of [removal], cleansing!

Just like the UNSC, the ICC and so-called Intl Tribunals governed by official politicals or politicates, whatever they're called, are NOT to be trusted! The UNSC very strongly fits the concept of NWO and OWG, New World Govt, and One World Govt, with the stronger party or member ruling as it wishes, while the others can seem to rebut, but always fold in and follow suit with the most powerful member. As we can with ease ascertain, the U.S. is the most powerful member, militarily, hegemon, hypocrite, constant liar, and so on, and Eastern and Western Establishments come to meet and work in accord, often, while sometimes giving the public apparence of disagreement. They all [know] that the whole concept of the UNSC is criminal BS, hegemony, dictatorship, and so on. After all, they definitely know that they disregard the democratic body of the UN, the UNGA, and that they very constantly disregard the UNHRC!! Both!!

It's actually "ages old" stuff. There's some technological, bla bla, sophistication that's been added, but [underneath], hence in [reality], it's [ages] old stuff. We can invent new technologies, but we can not reinvent the human being!

"Liobhan December 30th, 2008 11:17 pm

And among whom we must number the Arabs, who drove out the Semitic peoples of the Levant, including Jews, who drove out the Neanderthals, and killed them all as far as we can tell, since they're no longer with us."

SORRY BUDD, but Arabs are Semites, or at least those of Middle Eastern origin. Of course there was the original religious meaning to semitism, and that, from what I recall of Wikipedia, which I in turn recall having read was or is headed by Jews, of one category or another, but still Jews; well, semitism quickly came to be understood as not a matter of religion, but ethnicity and also genetics. In those senses, and as of thousands of years ago, BC, or however you wish to refer to those ancient thousands-of-years ago, before the new calendar, I guess; well, in these two other senses, or at least genetically, Arabs of the Middle East are semites, hence semitic.

I'm no expert, at all, on the topic; only relating what I recall having read.

Liobhan:

"Perhaps *everyone* should vacate the entire Levant, leaving it as a shrine for the rightful owners, whenever they return."

That's a fanatical "solution". Imagine if we were to apply the same logic everywhere else it would equally deserve to apply; we'd be then stuck demanding mass suicides of many people. I think and hope that there's a better solution and one that could be actually implemented, if only there was enough [good] will among the elitist fascists running our governments and oppressing, ... [all] of our societies. Dreamful that is, sure, but it's still and only imho.

Liobhan:

"It's profoundly mendacious, and a pathetic special pleading, for one group of bloody invaders and murderers to point fingers at another and whinge, "No fair.""

TRUE.

Liobhan:

"Even more pathetic is for groups of ignorant dilettantes, with no dog in the fight, to select one group, the Jews, historically persecuted by WASPs and Catholics in the USA and Europe, and declare that they are the baby killers and blood drinkers, echoing the long libel, whilst another is as innocent as babes."

NO, for while what Liobhan therein says is in part historically right, we have to consider the [present] not only in terms of the past. If we only look to the past for answers, then we're damn stuck in achieving no good at all. When Wrong is being presently committed, then this Wrong must be opposed and, hopefully, stopped, before it achieves greater Wrong. We need to think far more than only in terms of the past; we mustn't neglect the past, but also mustn't let it imprison us.

Liobhan:

"The article which kicked off this discusion, by Mr. Falk, failed in even-handedness, since it trumpets the supposed crimes of the Israelis whilst brushing off the crimes of the Palestinians as if they were the mere mishaps of children, and the firings of explosive bombs into Israel the playful exuberance of youth.""

Mr Falk is right, I presume; not having read this piece by him yet, only having read the opening paragraph, for my intention was only to post a link to an article by Francis A. Boyle, an expert in relevant laws.

NO ONE can credibly white-wash these extreme crimes of the Israeli government; not the present ones, and not any since around 60 years ago. NONE of them! NONE of them are remotely acceptable; they're all condemnable!

If Palestinians committed crimes in the far past, then that's the far past. Meanwhile, we have to think of the present and recent, and the Palestinians have committed no real crimes during these periods. Suicide bombings in Israel by some Palestinians were NOT acts of aggression, but retaliation against the Israeli government's extremely genocidal conduct towards the Palestinians. The rockets fired into Israel are NOT acts of aggression, against peace, but of retaliation; unproductive, especially for Palestinians, but still not acts of aggression!

Anyone wishing to argue about what happened to the Neanderthals, TODAY, regarding what's going on today, has to stop living in disneyland child land. We can recognize that history, for what little we know of it, but must not allow whatever happened then to deter us from doing what needs to be done to try to stop and speak out against present Wrongs! Two Wrongs never make a right course! Neither do three, and more, Wrongs!

"An Israeli War Crimes Tribunal (ICTI) May be the Only Deterrent to a Global War",
by Francis A. Boyle, Dec 31 2008

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11541

I haven't read that article yet, but have read several in the recent past by Prof. Boyle and on international law, and he's always been wholly right so far; therefore, I expect this above one is also very right. I doubt an ICTI will happen, but he's right in terms of this being what should happen; and if it doesn't, then the ICC or Hague should act, which is another "pipe dream", for these don't work for human rights, etcetera, instead working for the fascist and corporatist elites of the West.

liobhan, you left out an important point - one year after rejection of UN partition, israel unilaterally declared independence and then the arabs declared war, as they had promised. so the negotiations where still going on, as they still seem to be, albeit in primitive form. they have not forgotten this illegitimate birth of a religious nation in their midst. fact is, israel, as your logic states, does not have a right to exist and neither does palestine. the whole issue is too far gone now for a peaceful settlement, too much generational hatred and too little honest info about what really went on back then, and what goes on now. and israelis are too dug in, and very much in control. palistinians successfully divided and conquered, and pissed. personally i think a one state solution is the only answer but zionism excludes this notion out of hand. i believe the arabs would have gone for one state back then. instead they got railroaded politically by the "europeans" into an ethnic partition to the exclusion of all else. and make no mistake this was seen as a european zionist invasion backed by the might/interests of britain and u.s. - before zionist movement with it's exclusive judeo-centric nature, christians, muslim and jews got along very well, having lived peacefully as neighbors and friends for centuries, even watching over each others children, according to one testimony. they probably could have run the territory together quite well. morally, however, zionism is a detriment to the spirit of judiasm and every jewish person should repudiate it, and make amends with their neighbors. zionism as an ideology has failed by alienating/ then crushing the locals and thus putting jews in perpetual harms way.

all Americans and people all over this earth must start ostracizing and shunning Pro_Israeli traitors. All are money grabbers, parasites on governments and we can deal with each individually. For the past five years I have come to hate all except my relatives of semitic origen both Jewish and Arab. I will not patronize their shops, their movies, Disney World or be in their company. I have held coffee clatches showing the USS Liberty film, passed out short reports on Jonathan Pollard and Lawrence Franklin, the recent lies written by Herman Rosenblat and his wife. I am going to our school board and praise the fact that school children have been required to read the Diary of Anne Frank (even more than the Civil War & American Indians and African Americans) and I will demand that the story of RACHEL CORRIE an American who was bulldozed by the "brave Israeli soldiers. By the way, I have never met an Israeli boy who could lick his own lips.

Correction, correction--I urge everyone to check out the COUNCIL not committee for the National Interest Foundation. They are devoted to getting word out about Israel's lock on our foreign policy. Also, go to change.gov, Obama's website, you can ask questions and check the ones you are interested in, there are many, many on the Gaza situation.

Imagine peace in Gaza? Imagine no religion...I wonder if you can?

To Terrence Mitchell who asked why the other Arab countries let Israel get away with what they do. You know who stepped up in Israel's face--Iraq! And if you think that had nothing to do with our invasion you need to do some homework.

Correct Letto, and exactly what do you think the definition of collective punishment is? The problem is that you don't see them as human beings. The truth is coming out about the Zionist scum. I urge everyone to check out the Committee for the National Interest.

Richard Falk is wrong.

Israel does not target civilians. The Hamas does.
Israel is targeting Hamas militant who are hiding among civilians.

Stop manipulating the truth, MR Falk.

Israel has right to exist, but who needs Israel the way it is now?

Yawn. Any different to the war crimes committed by the US of A? No? Then case dismissed!

Being human is a construct too.

People have always discriminated on the basis of traits. Human supremacists like to say being human is the only thing that matters, but you'll notice that both jews and arabs like to use non human reference in their insults--when being human is the ultimate insult.

Gandhi supported the Palestinian cause and called the Zionists terrorists.

Gandhi(in 1946): "But in my opinion, they [the Jews] have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism... Why should they depend on American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine?"

"But", Gandhi asserted, "My sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?"

He thus questioned the very foundational logic of political Zionism. Gandhi rejected the idea of a Jewish State in the Promised Land by pointing out that the "Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract." The Zionists, after embarking upon a policy of colonization of Palestine and after getting British recognition through the Balfour Declaration of 1917 for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews," tried to elicit maximum international support. The Jewish leaders were keen to get an approval for Zionism from Gandhi as his international fame as the leader of a non-violent national struggle against imperialism would provide great impetus for the Jewish cause. But his position was one of total disapproval of the Zionist project both for political and religious reasons. He was against the attempts of the British mandatory Government in Palestine toeing the Zionist line of imposing itself on the Palestinians in the name of establishing a Jewish national home. Gandhi's Harijan editorial is an emphatic assertion of the rights of the Arabs in Palestine. The following oft-quoted lines exemplify his position: "Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs... Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home."

[Long before his 50th birthday, he had headed the World Zionist Organization and served as speaker of the country's Parliament.

But four years ago Burg not only walked away from politics. He pretty much walked away from Zionism. In a book that came out last year, and has just been translated and released in the United States, he said Israel should not be a Jewish state, that its law of return granting citizenship to any Jew should be radically altered, that Israeli Arabs were like German Jews during the Second Reich and that, in fact, the entire society felt eerily like Germany just before the rise of Hitler.--Ethan Bronner, "How a Zionist in Israel went from leader to scourge," International Herald Tribune, December 19, 2008]

[He notes that museums devoted to the Jewish Holocaust have sprouted up across the West. And that the North American native peoples and the non-Jews who suffered under the Nazis are not deserving of the same reverence, that their suffering is somehow less tragic. We must deny the concept of the Holocaust even if the most fantastic inventions of Wiesel were abolutely true. The technical discussions of how many Jews died, and how they died, are perfectly legitimate but superfluous--Eric Walberg, "Book Review: 'Masters of Discourse' by Israel Shamir," axisoflogic.com, December 22, 2008]

There is no such thing as being "jewish" or any other "stock" as one poster put it on here. The only thing that is inherent is being human, and for most of us, gender. The rest is cultural constructs. If you don't teach a child to see differences, they won't. It's culture that teaches them to hate each other.

I used to think of myself as a pacifist, but I've come to believe that people do have the right to defend themselves. I think this should be a last resort.

I would like an answer to this question. Why do Europe and the neighboring Arab nations allow Israel to get away with their crimes? I can understand the US being the sinner it was and somewhat Europe given its bloody history but can someone please tell me why these authors are leaving out the laziness of the neighboring Arab nations such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, etc ... ?

Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota

The problem is the structure of the UN. As long as there are permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto power, and either Israel or the US is one of those permanent members -- (having both is really overkill) there will be no solution to this problem.

Unfortunately, the current structure is hugely advantageous to the powers that be. So, the powers that be will have to be overthrown, and the UN blown up and reformulated before this problem will be solved.

I don't think that's on the horizon, so Palestinians are just going to have to try to hang on against impossible odds here as the attempts at extermination by the Israeli government continue unabated.

Here's another way to think about it: an estimated 2 million Iraqis have been killed and maimed since We The People illegally invaded their country.

There are approximately 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. If Israel kills and maims them all, We The People are still Number 1 in the killing and maiming department - and that's before tossing in all those Iraqis we killed with a decade of 'sanctions,' and all those killed and maimed innocent Afghanis since '02, too. And We The People don't seem to give, as the kids still say, a rat's ass about that giant pile of dead and wounded...

So, based on the precedent We The People have set, Israel isn't even in our killing and maiming ballpark, yet...

Since its inception, Israel has been a War Crime--the crime of Colonialism--and its crimes have snowballed in magnitude ever since. Daily, Israel proves it's an outlaw state that doesn't have any right to exist. And also daily, the USA proves it is no champion of freedom and rule of law as it has continuously supported and abbeted the crimes of Israel. The USA is a de facto ally of an agressor state conducting a war akin to that waged by the Spartans on the Helots, which makes it entirely legal to attack any US military asset, like the USS Cole and its embassies, which contain military assets.

Unless Obama immediately reverses US policy toward Palestine, he will become a War Criminal just like his predecessors for abetting Israeli State Terrorism. By January 21, 2009, Obama will have proven he is the enemy of all seekers of peace and justice.

See: Cynthia McKinney Relief Boat Hit by Israeli Ship

Both anti-Semitism and Zionism are the bitter fruits of capitalism. The imperatives of that economic system forced the Jewish people to endure the pogroms and the Holocaust. Meanwhile Zionists, fueled by the same economic forces, have since executed their own crimes against humanity. 62-years-ago, an unconscionable attack on the King David Hotel killed Britons, Arabs and Jews. Later would come Sabra and Shatila and now the Zionists are engaged in a genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, a veritable concentration camp for 1.5 million Palestinians.

Capitalism created the idea of Zionism in its relentless drive to divide and more fully exploit the working people of the world. For the historic moment of capitalism’s rise to planetary dominance Zionism has effectively built a figurative and literal wall between Jewish workers and their non-Jewish brothers and sisters. In the US it has made a distant memory of Jewish leadership of immigrant workers of every stripe in pitched battles on the streets of New York to form and build the garment and furriers unions. It has squashed the great Civil Rights Era coalition consecrated by the blood of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman. It has made unity with anyone but the US ruling class all but impossible. Zionism has performed as designed and isolated Jewish workers around the world in a “new Warsaw ghetto” called Israel.

The state that Zionism created has begun sensing its mortality and is thrashing around accordingly. The recent ravings of Israeli intellectual Benny Morris published by the New York Times can now be added to mounting evidence that the guardians of the state are in the grip of panic. The recent exchange of fighters recalls the 2006 attacks on Lebanon and Gaza and the resultant killing of civilians and destruction of infrastructure, the kidnapping of Hamas legislators, the targeting of a U.N. observer post, and the outrage on Qana. Each a desperate act farther outside the bounds of common sense than the one before.

During the fighting with Hizbollah, completely out of the blue on repeated occasions and in leaflets dropped on the Lebanese, Israeli leaders felt compelled to mention their power to erase Lebanon from the planet. A strong and confident force does not act so. The Israelis are blustering past the graveyard and their bully’s trepidation is now growing as the end nears.

Under normal circumstances the impending death of a form of racism like Zionism and the establishment of a secular state on the territory Israel now occupies where Palestinian Arabs of various religious persuasions and Jews could peacefully co-exist as equals would be cause for human celebration. Unfortunately, the panic that clearly grips Israel means they will likely join in U.S. attacks on Damascus and Tehran and resort to the use of their nuclear arsenal when all else fails. And that, on a larger scale, is the dilemma that the whole world faces as the capitalist system spearheaded by the United States begins experiencing it’s last gasps.

Hamas declared an end to the cease fire. This artcle is a lie. Hamas killed two Palestinian girls before Israel went in with their own Qassams. Why do liberals support fascists in the name of pacifism? You guys are just apologists for Hitler. Hamas kills their own people!!! Don't belive the hype. They have thousands of rockets made of fertilizer but they are being starved? This site should be called Come on dreams. Or better yet, Cum on my Dreams of a truly hatred free society.