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How Hypocrisy on 'Terrorism' Kills
Israel, a nation that was born out of Zionist terrorism, has launched massive airstrikes against targets in Gaza using high-tech weapons produced by the United States, a country that often has aided and abetted terrorism by its client military forces, such as Chile's Operation Condor and the Nicaraguan contras, and even today harbors right-wing Cuban terrorists implicated in blowing up a civilian airliner.
Yet, with that moral ambiguity excluded from the debate, the justification for the Israeli attacks, which have killed at least 364 people, is the righteous fight against "terrorism," since Gaza is ruled by the militant Palestinian group, Hamas.
Hamas rose to power in January 2006 through Palestinian elections, which ironically the Bush administration had demanded. However, after Hamas won a parliamentary majority, Israel and the United States denounced the outcome because they deem Hamas a "terrorist organization."
Hamas then wrested control of Gaza from Fatah, a rival group that once was considered "terrorist" but is now viewed as a U.S.-Israeli partner, so it has been cleansed of the "terrorist" label.
Unwilling to negotiate seriously with Hamas because of its acts of terrorism - which have included firing indiscriminate short-range missiles into southern Israel - the United States and Israel sat back as the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza worsened, with 1.5 million impoverished Palestinians packed into what amounts to a giant open-air prison.
When Hamas ended a temporary cease-fire on Dec. 19 because of a lack of progress in those negotiations and began lobbing its little missiles into Israel once more, the Israeli government reacted on Saturday with its lethal "shock and awe" firepower - even though no Israelis had been killed by the post-cease-fire missiles launched from Gaza. [Since Saturday, four Israelis have died in more intensive Hamas missile attacks.]
Israel claimed that its smart bombs targeted sites related to the Hamas security forces, including a school for police cadets and even regular policemen walking down the street. But it soon became clear that Israel was taking an expansive view of what was part of the Hamas military infrastructure, with Israeli bombs taking out a television station and a university building as well as killing a significant number of civilians.
As the slaughter continued on Monday, Israeli officials confided to Western journalists that the war plan was to destroy the vast support network of social and other programs that undergird Hamas's political clout.
"There are many aspects of Hamas, and we are trying to hit the whole spectrum, because everything is connected and everything supports terrorism against Israel," a senior Israeli military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Washington Post.
"Hamas's civilian infrastructure is a very, very sensitive target," added Matti Steinberg, a former top adviser to Israel's domestic security service. "If you want to put pressure on them, this is how." [Washington Post, Dec. 30, 2008]
Since the classic definition of "terrorism" is the use of violence against civilians to achieve a political goal, Israel would seem to be inviting an objective analysis that it has chosen its own terrorist path. But it is clearly counting on the U.S. news media to continue wearing the blinders that effectively limit condemnations about terrorism to people and groups that are regarded as Washington's enemies.
Whose Terrorism?
As a Washington-based reporter for the Associated Press in the 1980s, I once questioned the seeming bias that the U.S.-based wire service applied to its use of the word "terrorist" when covering Middle East issues. A senior AP executive responded to my concerns with a quip. "Terrorist is the word that follows Arab," he said.
Though meant as a lighthearted riposte, the comment clearly had a great deal of truth to it. It was easy to attach "terrorist" to any Arab attack - even against a military target such as the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 after the Reagan administration had joined hostilities against Muslim forces by having U.S. warships lob shells into Lebanese villages.
But it was understood that different rules on the use of the word "terrorism" applied when the terrorism was coming from "our side." Then, no American reporter with any sense of career survival would think of injecting the word "terrorist" whatever the justification.
Even historical references to acts of terrorism - such as the brutal practice by American revolutionaries in the 1770s of "tar and feathering" civilians considered sympathetic to the British Crown or the extermination of American Indian tribes - were seen as somehow diluting the moral righteousness against today's Islamic terrorists and in favor of George W. Bush's "war on terror."
Gone, too, from the historical narrative was the fact that militant Zionists employed terrorism as part of their campaign to establish Israel as a Jewish state. The terrorism included killings of British officials who were administering Palestine under an international mandate as well as Palestinians who were driven violently from their land so it could be claimed by Jewish settlers.
One of the most famous of those terrorist attacks was the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem where British officials were staying. The attack, which killed 91 people including local residents, was carried out by the Irgun, a terrorist group run by Menachem Begin who later founded the Likud Party and rose to be Israel's prime minister.
Another veteran of the campaign of Zionist terrorism was Yitzhak Shamir, who also became a Likud leader and eventually prime minister.
In the early 1990s, as I was waiting to interview Shamir at his Tel Aviv office, I was approached by one of his young female assistants who was dressed in a gray and blue smock with a head covering in the traditional Hebrew style.
As we were chatting, she smiled and said in a lilting voice, "Prime Minister Shamir, he was a terrorist, you know." I responded with a chuckle, "yes, I'm aware of the prime minister's biography."
Blind Spot
To maintain one's moral purity in denouncing acts of terror by U.S. enemies, one also needs a large blind spot for recent U.S. history, which implicates U.S. leaders repeatedly in tolerance or acts of terrorism.
For instance, in 1973, after a bloody U.S.-backed coup overthrew the leftist Chilean government, the new regime of Gen. Augusto Pinochet joined with other South American dictatorships to sponsor an international terrorist organization called Operation Condor which assassinated political dissidents around the world.
Operation Condor mounted one of its most audacious actions on the streets of Washington in 1976, when Pinochet's regime recruited Cuban-American terrorists to detonate a car bomb that killed Chile's former foreign minister Orlando Letelier and an American co-worker, Ronni Moffitt. The Chilean government's role immediately was covered up by the CIA, then headed by George H.W. Bush. [For details, see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege.]
Only weeks later, a Venezuela-based team of right-wing Cubans - under the direction of Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles - blew a Cubana Airliner out of the sky, killing 73 people. Bosch and Posada, a former CIA operative, were co-founders of CORU, which was described by the FBI as "an anti-Castro terrorist umbrella organization."
Though the U.S. government soon learned of the role of Bosch and Posada in the Cubana airline attack - and the two men spent some time in a Venezuelan jail - both Bosch and Posada since have enjoyed the protection of the U.S. government and particularly the Bush Family.
Rebuffing international demands that Bosch and Posada be held accountable for their crimes, the Bushes - George H.W., George W. and Jeb - have all had a hand in making sure these unrepentant terrorists get to live out their golden years in the safety and comfort of the United States.
In the 1980s, Posada even crossed over into another U.S.-backed terrorist organization, the Nicaraguan contras. After escaping from Venezuela, he was put to work in 1985 by Oliver North's contra-support operation run out of Ronald Reagan's National Security Council.
The Nicaraguan contras were, in effect, a narco-terrorist organization that partially funded its operations with proceeds from cocaine trafficking, a secret that the Reagan administration worked hard to conceal along with the contras' record of murder, torture, rape and other crimes in Nicaragua. [See Parry's Lost History.]
President Reagan joined, too, in fierce PR campaigns to discredit human rights investigators who documented massive atrocities by U.S. allies in Central America in the 1980s - not only the contras, but also the state terrorism of the Salvadoran and Guatemalan security forces, which engaged in wholesale slaughters in villages considered sympathetic to leftist insurgents.
Generally, the major U.S. news outlets treaded very carefully when allegations arose about terrorism by "our side."
When some brave journalists, like New York Times correspondent Raymond Bonner, wrote about politically motivated killings of civilians in Central America, they faced organized retaliation by right-wing advocacy groups which often succeeded in damaging or destroying the reporters' careers.
Double Standards
Eventually, the American press corps developed an engrained sense of the double standards. Moral outrage could be expressed when acts of terrorism were committed by U.S. enemies, while studied silence - or nuanced concern - would be in order when the crimes were by U.S. allies.
So, while the U.S. news media had no doubt that the 9/11 terrorist attacks justified invading Afghanistan, there was very little U.S. media criticism when President Bush inflicted his "shock and awe" assault on Iraq, a war that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths.
Though many Muslims and others around the world have denounced Bush's Iraq invasion as "state terrorism," such a charge would be considered far outside the mainstream in the United States. Instead, Iraqi insurgents are often labeled "terrorists" when they attack U.S. troops inside Iraq. The word "terrorist" has become, in effect, a geopolitical curse word.
Despite the long and bloody history of U.S.-Israeli participation in terrorism, the U.S. news media continues its paradigm of pitting the U.S.-Israeli "good guys" against the Islamic "bad guys." One side has the moral high ground and the other is in the moral gutter. [For more on the U.S. media's one-sided approach, see the analysis by Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher.]
Any attempt to cite the larger, more ambiguous and more troubling picture draws accusations from defenders of U.S.-Israeli actions, especially the neoconservatives, of what they call "moral equivalence" or "anti-Semitism."
Yet it is now clear that acquiescence to a double standard on terrorism is not just a violation of journalistic ethics or an act of political cowardice; it is complicity in mass murder. Without the double standard, it is hard to envision how the bloodbaths - in Iraq (since 2003), in Lebanon (in 2006) and in Gaza (today) - would be possible.
Hypocrisy over the word "terrorism" is not an innocent dispute over semantics; it kills.
- Posted in
40 Comments so far
Show All"Israel, a nation that was born out of Zionist terrorism"
Oh, that just ruins the rest of the article. Jews were the only ones murdering innocent people before Israel was created? Both sides had militias and terror groups...there was a civil war going on before Israel declared independence. Might as well mention the fact that America was born out of what back then was considered terrorism...nongovernment militias ambushing regular troops. I wonder if the author can name a nation that was not born out of violence.
I think you are missing the point of the article.....
Probably, as I said it ruined the article for me, I didn't even read it.
Wow, someone commenting on an article that they openly admit not reading. Now that should be a basis for getting banned...
---USAn---
zmann wrote:
Oh, that just ruins the rest of the article. Jews were the only ones murdering innocent people before Israel was created?
COMMENT:
The only ones murdering innocent people? Of course not, there were people in Los Angeles murdering innocent people to steal from them, and people in London, Paris, and gee, probably even in Bern - but those thugs weren't terrorists, they weren't Zionists, and they didn't bring about the birthing of Zionist Israel, which is the topic of Parry's article.
The Zionist theft of Palestinian land and the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their homes, farms, businesses, and towns, was led by Europeans that had never lived in the land, who derived the needed funding from various Jewish sources abroad, and were eventually aided in these heinous crimes by the United States and the Brits whom they had once terrorized.
Who were these murderous, thieving, genocidal Europeans who never lived in Palestine?
Well there was Yitzhak Shamir, Russian born, Polish law grad who had become a member of the Revisionist Zionist youth movement. In other words, he was a European who planned on going to steal a land he had never been to. After graduating from law school in Warsaw, Shamir went in 1935 to Palestine and joined the Irgun Zvai Leumi, an underground Jewish militia organization directed against the British control of Palestine.
Another was Menachem Begin, also a Russian born Polish citizen. Begin, who was in the Polish Army, went in 1941 to Palestine, got permission to leave the army and joined Shamir's terrorist organization, Irgun.
Neither of these two European men were escapees from the Holocaust, both as Zionists planned on stealing Palestine, both joined a terrorist organization directed at Palestinian citizens and the British military, both eventually became Prime Ministers of the country they had murdered for and stolen: Israel.
These Europeans, devout religious jews, were terrorists?
Uh, yeah.
For one, they bombed the British administrative headquarters at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which nicely killed some 91 people, including British military plus Arab and Jewish civilians.
These jolly fellows murdered innocent people for the political purpose of stealing Palestine.
Or, like Parry said: "Israel, a nation that was born out of Zionist terrorism"
Sorry if you have a problem with that nasty truth.
Do you have equally detailed information on the Jews who similarly suffered from countries throughout the Middle East before fleeing to Israel? I thoroughly hate what Israel has done to the Palestinians, but I will NEVER support or agree with anyone who insinuates or states that Israel should not exist, and calling it nothing but something born out of terrorism is exactly that.
zmann wrote:
Do you have equally detailed information on the Jews who similarly suffered from countries throughout the Middle East before fleeing to Israel?
COMMENT:
Utterly irrelevant. Seriously.
I noted no suffering in the likes of Begin who was in the Polish Army nor Shamir who went to university and got a law degree. It wasn't survivors of the Holocaust that begin the genocidal theft of Palestinian land, it was Zionists like these who were very definitely terrorists.
As for those Jews that did suffer abuse in Europe, I put it to you: If someone beats me up and steals my wallet and I flee to another neighborhood, is it okay for me to beat up some innocent fellow there and take his wallet because I was treated badly in my old neighborhood?
zmann wrote:
I will NEVER support or agree with anyone who insinuates or states that Israel should not exist, and calling it nothing but something born out of terrorism is exactly that.
COMMENT:
Of course you won't: your irrational mind is closed tighter than the iron fist of Zionist Israel on the beleaguered Palestinian people. It is exactly this kind of blindness to facts and the inability to see beyond one's political or religious beliefs that makes change to good in the world such a forbidding task.
"COMMENT:
Of course you won't: your irrational mind is closed tighter than the iron fist of Zionist Israel on the beleaguered Palestinian people. It is exactly this kind of blindness to facts and the inability to see beyond one's political or religious beliefs that makes change to good in the world such a forbidding task."
That's not it. I am biased by being Jewish, naturally, but many people who think of Israel as nothing but a terrorist state (while I agree that Israel commits state terrorism, and I am disgusted by it) seem to regard Israel as the only state in the world that should never have been, and seem to be calling for its dismantlement. Do you disagree with this?
zmann wrote:
seem to regard Israel as the only state in the world that should never have been
COMMENT:
There are many states that should never have been because the original inhabitants were killed or driven off and their land stolen: the United States, for one, Northern Ireland, stolen from the Celts by Anglos from England for another. However, the wrong that is being done in the land of Caanan is not in some distant past, it is still going on right now, every day.
I do, indeed, call for the dismantlement of Israel. The wrongs of the past can not be righted, but a rational fresh and fair start would be to declare the entire land mass now called Israel and Palestine rejoined as a single country. I would call the country, not by the name given to it by conquerors: not Israel nor Palestine, but would call it by its original name: Caanan. And all of the people now on the land, and those who fled to nearby countries because of the invasion by the Europeans, should be declared citizens with equal rights under a Constitutional Democratic government.
zmann wrote:
I am biased by being Jewish, naturally....
COMMENT:
Bias, is the bane of humanity. Bias is what keeps the three Abramic religions in conflict, bias causes brawls at ball games. The only bias I have that I'm aware of is toward truth and fairness, and I can honestly say that many of my best friends over the years from my childhood to the present time have been Jews. Three of them call me "Dad."
The US and Israel does not fight a war on terrorism....they are fighting a war to CREATE more terrorism. They have an insatiable appetite for murder and destruction. And it feeds the Military Industrial Complex.
"War on terror" is terrorism itself.
War on terror is an oxymoron, like a war on hate. If you define terrorism as the killing of innocent, civilians for political purposes; then it looks to me like the U.S.needs to have a war on itself!
Here is a letter to the editor that appeared in the local that says it all:
Double standard toward Israel
The whole world condemned the attacks in Mumbai. Now, with Israel's bombardment of Gaza, the West is completely silent. Israel's disproportionate use of military force is state-sponsored terrorism. I hope the new U.S. leadership will change America's double-standard in dealing with Israel.
But I could be wrong !
They pretended to condemn the attacks but they only focused on the victims who happened to be from the US, EU, and Israel. Everyone else was ignored. Terror attacks in India have been ongoing thanks to the US, EU, and their support of turning otherwise friendly Muslim nations into terrorist fundie camps at the expense of the lives of the civilians. The West is just as guilty for the Mumbai attacks.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
And what about India and Pakistan? Plenty of terror hell going on there but no mention of those two nations. A racist article and a racist author !
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
The Glue That Holds Chaos Together
Was Israel really born out of Zionist terrorism?
I agree that the US has been engaged in hippocritical,ethically challenged political campaigns, and that we have taken the wrong side of many issues. I agree that the US has been actively involved in propaganda and terrorism on a global scale. I don't know if I would go so far as to say that Israel was born out of Zionist terror, but certainly, their government has not done much to gain public sympathy.
The situation out there is not a simple one, and I believe that the US will have to try to merge the governments and peoples of that region, or cut off all support to Israel.
Also, I think that countries like Israel, Georgia, and Afghanistan, need to be reminded...from time to time...that they are a burden on the rest of humanity. The point does not have to be made with war, as much as it does with us just backing away and letting the Russians deal with them.
Thanks!
evolve or perish
"and even today [Israel] harbors right-wing Cuban terrorists implicated in blowing up a civilian airliner."
Really? I thought they were all harbored by the US - living in luxury in Miami with their gangster friends.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Parry.
---USAn---
Umm, PJD perhaps you should read the rest of the sentence you quote. It CLEARLY states those terrorists are living in the USA.
"the United States, a country that ......., and even today harbors right-wing Cuban terrorists implicated in blowing up a civilian airliner"
Keep up the good work.
I know the list is long but why never a mention of Ford and Kissinger toasting Sudharto, literally, with weapons and training in order to kill civilians in E. Temor.
and don't forget the BUTCHER KISSINGER - ordering the CARPET BOMBING with agent orange of Vietnam and Laos and Cambodia...
these are , in many ways, WORSe than the Nazis because they do it on a GLOBAL scale and not limited to Europe , and do it with the greater ":efficiency" of MASS murder by means of "remote control" mass murders....and additionally -- it is topped and founded upon fomenting instabilities in regions that don't bow to the USA dictates.
as the "former CIA Economic Hitman" john perkins wrote :
"i was an economic hitman for many years in south america. our job was to UNDERMINE the economies of countries that didn't obey us...we are an empire...the largest the world has known..and we have gotten away with building this empire trhough Torture, Assassinations, Blackmail, Kidnapping, Fomenting insurrectiosn against governments that are uncooperative, and plain theft of their resources...i was part of that project of Empire building".
From Financial , to Military means -- the USA has the greatest record of DESTRUCTION, WARS, and MURDER and Terrorizing of countries, people, cultures, and PEACE -- that the world has ever known.
it is only matched in that greatness by ITS hypocrisy, Hubris and Callousness.
dramatic and terrible as They were , and often pointed OUT as such by the USA ...
they are NOTHING in comparison with the Terror and Callousness of America's destructiveness and War mentality, exploitativeness and cruelty .
NO regime, NO empire, NO country or nation matches it in history.
bakunin2 The United States not only supports terrorism in other countries but engages in state terrorism itself. The invasion of Iraq using the strategy of Shock and Awe was pure state terrorism as were tactics used during the occupation such as house searches in which civilians were treated brutally. Don't expect subtlety when you are dealing with state terrorism be it American or Israeli. Those who perpetrate state terrorism are blinded to what they are doing by hubris. Of course hubris is eventually followed by nemesis. Even the most powerful can't get away with atrocities for long.
correct.
"I AM SADDENED AND SHAMED TO SAY THAT THE GREATEST PURVEYOR OF VIOLENCE AND TERROR IN THE WORLD TODAY IS MY OWN GOVERNMENT"....DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
vietnam. iraq. south america. southeast asia. central asia. former soviet republics. africa. u name it --the usa has done it.
"War is a Racket...it is not about freedom or democracy..there is no corruption and money scheme the US MILITARY is blind to ...the true purpose of the US military is to make the world *safe* for our big businesses, arms manufacturers, bankers, and for the exploitation of the worlds' resources at the expense of other countries...the US military is the BIG MUSCLE of BIG BUSINESS and BIG MONEY...I was its Enforcer...all Serving Our BIG BOSS...our Supernationalistic Capitalism"...General Smedley Butler.
heck - you can count the CIA, FBI, NSA, and dozens more of US secret government organizations -- in cahoots with Corporations on spying, arms manufacture, aided, legalized, and "ennobled" by congress, politicians, lobbyists, the Federal Bank etc...as THE TRUE , most sophisticated
CONGLOMERATION of a TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.
who DID the USA Terrorize?
we can START with the Native Indians...and from them ON -- it's Terrorism US style gone GLOBAL.
Deepa
US has a long record of supporting terrorist organizations to further its perceived strategic interests. After the downfall of the US supported dictator Shah of Iran, containing the influence of Iran in West Asia has become a major US foreign policy objective. In order to achieve this goal, the US is making use of several terrorist organizations to carry out covert attacks inside Iran. In April of 2007 the ABC News journalists Brian Ross and Christopher Isham reported that the US was funding a terrorist group Jundullah or Allah’s Brigade to carry out strikes against Iran. According to them, its leader Abdul Malik Regi, a former Taliban member, was alleged to be involved in large-scale narcotics trafficking through Iranian exiles with connections in West Asia and Europe. The Report of the United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime points to the interlink between drug trafficking and terrorism. The CIA’s role in the expansion of opium cultivation in Afghanistan may be found in the book “Whiteout, the CIA, Drugs and the Press” by Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn. Opium production has skyrocketed since the US occupied the country by toppling the Taliban regime in 2001. Opium cultivation steadily increased: 30,750 hectares of poppy in 2002, 61,000 hectares in 2003, 104,000 hectares in 2005, 165,000 hectares in 2006, and 193, 000 hectares in 2007 compared with 7,606 in 2001 under the ousted Taliban rule. While the Bush administration repeatedly claims that it is committed to curbing the Afghan drug trade, statistics prove that the US occupation has served to restore rather than eradicate the drug trade. Afghanistan now supplies about 92 percent of the world’s illicit opium. Opium trade has a good market in US and Europe. Over 95 percent of the revenues generated by this lucrative contraband accrues to business syndicates, organized crime and banking and financial institutions. The benefit of drug trade to US and Europe is twofold: their banking and financial institutions receive billions of dollars annually; and by supporting poppy cultivation and drug trade they get the loyalty of terrorist organizations without much expenditure to buy that loyalty.
In February of 2007 Jundullah set off a bomb in the Iranian city Zahedan which killed at least eleven members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. Iranian state television showed the confession of an alleged perpetrator, Nasrollah Shamsi Zehi, that he was trained at a secret camp in Pakistan. Media reports suggest that the US is also supporting another extremist organization, Mujahideen-e-Khalq, for attacks against Iran. This organization was involved in the 1991 anti-Shia massacres in Iraq. It was designated as a global terrorist organization in 1997. Another terrorist organization that the US is using to carry out attacks against Iran is a Kurdish terrorist group, Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistane, or Party of Free Life of Kurdistan.
To Deepa:
COMMENT:
Interesting comments and information but uncomfortable to read. I suggest more white space: ie break your material down into shorter paragraphs. A long long paragraph caused me to chuck Finnegan's wake and almost pass up your entry here.
Israel was founded by terrorists. They blew up hotels(which netanyahu celebrated in 2006), and assassinated UN officials.
Gandhi called it terrorism.
http://www.twf.org
Gandhi went back to his initial position by categorically stating that "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?"
There were an influential number of Jews who thought that force, only force, could ensure the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. They adopted terrorism as the method to achieve their national goal. This policy of subjugation of the Palestinians by Zionist terror was totally rejected by Gandhi in no uncertain terms.
A few months before his assassination, Gandhi answered the question "What is the solution to the Palestine problem?" raised by Doon Campbell of Reuters:
"It has become a problem which seems almost insoluble. If I were a Jew, I would tell them: 'Do not be so silly as to resort to terrorism...' The Jews should meet the Arabs, make friends with them and not depend on British aid or American aid, save what descends from Jehovah."
**I am sure there will be those zonists who say that Gandhi was foolish-that they couldnt make peace with the arabs, but given the fact that it was Israel that started the trouble(buying absent arab land and making rules that it could only be sold to jews) and the fact that things are no better today, he was right.
If Israel really wanted a fair peace it would never have bombed Lebanon, poisoned the water of the coast, and then dropped hundreds of thousands of land mines before agreeing to a ceasefire.
Israel is a menace.
This is a fair assessment of the situation.
Arab countries have their problems, but that doesnt mean Israel isnt to blame here.
Israel first,
then the US, Britain, and other European nations, and the arab regimes that are US clients.
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FIRST CLASS TERROR
TERROR of ZION
http://palestinian.ning.com/forum/topics/the-other-side-of-the-story
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Sorry for cross-posting, but my point below is even more germane to this article.
What Israel is using is called asymmetric warfare.
According to Wikipedia (emphasis mine):
"There are two different viewpoints on the relationship between asymmetric warfare and terrorism. In the modern context, asymmetric warfare is increasingly considered a component of _fourth generation warfare_. When practiced outside the _laws of war_, it is often defined as terrorism, though rarely by its practitioners or their supporters.
"The other view is that asymmetric warfare is not synonymous with terrorism. It is typical, in an asymmetric conflict, for the stronger side to accuse the weaker side of being bandits, pillagers or _terrorists_. These accusations are usually part of propaganda campaigns, although they are sometimes true. Some argue that asymmetric warfare is called "terrorism" by those wishing to deny the political aims of their weaker opponents and to exploit the negative connotations of the word."
Fourth generation warfare as defined by Wikipedia:
"Fourth generation warfare (4GW) is combat characterized by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, soldier and civilian, peace and conflict, battlefield and safety. The military doctrine was first defined in 1989 by a team of American analysts, including William S. Lind, used to describe warfare's return to a decentralized form. In terms of generational modern warfare, the fourth generation signifies the nation states' loss of their monopoly on combat forces, returning in a sense to the uncontrolled combat of pre-modern times. The simplest definition includes any war in which one of the major participants is not a state but rather a _violent ideological network_."
Purposes of the laws of war as defined by Wikipedia:
"Some of the central principles underlying laws of war are:
* Wars should be limited to achieving the political goals that started the war (e.g., territorial control) and should not include unnecessary destruction;
* Wars should be brought to an end as quickly as possible;
* People and property that do not contribute to the war effort should be protected against unnecessary destruction and hardship;
To this end, laws of war are intended to mitigate the evils of war by:
* Protecting both combatants and noncombatants from unnecessary suffering;
* Safeguarding certain fundamental human rights of persons who fall into the hands of the enemy, particularly prisoners of war, the wounded and sick, and civilians;
* Facilitating the restoration of peace."
So, given that this is an asymmetrical war (as is every war that Palestinians fight against Israel), let's delve into this a little.
First, Israel is either fighting a Fourth generation war or it is a terrorist state.
If it is a terrorist state, stop here.
If it is fighting a Fourth generation war, then Israel is fighting not as a state, but as a violent ideological network.
Second, if Israel is not a terrorist organization, then it must follow the Laws of War.
But is Israel following the Laws of War? From its very definition, it appears not.
What are Israel's political goals? Territorial gain? Limiting unnecessary destruction? Protecting people and property? Are they safeguarding human rights? Are they facilitating the restoration of peace?
So, this is it in a nutshell: Either Israel is a terrorist state, or it is employing Fourth Generation War but refusing to follow the Laws of War rendering it a violent ideological network...which actually defines it as a terrorist state. (Hamas has already been defined as a terrorist organization - I am simply trying to define Israel).
If Hamas is a terrorist organization, as it surely is, what of the Republican Party?
Alex
===========================================================
RESISTING the OCCUPATION of YOUR country DOES NOT make YOU a terrorist
============================================================
Of course it doesn't. Those that claim it does are the occupiers who are the true terrorists.
The last time I remembered, is that HAMAS is a legitimate political organization.
And elected.
Most of us have already figured out the hypocrisy that exists when it comes to terrorism long ago. When an Arab does it it's terrorism. When we do it it's defending ourselves. All I can say is this mess has it's ugly roots in religion. If anyone but 'God's chosen people' were behaving in such a despicable manner as the Israeli's, we would have cut off all aid and saw to their destruction years ago. They have one of the most militant governments in our time that is a threat to the peace of the world. They took someone else's country and continue to whine because the people have the audacity to fight back anyway they can. Well, what did they expect when took it????? The people were going to throw flowers at them for destroying their future? They seem to have a lot in common with the idiots in our government. Who invaded an country and then were shocked when the people fought back.
This assault on Gaza is not about terrorism or Hamas rockets--it's about the power struggle between Likud and Kadima. So, in order for Livni and Barak to appeal to the voters, hundreds of Palestinians have to die, thousands must be mutilated, and the civilian infrastructure must be destroyed. Even after the inevitable cease fire, the occupation of the West Bank, illegal settlements, and the seige of Gaza will continue. And the Israeli public supposedly needs this carnage to decide whom to vote for? Jews did not just lose their lives and land in the holocaust--they lost their souls and conscience.
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Reality in Palestine
http://palestinian.ning.com/video/1970466:Video:37170
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Gaza Massacre - The Movie
http://palestinian.ning.com/video/video/show?id=1970466%3AVideo%3A37291
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Nowhere to run for those trapped in Gaza
http://palestinian.ning.com/video/nowhere-to-run-for-those
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New Years Revolution.
http://www.coalitionoftheilling.com
Bush is a TOXIC TERRORIST ! http://www.wisecountyissues.com Appalachia is being blasted and bombed right into Third World America.
jonabark
To be born again as a child of God , a follower of the Prince of Peace along with forgiveness and a new start, also comes with a license to kill as long as the Government tells you to. First the leader appointed by God to kill evildoers or punish evil, or something along those lines, must pass the Augustinian just war exam. Fortunately for leaders, all of whom are appointed by God( Mao, Stalin, Herod, Ehud Barak, Dick dark arts Cheney, even some of the nice ones like Jimmy Carter) nobody ever flunks this test, probably because it is self administered. Turns out it is always a just war. This is called Christianity by Popes and Protestants and it can be problematic at Christmas time when a lot of people think of home and Carols and gifts and dreams of the kind of Peace that the innocent associate with candles and starlight and newfallen snow and babies and doves in the rafters high. Still there is war to be made and terrorists to kill to protect the people back home , even though nobody actually attacked the people back home. Thank God the terrorists are well organized and clearly labeled because dropping bombs on people you don't know doesn't seem all that friendly and seems like an act of terror except terrorists are always defined by the good people who win wars, that is, who successfully kill the most people, and terrorists are always the people who get killed. Anyway don't start traveling around singing songs and saying prayers with strangers in other countries cause it will only confuse you if you are ever in a just war.
Same deal for the Chosen Few as far as the license to kill, but the terms are more limited and depend on the precise reading of ancient real estate contracts between a party named Abraham and a Party best known as the maker of the Universe and going by many names. Some of the finer points of the contract are still in dispute, first we read that the real estate goes to Abraham's seed, but when there are two sons by two mothers, and the contract comes into dispute modifications are made after the fact, naturally favoring the number one wife.
The only documents we have left were written by Isaac's branch of the family, but even in this version some of the finer points remain vague. Everything he saw or his foot touched? I mean does that include the land on the other side of hills he never crossed? Anyway its a lot like holy war because the unclear points are left to the grandchildren of Isaac to interpret and from Joshua to Herod to Ehud Barak it turns out it is always a just war. I guess its a leader thing. Thank God that God cannot testify in Court in case he feels the contract has been misinterpreted, and in case he loves the Children in Gaza as much as he loves the children in Tel Aviv.
America seems like it is far away from this part of the world but , in the spirit of 2000 years of Christian giving we give lots of weapons to Israel. Merry Christmas Gaza. And Happy New Year.
Bravo, Parry, for a fine piece, but there's one little detail in it that I can't let slide. To wit:
"When Hamas ended a temporary cease-fire on Dec. 19 because of a lack of progress in those negotiations and began lobbing its little missiles into Israel once more, the Israeli government reacted on Saturday with its lethal "shock and awe" firepower..."
It was Israel who violated the ceasefire, not Hamas, and they did so on Nov. 4 with an operation inside Gaza that killed 6 people. I don't quite understand why Parry repeats the lie repeatedly being uttered by the mainstream on this question. And while it's true that his wording that "Hamas ended a temporary cease-fire," could be construed to mean that they decided on their own to resume firing rockets even after refraining to do so in the immediate wake of Israel's Nov. 4 attack, the sentence is, at the very least, quite misleading. Why perpetuate the falsehood?
Bravo for most of the posters, too. And while we're on the subject of the Irgun and the other terrorist gangs many of the "founding fathers" of Israel belonged to, let's not forget that none other than Rahm Emanuel, Obama's soon-to-be Chief of Staff, is the son of a former Irgun member, one of just several terrorists in that family. Perhaps one of the reason for Obama's silence on the current butchery?
Peace to all.
It is hard to keep track of who violated what, since these are not really reported daily in the US, at least not on here where I get most of my news. Do you know what news source keeps better tabs on it?