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TechnoratiIsrael: Boycott, Divest, Sanction
It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa.
In July 2005 a huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that. They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era." The campaign Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions--BDS for short--was born.Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause, and talk of cease-fires is doing little to slow the momentum. Support is even emerging among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors stationed in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the antiapartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves.... This international backing must stop."
Yet many still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. And they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tools in the nonviolent arsenal. Surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counterarguments.
1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. The world has tried what used to be called "constructive engagement." It has failed utterly. Since 2006 Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon and imposing collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures--quite the opposite. The weapons and $3 billion in annual aid that the US sends to Israel is only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the first non-Latin American country to sign a free-trade deal with Mercosur. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45 percent. A new trade deal with the European Union is set to double Israel's exports of processed food. And on December 8, European ministers "upgraded" the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a reward long sought by Jerusalem.
It is in this context that Israeli leaders started their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange's flagship index actually went up 10.7 percent. When carrots don't work, sticks are needed.
2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza in 2007 was "infinitely worse than apartheid."
3. Why single out Israel when the United States, Britain and other Western countries do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan? Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the BDS strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work.
4. Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less. This one I'll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But when I published The Shock Doctrine, I wanted to respect the boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus. Andalus is an activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go to Andalus's work, and none to me. In other words, I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis.
Coming up with this plan required dozens of phone calls, e-mails and instant messages, stretching from Tel Aviv to Ramallah to Paris to Toronto to Gaza City. My point is this: as soon as you start implementing a boycott strategy, dialogue increases dramatically. And why wouldn't it? Building a movement requires endless communicating, as many in the antiapartheid struggle well recall. The argument that supporting boycotts will cut us off from one another is particularly specious given the array of cheap information technologies at our fingertips. We are drowning in ways to rant at one another across national boundaries. No boycott can stop us.
Just about now, many a proud Zionist is gearing up for major point-scoring: don't I know that many of those very high-tech toys come from Israeli research parks, world leaders in infotech? True enough, but not all of them. Several days into Israel's Gaza assault, Richard Ramsey, the managing director of a British telecom company, sent an e-mail to the Israeli tech firm MobileMax. "As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with yourself or any other Israeli company."
When contacted by The Nation, Ramsey said his decision wasn't political. "We can't afford to lose any of our clients, so it was purely commercially defensive."
It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it's precisely the kind of calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long denied, to Palestine.
Further Reading: Disengagement and the Frontiers of Zionism
206 Comments so far
Show AllIt's pretty rare I disagree with Naomi Klein. However, there are two sides to this story. Israel is slow to negotiate, but Hamas utterly refuses. It seems Hamas hoped Israel would react the way they did. By now they know how Israel is going to respond to rockets, and people act less rational when spending time in bomb shelters. Above all, Israel is very different from South Africa. The blacks didn't do anything to bring on apartheid. However, one Palestinian group or another has broken truces as often as Israel has. Non-combatant Israelis have been targets of attacks. South African whites stood to lose power, but South Africa wouldn't cease to exist. Israel fears it will cease to exist, so it will hold out longer than boycott advocates expect. I don't suggest boycotting Palestinians either because life already sucks for them. Now that we have a change in our own government, and Israel won't be getting terrible advice and approval of stupid moves from the next president, it's time to try to be a friend to both sides, and tell them the truth, that the other side is as tough as you are. They can keep making your life miserable. The other one is never going away, and will never listen to your case while they feel you might bomb them at any time. Negotiation is inevitable since inevitably you must face reality, so might as well start now. No preconditions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/09/AR2008050902296.html
This article is a very-well articulated piece of Zionist spin, and immediately goes in the trash can with other Wash-Post garbage. Lets look at it detail:
First the subterfuge:
...Israeli forces were unilaterally withdrawn from the area in August 2005.
Note the word unilaterally. This word was carefully chosen to indicate that Israel made a major sacrifice. Truth is, Gazans did not occupy Israel, and could not withdraw. The use of the word unilaterally here blindsides the reader, forcing a view of a reality that does not exist (i.e., spin).
...Israel's nonmilitary responses to Hamas-led terrorist activities -- severely limiting the flow of food, fuel and other commodities into Gaza...
Note the words nonmilitary response. Seems pretty peaceful, huh? Alas, the blockade is maintained militarily, and in every book on military history that I have read, siege is a military weapon, and has been for millennia.
Dozens more examples exist throughout the article.
Now a look at some serious sins:
The key tenet of the article is that Gaza is not occupied, and that Israel governs the legal rights of Israel and Gaza's population. If this is the case, then all occupants of Gaza have access to Israeli courts, but no warrants have been issued to those living in Gaza. Israel has its own constitution that protects its citizens, and it is clear that Israel does not accord the occupants of Gaza with these rights. Israel's constitution also prohibits the use of military force against it's own citizens. So who are the people of Gaza if not citizens, then they must be squatters. Alas, the squatters are unable to leave if they wnted to, and are being forced to live in what amounts to a concentration camp, or konzentrationslager. So if these are foreign nationals being held against their will, without charge, then Israel is guilty of many heinous international crimes.
Although intelligently written to fool the weak-minded, I was surprised that lawyers should be so blind to international law. But then, the article was written for Joe and Sheila American who are not the brightest bulb on the tree.
I give the article a D-
First, obviously the meaning of 'unilaterally' mystifies you because of your lack of knowledge. Israel handed land to the PLA which it gained in the war against Egypt. But the Palestinians failed the test.
Therefore Israel excluded the inhabitants of Gaza from moving around Israel due to the fact that they did nothing to stop the rockets and mortars which were fired at Israel. It closed the borders.
'The key tenet' - this indicates your intelligence problems, because you cannot even read and quote correctly, and due to this want, you draw false conclusions:
While Hamas is clearly trying to bolster its legitimacy, the conflict along Israel's southern border has a broader legal dimension -- the question of whether, as a matter of international law, Israel "occupies" Gaza. The answer is pivotal: It governs the legal rights of Israel and Gaza's population and may well set a legal precedent for wars between sovereign states and non-state entities, including terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda
Always personal attacks, yet you provide no substance. Your fervor blinds you to the truth.
The fact is, as I logically demonstrated, is that Israel is breaking either its own constitution, or international law, or both. What is it?
Nevertheless, Israel's crimes of immorality are without precedence this century, even making the massacres in Somalia look small.
Goodbye.
Somalia, well, that is really a point for you, this islamistic-arabic slaughterhouse. Please, don`t leave, come up with more examples of the cilized behaviour we want to learn from islamistic movements.
ericf:wonderful interview on DemocracyNow this morning with Avi Shlaim, in England. I think you'll like it. www.democracynow.org for transcript or you can see/hear the show online,free.
Hamas have several times sued for peace, their only requirement that Israel return to its 1967 borders:
Nov 2006: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1104-26.htm
Dec 2007: http://www.imemc.org/article/52046
Apr 2008: http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/748/38684
Apr 2008: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24235665/
How can you say Hamas refuses to negotiate?
Israel have yet to propose any cease-fire on their own accord without a third-party proxy.
The US government, who is responsible for supporting and arming, including with 400 nuclear warheads, the genocidal state of Israel (really Occupied Palestine), is the number one problem here.
The number two problem is YOU, who do nothing about it.
That same US government allows sites like this plastic progressive sandbox to operate relatively unfettered.
Why?
Because they view it as a useful SAFTY VALVE: they know if you piddle away your time posting and hand-wringing here that you won't march on Washington and throw their asses out.
As always, the ball is in YOUR court--and I don't see you doing squat.
As always, the ball is in YOUR court--and I don't see you doing squat.
Um, Serena, as a US citizen, are you doing anything? Even in Mexico, there is much for you to do.
Well, this denunciation of Israel is already disproved, but a limited mind like yours does not even understand numbers. So walk to Washington, in your wishful thinking, for the annihilation of Israel, it won`t be your last walk.
ignore zionist troll
comment Islamistic martyr
One thing to do is for the big banks and hedge fund firms to short the Israeli Shekel value into oblivion thus destroying the Israeli economy. But no, these gangsters (like Goldman Sachs) are too busy beating up on Iceland, Hungary and Mexico's currencies (and sending the $$$ to Israel). Another is for the US to cut off Israel's welfare check (that'll be the freakin' day).
I wonder what will happen to all these oil states and the states they finance after the oil is gone. Well, I guess, better keep out of reach, 50% of the population is under 25, there will be a lot of failed states.
Naomi Klein is great on everything but this topic, in which she's dead wrong. As long as Hamas exists, there will be no peace. Israelis would make peace with Palestininas tomorrow if there were no Hamas. Neither party wants war, both want to co-exist and respect / recognize each other's right to exist. That's why Hamas and Hezbollah must be exterminated in their entire.
If I said the same thing about "exterminating" Israel, I would be labeled an anti-Semite.
Your mindset is deranged, comparing the goal to exterminate a murderous organisation with the annihilation of a state, especially of Israel. Your wishful thinking will never turn into reality.
illumineer, surely you jest...Even the world "exterminated" sounds a bit bizarre to me.
You are the one being blindsided by an irrational "right or worng" love of Israel "illumineer" an alas all too tragic flaw amongst ostensibly "liberal" diaspora Jewish people who have been exposed to a certain kind of brainwashing and fortunately one that can be overcome as Klein, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman show.
"That's why Hamas and Hezbollah must be exterminated in their entire." That is what Hitler said of the Jews are you really sure you want to go the way of hatred? Not only is it extremely unethical it would also be suicidal for Jewish people considering there are 1.2 billion Muslims and roughly 13 million Jewish people. You are outnumbered quite literally 100 to 1, not only is making peace by giving Palestinian their rightful land as guaranteed by the U.N the ethical thing to do it might be the ONLY thing Israel can do to assure its survival.
hootowl, i also admire those of my fellow jewish folks that you mentioned here.
Brainwashing? Well, i never was good at being brainwashed so i never bought into the whole israel thing or organized religion for that matter, however, i am no atheist. It is an ethnic thing, being jewish. And a long history of being the 'other' in a christian world. And persecuted.
'Karmically', the jewish people didn't do badly over the past 2,000 years. No crusades or inquisitions or colonization or forced conversions or pedophile clergy (that i know about anyway) or genocides or the ravishing of entire continents as per Africa and South American, etc ...you name it...Until, yes, the state of israel. Now they have been making up for lost time.
Too bad patriarchal religions have been the informing paradigm of all our so-called civilizations for so long.
But as far as brainwashing is concerned, after WWII it was not brainwashing, it was PTSD in spades.
Israel depends on this 'otherness' for its rationale for existence. As we can see, it is imploding upon them, and i fear, on all jews. Unless the enlightened progressives of the world will remain vigilant and vocal and active. Time will tell.
Peace.
Hamas have several times sued for peace, their only requirement that Israel return to its 1967 borders.
Nov 2006: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1104-26.htm
Dec 2007: http://www.imemc.org/article/52046
Apr 2008: http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/748/38684
Apr 2008: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24235665/
What neo-con kool-aid flavor are you drinking this time? I hope it tastes shi**y.
My little Hamas boy, once it is an offer of hudna, not peace, then a truce with conditions, you cannot make up the differences.
My my, it can read...barely.
So any proposition with terms is not peace? Which petri dish did you fall from?
This means that the US is still at war with Germany and Japan? Something I guess you would approve.
Your functional illiteracy alone is not interesting enough for me to continue the discussion. Do you have other disabilities, too?
If the discussion fails to interest you, why do you ask a question? The only disability I (and the world) have is you and your Zionist friends.
What excuse do you have to offer today to justify the slaughter and genocide of Gazans?
Peace is about compromise (if you have a family, you will know that), and it is clear that you and your Zionist kind are willing to accept only unconditional peace. The Zionist spin-machine is running at full-speed, but all your talking points justifying the asymmetric slaughter have all been shredded on both moral and legal grounds. There is NEVER any justification for planned mass-murder.
World opinion is against you and your kind. GOD is against you and your kind.
You have become what you hate. And hatred is strong in you.
Oh, you are a believer, that is disability enough.
In an asymmetric war which the Hamas thought it will win and provoked Israel proves to be stronger, and that is why you are starting to complain and, by this, relativise the Holocaust and confuse the term genocide. This is petty-minded.
Under normal circumstances one declares defeat and negotiations are starting for peace settlement, but since sixty years you find no one on the other site who is courageous enough to do this, with exception of Sadat who consequently was murdered.
So there we are, but the Islamistic movements will destroy themselves even when they have got some strongholds inside the western left.
It's not like Israel has never conducted genocide before. The UN in 1982 declared the Sabra and Shatila massacres acts of genocide.
Israel is thus predisposed to invoking the Holocaust on it's enemies. And these attacks are becoming more regular, ferocious and cowardly.
Thanks for the proofs of your shortcomings. Who exactly committed the crimes at Sabra and Shatila?
And as the populations increased, in Libanon, in Gaza strip, in Jordania and so on, your lies are obvious.
Check your facts, poor boy.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) allowed 150 Lebanese Christian Phalangist militiamen to enter the two Palestinian refugee camps, and the militia massacred civilians inside while the IDF prevented the escape of terrified Palestinians through the IDF-controlled checkpoints. The IDF shot illuminating flares over the encircled camps to make the job easier for the Phalangists.
The subsequently established Kahan Commission recorded that Israeli military personnel were aware that a massacre was in progress without taking serious steps to stop it, and that reports of a massacre in progress were made to senior Israeli officers and even to an Israeli cabinet minister; the Commission therefore regarded Israel as bearing part of the "indirect responsibility", that Ariel Sharon bore "personal responsibility" and recommended his dismissal from the post of Defense Minister.
The reason this is considered a genocidal attack is that the attacks were premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatants. From wikipedia:
"Ariel Sharon and Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan met Sep 16 with the Lebanese Phalangist militia units, inviting them to enter the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps to clean out terrorist nests. Under the Israeli plan, Israeli soldiers would control the perimeters of the refugee camps and provide logistical support while the Phalangists would enter the camps, find the PLO fighters and hand them over to Israeli forces".
As history now knows, the Phalangists handed over nothing but corpses, mostly women and children.
The Phalangists were mercenaries, a proxy for the IDF. Israel was responsible for this atrocity. QED.
Well, the point is the phalangists were seeking revenge for an earlier massacre of their people by PLO-fighters.
Wikipedia correctly described the deal with the IDF, no one was aware that the Phalangists will betray the deal and just seek revenge.
So if you want to have the responsibles sue the Phalange but for such a simple-minded it is easier to continue his hate way against Israel..
Genocide: The organized attempt to deliberately and systematically destroy, in whole or in part, an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. - Wikipedia
What part of this does not apply to Israel's systematic attacks with overwhelming force on the Gazans? The Israeli attacks on the Gazans is genocide, and calling speaking the truth petty-minded is feeble at best.
I offer the links again: Hamas have several times called for peace; the Israelis have not once offered peace, and refuse to negotiate. Read the truth and weep.
Nov 2006: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1104-26.htm
Dec 2007: http://www.imemc.org/article/52046
Apr 2008: http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/748/38684
Apr 2008: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24235665/
Your Hamas truth? That is really a reason to weep, because it indicates the extension of ideological-religious thinking in a confused world which needs neither empiric facts nor logic, similar to the wishful thinking of political neocons and the religious rights that it is enough to change the image, the view by spin, to alter the facts, the reality.
The USA and Israel offered negotiations based on the recognition of Israel and of the achievements of the Oslo process. The Hamas said never. So sometimes when the Hamas feels weak, they offer hudna or a truce, but never a peace settlement.
As lying, massmurder, genocide etc., is typical for you, in order to fulfill your duty of islamistic propaganda and I already disproved the false claims of a Hamas which offers peace there is no need to answer.
So, dude, tell us why the IDF is systematically fire-bombing hospitals, UN schools, and UN warehouses that store food and medical supplies destined for civilian Gazans?
Maybe you think this is the lies of Hamas?
The only liars, mass-murderers are the state of Israel and it's Zionist supporters. You will find yourself increasingly alone as world opinion grows against you.
That the IDF have adopted the tactics of the Nazis is now widely known:
- Blockade
- Blitzkrieg
- Invasion
But you don't care. Your hatred blinds you to truth. You become what you hate.
As we know enough of the ties between the Nazis, the al Husainis, the Iran, Egypt and Syria, we don`t care about your world opinion which does not exist. Maybe you look too much Al Jazeera, and all that islamistic stuff which likes to compare Israel with Nazi. So the Palestinians are Jews, according to your simple mind?
Seriously spoken, now it is clear that you are a religious fanatic who supports barbarians, those who disguise their mass slaughter as martyrdom.
FACT: Just looking at the time when Hamas was elected to power in Gaza, Abbas stated 28 Jun 2006 that Hamas agreed to work with Fatah "in the pursuit of a negotiated permanent peace with Israel" (Abbas' words, not mine). No hudna there, eh?
But then the late-2006 US/Israeli coup against Hamas threw that effort out the window. You reap what you sow.
Looking forward to seeing how you spin your way out of this well-documented piece of non-revisionist history. Why do you keep distorting reality and spread lies?
To continue your education, the Arabic word "hudna," means truce, and is more concrete than "tahdiya" (a period of calm) which Hamas often uses to describe a simple cease-fire. "Hudna" implies a recognition of the other party's existence. But we will never hear that on FoxNews.
Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinian people in January 2006, but the Israeli government has refused to recognize the Hamas government, choosing instead to recognize the un-elected appointees of Abbas. This is the real reason why there have been no peace negotiations. Israel does not want peace; it wants to ethnically cleanse the region that it defines as its own (in defiance of the UN).
"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population". - David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
"[Israel will] 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 Yasser Arafat". - Yitzhak Rabin (a "Prince of Peace" by Clinton's standards), explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry. (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen's remarks to the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.)
Well, as you come up with the same old lies again, and some new ones, I will answer only the new ones, first that of Ben-Zohar, because the indicated time of May 1948 was the time when the Israelis were bombed by the Egyptian airforce, with heavy casualities under the civilian population.
There is no such quotation in his books so you use a fabricated one. I recommend that you should read first and quote later.
The second quotation is just copy out of the internet of a quotation of a quotation which lacks the source.
So you are obviously not only an islamistic believer, but also an incorrigible liar.
You have no answer on Abbas' call for a permanent peace in June 2006. So you change the subject. But maybe you will claim that Abbas' statement was a fabrication too, as you have attempted to do with every quote and reference that I have given.
Maybe you will tell us that the Israeli hate-speech given at:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/palestinians.html?q=palestinians.html
are fabricated as well?
I suggest that you seek help for your paranoia, as you seem to believe that there is a global PR conspiracy against Israel.
Your uninformed ad hominen attacks fall flat as well. I am not an islamist believer, actually an atheist and don't care much for weak-minded people who are unable to face reality without a baby bottle. I object to my taxes being used to kill innocent lives, and the influence of the pro-Israeli lobbies on our Government. What's clear and final is that according to the Anti-Genocide Convention of 1948, a civilian population can never be punished collectively, as Israel is now punishing the Gazans, for the actions of militants in their midst. Gettit?
Your meme is to attack people, not data. You disguise your screams of "anti-semite" behind name-calling. A typical pro-Zionist ploy.
I'll leave you one more quote that your paranoia is surely to attempt to discredit:
"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial." - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online
As I already proved that you are a liar, the rest of your hate postings against Jews is irrelevant.
You have neither logic nor facts, only fabrications of simple minds, just like the neocons.
Inschallah.
Hootowl I take your point. In addition to "The Diary of Anne Frank" I will request the Rachel Corrie and "The USS Liberty" be offered also to our students. It is most difficult to not be hateful when one sees the slaughter in Gaza and then be insulted and cowed by our own representatives!!
Very hard indeed. My hatred is hard to contain. TY anyway.
Much better, more information is always better than less IMO.
I dont know what the fight is all about. Read below and lets all bow down to the almighty Israel:
According to the Torah, Israel's character as the chosen people is unconditional as it says in Deuteronomy 14:2, "For you are a holy people to YHWH your God, and God has chosen you to be his treasured people from all the nations that are on the face of the earth."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_as_a_chosen_people
sunshinebiz,
Hi, Now I hope I'm not cynical here but allegedly some long hair named Moses wrote Deuteronomy, for all I know he was Catholic, BUT, IF, he was Jewish, well, then, I hate to say this but he may not have been IMPARTIAL in his analysis. I hate to ask this, but could he have pre-judged this affair? Rashly? Before stuff like Equal Rights got popular? Everyone makes mistakes. Let's cut this dude some slack.
?????
www.jamescarroll.net/Constantine.html
There is no hope for the USA government to act in a moral capacity; witness the recent unanimous vote in support of the Paletinian Holocaust. The USA is still in denial in regards to the Native American genocide.Couple this with a general lack of remorse for the millions killed by the USA in Phillipines, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa,Iraqi and Afghanistan and you have a truely cruel, greedy , heartless nation. The USA politicians ignore all the Palestinian/zionist history and just endlessly repeat "Rockets" "Rockets" "Rockets". Yes those rockets that killed exactly one israeli between the time israel violated the latest ceasefire by murdering six Palestinians and this massive bombardment.Hamas is the duely elected government of Palestine and has made hurclean efforts at peace( not retaliating for one year to a couple dozen assassinations and kidnappings of Hamas's elected ministers) The USA is in a state of well deserved collapse. And israel is the USA's Frankenstein; it would neither exist as state or be as powerful except for USA aid and influence. Hopefully it will collapse with it's sponsor. All empires collapse and considering the Senate vote the USA is way past due.
glenn ford:is it you? The Glenn Ford who was on Hugh Hamilton's show on WBAI not too long ago? (I don't remember the date.) or someone using the name as a screen name? (clue:typos?)
Sorry to confuse you. It is the dead movie actor Glenn Ford.-----------------Thanks -------------------- Peace ----------------------
glenn ford:thanks. I'm old enough to remember him, and until I heard the journalist Glenn Ford, who has an online site....Is why I asked. www.blackagendareport.com is Glenn Ford's good site.
If a non-Jew had written this article CD wouldn't have published it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/09/AR2008050902296.html
No myths, some facts
Who finances, educates, takes care, feeds and arms the people of Gaza since sixty years?
UNO, UNRWA, FAO, UNICEF, OPEC, EU, USA, Red Cross, former Soviet bloc, Islamic Conference, Arab League, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Lybia, Kuwait, ... and hundreds of NGOs.
Inhabitants of Gaza
1946: 100.000
1948: 250.000
2008: 1,5 million (due to Israeli suppression and starvation, or because it is a Ghetto or why?)
Fertility rate: 7.5
Women rights: Hamas
UNRWA: 28.000 employees, more than 20.000 of them Palestinians, more than 50% of these are members of Hamas
If someone "transfered" you (see genocide) to a small area of land and denied you basic human rights you'd look for weapons wherever you could find them too. When you leave people hopelessly in despair they tend to have kids, perhaps unconsciously hoping to win the demographic war. if Israel keeps behaving in an overtly genocidal way I hope that IS what happens and Israelis Jews have some damn lifejackets and know how to swim well. Fuck Israels manipulation of their captive populations for the purpose stealing land completely.
You Hasbara canned talking points are wearing awfully thin fitzwunderlich, there is only so long you can lie on behalf of genocide for so long before people rise up against you, count on it.
As you are not fit to argue rationally, but prefer to come up with war, when I offered the truth - your lie of genocide when there is an increase of population - it makes no sense to discuss. You proved the point for Israel.
Another zionist shill, I see.
The Israelis deliberately target children as they don't want them to grow up and become guerrillas. Hence the deliberate targeting of the UN school.
The Palestinians know this, and that's why they produce so many children.
Really quite simple.
The Israelis are responsible for overpopulation in Occupied Palestine.
Well, "quite simple" - that is true, at least for you. And I hope you mean the responsibility is not direct, particularly, as Gaza was not occupied.
Anyway, as long as Palestinians prefer killing Jews to the love of their children, there will be no peace.
The production of children for the only goal to become martyrs is despicable:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/3267
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M5D5_m93A0
http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2009/hamas-tv-gifted-child-jihad-warriors-p1.php
It's occupied now--with zionist tanks.
Don't try to shit me.
This is war, no occupation, you have troubles with clear thinking, and the question remains will Hamas sacrifice the population or declare its defeat. As Hamas propagates martyrdom, the answer is clear.
It is occupation, blockade, war, a massacre, collective punishment and a Holocaust( sorry Holocaust is not intrinsic to only Jews, ask a Native American, or Palestinian)
Please proof the Holocaust of Palestinians, or shut up, brain dead.
I am probably the clearest thinker you will ever have the undeserved privilege of meeting--even in virtual space.
Which is why you are afraid of me and choose to call me names.
The sole of my huarache to you.
Greetings to you mom, I`m sure she does a good job, maybe spoils you a bit too much, so be nice to her, because nobody else will be nice to you in your future, spoilt brat.
At 64, both of my parents are long gone.
Guess we know your age, now, don't we: 15.
64, and still childish?
genocidal troll ignored
I like to comment islamistic massmurderers.
No it's not a war when one side has tanks, jets, an Army, a Navy, white phosphorus, cluster bombs and DIME and the other side has not only none of these but no bomb shelters and no where to run to, the correct words is not "war," but "massacre". You can talk your Hasbara points until you are blue in the face but the truth is self evident in this case. And no that doesn't make Hamas rockets "good," but the response to light causality pin prick attacks after imposing a blockade and breaking a ceasefire on Israel's side is NOT a massacre, the whole world is watching and outside the U.S./Israel* media bubble condemns Israel's actions strongly. That is why both the U.N. and Red Cross have spoken of "crimes against humanity."
* And kudos to Israelis press like Haaretz for actually being less biased than U.S MSM.
Folks like you cry foul when they begin something like firing rockets and mortars out of civilian sourroundings, which is a warcrime, at civilians, which is a warcrime, for eight years and then get a response they did not expect.
This is war - the Hamas wanted it, they got it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/world/middleeast/11hamas.html?_r=3&hp
UNRWA and Hamas
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/S...2FShowFull
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=11...1231063776
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/07/gaza-hamas-unrwa-oped-cx_cr_0108rosett_print.html
History
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/981931.html
And in ten years, precisely 24 Israeli citizens have been killed by Qassams.
http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/gaza--bomb-them-back-to-the-stone-age.aspx
How cowardly was Winston Churchill and his government to hide amongst Londoners during the Blitz whilst planning the fire-bombing of Dresden and Hamburg? How terrible it was for the Soviet Army to hide amongst the citizens of Stalingrad while Hitler was protecting his army at the gates? SHOCK, HORROR, the Russians had the nerve to shoot at the Nazis! Cry warcrime, warcrime!
As you don`t understand history and context, it is obvious that you had to post your nonsense.
If I don't understand, why don't you enlighten us all and explain why Gazans, under siege and being starved, should not defend themselves against an overwhelmingly superior invading army? Since you know so much about history, perhaps you can remind us when genocide was legally and morally justified?
I'll say it again. In 10 years, 24 Israeli citizens have been killed by Qassams. More Israelis die from infection induced by ingrown toe-nails, but I don't see Zionists demanding that all toes be amputated.
Repeating lies, like you do, won`t help in this situation, but if you cannot stand up to truth and reality it is, maybe, a good solution for you.
What lies? I am sure that the Israelis are counting bodies. Why don't you show us your data and attempt to refute the data that I posted a link to?
The truth and reality is genocide in Gaza. Prove me wrong!
Hasta la vista, baby!
I find Canadians are nicer people than Americans.
I thought that until I saw the Indian reservations.
Joe
Canucks? I distrust anyone wearing plaid shirts, wielding axes and who worship mythical figures called Dudley Do-Right.
(Just kiddin', cuz).
Hi. Where? What's the total population? I once had relatives on one coast, now different relatives on the other coast. That reminds me:in the 1990s, I heard an indigenous person from Canada, during a visit to NYC, say on the radio, that he thought it was impossible for people to live so crowded in cities and remain calm and friendly. (I'm a city person, love city living, but he's got a point.)
No shit, any bunk room up there?
NYCartist, to answer your question, if you're still reading this thread: No, I'm not Jewish, but since I frequent what one might call an intellectual/artistic milieu (when I can get out of the house, that is), many of my friends and colleagues are Jewish, as has been the case since University, and thus such questions as I address here have long been a subject of conversation among us. How many times we've wondered how different things could be if "the right Jews," who seem to be so many (i.e., Jews like them but with more power and influence), truly, profoundly represented that community, or at least had equal input into matters of politics and policy regarding Jews, and played an equal part in defining the Jewish identity today, to that of the warmongering Zionists and pro-Zionists. In no way did I mean to imply that Jews were somehow different from others and therefore had more of a responsibility to "lead" (and this is why I said "leaders or participants in human advancement"); I merely meant to say, as others have said before me, how unfortunate it is that the Jewish identity (especially in the public eye, as simplistically represented in the MSM), has been usurped, so to speak, by Zionist Israel, to which Jews are expected to pay homage as if to some false god. How different the Israeli ethos, with its militarism and lack of compassion for the other, is from the culture that produced, say, Einstein, Arendt, Kafka, Chagall, Jonas Salk, Hermann Broch, Leon Blum, Bruno Schulz, Osip Mandelstam, et al. And, say what one will about Israeli achievements, even today nearly all of the great Jewish cultural figures of world stature (regardless of their stance towards Israel) are not Israeli: Chomsky, Primo Levi, Yehudi Menuhin, Harold Pinter, Philip Roth, Wallerstein, our dear Naomi Klein, Tony Judt; and those Israelis who do rise to this level--witness Barenboim--are almost always severely critical of what has become of the Zionist project.
But, to put a further nuance of my point, and to illustrate that the onus lies on us all as Americans, and not just on Jews, I said the other day, in a post commenting on the US Congress's recent resolution overwhelming in support of Israel in their current buthery in Gaza, that the US itself is the problem, in a very real sense, with Israel being an extension of that problem, and nothing short of a complete overhaul of the predominant mindset of Americans--in re Israel but also in re their power relationships with the rest of the world--is going to change things much. I'm thinking in particular of what Chomsky, referring to the post-Vietnam era, called the need for something similar to the "de-Nazification" of the ruling elites of Germany, but in America, and I think the same is needed now, even more, in the wake of Bush gang's depredations. But given the current makeup of the Obama administration, this doesn't seem around the corner. Nothing short of a 'soft revolution', a non-violent but nonetheless profound upheaval in the very manner in which we perceive our roles in the world as individuals and co-nationals will ever bring us even close to realizing something of this nature. It may not even happen in our lifetimes. But it needs to happen, or we're all doomed.
clovis:Hello.
Edit insert: By literally distancing yourself from where I asked my question and your comment on Jan.9, the whole meaning of our exchange changes. I just found your Jan.9 comment suggesting Jews "need to distance themselves...from" Israel... Why did you not comment at the place where I replied to your comment?
I just found your comment. Hard to stay away, as I'm rather upset at the actions of the Israeli government and the nonactions of my, the US government. Explain the line, "when I can get out". We may have something in common. Your comment is long and I have to reread it.. (I may not add to this.) First, I am uncomfortable about a statement like "the right Jews". People are people and Jews are people. Do folks say "the right WASPS"? Do you ever list "the right Christians"? I think Jews are perceived differently. I now have a link to the book I have been referring to often, "Constantine's Sword". http://jamescarroll.net/Constantine.html Please look at James Carroll's book link.
The U.S.could stop Israel's government's behavior, I think. I want to point out Howard Zinn's Nov. 8,2008 speech, played on DemocracyNow on Jan.2,2009 www.democracynow.org transcript online,free. He makes a good point, in addition to knowing history is important or its like you were born yesterday and the government can tell you anything. His point I wish to make here, is that government interests and people's interests are not the same. So when people use "we" with US policy and "people", it's important to differentiate between people in a country and the government. I shall look for your answer and reply, if possible. Thanks for replying. Where (roughly, geography)did you go to University? I went to a NYS college long long ago on the GI Bill (a gov't benefit after dad's disabled/deceased death after WWII;he'd enlisted. He was related to one famous Jew you mention and one historically famous WASP family. When his grandpa married a Jew, he was thrown out of the WASP family.)
Hi, NYCartist. Sorry about the confusion in not posting my reply right next to yours. I've been very busy lately and I wrote that reply in a single breath without any thought to its placement (or its style, either). In any case, I agree with everything you say and didn't mean anything sinister by the phrase "the right Jews." I was simply referring to the fact that I have repeatedly heard it said in conversation, usually by Jews (clearly of a secular-leftist persuasion), that those who most visibily--and, let's say, institutionally--represent "the Jewish community" are increasingly some of the most reactionary, intransigeantly Zionist members of that community, and that it's a shame that we see in such positions of power so few of those prominent Jews who have more in keeping with the great humanistic tradition of modern secular Jewry. The paradigm is perhaps artificial, in that one could likewise say, as you imply, that the WASPS in the government also tend to be reactionary etc. The only difference I would say is that, to the great credit of modern Jewish culture, it is easier to say that modern Jewry indeed has a tradition of thought striving for human emancipation, whereas it is harder to say this generally for WASPdom (I have never particularly subscribed to the various myths of the "Founding Fathers" of the USA; though they did write some progressive documents for their time, I tend to see US history in more jaundiced terms as one of genocide and imperialism where the social advances made--often with Jews playing a big part--have always gone against the institutional grain). But, in any case, to conclude the point, one should not in general be too surprised that those with institutional power are some of the most brutal representatives of their respective communities, since such is the nature of power itself as presently conceived in our culture. And this is why I say that some sort of spiritual revolution (in the broadest sense)--a fundamental change in our way of thinking and conceiving society and power--is necessary before we see any significant results in the manner in which power is wielded. The International World Court seemed a step in this direction, especially when that Spanish judge Garzon went after Pinochet, but the US, Great Britain, Israel and others have done all they can since then to undermine what had seemed like a watershed moment in terms of making leaders responsible for their crimes. It's going to be a very long road, in any case...
clovis:aha. I think I disagree with your core point (if I have understood it). I don't see people in power in the US government as representative of the ethnic, religious or racial group they come from (although for diversity, I do keep count. That's a different topic.). I have never heard a Jew in over 6 decades, talk about "the right Jews" in any position of power. I have heard said that Jewish mainstream organizations do not represent the majority of Jews opinions. (Jews are well known, as in the old Jewish joke:put 3 Jews in a room and you'll get 5 positions on any topic.)
Jews are looked at differently from other groups. Jews are in very many countries, citizens of the countries. www.jamescarroll.net/Constantine.html I really like this book. It's the James Carroll who has articles on CD from the Boston Globe. He also wrote a history of the Pentagon;his dad was a general. James Carroll left the priesthood. He wrote a wonderful obit on Roslyn Zinn, who besides being an artist, was known to him and she had a spiritual, peace side.
To switch gears for a moment. Howard Zinn points out in his speech, played on DemocracyNow, on Jan 2,2009 that governments and people (of a country) do not have the same interests. When someone speaks of the US government doing something in "our"interest, you can be sure it's not in your and my interest, but in the interest of the government and power of the government. www.democracynow.org A great speech.
I shall "pass" on the spiritual stuff. I am not spiritual. I am a Jew and an atheist. I grew up Orthodox Jew and my Orthodox Jewish grandmother, Bubbie, was strongly socialist in her leaning. I have made many comments about her all over the place.
Finally, what country are you in?
Hi, NYCartist. At last we meet. My pleasure. Now, where and when did I say that the "people in power in the US government [are] representative of the ethnic, religious or racial group they come from"? I think you have misunderstood me. I mean quite the opposite. It is the institutions themselves, and the people within them, that CLAIM to represent their respective constituents, but this does not mean that they do in fact represent them. On the contrary. This was the meaning of the whole 'Not in My Name' movement, no? My only point was that, as far as major Jewish institutions--say, Israel, B'nai B'rith, AIPAC, JINSA, etc.--are concerned, the progressive intellectual traditions of modern Jewry (which it sounds like your grandmother was part of) are not exactly well represented. Perhaps part of the problem is that there is NO real progressive political movement of any kind afoot these days (as there was, say, in the Sixties), and perhaps if there was, this would allow progressive Jews (who remain nevertheless quite numerous, aside from the prominent intellectuals who, however brilliant, remain mostly confined to the academic milieu), along with everyone else, to manifest themselves politically. Another interesting, similar example in US history, though certainly not parallel by any means, is that of the Italian Americans. Once a solid cornerstone of progressive and even far left thought and action, the Italian Americans have for the most part degenerated, with their entry into the middle classes, into a reactionary petit-bourgeois self-satisfaction worthy of the boring suburbs they now inhabit.
Anyway, as for the rest, I'm a big fan of both James Carroll and Howard Zinn, though I have to say that I found Zinn's People's History of the United States so heart-wrenching, so mind-numbing in its unflinching enumeration of atrocity after atrocity, betrayal after betrayal, that I could only read it little bits at a time. And I certainly agree completely with your point that governments and people of a country normally do not indeed have the same interests. That said, in nominal democracies like the U.S. and Israel (a democracy at least for the Jews), the people do bear some responsibility form the actions their government takes, even if its not in their interest. With one caveat, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned: Bush did not legitimately win in either 2000 or 2004, so the 'American people'--amorphous, elusive, sprawling, undefinable mass that they are--can perhaps be (partially) exonerated.
And how did you figure out I no longer live in the US? I'm now in France, six years running.
clovis:I have good intuition, when I asked what country you are in. I don't always understand what you are saying. I didn't say you said, what you put in quotes.
Zinn "People's History..." certain parts were too painful for me. My favorite book is "You Can't Be Neutral in a Moving Train", Boston:Beacon Press,2003 edition has a great introduction. It's Zinn's autobio. You'll love it, if you haven't yet read it.
Oddly:you touch on some odd coincidence: one of my grandfathers (who I never knew) was French. Jew. My half-WASP grandmother married him. I grew up among Italian Catholics and East European Jews. My Bubbie, the Orthodox Jew who had socialist leanings, was pre-1960s and always a Democrat since she got her citizenship. Her only education was her learned father (a salesman in Poland at turn of,into 20th century, taught her to read and write Yiddish. She learned from "The Forward" newspaper up into the 1950s or later and life. She had incredible smarts and social skills. From pushcart, to small grocery store, widowed twice, first time with 5 babies under age 5 pre WWI in NYC;died penniless, I am proud to say.)
I am old enough to have participated in the 1960s, as a young adult. Some small activism:beginnings of teachers union (first contract),delegate to union; left teaching for art, small wheel in civil rights movement in the South, women's art movement, disability rights movement and here I am.
I haven't been to Paris since 1964 and I'd love to visit. Too ill.
Read Howard Zinn's speech online at DemocracyNow www.democracynow.org on Jan.2,2009, transcript is online, free. I think we can say people in a country are responsible for things they do:such as: folks who work in munitions, military machine, for rotten politicians....Do you know the work of Frances Fox Piven? She has said that people should put sand in the machinery of the war machine (not literally), to stop war in Iraq. So did Arundhati Roy in one of her speeches. She has her own website.
More on responsibility: People who remain silent during attacks on Muslims and South Asians in their communities, are responsible passively. People who ignore police brutality in NYC by the NYPD and pretend the Mayor Bloomberg is great, because he's rich, are responsible in part. So are the politicians. I do not feel responsible for the war on Iraq. What I feel as an American, is great pain and that I couldn't (along with many) stop it. I remember that we were successful in stopping the Vietnam War, but it took a long time to get many people involved, and it might have been the soldiers' resistance, as Chomsky said, that did it even more than the protests. But, as he's said, in another context, every bit helps.
I have a gut feeling that you think of Jews differently than Americans as a whole. Do you want to continue about that? It's about Jews in organizations that are Jewish organizations. No doubt, the majority of Jews are not affiliated with groups that are "Jewish groups", with exceptions of progressives who organize around Jewish, such as JFREJ:Jews for Racial and Economic Justice in NYC (and have a radio show;google). There's Jews Against the Occupation of Palestine www.jatonyc.org But Jews are in all progressive organizations. Some of us are not much in groups at all.
I don't know your frame of reference. Where did you grow up and go to university? (Sorry for my cognitive glitches, are due to CFS/ME and "overtired", but the basic brain still seems to be here, for now.) I enjoy our comments back and forth. Thanks.
Six years out of the US will definitely bring a much more rational perspective to one's life. Much of that change is due to the ready availability of information about what's happening in the world--instead of the bombardment by US media of propaganda and disinformation.
In 1989 I took my daughter to France for a month as her high school graduation present. We arrived right after Tiananmen Square's protests. In France, there was 24 hour a day news coverage of the events following the protests--the kangaroo courts, etc.
When we returned to the US I happened to write a review for the Albuquerque Journal of a film from China--and I mentioned some of the events in the film that corresponded, in a very veiled manner, with issues and events involving human rights in China.
I received a phone call from a supposedly retired CIA agent who wanted to get together because he was sure that I was also CIA, claiming that I couldn't possibly know what was going on in China unless I was, as nothing was shown on US t.v. news.
He refused to believe that we had seen all of the post-Tiananmen stuff on French t.v.
At that time, if I remember correctly, was the big push to give China a Most Favored Nations Status, so the US government was suppressing as much as it could about human rights violations.
Very similar to what they have tried to do in regard to the violations by the narco/paramilitary state of Colombia in order to pass a "free trade" agreement.
"I merely meant to say, as others have said before me, how unfortunate it is that the Jewish identity (especially in the public eye, as simplistically represented in the MSM), has been usurped, so to speak, by Zionist Israel, to which Jews are expected to pay homage as if to some false god."
Excellent point you'd probably be interested in this article by ex-Jew GILAD ATZMON who now self identifies as a "Hebrew speaking Palestinian:
http://www.counterpunch.org/atzmon01202007.html
From the responses of the international community this past week, and the entire immediate ineffectiveness of protests and boycotts, its seems to me the horror will draw out, perhaps for a month, until future generations will read about this moment in history as Holocaust II. It was a problem technology exacerbated, not solved.
Jewish Lobbies are a decisive factor in Washington's support for Israel and wield immense power and influence in the United States
In a November interview with the German daily Junge Welt, former state department official William R. Polk said Jewish lobbies have long had an 'active and determined' say in US politics
"That is a characteristic of American politics. It is unfortunate and disturbing, but it's just like that," Polk said.
It seems to me that the only way to bring Israel to it's senses is to bring America to it's knees.
By de-powering the US we will de-fund the IDF. Boycott and divest in the United States (of Israel) and sanction all of our Israeli controlled politicians (at the ballot box).
Humbaba's opinion
Occupied America
i have know some jews -- Israelis -- who said that there israeli jews of conscience who , refusing to serve in their army against the arabs and palestinians - would try to be "ineligible" by pretending to be "crazy"...they would have to undergo medical exams to find out of they are lying. the punishment for refusing is JAIL. some say it is one reason many Israelis have left israel as they couldn't bear doing what their conscience opposed: "to kill".
There is no need to go to crazy extremes to avoid conscripted military service in Israel...
If you are Hasidic, then you are exempt... If you are a conscientious objector, you can join their version of the peace corps...
Other than that, it is a matter of pride and patriotism and duty to serve in the Israeli military...
After these kids serve their time, many are traumatized by what they have had to do in the name of Israel...
I met an ex-special forces sniper who was drinking himself into oblivion in Colombia after serving in the military...
He would brag to me about shooting Palestinian children, because they were sub-human, worth less than dogs...
I pitied him for allowing his government to brainwash away his humanity...
One hopes that the movement to divest ourselves of those entities which support the genocide by Zionist Jews of the mostly helpless Palestinians will grow into a chorus that will be continuous and effective. The Jew State has so far been able to, through a concerted effort by their helpers (sayanim) here in America, bribe or smear it's detractors into America. Our feeling, here at The American Peasant is that these ongoing efforts by foreign-controlled Jweish organizations are criminal...and, as I said "ongoing" Some might find language in the RICO Act applicable. Should thus be the case that an ongoing criminal conspiracy exists to thwart American election law, why then those entities might be fined right out of existence....think about it.
I believe a major campaign using all media - showing palestanian children praying to GOD asking God to send another Moses to Deliver them from the Jewish Pharohs.. would really convey the message.
Maybe Millions of Good and Decent Jewish People would understand the parity between their history and todays situation.