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Gaza and the Language of Power
The tireless efforts of British MP George Galloway, and the courageous endeavors of the Free Gaza movement have managed to push Gaza back into the spotlight, even if momentarily and with political context which is lacking at best.
Aside from that, the three-week Israeli onslaught in Gaza, starting December 27 - and the catastrophic conditions endured there - have served the purpose of a footnote in many news reports. The event is generally cited as such: "Israel moved against Hamas in Gaza to quell the firing of militants' rockets, resulting in the death of such and such number." Hamas, according to media conventional wisdom, is the "militant group that ousted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' forces in a bloody coup in mid 2007."
Sadly, ones worse fears have actualized, where the post-Gaza massacre world and the one which existed prior are exactly the same. Israel is trying to prove that political and military might overpower all human rights reports combined, and that public opinion - which turned against Israel as it wantonly killed and wounded thousands - will eventually turn back in Israel's favor. One does not need to be an expert in the art of propaganda to predict the public relations model that would allow Israel to deceive millions into believing that the belligerent state is in fact a victim in a sea of hostile Arabs hell-bent on subjugating the Jewish State. Thus it was hardly a deviation from the script when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used a most shrewd term to depict his governments' refusal to respect international law regarding the dismantling of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, all considered illegal under international law, specifically the Fourth Geneva Convention. He said during his recent trip to Germany that the West Bank will never be "Judenrein" a Nazi term meaning "cleansed of Jews".
And once again, Israel is resorting to its traditional propaganda (such as equating Palestinians with Nazis), drawing on people's historical sympathies, guilt and ignorance of false analogies.
More, Israel's National Security Advisor Uzi Arad is in fact reviving the discredited Israeli rhetoric that Israel has no partner in peace, in comments made to Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Friday, July 10. He questioned whether there is in fact a Palestinian leadership that is capable of delivering peace with Israel. If such a Palestinian state would exist, say in 2015 - according to Arad - it would be a "fragile structure. A house of cards." But he chose to omit that Israel purposely besieged and weakened the democratically elected Palestinian leadership in Gaza, while painstakingly propping and legitimizing Abbas, using with astounding mastery, the carrot and the stick metaphor.
Only Israel can cleverly spawn a dependent, weak leadership, and accuse the Palestinians of not being a worthy peace partner; only Israel can murder thousands of Palestinians and demand security from its very victims; only Israel can caution of a Nazi past, yet cage Palestinians in concentration camps, punish them for recklessly subscribing to the wrong God, or foolishly falling into the wrong race.
It has six months since the unprecedented and savage war against Palestinians in Gaza, and here we are making the same argument, referencing the same deceit and quoting the same outrageous claims. During those same months, unsubstantiated Israeli accounts were countered with carefully composed reports by highly regarded organizations, such as the Red Cross, among others. Bombarded Gaza neighborhoods "look like the epicenter of a massive earthquake," said a recent Red Cross report, entitled: "Gaza: 1.5 million trapped in despair."
UN human rights envoy, Richard Falk summed up Israeli behavior in more direct terms, on Thursday, July 9. "There will be no peace between these two peoples, until Israel shows respect for Palestinian rights under international law," Professor Falk said.
Israeli leaders however pay no heed to international law. In fact there is little evidence that Israel's history was shaped, in any respect, by international standards, neither those pertaining to war nor peace. Israel only understands the language of politics and power. It is a state that has been constructed, and sustained upon Machiavellian wisdom. Advisor Arad is perhaps the most visible manifestation of the logic that propels the Israeli state. In his recent interview, he demanded that once a state deal is reached with the Palestinians, Israel should be granted a NATO membership as a "quid pro quo". To counter nuclear threats by others, he said, Israel must have "tremendously powerful weapons". Considering that Israel already has nuclear arms, one has to wonder to what other "tremendously powerful weapons" Arad is referring. Arad must've been encouraged by US Vice President Joe Biden who said in a recent interview with ABC's "This Week" that "If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursed now (by the US and its allies), that is their sovereign right to do that."
Once again, it is the brute logic that "might makes right" pursued by those with the bigger guns, that continues to menace the Middle East, with Gaza being the most devastating example.
One must remember that Israel never heeds to statements, and is hardly moved by reports and random condemnations. Only pressure, constant and focused, will grab the attention of Israeli policymakers. Only the language of an international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions will translate in Tel Aviv to a legible political language. As for Gaza, civil society must not wait for President Obama or any other to save the slowly starving population, but must take every possible and urgent effort to help an oppressed yet proud community to redeem its basic rights and freedom.
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32 Comments so far
Show AllIsrael is nothing but the modern day nazi. Up till now they have made it and art form of blaming the victiom for their own atrocities.
If history proves correct, their arrogance will once again prove their eventual demise. Another holocaust will come. And it will not be perpetrated by the Muslims. It will be by the white men again. Christians to be exact. The rise in anti-semitism in the west, especially in the US will be their undoing. More and more of the citizens are starting to realize that they are being hoodwinked by the zionists and the US of A is no longer. It is now the US of I.
What is this - a wish? a threat? One of the most appalling comments I've seen here in a long time.
Why would it be a threat. History will repeat itself. The arrogance of the Zionist Israelis will be their downfall. Read a little history and you might understand you fuckwit!
So, that asshole Netanyahu goes to Germany and brings up Nazi terms over there, to then associate the Palestinians with the Nazis. That guy is a real SS, what an unbelievable bastard.
For too long, the Terrorist state of Israel has been allowed to live as if it was above the laws, all thanks to their staunch US enablers and protectors and with the complicity of the other cowards nations.
Horrified is right, the zionist arrogance and total disregard for human rights is what will lead these criminals to theirs doom, the same way their Nazi soulmates preceded them.
It's up to the people, not just of the US but of the whole world, to make sure this happens sooner rather than later. An international boycott starts locally, with individuals making a difference in their personal choices, then having others joining them along the way, making noise, having an impact, reminding their elected officials who put them in their seat. With internet we have the tools at our disposal, lets use them and make a difference.
Just look around, look at what's happening, everywhere there are handfuls of individuals taking advantage of the laziness, ignorance and nonchalance of the masses to grab power for themselves and do as they please. It's all happening because we allow it to. It's more than time to say: NO MORE!
Israel's highly sophisticated deceitful propaganda apparatus has succeeded again with its over-arching goal: no matter the death and misery that it causes to the Palestinians, Israel must always be seen as the "victim".
Hey, playing the "victim" card sure works here in the US. Thanks George "They hate us because of our freedom" Bush.
Israel does not equal the Third Reich, they just share similar, imperialist tactics.The German Foreign Minister could have added another term to Bibi's vocabulary:'Sippenhaft' meaning collective punishment.
The Palestinians are barbarians. There will be no peace until they decide to become civilized. 'Till then, let the IDF give them what they deserve.
kafearTom,
Historically the Palestinians were the intelligentsia of the ME. The Doctors, Lawyers, Writers, Artists.
Yes. They have been forced to live like animals, starving in a cage-and sometimes killers enter the cage to murder unarmed terrified captives.
But factually, these people may be being forced to live like animals by an Evil, Ugly, Satanic entity, however they are beyond civilized, and always have been.
Palestinians were la creme de la creme of the ME, until "Israel," with US weapons, until the Jews who left WW2 took what they learned from the Nazi's, and internalized it.
It was perfect, the Jews were stealing a country, and the Nazi's showed them how.
I LOVE beautiful Jews, know many, and they are HORRIFIED by the HOLOCAUST that is "Israel's," shriveled, dark, sad soul.
Jewery is to Zionism,
what
Germany was to Nazism.
Where is their intelligence now? But that's just it. The Muslims need an Enlightenment, a mindset concerned with how to live on earth according to reason and nature's laws. The wars will not stop until then.
What you are saying about the Palestinians, the whole world is saying about Israel. Until the zionists, start to think humanely, throw their sense of superiority down the shitter and recognize that all humans are equal and deserve to live decently, there will be no chance for peace.
Palestinians live decently? and think humanely about exactly who? Jews, maybe?
The Zionists have a free country. Israeli Arabs are the freest Arabs. What on earth are you talking about? It's Muslims who have the sense of superiority! That is what their religion teaches them.
Palestinains have to decide to start living decently and humanely. nobody will stop them. It is not up to Isrealis to make them live that way less than that way.
"Palestinians have to decide to start living decently and humanely. nobody (sic) will stop them."
Actually, the Israelis are preventing them from living decently. The zionists have turned the Gaza Strip into the Warsaw ghetto of the Middle East.
The zionists stole the Palestinians' land using the claim that G-d had given it to them. Talk about claiming superiority.
q
Sorry for using the language and premises of self-reliance, self-responsibilty, individual initiative, and the like. I forgot many folks are not used to that on websites like this one where victimhood is elevated as something to worship. Sorry about that. Nevermind.
Haven't you got it the wrong way round? It is Zionism that's been playing the victim card for the last 60 years or more. Rightly so after the holocaust - but that wasn't a reason to punish the Palestinians. Do something novel - read this (apologies for not putting the full url but Common Dreams seems to want to treat my comment as spam when I put it in). Just search jews sans frontieres zionist victimhood in google.
Here's something else to read.
"In progress in the occupied territories is a war of repression entirely
subservient to the ideology of the settlement drive. The Palestinian
population is being subjected to starvation, denial of medical treatment,
demolition of homes and economic strangulation. I will take no part in these
war crimes, nor will I serve as a fig leaf for them." (Idan Landau, July
2001)
Re your quote: That is what I mean. The Palestinians are economically strangulating themselves. What the hell do they produce? Food and medical care doesn't fall from the sky when you wish for it. Someone has to learn how to produce and offer them. Why don't they learn how to provide it themselves like people in any other civilized country and stop expecting it to be handed to them? The unstated premise is that others are expected to lift the Palestinians from their squalor. We know how well that policy works by now, whether it is domestic welfare or foreign aid! Who irrigated and turned green the desert for the Isrealis? The U.N.? They did it themselves while fighting off enemies on all sides. But it is apparently expecting too much of the Palestinians to clean up their terrorities and start being rational and productive solvers of their own problems.
That's a good idea. Too bad not everyone gets to receive endless military support, free taxpayer money and preferential treatment from the United States.
But they can take their own destiny at hand, can they? Israel is full of good will, it will pull its army out of their territory, tear down all of its settlements and give back the land it has stolen, and do that without giving a last goodbye salvo or mining the whole area with cluster bombs. We know that Israel is so respectful of human rights and international laws. That should do it for food production.
Now for them to prosper economically, lets see... That's right! Offshore gas! The bottom of the Mediterranean is full of it in that area, part of it even along the shore of Gaza, thus belonging to the Palestinians. Well all the Palestinians have to do is reach a deal with a foreign company to exploit it and voila! The profits will flow in. Oh wait, that's right, during their transgression Crap Lead the Israeli navy moved to secure the Palestinians' part of that gas and are now claiming it as their own!
It's all your fault Palestine! Shame on you!
I'm afraid that what I say will be treated by spam by Common Dreams like the previous two attempts to post here. I've sent emails to the editor without a reply.
However here goes. Here is what Palestine looked like before the Israelis took over - do you see evidence of uncivilized people - of people not living decently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiRBT02cBcY
I wish just wish, kafirTim, before you posted you would do some reading.
this (kt) is nothing but hasbarah provocation and a subtle kind of psy-ops way to win by controlling the discourse...best is to ignore it, but it's tough to...excellently done provocation---congrats, kt
The problem is Islam, a barbaric superstition of a way of life and Palestinian tribalist-nationalism. Palestinians were not forced to be the fanatical, death-worshipping, tribalist, barbarians that they are. What do you think the Palestinians would do to the Isrealis if the situation were reversed?
The problem isn't about Palestinians vs. Isrealis. It's about tribalism and religious dogma vs. individual rights and the rule of law, the latter being alien to the minds of the Palestinians and which they violently reject. Ergo, IDF munitions fall upon them. Not enough IMHO.
Another zionist troll....And a fucking racist....the true face of a zionist!! GNow go fuck off somewhere else and blow yourself away!
Wow, I guess you told him! He won't show his troll face around here no more!
Yes, he is a racist and a bigot. So are you, Horrified.
How am I racist? Do you know what racism means? Or is anything that is against Israel considered racist? You are nothing but a zionist troll!
Says the self-proclaimed god-chosen one.
But you are right on one point, religious fanaticism (both Islam and Judaism) certainly is the root source for all this shit.
And it'll take someone other than a lunatic whack-job of your kind to give us lessons about individual rights and the rule of law.
Troll.
kTom, your racist shit, does it fly both ways?
Is it okay to say,
"Judaism is a barabaric superstition, fanatical, death-worhiping. Sadly, decency is Alien to Jews-They Violently reject it."
YOUR low-grade verbage, 'jew' substituted for 'palestinian,' does that work for you?
I hope not, it is racist filth. To speak of any like that. But if you support killing people, ya just gotta animalize 'em. then yer puttin em down, not murdering.
Thanks for the laugh, go outside and play now, stay outa the street.
a barbaric superstition of a way of life and Palestinian tribalist-nationalism. Palestinians were not forced to be the fanatical, death-worshipping, tribalist, barbarians that they are. What do you think the Palestinians would do to the Isrealis if the situation were reversed?
in psychology this is known as projection sub-conscious guilt is so unbearable it must be projected on the other
The coastline along the Gaza Strip has come under the fire of patrolling Israeli warships which invariably monitor the shores.
The barrages, which had taken aim at vast swathes of the littoral area on Friday, caused no casualties, the Palestinian Ma'an news agency quoted locals as saying.
Doctor Muawiyah Hassanein, the director of the Gazan Health Ministry's Emergency and Ambulance Services confirmed there had been no casualties.
The naval bombardments frighten off the local fishermen further restricting the sources of livelihood for the blockaded sliver.
The patrols have been staged on a regular basis since the recent three-week-long Israeli attacks on the strip which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and left thousands of others injured.
(PressTV)
I remember the sympathy so many in the world had for the victims of Apartheid in South Africa. We heard and saw stories of horror, suffering and despair about that land. But Palestine is rarely in the news.It was like that when Iraq was sanctioned after the first gulf war, when they were bombed into the stone age. Most Americans had no idea of the carnage due to the blockade in Iraq and continuos bombing of no fly zones, just as they do not know about the suffering in Gaza especially after they have been bombarded and continue to be attacked. I always thought that after a wealthy country bombs another country they help it to rebuild not blockade a destroyed nation. Talk about barbaric.
...Mr Benvenisti said that, after Israel’s establishment in 1948, a naming committee was given the task of erasing thousands of Arab place names, including those of hills, valleys and springs, and creating Hebrew names. The country’s first (psychopathic..) prime minister, David Ben Gurion, told the committee: “We are obliged to remove the Arabic names for reasons of state.” In addition, the Arabic names of more than 400 Palestinian villages destroyed by Israel during and after the 1948 war were lost as Jewish communities took their place. ...
Israel has also antagonised Palestinians in both Israel and the West Bank by naming roads after right-wing figures... ...The main highway in the Jordan Valley, which runs through Palestinian territory but is used by Israelis to drive between northern Israel and Jerusalem, is named “Gandhi’s Road” – not for the Indian spiritual leader but after the nickname of an Israeli general, Rehavam Zeevi, who called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Greater Israel.!!!!! ..... j. cook, counterpunch, July 17-19, 2009
KAFIRTOM: You are either a sick shmuck or a paid PR “agent- provocateur” hired to subvert public debate...
“It's about tribalism and religious dogma vs. individual rights and the rule of law, the latter being alien to the minds of the Palestinians and which they violently reject.”
R: A great description of Zionism. You just replaced the words “Zionists” with Palestinians which is no big surprise since it shows that in order to suppress adequate feelings of responsibility and guilt, the perpetrator projects his sins on the victims of his aggression: “They” are to blame for everything “we” did because otherwise it is impossible to reconcile our own (imagined) moral superiority (a component of Judaism) with grave human rights violations and the commission and execution of dreadful crimes.
“The Palestinians are barbarians. There will be no peace until they decide to become civilized. 'Till then, let the IDF give them what they deserve.” [...]
“The Muslims need an Enlightenment, a mindset concerned with how to live on earth according to reason and nature's laws.”
R: This is of course the Nazi argument of “inferior people” deserve what they get from us: You have to denigrate and dehumanize the “others” (then “Jews”, now “Arabs”) and put them in a special category (e.g. “enemy combatants”) of people to whom dignity, human rights or international law simply do not apply. So it becomes easy to find excuses for your own barbarity....
The moral and psychological pretext that “we” destroy, terrorize and kill for a good and just cause while “they” allegedly being primitive and evil, threaten our security, is not new but Israel has taken it to an unprecedented level: the political abuse of the Holocaust has assured that Israel gets immunization for its crimes by claiming a kind of “essential innocence” and eternal victimhood (and as a result of a highly effective control of public opinion is getting away with it).
..”Victimhood is elevated as something to worship”.
R: Another classic example of projecting blame: As already mentioned above no other state has exploited the concept of “victimhood” like Israel – of course the argument being that the Holocaust was the perfect entitlement for this attitude. But even a huge collective trauma does not make it ok to injure someone else in return, especially if this “someone” had no hand in the initial suffering and criminal injustice.
In contrast to Israel, the Palestinians do not build their claims on the exploitation of their six decades of suffering but on upholding international law and human rights. It is crystal clear to anyone, still able to think for themselves and search for the historical facts, that the state of Israel has committed countless crimes since 1948 so the basis of Palestinian resistance is not victimhood but a profound and terrible injustice.
Ghandi wrote in the late 1930s: “ I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regard as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.”
*********
“It's Muslims who have the sense of superiority! That is what their religion teaches them.”
R: One can only reply: Look who is talking! As I have pointed out before classical Judaism teaches that only Jews are human beings:
“The difference between a Jewish soul and the souls of Non-Jews are greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”
(Rabbi Abraham Kook the Elder)”
Followers of this perverse school of thought find it very easy to treat the Palestinians like animals and can conveniently hide behind their religion to absolve themselves from any crimes against humanity.... Who needs empathy and justice for “cattle” or “donkeys”? The recent revelations about testimonies from IDF soldiers, accusing their commanders of encouraging them to commit crimes against civilians in Gaza fits perfectly in this scenario....
See also these testimonies and videos: (“Burning Conscience” and “In The Spider’s Web”)
http://www.israelsoccupation.info/category/presentations/videos
“Palestinains have to decide to start living decently and humanely. nobody will stop them.” Palestinians live decently? and think humanely about exactly who? Jews?”
“The Palestinians are economically strangulating themselves. What the hell do they produce?” [:::] Why don't they learn how to provide it themselves like people in any other civilized country and stop expecting it to be handed to them? The unstated premise is that others are expected to lift the Palestinians from their squalor.”
R: Again - the projection of blame on the victim, and this time the vile diatribe reaches perhaps its lowest point because as every informed person knows, the economic strangulation of both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is part of of Israel’s policy to “encourage them to leave” by creating a daily hell.
To sneer at the Palestinians and accuse them of being responsible for the squalor brought about by 6 decades of brutal occupation and siege shows the ugly face of racism that the creation of a “Jewish state” really entails. To demand “self-reliance, self-responsibilty, individual initiative” under these circumstances is like blaming the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto for their misery....
“The Zionists have a free country. Israeli Arabs are the freest Arabs. What on earth are you talking about?”
R: Talk about denial.To understand what kind of “paradise” Israel is for its Arab citizens try this:
http://www.counterpunch.org/hallinan03032009.html
http://rete-eco.it/it/documenti/35-riflessioni/3569-settlers-turn-their-sights-to-juda-izing-arab-sections-of-israel.html
“Who irrigated and turned green the desert for the Isrealis?
R: For your information the “Arabs” were the first great mathematicians, medical doctors (together with the Persians), architects and construction engineers in history and let us not forget that Israel could not not have achieved its economic development without the cheap labour of the “Arabs” and the Mizrahi Jews, besides Palestine was NOT a desert before the Zionists arrived.
But if you want some outrageous proof of REAL BARBARISM (to their own “inferior” people) on the Israeli side try this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6118144849760405404
i wouldn't defile thousands of years of suffering, spiritual experience, and learning(+ a lot of confusion and assorted fundamentalist garbage) by calling kt and co., jews,..i wouldn't even call them zionists or israelis...rather iraelbots,- robotic mind snatched things formed by that thieving, murdering and destroying entity, the state that has stolen and hides behind the name,"israel".