by Joe Kay, Global Research - July 17, 2007
At President Bush’s July 11 press conference a significant exchange took place that has received very little media attention. Edwin Chen, who writes for Bloomberg.com, asked Bush, “How hard is it for you to conduct the war without popular support? Do you ever have trouble balancing between doing what you think is the right thing and following the will of the majority of the public, which is the essence of democracy?”
Bush’s response was to emphasize the role of the military as a counterweight to public opinion. He outlined a concept of presidential power that upholds the military as a critical “constituency” rising above, and placed in opposition to, the American people. On this basis, Bush sought to justify a policy that has been clearly repudiated by the general population—not only in opinion polls, but also in the November 2006 midterm elections.
Bush began by attributing public opposition to the war to concerns that the US cannot succeed. “I can fully understand why people are tired of the war,” he said. “The question they have is, can we win it? And, of course, I’m concerned about whether or not the American people are in this fight.”
This was an attempt to dismiss and delegitimize the widespread opposition to the militarism, aggression and wanton destruction of human life that define not only the war in Iraq, but US foreign policy more broadly. There are millions of Americans who hate the war not because it has been mismanaged and may not “succeed,” but because it is a barbaric and criminal enterprise.
He then declared that the occupation of Iraq will continue regardless, and attempted to defend this policy by appealing to the military as against the general population. “If our troops thought that I was taking a poll to decide how to conduct this war, they would be very concerned about the mission,” he said. “If our troops said, well, here we are in combat, and we’ve got a commander-in-chief who is running a focus group—in other words, politics is more important to him than our safety and/or our strategy—that would dispirit our troops.”
To underline the point, Bush then declared that there are “a lot of constituencies in this fight.” In the list that followed, the American people figured as only one constituency. A strategy of withdrawing troops “may sound simple, and it may affect polls,” Bush said, “but it would have long-term, serious security consequences for the United States.”
He continued with the assertion that “sometimes you just have to make the decisions based on what you think is right. My most important job is to help secure this country, and therefore the decisions in Iraq are all aimed at helping do that job.”
Plainly put, this means that the “security” interests of the US take precedence over the will of the American people, which Bush disparagingly and contemptuously equates with a “focus group.”
When Bush speaks about the security interests of the US, he is not speaking about the safety and well being of the American people. He is speaking of the geo-strategic interests of the American ruling elite, which considers the establishment of a hegemonic position in the oil-rich Middle East to be central to those interests.
Moreover, every would-be dictator claims that his authoritarian measures are taken to ensure national security. Everything else must be sacrificed, including democratic rights. This is the basic line that has been utilized by the government since 9/11 to lay siege to constitutionally protected democratic rights, in the name of the “war on terror.”
Having thus dealt with the “constituency” of the American people, which he acknowledged was broadly opposed to his war policy, Bush moved on to that constituency on which he would rely to continue the policy. “A second constituency is the military,” he said, adding, “I’m pretty confident our military do not want their commander-in-chief making political decisions about their future.”
The “third constituency” Bush cited was “military families,” in regard to whom he said, “I don’t think they want their commander-in-chief making decisions based upon popularity.”
Thus, Bush advanced a conception that defines the “military” as a separate constituency which is more important than the American people as a whole.
When Bush speaks of the military, he is not referring to ordinary soldiers or their families, who are seen as little more than cannon fodder by the ruling establishment. In fact, US soldiers are generally no more supportive of the war in Iraq than the American population as a whole.
It is worth recalling one of the central grievances against King George III set down by the leaders of the American Revolution in the Declaration of Independence: “He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.” Indeed, in the political and constitutional debates that ensued, figures such as Thomas Jefferson issued strong warnings of the dangers of a standing army, declaring that a permanent military presence that would pose a constant danger to the democratic rights of the American people.
Bush’s invocation of the military as a force to be invoked against the will of the American people was quite deliberate, and it should be taken very seriously. He made essentially the same argument at several other points in the course of the press conference.
He insisted, for example, that it was not possible to “let the Gallup poll or whatever polls there are decide the fate of the country.” After refusing to rule out the possibility of a further troop escalation, he said, “I just ask the American people to understand that the commander-in-chief must rely upon the wisdom and judgment of the military thinkers and planners.”
The content of this statement is a threat that the president will use his control over the military to impose the policies of the faction of the ruling elite that the administration represents—potentially including a further escalation of the war or its spread to other countries such as Iran—in the face of whatever popular opposition may arise.
Bush is explicit in declaring as a fundamental principle that politicians cannot be allowed to determine military policy—only generals can. This argument is as absurd as it is reactionary. First, Bush himself is a politician, and the top generals in charge of the military have been selected to carry out administration policy. Bush has repeatedly replaced or dismissed military officials when they came into conflict with certain aspects of administration policy.
Second, the argument overturns the basic principle of civilian control of the military. According to Bush, the president is “their [that is, the military’s] commander-in-chief,” in the sense that he must do what the military wants. If the president determines, therefore, that the military does not want to obey the results of an election, then there is nothing that can be done.
It is remarkable, though not surprising, that Bush’s statements elicited hardly a word of opposition from the Democratic Party or the media. The major newspapers did not report this portion of the press conference, and no prominent politician denounced the extraordinary attack on basic constitutional principles embodied in Bush’s remarks.
The silence of the political establishment in the face of the Bush administration’s appeals to the military as an independent force in American politics is hardly new. In fact, Bush came to power in 2000 based upon a stolen election in which the counting of invalid military ballots played an important role. Democratic Party candidate Al Gore responded at the time by saying he could not become president without the support of the military.
Since that time, the military has played an ever more prominent role in American political life. The Bush administration has asserted the right to hold US citizens and non-citizens in military custody indefinitely and without charges. It has created the Northern Command (Northcom), which, for the first time, coordinates military actions within the United States.
The administration has systematically sought to expand the power of the military to intervene in domestic affairs. In the National Defense Authorization Act passed last year to provide military funding, the administration had a section inserted that amends the Posse Comitatus Act to allow for the domestic use of the military in case of natural disaster, terrorist attack, or “other conditions in which the president determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.”
Top Bush administration officials only rarely speak before civilian audiences. Almost every major speech given by Bush or Cheney is before a military audience.
The silence of the nominal political opposition to these dangers is all the more remarkable given the fact that the threat is directed not only against public opinion, but also against the administration’s critics within the political establishment. There are escalating policy differences within the ruling elite, and support for the administration is hemorrhaging within Congress itself. No faction in the official debate in Washington opposes the war, but there are deep divisions over the policy required to uphold the interests of American imperialism.
All of the factions within the political establishment, whatever their tactical differences, are, in fact, united in their fear of the “constituency” of American public opinion. Under these conditions, the threat of a more open turn toward presidential-military dictatorship is very real.
If an election can have no effect on policy, and the power of the military is raised as a counterweight to any attempt to shift government policy, what alternative presents itself to the population? Here it is worth citing another passage from the Declaration of Independence:
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these [the rights of the population], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness... [W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Impeach Now! Or, Face the End of Constitutional Democracy
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS - July 16, 2007
Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran.
Bush has put in place all the necessary measures for dictatorship in the form of "executive orders" that are triggered whenever Bush declares a national emergency. Recent statements by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Republican senator Rick Santorum and others suggest that Americans might expect a series of staged, or false flag, "terrorist" events in the near future.
Many attentive people believe that the reason the Bush administration will not bow to expert advice and public opinion and begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq is that the administration intends to rescue its unpopular position with false flag operations that can be used to expand the war to Iran.
Too much is going wrong for the Bush administration: the failure of its Middle East wars, Republican senators jumping ship, Turkish troops massed on northern Iraq's border poised for an invasion to deal with Kurds, and a majority of Americans favoring the impeachment of Cheney and a near-majority favoring Bush's impeachment. The Bush administration desperately needs dramatic events to scare the American people and the Congress back in line with the militarist-police state that Bush and Cheney have fostered.
William Norman Grigg recently wrote that the GOP is "praying for a terrorist strike" to save the party from electoral wipeout in 2008. Chertoff, Cheney, the neocon nazis, and Mossad would have no qualms about saving the bacon for the Republicans, who have enabled Bush to start two unjustified wars, with Iran waiting in the wings to be attacked in a third war.
The Bush administration has tried unsuccessfully to resurrect the terrorist fear factor by infiltrating some blowhard groups and encouraging them to talk about staging "terrorist" events. The talk, encouraged by federal agents, resulted in "terrorist" arrests hyped by the media, but even the captive media was unable to scare people with such transparent sting operations.
If the Bush administration wants to continue its wars in the Middle East and to entrench the "unitary executive" at home, it will have to conduct some false flag operations that will both frighten and anger the American people and make them accept Bush's declaration of "national emergency" and the return of the draft. Alternatively, the administration could simply allow any real terrorist plot to proceed without hindrance.
A series of staged or permitted attacks would be spun by the captive media as a vindication of the neoconsevatives' Islamophobic policy, the intention of which is to destroy all Middle Eastern governments that are not American puppet states. Success would give the US control over oil, but the main purpose is to eliminate any resistance to Israel's complete absorption of Palestine into Greater Israel.
Think about it. If another 9/11-type "security failure" were not in the works, why would Homeland Security czar Chertoff go to the trouble of convincing the Chicago Tribune that Americans have become complacent about terrorist threats and that he has "a gut feeling" that America will soon be hit hard?
Why would Republican warmonger Rick Santorum say on the Hugh Hewitt radio show that "between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public's (sic) going to have a very different view of this war."
Throughout its existence the US government has staged incidents that the government then used in behalf of purposes that it could not otherwise have pursued. According to a number of writers, false flag operations have been routinely used by the Israeli state. During the Czarist era in Russia, the secret police would set off bombs in order to arrest those the secret police regarded as troublesome. Hitler was a dramatic orchestrator of false flag operations. False flag operations are a commonplace tool of governments.
Ask yourself: Would a government that has lied us into two wars and is working to lie us into an attack on Iran shrink from staging "terrorist" attacks in order to remove opposition to its agenda?
Only a diehard minority believes in the honesty and integrity of the Bush-Cheney administration and in the truthfulness of the corporate media.
Hitler, who never achieved majority support in a German election, used the Reichstag fire to fan hysteria and push through the Enabling Act, which made him dictator. Determined tyrants never require majority support in order to overthrow constitutional orders.
The American constitutional system is near to being overthrown. Are coming "terrorist" events of which Chertoff warns and Santorum promises the means for overthrowing our constitutional democracy?
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review.
Reining In an Out-of-Control Executive
by Prof. Marjorie Cohn, Global Research - July 16, 2007
Our Founding Fathers created three separate but co-equal branches of government to check and balance each other so no one branch would become all powerful. Indeed, James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, "The preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct." Madison warned, "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands ... may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." The American colonists were reacting against a police state.
More than 200 years later, we have another King George.
In the last six years, George W. Bush has sought to accumulate all governing powers in the same hands - his. In the Declaration of Independence, the framers charged that the King "refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." Bush has repeatedly violated the Constitution's command that the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," by breaking some and refusing to enforce others. The Constitution grants Congress the power to make laws; after both houses pass a bill, the President can only sign it or veto it. Bush, however, takes a different tack. He has vetoed just three bills, then quietly attached "signing statements" to more than 1,000 congressional laws, indicating his intent to follow only those parts with which he agrees.
In an end run around Congress and the courts, Bush secretly authorized the Terrorist Surveillance Program to conduct electronic surveillance without a judicial warrant, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Fourth Amendment. Although two judges on a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the legality of Bush's spying program for lack of standing, the only two judges ever to rule on the merits declared the program illegal.
The Bush administration lied to Congress to get authority to invade Iraq . Long before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Bush and his officials were planning to attack Iraq and change its regime. Dick Cheney's secret energy task force drew up maps of Iraq 's oil fields to divvy up the black gold once we occupied that country. They then devised an elaborate scheme to convince the American people that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the United States , notwithstanding overwhelming intelligence to the contrary. Since Bush launched "Operation Iraq Freedom," more than 3,600 American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died; many thousands more have been wounded. This invasion is a war of aggression, which violates the UN Charter, because it was neither executed in self-defense nor approved by the Security Council.
During the war, U.S. troops have been acting under rules of engagement - free-fire zones - that have led some to commit war crimes. For instance, the killing, execution-style, of 24 civilians in the Haditha Massacre, the execution of a disabled man, and the shooting of a wounded unarmed Iraqi in a mosque violate the Geneva Conventions which prohibit willful killing of civilians. Commanders, all the way up the chain to the commander-in-chief, could be convicted of war crimes if they should've known their subordinates would commit them and the commanders didn't stop or prevent it.
Bush's legal eagles, particularly David Addington and John Yoo, concocted elaborate "legal" arguments to justify the torture of prisoners. Never mind that international and American law forbid torture under all circumstances. Pursuant to a common plan to violate the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, prisoners in U.S. custody are being tortured and abused. Prisoners have been subjected to water-boarding, attacks by dogs, sexual humiliation, and excruciatingly painful force-feeding.
The Bush administration has secretly rendered prisoners to other countries to be tortured. One former CIA agent observed, "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan . If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria . If you want someone to disappear - never to see them again - you send them to Egypt ."
Shortly after 9/11, the Bush gang set up a prison camp in Guantánamo, intending to create a legal black hole where they could hold prisoners for the rest of their lives without any judicial oversight. But the Supreme Court didn't buy the administration's argument that U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over Guantánamo because it's in Cuba . And the Court struck down Bush's original military commissions since they violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions.
The Supreme Court said in Berger v. United States that a prosecutor's job is to see that justice is done, not to politicize justice. But Bush's Department of Justice, the chief law enforcement agency in the government, has been seriously compromised. Several U.S. attorneys who refused to bring frivolous charges that would further Bush's political agenda, or who brought charges that didn't, were purged.
The White House is resisting congressional subpoenas that call for testimonial and documentary evidence about the U.S. attorney firing scandal. The deadline for Bush, Cheney and the Justice Department to produce documents in response to Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenas about the warrantless surveillance is July 18. In 1974, when the House Judiciary Committee passed three articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, Article III charged refusal to comply with subpoenas during the Watergate hearings.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and President of the National Lawyers Guild. Her new book, Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law, was just published. Her articles are archived at http://www.marjoriecohn.com.
US formally under Israeli Occupation
The United States of America is formally under Israeli Occupation
Thomas Jefferson, George Washington on the dangers of American alignment with foreign powers to the detriment of their own people:
"...nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils 7 Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter."
...from George Washington's Farewell Address: The Avalon Project
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/washing.htm
'We all need a psychiatrist, but we cannot afford one, so we do activism'
"We all need a psychiatrist, but we cannot afford one, so we do activism."-Ashraf Abu Moch, Israeli Palestinian, ICAHD Volunteer.
by Eileen Fleming
ICAHD, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions is a non-violent do something group opposed to the occupation of Palestine which resists the Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories. This summer ICAHD has committed to rebuild 300 of the -so far 18,000 homes the Israeli government has destroyed which has resulted in creating 18,000 homeless families who legally own their land.
According to international law, the Fourth Geneva Convention forbids home demolitions in occupied territories and demands that the occupiers maintain the status quo and not pilfer the resources of the indigenous population.
Indigenous Palestinians are denied building permits in the Orwellian democracy of Israel while USA fundamentalist Christian churches financially support and pray for the illegal settlements/colonies which have been erected on legally owned Palestinian land.
In contrast to the misdeeds of empire, twenty five internationals, dozens of Israelis and scores of Palestinians have created a community upon the rocky barren land of the Hamdan family of nine with intent to hand the keys of the house over to Hassan Yussef Hamdan and his family fourteen days from now.
The land has legally been owned by the Hamdan clan with the deeds filled-out in Hassan Yussef's great-grandfather's name, during the Ottoman Empire. The oldest son, Mohammed's grandmother, Um Mohammad addressed the media in Arabic which was translated in English by Nadia another ICAHD volunteer, while the foundation of the house was being laid, "We own twenty-five pieces of land, twenty-five meters is one piece. After building our home here, we received papers demanding we demolish our own home. We got a lawyer in Tel Aviv, and after paying $10, 000.00 she did nothing. The soldiers came under our window and we hired another lawyer and had to pay 70,000 shekels within two hours to hold off the soldiers. The soldiers came back two more times, after more negotiations the soldiers came back a third time and destroyed our home."
ICAHD spokesmen, Meir Margalit admitted, "We are here because we are embarrassed and ashamed of our government. A decent person cannot handle what this government puts innocent people through. We are doing this for both sides; for the innocent families and to keep the moral values of Judaism alive."
American Israeli, Aviva Joseph wrapped it up when she informed the crowd, "We are here building on the 9th day of Av, the day the Jewish Temple was destroyed…I was born in Chile into an Orthodox Zionist home. Both my parents are Holocaust survivors. When I was ten I use to go to Bethlehem, but after the first intifada, things began closing down; physical walls and psychological walls. I lived in Gilo, some call it a settlement, some a neighborhood and I lived in a small box with my own myth. Now I live in California and things you see from there you can't see here and other things you must come here to see what cannot be seen anywhere else. I love Israel but until I began listening to the voices of the marginalized did I see I was living my own myth. The work is not just in the head, but in the heart; opening both sides to a new paradigm with compassion. It must be like hydrogen and oxygen the sides coming together; who could have thought that would make water?"
Jeff Halper, American Israeli, founder and coordinator of ICAHD and a twenty-first century prophet was unable to be at the site due to a family emergency, but on March 17, 2006, the 7th day of my third journey to Israel Palestine, Jeff greeted my group of nearly one hundred Internationals attending a Sabeel/Arabic for THE WAY, reality tour through the West Bank, in the East Jerusalem YMCA conference room with, "I don't want to depress you too much but the issue of the occupation is a global issue that transcends boundaries and Israel Palestine impacts all global realities...We have a country created by the UN and supported by the USA that has a brutal occupation while International Law defines occupation as a temporary situation.
"When you incorporate occupied territories, highways, settlements and use resources it is all illegal according to the Fourth Geneva Convention which states the status quo must be retained so that negotiations can happen. Unilateral actions are illegal. The occupying power is responsible for those under its control.
"Tony Blair said 70% of all the conflicts in the world can be traced back to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. What gives us hope is that as this conflict worsens maybe Europe will figure out that American policies are against their interests and intervene...This conflict impacts the global community and especially everyone in the USA.
"If we do fix this conflict it would be a tremendous step forward in global reconciliation...This whole issue is based on Human Rights and it is a global issue requiring global intervention. …Israel is not a democracy, it is an ethnocracy: full rights to Jews, but not Palestinians."
After our group said goodbye to Jeff and hi to Angela, another dedicated ICAHD volunteer, and went for a reality tour of east Jerusalem. We witnessed the remains of many demolished homes and saw the tents where the home owners now lived. Angela informed us, "There are forty-two illegal settlements in the Muslim, Christian and Armenian quarters of Jerusalem. The only green area for children to play will soon have a high rise for the settlers which will be 7 meters taller than the walls of the Old City...Out of site of most Israelis is the Hebronization of east Jerusalem. The Wall has been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice but America continues to allow it to grow. The wall is way over the Green Line proving it is not about security but about grabbing Palestinian land. Israel's policy of Quiet Transfer: getting rid of the Palestinians is a huge humanitarian crisis.
"There is an advertisement that runs in the USA that reads: "Have a Holiday Home in Jerusalem." The ad does not mention this home is 100% ILLEGAL! It is clear how the wall zig zags that it is not about security but about grabbing the maximum land with minimal Palestinian occupation."
When I returned to Israel Palestine in October 2006, over sixty internationals gathered in Jerusalem for another ICAHD tour. Jeff informed us, "It has been said that the Israelis do not love this land, they just want to possess it. There have been three stages to make this occupation permanent. The first was to establish the facts on the ground; the settlements. There are ½ million Israeli's and four million Palestinians here. They have been forced into Bantustan; truncated mini states; prison states. It is apartheid and Bush and Hillary are both willing collaborators.
"In 1977, Sharon came in with a mandate, money and resources to make the Israeli presence in the West Bank irreversible. The second stage began in April 2004 when America approved the Apartheid/Convergence/Realignment Plan and eight settlement blocs. This is just like South Africa! The Bush Sharon letter exchange guaranteed that the USA considers the settlements non-negotiable. The Convergence Plan and The Wall create the borders and that is what defines Bantustans. Congress ratified the Bush plan and only Senator Byrd of West Virginia voted no and nine House Representatives.
"Israel has set up a matrix of control; a thick web of settlements guaranteed to make the occupation permanent by establishing facts on the ground. Israel denies there is an occupation, so everything is reduced to terrorism. It is our job to insist upon the human rights issue, for occupied people have International Law on their side."
I asked Jeff if the settlements were in actuality colonies; meaning foreigners had invaded and set up residence in another's territory. He agreed and added that, "When Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan, the East side was 6 sq. km. Since 1967, Israel has added 64 km. The West side was 38 sq. km until '67 and is now 108 sq. km's. Israel plans to develop 17 settlements. Israeli policy is to maintain a 72% Jewish and 28% Arab population. Palestinians cannot get building permits to build upon their legally owned land. The Arab land has been re-zoned as green space, and the green space will be re-zoned for the settlements. Every single Palestinian home in Jerusalem has a demolition order. The entire West Bank has been zoned as agricultural land by Israel, and that will also be re-zoned again for more settlements."
Orwellian doublespeak has also been employed in the USA to turn the illegal colonies: for all the settlements are considered illegal according to International Law, into "neighborhoods".
A new highway has already begun to link all the settlements in a ring around the Old City of Jerusalem. The Eastern Ring Road will have bridges for Israelis but is just another wall against the Palestinians. As we rode past acres of olive trees that had been chopped off by the Israeli army, on our way to the house made for peace, Jeff stated, "I don't just have a political problem with this Judiaization of the Old City, it is ecologically and environmentally offensive."
I add it also is spiritually impoverished. The raping and pillaging of what is claimed holy ground refutes and denies the biblical meaning of dominion. The ancients understood dominion meant to nurture, love and protect and the destruction of Palestinian homes, the stealing and destroying of their legal property, is an abomination.
We concluded that day at the Beit Arabiya Peace House, which is at the crossroads of Areas A, B and C and which has been demolished and rebuilt four times and the owner has just received his fifth demolition order.
Beit Arabiya is the name of the home of the Arabiya family with seven children that has been demolished four times by the Israeli government and rebuilt four times by the efforts of ICAHD and the JCHR/Jurist Center for Human Rights, a Palestinian NGO focused on legal advocacy for Palestinians in the Jerusalem area.
The home has become a meeting place for Israelis, Palestinian and International peace activists and is the cornerstone and intersecting point of Areas A, B, and C.
The smallest of the three is Area A, which is under Palestinian authority. Areas B and C are under Israeli control. Since 1967 over 18,000 Palestinian families in the occupied territories have been left homeless due to home demolitions. According to Jeff Halper, the reasons for these home demolitions are purely political: to confine the 3 ½ million residents of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza into small, crowded, impoverished and disconnected enclaves.
The Beit Arabyia home/Peace Center's closest neighbor is a soon to be dismantled Bedouin camp. The Israeli government's policy of "Quiet Transfer" will mean extinction for the nomadic Bedouins for they have been denied the inalienable right to move about to graze their dwindling herds. On a hill in front of the Arabyia home/Peace Center is the newly erected Sheen Bet [similar to USA FBI] prison and interrogation center. A new portion of the Ring Road which will connect the illegal settlements/colonies runs between the two and The Apartheid Wall is in full frontal brutal view.
Upon the wall of the home is a mural donated by the North American Workers Against the USA occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The mural depicts Rachel Corrie, the American who was run over by a Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza when she stood up to defend the home of a Physician with five children, and a pregnant Palestinian woman of ten who was also killed in Gaza. The angelic images of the two women float above a depiction of a USA made Caterpillar bulldozer tipped to one side and flanked by tanks and weapons of destruction. On both sides of the weapons of destruction are many people. A railroad track reminds the viewer that prior to 1948, Jews and Palestinians once worked together in peaceful solidarity to build a railroad.
The Arabyia home/Peace Center is the cornerstone of the village of Anata and the Shufat refugee camp, in the very area where the prophet Jeremiah in the 6th century B.C. critiqued the violent conflicts in the Mid East, which were already old news: "I hear violence and destruction in the city, sickness and wounds are all I see." [Jeremiah 6:7]
The Arabyia home/Peace Center is a visible persistent witness of hope and solidarity that stands because of the cooperation and unity of locals, Israelis and Internationals with one mind, one heart and with The Great Spirit on their side.
Mohammad Alatar, film producer of "The Iron Wall" addressed our group after we broke bread and ate a typical Palestinian feast prepared by the Arabiya family: "I am a Muslim Palestinian American and when my son asked me who my hero was I took three days to think about it. I told him my hero is Jesus, because he took a stand and he died for it. What really needs to be done is for the churches to be like Jesus; to challenge the Israeli occupation and address the apartheid practices as moral issues. Even if every church divested and boycotted Israel it would not harm Israel. After the USA and Russia, Israel is the third largest arms exporter in the world. It is a moral issue that the churches must address."
LEARN MORE: http://www.icahd.org/
Odrob - Iron Wall
Cracks in Zionism
by Charlie Reese - July 17, 2007
One of the myths created by the Israeli lobby is that Jews around the world are unanimous in their support of Israel, regardless of what it does. That's not true and never has been true.
Modern political Zionism, whose ideology demands a Jewish state with a Jewish majority, was invented by an Austrian journalist and for decades struggled desperately. It wasn't God who created the modern state of Israel. It was British colonialism, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and Zionists.
Only about a third of the world's Jews choose to live in Israel, despite nearly a century of efforts to persuade Jews to immigrate. There were many early Jewish critics of Zionism, and there still are, despite modern Zionists adopting fascist tactics to silence debate.
Joel Beinin, a Jewish liberal who has been on the receiving end of the campaign to silence critics of Israel, had this to say in a recent article reprinted on Znet:
"Organizations claiming to represent American Jews engage in a systematic campaign of defamation, censorship and hate-mongering to silence criticism of Israeli policies. They hollow the ethical core out of the Jewish tradition, acting instead as if the highest purpose of being Jewish is to defend Israel, right or wrong.
"Why discredit, defame and silence those with opposing viewpoints? I believe it is because the Zionist lobby knows it cannot win based on facts. An honest discussion can only lead to one conclusion: The status quo in which Israel declares it alone has rights and intends to impose its will on the weaker Palestinians, stripping them permanently of their land, resources and rights, cannot lead to a lasting peace.
"We need an open debate and the freedom to discuss uncomfortable facts and explore a full range of policy options. Only then can we adopt a foreign policy that serves American interests."
Avigail Abarbanel, a native-born Israeli Jew who lived there 27 years before emigrating, has even harsher words:
"Palestinian citizens of Israel live under an arbitrary and brutal police state. Their dealings with Israeli bureaucracy are not just frustrating but can be outright dangerous.
"The Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live under a Pinochet-like regime. They can and do disappear in the middle of the night. They are blindfolded, cuffed, beaten, humiliated, taken to unknown locations with no information given to them or their families, tortured physically and psychologically and incarcerated indefinitely, often without charges and regardless of whether they are guilty of anything.
"Israel is not a nice country. It is a powerful police state founded on pathological paranoia with only a veneer of civility, carefully crafted and maintained for the consumption of those who still believe in the myth of Israeli democracy."
You might want to send that paragraph to the next politician you hear repeating AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) propaganda that "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East."
Abarbanel is a psychotherapist, and her article appeared on the Web site ElectronicIntifada.net, which I highly recommend as a source of information about the Middle East.
America badly needs an open and frank debate, based on facts, with no name-calling. Our politicians are as timid as an introverted baby when it comes to Israel. The Israeli lobby likes to boast about defeating candidates who don't toe the Israel-right-or-wrong line. As a tip to the not-completely-gutless politicians, the way to handle that is to make AIPAC an issue in the campaign.
A group of Zionist leaders is meeting in Israel as I write this, worrying about an increase in criticism of them for stifling debate. They are not invincible. They can't silence any American unless the American succumbs to fear of being called names, and I learned as a child that sticks and stones can break bones, but words can't hurt you.
One of the myths created by the Israeli lobby is that Jews around the world are unanimous in their support of Israel, regardless of what it does. That's not true and never has been true.
Modern political Zionism, whose ideology demands a Jewish state with a Jewish majority, was invented by an Austrian journalist and for decades struggled desperately. It wasn't God who created the modern state of Israel. It was British colonialism, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and Zionists.
Only about a third of the world's Jews choose to live in Israel, despite nearly a century of efforts to persuade Jews to immigrate. There were many early Jewish critics of Zionism, and there still are, despite modern Zionists adopting fascist tactics to silence debate.
Joel Beinin, a Jewish liberal who has been on the receiving end of the campaign to silence critics of Israel, had this to say in a recent article reprinted on Znet:
"Organizations claiming to represent American Jews engage in a systematic campaign of defamation, censorship and hate-mongering to silence criticism of Israeli policies. They hollow the ethical core out of the Jewish tradition, acting instead as if the highest purpose of being Jewish is to defend Israel, right or wrong.
"Why discredit, defame and silence those with opposing viewpoints? I believe it is because the Zionist lobby knows it cannot win based on facts. An honest discussion can only lead to one conclusion: The status quo in which Israel declares it alone has rights and intends to impose its will on the weaker Palestinians, stripping them permanently of their land, resources and rights, cannot lead to a lasting peace.
"We need an open debate and the freedom to discuss uncomfortable facts and explore a full range of policy options. Only then can we adopt a foreign policy that serves American interests."
Avigail Abarbanel, a native-born Israeli Jew who lived there 27 years before emigrating, has even harsher words:
"Palestinian citizens of Israel live under an arbitrary and brutal police state. Their dealings with Israeli bureaucracy are not just frustrating but can be outright dangerous.
"The Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live under a Pinochet-like regime. They can and do disappear in the middle of the night. They are blindfolded, cuffed, beaten, humiliated, taken to unknown locations with no information given to them or their families, tortured physically and psychologically and incarcerated indefinitely, often without charges and regardless of whether they are guilty of anything.
"Israel is not a nice country. It is a powerful police state founded on pathological paranoia with only a veneer of civility, carefully crafted and maintained for the consumption of those who still believe in the myth of Israeli democracy."
You might want to send that paragraph to the next politician you hear repeating AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) propaganda that "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East."
Abarbanel is a psychotherapist, and her article appeared on the Web site ElectronicIntifada.net, which I highly recommend as a source of information about the Middle East.
America badly needs an open and frank debate, based on facts, with no name-calling. Our politicians are as timid as an introverted baby when it comes to Israel. The Israeli lobby likes to boast about defeating candidates who don't toe the Israel-right-or-wrong line. As a tip to the not-completely-gutless politicians, the way to handle that is to make AIPAC an issue in the campaign.
A group of Zionist leaders is meeting in Israel as I write this, worrying about an increase in criticism of them for stifling debate. They are not invincible. They can't silence any American unless the American succumbs to fear of being called names, and I learned as a child that sticks and stones can break bones, but words can't hurt you.
Tonkin Gulf II and the Guns of August
USS Maddox (DD-731) - Gulf of Tonkin, August 1964
by Patrick J. Buchanan - July 17, 2007
Is the United States provoking war with Iran, to begin while the Congress is conveniently on its August recess?
One recalls that it was in August 1964, after the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, that the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred.
Twice it was said, on Aug. 2 and Aug. 4, North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked the U.S. destroyers Maddox and Turner Joy in international waters. The U.S. Senate responded by voting 88 to two to authorize President Johnson to assist any Southeast Asian nation whose government was threatened by communist aggression.
The bombing of the North began, followed by the arrival of U.S. Marines. America's war was on.
As Congress prepares for its August recess, the probability of U.S. air strikes on Iran rises with each week. A third carrier, the USS Enterprise, and its battle group is joining the Nimitz and Stennis in the largest concentration of U.S. naval power ever off the coast of Iran.
And Tonkin Gulf II may have already occurred.
In Baghdad, on July 1, Gen. Kevin J. Bergner charged that Iranians planned the January raid in Karbala, using commandos in American-style uniforms, that resulted in the death of five U.S. soldiers.
As the New York Times reports, this "marks the first time that the United States has charged that Iranian officials have helped plan operations against American troops in Iraq and have had advance knowledge of specific attacks that have led to the death of American soldiers."
The Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards is using Hezbollah to train Shi'ites to attack our soldiers and providing them with enhanced IEDs that have killed scores of U.S. troops, Bergner charged. He says we have captured a veteran Hezbollah agent and documents pointing to direct Iranian complicity in the Karbala raid.
Iran has denounced the charge as "ridiculous." But the Senate has voted 97 to zero to censure Iran for complicity in killing the Americans.
If what Bergner alleges is true, President Bush has not only the right but appears to have the blessing of Congress to attack Iran. And he now has the naval and air forces at hand. What is stopping him?
For it is surely not Congress, which buried a resolution last spring declaring that Bush must come to Congress before taking us into a new war in the Middle East. Congress appears to be signaling Bush: "If you want to hit Iran, you have the green light. No need to consult us."
Is this yet another abdication by Congress of its moral and constitutional duty to decide when and whether America goes to war?
And something smells awfully fishy here.
Iran has no interest in a war with the United States, which it seems to be toying with. Iran supports the pro-American Shia regime in Baghdad. And the al-Qaeda umbrella group in Iraq, which is our mortal enemy, has just warned Iran it faces terror attacks if it does not stop supporting Shi'ites in Iraq.
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who leads the al-Qaeda group known as the Islamic State in Iraq, says his fighters have been preparing for four years for war on Iran.
"We are giving the Persians, and especially the rulers of Iran, a two-month period to end all kinds of support for the Iraqi Shi'ite government and to stop direct and indirect intervention – otherwise a severe war is waiting for you," Baghdadi said in a 50-minute videotape.
Baghdadi also warned Arab Sunnis in the region who do business with Shi'ites in Iran that they were inviting assassination.
Query: If Iran's ally, the Maliki government, is our ally, and if Iran's enemy, al-Qaeda in Iraq, is our enemy, why would Iran use the Quds Force to attack Americans and risk U.S. retaliation?
Killing Americans in Iraq is not going to defeat the United States. But it could trigger heavy U.S. retaliation, not only on the Quds Force, but on Iran's nuclear facilities – and a war with the United States. Yet Iran's diplomatic behavior suggests it wishes to avoid such a war.
Another explanation comes to mind. Iran is not initiating, but is responding to U.S.-inspired attacks inside Iran, in the Kurdish north, the Arab southwest, and the Baluchi southeast of its country. Was Karbala an attempted kidnapping to exchange U.S. soldiers for the five Iranian "diplomats" we are holding?
Has Bush secretly authorized covert attacks inside Iran? Are U.S. and Israeli agents in Kurdistan behind the attacks across the border to provoke Iran? On July 11, Iranian troops clashed with Kurd rebels inside Iran, and the Iranians fired artillery back into Iraq.
Why is Congress going on vacation? Why are a Democratic-controlled House and Senate not asking these questions in public hearings? Why is Congress letting Bush and Vice President Cheney decide whether we launch a third war in the Middle East?
Or is Congress in on it?
Anti-Zionism by 'progressive' Jews
Anti-semitism, Anti-semitism, Anti-semitism - But, But, they are Jews - Yea, well, ANTI-SEMITISM! ANTI-SEMITISM! ANTI-SEMITISM!
by Noa Levanon - Israel Jewish Scene
The New York Times ran a story about my article entitled "Essay Linking Liberal Jews to Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor." It was really after this article that the furor began.
The article linked anti-Semitism with “liberal Jews”, a term I had not used. That disturbed a lot of people, for perhaps 85 to 90 percent of Jews in America think of themselves as liberals.
Additionally, the AJC was erroneously labeled a “conservative advocacy group,” which it is not. So, unfortunately, the article played into the current culture wars in the United States between right and left, liberal and conservative opinion.
In an explanatory article that you wrote for The New Republic, you emphasized the fact that your choice of the word “progressive” was self-chosen by the individuals whose work you examined. Could you define some generalized characteristics of the term, and what distinguishes it from liberalism, in your opinion?
The terms "liberal" and "liberalism" have fallen casualty to the culture wars, so some now use "progressive." In some sense, “progressive” is a more radical version of “liberal.” But, in many cases, it’s merely an honorific adopted by people who want to be on the "right-thinking side of things".
For some, to be counted as a member of the progressive camp, anti-Zionism is a necessary part of the equation - as well as anti-capitalism, anti-globalization, anti-Americanism, etc. It’s part of a whole ideological package.
In many respects, I regard myself as a liberal, especially on domestic US issues such as healthcare and public education. But, when it comes to foreign policy, if being a liberal means being anti-Zionist, I’d quickly count myself out.
Some so-called "progressives" are pro-Israel, but the momentum right now is not with them. Instead, many who see themselves in this camp have become so radical as to routinely accuse Israel of rampant racism, ethnic cleansing, even genocide. They are angry and bitter in their denunciations of Israel.
In their work, we often see an extreme version of rhetorical inflation, which sometimes goes so far as to link Israel with history’s worst regimes, such as Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa. Some of their pronouncements resemble anti-Zionist hate speech employed by the worst anti-Semites.
How do you think the anti-Zionism of some progressive Jews relates to their Jewish identity?
It varies a good deal. For some, being anti-Israel defines their core Jewish identity. They feel the need to negate Israel in order to validate a newly affirmed Diaspora identity, similar to the rejection of the Diaspora in Israel, especially during the nation’s early years.
Some of those in the leadership of the British effort for an academic boycott of Israel are Jews, including Israelis or ex-Israelis living in Great Britain. They dislike Israel intensely. Some also claim to be acting in accord with prophetic teachings and what they see as a higher Jewish ideal. They find their Jewish affirmations in opposition to the Jewish state.
Also, you find people who don’t want any Jewish connection at all. Many Jewish academics who think of themselves as Marxists, for example, refuse to be associated with religious or national identities, either Judaism or Israel.
Within the political sphere, Marxism is by and large a spent force, but Marxist ideas and loyalties hang on in universities and sometimes express themselves in fierce opposition to or outright rejection of Israel.
Moving from margins to mainstream
In line with these adversarial postures, Prof Rosenfeld alluded to a movement of extreme anti-Zionist thinking into the mainstream, noting that books by some of Israel’s foremost Jewish detractors have been picked up by major publishing houses.
One example, which he cited in his original article, was British academic Jacqueline Rose’s book, "The Question of Zion", published by Princeton University Press.
“What was disturbing about this,” he said, “is that the book is full of egregious factual errors, as well as badly distorted by ideological bias.
"Rose claims Adolf Hitler and Theodore Herzl attended an opera by Wagner on the same night in Paris, which supposedly inspired both of their ideas, although Hitler did not come to Paris until 1940, long after Herzl had died. Rose also calls Israel to task for the ‘razing’ of Jenin, which never happened.
“The fact that such a book carries the Princeton University stamp may show a troubling movement of radical anti-Zionist ideas from the margins into the mainstream. And Rose’s book is hardly alone.
"Norman Finkelstein’s most recent tirade against Israel was published by the University of California Press, and Jimmy Carter’s best-selling tarring of Israel with the apartheid brush came out with Simon & Schuster.
"These are seriously flawed, deeply tendentious books, but they carry the imprimatur of some of America's most highly respected publishing houses. That’s worrisome."
Can any legal recourse be taken, in light of such blatant factual errors?
I've been accused of advocating censorship, even of wanting to bring us back to the age of McCarthyism, but none of that is true.
Here, simply put, is what I believe: biased, erroneous, and irrational criticism must be met by all of the power of lucid argument and rational criticism. Any writer who publishes his or her ideas is subject to the latter.
What I and others are attempting to do is expose the poverty of some of these malicious ideas, including those that unfairly attack Israel and its supporters. But in the realm of public opinion, short of committing outright defamation, I don’t think legal recourse can or should be taken.
So, is that the way you believe we should combat the globalization and evolution, as you called it in your article, of anti-Semitism?
Let’s separate between anti-Semitic acts and anti-Semitic utterances. The first are illegal, so if one is caught firebombing a synagogue or physically accosting Jews, those people are liable for prosecution.
Anti-Semitic books, articles, and the like are something else altogether, especially in the United States where free speech is constitutionally protected.
If writers really think Israel resembles apartheid South Africa or Nazi Germany, there is no question of throwing the legal book at them. However, those are scurrilous accusations, and they need to be exposed as such.
It’s not easy, for we are involved today in a war of ideas, and there are some very bad ideas out there, many of them directed against Israel. It’s imperative to combat them with good ideas. We need more people to step forward and show the errors in that kind of thinking.
Intellectually and politically, it’s an intense war and will not quickly fade, and there are Jews on both sides. Hearing Israeli voices on the anti-Zionist side is especially troubling. Avraham Burg, for example, can now be cited by Israel’s enemies as validating some of their most damning charges.
If a state can validly be compared to Nazi Germany — and Burg apparently makes such comparisons in his new book - its existence should be called into question.
I don’t think Israel can be legitimately compared to the Third Reich or apartheid South Africa. But when some Israelis make these analogies, it becomes harder for those of us on the outside to contest them.
There have been parallel rises in violence on the streets and intellectual aggression against Jews. How much are these two trends related? If progressives ceased their verbal attacks on Israel, would you expect there to be less physical violence from anti-Semites?
It’s best to look at this matter country by country. Within Europe, the most vociferous anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, on the street, in the public media, and in academia, are found in England and France.
Do I think anti-Semitic violence would disappear in those countries entirely, in the absence of anti-Zionist rhetoric? No.
But anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist utterances help to underwrite or abet anti-Semitic violence. Such hate speech provides a kind of license to street thugs to hit out at Jews, they feel freer to behave aggressively if they know public opinion in the countries in which they reside regularly condemns the Jewish state in the harshest of terms. It makes it easier for them to then target local Jews and Jewish institutions.
So the more we can dampen down rhetorical abuse directed against Jews, the better the chances of containing violence against them.
Alvin Rosenfeld is a professor of English and the director of the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University.
by Noa Levanon - Israel Jewish Scene
The New York Times ran a story about my article entitled "Essay Linking Liberal Jews to Anti-Semitism Sparks a Furor." It was really after this article that the furor began.
The article linked anti-Semitism with “liberal Jews”, a term I had not used. That disturbed a lot of people, for perhaps 85 to 90 percent of Jews in America think of themselves as liberals.
Additionally, the AJC was erroneously labeled a “conservative advocacy group,” which it is not. So, unfortunately, the article played into the current culture wars in the United States between right and left, liberal and conservative opinion.
In an explanatory article that you wrote for The New Republic, you emphasized the fact that your choice of the word “progressive” was self-chosen by the individuals whose work you examined. Could you define some generalized characteristics of the term, and what distinguishes it from liberalism, in your opinion?
The terms "liberal" and "liberalism" have fallen casualty to the culture wars, so some now use "progressive." In some sense, “progressive” is a more radical version of “liberal.” But, in many cases, it’s merely an honorific adopted by people who want to be on the "right-thinking side of things".
For some, to be counted as a member of the progressive camp, anti-Zionism is a necessary part of the equation - as well as anti-capitalism, anti-globalization, anti-Americanism, etc. It’s part of a whole ideological package.
In many respects, I regard myself as a liberal, especially on domestic US issues such as healthcare and public education. But, when it comes to foreign policy, if being a liberal means being anti-Zionist, I’d quickly count myself out.
Some so-called "progressives" are pro-Israel, but the momentum right now is not with them. Instead, many who see themselves in this camp have become so radical as to routinely accuse Israel of rampant racism, ethnic cleansing, even genocide. They are angry and bitter in their denunciations of Israel.
In their work, we often see an extreme version of rhetorical inflation, which sometimes goes so far as to link Israel with history’s worst regimes, such as Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa. Some of their pronouncements resemble anti-Zionist hate speech employed by the worst anti-Semites.
How do you think the anti-Zionism of some progressive Jews relates to their Jewish identity?
It varies a good deal. For some, being anti-Israel defines their core Jewish identity. They feel the need to negate Israel in order to validate a newly affirmed Diaspora identity, similar to the rejection of the Diaspora in Israel, especially during the nation’s early years.
Some of those in the leadership of the British effort for an academic boycott of Israel are Jews, including Israelis or ex-Israelis living in Great Britain. They dislike Israel intensely. Some also claim to be acting in accord with prophetic teachings and what they see as a higher Jewish ideal. They find their Jewish affirmations in opposition to the Jewish state.
Also, you find people who don’t want any Jewish connection at all. Many Jewish academics who think of themselves as Marxists, for example, refuse to be associated with religious or national identities, either Judaism or Israel.
Within the political sphere, Marxism is by and large a spent force, but Marxist ideas and loyalties hang on in universities and sometimes express themselves in fierce opposition to or outright rejection of Israel.
Moving from margins to mainstream
In line with these adversarial postures, Prof Rosenfeld alluded to a movement of extreme anti-Zionist thinking into the mainstream, noting that books by some of Israel’s foremost Jewish detractors have been picked up by major publishing houses.
One example, which he cited in his original article, was British academic Jacqueline Rose’s book, "The Question of Zion", published by Princeton University Press.
“What was disturbing about this,” he said, “is that the book is full of egregious factual errors, as well as badly distorted by ideological bias.
"Rose claims Adolf Hitler and Theodore Herzl attended an opera by Wagner on the same night in Paris, which supposedly inspired both of their ideas, although Hitler did not come to Paris until 1940, long after Herzl had died. Rose also calls Israel to task for the ‘razing’ of Jenin, which never happened.
“The fact that such a book carries the Princeton University stamp may show a troubling movement of radical anti-Zionist ideas from the margins into the mainstream. And Rose’s book is hardly alone.
"Norman Finkelstein’s most recent tirade against Israel was published by the University of California Press, and Jimmy Carter’s best-selling tarring of Israel with the apartheid brush came out with Simon & Schuster.
"These are seriously flawed, deeply tendentious books, but they carry the imprimatur of some of America's most highly respected publishing houses. That’s worrisome."
Can any legal recourse be taken, in light of such blatant factual errors?
I've been accused of advocating censorship, even of wanting to bring us back to the age of McCarthyism, but none of that is true.
Here, simply put, is what I believe: biased, erroneous, and irrational criticism must be met by all of the power of lucid argument and rational criticism. Any writer who publishes his or her ideas is subject to the latter.
What I and others are attempting to do is expose the poverty of some of these malicious ideas, including those that unfairly attack Israel and its supporters. But in the realm of public opinion, short of committing outright defamation, I don’t think legal recourse can or should be taken.
So, is that the way you believe we should combat the globalization and evolution, as you called it in your article, of anti-Semitism?
Let’s separate between anti-Semitic acts and anti-Semitic utterances. The first are illegal, so if one is caught firebombing a synagogue or physically accosting Jews, those people are liable for prosecution.
Anti-Semitic books, articles, and the like are something else altogether, especially in the United States where free speech is constitutionally protected.
If writers really think Israel resembles apartheid South Africa or Nazi Germany, there is no question of throwing the legal book at them. However, those are scurrilous accusations, and they need to be exposed as such.
It’s not easy, for we are involved today in a war of ideas, and there are some very bad ideas out there, many of them directed against Israel. It’s imperative to combat them with good ideas. We need more people to step forward and show the errors in that kind of thinking.
Intellectually and politically, it’s an intense war and will not quickly fade, and there are Jews on both sides. Hearing Israeli voices on the anti-Zionist side is especially troubling. Avraham Burg, for example, can now be cited by Israel’s enemies as validating some of their most damning charges.
If a state can validly be compared to Nazi Germany — and Burg apparently makes such comparisons in his new book - its existence should be called into question.
I don’t think Israel can be legitimately compared to the Third Reich or apartheid South Africa. But when some Israelis make these analogies, it becomes harder for those of us on the outside to contest them.
There have been parallel rises in violence on the streets and intellectual aggression against Jews. How much are these two trends related? If progressives ceased their verbal attacks on Israel, would you expect there to be less physical violence from anti-Semites?
It’s best to look at this matter country by country. Within Europe, the most vociferous anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, on the street, in the public media, and in academia, are found in England and France.
Do I think anti-Semitic violence would disappear in those countries entirely, in the absence of anti-Zionist rhetoric? No.
But anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist utterances help to underwrite or abet anti-Semitic violence. Such hate speech provides a kind of license to street thugs to hit out at Jews, they feel freer to behave aggressively if they know public opinion in the countries in which they reside regularly condemns the Jewish state in the harshest of terms. It makes it easier for them to then target local Jews and Jewish institutions.
So the more we can dampen down rhetorical abuse directed against Jews, the better the chances of containing violence against them.
Alvin Rosenfeld is a professor of English and the director of the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University.
Bush - "Hamas must recognize Israel"
Bush is really an idiot! Which "Israel" should Hamas recognize? And, is it reasonable to expect a people, which have been forcibly removed from their land, to recognize the occupiers' "right" to their land?
Israel is the only country in the world which refuses to define its own borders. It refuses to do this because it doesn’t want to curb its colonialist ambitions with specific boundaries.
"Israel is unique in that it doesn't have defined or recognized borders ... Israel has always been a country with creeping borders - it has an insatiable urge to expand, and thus further dispossess the native population. On May 14, 1948, the day he proclaimed the new state without specifying its borders, Ben Gurion wrote in his diary: "Take the American Declaration of Independence for instance. It contains no mention of the territorial limits" A few years later, Ben-Gurion wrote: "To maintain the status quo will not do. We have to set up a dynamic state bent upon expansion." The current construction of the land-grab wall is merely the latest manifestation of these expansionist proclivities." (Paul de Rooij ‘Straw Men and Wild Fires’ http://www.counterpunch.org/rooij02282005.html February 28, 2005)
Yaakov Lappin - Israel News
US President George Bush has called on Hamas to recognize the State of Israel in a landmark speech on the Middle East Monday evening.
Bush used the speech to call for an international Mideast peace summit of Israelis, Palestinians, and representatives of neighboring states, to be chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"We will continue to deliver a firm message to Hamas. You must stop being a safe heaven for attacks against Israel. You must accept the legitimate Palestinian state. And you must reject violence and recognize Israel's right to exist and commit to previous agreements between the parties," Bush said.
"There is the vision of Hamas, which the world saw in Gaza… with summary executions.... By following this path the Palestinian people would guarantee chaos. They would surrender to Hamas' sponsors in Syria and Iran. And they would crush the possibility of a Palestinian state," Bush warned.
"There is another option, a hopeful option, of a peaceful state called Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people," Bush said, adding that the Fatah government was "working to strengthen the security services to confront the terrorists and protect the innocent."
"By following this path, Palestinians can reclaim their dignity and establish a state of their own," Bush added.
The US president went on to offer unprecedented levels of American financial and political support for the West Bank Fatah government of PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad Salam. "By supporting the reforms of President Abbas and PM Fayyad, we help prove to the world, region, and Israel, that a Palestinian state would be a partner, not a danger," Bush said.
"The US is taking a series of steps to strengthen the forces of moderation and peace among the Palestinian people," he added, before announcing that "this year we will provide the Palestinian people with more than 190 million dollars, including for humanitarian work in Gaza." 228 million dollars have been earmarked by the US for loans for Palestinian businesses, Bush said, adding that a direct contribution will also be made to Palestinians to reform their security service, under US oversight.
Bush expressed hope that a strengthening of moderate forces among Palestinians would lead to the formation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
"With all this assistance we are showing the Palestinian people that a commitment to peace leads to generous support by the US," he added.
'No future for Israel in West Bank'
Turning to the Israeli government, Bush said: "Israel has a clear path. Prime Minister Olmert must continue to release tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority."
"Prime Minister Olmert has made it clear that Israel's future is in development of Negev and Galilee, not through occupation in the West Bank," Bush said.
"The US will never abandon its commitment to Israel as a Jewish state and a homeland to the Jewish people," the US president vowed.
At the end of his speech, Bush announced "an international meeting this fall of representatives of nations that support two state solution and reject violence," adding that the key participants will be Israelis, Palestinians, and their neighbors in the region."
Israel 'satisfied with speech'
Following the speech, a senior official in the Prime Minister's Office expressed satisfaction over Bush's words.
The speech "charted out a route and definitely meets our expectations," noted the official.
"The subjects were pre-coordinated with us, but not the details. There's no doubt the speech confirms Israel's stance on most of the Palestinian issues. Dismantling illegal outposts also matches the stance of the prime minister and his party."
Referring to the conference announced by the US president, the aide said that Israel would be happy to see countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Morocco attending. "The conditions for participation are, of course, abiding by the Quartet's prerequisites, namely recognizing Israel, denouncing terror and honoring past agreements between Israel and the PLO."
Israel is the only country in the world which refuses to define its own borders. It refuses to do this because it doesn’t want to curb its colonialist ambitions with specific boundaries.
"Israel is unique in that it doesn't have defined or recognized borders ... Israel has always been a country with creeping borders - it has an insatiable urge to expand, and thus further dispossess the native population. On May 14, 1948, the day he proclaimed the new state without specifying its borders, Ben Gurion wrote in his diary: "Take the American Declaration of Independence for instance. It contains no mention of the territorial limits" A few years later, Ben-Gurion wrote: "To maintain the status quo will not do. We have to set up a dynamic state bent upon expansion." The current construction of the land-grab wall is merely the latest manifestation of these expansionist proclivities." (Paul de Rooij ‘Straw Men and Wild Fires’ http://www.counterpunch.org/rooij02282005.html February 28, 2005)
Yaakov Lappin - Israel News
US President George Bush has called on Hamas to recognize the State of Israel in a landmark speech on the Middle East Monday evening.
Bush used the speech to call for an international Mideast peace summit of Israelis, Palestinians, and representatives of neighboring states, to be chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
"We will continue to deliver a firm message to Hamas. You must stop being a safe heaven for attacks against Israel. You must accept the legitimate Palestinian state. And you must reject violence and recognize Israel's right to exist and commit to previous agreements between the parties," Bush said.
"There is the vision of Hamas, which the world saw in Gaza… with summary executions.... By following this path the Palestinian people would guarantee chaos. They would surrender to Hamas' sponsors in Syria and Iran. And they would crush the possibility of a Palestinian state," Bush warned.
"There is another option, a hopeful option, of a peaceful state called Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people," Bush said, adding that the Fatah government was "working to strengthen the security services to confront the terrorists and protect the innocent."
"By following this path, Palestinians can reclaim their dignity and establish a state of their own," Bush added.
The US president went on to offer unprecedented levels of American financial and political support for the West Bank Fatah government of PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad Salam. "By supporting the reforms of President Abbas and PM Fayyad, we help prove to the world, region, and Israel, that a Palestinian state would be a partner, not a danger," Bush said.
"The US is taking a series of steps to strengthen the forces of moderation and peace among the Palestinian people," he added, before announcing that "this year we will provide the Palestinian people with more than 190 million dollars, including for humanitarian work in Gaza." 228 million dollars have been earmarked by the US for loans for Palestinian businesses, Bush said, adding that a direct contribution will also be made to Palestinians to reform their security service, under US oversight.
Bush expressed hope that a strengthening of moderate forces among Palestinians would lead to the formation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
"With all this assistance we are showing the Palestinian people that a commitment to peace leads to generous support by the US," he added.
'No future for Israel in West Bank'
Turning to the Israeli government, Bush said: "Israel has a clear path. Prime Minister Olmert must continue to release tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority."
"Prime Minister Olmert has made it clear that Israel's future is in development of Negev and Galilee, not through occupation in the West Bank," Bush said.
"The US will never abandon its commitment to Israel as a Jewish state and a homeland to the Jewish people," the US president vowed.
At the end of his speech, Bush announced "an international meeting this fall of representatives of nations that support two state solution and reject violence," adding that the key participants will be Israelis, Palestinians, and their neighbors in the region."
Israel 'satisfied with speech'
Following the speech, a senior official in the Prime Minister's Office expressed satisfaction over Bush's words.
The speech "charted out a route and definitely meets our expectations," noted the official.
"The subjects were pre-coordinated with us, but not the details. There's no doubt the speech confirms Israel's stance on most of the Palestinian issues. Dismantling illegal outposts also matches the stance of the prime minister and his party."
Referring to the conference announced by the US president, the aide said that Israel would be happy to see countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Morocco attending. "The conditions for participation are, of course, abiding by the Quartet's prerequisites, namely recognizing Israel, denouncing terror and honoring past agreements between Israel and the PLO."
Wiping whom off the Map?
by Dr. Elias Akleh - July 15, 2007
Since the establishment of their terrorist state on usurped Palestinian land Israelis keep regurgitating their phobic mantra “Arabs want to wipe Israel off the map” in order to draw international sympathy, and to cover up their war crimes throughout the Arab World. To build their divinely racist “God’s promised Jewish only” state from Nile to Euphrates Israeli government is conducting the policy of graduated wiping Palestinians off their own existence. Israel had, so far, successfully wiped Palestine off the map. Palestine had become to be known as occupied territories, disputed territories, and finally West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestine, a name used for the last three thousand years, to describe the land between Mediterranean shores west to Jordan River east, and from Lebanon north to Egypt south, can no longer be found on any modern map. PALESTINE HAS BEEN WIPED OFF THE MAP!!!
Israel was established and built on Zionism, a colonialist expansionist political movement based on religiously elitist ideology (God’s chosen people), and a complete denial of the other. Its ultimate goal is to build a super power state, which they hope would eventually exceed the US in controlling the globe, within the heart of the Arab World to control their resource-rich region. Its first step was to establish Israel in place of Palestine and to win (force) its international legitimacy through imperial power (unfortunately might is still right in our age). Thus Palestinians became the primary target of Zionist terror and occupation to evacuate the land, since an independent viable Palestinian state would negate the essence of Israel’s right to exist on occupied land, and would put an end to the Zionist’s expansionist dreams. The birth of the Zionist entity is based not only on wiping Palestine off the map, but also wiping all Palestinians, their history and their culture off existence. Zionist Israel, thus, had adopted a graduated genocidal policy against Palestinians in specific and against Arabs in general.
Zionists perceived seeds of conflict among Arabs due to the variety of their culture, ethnicity, and religious backgrounds. To build their divinely racist Jewish-only Greater Israel from Nile to Euphrates through the division of Arabs, Zionist Israel developed its own expansionist geopolitical policy inspired from and akin to the German Nazi geopolitical policy of 1890 to 1933 of dividing Europe into smaller states to be swallowed up by strong Germany. Where Nazi Germans prescribed to a biological elitist ideology of the superior pure Arian blood (the Superman), Zionist Israelis prescribed to a divine elitist ideology of the superior pure Jewish blood (God’s chosen people).
In occupied Palestine Israel differentiates between Christian and Muslim Palestinians, between Fatah and Hamas, between West Bank and Gaza Strip, and between citizens of one town and the other. Within the neighboring Arab states (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq) Israel is inciting conflict and hatred between the citizens of those countries and Palestinian refugees, between Christians and Muslims, between Shiites and Sunni Muslims, between Kurds and Arabs, and between different political parties.
On the Palestinian front Israeli government had adopted a three-dimensional graduated genocidal policy. First comes uprooting Palestinians from their land and towns and transferring them to neighboring countries. Second is perpetrating massacres and ethnic cleansing through military incursions, shelling, and air raids against Palestinian communities to coerce the rest of them to immigrate. Third is the distortion and destruction of all physical, cultural, and historical evidence tying Palestinians to the land. Palestinian villages have been completely demolished (wiped off existence), Palestinian culture was hijacked and many had been claimed to be Jewish, and history was distorted to reflect Palestinians as invader terrorist Muslim tribes from the Saudi Desert that never had any right in God’s Promised Land. Israel has sought to negate, falsify, demonize and wipe off every aspect of Palestinian life to a point where ex Israeli PM Golda Meier stated in 1969: “There is no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.”
The policy of wiping Palestine off the map and wiping Palestinians off existence had been adopted early since the founding of Zionism. Here follows quotes of only few of noted Zionist leaders. Theodor Herzl, father of political Zionism, had written in his diaries in 1898, “The Palestinians would be spirited across the border.” Israel Zangwill, a British Zionist Jew, is known for his slogan “A land without a people for a people without a land” describing Zionist dream of Israeli state in Palestine. This slogan, though, was invented by a Zionist British Member of Parliament Lord Shaftsbury, who in 1853 wrote to Foreign Minister Aberdeen that Greater Syria was “a country without a nation in need of a nation without a country… the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews”.
Chaim Weitzman, the first president of Israel, saw no room for Palestinians in Palestine. In his autobiography, “Trial and Error”, he wrote “Palestine will become as Jewish as England is English.”
In chapter four of his book, “Birth of Palestinian Refugee Problem”, Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote about Yousef Weitz, the director of the Jewish National Fund’s Land Department, a man noted for his strong Zionist convictions. Weitz wrote in his diary on December 20th 1940: “It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both people (Palestinians and Jews) … the only solution is a Land of Israel, at least a western Land of Israel without Arabs. There is no room here for compromise … There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries … Not one village must be left, nor one Bedouin tribe.” In 1948 Weitz was given the task of creating the “Transfer Committee”, which supervised the destruction of evacuated Arab villages, and repopulating others with recent Jewish immigrants in order to make any return of Palestinian refugees to their villages impossible.
Many Palestinian villages, which survived destruction during 1948 war, were later erased (wiped off) after the war. Records of the Association of Archeological Survey, housed in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, show that a plan to wipe off Palestinian villages was implemented jointly by the Israeli Lands Administration and the Jewish National Fund in 1965, and was carried on for several years. The plan intended to wipe off all traces of Palestinian villages in order to destroy any hope for the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
The Israeli Association of Archaeological Survey was established in 1964 to issue permits for the destruction of Palestinian villages. By 1967 this association had approved the wiping off of about 100 villages inside 1948-occupied Palestine (Israel). After 1967 the Association turned its attention to destroy Palestinian villages in West Bank and Golan heights. On December 2006 Roni Bar-On, Israeli Interior Minister declared his ministry’s approval on a plan to demolish more than 42,000 homes of Palestinian Bedouins in Negev Desert. This plan will wipe off 45 Palestinian villages housing more than 86,000 Palestinian Bedouins, who in 1958 were evacuated out of their land and confined to a piece of land in the desert known as the Triangle. Although paying taxes to Israeli government like any other town, these 45 villages were not recognized by the Israeli government, and received no civil services at all.
The destruction of Palestinian history and culture, and the wiping off Palestinian names of towns and replacing them with Jewish names was accelerated to a point where Moshe Dyan, a previous Israeli Defense Minister, bragged about it in a lecture he gave at the Technion University in Haifa in March 19th 1969. He stated: “we came here to a country that was populated by Arabs, and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is no single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab Village. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not here either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul, Kibbutz Gv’at in the place of Jibta, Kibbutz Sared in the place of Huneifis, and Yehushua in the place of Tel al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.” (Haaratz, April 4th, 1969).
The policy of wiping off Palestinian names and replacing them with Jewish names was adopted by first Israeli PM David Ben Gurion since the establishment of Israel in 1948 when he established a special committee from historians, geographers, geologists and Torah experts, whose task was to wipe off the Canaanite and Palestinian Arabic names and substitute them with Jewish names. So Tel Rabi’ became Tel Aviv, Al-Quds became Urushalaim, Um Rashrash became Eilat, Shu’fat became Nevi Yachob, Beit Jala became Gilo, Za’tara became Tabbuch, Beisan became Beit Shean, Qualandia became Atarot, Beit Mahseer became Beit Me’er, Artof became Hartuv, and so on.
Israeli government came up with a set of despotic laws to justify its robbery of Palestinian property. For example the “Expulsion of Invaders” amendment to land laws was designed to allow Israel to expel Palestinians from their land under the excuse that Palestinians are invaders. Palestinian refugees, who tried to return to their land, are considered invaders by Israel. The law of “Abandoned Properties” is designed to make it “legal” for Israeli government to seize any land belongs to absent (evacuated, transferred) owners. This law “legalized” the general confiscation of almost 450 Palestinian villages and associated farm land that were later either wiped off or Judaised. According to a report drawn up in 1952 Israel had succeeded in expropriating all Palestinian quarters in mixed towns, 73,000 rooms in abandoned houses, 7800 Palestinian shops, workshops and warehouses, 5 million Palestinian pounds in bank accounts, and most importantly 300 thousand hectares of land (see Simha Flapan’s “The Birth of Israel; Myths and Realities” p. 107)
Israel is intent on destroying all Palestinian and Islamic cultural city landmarks. Religious places and buildings, especially Muslim mosques, were claimed as Jewish, destroyed, neglected to collapse, and turned into museums, art galleries, whore houses, clubs, senior citizens shelters, and stables for farm animals. Muslim Palestinians were not allowed to renovate or build new mosques. Renovation and strengthening the bases of Al-Aqsa mosque was hindered by Jerusalem municipality. Building permits were withheld, and building materials were not allowed to pass through old gates to the mosque. The ancient Islamic Council building and its adjacent Islamic “Ma’man Allah” cemetery in West Jerusalem are important historic and cultural Palestinian landmarks. The Israeli government is destroying the internals of the Islamic Council building to build western-style apartments, and digging up the cemetery to build a Jewish Museum of Tolerance on its place. What hypocrisy!!!
Israel had always rejected, obstructed, or violated all peace treaties with Arabs since 1948 for fear of establishing permanent borders and repatriating Palestinian refugees, as explained explicitly by their first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in his “The War Diary 1948/9”. For Zionists peace means the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes (a demographic threat to the pure exclusive Jewish state), and specifying permanent borders putting an end to Zionist expansionist dreams. In December 1948 the UN established a Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC) with representatives from US, France and Turkey to mediate between Arabs and Israel. Peace negotiation held in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 26th 1948. Israel was forced to attend negotiation after US threatened to prevent Israel’s admission to the UN. In the negotiation Arabs offered Israel peace and recognition providing Israel implements UN resolution 194 of returning Palestinian refugees to their homes. Israel rejected the offer.
Oslo Agreement was forced on Israel by Bush, the father, to appease Arab Gulf states, which joined his first Gulf War against Iraq, knowing very well that Israelis will eventually circumvent the Agreement somehow, and they did.
Benjamin Netanyahu, in June 1996, gave his famous three “NO”s to peace process: no withdrawal, no Palestinian State, and no refugee’s return. Dov Weisglass, Sharon’s senior adviser and one of the initiator of Sharon’s disengagement plan, stated “The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda.” (Ha’aretz, October 6th 2004)
Israel has also rejected the generous peace offer of March 2003 by the Arab League, which promised recognition, putting an end to all resistance, and full diplomatic relations with ALL Arab states. This offer would have fulfilled Israelis’ dreams and aspirations for the peace they claim to always have called for. Yet Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, at the time, responded by driving his tanks into all major Palestinian cities. Israel also rejected all Syrian peace offers, and violated all agreements with the Palestinian Authority.
Zionist Israeli settlers are worse than their government in their terrorist genocidal attacks against Palestinians. Zionist settlers have their own underground terrorist militias allegedly formed to protect their settlements. Given implicit permission by their government, and under the protection of the Israeli army, terrorist militias routinely attack Palestinian farmers, burn their crops, cut and uproot their trees, burn their shacks, poison their water wells, shoot and poison their farm animals, terrorize and assault members of International Solidarity Movement, who travel to Palestine to protect farmers in their fields and students on their way to schools. Some of these extremist militias (Shlomo Dvir, Yarden Morag and Ofer Gamliel) planted car bombs near Palestinian high schools in Jerusalem’s suburbs in April 2002. Others (Chahr Zliger, Naom Federman, and undisclosed other terrorists) arrested in September 2003, planned to bomb many Islamic mosques, including al-Aqsa mosque, across West Bank at the same day.
The extremist settlers encourage such terrorist acts against Palestinians and consider them religious duty. This could be seen in the way the settlers of Keryat Arba’ had sanctified the terrorist Baruch Goldstein by building a shrine for him and calling him a saint. Goldstein had shot 29 Muslim prayers in the back and injured 129 others while praying in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in February 1994.
Settlers’ terror increased up to a point where, in April 27, 2005, Amnesty International (AI) urged the Israeli occupation authorities to launch immediate probes into the Jewish settlers' poisoning of Palestinian agrarian fields. The Israeli government ignored such a request.
Despite all the media cover up, and the Zionist propaganda, the international community, on the civic level, understands and sympathizes with the Palestinian just cause. Many civil walks and protests demanding justice for Palestinians take place in major cities all over the world. People from all over the world join International Solidarity Movement to travel to Palestine to protect Palestinians from Israeli terror, and to protest Israeli imprisoning wall designed to choke Palestinian towns. Polls, especially in Europe, had shown that Israel is considered the most dangerous threat to world peace even before Iran.
Unfortunately the blackmail of World Zionist Organization and the pressure of the pro-Zionist neoconservative American administration and that of AIPAC made criticizing Israel a “political suicide” as described by previous American President Jimmy Carter. World leaders and politicians had ignored the plight of Palestinian people. They had ignored the illegal establishment of the terrorist state of Israel on usurped Palestine, ignored Israeli massacres against Palestinian civilians, the destruction of their villages, and the expulsion of almost 750 thousand Palestinian out of their homes, ignored the right of return for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and the implementation of UN resolution 194 of 1948 demanding their return to their land, ignored the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli terrorist occupation for the last 60 years, denied the Palestinians’ right of self-defense and resisting occupation, as guaranteed by UN charters, and called this right terrorism, ignored Israeli terrorism, on the other hand, and called it self-defense, ignored and turned against the UN democratic principles when they rejected the Palestinian government that was elected by the most democratic election as witnessed and testified by UN and international well known monitors, and imposed financial and economic siege to starve Palestinians for their democratic process.
As the international political community, alas including some Arab leaders, had shown sympathy for the capture, as a war prisoner, of the Israeli soldier (Shalit), who was sent to Gaza Strip to shell and destroy the homes of Palestinian civilians and to kill their women and children, and expressed their understanding of the Israeli terrorist war against Lebanon (July 2006) in response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers sent across Lebanese borders to incite anticipated trouble, this international “civilized” community expressed no sympathy towards the 12 thousand Palestinian civilians, including women and children, rotting in miserable Israeli jails after being snatched out of their families in the middle of the night from their homes, nor did they express any understanding for the Palestinian attacks against Israeli settlers, who usurped Palestinian land.
The international community knows that Israel is perpetrating ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, yet none of its governments is doing anything about it or objecting to it, giving Israel the wrong message that it is OK to kill Palestinians. That is why wiping Palestinians off existence is still going on until today. Palestinians have long joined native Australians and Native American Indians in the category of “endangered species”. Today it is Palestinians; tomorrow it is the rest of Arab nations.
* Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer of Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala. Currently he lives in the US.
Since the establishment of their terrorist state on usurped Palestinian land Israelis keep regurgitating their phobic mantra “Arabs want to wipe Israel off the map” in order to draw international sympathy, and to cover up their war crimes throughout the Arab World. To build their divinely racist “God’s promised Jewish only” state from Nile to Euphrates Israeli government is conducting the policy of graduated wiping Palestinians off their own existence. Israel had, so far, successfully wiped Palestine off the map. Palestine had become to be known as occupied territories, disputed territories, and finally West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestine, a name used for the last three thousand years, to describe the land between Mediterranean shores west to Jordan River east, and from Lebanon north to Egypt south, can no longer be found on any modern map. PALESTINE HAS BEEN WIPED OFF THE MAP!!!
Israel was established and built on Zionism, a colonialist expansionist political movement based on religiously elitist ideology (God’s chosen people), and a complete denial of the other. Its ultimate goal is to build a super power state, which they hope would eventually exceed the US in controlling the globe, within the heart of the Arab World to control their resource-rich region. Its first step was to establish Israel in place of Palestine and to win (force) its international legitimacy through imperial power (unfortunately might is still right in our age). Thus Palestinians became the primary target of Zionist terror and occupation to evacuate the land, since an independent viable Palestinian state would negate the essence of Israel’s right to exist on occupied land, and would put an end to the Zionist’s expansionist dreams. The birth of the Zionist entity is based not only on wiping Palestine off the map, but also wiping all Palestinians, their history and their culture off existence. Zionist Israel, thus, had adopted a graduated genocidal policy against Palestinians in specific and against Arabs in general.
Zionists perceived seeds of conflict among Arabs due to the variety of their culture, ethnicity, and religious backgrounds. To build their divinely racist Jewish-only Greater Israel from Nile to Euphrates through the division of Arabs, Zionist Israel developed its own expansionist geopolitical policy inspired from and akin to the German Nazi geopolitical policy of 1890 to 1933 of dividing Europe into smaller states to be swallowed up by strong Germany. Where Nazi Germans prescribed to a biological elitist ideology of the superior pure Arian blood (the Superman), Zionist Israelis prescribed to a divine elitist ideology of the superior pure Jewish blood (God’s chosen people).
In occupied Palestine Israel differentiates between Christian and Muslim Palestinians, between Fatah and Hamas, between West Bank and Gaza Strip, and between citizens of one town and the other. Within the neighboring Arab states (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq) Israel is inciting conflict and hatred between the citizens of those countries and Palestinian refugees, between Christians and Muslims, between Shiites and Sunni Muslims, between Kurds and Arabs, and between different political parties.
On the Palestinian front Israeli government had adopted a three-dimensional graduated genocidal policy. First comes uprooting Palestinians from their land and towns and transferring them to neighboring countries. Second is perpetrating massacres and ethnic cleansing through military incursions, shelling, and air raids against Palestinian communities to coerce the rest of them to immigrate. Third is the distortion and destruction of all physical, cultural, and historical evidence tying Palestinians to the land. Palestinian villages have been completely demolished (wiped off existence), Palestinian culture was hijacked and many had been claimed to be Jewish, and history was distorted to reflect Palestinians as invader terrorist Muslim tribes from the Saudi Desert that never had any right in God’s Promised Land. Israel has sought to negate, falsify, demonize and wipe off every aspect of Palestinian life to a point where ex Israeli PM Golda Meier stated in 1969: “There is no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.”
The policy of wiping Palestine off the map and wiping Palestinians off existence had been adopted early since the founding of Zionism. Here follows quotes of only few of noted Zionist leaders. Theodor Herzl, father of political Zionism, had written in his diaries in 1898, “The Palestinians would be spirited across the border.” Israel Zangwill, a British Zionist Jew, is known for his slogan “A land without a people for a people without a land” describing Zionist dream of Israeli state in Palestine. This slogan, though, was invented by a Zionist British Member of Parliament Lord Shaftsbury, who in 1853 wrote to Foreign Minister Aberdeen that Greater Syria was “a country without a nation in need of a nation without a country… the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews”.
Chaim Weitzman, the first president of Israel, saw no room for Palestinians in Palestine. In his autobiography, “Trial and Error”, he wrote “Palestine will become as Jewish as England is English.”
In chapter four of his book, “Birth of Palestinian Refugee Problem”, Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote about Yousef Weitz, the director of the Jewish National Fund’s Land Department, a man noted for his strong Zionist convictions. Weitz wrote in his diary on December 20th 1940: “It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both people (Palestinians and Jews) … the only solution is a Land of Israel, at least a western Land of Israel without Arabs. There is no room here for compromise … There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries … Not one village must be left, nor one Bedouin tribe.” In 1948 Weitz was given the task of creating the “Transfer Committee”, which supervised the destruction of evacuated Arab villages, and repopulating others with recent Jewish immigrants in order to make any return of Palestinian refugees to their villages impossible.
Many Palestinian villages, which survived destruction during 1948 war, were later erased (wiped off) after the war. Records of the Association of Archeological Survey, housed in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, show that a plan to wipe off Palestinian villages was implemented jointly by the Israeli Lands Administration and the Jewish National Fund in 1965, and was carried on for several years. The plan intended to wipe off all traces of Palestinian villages in order to destroy any hope for the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.
The Israeli Association of Archaeological Survey was established in 1964 to issue permits for the destruction of Palestinian villages. By 1967 this association had approved the wiping off of about 100 villages inside 1948-occupied Palestine (Israel). After 1967 the Association turned its attention to destroy Palestinian villages in West Bank and Golan heights. On December 2006 Roni Bar-On, Israeli Interior Minister declared his ministry’s approval on a plan to demolish more than 42,000 homes of Palestinian Bedouins in Negev Desert. This plan will wipe off 45 Palestinian villages housing more than 86,000 Palestinian Bedouins, who in 1958 were evacuated out of their land and confined to a piece of land in the desert known as the Triangle. Although paying taxes to Israeli government like any other town, these 45 villages were not recognized by the Israeli government, and received no civil services at all.
The destruction of Palestinian history and culture, and the wiping off Palestinian names of towns and replacing them with Jewish names was accelerated to a point where Moshe Dyan, a previous Israeli Defense Minister, bragged about it in a lecture he gave at the Technion University in Haifa in March 19th 1969. He stated: “we came here to a country that was populated by Arabs, and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is no single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab Village. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not here either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul, Kibbutz Gv’at in the place of Jibta, Kibbutz Sared in the place of Huneifis, and Yehushua in the place of Tel al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.” (Haaratz, April 4th, 1969).
The policy of wiping off Palestinian names and replacing them with Jewish names was adopted by first Israeli PM David Ben Gurion since the establishment of Israel in 1948 when he established a special committee from historians, geographers, geologists and Torah experts, whose task was to wipe off the Canaanite and Palestinian Arabic names and substitute them with Jewish names. So Tel Rabi’ became Tel Aviv, Al-Quds became Urushalaim, Um Rashrash became Eilat, Shu’fat became Nevi Yachob, Beit Jala became Gilo, Za’tara became Tabbuch, Beisan became Beit Shean, Qualandia became Atarot, Beit Mahseer became Beit Me’er, Artof became Hartuv, and so on.
Israeli government came up with a set of despotic laws to justify its robbery of Palestinian property. For example the “Expulsion of Invaders” amendment to land laws was designed to allow Israel to expel Palestinians from their land under the excuse that Palestinians are invaders. Palestinian refugees, who tried to return to their land, are considered invaders by Israel. The law of “Abandoned Properties” is designed to make it “legal” for Israeli government to seize any land belongs to absent (evacuated, transferred) owners. This law “legalized” the general confiscation of almost 450 Palestinian villages and associated farm land that were later either wiped off or Judaised. According to a report drawn up in 1952 Israel had succeeded in expropriating all Palestinian quarters in mixed towns, 73,000 rooms in abandoned houses, 7800 Palestinian shops, workshops and warehouses, 5 million Palestinian pounds in bank accounts, and most importantly 300 thousand hectares of land (see Simha Flapan’s “The Birth of Israel; Myths and Realities” p. 107)
Israel is intent on destroying all Palestinian and Islamic cultural city landmarks. Religious places and buildings, especially Muslim mosques, were claimed as Jewish, destroyed, neglected to collapse, and turned into museums, art galleries, whore houses, clubs, senior citizens shelters, and stables for farm animals. Muslim Palestinians were not allowed to renovate or build new mosques. Renovation and strengthening the bases of Al-Aqsa mosque was hindered by Jerusalem municipality. Building permits were withheld, and building materials were not allowed to pass through old gates to the mosque. The ancient Islamic Council building and its adjacent Islamic “Ma’man Allah” cemetery in West Jerusalem are important historic and cultural Palestinian landmarks. The Israeli government is destroying the internals of the Islamic Council building to build western-style apartments, and digging up the cemetery to build a Jewish Museum of Tolerance on its place. What hypocrisy!!!
Israel had always rejected, obstructed, or violated all peace treaties with Arabs since 1948 for fear of establishing permanent borders and repatriating Palestinian refugees, as explained explicitly by their first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in his “The War Diary 1948/9”. For Zionists peace means the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes (a demographic threat to the pure exclusive Jewish state), and specifying permanent borders putting an end to Zionist expansionist dreams. In December 1948 the UN established a Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC) with representatives from US, France and Turkey to mediate between Arabs and Israel. Peace negotiation held in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 26th 1948. Israel was forced to attend negotiation after US threatened to prevent Israel’s admission to the UN. In the negotiation Arabs offered Israel peace and recognition providing Israel implements UN resolution 194 of returning Palestinian refugees to their homes. Israel rejected the offer.
Oslo Agreement was forced on Israel by Bush, the father, to appease Arab Gulf states, which joined his first Gulf War against Iraq, knowing very well that Israelis will eventually circumvent the Agreement somehow, and they did.
Benjamin Netanyahu, in June 1996, gave his famous three “NO”s to peace process: no withdrawal, no Palestinian State, and no refugee’s return. Dov Weisglass, Sharon’s senior adviser and one of the initiator of Sharon’s disengagement plan, stated “The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda.” (Ha’aretz, October 6th 2004)
Israel has also rejected the generous peace offer of March 2003 by the Arab League, which promised recognition, putting an end to all resistance, and full diplomatic relations with ALL Arab states. This offer would have fulfilled Israelis’ dreams and aspirations for the peace they claim to always have called for. Yet Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, at the time, responded by driving his tanks into all major Palestinian cities. Israel also rejected all Syrian peace offers, and violated all agreements with the Palestinian Authority.
Zionist Israeli settlers are worse than their government in their terrorist genocidal attacks against Palestinians. Zionist settlers have their own underground terrorist militias allegedly formed to protect their settlements. Given implicit permission by their government, and under the protection of the Israeli army, terrorist militias routinely attack Palestinian farmers, burn their crops, cut and uproot their trees, burn their shacks, poison their water wells, shoot and poison their farm animals, terrorize and assault members of International Solidarity Movement, who travel to Palestine to protect farmers in their fields and students on their way to schools. Some of these extremist militias (Shlomo Dvir, Yarden Morag and Ofer Gamliel) planted car bombs near Palestinian high schools in Jerusalem’s suburbs in April 2002. Others (Chahr Zliger, Naom Federman, and undisclosed other terrorists) arrested in September 2003, planned to bomb many Islamic mosques, including al-Aqsa mosque, across West Bank at the same day.
The extremist settlers encourage such terrorist acts against Palestinians and consider them religious duty. This could be seen in the way the settlers of Keryat Arba’ had sanctified the terrorist Baruch Goldstein by building a shrine for him and calling him a saint. Goldstein had shot 29 Muslim prayers in the back and injured 129 others while praying in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in February 1994.
Settlers’ terror increased up to a point where, in April 27, 2005, Amnesty International (AI) urged the Israeli occupation authorities to launch immediate probes into the Jewish settlers' poisoning of Palestinian agrarian fields. The Israeli government ignored such a request.
Despite all the media cover up, and the Zionist propaganda, the international community, on the civic level, understands and sympathizes with the Palestinian just cause. Many civil walks and protests demanding justice for Palestinians take place in major cities all over the world. People from all over the world join International Solidarity Movement to travel to Palestine to protect Palestinians from Israeli terror, and to protest Israeli imprisoning wall designed to choke Palestinian towns. Polls, especially in Europe, had shown that Israel is considered the most dangerous threat to world peace even before Iran.
Unfortunately the blackmail of World Zionist Organization and the pressure of the pro-Zionist neoconservative American administration and that of AIPAC made criticizing Israel a “political suicide” as described by previous American President Jimmy Carter. World leaders and politicians had ignored the plight of Palestinian people. They had ignored the illegal establishment of the terrorist state of Israel on usurped Palestine, ignored Israeli massacres against Palestinian civilians, the destruction of their villages, and the expulsion of almost 750 thousand Palestinian out of their homes, ignored the right of return for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and the implementation of UN resolution 194 of 1948 demanding their return to their land, ignored the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli terrorist occupation for the last 60 years, denied the Palestinians’ right of self-defense and resisting occupation, as guaranteed by UN charters, and called this right terrorism, ignored Israeli terrorism, on the other hand, and called it self-defense, ignored and turned against the UN democratic principles when they rejected the Palestinian government that was elected by the most democratic election as witnessed and testified by UN and international well known monitors, and imposed financial and economic siege to starve Palestinians for their democratic process.
As the international political community, alas including some Arab leaders, had shown sympathy for the capture, as a war prisoner, of the Israeli soldier (Shalit), who was sent to Gaza Strip to shell and destroy the homes of Palestinian civilians and to kill their women and children, and expressed their understanding of the Israeli terrorist war against Lebanon (July 2006) in response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers sent across Lebanese borders to incite anticipated trouble, this international “civilized” community expressed no sympathy towards the 12 thousand Palestinian civilians, including women and children, rotting in miserable Israeli jails after being snatched out of their families in the middle of the night from their homes, nor did they express any understanding for the Palestinian attacks against Israeli settlers, who usurped Palestinian land.
The international community knows that Israel is perpetrating ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, yet none of its governments is doing anything about it or objecting to it, giving Israel the wrong message that it is OK to kill Palestinians. That is why wiping Palestinians off existence is still going on until today. Palestinians have long joined native Australians and Native American Indians in the category of “endangered species”. Today it is Palestinians; tomorrow it is the rest of Arab nations.
* Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer of Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala. Currently he lives in the US.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Israeli Hate Education
Americans are frequently told by the pundits at CNN and Fox News how Arab children are educated, from birth, to hate Christians and Jews. When I hear this nonsense, I can't help but wander how Jewish/Israeli children are educated. I ask myself, how is it that trained Israeli soldiers can take careful aim and fire an M-16 round (American) through the eye of a Palestinian boy whose only weapon is a slingshot? I wander how a highly trained pilot of a helicopter gunship (American) can fire missiles at a play-ground filled with unsuspecting Palestinian children? Or, how is it that a pilot of an F-16 fighter jet (American) can drop a 1,000 pound bomb on an apartment complex filled with sleeping Palestinian families? Surely, people who can do such things have been indoctrinated in an organized program of hate. The below article explains the program -
Israeli Textbooks and Children's
Literature Promote Racism and
Hatred Toward Palestinians and Arabs
By Maureen Meehan
Israeli school textbooks as well as children's storybooks, according to recent academic studies and surveys, portray Palestinians and Arabs as "murderers," "rioters," "suspicious," and generally backward and unproductive. Direct delegitimization and negative stereotyping of Palestinians and Arabs are the rule rather than the exception in Israeli schoolbooks.
Professor Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University studied 124 elementary, middle- and high school textbooks on grammar and Hebrew literature, history, geography and citizenship. Bar-Tal concluded that Israeli textbooks present the view that Jews are involved in a justified, even humanitarian, war against an Arab enemy that refuses to accept and acknowledge the existence and rights of Jews in Israel.
"The early textbooks tended to describe acts of Arabs as hostile, deviant, cruel, immoral, unfair, with the intention to hurt Jews and to annihilate the State of Israel. Within this frame of reference, Arabs were delegitimized by the use of such labels as 'robbers,' 'bloodthirsty,' and 'killers,'" said Professor Bar-Tal, adding that there has been little positive revision in the curriculum over the years.
Bar-Tal pointed out that Israeli textbooks continue to present Jews as industrious, brave and determined to cope with the difficulties of "improving the country in ways they believe the Arabs are incapable of." Hebrew-language geography books from the 1950s through 1970s focused on the glory of Israel's ancient past and how the land was "neglected and destroyed" by the Arabs until the Jews returned from their forced exile and revived it "with the help of the Zionist movement."
"This attitude served to justify the return of the Jews, implying that they care enough about the country to turn the swamps and deserts into blossoming farmland; this effectively delegitimizes the Arab claim to the same land," Bar-Tal told the Washington Report.
"The message was that the Palestinians were primitive and neglected the country and did not cultivate the land."
This message, continued Bar-Tal, was further emphasized in textbooks by the use of blatant negative stereotyping which featured Arabs as: "unenlightened, inferior, fatalistic, unproductive and apathetic." Further, according to the textbooks, the Arabs were "tribal, vengeful, exotic, poor, sick, dirty, noisy, colored" and "they burn, murder, destroy, and are easily inflamed."
Textbooks currently being used in the Israeli school system, says Bar-Tal, contain less direct denigration of Arabs but continue to stereotype them negatively when referring to them. He pointed out that Hebrew- as well as Arabic-language textbooks used in elementary and junior high schools contain very few references either to Arabs or to Arab-Jewish relations. The coordinator of a Palestinian NGO in Israel said that major historical events hardly get a mention either.
"When I was in high school 12 years ago, the date '1948' barely appeared in any textbooks except for a mention that there was a conflict, Palestinians refused to accept a U.N. solution and ran away instead," said Jamal Atamneh, coordinator of the Arab Education Committee in Support of Local Councils, a Haifa-based NGO. "Today the idea communicated to schoolchildren is basically the same: there are winners and losers in every conflict. When they teach about 'peace and co-existence,' it is to teach us how to get along with Jews."
Atamneh explained that textbooks used by the nearly one million Arab Israelis (one-fifth of Israel's population) are in Arabic but are written by and issued from the Israeli Ministry of Education, where Palestinians have no influence or input.
"Fewer than 1 percent of the jobs in the Education Ministry, not counting teachers, are held by Palestinians," Atamneh said. "For the past 15 years, not one new Palestinian academic has been placed in a high position in the ministry. There are no Palestinians involved in preparing the Arabic-language curriculum [and] obviously, there is no such thing as affirmative action in Israel."
In addition, there are no Arabic-language universities in Israel. Haifa University, Atamneh points out, has had a steady 20 percent Arab student population for the past 20 years. "How can that figure have remained the same after all these years when the population in the north [of Israel] has grown to over 50 percent Arab?"
Answering his own question, Atamneh rattles off statistics that reflect excellent high school scores among Arab students which he contrasts to their subsequent lower-than-average performance in Hebrew-language college entrance exams given by the state.
"No major scholarships have ever been awarded to an Arab; there are no dorms for Arabs and no college-related jobs or financial aid programs. They justify this legal discrimination by the fact that we do not serve in the army. There are numerous blatant and official methods used to keep Palestinian Arabs out of the universities."
Absence of Palestinian Identity in Schoolbooks
Dr. Eli Podeh, lecturer in the Department of Islamic Studies and Middle East History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, says that while certain changes in Israeli textbooks are slowly being implemented, the discussion of Palestinian national and civil identity is never touched upon.
"Passages from 'experts' about the existence of a Palestinian identity were introduced, but in general it appeared that the textbook authors were not eager to adopt it," said Dr. Podeh, adding that "the connection between Palestinians in Israel and Arabs in Arab countries is not discussed. Especially evident is the lack of a discussion on the orientation of Palestinians to the [occupied] territories.
"While new textbooks attempt to correct some of the earlier distortions, these books as well contain overt and covert fabrications," said Dr. Podeh. "The establishment has preferred -- or felt itself forced -- to encourage the cover-up and condemn the perplexity."
One Israeli public high school student told the Washington Report that the contents of the schoolbooks and the viewpoints expressed by some teachers indeed have a lasting negative effect on youngsters' attitudes toward Palestinians.
"Our books basically tell us that everything the Jews do is fine and legitimate and Arabs are wrong and violent and are trying to exterminate us," said Daniel Banvolegyi, a 17-year-old high school student in Jerusalem.
"We are accustomed to hearing the same thing, only one side of the story. They teach us that Israel became a state in 1948 and that the Arabs started a war. They don't mention what happened to the Arabs -- they never mention anything about refugees or Arabs having to leave their towns and homes," said Banvolegyi.
Banvolegyi, who will be a high school senior this fall, and then will be drafted into the Israeli army next summer, said he argues with his friends about what he regards as racism in the textbooks and on the part of the teachers. He pointed out a worrisome example of how damaging the textbooks and prevailing attitudes can be.
"One kid told me he was angry because of something he read or discussed in school and that he felt like punching the first Arab he saw," said Banvolegyi. "Instead of teaching tolerance and reconciliation, the books and some teachers' attitudes are increasing hatred for Arabs."
Banvolegyi spoke about his schoolmates who, he says, "are dying to go into combat and kill Arabs. I try to talk to them but they say I don't care about this country. But I do care and that's why I tell them peace and justice are the only ways to work things out."
Racist Israeli Upbringing
Considering what the schools have to offer, both Banvolegyi and Atamneh agree that the oral tradition is one of the few ways to get the story straight.
"Unfortunately Israeli children's books are not an option for promoting equality in this society,"" said Atamneh, citing a book written by Israeli writer/researcher Adir Cohen called An Ugly Face in the Mirror.
Cohen's book is a study of the nature of children's upbringing in Israel, concentrating on how the historical establishment sees and portrays Arab Palestinians as well as how Jewish Israeli children perceive Palestinians. One section of the book was based on the results of a survey taken of a group of 4th to 6th grade Jewish students at a school in Haifa. The pupils were asked five questions about their attitude toward Arabs, how they recognize them and how they relate to them. The results were as shocking as they were disturbing:
Seventy five percent of the children described the "Arab" as a murderer, one who kidnaps children, a criminal, and a terrorist. Eighty percent said they saw the Arab as someone dirty with a terrifying face. Ninety percent of the students stated they believe that Palestinians have no rights whatsoever to the land in Israel or Palestine.
Cohen also researched 1,700 Israeli children's books published after 1967. He found that 520 of the books contained humiliating, negative descriptions of Palestinians. He also took pains to break down the descriptions:
Sixty six percent of the 520 books refer to Arabs as violent; 52 percent as evil; 37 percent as liars; 31 percent as greedy; 28 percent as two-faced; 27 percent as traitors, etc.
Cohen points out that the authors of these children's books effectively instill hatred toward Arabs by means of stripping them of their human nature and classifying them in another category. In a sampling of 86 books, Cohen counted the following descriptions used to dehumanize Arabs: Murderer was used 21 times; snake, 6 times; dirty, 9 times; vicious animal, 17 times; bloodthirsty, 21 times; warmonger, 17 times; killer, 13 times; believer in myths, 9 times; and a camel's hump, 2 times.
Cohen's study concludes that such descriptions of Arabs are part and parcel of convictions and a culture rampant in Hebrew literature and history books. He writes that Israeli authors and writers confess to deliberately portraying the Arab character in this way, particularly to their younger audience, in order to influence their outlook early on so as to prepare them to deal with Arabs.
"So you can see that if you grew up reading or studying from these books, you'd never know anything else," said Atamneh.
"But in the case of Palestinians, we grow up 500 meters away from what used to be a town or village and is now a Jewish settlement. Our parents and grandparents tell us all about it; endlessly they talk about it. It's the only way."
Maureen Meehan is a free-lance journalist who covers the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Israeli Textbooks and Children's
Literature Promote Racism and
Hatred Toward Palestinians and Arabs
By Maureen Meehan
Israeli school textbooks as well as children's storybooks, according to recent academic studies and surveys, portray Palestinians and Arabs as "murderers," "rioters," "suspicious," and generally backward and unproductive. Direct delegitimization and negative stereotyping of Palestinians and Arabs are the rule rather than the exception in Israeli schoolbooks.
Professor Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University studied 124 elementary, middle- and high school textbooks on grammar and Hebrew literature, history, geography and citizenship. Bar-Tal concluded that Israeli textbooks present the view that Jews are involved in a justified, even humanitarian, war against an Arab enemy that refuses to accept and acknowledge the existence and rights of Jews in Israel.
"The early textbooks tended to describe acts of Arabs as hostile, deviant, cruel, immoral, unfair, with the intention to hurt Jews and to annihilate the State of Israel. Within this frame of reference, Arabs were delegitimized by the use of such labels as 'robbers,' 'bloodthirsty,' and 'killers,'" said Professor Bar-Tal, adding that there has been little positive revision in the curriculum over the years.
Bar-Tal pointed out that Israeli textbooks continue to present Jews as industrious, brave and determined to cope with the difficulties of "improving the country in ways they believe the Arabs are incapable of." Hebrew-language geography books from the 1950s through 1970s focused on the glory of Israel's ancient past and how the land was "neglected and destroyed" by the Arabs until the Jews returned from their forced exile and revived it "with the help of the Zionist movement."
"This attitude served to justify the return of the Jews, implying that they care enough about the country to turn the swamps and deserts into blossoming farmland; this effectively delegitimizes the Arab claim to the same land," Bar-Tal told the Washington Report.
"The message was that the Palestinians were primitive and neglected the country and did not cultivate the land."
This message, continued Bar-Tal, was further emphasized in textbooks by the use of blatant negative stereotyping which featured Arabs as: "unenlightened, inferior, fatalistic, unproductive and apathetic." Further, according to the textbooks, the Arabs were "tribal, vengeful, exotic, poor, sick, dirty, noisy, colored" and "they burn, murder, destroy, and are easily inflamed."
Textbooks currently being used in the Israeli school system, says Bar-Tal, contain less direct denigration of Arabs but continue to stereotype them negatively when referring to them. He pointed out that Hebrew- as well as Arabic-language textbooks used in elementary and junior high schools contain very few references either to Arabs or to Arab-Jewish relations. The coordinator of a Palestinian NGO in Israel said that major historical events hardly get a mention either.
"When I was in high school 12 years ago, the date '1948' barely appeared in any textbooks except for a mention that there was a conflict, Palestinians refused to accept a U.N. solution and ran away instead," said Jamal Atamneh, coordinator of the Arab Education Committee in Support of Local Councils, a Haifa-based NGO. "Today the idea communicated to schoolchildren is basically the same: there are winners and losers in every conflict. When they teach about 'peace and co-existence,' it is to teach us how to get along with Jews."
Atamneh explained that textbooks used by the nearly one million Arab Israelis (one-fifth of Israel's population) are in Arabic but are written by and issued from the Israeli Ministry of Education, where Palestinians have no influence or input.
"Fewer than 1 percent of the jobs in the Education Ministry, not counting teachers, are held by Palestinians," Atamneh said. "For the past 15 years, not one new Palestinian academic has been placed in a high position in the ministry. There are no Palestinians involved in preparing the Arabic-language curriculum [and] obviously, there is no such thing as affirmative action in Israel."
In addition, there are no Arabic-language universities in Israel. Haifa University, Atamneh points out, has had a steady 20 percent Arab student population for the past 20 years. "How can that figure have remained the same after all these years when the population in the north [of Israel] has grown to over 50 percent Arab?"
Answering his own question, Atamneh rattles off statistics that reflect excellent high school scores among Arab students which he contrasts to their subsequent lower-than-average performance in Hebrew-language college entrance exams given by the state.
"No major scholarships have ever been awarded to an Arab; there are no dorms for Arabs and no college-related jobs or financial aid programs. They justify this legal discrimination by the fact that we do not serve in the army. There are numerous blatant and official methods used to keep Palestinian Arabs out of the universities."
Absence of Palestinian Identity in Schoolbooks
Dr. Eli Podeh, lecturer in the Department of Islamic Studies and Middle East History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, says that while certain changes in Israeli textbooks are slowly being implemented, the discussion of Palestinian national and civil identity is never touched upon.
"Passages from 'experts' about the existence of a Palestinian identity were introduced, but in general it appeared that the textbook authors were not eager to adopt it," said Dr. Podeh, adding that "the connection between Palestinians in Israel and Arabs in Arab countries is not discussed. Especially evident is the lack of a discussion on the orientation of Palestinians to the [occupied] territories.
"While new textbooks attempt to correct some of the earlier distortions, these books as well contain overt and covert fabrications," said Dr. Podeh. "The establishment has preferred -- or felt itself forced -- to encourage the cover-up and condemn the perplexity."
One Israeli public high school student told the Washington Report that the contents of the schoolbooks and the viewpoints expressed by some teachers indeed have a lasting negative effect on youngsters' attitudes toward Palestinians.
"Our books basically tell us that everything the Jews do is fine and legitimate and Arabs are wrong and violent and are trying to exterminate us," said Daniel Banvolegyi, a 17-year-old high school student in Jerusalem.
"We are accustomed to hearing the same thing, only one side of the story. They teach us that Israel became a state in 1948 and that the Arabs started a war. They don't mention what happened to the Arabs -- they never mention anything about refugees or Arabs having to leave their towns and homes," said Banvolegyi.
Banvolegyi, who will be a high school senior this fall, and then will be drafted into the Israeli army next summer, said he argues with his friends about what he regards as racism in the textbooks and on the part of the teachers. He pointed out a worrisome example of how damaging the textbooks and prevailing attitudes can be.
"One kid told me he was angry because of something he read or discussed in school and that he felt like punching the first Arab he saw," said Banvolegyi. "Instead of teaching tolerance and reconciliation, the books and some teachers' attitudes are increasing hatred for Arabs."
Banvolegyi spoke about his schoolmates who, he says, "are dying to go into combat and kill Arabs. I try to talk to them but they say I don't care about this country. But I do care and that's why I tell them peace and justice are the only ways to work things out."
Racist Israeli Upbringing
Considering what the schools have to offer, both Banvolegyi and Atamneh agree that the oral tradition is one of the few ways to get the story straight.
"Unfortunately Israeli children's books are not an option for promoting equality in this society,"" said Atamneh, citing a book written by Israeli writer/researcher Adir Cohen called An Ugly Face in the Mirror.
Cohen's book is a study of the nature of children's upbringing in Israel, concentrating on how the historical establishment sees and portrays Arab Palestinians as well as how Jewish Israeli children perceive Palestinians. One section of the book was based on the results of a survey taken of a group of 4th to 6th grade Jewish students at a school in Haifa. The pupils were asked five questions about their attitude toward Arabs, how they recognize them and how they relate to them. The results were as shocking as they were disturbing:
Seventy five percent of the children described the "Arab" as a murderer, one who kidnaps children, a criminal, and a terrorist. Eighty percent said they saw the Arab as someone dirty with a terrifying face. Ninety percent of the students stated they believe that Palestinians have no rights whatsoever to the land in Israel or Palestine.
Cohen also researched 1,700 Israeli children's books published after 1967. He found that 520 of the books contained humiliating, negative descriptions of Palestinians. He also took pains to break down the descriptions:
Sixty six percent of the 520 books refer to Arabs as violent; 52 percent as evil; 37 percent as liars; 31 percent as greedy; 28 percent as two-faced; 27 percent as traitors, etc.
Cohen points out that the authors of these children's books effectively instill hatred toward Arabs by means of stripping them of their human nature and classifying them in another category. In a sampling of 86 books, Cohen counted the following descriptions used to dehumanize Arabs: Murderer was used 21 times; snake, 6 times; dirty, 9 times; vicious animal, 17 times; bloodthirsty, 21 times; warmonger, 17 times; killer, 13 times; believer in myths, 9 times; and a camel's hump, 2 times.
Cohen's study concludes that such descriptions of Arabs are part and parcel of convictions and a culture rampant in Hebrew literature and history books. He writes that Israeli authors and writers confess to deliberately portraying the Arab character in this way, particularly to their younger audience, in order to influence their outlook early on so as to prepare them to deal with Arabs.
"So you can see that if you grew up reading or studying from these books, you'd never know anything else," said Atamneh.
"But in the case of Palestinians, we grow up 500 meters away from what used to be a town or village and is now a Jewish settlement. Our parents and grandparents tell us all about it; endlessly they talk about it. It's the only way."
Maureen Meehan is a free-lance journalist who covers the West Bank and Jerusalem.
Jews can't have it both ways
by Khalid Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem - July 16, 2007
I realize that there are many good Jews who reject racism of any kind, including Zionism, an explicitly fascist movement of East European origin that has seriously eroded the moral fabric of Judaism.
I also know there are many honest and conscientious Jews who have spoken up against the evils of the Israeli state which has made the Star of David look like the Swastika of Hitler.
Similarly, I know there are many practicing Jews who don't accept the scandalous abuse and degradation of their great monotheistic religion by some cultist-minded "rabbis" and "religious leaders" who claim that Jews are outside the realm of human norms and that what applies to the rest of humanity doesn't apply to them.
These people can only be commended for their honesty and morality. They are not the subject of this article.
The subject is rather those powerful but deceitful Zionist leaders who claim to speak on behalf of Jews and Judaism while allowing themselves to sink in a sea of hypocrisy, mendacity and moral depravity.
Last week, two American Zionist organizations urged the Polish government and the Vatican to publicly condemn allegedly anti-Semitic remarks by a Polish priest made on a Catholic radio station, known as Radio Marijya.
Earlier, some Jewish leaders castigated the Holy See for authorizing the use of a controversial Latin Mass, parts of which are deemed anti-Semitic.
The 16th-century Tridentine Mass - recited every Good Friday - reportedly refers to Jews as "perfidious," and claims they live in "blindness" and "darkness."
The Mass prays that God might "take the veil from their hearts" so that Jews can come to acknowledge Jesus Christ.
According to the Zionist organizations, the Polish priest named Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, who heads the Radio Marija, accused "Jews" of trying to blackmail Poland in a potential government compensation deal.
ADL Chairman Abraham Foxman, who probably considers himself as America's extra-judicial ruler, given his immense influence and clout on the American political class, accused the Polish priest of making "incendiary and hateful remarks about Jews."
"He is sort of Goebbels with collar," said another Zionist leader, Rabbi Marrin Hier, the founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Of course, racism of any kind, including anti-Semitism, must be rejected as a matter of principle. And, yes, prayers that incite racial hatred against Jews or others ought to be removed and barred.
But this is a two-say street that is not confined to Christianity and Islam and other religions. Jews also have much to do in this regard. The reincorporation of the scandalously anti-Christian text of "Chesronot Shas" into the Talmud also hurts Christian feelings, and if Jews are truly serious about inter-religious harmony, they, too, should reform their ancient books, which by the way had nothing to do with the authentic religion that Moses preached and taught.
In fact, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk can always confront Zionist accusations by proving showing people like Foxman and Hier that the moral high ground doesn't belong to them.
After all, the level of Jewish anti-Catholicism and anti-Christianity in general exceeds by far whatever Catholic anti-Semitism once could imagine.
Indeed, a mere glance at Talmudic texts, such as Shulhan Aruch and Chesronot Shas, which views Jesus Christ as "child of adultery" and his mother, Mary, as a " whore," are far more injurious to Christians than any "greed charges" leveled by a polish priest against Jews.
According to Israel's Shahak's Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, the Talmud states that "Jesus's punishment in hell is to be immersed in boiling excrement."
Moreover, ha'Tanya, the fundamentalist book of the Habad (Chabad) movement, which is one of the most important branches of Hassidism, states that all non-Jews are totally Satanic creatures in whom there is absolutely nothing good.
"Even a non-Jewish embryo is qualitatively different from a Jewish one. The very existence of a non-Jews is inessential, whereas all of the creation was created solely for the sake of Jews."
Of course, these are not irrelevant, anachronistic or even anecdotal texts that some Zionist apologists would claim. In fact, these books are manuals for action for hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers, including cabinet ministers and army generals who view non-Jews, e.g. Arabs, as lesser human beings or even animals in a human form.
A few weeks ago, when a Jewish immigrant from France murdered an Arab taxi driver near Tel Aviv, he told interrogators that he viewed Arabs as "animals" and that as far as he was concerned, killing an Arab was no different than slaughtering an animal.
Interestingly, the murderer has been acquitted on the ground that he was deranged!!!
Well, how about the latest remarks attributed to Israel's former Chief Rabbi, Mordechai Elyahu? Is he also deranged?
A few weeks ago, Elyahu, viewed as a great Talmudic sage, reportedly petitioned the Israeli government to carry out a series of carpet bombings of Palestinian population centers in Gaza, arguing that a ground invasion of the world's most crowded spot would endanger Israeli soldiers.
"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Elyahu, the son of Mordechai Elyahu, quoting his father. "And if they do not stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."
In short, Zionism, especially religious-Zionism, can't have it both ways. They can't rail and rant and rave against anti-Semitism, real or imagined, while they themselves indulge in a far more virulent racism against non-Jews. This is a two-way street, and non-Jews are not children of a lesser God.
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