by Eileen Fleming, Jerusalem - July 23, 2007
I had no clue when I gave 'birth' to my website, exactly two years ago to this day, what I was really doing, but, after my first of five journeys to Israel Palestine and listening to many of the people who live here and seeing with my own eyes the facts on the ground and feeling in my own gut a little of what life is like under occupation, I got VERY PISSED OFF and had to DO SOMETHING!
My government and mainstream media do NOT tell the truth and the spin they spin makes me want to puke. Not all members of the internationally recognized transparent democratically elected members of Hamas are terrorists and democracy cannot be spread through the barrel of a gun.
Criticizing the Israeli government is not anti-Semitic, just as dissenting from the neo-con ideology is not unpatriotic; in fact it is much more in line with our founding fathers;
"Soon after I had published the pamphlet "Common Sense" [on Feb. 14, 1776] in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion... The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."-Tom Paine
But what really gets my Irish up, is that so many American Christians have no clue about the Christian Exodus from the Holy Land which began in 1948 when innocent people were forced to flee from their homes for fear of their life after they learned of the barbaric terrorism perpetuated by Zionist imperialist in the massacre at Deir Yassin.
"Early in the morning of Friday, April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun, headed by Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. It was several weeks before the end of the British Mandate. The village lay outside of the area that the United Nations recommended be included in a future Jewish State. Deir Yassin had a peaceful reputation and was even said by a Jewish newspaper to have driven out some Arab militants. But it was located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and one plan, kept secret until years afterwards, called for it to be destroyed and the residents evacuated to make way for a small airfield that would supply the beleaguered Jewish residents of Jerusalem.
By noon over 100 people, half of them women and children, had been systematically murdered. Four commandos died at the hands of resisting Palestinians using old Mausers and muskets. Twenty-five male villagers were loaded into trucks, paraded through the Zakhron Yosef quarter in Jerusalem, and then taken to a stone quarry along the road between Givat Shaul and Deir Yassin and shot to death. The remaining residents were driven to Arab East Jerusalem.
"That evening the Irgunists and the Sternists escorted a party of foreign correspondents to a house at Givat Shaul, a nearby Jewish settlement founded in 1906. Over tea and cookies they amplified the details of the operation and justified it, saying Deir Yassin had become a concentration point for Arabs, including Syrians and Iraqis, planning to attack the western suburbs of Jerusalem. They said that 25 members of the Haganah militia had reinforced the attack and claimed that an Arabic-speaking Jew had warned the villagers over a loudspeaker from an armored car. This was duly reported in The New York Times on April 10.
"A final body count of 254 was reported by The New York Times on April 13, a day after they were finally buried. By then the leaders of the Haganah had distanced themselves from having participated in the attack and issued a statement denouncing the dissidents of Irgun and the Stern Gang, just as they had after the attack on the King David Hotel in July 1946. A 1987 study undertaken by Birzeit University's Center for Research and Documentation of Palestinian Society found "the numbers of those killed does not exceed 120".
"The Haganah leaders admitted that the massacre "disgraced the cause of Jewish fighters and dishonored Jewish arms and the Jewish flag." They played down the fact that their militia had reinforced the terrorists' attack, even though they did not participate in the barbarism and looting during the subsequent "mopping up" operations.
"They also played down the fact that, in Begin's words, "Deir Yassin was captured with the knowledge of the Haganah and with the approval of its commander" as a part of its "plan for establishing an airfield."
"Ben Gurion even sent an apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But this horrific act served the future State of Israel well. According to Begin:
"Arabs throughout the country, induced to believe wild tales of "Irgun butchery," were seized with limitless panic and started to flee for their lives. This mass flight soon developed into a maddened, uncontrollable stampede. The political and economic significance of this development can hardly be overestimated." [1]
The Christian Exodus from the Holy Land has escalated in recent years to reduce their numbers from 20% of the total population of the Holy Land, to less than 1.3% since 1948. The reasons for the exodus of the most well educated and consistently nonviolent members of society are the now 40 years of occupation and oppression that has resulted in lack of economic opportunities, The Wall which divides them from their land, resources, families and holy sites and the increasing sense of hopelessness that fuels militancy and the growth of fundamentalism within all three branches of Father Abraham's offspring's.
Palestinians are inherently peaceful people who have been made to pay for the sins of The Third Reich and it is way past time for the world to WAKE UP from the holocaust hangover that has allowed America's best friend in the world to become the biggest bully on the planet.
International Law demands that occupation is to be temporary, maintain the status quo, not pilfer the resources of the occupied, nor transfer the occupier's population into occupied territory. But Israel does not adhere to international law; they follow the law of the jungle.
American media reports much about Islamic fundamentalism, but not on the inherently anti-Semitic cultish and escapist theology of Christian Zionism or the ultra-Orthodox Jews of the Holy Land. On July 19, 2007, Haaretz reported "The end of Zionism" regarding the increasing numbers of youth who refuse to serve.
"Some young people explain their evasion of service by their loss of confidence in the leadership, the cases of corruption and the state's abandonment of its soldiers. But there is also an accumulated weariness with the state of war, which has already lasted 60 years, and many young people, along with their parents, are no longer willing to sacrifice their lives on the altar of the settlers' expansionist dreams.
"After all, 25 percent of those eligible for the draft never serve at all (11 percent receive exemptions for yeshiva studies, 7 percent for health reasons, 4 percent reside abroad and 3 percent have a criminal record). Of those drafted, 17.5 percent do not complete a full three years of service. The sharpest rise in the number of draft-dodgers is among the ultra-Orthodox. In 1974, they comprised only 2.4 percent of those eligible for the draft. Today, the figure is 11 percent.
"Against this background, it is shocking to learn that yesterday the Knesset decided to extend the so-called Tal Law…a cynical, immoral law that absolves a significant portion of Jewish Israelis from the need to either do army service or work for a living. The fact is that 80 percent of ultra-Orthodox men do not work; instead, they live on government grants and stipends and the earnings of their wives.
"The secular donkey does not merely bear the military and economic burden; it also continues to expand the scope of government support for ultra-Orthodox education, including even the most extremist strains. About two months ago, the Knesset, by a large majority, approved the so-called Nahari Law, which compels the municipalities to grant equal funding to ultra-Orthodox schools that are not part of the official education system. These are extremist institutions…they do not teach mathematics, English, nature, science, civics, geography or history. In other words, they deliberately fail to train their graduates for a life of work and productivity. So these graduates have no choice but to cling to the coattails of ultra-Orthodox activists. And where will the new funding for these extremist schools come from? [2]
Every day the U.S.A. provides over $7,023,288.00 to the Israeli government and military and over $108 Billion since 1948. "Generous as it is, what Israel actually got in U.S. aid is considerably less than what it has cost U.S. taxpayers to provide it. The principal difference is that so long as the U.S. runs an annual budget deficit, every dollar of aid the U.S. gives Israel has to be raised through U.S. government borrowing."- Richard Curtiss [3]
On July 19, 2007, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Professor Albert Aghazarian, addressed nearly three dozen international and Palestinian youth and this reporter who had gathered for Sabeel's 2nd International young Adult Conference: 40 Years in the Wilderness…40 Years of Occupation...
He said two things that have not left my conscience since: "In a nutshell, there is a deep schizophrenia in the Holy Land; what we see, hear and talk. Zionism is the original sin; Zionism is an untouchable icon. You can curse Mohammad, you can curse Mary, but not Zionism…Do your best, and as long as you give it your best shot, don't worry about the rest."
But injustice is unsustainable and all things must pass...
"There is a time for everything; a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace." –Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 7, 8
1. http://www.deiryassin.org/mas.html
2. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/883868.html
3. http://ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html#source
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