error

error

IDF IAF NAZIS / LIKUD BROWNSHIRTS / IRGUN ZVAI LEUMI TERROR CELLS FOR BUSH : "Ya Ve Bomb da Lebanese Civilians for our beloved Fuher Uncle Bush. Seig Heil !!!!!!!! Seig Heil !!!!!!! Seig Heil !!!!!!!"

That's why the right wing/neocon/zionist/racist/warpigs will never allow him a venue for his powerful art. Thamk G-d for indymedia.

That's how you know he's doing good work. He hits a nerve with the truth so they have to call him names...
LMFAO!

Just love Latuff. Love Castro. Love Chavez. Love bin Laden. Love Hamas. Love Hezbollah. Love sucicide bombers. Love Barbara Boxer, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, and the current President of Iran.

Hey, Thanks! You made my point!
The real kicker was lumping a bunch of people with very different views/opinions/knowledge together in one sentence---I guess you'd have to have some critical thinking ability and the ability do discern a little nuance....too much for the right wing trailer trash...LMFAO!

I love how he depicts Israel as a walking-dead Nazi Stormtrooper. Right on!

"walking-dead Nazi Stormtrooper"

Thats kindof how I envison you, TW.

Great site, with alot of Latuff artwork, also here's Finkelstein cremating some AIPAC shill:
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=241



AMY GOODMAN: As we continue our coverage, we're joined now by two guests. Here in our Firehouse studio, Norman Finkelstein, Professor of Political Science at DePaul University in Chicago. His latest book is called Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. And on the telephone, we're joined by Josh Block, Director of Media Affairs for AIPAC -- that's the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- speaking to us on the line from Connecticut. Josh Block, let's begin with you. Your response and the latest, the last thing that Chris McGreal said, saying human rights groups, the Palestinian leadership, Mahmoud Abbas talking about this as collective punishment and a crime against humanity.

JOSH BLOCK: Well, clearly the concern is the reaction from those same folks when it comes to the murder and kidnap of Israeli citizens. From many perspective, American or otherwise, an attack inside Israel, unprovoked, that resulted in the murder of two Israelis and not the capture, Amy, but the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier is, in and of itself, an act of war.

And clearly the Israelis tried for several days, 48 hours, 36 hours, of intense diplomacy with the aid of the United States, the French -- and I should add that this young man who has been kidnapped is also a French citizen -- to secure the release from Hamas, the terrorist group that has him. And by the way, in high irony, the government of the Palestinian Authority, run by the same terrorist group, so a government that's charged with fighting terrorism is itself a terrorist group that's responsible for his kidnapping. So after 48 hours and 36 hours of difficult and unproductive diplomacy, clearly the Israelis felt that they needed to act in their own defense.

And I think the question is what is the reaction from these same human rights groups when it comes to the condemnation of terrorism or other acts? And clearly -- and I don't speak for the Israelis, but they must have felt that this was an important thing to do to help isolate and prevent the movement of this terrorist groups from moving the captive or kidnapped Israeli soldier around the Gaza Strip.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Finkelstein?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I think it is useful to begin with what the human rights groups have to say about this. Let's leave aside the background for a moment and look narrowly at the incident that triggered the Israeli invasion. Let's see what Hamas did not do, what the Palestinian militants did not do. Number one, they did not liquidate the corporal, which Israel routinely does, namely its political assassinations. That's a war crime under international law. Israel routinely does that. Hamas did not do that to the corporal.

Number two, they didn't kill the corporal while trying to arrest him. Israel routinely does that. If you look at July 2005, B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, they put out a very hefty report entitled "Take No Prisoners." And the report shows Israel routinely, during so-called arrest operations, kills Palestinians, documents a case of a Palestinian who was wounded, on the ground, no weapon. Israel killed him. Hamas didn't do that to the corporal.

It said by this – by [inaudible], it said that they took him hostage, they kidnapped him. Okay. Israel routinely takes Palestinians, Lebanese hostage. In fact, Israel was the only country in the world, in 1997, which legalized hostage-taking. The liberal head of the Israeli High Court, Aharon Barak, he said it's legal, legitimate, under international law to take what he called bargaining chips in order to get prisoners, Israeli prisoners being held by the Lebanese. The decision was reversed in 2000, but Israel continued to hold Lebanese hostages until 2004. So, at worst, Hamas is being accused of what Israel legalized and routinely does.

And finally, let's talk about those 9,000 Palestinians who are effectively hostages being held by Israel. 1,000 of them are administrative detainees.

AMY GOODMAN: You're talking about prisoners.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Yes. Administrative detainees who are being held without any charges or trial. And the other 8,000 are being held after military courts have convicted them, almost always on the basis of confessions which were extracted by torture. So if we're going to look simply at the numbers, we have one hostage on the Palestinian side, and effectively we have about 9,000 on the Israeli side.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break, and then we'll get a response from Josh Block of AIPAC. Dr. Norman Finkelstein is Professor at DePaul University in Chicago.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking about the siege in Gaza. Our guests are Josh Block, a spokesperson for AIPAC, which is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, speaking to us from Connecticut; and Professor Norman Finkelstein, teaches political science at DePaul University in Chicago, is in our Firehouse studio. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ:Josh Block, before break, Norman Finkelstein was talking about the lack of proportionality in looking at the issue of prisoners and hostages on both sides. Your response to that?

JOSH BLOCK: Well, I think the first thing that he said was that we should ignore the context in which this attack took place, and I think that's a major flaw with his commentary over time. I'm not surprised to hear him talk about things in those terms, considering he's called Hezbollah, which is the number one killer of Americans outside of al-Qaeda, a heroic organization.

You know, ultimately, the question for Israel is, what is its responsibility as a government? And any government, whether it's our or theirs, has the duty to protect its citizens. Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, other terrorists groups, have been conducting an unremitting campaign of terrorism against Israeli citizens. Hamas is an organization that fundamentally believes, deep in its core, that Israel does not have the right to exist. When they talk about an occupation, they're talking about Tel Aviv. That's why when this terrorist attack took place, it took place not in the Gaza Strip or in the West Bank, but inside Israel itself.

They infiltrated Israel, digging a tunnel from underneath a home into the country of Israel, where they attacked soldiers who were not engaged in an offensive operation against any Palestinian. They murdered two of them, and they kidnapped one of them. And they're holding him captive, hostage. That is an act of war. It's a provocation. And it comes as a culmination of months and months of terrorist attacks and rocket attacks against Israeli citizens, who were not engaged in any offensive effort, who are simply going ahead and living their lives. And that kind of terrorism is unacceptable, and forces a response from any responsible government.

The Palestinian Authority has the responsibility to secure the release of this individual, this soldier. And failing that, the international community has to continue to put pressure on the Palestinian Authority to fulfill those obligations. Again, Hamas is the government of the Palestinian Authority, and it is sanctioning and conducting terrorism. That's not an acceptable situation, and it cuts against the entire grain of fundamental international conduct.

AMY GOODMAN: Norman Finkelstein, I'd like to you respond to that and also the timing of this operation, coming hours after Fatah and Hamas announced that they had agreed on a document that implicitly recognized Israel within its 1967 borders.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, I want to first take note that Josh didn't respond to any of my claims about Israel taking hostages, about 9,000 –

JOSH BLOCK: That's because they're ludicrous claims. They don't merit a response.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: I respected your time, Josh. I respected your time. Please do the same for me. He didn't respond to any of my claims about Israel taking hostages, routinely killing Palestinians taken prisoner, and so on and so forth.

So let's turn to the issue that Josh wants to address, namely the context. I'm very happy to do so. Let's look at the context. Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in September 2005 'til today, the estimates run between 7,000 and 9,000 heavy artillery shells have been shot and fired into Gaza. On the Palestinian side, the estimates are approximately 1,000 Kassam missiles, crude missiles, have been fired into Israel. So we have a ratio of between seven and nine to one.

Let's look at casualties. In the last six months, approximately 80 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza due to Israel artillery firing. Now, on the Israeli side, we hear all of these terrible things about these Kassams. Even Shlomo Ben-Ami, yesterday on your program, who I respect, he said what's Israel to do about these Kassams? What does the record show? I mentioned a moment ago, 80 Palestinians killed in six months. There have been exactly eight Israelis killed in the last five years from the Kassam missiles. Again, we have a huge disproportion, a huge discrepancy.

Now, Josh says Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens. I totally agree with that. But Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinians. They have a responsibility to protect their citizens. They have a responsibility to get back their 9,000 hostages. They have a responsibility to protect their Palestinian civilians, who are being daily attacked by Israel. Josh says that the --

JOSH BLOCK: If I might, Amy, I'm ready to respond to that.

AMY GOODMAN: Josh Block of AIPAC.

JOSH BLOCK: Yeah, first of all, the folks that have been arrested for participating in terrorist activity against innocent Israeli civilians have been arrested for criminal activity. They were not kidnapped because they were doing their responsible civic duty and no offensive position against the Palestinians. In fact, those who, again, are in Israeli jail are there for conducting terrorist activity. Among the people that he mentions that have been killed, were killed because they were participating in terrorist activity, shooting missiles, planning terrorist attacks against Israel. Those folks were not innocent civilians who were killed in suicide bus bombings or have had missiles fall on their kindergartens. There's a moral equivalency that your guest is drawing that is fundamentally out of proportion.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: May I ask Josh a question?

JOSH BLOCK: It's totally disproportionate and fundamentally incorrect.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: May I ask Josh -- I'd like to ask you a question, Josh. 1,000 of those Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, according to B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, 1,000 of them are administrative detainees. That is, there have been no charges leveled against them. How do you know what they're being held for?

JOSH BLOCK: Fundamentally --

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: No, answer that question. There have been no charges and no trials.

JOSH BLOCK: I'm about to, if you would give me a second to answer --

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: How do you know what they're being held for?

JOSH BLOCK: But instead you're trying to filibuster the question. Fundamentally, the Israeli army and the Israeli government arrest Palestinians who are engaged in terrorist activity. That's a proven fact.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: No, I don't think that's a proven fact. It would be a proven fact if there were court trials.

JOSH BLOCK: It is. It is a proven fact.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: How do you know what administrative detainees are being held for? Israel doesn't say, so how do you know?

JOSH BLOCK: I fundamentally understand the facts, which clearly you do not, which are that Israel takes fundamental legal action to arrest individuals who are engaged in terrorist activity directed against its citizens. There is no moral equivalency to be drawn between a country acting in defense of its citizens and those engaging in terrorist activity in an effort to stabilize and destroy that free and peaceful society.

Look, Amy and Juan, as a Liberal Democrat who is a long-time listener of this program, I fundamentally believe that the audience and you are in a position to understand that liberal fundamental values, which are celebrated in Israel -- freedom of the press, women's rights, gay rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion -- are denied to those living in Palestinian areas and throughout the rest of the Arab world. There's an asymmetry that's involved in the Middle East, which is a country of Israel that is based on fundamental free values, that is not replicated in the Arab world, where education systems inculcate children with hatred and teach them that martyrdom and death is preferred over science and math and education.

And fundamentally, after Israel's disengagement from Gaza less than a year ago, when the Palestinian people and the Authority that leads them had the chance to build a better life for their citizens, they chose not to do that. They destroyed the greenhouses, the economic infrastructure that was provided. They then took the opportunity not to fight terrorism and to provide security for their people and went the other direction. That's why when these attacks take place through the very arteries, the crossing points and the cargo points that benefit the Palestinian people, Hamas is intentionally harming their own society. That is the fundamental dynamic, none of the other speciousness that we're hearing from our other guest today.

JUAN GONZALEZ:But, Josh Block, I'd like to ask you, on the targeted assassinations that Israel has often participated, has often executed in Palestinian territories, we hear repeatedly of innocent civilians. Putting aside the fact whether the people who were targeted were actually terrorists or not, because we have Israel's reporting that they are, but the innocent civilians that are inevitably killed in these missile attacks, how is that justified as not terrorism against a civilian population?

JOSH BLOCK: You're absolutely right. Those incidents are deeply regrettable. I think any one of us would say that. And I think any American, any Israeli, would say that innocent people who are killed as a result of a military action unintentionally, that's a tragedy. But there's, again, a moral difference between an army -- Israel's military goes to great lengths to prevent those kinds of incidents, and if you look at the number of preventative attacks that Israel has carried out with the number of those who have been incidentally and unfortunately killed in those incidents, there's a tremendous preponderance of occasions when, in fact, Israel has gone to great lengths not to harm innocent civilians.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have a minute. We gave Josh Block the first word. Professor Norman Finkelstein, the last.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, the question is whether or not there is a significant difference between what Israel does and what the Palestinians do, apart from the fact that Israel does it in a much higher proportion than Palestinians. If you indiscriminately fire on a civilian population, which Israel routinely does, under international law -- and here I can quote the president of Tel Aviv University, Yoram Dinstein, who's one of the leading international experts on these matters; he says, "There's no difference whatsoever between intentionally targeting civilians and indiscriminately firing into a civilian crowd."

JOSH BLOCK: Fair enough.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: He says both of them are terrorism. So if Hamas --

JOSH BLOCK: If terrorist were attacking --

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: So if Hamas blows up a bus, as it used to do in Tel Aviv, that's terrorism. If Hamas were to say, "We didn't intend to kill the civilians. We intended to blow up the bus," people would laugh. But if Israel drops --

JOSH BLOCK: If terrorists attack --

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Allow me to finish. Allow me to finish. If Israel drops a one-ton bomb on a densely populated neighborhood in Gaza, as it did in July 2002, and it said, "Oh, we didn't intend to kill the civilians. We can just intended to kill a Palestinian terrorist --

JOSH BLOCK: And later apologized for the incident.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: It would be considered as preposterous as if Hamas said "We only intended to blow up the bus."

JOSH BLOCK: I'm sorry. First of all, there has been no apology from Hamas for those incidents. Israel apologizes when things like that happen.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Israel didn't apologize. As a matter of fact, Ariel Sharon hailed the bombing of Gaza City --

JOSH BLOCK: That's another specious lie.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: -- that time as one of the greatest acts in Israeli history.

JOSH BLOCK: Again, a lie.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to have to leave it there. I want to thank you, Josh Block, for joining us, spokesperson for AIPAC, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, in Connecticut; and Professor Norm Finkelstein, here in New York, teaches at DePaul University in Chicago. His book is called Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.

It's good to see. And the Latuff cartoons are great!

We hear the other side all day long from Fox, CNN, ABC, AP, etc.
That's why this is called 'indymedia'
Latuff doesn't get airtime on any of the aforementioned corporate media.

zionist: "The latest example is the tragedy at Qana. Seven hours after an Israeli airstrike on a building behind which Hezbollah was firing rockets into Israel"


zionist: "Hezbollah spokesmen reported 56 dead, including 34 children had been killed. Yet the International Red Cross subsequently reported 28 deaths, 16 of them children."

Human Rights Watch (a somewhat relatively conservative organization to begin with) said in its latest report that the number 56 was based on the number of Lebanese civilians originally thought "missing" after the Israeli bombing -- and on the relative difficulty of early body counts when the Israeli targeted massacres of civilians produce many body parts. It was Hezbollah who later reported that ['only'] 28 were massacred by Israel. I guess that 'only' 28 mostly women and children massacred by Israel sounds a lot better to the zionists.

You shook Yid's spook friends off your tail. Good work! Watch out for "crunchy Granola" types bearing beakers of acid

Gret resource:
http://www.infoshop.org/focus/rightwingnuts.php

A good read:

http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=2606

now THESE are bigots!

"over half of the Israeli Jews are Sephardic Jews originally from N. Africa."

Not entirely true. A lot of them lived in Spain and Portugal during the Middle Ages ('Sephardic' is Hebrew for 'Spanish') and did not assimilate. It was the Inquisition that scattered Spanish Jews into north Africa though Mizrahi Jews preceded them in dwelling there. Thus for example Jews had been living in Tunisia since early AD times at least and in Egypt since the 5th century BC at least


Finally, many Arabs in Israel and Palestine migrated there from neighboring countries and North Africa over the last century. These were not indigenous inhabitants and have no better claim to the land than Jews who arrived during the same periods or before

Automatic teller machine, of course.

Extra points for those who saw the Clerks II reference in the original comment, btw.

WITH A few words, a Lebanese army officer destroyed, the day before yesterday, the illusion that Israel had achieved anything in this war.
At a televised Lebanese army parade that was also broadcast on Israeli TV , the officer read a prepared text to his assembled troops, who were about to be deployed along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

This is what he said in Arabic: "Today, in the name of the comprehensive will of the people, you are preparing to be deployed on the soil of the wounded South, side by side with the forces of your Resistance and your people, which have amazed the world with their steadfastness and blown to pieces the reputation of the army about which it has been said that it is invincible."

In simple language: "the comprehensive will of the people" - the will of all parts of the Lebanese public, including the Shiite community. "Side by side with the Resistance": side by side with Hizbullah. "Which have amazed the world with their steadfastness": the heroism of the Hizbullah fighters. "Blown to pieces the reputation of the army about which it has been said that it is invincible": the Israeli army.

Thus spoke a commander of the Lebanese army, the deployment of which along the border is being celebrated by the Olmert-Peretz government as a huge victory, because this army is supposed to confront Hizbullah and disarm it. Israeli commentators have created the illusion that this army would be at the disposal of the friends of the US and Israel in Beirut, such as Fuad Siniora, Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt.

It is no accident that this item was drowned in the deluge of TV blabber, like a stone thrown into a well. After broadcasting the item itself, no meaningful debate about it took place. It was erased from the public mind.

But not only the balloon of the redeeming Lebanese army has been punctured. The same has happened to the multi-colored second balloon that was to serve as an Israeli achievement: the deployment of the international force that would protect Israel from Hizbullah and prevent its re-armament. As the days pass, it becomes increasingly clear that this force will be, at best, a mishmash of small national units, without a clear mandate and "robust" capabilities. The commando raid carried out by our army today, in blatant violation of the cease-fire, will certainly not attract more international volunteers for the job.

So what remains of all the "achievements" of this war? A good question.

* * *

AFTER EVERY failed war, the cry for an official investigation goes up in Israel. Now there is a "trauma", much bitterness, a feeling of defeat and of a missed opportunity. Hence the demand for a strong Commission of Inquiry that will cut off the heads of those responsible.

That's what happened after the first Lebanon war, which reached its climax in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The government refused any serious inquiry. The masses that gathered in what is now called "Rabin Square" (the mythical 400 thousand) demanded a judicial inquiry. The public mood reached boiling point and in the end the Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, gave in.

Read More
http://counterpunch.org/avnery08192006.html

BEIRUT — Fulfilling pledge to help victims of the savaged Israeli offensive in Lebanon, Hizbullah has stumped up cash for people who lost their homes in the five-week blitz.

"People already had faith in Hizbullah, this will strengthen their faith," Ayman Jaber,27 , told Reuters as he carried a wad of $12, 000in banknotes Hizbullah had given him.

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed on August 15 that his group will rebuild15 , 000homes demolished by the Israeli military juggernaut and house hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the Israeli offensive.

The rebuilding process is expected to cost at least $ 150million.

The United States and Israel fear that Hizbullah initiative will entrench the popularity of the resistance group.

A senior US official told Reuters on Friday, August 18 , that the Bush administration was trying to step up aid to Lebanon in a bid to counter Hizbullah rebuilding initiative.

The Israeli bombardment has left Lebanon's hard-won infrastructure in tatters and has displaced nearly one million civilians.

Award-winning American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh revealed that Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hizbullah and shared it with the Bush administration officials well before the resistance group took prisoner two Israeli soldiers.

Returnees

The United Nations said Friday, August18 , that about400 , 000Lebanese displaced by the Israeli onslaught have returned back since a UN-brokered truce came into effect.

"About200 , 000people displaced have returned to south Lebanon, and200 , 000have returned to the southern suburbs of Beirut," said Christiane Berthiaume, a spokeswoman for the UN's World Food Program, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Another107 , 000refugees who fled to neighboring Syria have crossed back into Lebanon through official crossing points, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees added. More are thought to have crossed elsewhere.

An estimated180 , 000people fled across the border to Syria during the month-long Israeli offensive against Lebanon.

"There has been a phenomenal return of the displaced Lebanese to their homes," UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis said.

"The public shelters are now virtually empty," she added.

Finnish aid minister Paula Lehtomaeki said on Friday, August18 , that between15 , 000and30 , 000homes were destroyed in the Israeli war in Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities have estimated the cost of the Israeli war in Lebanon at $3. 6billion worth of physical damages.

Al-Fadl Shalaq, head of the Council for Development and Reconstruction, said that the devastation from the Israeli war exceeded that caused by Lebanon's1975 - 1990civil war.

"I have witnessed all the wars in Lebanon but I have never seen a war this fierce and I do not see a response to clearing the rubble of war to match it," he told Reuters in an interview.

Concerns

As hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese return back to their destroyed villages, aid groups complain that the Israeli destruction of the Lebanese infrastructure was hindering aid efforts in the area.

Clean water supplies were also a rising concern as water mains and sewage systems were destroyed by the Israeli forces.

"One of the priorities is water," said Annick Bouvier of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The United Nations has called on Israel to lift up its naval and air blockade on Lebanon to allow urgent assistance to reach to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese returnees.

"The enormous damage to most road and bridge infrastructure leading to the south requires an immediate lift of the continuing sea and air blockade on Lebanon," said Margareta Wahlstrom, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs.

Two ships carrying a total of87 , 000tonnes of urgently needed fuel supplies had docked in Lebanese ports, while another28 , 000tonne tanker was expected over the weekend.

The fuel is needed to power electricity plants, generators and water pumps.

Up to1 , 200Lebanese civilians, a third of whom were children, have been killed when Israel launched a wide-scale blitz in Lebanon on July12 .

http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-08/19/05.shtml

Ambassador Daniel Carmon refuses to respond to Amnesty International’s report on Israel deliberately targeting Lebanese civilians. “There is hardly any distinction between Hezbollah and the civilian population,” Carmon said. “This whole region was a region in which you could not make the distinction between one and the other.” Carmon also questions the war’s death toll Lebanon and refuses to confirm Israel used cluster bombs.

Ambassador Daniel Carmon, Israel’s Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations

LISTEN ONLINE:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/24/1425218

Stop the Cancer, End the Occupation
Good Morning, Elijahu!

By URI AVNERY

A STORY has it that Oscar Wilde once attended the premiere of a colleague's play and every few minutes raised his hat. When asked about this odd behavior, he replied: "I am a courteous person. I raise my hat when I meet an old acquaintance."

If I wore a hat, I would have to raise it every few minutes these days when I view TV talk shows, listen to the radio or read the papers. I keep meeting things I wrote years ago, and especially things I have written since the beginning of this war.

For example: for decades I have warned again and again that the occupation is corrupting our army. Now the papers are full of learned articles by respected commentators, who have discovered - surprise! surprise! - that the occupation has corrupted our army.

In such cases we say in Hebrew: "Good morning, Elijahu!" You have woken up at long last.

If there is a touch of irony in my remark, I do apologize. After all, I wrote in the hope that my words would convince the readers - and especially people of the Israeli establishment - and that they would pass them on. When this is happening now, I am quite happy about the plagiarism.

But it is important to spell out how the occupation has "corrupted our army". Otherwise it is just an empty slogan, and we shall learn nothing from it.

* * *

A PERSONAL flashback: in the middle of the 1948 war I had an unpleasant experience. After a day of heavy fighting, I was sleeping soundly in a field near the Arab village Suafir (now Sapir). All around me were sleeping the other soldiers of my company, Samson's Foxes. Suddenly I was woken up by a tremendous explosion. An Egyptian plane had dropped a bomb on us. Killed: none. Wounded: 1.

How's that? Very simple: we were all lying in our personal foxholes, which we had dug, in spite of our fatigue, before going to sleep. It was self-evident to us that when we arrived anywhere, the first thing to do was dig in. Sometimes we changed locations three times a day, and every time we dug foxholes. We knew that our lives depended on it.

Not anymore. In one of the most deadly incidents in the Second Lebanon War, 12 members of a company were killed by a rocket near Kfar Giladi, while sitting around in an open field. The soldiers later complained that they had not been led to a shelter. Have today's soldiers never heard of a foxhole? Have they been issued with personal shovels at all?

Inside Lebanon, why did the soldiers congregate in the rooms of houses, where they were hit by anti-tank missiles, instead of digging foxholes?

It seems that the army has been weaned from this practice. No wonder: an army that is dealing with "terrorists" in the West Bank and Gaza does not need to take any special precautions. After all, no air force drops bombs on them, no artillery shells them. They need no special protection.

* * *

THAT IS true of all our armed forces on land, in the air and on the sea. It is certainly a luxury to fight against an enemy who cannot defend himself properly. But it is dangerous to get used to it.

The navy, for example. For years now it has been sailing along the shores of Gaza and Lebanon, shelling at pleasure, arresting fishermen, checking ships. It never dreamed that the enemy could shoot back. Suddenly it happened - and on live television, too. Hizbullah hit it with a land-to-sea missile.

There was no end to the surprise. It was almost considered as Chutzpah. What, an enemy who shoots back? What next? And why did Army Intelligence not warn us that they have such an unheard of thing, a land-to-sea missile?

* * *

IN THE air as on the sea. For years now, Air Force pilots shoot and bomb and kill at will. They are able to hit a moving car with great precision (together with the passers-by, of course.) Their technical level is excellent. But what? Nobody is shooting at them while they are doing this.

The Royal Air Force boys during the blitz ("the few to whom so many owe so much") had to confront the determined pilots of the Luftwaffe, and most of them were killed. Later, the British and Americans who bombed Germany ran the gauntlet of murderous flak.

But our pilots have no such problems. When they are in action over the West Bank and Gaza, there are no enemy pilots, no surface-to-air missiles, no flak. The sky belongs to them, and they can concentrate on their real job: to destroy the infrastructure of life and act as flying executioners, "eliminate" the objects of "targeted liquidations", feeling only a "slight bang on the wing" while releasing a one-ton bomb over a residential area.

Does that create a good air force? Does that prepare them for battle with a real enemy? In Lebanon the pilots have not (yet) met anti-aircraft fire. The only helicopter shot down was hit by anti-tank fire while landing troops. But what about the next war everybody is speaking about?


* * *

AND THE ground troops? Were they prepared for this war?

For 39 years now they have been compelled to carry our the jobs of a colonial police force: to run after children throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, to drag away women trying to protect their sons from arrest, to capture people sleeping at home. To stand for hours at the checkpoints and decide whether to let a pregnant woman reach the hospital or send back a sick old man. At the worst, they have to invade a casbah, to face untrained "terrorists" who have nothing but Kalashnikovs to fight against the tanks and airplanes of their occupiers, as well as courage and an unbelievable determination.

Suddenly these soldiers were sent to Lebanon to confront tough, well trained and highly motivated guerilla fighters who are ready to die while carrying out their mission. Fighters who have learned to appear from an unexpected direction, to disappear into well-prepared bunkers, to use advanced and effective weapons.

"We were not trained for this war!" the reserve soldiers now complain. They are right. Where could they have been trained? In the alleys of Jabalieh refugee camp? In the well-rehearsed scenes of embraces and tears, while removing pampered settlers with "sensitivity and determination"? Clearly it was easier to blockade Yasser Arafat and his few untrained bodyguards in the Mukata'ah compound in Ramallah than to conquer Bint Jbeil over and over again.

That applies even more to the tanks. It is easy to drive a tank along the main street of Gaza or over a row of houses in a refugee camp, facing only stone-throwing boys, when the opponent has no trained fighters or half-way modern weapons. It's a hell of a difference driving the same tank in a built-up area in Lebanon, when a trained guerilla with an effective anti-tank weapon can lurk behind every corner. That's a different story altogether. The more so as our army's most modern tank is not immune from missiles.

The deepest rot appeared in the logistics system. It just did not function. And why should it? There is no need for complex logistics to bring water and food to the soldiers at the Kalandia checkpoint.

* * *

THE SIMPLE truth is that for decades now our army has not faced a serious military force. The last time was 24 years ago, during the First Lebanon War, when it fought against the Syrian army.

At the time we said in my magazine, Haolam Hazeh, that the war was a complete military failure, a fact that was suppressed by all the military commentators. In that war, too, our army did not reach its targets on time according to the plan: it reached them either late or not at all. In the Syrian sector the army did not reach its assigned objective at all: the Beirut-Damascus road. In the Palestinian sector, it reached that road much too late, and only after violating the agreed cease-fire.

The last serious war of our army was the Yom Kippur war. After the initial disgraceful setbacks, it did indeed attain an impressive victory. But that was only six years into the occupation. Now, 33 years later, we see the full damage done by the cancer called occupation, which by now has spread to all the organs of the military body.

How to stop the cancer?

The military commentator Ze'ev Schiff has a patent medicine. Schiff generally reflects the views of the army high command. (Perhaps over the last 40 years, there may have been instances when he voiced opinions that were not identical with those of the General Staff, but if so, they have escaped me.) He proposes to shift the burden of occupation from the army to the Border Police.

Sounds reasonable, but is completely unrealistic. How can Israel create a second big force to maintain the occupation, on top of the army, which already costs something approaching 12 billion dollars a year?

But, thank goodness, there is another remedy. An amazingly simple one: to free ourselves from the occupation once and for all. To get out of the occupied territories in agreement and cooperation with the Palestinians. To make peace with the Palestinian people, so they can establish their independent state side by side with Israel.

And, while we are at it, to make peace with Syria and Lebanon, too.

So that the "Defense Army for Israel", as it is officially called in Hebrew, can go back to its original purpose: to defend the recognized international borders of the State of Israel.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org.

I was away when all hell broke loose in the region. The mayhem I had to witness from Europe is, in my opinion, a taste of things to come. From now on, outsiders will be deciding the future of this region, not necessarily in consultation with the locals. That's what makes the tragedy in Lebanon even more disagreeable. Remember what happened in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. This is what the major powers have in store for us. Let me remind you of what had happened in the early days of the war. The first thing that Europe attended to was the speedy evacuation of its nationals from Lebanon.

Senior European and US officials came to the region to seek guarantees from Israel that foreigners could be shipped or flown to Cyprus and other safe countries. The humanitarian and political catastrophe in Lebanon didn't seem to matter, not even when the fighting took a brutal turn, nor when it became clear that the aim of the operation was much bigger than sheer retaliation or Israel's desire to secure the release of two Israeli soldiers.

The Arabs were given misleading signals and for some reason they played along. Israel and the US claimed that the operation was directed against Hizbullah, not against the Lebanese or the Arab people. Acting with US blessing and European acquiescence, Israel then proceeded with its job; namely, to eradicate so-called Shia terror. Hizbullah was an obvious target, for both Bush and Blair see the group as an obstacle to the birth of a new Middle East. Israel was now acting with immunity. It had a mission and its mission was to safeguard its security, confront Iran's regional influence, and make the region a better place for democracy. Or that's what we were told.

More
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/809/op4.htm

Latuff is G-d. He has the courage to speak truth to power and criticize the religious supremist terror state of Israel.
I love to see he mad a cartoon of Dershowitz, a true foaming at the mouth coward zionist...

Soon this will be labeled a Hate Site.

your kind have been labeling this a hate site as long as I can remember.
It *IS* as long as the zionists are posting, alright.

You must spam that three times a day, rat boy. Work on having an original thought.

...rat-boy spams his spiel regularly with religious zeal. As if this act of spam is equivalent to prayer. What religion does this loser boy belong to? Will he get a life a few decades into the future?

Thats not hate speech, thats intolerance of Nazis. Keep talking like a Nazi then expect that we will treat you like a Nazi. Why should race baiting haters deserve any better?

He, you and his other worshippers all subsribe to the genuine Goebbelsean spirit and anti Jooo sentiment. Many have lost count of the times this has been proven.

just WHAT would the zionists have done w/o the nazi Germans?

Every facet of their ideology depends upon them, including their language of justification, it seems.
Which again points out the possibility that it was the nazis who picked up the modus operandi from the zionists, and not the other way around.

Every facet of the Latuff worshippers' ideology depends upon them, including their language of justification.
Which again points out the certainty that it was the nazis and they who conceived the pernicious modus operandi, and not the Zionists from them.

The Nazidog -at-heart subsists on inversion of reality and morality. Fortunately he hasn't enough time to cause actual damage in the real world offline.

Yup, w/o the nazis, you wouldn't have any inspiration, language usage or state.
Look up
Zionism + nazis.

or look up
Grand mufti + Nazis
You'll learn all about the final solution, Mid East style

try this link.
http://www.navyseals.com/community/articles/article.cfm?id=4328

Here's how you can find all of the missing secrets about the Muslim Brotherhood -- and you can do this too. I said, “Bob, go to your computer and type in two words into the search part. Type the word “Vanna,” V-a-n-n-a. He said, “Yeah.” Type in “Nazi.” Bob typed the two words in, and out came 30 to 40 articles from around the world. He read them and called me back and said, “Oh my God, what have we done?”

What I'm doing today is doing what I'm doing now: I'm educating a new generation in the CIA that the Muslim Brotherhood was a fascist organization that was hired by Western Intelligence that evolved over time into what we today know as al Qaeda.

Bigotry against the untermenschen is a pet resort of the debunked anti-Jewish malevolents. And he dares protest at being labeled a crypto-Nazi. Need I remind this sorry excuse for a "person" that he was surprised by my unique choice of nomenclature in the first weeks of my sojourn in this site?

>look up
Grand mufti + Nazis


Click here:

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/05/160324_comment.php#163011

You mean *this* just wondering?

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/07/1698659.php

(snip)

just wondering

(snip)

"the British ... sold the Arab Nazis to the [Office of Strategic Services, the] predecessor of what became the CIA... The idea was that we were going to use the Arab Nazis in the Middle East as a counterweight to the Arab communists. Just as the Soviet Union was funding Arab communists, we would fund the Arab Nazis to fight against. And lots of secret classes took place. We kept the Muslim Brotherhood on our payroll."

Ex-Nazis were similarly employed to perform vicious dirty tricks against communists throughout Europe for decades after WWII, just as former Japanese fascists were employed in the Far East everywhere from the Philippines to Korea. In the '60s, when Latin America saw the beginnings of a communist renaissance, the CIA's old Nazi pals like Klaus Barbie made themselves invaluable once again as agents of hardcore US arm-snapping corruption. Before reading this article I never thought of the "Mujahideen" as an Arab sleeper cell of anti-commie killer 'bots, kept alive and kicking from the 1940s

"In 1979 the CIA decided to take the Arab Nazis out of cold storage. The Russians had invaded Afghanistan, so we told the Saudis that we would fund them if they would bring all of the Arab Nazis together and ship them off to Afghanistan to fight the Russians."

This is an exciting new piece of evidence for my thesis that fascism **IS** anti-communist counter-revolutionism and always has been. Every single historical instance of fascist politics succumbs in some way to this analysis, and then... if you stop being so fixated on the meaningless popular value of the f-word (as a moronic nick-name for "Jew-haters" or "genocidal monsters" or just "really really bad guys"), and *really* start applying it to anti-communist counter-revolutionism categorically, you'll see the word's applications mushroom beyond the usual slighted parties to encompass the character of NATO and the United States all through the Cold War.

This is nowhere near as much of a stretch as Americans want to think. Every horrible thing the Nazis are now reviled for America had already been doing for decades when the Nazis started. Every single thing. When the Nazis got taken down, the US and its allies picked up their genocide-all-commies-everywhere torch and kept right on marching with it, using it to ignite peasant villages from Vietnam to Angola to Guatemala.

That is the goddamn solemn truth

Since Bush's theft of the 2000 election, there has been widespread alarm that this country is slipping into a pattern terrifyingly similar to 1930s Germany. I agree that it is. This has developed directly from the politics of the Cold War, and every single one of its important architects was a prominent 'kill-all-commies' Cold War fanatic 20 years ago. The south Florida anti-Castro mafia has been making startling moves into executive power lately, most notably with Bush's appointment of Carlos Gutierrez as Commerce Sec'y. This crowd is the most psycho bunch of fascists the western hemisphere has ever seen. Having spent their entire lives in a crucible of anti-communist pro-corruption extremism, they're now regarded as "stellar talents" in Washington.

Once again they demonstrate what fundamentally dishonest people they are:


http://www.sfimc.net/news/2002/12/1555696_comment.php#1692248

(snip)

Sometimes they take something that an anti-Zionist has written, subtly alter its meaning by changing a few words, and post it under the name of the original author.

(snip)

Once again he demonstrates what fundamentally dishonest person he is:


http://www.sfimc.net/news/2002/12/1555696_comment.php#1962248

(snip)

Sometimes he takes something that a Zionist has written, subtly alters its meaning by changing a few words, and posts it under the name of the original author.

(snip)

This is the best they can do!?!

Master race, myass.

This is the best he can do!?!

Anti-racist and justice activist, myass.