Please copy, e-mail, re-post and distribute this as widely as possible. Also for those without Internet access.
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/ A Joint Call from United for Peace and Justice &
the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
Qana Victims Killed by Israel with U.S. Weapons
Demand that Congress Support Cease-Fire Resolutions and
End Weapons Deliveries to Israel Now!
THIS WEEK: Call Congress and the White House Every Day
NEXT WEEK: Emergency Week of Action, Aug. 7-11
On Sunday Israel bombed a residential apartment building in the Lebanese village of Qana, killing 57 civilians, including 37 children (see below for details).
When U.S. soldiers killed civilians in Fallujah and other densely populated areas of Iraq, the Bush Administration claimed the "war on terror" justified such actions. But nothing justifies bombing innocent civilians, no matter who does it or in what country.
It is likely that U.S. weapons provided to Israel with U.S.-taxpayer dollars killed the villagers of Qana. According to The Washington Post, a bomb fragment found at the Qana bombing site read "For use on MK-84, Guided Bomb BSU-37/B". MK-84's are free-fall unguided bombs; Boeing-produced Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM's) are attached to MK-84's to convert them into GPS-guided "smart" bombs. Between 2002-2004, the Pentagon notified Congress of impending sales of 6,000 JDAM's and 2,590 MK-84's to Israel through its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program - valued at $346 million.
There is no military solution to the current conflict. The Iraq war hasn't brought peace or security to the people of Iraq and the U.S. Bombing civilian populations has not and will not bring greater peace or security to the people of Lebanon, Palestine, and Israel.
The only way out of the carnage is an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, followed by multiparty negotiations to resolve the underlying political disputes based on human rights and international law. Most of the world agrees, but the governments of the U.S., Britain, and Israel have so far rejected calls for an immediate cease-fire.
So long as Washington provides military and diplomatic support to Israel's indiscriminate killing of civilians, a cease-fire will not be possible. It is time for the people of this country to speak up! The US Campaign and United for Peace and Justice, the country's largest anti-war coalition, call on you to take action to press Congress and the White House to back an immediate ceasefire and prevent Israel from using U.S. weapons to commit war crimes.
TAKE ACTION THIS WEEK: Call Congress and the White House
Call your Congressperson and the White House every day this week and demand an immediate cease-fire and a Presidential report to Congress on Israel's misuse of U.S.-supplied weapons to kill civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure in violation of the U.S. Arms Export Control Act. Call 202-456-1111 or email
comments@whitehouse.gov today to reach the White House! Call Congress at 202-224-3121 for the Capitol switchboard.
TAKE ACTION NEXT WEEK: Emergency Week of Action, Aug. 7-11
During the week of Aug. 7-11, while Members of Congress are home on recess, organize local pressure on your Representatives and Senators to demand an end to support for Israel's human rights violations, an immediate cease-fire and a just peace, and the end of weapons deliveries to Israel.
Depending on the position of your Members of Congress, local organizers should decide whether a protest, vigil, meeting, or nonviolent civil disobedience is the most effective way to express opposition to U.S. support for Israel's attacks.
Your delegation should include, if possible, constituents who were evacuated from Lebanon so that they can provide eye-witness accounts.
ISSUES TO RAISE WITH YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS:
1. Support Kucinich & Jackson-Lee Resolutions for Immediate Cease-Fire & Just Peace
On July 19, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced H.Con.Res.450, calling for an immediate cease-fire and multi-party negotiations with no preconditions. On July 25, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) introduced H.Res.945, calling for the cessation of targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, secure humanitarian corridors to be opened in Lebanon, an immediate cease-fire, and a comprehensive and just resolution to the Israeli-Arab conflict. Ask your Representatives to sign-on as a co-sponsor of these resolutions, or thank them if they've already done so. Ask your Senators to introduce a similar resolution in the Senate. Pressure on Congress has already resulted in 34 Representatives signing on to the Kucinich resolution, while 16 have signed on to the Jackson-Lee resolution.
If your Congressperson is a member of the Out of Iraq Caucus, let them know you expect them to support an immediate end to the bombing of Lebanon. And urge them to publicly announce their support for a cease-fire now.
2. Stop U.S. Support for Israel's Attacks on Gaza and Lebanon
On July 18 and 20, the Senate and House respectively passed one-sided resolutions expressing unconditional support for Israel's attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip (S.Res.534 and H.Res.921). Tell your Members of Congress that the United States should be supporting human rights and international law, not expressing support for their violation. If your Representative was one of the few who voted no or abstained, thank them for not supporting this biased resolution.
3. End Weapons Deliveries to Israel Now
Over the past month, Lebanese and Palestinians civilians by the hundreds have been killed by Israel with U.S.-supplied weapons. By using U.S. weapons to kill civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure, Israel is violating the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), which limits the use of U.S. weapons to internal policing and legitimate self-defense. Instead of stopping the flow of weapons as required by law, the United States is rushing jet fuel and satellite- and laser-guided bombs to Israel. Ask your Members of Congress to demand from the President a report on Israel's violations of the AECA as a first step toward cutting off U.S. weapons to Israel.
Get voices for peace into the media
Now is the moment to help people see there is an alternative, and getting our voices into the media should be a central part of what we do:
· For your local newspapers: send a letter to the editor and encourage others to send letters; try to arrange for an op ed piece or a guest editorial; if you or someone you know has been personally touched by this crisis, try to get a reporter to do an interview.
· Call into radio talk shows: you can often talk about anything that's on your mind and reach thousands of people.
· If you organize a visit to your member of Congress, invite a reporter to come with you.
· Be sure to let the media know about any public educational or protest events you are organizing.
BACKGROUND ON QANA AND CIVILIAN DEATHS
Israeli officials are blaming Hezbolla for the Qana deaths, saying Israel cannot be held responsible for killing civilians in "terrorist strongholds." But according to Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, the most recent strike on Qana "suggests that the Israeli military is treating southern Lebanon as a free-fire zone... [and] seems to consider anyone left in the area a combatant who is fair game for attack." According to Human Rights Watch, the consistent failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians is a war crime.
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/30/lebano13881.htm In three weeks the Israeli government's bombing campaign has killed at least 750 Lebanese, the vast majority civilians; made 700,000-800,000 Lebanese homeless; and methodically destroyed Lebanon's infrastructure. Hezbollah fire has killed 52 Israelis, 19 of them civilians.
THIS WRITER ADDS:
JOIN US IN THE FIGHT AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID TERRORISM
Take Action, sign up for
http://www.cflweb.org/ political action alerts and tell Congress to stop using your tax dollars to support Israeli terrorism.
For further political action and information see
http://www.cnionline.org and
http://www.endtheoccupation.org/ and
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/ and
http://www.nowarforisrael.com and
http://www.voicesofpalestine.org/ Israeli terrorism in pictures …
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14273.htm SPOON-FED NEWS CAUSES BLINDNESS
FOX and CNN 24 / 7 propaganda machines are undermining objective media.
Take action: Call your cable provider and tell them to carry the Al Jazeera Channel on “basic cable”.
“If everybody watches CNN, what does CNN watch? The Al Jazeera Channel.”
Friends of AlJazeera
http://www.friendsofaljazeera.org/ http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage BOTH REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRAT PARTIES SUPPORT ISRAELI APARTHEID TERRORISM BECAUSE OF HUGE DONATIONS FROM AIPAC INFLUENCED PRO WAR PRO ISRAEL PACS
See AIPAC Influenced Pro-Israel PAC Contributions to 2006 Congressional Candidates
http://www.washington-report.org/index.htm Send them packing this November. Vote for the Party of Peace and Justice. The Green Party USA.
http://www.gp.org Did You Know?
Know the Real Terrorists!
A few things the Media hopes that you never learn about the terror state of Israel:
· Did you know that Israel have killed more that 8 hundred Palestinian children in the past four years?
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· Did you know that Israel has devastated about three hundred houses in just four years thus making thousands of Palestinians homeless?
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· Did you know that 90 years ago the Arabs of Palestine owned 97.5% of the land, while Jews (native Palestinians and recent immigrants together) owned only 2.5% of the land? And that now the Jews own more than 80%?
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· Did you know that Palestinians have the highest ratio of PhDs per capita in the world?
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· Did you know that the former Prime Minister of the Zionist entity, Sharon, was on the list of war criminals for killing thousands of innocent Palestinians?
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· Did you know that four prime ministers of Israel, Begin, Shamir, Rabin, and Sharon have taken part in either bomb attacks on civilians, massacres of civilians, or forced expulsions of civilians from their villages?
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· Did you know Sharon was held responsible for the massacre of more than 2, 750 Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila. The UN qualified the massacre by Sharon as GENOCIDE.
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· Did you know Sharon's commando unit in 1953 razed the Palestinian village of Qibya killing all its citizens and bombed all the houses, mosque and schools.
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· Did you know that non-Jewish Israelis can not buy or lease land in the Zionist entity?
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· Did you know that Palestinian license plates in Zionist entity are color coded to distinguish Jews from non-Jews?
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· Did you know that Israel allots 85% of the water resources for Jews and the remaining 15% is divided among all Palestinians in the territories? For example in Hebron, 85% of the water is given to about 400 settlers, while 15% must be divided among Hebron's 120,000 Palestinians?
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· Did you know the United States awards Israel over $5 billion in aid each year?
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· Did you know that yearly US aid to Israel exceeds the aid the US grants to the whole African continent?
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· Did you know that the Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?
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· Did you know that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections from its sites?
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· Did you know that Israel currently occupies territories of two sovereign nations (Lebanon and Syria) in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions?
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· Did you know that Israel has for decades routinely sent assassins into other countries to kill its political enemies?
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· Did you know that high-ranking military officers in the Israeli Defense Forces have admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war were executed by the IDF?
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· Did you know that Israel refuses to prosecute its soldiers who have acknowledged executing prisoners of war?
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· Did you know that Israel routinely confiscates bank accounts, businesses, and land and refuses to pay compensation to those who suffer the confiscation?
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· Did you know that Israel blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a U.S. ship in international waters, killing 33 and wounding 177 American sailors?
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· Did you know that the second most powerful lobby in the United States, according to a recent Fortune magazine survey of Washington insiders, is the Jewish AIPAC?
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· Did you know that Israel stands in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council Resolutions?
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· Did you know that today's Israel sits on the former sites of more than 400 now-vanished Palestinian villages, and that the Israeli’s re- named almost every physical site in the country to cover up the traces?
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· Did you know that it was not until 1988 that Israelis were barred from running "Jews Only" job ads?
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· Did you know that the Israeli Foreign Ministry pays two American public relations firms to promote Israel to Americans?
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· Did you know that Sharon's coalition government includes a party -- Molodet -- which advocates expelling all Palestinians from the occupied territories?
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· Did you know that Israel’s settlement-building increased in the eight years since Oslo?
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· Did you know that settlement building under Barak doubled compared to settlement building under Netanyahu?
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· Did you know that Israel once dedicated a postage stamp to a man who attacked a civilian Palestinian bus and killed several people?
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· Did you know that recently declassified documents indicate that David Ben-Gurion approved of the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948?
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· Did you know that torture by Shin Bet interrogators on Palestinian prisoners is more brutal than what happened in Abu Ghreeb in Iraq?
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· Did you know that Palestinian refugees make up the largest portion of the refugee population in the world?
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· And finally do you know who the real terrorist now is?
Quiz yourself on Israeli Democracy:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/index.html Are you aware that:
· Prior to the 1948 war, Palestinian Christians and Muslims were a two-third majority of the population of Palestine, who owned and operated 93% of Palestine's lands?
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· Prior to the 1948 war, most Israeli Jews were persecuted and dispossessed European Jews who made a one-third minority of the population?
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· For Israel to become a "Jewish majority" it opted to expel and dispossess the two-third Palestinian majority?
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· 80% of the Palestinian people were dispossessed from their homes, farms, and businesses and have been kept out for the past 54 years?
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· 95% of Israel's lands (which is mostly owned by Palestinian refugees) is open for development to Jews only?
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· Israeli-Palestinian citizens live almost in segregated communities (or ghettos) because development is strictly limited outside their villages? Ironically, the word "ghetto" was invented to describe the living conditions of Eastern European Jews in Tsarist Russia!
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· For just being "Jewish" you gain an automatic citizenship in Israel? Plus tens of thousands of dollars in subsidies too.
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· Palestinian Muslims or Christians refugees, who were born in the country and later expelled, cannot gain Israeli citizenship? Of course, unless they convert to Judaism first!
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· Pretending to be Jewish in Israel is punishable by law with up to one year's imprisonment? On the other hand, if you pretend to be a Muslim or Christian the law does you no harm!
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· When the Palestine problem was created by Britain in 1917, more than 92% of the population of Palestine were Arabs and there were at that time no more than 56,000 Jews in Palestine? That Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Palestinians at that time lived in peace with each other?
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· Palestinians in the early 20th century owned 97.5% of the land, while Jews (native Palestinians and recent immigrants together) owned only 2.5% of the land?
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· Close to 4 million Palestinian Muslims and Christians are being subjected to Israeli laws that are different than the laws governing the 4.5 million Israeli Jews? Is this a "democratically" elected apartheid, or not, that is the question?
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· In the occupied West Bank there are "Jewish Roads" and "Non-Jewish Roads"?
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· Israel issues national identity cards where the religion of the card holder is clearly shown in bold type?
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· Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza drive vehicles with license plates that have different coloring than the cars driven by Israeli settlers?
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· Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza hold ID cards that are of different colors than the cards held by Israeli settlers?
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· The only form of Judaism recognized by the "Jewish state" is Orthodox Judaism, so most US Jews could not get married in Israel. Furthermore, the only conversion to Judaism recognized is Orthodox, so most US converts aren't Jewish enough.
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· Just prior to the 1948 war, Jews owned under 7% of Palestine's land, and to increase their share after the war, they passed the "Absentees' Law" which dispossessed the Palestinian majority land owners who later became "absent". What is even more tragic was the passage of an oxymoron law, called "Present Absentees' Law," which dispossessed the Palestinian-Israeli citizens who became internal refugees in Israel. It is worth noting that the internal Jewish refugees were not dispossessed as a result of this racist law.
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· The U.S. funneled into the Israeli economy over 130 billion dollars, which is almost twice the amount devoted to rebuilding Western Europe after WW II!
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· Israeli democracy is a facade for "Jewish Democracy?"
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· Israel has nuclear weapons, and it was close to dropping one on Cairo in 1973?
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· Israeli soldiers use human shields in battle to minimize their casualties?
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· Israel killed over 20,000 Lebanese and Muslims (90% of whom are civilians) with American made and paid for weapons?
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· Ariel Sharon was under indictment in Belgium for war crimes against Palestinian civilians?
Quotations from Israel’s leaders:
"We must expel Arabs and take their places."
-- David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.
"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."
-- David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
"There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?"
-- Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.
"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. 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 there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99.
"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
"If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel."
-- David Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth's Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).
"There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist."
-- Golda Meir, statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.
"How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to."
-- Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.
"Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen."
-- Golda Meir, 1961, in a speech to the Knesset, reported in Ner, October 1961
"This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy."
-- Golda Meir, Le Monde, 15 October 1971
"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!"
-- Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.
"[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat."
-- Yitzhak Rabin (a "Prince of Peace" by Clinton's standards), explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry. (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen's remarks to the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.)
"[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the 'Beasts,"' New Statesman, June 25, 1982.
"The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized .... Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever."
-- Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.
"The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass aliya (=Jewish immigration), and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country."
-- Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service.
"The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It's that simple."
-- Yitzhak Shamir, Maariv, 02/21/1997.
"(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls."
-- Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."
-- Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.
On the day of the 9-11 attacks, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked what the attacks would mean for US-Israeli relations. His quick reply was: "It's very good…….Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy (for Israel)"
"The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more"....
-- Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000
"If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force...."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000.
"I would have joined a terrorist organization."
-- Ehud Barak's response to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Ha'aretz newspaper, when Barak was asked what he would have done if he had been born a Palestinian.
"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."
-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.
"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everything we don't grab will go to them."
-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.
"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online
Occupied Jerusalem: 3 October, 2001 (IAP) -- According to Israel radio (in Hebrew) Kol Yisrael, [Shimon] Peres warned [Ariel] Sharon Wednesday that refusing to heed incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and "turn the US against us."
At this point, a furious Sharon reportedly turned toward Peres, saying "every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it."
The radio said Peres and other cabinet ministers warned Sharon against saying what he said in public because "it would cause us a public relations disaster."
5 REASONS to Stop US Military Aid to Israel
http://www.stop-us-military-aid-to-israel.net/ "You must end the illegal occupation." -Kofi Annan, addressing Israel in a meeting of the UN Security Council, March 12, 2002
"I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and West Bank could describe events in South Africa." -Archbishop Desmond Tutu
1 Israel Is Illegally Occupying Palestine
Under UN Resolution 242, Israel is required by international law to withdraw from all the territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem. The United Nation's General Assembly has repeatedly condemned Israel's occupation of the territories as illegal (see UN resolutions 338, 1397, and 1402, among others). Israel's continued occupation of Palestine, sanctioned and maintained by the US, is one of the most serious obstructions to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.
2 Israel Systematically Violates the Human Rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories
Each day, Israeli security forces in the West Bank and Gaza violate articles of the 4th Geneva Convention on Human Rights, an agreement that governs wartime rules of engagement and to which Israel is a signatory. Palestinian homes and agriculture fields are routinely demolished to make way for illegal Israeli settlements. Israeli soldiers regularly arrest and detain--often for years-- Palestinians without due process. According to Amnesty International, members of the Israeli security forces regularly use torture and prolonged incommunicado detention against Palestinians.
3 Israel is an Apartheid State
Israel has developed an elaborate system of racial discrimination, embedded in its legal system, rivaling Apartheid South Africa's laws. These laws include the Law of Entry, the Law of Return, the Citizenship Law, the Military Service Law, and a host of legally sanctioned, discriminatory rabbinical rulings. Palestinians are denied various welfare benefits, access to many jobs, and the leasing of homes and land controlled by government bodies. Electricity, sewerage, and roads are provided free to Israeli households, whereas many Palestinian communities in Israel, and especially in the Occupied Territories, have existed for decades without adequate services. Laws governing land ownership such as the Law of Acquisition of Absentee Property and the Law for Acquisition of Land blatantly discriminate against Palestinians. Indeed, land ownership in Palestine is more unjust than it ever was in South Africa; at the height of apartheid, black people nominally `controlled' 13 percent of the land, whereas in Israel the Palestinians control only 2 percent of the land.
Blockades which allow settlers free movement but restrict Palestinians have lost 100,000 workers their jobs. The Israeli government issues identification cards and car number-plates, color coded, which restrict travel for non-Jews. Palestinians in the West Bank are routinely prevented from travelling to the Gaza Strip because they have to travel through `Israeli' territory. No significant industry has been permitted to develop in the West Bank or Gaza. Consequently, Palestinians are concentrated in the lowest paying jobs and form a super-exploited labour force for Israeli capital. The occupied territories import 93% of goods but export a mere 7% of what they produce. Palestinian exports to Western Europe are banned so as not to compete with Israeli exports. Ninety percent of Palestinian workers must travel to Jewish towns for employment.
4 US Military Aid to Israel Violates US Law
The US Arms Export Control Act (AECA) strictly forbids the government from giving military assistance to any country that violates internationally recognized human rights. The State Department's 2001 human rights report states: "Israeli security units often used excessive force against Palestinian demonstrators including live fire ... impeded the provision of medical assistance to Palestinian civilians by their strict enforcement of internal closures, which reportedly contributed to at least 32 deaths. Israeli security forces harassed and abused Palestinian pedestrians and drivers who were attempting to pass through the more than 130 Israeli- controlled checkpoints ..." Under the AECA, "the President is required to report to Congress promptly upon the receipt of information that a substantial violation of AECA may have occurred." The US government is fully aware of the Israeli army's human rights violations, as the above quote from the State Department shows. The US government has eroded its own credibility as an impartial mediator by continuing to arm Israel without restriction and allowing these weapons to be used against civilian populations in violation of US law.
5 US Military Aid to Israel threatens US Security and Global Stability
US funding of Israel's human rights abuses fuels resentment towards the US. While the rest of the world strongly condemns Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories, our government provides the political, diplomatic and material means for the occupation to continue. Such actions by the US government provoke anti-US sentiment throughout the world, ultimately jeopardizing the safety of people living in the US. The US can build its own security only by gaining the trust and respect of the international community.
http://www.stop-us-military-aid-to-israel.net/ 