BACKGROUND: Israel is using weapons supplied by the United States to target Palestinian & Lebanese civilians and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in violation of the US Arms Export Control Act and the Geneva Conventions. * On July 12th, Israel killed 23 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with missiles fired from aircraft and shells fired from tanks. Israel killed 9 members of one family in a missile strike on a house near Gaza City.

* On July 12th, Israel launched a massive invasion of Lebanon. Israeli aircraft fired missiles targeting civilian infrastructure, including bridges, roads, a mosque, a community center, and the Beirut International Airport, and the Israeli navy is blockading Lebanon's ports. Israel has killed at least 50 Lebanese civilians and injured more than 100, including entire Lebanese families of 10 and 7 people killed in the villages of Dweir and Baflay.

* On June 27th, Israel launched a massive invasion of the Gaza Strip. Israeli aircraft fired missiles targeting civilian infrastructure. In illegal acts of collective punishment, Israel demolished three key bridges, the Gaza Strip's only electricity generation plant, and part of a university, thereby endangering Palestinian human rights to food, water, health, electricity, education, and freedom of movement. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted that the purpose of these measures is to "apply pressure" to the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

* On June 20th, Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed its intended target and killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.
* On June 13th, Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in an extrajudicial assassination of two Palestinians in Gaza City. A second barrage of missiles fired shortly afterward killed nine Palestinian bystanders.

* On June 9th, Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians and injuring 32. At the site of the killing, Human Rights Watch found evidence of a 155mm artillery shell consistent with those fired from an Israeli M-109 Self-Propelled Artillery. Israel's human rights violations in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon are being committed with US weapons financed by US tax dollars:

The Israeli air force fighter squadrons are composed of Lockheed Martin F-16I Fighting Falcons and Boeing F-15Is, which fire US-manufactured AMRAAM, Sidewinder, and Sparrow missiles. From 2000-2005, the United States licensed to Israel at least $1.062 billion of spare parts, engines, and missiles for its F-15 and F-16 fighter planes.
From 2000-2005, the United States licensed to the Israeli navy more than $572 million worth of patrol boat, ship, and submarine components and spare parts, torpedoes, and sonar equipment.
From 2000-2005, the United States licensed to Israel more than $348 million worth of tanks, components, and spare parts.
From 2000-2005, the United States licensed to Israel $69,163 worth of M-109 spare parts and 155mm artillery shells.
(Statistics for US weapons licensed to Israel are compiled from the State Department's annual report to Congress pursuant to Sec. 655 of the Foreign Assistance Act. For more information, click here:
http://pmddtc.state.gov/)

Israel's summer of killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip is a clear reminder that Israel remains the occupying power of the Gaza Strip despite last year's "unilateral disengagement". Living under military occupation, the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip are "protected persons" under the terms of the Geneva Conventions. Israel's targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon is a violation of the Geneva Conventions and constitutes war crimes.
In addition, by using US-supplied weapons to commit these atrocities, Israel is violating the terms of the US Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act. The Arms Export Control Act restricts the use of US weapons to legitimate self-defense and internal policing; US weapons cannot be used to attack civilians in offensive operations. The Foreign Assistance Act prohibits US aid of any kind to a country with a pattern of gross human rights violations.

TAKE ACTION: Hold Israel to account for its killing of civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

1. Contact the White House, State Department, and your Members of Congress to demand that Israel is held accountable for its violations of the US Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act and urge that military aid to Israel be cut off as required by law. Click here to send an email: http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/uscampaign/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=4460

2. Write a letter to the editor or op-ed for your local newspaper and call your local talk radio stations to protest Israel's atrocities in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and highlight US support for these actions. For contact information for your local media, click here: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/media/

3. Support the efforts of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation to build a national movement to challenge US support for Israel's human rights violations. Click here to donate to our summer fundraising drive: http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?id=1221

These videos opened my eyes.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cNP71_TAx6E&search=Lebanon

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7sZFMp1NGxc&search=Lebanon

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QvZ_qR8xwvo&search=Lebanon

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BM_TOVI4mEc&search=Lebanon

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vJJm7B6AKuc&search=Lebanon

EARBORN – The largest Arab American rally in ten years took place here July 18 to condemn Israeli aggression against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, as well as to call out a U.S. government seen by the local community as caring more about Israeli interests than its own people's.

Over 10,000 people took part in the rally. Flying hundreds of American, Palestinian and Lebanese flags, the crowd, made up of Muslims, Christians and Jews, insisted that its problem lay not with Judaism but with Zionism as a "secular, politically-racist ideology."

The last Dearborn rally that was so well-attended took place in 1996, also as a protest against the Israelis when the people of Qana were massacred. In each case, Israeli aggression struck close to home, feelings that clearly simmered in the crowd even now, as one sign noted, "Peres, you killed my two children in Qana!"

What was the goal behind holding the rally? "We want to see an effect that resonates with our government officials and fellow citizens," said Bilal Dabaja, a member of the Arab American Political Action Committee and a University of Michigan at Dearborn student, between leading chants on his bull-horn.

"We all want to stop the Israeli oppression," added Lenora Prater, an African American from Detroit, as she sat under a tree on Warren Avenue. "I'm pleased with the turnout."

As the crowd continued down the road, thundering cries of "Israel out of Lebanon!" "Down, down Israel!" and "Death to Israel!" rang out. As the rally continued its move down Schaefer, more and more people came running. They were joining in from back alley-ways, jumping out of cars and sprinting down sidewalks to take part in the rally.

"Other than our own leaders, Israel pulls us together like no one else can," said Abed Hammoud as he helped lead the rally down the road. Hammoud is chairman of the Congress of Arab American Organizations (CAAO).

More
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=26c3ba97c33914fe777719631c2d4535

Who condemns the victimizer?


A general view of a demolished area in the south of the Lebanese capital of Beirut, 24 July 2006. Israeli air strikes have destroyed much of the Lebanese infrastructure and transport network. (MaanImages/Payam Borazjani)

"Every neighborhood has one, a loudmouth bully who shouldn't be provoked into anger. He's insulted? He'll pull out a knife. Someone spat in his face? He'll draw a gun. Hit? He'll pull out a machine gun. Not that the bully's not right -- someone did harm him. But the reaction, what a reaction! It's not that he's not feared, but nobody really appreciates him. The real appreciation is for the strong who don't immediately use their strength. Regrettably, the Israel Defense Forces once again looks like the neighborhood bully. (...) One and only one language is spoken by Israel, the language of force."

Thus says Gideon Levy in his column for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz (16 July 2006) on Israel's aggressive policy towards Gaza and Lebanon. He indicates that Israel's current bully-like behavior has become, as it were, an Israeli trademark.

The Israel Defense Forces were hit near the Gaza border: Palestinian militias killed two soldiers and one corporal was captured. Israel's reaction was not a pinpoint military reprisal; nor did it await political mediation by Egypt. No -- Israel immediately bombed the whole of Gaza, destroying infrastructure and killing many innocents.

Two weeks later the Israeli army was hit again near Lebanon's border: Hezbollah killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two. Israel reacted, again, with much violence. The whole of Lebanon, which was still recovering from years of deadly conflict, became a target; for it was Lebanon that tolerated Hezbollah within its borders, as if the ramshackle Lebanese government has any ability to contain or even disarm Hezbollah. Lebanon saw its bridges, roads, oil repositories, communication infrastructure, harbours, airports and power plants destroyed again. Hundreds of innocents died as a result of Israel's fury.

With regard to Israel's "defense" rhetoric, one should pose some key questions and consider the obvious irrefutability of their answers. Does Israel's violence safeguard the life of the three kidnapped soldiers? No; rather it jeopardizes their safety. Does Israel's policy of throwing bombs bring about peace? No; on a structural level Israel's policy exacerbates the grass root level anti-Israel sentiments fundamental to Hezbollah's existence. It also explains why Hezbollah is now shooting its missiles on Israel. Is Israel's violence legitimate? No; Israel's violence is, first and foremost, to the detriment of innocent civilians, not Hezbollah or Hamas. Condemning Hamas and Hezbollah militancy must, therefore, be accompanied by even stronger condemnation of Israel's militancy considering its illegal traditions, which give rise to the militancy of Hamas, Hezbollah and other movements. For example, annexation and occupation of Arab land, and, mind you, detaining of Arab civilians on Arab territory.

The current conflict demonstrates why Israel's war will not lead to peace, for Israel's opponents both came into existence as a result of Israeli policies. At the beginning of the first intifada (1987-1992) Hamas emerged to resist Israel's oppression and annexation policies. Since 2005, Hamas displayed interest in taking political responsibility as well.

Following the Palestinian elections last January, Hamas became the largest Palestinian political movement. The popularity of Hamas is, mostly, a consequence of the ever-deteriorating standard of life in the West Bank and Gaza and the failure of the nationalist Fatah to gain some tangible results out of the various "peace processes" (in particular, the Oslo trajectory and the "Roadmap to peace").

Hezbollah emerged in a significantly different context. It started as a resistance movement to the Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon in 1982. Hezbollah gained much popularity after liberating the Lebanese people in 2000 from the Israeli occupation. While not losing much popular support since then, commentators argue that by defeating the Israeli occupier, Hezbollah did lose much of its raison d'être.

This explains, in part, why in the last few years Hezbollah has been active as a political party in Lebanon and why Hezbollah felt it to be useful to respond now to Israel's extruding activities towards Palestinians, Israel's kidnapping of Lebanese and other Arabs, and Israel's occupation of the Shebaa farms.

The past confrontations between Israel and Hezbollah and Hamas provide, therefore, abundant indications that violence does not solve problems. Unfortunately, this lesson seems not to be learned in Israel. Categorically denouncing Hamas and Hezbollah as "terrorist organizations", Israel denied both parties political participation. Israel preferred deadly conflict.

Taking Palestinian, Lebanese and - to a much lesser extent - Israeli civilian casualties for granted, Israel seems to need violent confrontation to display its "deterrence" and to conceal its annexation ambitions (on the West Bank and elsewhere) with the "we need to defend ourselves against the terrorists" mantra. Obviously flawed as it is, Western political leaders should refute this dogma and media should expose its falsehood. The international community should intervene.

But which party does intervene? As always protecting Israel from any serious influence on its illegal practices, the US once more deployed its veto in the UN Security Council to abort a resolution calling on all parties to cease fire.

At the G8 summit in St Petersburg, an open microphone caught a tête-à-tête between George Bush and Tony Blair. Bush made it clear that he does not blame Israel but Syria: "[Syria should make] Hezbollah stop doing this shit and it's over". Apparently Bush thinks, contrary to the facts, that Hezbollah's policy is made in Damascus.

Effective political pressure from the Americans on Israel is clearly not to be expected; nor should UN or NATO action in Lebanon be expected soon -- that is, before Israel considers its mission in Lebanon accomplished.

The European Union policy is not much better. The EU did indeed call upon all parties to cease the fighting and it called Israel's policy "disproportional". But when Israel, as expected, reacted obliviously towards the EU stance, the EU did nothing but react with "disappointment".

Not surprisingly, not one party is willing and capable of reacting effectively to the chaos. The result of this lack of significant intervention is that Israel, as usual, will not be obliged to adhere to international agreements (in particular, the Geneva Conventions and UN resolutions).

Nothing stops the violations of human rights committed by "the only true democracy in the Middle East", Israel. Those violations are evident in Lebanon. What takes place in Gaza is even worse. Due to the violence in Lebanon, politicians and the international press seem to care less and less for the situation in Gaza: lack of freedom (Israel still supervises all borders), lack of safety, no work, no money, lack of food, lack of drinking water, lack of medical care, threats of epidemics, no electricity, and so on.

And Israel ponders and ponders: "Why do they hate us? We left Gaza, didn't we?" And we in the West, who make up the so-called "civilized world", sit by and watch these grave injustices take place. Those who are supposed to be our leaders proved eager to blame the Palestinian victims and their resistance movements, but are hardly willing to express any disapproval of the victimizer, Israel.

It is a disgrace.


Maarten Jan Hijmans is former Middle East correspondent for De Volkskrant newspaper. Fadi Hirzalla is a political scientist. Both are editors of ZemZem, a Dutch magazine on the Middle East, North Africa and Islam.

“Hell is empty, all the devils are here.” - William Shakespeare

Washington, D.C. - Close to 400 protesters showed up for a spirited demonstration on Tuesday, July 25, 2006, at the Israeli Embassy, 514 International Drive, NW, in the nation’s capital. They were there, despite the sweltering heat, to express their strong opposition to the ongoing barbaric conduct of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in Lebanon, as well as in Gaza. The IOF has given new meaning to the term “collective punishment” by their reckless, disproportionate and murderous treatment of the Lebanese and Palestinian civilian populations. It is a war crime under the provisions of the 4th Geneva Convention, (Article 33), to deliberately target a protected population for punishment.

Many of the protesters wore black. They carried 50 coffins draped in black, too. They began at 5:30 PM, at Van Ness and Connecticut Avenues, with a march done in silence. It then proceeded around the neighborhood and ended up in front of the Israeli Embassy. The event was sponsored by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Code PInk, Pax Christi USA, the Council for the National Interest, along with many other groups. (1)

I talked with Jamilah Shami at the rally. She’s with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s D.C. Chapter. She said: “We’re here to bring attention to what is taking place in Lebanon and Palestine. Israel is bombing on both sides and innocent people are being killed and, unfortunately, with our tax dollars and with our government’s okay. Every other nation, every other person is calling for an immediate cease fire, except the U.S. It’s not reigning in Israel. And they have the power to do so.” The Rev. Philip Wheaton, an Episcopal priest from D.C., told me: “I’m really concerned about Israel. They are being led down the worst possible path by Zionism. And they can’t win by power and might.” He added that if they didn’t get off the road that they are presently traveling, “that they will only increase the anti-Israel spirit around the world and it’s very serious. Jews in this country have to understand that if they want to do something serious for Judaism, then they have to stop this madness.”

With respect to Lebanon, since July 13, 2006, the Israeli Air Force has flown over 4,000 air sorties over cities, like Beirut, Sidon and Tyre, dropping cluster and bunker bombs and laying waste to bridges, roads, homes, apartment buildings, banks, water and electric power plants, reservoirs, hospitals, airports, milk and food factories, clearly marked ambulances, and even striking a Greek Orthodox Church. At least, 400 innocent Lebanese civilians, many of them women and children have been killed, thousands more have been seriously injured. Property damages will be in the mega-billions of dollars. It is now estimated that Israel’s terror tactics have created over 600,000 refugees. Close to 12,000 American have been evacuated. Canadians trying to escape the Israeli-made horror, weren’t so lucky. At least 8 were reported killed by the Israeli air strikes. The Israelis dominate the skies with their jet fighters, since Lebanon has no air force to combat them.

Suzanne Wilder, from Maryland, told me that she was at the rally because she “was upset at the loss of innocent lives.” She felt that the politicians “turn these things to their own benefit and profit. If you want peace in the Middle East, you have to work for justice.” Carol Moore from D.C., said she was there “to protest Israel’s barbaric attack on Lebanon. We’re afraid it’s going to escalate and go to Syria and Iraq. It could even go nuclear.”

Flashback! One of Israel’s evil deeds in Lebanon, which still sticks out in my memory, occurred on April 18, 1996. The IOF bombed a UN shelter in the village of Qana (Cana). This is the same place that the Bible tells us that Jesus (pbuh) performed his first miracle. There were 106 people in the shelter, including two children from Dearborn, Michigan, who were visiting their grandparents. They were all slaughtered. (2) The Israelis, just like they did when they murdered 34 Americans on the USS Liberty, on June 8, 1967, insisted that it was all “a mistake.” This is the same lame excuse that they used when they ran over Rachel Corrie, an Olympia, WA, peace activist, with a bulldozer and snuffed the life out of her on March 16, 2003. The half-demented Ariel Sharon was Prime Minister of Israel then. Now, Ehud Olmert, his successor, must bear the brunt of the responsibility for Israel’s latest serial excesses. The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when the ex-terrorist, Menachem Begin, was Israel’s P.M, left close to 18,000 Arabs dead. (3) UN Peace Keepers, some of whom were Irish, and knew about the Qana Massacre, said the Israelis were liars. (4)

With respect to Gaza, the IOF hasn’t let up their state-sponsored terrorism tactics there since the Palestinians dared to elect a government dominated by members of Hamas. The Israeli storm troopers have arrested Hamas members of the Palestinian Cabinet and its Parliament, too. According to Amnesty International, the IOF has also killed 150 Palestinians since the beginning of this year. Six more Gazans were killed yesterday, according to the Baltimore Sun. The IOF has also been systematically and maliciously destroying all the important civilian infrastructures of Gaza, the same as they are repeatedly doing daily in Lebanon. Gaza is now an entity of 1.4 million trapped, and desperate souls on the brink of a total humanitarian collapse. (5)

David Barrows of D.C. said: “I’m protesting the merciless slaughter of the Lebanese people...It’s just senseless and ruthless and it just makes you wonder: ‘Why in the world are we supporting Israel?’ I know we shouldn’t and this is real proof of it...Who speaks for the Palestinians? Very few! So, we the American people have to take charge of this renegade, corrupt and criminal government of ours and stop giving the green light to tyranny around the world.” An activist from the D.C. Antiwar Network (DAWN), Malachy Kilbride, shared his thoughts with me. He said: “I’m here to be a witness to what Israel and the U.S. are doing in Lebanon. Israel is perpetrating a war of aggression...I’m angry and I’m not going to be silent like so many in Congress, who won’t stand up to the Israel Lobby.” Lauren Barthel of D.C., one of the organizers of the affair, said she worked on the project “in order to keep the momentum going.” Another worker for the cause was David Kirshbaum, a D.C.-based activist. He said that he “was pleased by the turnout.” He added that the “collective punishment policy of Israel was illegal... and that America funds it.”

The dubious pretext for the Israeli assault on Lebanon was the supposed capture of two of their soldiers by Hezbollah, an indigenous political party, with militia capabilities, located near the Lebanon/Israel border. Just suppose two U.S. soldiers were employed to border duty with Canada and then imagine them “captured” by guerrillas associated with a Separatist Movement in Quebec. What would you think if that happened and the response of our Washington-based government, instead of negotiating with our neighbor to the North, was to go ahead and bomb Ottawa, British Columbia, Montreal and Toronto? That would be sheer lunacy! And, this is exactly what the lawless Tel Aviv government has done in the case of Lebanon. Its conduct cannot be justified in any form or by any legal or moral standard. This is the same kind of M.O. used by the Israelis to let loose their Terror, Mayhem and Death Machine on the hapless Gazans. The Hezbollah fighters, however, continue to inflict telling casualties on the Israeli invaders, despite all of their superior weaponry. One Zionist observer, a professor, was quoted as saying of Hezbollah’s tenacity, “As long as they don’t lose...that’s a victory!” (6)

Some of the speakers at the rally in front of the Israeli Embassy were: Radney Wood, Noura Erakat, Rami Elamine, Pilar Saad and the anti-Zionist Orthodox Rabbi, Dovid Feldman.

Incredibly, the mostly cowardly U.S. Congress has given its legislative endorsement to Israel’s outrages. It was pushed by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), to take the despicable action, along with prodding by the powerful Israeli Lobby in this country. (7) The Bush-Cheney Gang’s complicity in Israel’s wrongs was even more precise. It gave them a “green light” and is reportedly sending the IOF more lethal military weapons for it to use, in violation of U.S. law, in order for Olmert’s regime to kill additional Palestinian and Lebanese civilians with impunity. (8) Like the warmongering Neocons, Zionist Israel, to date, has never suffered any real consequences for its rampant militarism. (9) It remains above the Law. The stain, however, on our Republic from all of this evildoing runs red with the blood of the innocents, both Arab and Israeli alike. As for Zionist Israel, a day of retribution is coming as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow for this arrogant mocker of human life and of human dignity.

Notes:

1. http://www.cnionline.org/
2. http://www.lubnan-alkawi.com/qanamass/main.htm
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Lebanon_War
4. http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/robert_fisk_qana.html
5. http://wrmea.org/ and http://www.pchrgaza.org/
6. “Hezbollah a Tough Foe for Israeli Military,” Steven Gutkin, AP, 07/24/06.
7. http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/%24File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf
8. http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1030.shtml
9. http://batr.net/neoconwatch/archives/2004_12_01_neoconswatch_archive.html

© William Hughes 2006.

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes [at] comcast.net.
http://home.comcast.net/~liamhughes/

Still, with all that whining, none of the Zionist-terror and IDF-murderer apologists here have suggested that the terrorist state of Israel return the hostages/prisoners, stop firing missles/bombs, steling land, leveling infastructre, displacing hundreds of thousands and murdering children. Interesting that they only want Hamas and Hezbollah to stop. Quite revealing.

CNN ignores world-wide protests against Israeli invasion

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PMWATCH - July 24, 2006 -- A large number of protests against the Israeli invasion and assault of Lebanon has swept across the globe. Protests have been held in virtually every country, from Morocco, to Indonesia, to Russia, Germany, Scotland, Britain, France, and even Israel.

And yet, if one were to confine one's source of information to CNN (let alone Fox News or MSNBC), one would be under the impression that the world is sitting by mute.

The prevailing narrative, sometimes insisted upon aggressively by news anchors and talking heads, is that Israel was attacked unprovoked, that it has every right to do what it has to do, unfortunate as the civilian toll may be, and that the world not only fully understands but is secretly cheering the Israelis on -- or, as Tom Friedman of the New York Times explained to NBC's Tim Russert yesterday, the Arabs are saying to Israel under their breath, "You go girl!"

Below are some articles that portray a different picture.

Please contact CNN immediately and request that they begin covering the world-wide protests against Israel's aggression.

CNN is the leader in news that others follow and emulate, so let's all of us focus on having them change their behavior.

Here is CNN's contact information:

Tel: (404) 827-1519
Fax: (404) 827-3134
Web: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?39

Try to both calling and sending them a note.

And please let us know what transpires in your communications by emailing us at letters@pmwatch.org

For tips on writing letters, go to: http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/tools/T_WritingLetters.asp

Please also feel free to share with us your letters or a summary of your conversations with editors at letters@pmwatch.org

You can also call us at: (866) DIAL-PMW

Palestine Media Watch
info@pmwatch.org
(866) DIAL-PMW
http://www.pmwatch.org/

==

SOME ARTICLES:

Protests held cross Britain against Israeli attacks against Lebanon
http://english.people.com.cn/200607/23/eng20060723_285724.html

Scots protests at Israeli action
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/5206408.stm

Protests against Israel in Berlin, Cairo and Amman
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060721/wl_nm/mideast_protests_dc_1

Hundreds of Muslims in Hindu-majority India held angry protests Friday against Israeli air strikes on Lebanon
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/11877.asp

Turkey: Protests At Israeli Embassy in Ankara
http://www.indiadaily.com/breaking_news/75878.asp

Israeli protest: "STOP SHOOTING! START TALKING!"
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en

World protests against Israeli raids
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7549F47F-725C-49E3-85C0-C5E5F0B4D59A.htm

Protests Held Against Israel as Bombardment of Lebanon Continues
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-07-21-voa37.cfm

Rallies across Europe Protest Israeli Offensive in Lebanon
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/world/060722b_wire.aspx

Muslims in Asia Protest Israeli Attacks
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared-gen/ap/Middle_East/Asia_Mideast_Protest.html

Questions and Answers on Hostilities Between Israel and Hezbollah
Updated July 26, 2006

(Beirut, July 26, 2006) – Since July 12, when Hezbollah launched an attack on Israeli positions killing eight Israeli soldiers and capturing two, there have been consistent and intense hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in which civilians in Lebanon and Israel have overwhelmingly been the victims.
The following questions and answers set out some of the legal rules governing the various actions taken by Israel and Hezbollah to date in this recent conflict. Human Rights Watch sets out these rules before it has been able to conclude its on-the-ground investigation. The purpose is to provide analytic guidance for those who are examining the fighting, as well as for the parties to the conflict and those with the capacity to influence them.

This Q & A addresses only the rules of international humanitarian law, known as jus in bello, which govern the way each party to the armed conflict must conduct itself in the course of the hostilities. It does not address whether Hezbollah was justified in attacking Israel, whether Israel was justified in attacking Lebanon for the conduct of Hezbollah, or other matters concerning the legitimacy of resorting to war. In accordance with its institutional mandate, Human Rights Watch maintains a position of strict neutrality on these issues of jus ad bellum, because we find it the best way to promote our primary goal of encouraging both sides in the course of the conflict to respect international humanitarian law.

What international humanitarian law applies to the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah?
What is Hezbollah’s status in relation to the conflict?
Was Hezbollah's capture of Israeli soldiers lawful?
Which targets are Israel and Hezbollah entitled to attack under international humanitarian law?
Is Hezbollah’s firing of rockets into Israel lawful under international humanitarian law?
Does international humanitarian law permit Israel to bomb the Beirut airport?
Is Israel entitled to target Lebanese infrastructure such as roads, bridges and power stations?
Is Israel entitled to use military force against the Lebanese population to encourage it to press its government to stop Hezbollah’s attacks and rescue Israel’s soldiers?
Is Israel entitled to bomb the Hezbollah leader’s house and office?
Can Israel attack neighborhoods that house Hezbollah leaders or offices? And what are Hezbollah’s obligations regarding the use of civilian areas for military activities?
Can Israel attack Hezbollah radio and television stations?
The IDF have dropped leaflets in parts of Lebanon warning residents to evacuate – is this an appropriate precaution?
Is Israel’s blockade of Lebanon legitimate?
If the targets are legitimate military objects, is the use of cluster munitions or warheads with ball bearings lawful?
What is meant by “collective punishment” of the civilian population?
What are the parties’ obligations to agencies seeking to provide humanitarian assistance?
Are attacks on humanitarian convoys unlawful?

What international humanitarian law applies to the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah?

The current armed conflict between Hezbollah and Israel is governed by international treaty as well as the rules of customary international humanitarian law. The treaty, specifically, Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, to which Israel is a party, sets forth minimum standards for all parties to a conflict between a state party such as Israel and a non-state party such as Hezbollah. The customary rules are based on established state practice, and bind all parties to an armed conflict, whether state actors or non-state armed groups.

International humanitarian law is designed mainly to protect civilians and other noncombatants from the hazards of armed conflict. Among the customary rules, parties that engage in hostilities must distinguish at all times between combatants and noncombatants. As discussed below, warring parties are required to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian objects and to refrain from attacks that would disproportionately harm the civilian population or fail to discriminate between combatants and civilians.

Common Article 3 provides a number of fundamental protections for noncombatants, which include those who are no longer taking part in hostilities, such as captured combatants, and those who have surrendered or are unable to fight because of wounds or illness. The article prohibits violence against these noncombatants – particularly murder, cruel treatment and torture – as well as outrages against their personal dignity and degrading or humiliating treatment. It also prohibits the taking of hostages and “the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions” if basic judicial guarantees have not been observed.

Israel has asserted on several occasions since hostilities began on July 12 that it considers itself to be responding to the actions of the sovereign state of Lebanon, not just to those of Hezbollah. If Israel considers itself to be at war with another sovereign state – that is, if it considers itself involved in an interstate conflict – then it must accept being bound by the full scope of the Geneva Conventions with their far more extensive rules, not simply those of Common Article 3. To the extent that Lebanese forces were to join the hostilities, they, too, would be bound by the full Geneva Conventions, to which Lebanon is also a party. However, this Q & A limits itself to the more focused requirements of customary law and Common Article 3, since they have greatest relevance to the conflict as it so far has been waged.

What is Hezbollah’s status in relation to the conflict?

Hezbollah is an organized political Islamist group based in Lebanon, with a military arm and a civilian arm, and is represented in the Lebanese parliament and government. As such a group, and as a party to the conflict with Israel, it is bound to conduct hostilities in compliance with customary international humanitarian law and Common Article 3, which as stated above applies to conflicts that are not interstate but between a state and a non-state actor. As is explicitly stated in Common Article 3, and made clear by the commentaries of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the application of the provisions of Common Article 3, as well as customary international law, to Hezbollah does not affect its legal status.

Was Hezbollah's capture of Israeli soldiers lawful?

The targeting and capture of enemy soldiers is allowed under international humanitarian law. However, captured combatants must in all circumstances be treated humanely.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nassrallah has stated that the captured soldiers will be used to negotiate the release of Palestinian, Lebanese and other Arab prisoners from Israel. The use of captives who are no longer involved in the conflict for this purpose constitutes hostage-taking. Hostage-taking as part of an armed conflict is strictly forbidden under international law, by both Common Article 3 and customary international law, and is a war crime.

Which targets are Israel and Hezbollah entitled to attack under international humanitarian law?

Two fundamental tenets of international humanitarian law are those of “civilian immunity” and the principle of “distinction.” They impose a duty to distinguish at all times in the conduct of hostilities between combatants and civilians, and to target only the former. It is forbidden in any circumstance to direct attacks against civilians; indeed, as noted, to do so intentionally amounts to a war crime.

It is also generally forbidden to direct attacks against what are called “civilian objects,” such as homes and apartments, places of worship, hospitals, schools or cultural monuments, unless they are being used for military purposes. Military objects that are legitimately subject to attack are those that make an “effective” contribution to military action and whose destruction, capture or neutralization offers a “definite military advantage.” Where there is doubt about the nature of an object, it must be presumed to be civilian.

The mere fact that an object has civilian uses does not necessarily render it immune from attack. It, too, can be targeted if it makes an “effective” contribution to the enemy’s military activities and its destruction, capture or neutralization offers a “definite military advantage” to the attacking side in the circumstances ruling at the time. However, such “dual use” objects might also be protected by the principle of proportionality, described below.

Even when a target is serving a military purpose, precautions must always be taken to protect civilians.

Is Hezbollah’s firing of rockets into Israel lawful under international humanitarian law?

As a party to the armed conflict, Hezbollah has a legal duty to protect the life, health and safety of civilians and other noncombatants. The targeting of military installations and other military objectives is permitted, but Hezbollah must take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian harm and is prohibited from targeting civilians, launching indiscriminate attacks, or attacking military objects if the anticipated harm to civilians and other noncombatants will be disproportionate to the expected military advantage. Hezbollah’s commanders must choose the means of attack that can be directed at military targets and will minimize incidental harm to civilians. If the weapons used are so inaccurate that they cannot be directed at military targets without imposing a substantial risk of civilian harm, then they should not be deployed. Deliberately attacking civilians is in all circumstances prohibited and a war crime.

While Human Rights Watch has not yet conducted a field examination to determine whether any of these attacks aimed to target a military object, preliminary information suggests that rockets fired by Hezbollah may be so inaccurate as to be incapable of being targeted, but are rather used to target a generalized area. As Human Rights Watch said in a 1997 report on Lebanon and Israel, “Katyushas are inaccurate weapons with an indiscriminate effect when fired into areas where civilians are concentrated. The use of such weapons in this manner is a blatant violation of international humanitarian law.” That is, their use in civilian areas violates the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks and would be a war crime. Customary international law prohibits such bombardment near or in any area containing a concentration of civilians, even if there are believed to be military objectives in the area.

Does international humanitarian law permit Israel to bomb the Beirut airport?

Airports in certain circumstances may be dual-use targets, in that they might be used both for military purposes, such as military re-supply, and to provide transport and provisions for the civilian population. However, as a primarily civilian object, the Beirut airport can become a military objective only if it is in fact providing an “effective” contribution to the enemy’s military activities and its destruction or neutralization provides “a definite military advantage.” Its status as a legitimate military objective would exist only for such time as it meets the foregoing criteria. International humanitarian law requires everything feasible to be done to verify that targets are in fact military objectives. Even if they are, the impact on civilians must be carefully weighed under the principle of proportionality against the military advantage served; all ways of minimizing the impact on civilians must be considered; and attacks should not be undertaken if the civilian harm outweighs the definite military advantage, or if a similar military advantage could be secured with less civilian harm.

According to an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) statement, the justification for targeting the Beirut airport is that it “constitutes a station for the transport of arms and infrastructure used by Hezbollah” and as such “represents a serious threat.” It has also been suggested that the airport could be used to transport the captured Israeli soldiers out of the area. However, these justifications are at best debatable. Israel has not claimed that the transport of arms was current or under way. It is thus unclear why Israel could not have waited to see whether such supply operations actually began and only then targeted either particular flights or, if necessary, the airport at that time. Instead, Israel has attacked Beirut airport on a number of occasions, without any publicly available evidence that it has been used for any recent transport of arms or troops. As for the possible use of the airport to transport the captured Israeli soldiers out of Lebanon, the military advantage of destroying the airport is negligible in comparison with the civilian cost, given the many alternative routes out of Lebanon along its long border with Syria. On the other hand, the civilian cost of targeting the airport is high, since it impedes the ability of civilians in Lebanon to escape the fighting or those who remain to receive provisions.

The real, unstated reason for Israel’s attack on the airport may be precisely to impose a cost on Lebanese civilians to encourage them to press their government to rein in Hezbollah. Leaving aside the question of whether the Lebanese government is militarily capable of reining in Hezbollah, it is illegal under international humanitarian law, as noted below, to use military force to squeeze the civilian population, to enhance its suffering or to undermine its morale, regardless of the ultimate purpose. Under these circumstances, the attack on the Beirut airport does not appear to have been legitimate under the standards of international humanitarian law.

Is Israel entitled to target Lebanese infrastructure such as roads, bridges and power stations?

Like airports, roads and bridges may be dual-use targets if actually used for military purposes. Even then, the same rule applies, requiring the parties to the conflict to weigh carefully the impact on civilians against the military advantage served; they must consider all ways of minimizing the impact on civilians; and they should not undertake attacks if the civilian harm outweighs the definite military advantage. Human Rights Watch has not yet done the field research that would enable an assessment of the legitimacy of Israeli attacks on Lebanese roads and bridges, but among the factors to be considered are whether the destruction of particular roads or bridges serve in fact to impede military transport in light of readily alternative routes – that is, whether the infrastructure attacked is making an “effective” contribution to Hezbollah’s military action and its destruction offers a “definite military advantage” – or whether its destruction seems aimed more at inconveniencing the civilian population and even preventing it from fleeing the fighting and seeking safety.

As for electrical facilities supplying the civilian population, they almost never are legitimate military targets. On the one hand, they might be considered dual-use targets, given that both civilians and armies use electricity. On the other hand, the harm to civilians is often enormous, affecting refrigeration, sanitation, hospitals and other necessities of modern life; in urban society, electricity is arguably “indispensable to the survival of the civilian population,” meaning that it can be attacked only in extremely narrow circumstances. Meanwhile, the military effect of targeting electrical facilities serving the civilian population often can be achieved in more focused ways, such as by attacking military facilities themselves or the portion of an electrical grid directly serving a military facility. Although final judgment must await a more detailed on-the-ground investigation, Israel faces a very high burden to justify these attacks.

Is Israel entitled to use military force against the Lebanese population to encourage it to press its government to stop Hezbollah’s attacks and rescue Israel’s soldiers?

Lawful attacks are only those where the targets by their “nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action,” and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers “a definite military advantage.” As noted, attacks directed at civilian morale do not meet this test, since civilians, by definition, are not contributing to military action. Indeed, attacks on civilian morale are inimical to the very purpose of international humanitarian law – the protection of civilians. Military attacks on civilian morale undoubtedly can exert pressure on a government to pursue a particular course of action, but under international humanitarian law that is an inappropriate use of military force. Indeed, the logic of attacking civilian morale opens the door to deliberately attacking civilians and civilian objects themselves – in short, to terrorism. In addition, international humanitarian law explicitly prohibits attacks of which the primary purpose is to intimidate or instill terror in the civilian population.

International humanitarian law would not prohibit attacks on Lebanese government military forces as a way of pressing the government to rein in Hezbollah, but in making that point, Human Rights Watch takes no position on whether the Lebanese government is capable of reining in Hezbollah or whether it would be an appropriate use of force under jus ad bellum standards to target the Lebanese government.

Is Israel entitled to bomb the Hezbollah leader’s house and office?

International law allows the targeting of military commanders in the course of armed conflict, provided that such attacks otherwise comply with the laws that protect civilians. Normally, political leaders, as civilians, would not be legitimate targets of attack. The only exception to this rule is if their role, as commander of troops, or their direct participation in military hostilities renders them effectively combatants. Civilians lose their protected status when they are engaged in hostilities.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, direct participation in hostilities means “acts of war which by their nature and purpose are likely to cause actual harm to the personnel and equipment of enemy armed forces,” and includes acts of defense. Thus, Hezbollah political leaders who are effectively commanding belligerent forces would be legitimate targets. This conclusion does not apply to all Hezbollah leaders, and in particular to those who could not be said to hold such command responsibilities or to be directly participating in hostilities.

In principle, it is permitted to target the location where a combatant resides or works. However, as with any attack on an otherwise legitimate military target, the attacking force must refrain from attack if it would disproportionately harm the civilian population or be launched in a way that fails to discriminate between combatants and civilians.

Can Israel attack neighborhoods that house Hezbollah leaders or offices? And what are Hezbollah’s obligations regarding the use of civilian areas for military activities?

Where the targeting of a combatant takes place in an urban area, all parties must be aware of their obligations to protect the civilian population, as the bombing of urban areas significantly increases the risks to the civilian population. International humanitarian law obliges all belligerents to avoid harm to civilians or civilian objects.

The defending party – in the case of Beirut, Hezbollah – must take all necessary precautions to protect civilians against the dangers resulting from armed hostilities, and must never use the presence of civilians to shield themselves from attack. That requires positioning its military assets, troops and commanders as much as possible outside of populated areas. The use of human shields is a war crime.

In calculating the legality of an attack on premises where a Hezbollah combatant is present, Israel must take into account the risk to civilians. It is not relieved from this obligation on the grounds that it considers Hezbollah responsible for having located legitimate military targets within or near populated areas, or that Hezbollah may be using the civilian population as a shield. Even in situations of Hezbollah’s illegal location of military targets, or shielding, Israel must refrain from launching any attack that may be expected to cause excessive civilian loss in comparison to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. That is, a violation by Hezbollah in this regard does not justify Israeli forces ignoring the civilian consequences of a planned attack. The intentional launch of an attack in an area without regard to the civilian consequences or in the knowledge that the harm to civilians would be disproportionately high compared to any definite military benefit to be achieved would be a serious violation of international humanitarian law, and a war crime.

In any event, the presence of a Hezbollah commander or military facility in a populated area never justifies attacking the area as such rather than the particular military target. It is a prohibited indiscriminate attack, and a war crime, to treat an entire area as a military target instead of attacking the particular military facilities or personnel within that area.

Can Israel attack Hezbollah radio and television stations?

Military attacks on broadcast facilities used for military communications are legitimate under international humanitarian law, but such attacks on civilian television or radio stations are prohibited if they are designed primarily to undermine civilian morale or to psychologically harass the civilian population. Civilian television and radio stations are legitimate targets only if they meet the criteria for a legitimate military objective; that is, if they are used in a way that makes an “effective contribution to military action” and their destruction in the circumstances ruling at the time offers “a definite military advantage.” Specifically, Hezbollah-operated civilian broadcast facilities could become military targets if, for example, they are used to send military messages or otherwise concretely to advance Hezbollah’s armed campaign against Israel. However, civilian broadcasting facilities are not rendered legitimate military targets simply because they spout pro-Hezbollah or anti-Israel propaganda. For the same reason that it is unlawful to attack civilian morale, it is unlawful to attack facilities that merely shape civilian opinion; neither directly contributes to military operations. That Lebanese civilian opinion might influence how the Lebanese government responds to Hezbollah is not a sufficiently direct contribution to military action to render the media used to influence that opinion a legitimate military target. Rather, broadcasts should be met with competing broadcasts, propaganda with propaganda.

Should stations become legitimate military objectives because of their use to transmit military communications, the principle of proportionality in attack must still be respected. This means that Israeli military planners and commanders should verify at all times that the risks to the civilian population in undertaking any such attack do not outweigh the anticipated military benefit. Special precautions should be taken in relation to buildings located in urban areas. Advance warning of an attack must be given whenever possible.

The IDF have dropped leaflets in parts of Lebanon warning residents to evacuate – is this an appropriate precaution?

International humanitarian law requires that if there is any risk to civilians in an attack, an effective warning be given where “circumstances permit.” Leaflet drops are one way to provide that warning. However, in some cases the IDF are reported to have dropped leaflets giving residents only two hours to evacuate. It is unclear how long Israel waited after the expiration of this two-hour period to launch an attack in these areas. Whether this length of notice is effective is a matter for factual evaluation from the ground, which Human Rights Watch is not yet in a position to undertake. An assessment will have to take into account the difficulties in movement caused by Israel’s bombing of some transportation infrastructure such as bridges. In any event, the giving of such warnings does not absolve the attacking party, in this case Israel, from its obligations not to target civilian objects and not to carry out attacks that fail to discriminate between combatants and civilians, or that would have a disproportionate impact on civilians.

Examples of other precautions that parties should take to minimize civilian casualties include selecting a time of day for attack when the fewest civilians would be expected in the area; attacking a legitimate military target that is mobile when it is away from civilian areas; selecting weaponry and a method of attack that, if it misses its intended target, is least likely to harm nearby civilians; and refraining altogether from an attack even against a legitimate military target if the anticipated civilian harm will be disproportionately high – that is, “an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”

Is Israel’s blockade of Lebanon legitimate?

Israel has targeted the country's only international airport, imposed a naval blockade, attacked ports, and bombed road links out of the country. Blockades as a tool of war are legitimate under international humanitarian law; however, their imposition is still subject to the principle of military necessity and proportionality.

First, the blockade must not have as its primary purpose to intimidate, harass or starve the civilian population. Such actions are proscribed by international humanitarian law, which prohibits armed forces from deliberately causing the civilian population to suffer hunger, particularly by depriving it of its sources of food or supplies.

Second, insofar as Israel attempts to justify the blockade on the grounds of restricting the re-supply of the Hezbollah military, that legitimate purpose must be weighed against the costs to the civilian population. Those costs can also shift over time, as shortages of necessities intensify. Even if a blockade were assumed lawful at the outset, it could become unlawful if mounting civilian costs became too high and outweighed the direct military advantage. In those circumstances – for example, if food or medical supplies ran low – Israel would be obliged to permit free passage of material that is essential for civilians and to protect humanitarian personnel delivering those supplies.

If the targets are legitimate military objects, is the use of cluster munitions or warheads with ball bearings lawful?

In the conflict to date, there is evidence that Israel has used cluster munitions in populated areas in Lebanon and that Hezbollah has launched rockets toward Haifa that contained thousands of metal ball bearings. Human Rights Watch is of the view that neither weapon should be used in or near civilian areas as a matter of international law, because the wide blast effects of these weapons cannot be directed at military targets without imposing a substantial risk of civilian harm and the weapons cannot distinguish between military targets and civilians.

Cluster munitions are weapons, delivered from the air or ground, that disperse dozens, and often hundreds, of submunitions (often called “grenades” in surface-delivered weapons and “bomblets” in air-delivered weapons) over a large area, thereby increasing the radius of destructive effect over a target. There is no specific international prohibition on the use of cluster munitions (unlike, for example, blinding lasers or chemical weapons). However, because the “bomblets” released by cluster bombs have a wide dispersal pattern, they cannot be targeted precisely. As a result, they are not capable of discriminating between military and civilian objects when used in or near populated areas. In addition, cluster bomblets have a high initial failure rate – the munitions used by Israel in Lebanon have a dud rate of 14 percent – which results in numerous explosive “duds” scattered about the landscape; these pose similar risks to civilians as antipersonnel landmines.

Like cluster munitions, the use of rocket heads filled with metal ball bearings cannot be targeted precisely and are indiscriminate weapons when used in populated areas. Their use in rockets fired into populated areas appears intended to maximize harm to civilians.

What is meant by “collective punishment” of the civilian population?

International humanitarian law prohibits the punishment of any person for an offense other than one that he or she has personally committed. Collective punishment is a term used in international humanitarian law to describe any form of punitive sanctions and harassment, not limited to judicial penalties, but including sanctions of “any sort, administrative, by police action or otherwise,” that are imposed on targeted groups of persons for actions that they themselves did not personally commit. The imposition of collective punishment is a war crime. Whether an attack or measure could amount to collective punishment depends on several factors, including the target of the measure and its punitive impact, but of particular relevance is the intent behind a particular measure. If the intention was to punish, purely or primarily as a result of an act committed by third parties, then the attack is likely to have been collective punishment.

What are the parties’ obligations to agencies seeking to provide humanitarian assistance?

Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have displaced hundreds of thousands of Lebanese and cut off many others from access to food, medical care and other necessities. Humanitarian agencies have had difficulty reaching the populations in need because of the ongoing Israeli bombing campaigns, including air attacks targeting border passages, roadways and vehicles. At the time of writing, no secure safe passage for humanitarian convoys had been successfully guaranteed, in particular so that humanitarian convoys can reach wounded persons or evacuate civilians from areas of active conflict.

Under international humanitarian law, parties to a conflict must allow and facilitate the rapid and unimpeded passage of impartially distributed humanitarian aid to the population in need. The belligerent parties must consent to allowing relief operations to take place, and may not refuse such consent on arbitrary grounds. They can take steps to control the content and delivery of humanitarian aid, such as to ensure that consignments do not include weapons. However, deliberately impeding relief supplies is prohibited, and doing so as part of an effort to starve civilians is a war crime.

Additionally, international humanitarian law requires that belligerent parties ensure the freedom of movement of humanitarian relief personnel essential to the exercise of their functions. This can be restricted only temporarily for reasons of imperative military necessity.

Are attacks on humanitarian convoys unlawful?

Israeli air strikes have hit humanitarian aid vehicles, such as a July 18 attack that hit a convoy of the Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates, destroying a vehicle carrying medicines, vegetable oil, sugar and rice, and killing the driver, and an attack on July 23, which hit two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances in the village of Qana. Human Rights Watch researchers also report the hitting of a civil defense building in Tyre, on July 16, as well as three neighboring eight- to 10-story apartment buildings that, according to residents, were mostly occupied by teachers and doctors from the nearby hospital. Twenty-one people are believed to have been killed in the airstrike, and more than 50 wounded.

International humanitarian law requires parties to a conflict to respect and protect humanitarian aid personnel, objects used for relief operations and civil defense personnel as well as civil defense buildings. Attacks intentionally directed at humanitarian personnel or properties are considered war crimes.

WHY DEATH AND DESTRUCTION IN LEBANON

July 28, 2006

DELUSIONAL EXPECTATIONS

John Chuckman


At this writing, Israel has killed six hundred civilians in Lebanon, including more than one hundred children, and killed another one hundred and fifty in Gaza. It has created hundreds of thousands of refugees and destroyed enough bridges and power stations and apartments to create misery for years to come.

Nothing is more dishonest than attempting to justify this barbarism with "Islamist fundamentalists declare their goal openly to destroy the state of Israel and kill Jews."

There is no possibility that Israel can be destroyed by Islamic fundamentalists: the notion is simply a fantasy. This is so not just because of Israel's ready willingness to bomb and kill, but because of great-power guarantees. It is so also because no Arab state believes any longer that Israel’s destruction is a sensible or possible goal, despite their leaders’ public rhetoric. And it is true because the enemies Israel claims are so threatening, organizations such as Hezbollah or Hamas, are militarily weak by any rational standard of calculation.

Israel began by moving into a bad neighborhood, and everyone involved understood this from the beginning, yet Israel behaves as though it should be normal to enjoy a pristine Disney-like suburb with white-picket fences. It reacts to activities in the bad neighborhood that disturb its fantasy with ferocious indignation. Israel's destructive behavior is explained largely by this delusional expectation.

If Israel had spent half the resources it has spent on war over the last fifty years instead on helping its neighbors and building up their economies, the region would be a far better place today. And if Israel had been willing to make reasonable concessions to the needs of others in the region, there might well be lasting peace today.

The irony of Israel’s current destructive behavior is that a healthy, prosperous Lebanon is in Israel’s long-term interest, just as it is in Israel’s interest to have all of its neighbors prosperous and flourishing.

But, instead, Israel’s response to any provocation from any gang or individual is always war and maintaining "the iron wall" - an early Zionist phrase that has provided the foundation of Israeli policy for over half a century - against all outsiders with disregard for their interests or needs.

Deception is an important tool in any war, and Israel’s extensive use of it shows us how it regards neighbors and others it should have cultivated as friends. Look at the bombing of a UN observation post in Lebanon, killing four unarmed UN workers. Israel says it was an accident, but the post had been there for years, and it was well marked. Moreover, the UN workers were killed in a bunker, meaning that a certain kind of munition had to be used to kill them. According to a BBC report, the UN peacekeepers had contacted Israeli forces ten times about artillery shelling in the hours before they were hit by a precision-guided missile. How possibly can this have been an accident?

Could the failed international conference in Rome where proposals for an immediate cease-fire and an international force in Southern Lebanon were advocated have provided Israel’s motive? The cease-fire proposal was quickly killed by the United States to give Israel more bombing time. Was the proposal for an international force the target of Israel’s attack? Who would commit observers or troops if this is what would happen to them? We know Israel does not want outside interference in Lebanon. More broadly, Israel has shown intense hostility towards the UN for years, perhaps one of its closest bonds with Bush’s mob.

There is some evidence that the Israeli soldiers kidnapped at the beginning of the current bombardment were actually kidnapped inside Lebanon on a provocative mission. I have no idea whether this true, but it is far from improbable. The kidnapping has certainly provided an excuse for bombing the hell out of southern Lebanon.

Israel’s many past deceptions naturally enough leave one uncomfortable about any of its official statements on any important matter. First was the covert creation of a nuclear arsenal, a fact not acknowledged to this day. Then there was Israel’s secret assistance to apartheid South Africa, including still-unacknowledged assistance in creating and testing a nuclear weapon. There was Israel’s manipulation of events leading to the Six Day War, a war Israel knew it could handily win for great gains (see my March, 2003, article, Was Einstein Right? ). There was Israel’s attempt to sink the U.S.S. Liberty, an American spy ship, during the Six Day War, an event never meaningfully explained but likely intended to prevent evidence of atrocities against captured Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai being recorded. A large group of Israeli spies was arrested after 9/11, but their extensive activities in the United States leading up to that event have never been explained. Only a few weeks ago, before its attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Israel mounted an effort claiming the munition which wiped out a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach belonged to someone else, when in fact a collected scrap of casing clearly showed its American origin, a type of munition not made available to anyone else in the region.

All gangs and individuals who rudely remind Israel that it really does live in a bad neighborhood are simply flattened, but flattening the perpetrators is never enough. Always Israel takes the lives of innocents and destroys their property, believing that such ruthlessness eventually will intimidate everyone around into a zombie-like peace, but this is simply another delusion.

The logic of Israel’s behavior taken to its limit would have a two- or three-hundred mile perimeter around Israel’s border (whatever that is) bulldozed and paved over. This would certainly provide complete security, but it is utter fantasy, just as impossible as the destruction of Israel.

What is the solution in the Middle East? It is found in so simple an act as Israel’s dealing fairly with its neighbors and negotiating to sort things out. Israel has never yet done this. It presents only an iron wall, bristling with weapons. When breakthroughs do come, as with the Oslo Accords, Israel’s establishment quietly ignores them or works actively against them while still talking about peace.

Israel has all the advantages. It has advanced weapons. It has great-power guarantees. It has billions of dollars in assistance every year. It has unmatched access to American intelligence and government. By comparison, Hamas and Hezbollah are pretty anemic forces.

Organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas owe their very existence to Israel's past behavior. Hezbollah flourished as a guerrilla force opposing Israel's previous invasion of Lebanon and its long-term partial occupation. It served also as an important charity in the midst of chaos. Hamas was created with the deliberate help of Israeli intelligence, intending to create a rival for the PLO and introduce instability into Palestinian politics. When Hamas was elected recently as part of the government of Palestine, it was only after innumerable excuses from Israel for not meeting with Abbas and after imprisoning and threatening Arafat for several years before his death. How are Palestinians to deal with an Israel that always has an excuse for not negotiating, for not even speaking, to its government? Israel has now kidnapped the cabinet of an elected government, but this is quietly supported by Bush’s democracy-loving mob.

Israel wants us to accept the simplistic assertion that organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas are proof of Islamist determination to destroy Israel. So long as this is the accepted view, greatly over-simplifying a truly complex situation, there can be no understanding and no sensible approach to peace. Refusing even to talk with the democratically-elected Hamas government and cutting it off from all connections and revenues was an act of war in response to party slogans. You can't build peace on fantasy.

I said Israel could not be destroyed by anyone, but there is an important exception to that statement: Israel could well be destroyed by itself.

"Please show the reality" say Lebanon's affected
Report, Christian Aid, 28 July 2006

Lebanese Red Cross says more civilians may have died. (Haitham Moussawi/IRIN)

Volunteers and staff from a Christian Aid-supported organisation working to help those displaced by the conflict in Lebanon say the world needs to understand the depths of the humanitarian crisis unfolding there.

"The news isn't showing the reality of what is happening here," said Pascale Kolakez, a psychologist speaking from a Beirut school that Christian Aid partner Mouvement Social (MS) has converted into a shelter for displaced people.

"Please show the reality. People have lost everything, even the future of their children. What's happening in Lebanon is a crime against humanity."

Despite being physically and morally exhausted from the scale of destruction facing Lebanon, those working with MS have chosen to stay and help those most in need.

Staff and volunteers are using various methods to raise morale among those sheltering from the bombing and are encouraging participation in communal cleaning and cooking.

"We are trying to make them take action so they feel they are doing something positive to change the situation," said Kolakez. "People are very tired and worried about their homes. [But] there is a feeling that they are one big family."

After a fortnight of bombing and blockades from the sea and air, stocks of food and medicines are running out in many areas of Lebanon. Beirut's fire engines have been distributing drinking water on a daily basis to the 180 schools in the city that are serving as makeshift shelters.

There is a serious shortage of mattresses and bedding as well as toothpaste, nappies for children over six months, and underwear. Many fled their homes so quickly they had no time to collect any of their belongings.

"We will be okay for food and water for another week… we have enough basic medicine supplies for one more week but if something urgent comes up then not so long," added Kolakez.

MS is also helping people cope emotionally with their new circumstances and maintain their human dignity. Kolakez, herself a psychologist, said:

"We want to let refugees know that losing their houses doesn"t mean that they have lost their dignity. Every person has rights and we are helping to give them their rights."

With emergency funding from Christian Aid, Mouvement Social is providing help to 3,000 internally-displaced people, shelter in schools, food, milk, clothes and sanitary items.

"The war should end because it is not the solution – it never was the solution," said Kolakez. "People and children are dying, families are dying..."

"Good Morning Beirut"
When Condi Came to Ramallah

By RENEE BOWYER

West Bank, Palestine.

Ramallah turned its back on the Secretary of State when she arrived for her exclusive meeting with the President of Palestine. A meeting that totally excluded the government of this struggling people.

When we first dared the early morning heat we were surprised at the locked shop-doors and the empty streets and were a little angry. Why should these people lose a days work and income (small enough as it is) because this woman with no womanly feelings has decided to streak through the city in a bullet-proof windowless car?

But then on thinking a little deeper it became clear that the closed shops and the empty streets were the only means by which the people of Ramallah could say they did not want to acknowledge the presence of the Secretary, or allow her in any way to participate in the life of the city. It was their way of turning their backs on American policy in this region, too closely allied with Israel's. The people of Ramallah have precious little except the vibrancy of their always lively streets, and in protest that vibrancy was put behind locked doors to preserve it from the woman of America who had come smiling to gloat over their poverty.

I am sure that Condoleezza Rice, (called Kundara by many people here, which is Arabic for shoes) has no need for the pulsing life of Ramallah but I was glad all the same that she would only see it at its most depressing.

When the new front of Israel's war opened two weeks ago there was a strange mixture of relief and sadness in the West Bank, outweighed most noticeably by total sympathy for the people of Lebanon who were about to be bombed out of their homes and villages and cities. The relief was two fold for the people of Ramallah. Relief that the people of Gaza were not totally alone in their desperate need to fight a military regime so much stronger than them, and relief that the Israelis, occupying their land and interfering so much in their daily lives, were not totally untouchable.

There were just a few hours of thanksgiving.

Of course no one doubted there would be reprisals, but the action of Hezbollah in capturing two Israeli soldiers was an act directed specifically against a military target and it was against the military regime which has caused so much bloodshed in Gaza and so much of it here in the West Bank as well. For a few brief hours the people of Palestine were grateful.

The second reason for relief was far more specific and short-lived: the Atara checkpoint leading in and out of Ramallah has caused hours of delay everyday for all Palestinians who need to enter Ramallah, whether to work or study or stock-up on supplies that are sorely lacking in the villages. This checkpoint has been constantly manned for the past 6 months and was unmanned for ten hours on the day that Hezbollah attacked the military outpost on the northern border of Israel.

By the time I passed through it at 9 pm on my way to a village for the weekend, it was manned again; and by very angry soldiers. But it was impossible to ignore the relief in the village that evening when Atara was talked about; how services had passed straight through to Ramallah and how the younger men from the village did not have to get out and be searched and interrogated at will and maybe sent back home.

For ten brief hours the people in the Ramallah region of the West Bank could travel unstopped between their homes and the city in which they worked or studied.

But it is heartbreaking to realize at what cost these few hours of relief for the people of the West Bank came.

A cartoon has started circulating again in Palestine.

A poignant and tragic reminder of how much these two countries have suffered in like at the hands of a U.S backed Israel.

It shows Hamoodi, that strange little symbol of Palestinian resistance offering a flower to a maiden who is gazing down at Hamoodi through a gaping hole in a wall, caused by an exploding shell.

''Good Morning Beirut'' little Hamoodi says to the maiden.

''Welcome to our struggle.we weep with you we, we suffer with you, we know how brutal your enemy can be.

We too are suffering.

Our sisters and brothers in Gaza are being buried every day.

Buried beneath the rubble of collapsing buildings, and beneath the sands blown by the desert winds in anger against the failure of the World leaders to act.

We have been waiting here for a long time.

We greet you and offer you a flower. The ruins left by the inhuman military machine has devastated your people as it has ours. And now all we in Palestine have to offer you is a flower.

We have nothing else.

I have not faced the world for a long time, because the world does not want to know what I have to say. Nor could it bare to see the scars on my face. But you, sweet maiden, can see my face because you are suffering like us''

The soldiers of Israel are suffering too.

I can scarcely bear to see them loading their weapons into their tanks and jeeps and airplanes, and having to live out in reality, the action-movie unreality of war.

These poor men who we see, rushing to evacuate wounded friends and press -- reporting their successes against the ''terrorists'' they have been conditioned to hate, are inadvertently being forced to serve a cause that is bent on destroying the very basis of justice and equality and humanity.

''We blow up their tunnels if we can, but we know that we will have to enter as well, at some time, and in the dark tunnel come face to face with a terrorist,'' some soldier reported to BBC.

It is frightening to witness how the education of these young Israeli soldiers has dehumanized their neighbors into a term: one single word they use to describe a whole people. A word that justifies killing and maiming and terrorizing.

Used to justify in the eyes of the common soldier as surely as in the eyes of the International world of Diplomats who have to sit and listen to Condoleezza Rice as she uses this word to justify calling for a cease-fire that is not immediate.

How can a cease-fire not be immediate?

Next week, next month there will need to be a cease-fire. After a week, a month of useless bloodshed and horror. It is like some horrible nightmare that two weeks of the onslaught in Lebanon has passed and one month of the killing in Gaza has passed and the leaders of the US and Britain have not enough humanity to say enough is enough.

And the leaders of the EU have not enough clout to be heard, and the leaders of the UN have been targeted because they were too vocal.

(The UN personnel based in south Lebanon were in the process of investigating claims by Lebanese doctors that the Israelis were using phosphorous in their air-attacks when their building was hit and four UN personnel were killed. Will the UN continue this investigation?)

Let there be a cease-fire and allow a channel of assistance to reach the unreached civilians in this tragedy and then see what to do next!
Sometimes the priority of being a human being ought to override the desperation of being the toughest and most powerful regime in the area.

Of course the Lebanese and the Palestinians are not the only ones suffering at the moment. The citizens of Israel are suffering too. But still the World Leaders allow Kundara to speak only about a cease-fire that is not immediate.

The word Terrorist has been strategically placed alongside the names of Hezbollah and Syria and Iran and, up until last week, Hamas as well. But a knew strategy has emerged this week which sees Hamas no longer being named with the other members of the ''Axis of Evil''. This is cause for concern.

It is as if, by mentioning Hamas, people might get a vague pang of conscience or sadness about that devastated strip of land they had forgotten since the Lebanese crisis. Maybe the World Leaders don't like to deal with the conscience of the International Community on too many issues at once. And Gaza is an easy place to forget.

This frightens us in the West Bank. And people are growing angry too, as Gazans continue to die.

There is precious little safety routes for the people of Lebanon to take, bombed out of their homes and off the roads if they attempt to escape, but there is even less possibility for the people of Gaza.

As foreign nationals are rescued from the bloodshed on the northern front of this war, there are all but no foreign nationals in Gaza to be focused on. No rescue ships will drop their anchors off the blood-stained beaches of Gaza. There is no road to Damascus for these terrorized people.

Yesterday 23 more people were killed in Gaza and shocking pictures are being aired on Aljazeera of the continual violence. Today a medical Relief team has been denied entry into that war-zone whose only wish is to provide assistance to the population who are being killed.

Our call from the West Bank is that Gaza be not forgotten. It is hard to focus on too many horrors at once but we are obliged to do this.
The morality of the western world is at stake; while the leaders and heads of state and secretaries continue to neglect the human aspect of this conflict, the rest of the community has to work harder to focus on it.

Unfortunately at this time I have little of good-cheer to report on. The people of the West Bank are in daily mourning for the deaths in Gaza and Lebanon and are waiting to see where Israel will turn next. Maybe Syria and maybe here.

As I finish writing the drone of a reconnaissance plane is keeping me company. It has been circling and circling for hours overhead. It has no lights and its grey bulk in the midnight sky is a little unnerving.

Some friends have left for the mountains an hour since saying that the assassinations of people from Nablus and Ramallah will begin again. A local policeman just called to say that the men in the station up the road might take to the park for the night

The streets are often quiet now and there is far less bravado around And this too is saddening.

The war machine seems to be grinding away at the very fabric of human life. Here, in Lebanon, in Gaza and in all countries where indifference has started to take hold

Hamoodi wants to show you his face, but for the moment as the flower of sympathy is offered to the people of Lebanon by those of Palestine, the face of Hamoodi remains hidden.

12-year-old boy dead on a stretcher. A mother in shock and disbelief after her son was shot dead for standing on their roof. A phone rings and a voice in broken Arabic orders residents to abandon their home on pain of death.

Those are snapshots of a day in Gaza where Israel is waging a hidden war, as the world looks the other way, focusing on Lebanon.

It is a war of containment and control that has turned the besieged Strip into a prison with no way in or out, and no protection from an fearsome battery of drones, precision missiles, tank shells and artillery rounds.

As of last night, 29 people had been killed in the most concentrated 48 hours of violence since an Israeli soldier was abducted by Palestinian militants just more than a month ago.

The operation is codenamed "Samson's Pillars", a collective punishment of the 1.4 million Gazans, subjecting them to a Lebanese-style offensive that has targeted the civilian infrastructure by destroying water mains, the main power station and bridges.

The similarities with Israel's blitz on Lebanon are striking, raising suspicions that the Gaza offensive has been the testing ground for the military strategy now unfolding on the second front in the north.

In Gaza, following the victory of the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas in January, Israel, with the help of the US, initiated an immediate boycott and ensured the rest of the world fell into line after months of hand-wringing. Israel has secured the same flashing green light from the Bush administration over Lebanon, while the rest of the world appeals in vain for an immediate ceasefire.

More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1202850.ece

Israel pulls out of Hezbollah stronghold



Israeli troops pulled back from a Lebanese border town Saturday after a weeklong battle with Hezbollah, the bloodiest ground fighting of the 18-day Israeli offensive. Also Saturday, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah threatened in a TV broadcast to attack more cities in central Israel.

Elsewhere, Israeli warplanes blasted bridges and demolished houses, killing seven people, including a woman and her five children.

The battle for Bint Jbail has symbolized Israel's difficulty in pushing guerrillas back from the border, whether by air bombardment or ground assault. Hezbollah on Friday escalated its cross-border attacks, firing longer-range missiles deeper into Israel than ever before.

Lebanese civilians have born the brunt of the Israeli onslaught. The woman and her children were crushed in their home by a strike outside the market town of Nabatiyeh, which also killed a man in a nearby house, Lebanese security officials said. In another southern town, six bodies were dug from the rubble of a house destroyed by a strike Friday, they said.

Down the Memory Hole
Report, FAIR, 29 July 2006



Israeli contribution to conflict is forgotten by leading papers

In the wake of the most serious outbreak of Israeli/Arab violence in years, three leading U.S. papers—the Washington Post, New York Times and Los Angeles Times—have each strongly editorialized that Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon were solely responsible for sparking violence, and that the Israeli military response was predictable and unavoidable. These editorials ignored recent events that indicate a much more complicated situation.

Beginning with the Israeli attack on Gaza, a New York Times editorial (6/29/06) headlined "Hamas Provokes a Fight" declared that "the responsibility for this latest escalation rests squarely with Hamas," and that "an Israeli military response was inevitable." The paper (7/15/06) was similarly sure in its assignment of blame after the fighting spread to Lebanon: "It is important to be clear about not only who is responsible for the latest outbreak, but who stands to gain most from its continued escalation. Both questions have the same answer: Hamas and Hezbollah."

The Washington Post (7/14/06) agreed, writing that "Hezbollah and its backers have instigated the current fighting and should be held responsible for the consequences." The L.A. Times (7/14/06) likewise wrote that "in both cases Israel was provoked." Three days and scores of civilian deaths later, the Times (7/17/06) was even more direct: "Make no mistake about it: Responsibility for the escalating carnage in Lebanon and northern Israel lies with one side...and that is Hezbollah."

As FAIR noted in a recent Action Alert (7/19/06), the portrayal of Israel as the innocent victim in the Gaza conflict is hard to square with the death toll in the months leading up to the current crisis; between September 2005 and June 2006, 144 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israeli forces, according to a list compiled by the Israeli human rights group B'tselem; 29 of those killed were children. During the same period, no Israelis were killed as a result of violence from Gaza.

In a July 21 CounterPunch column, Alexander Cockburn highlighted some of the violent incidents that have dropped out of the media’s collective memory:

"Let's go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.

"Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.

"Now we're really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing eight civilians and injuring 32.

"That's just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies of twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children."

On June 24, the day before Hamas' cross-border raid, Israel made an incursion of its own, capturing two Palestinians that it said were members of Hamas (something Hamas denied—L.A. Times, 6/25/06). This incident received far less coverage in U.S. media than the subsequent seizure of the Israeli soldier; the few papers that covered it mostly dismissed it in a one-paragraph brief (e.g., Chicago Tribune, 6/25/06), while the Israeli taken prisoner got front-page headlines all over the world. It's likely that most Gazans don’t share U.S. news outlets' apparent sense that captured Israelis are far more interesting or important than captured Palestinians.

The situation in Lebanon is also more complicated than its portrayal in U.S. media, with the roots of the current crisis extending well before the July 12 capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. A major incident fueling the latest cycle of violence was a May 26, 2006 car bombing in Sidon, Lebanon, that killed a senior official of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian group allied with Hezbollah. Lebanon later arrested a suspect, Mahmoud Rafeh, whom Lebanese authorities claimed had confessed to carrying out the assassination on behalf of Mossad (London Times, 6/17/06).

Israel denied involvement with the bombing, but even some Israelis are skeptical. "If it turns out this operation was effectively carried out by Mossad or another Israeli secret service," wrote Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s top-selling daily (6/16/06; cited in AFP, 6/16/06), "an outsider from the intelligence world should be appointed to know whether it was worth it and whether it lays groups open to risk."

In Lebanon, Israel's culpability was taken as a given. "The Israelis, in hitting Islamic Jihad, knew they would get Hezbollah involved too," Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at Beirut’s Lebanese American University, told the New York Times (5/29/06). "The Israelis had to be aware that if they assassinated this guy they would get a response."

And, indeed, on May 28, Lebanese militants in Hezbollah-controlled territory fired Katyusha rockets at a military vehicle and a military base inside Israel. Israel responded with airstrikes against Palestinian camps deep inside Lebanon, which in turn were met by Hezbollah rocket and mortar attacks on more Israeli military bases, which prompted further Israeli airstrikes and "a steady artillery barrage at suspected Hezbollah positions" (New York Times, 5/29/06). Gen. Udi Adam, the commander of Israel’s northern forces, boasted that "our response was the harshest and most severe since the withdrawal" of Israeli troops from Lebanon in 2000 (Chicago Tribune, 5/29/06).

This intense fighting was the prelude to the all-out warfare that began on July 12, portrayed in U.S. media as beginning with an attack out of the blue by Hezbollah. While Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers may have reignited the smoldering conflict, the Israeli air campaign that followed was not a spontaneous reaction to aggression but a well-planned operation that was years in the making.

"Of all of Israel’s wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," Gerald Steinberg, a political science professor at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, told the San Francisco Chronicle (7/21/05). "By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we’re seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it’s been simulated and rehearsed across the board." The Chronicle reported that a "senior Israeli army officer" has been giving PowerPoint presentations for more than a year to "U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks" outlining the coming war with Lebanon, explaining that a combination of air and ground forces would target Hezbollah and "transportation and communication arteries."

Which raises a question: If journalists have been told by Israel for more than a year that a war was coming, why are they pretending that it all started on July 12? By truncating the cause-and-effect timelines of both the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts, editorial boards at major U.S. dailies gravely oversimplify the decidedly more complex nature of the facts on the ground.

We have to change the media, and like in other countries, where the media is less biasedtoward the right wing, pro-israel, prowar loons, we see a difference in public opinion. There are plenty of grassroots movements out there working on the piss poor media here in the U.S.

http://www.prwatch.org/

http://www.freepress.net/

http://www.stopbigmedia.com/

www.commoncause.org

all these have links to more resources, facts and groups doing anti-corporate media work--some are better than others, but the goals are similar. Stop the corporate media lie machine.

Alot of good resources in there--I've been checking them out for about 20 min. Everyone should know about these.
Here's a great link that has an in depth analysis of the pro-israel slant in the mainstream US media:

www.ifamericansknew.org

HOLLYWOOD - Mel Gibson reportedly threatened police officers with a tirade of anti-Semitic and sexually abusive remarks after being arrested on suspicion of drunken driving yesterday.
The 50-year-old Passion of the Christ director was pulled over for speeding at 80 mph on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, California, where the limit is 55 mph.

He failed both breath and field sobriety tests and spent seven hours locked up before being released on $5,000 bail.

According to the incident report by Los Angeles County Deputy James Mee, obtained by TMZ.com, the actor repeatedly said, "My life is f**ked" before launching into an anti-Semitic outburst.

The report claims Gibson said, "F**king Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?"

The actor is also reported to have threatened, "You motherf**ker. I'm going to f**k you" to the deputy.

Mee's report adds the allegation that Gibson told officers he "owns Malibu" and the star would spend all his money "to get even with me."

He is also believed to have said to a female officer on the scene, "What do you think you're looking at, sugar t**ts?"

Deputy Mee had originally written an eight-page report on the arrest but the sheriff's department deemed its content too "inflammatory" to release and would merely serve to incite "Jewish hatred."

Los Angeles police would neither confirm nor deny the contents of the report and Gibson's representative Alan Nierob was unavailable for comment.

The actor, a dedicated Catholic, has had to fend off anti-Semitic allegations before, after the release of his controversial 2004 film The Passion of the Christ.

His case will be further investigated but no court date has been set.

atrick McGreevy writes from Beirut:

' Criminalizing Civilians

In the days before the US-commanded forces unleashed the second siege of Falluja in November 2004, a quarter million women, children and old men fled the city, but males between the ages of 15 and 45 were denied passage. They were essentially criminalized and forced to remain in a zone upon which hell was about to descend. These poor souls were condemned to a legal category that philosopher Giorgio Agamben calls hominus sacres, those without rights who can be killed without it being called the murder of a human, homicide.

Israeli leaders have a decision to make. After the IDF’s devastating losses at Bint Jabeil on Wednesday, the Washington Post Foreign Service reported this statement from former Mossad officer Yossi Alpher: “I dare say, based on what we’ve seen so far, these may be the best Arab troops we’ve seen so far.” An Nahar today reported that, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon proclaimed: “Everyone who is still in south Lebanon is linked to Hizbullah, we have called on all who are there to leave.” He then suggested that “maximum firepower has to be used.” As justification, he cited the meeting in Rome, from which “we have in effect obtained the authorization to continue our operations until Hisbullah is no longer present in southern Lebanon.”

Look at this logic: since Israel has asked civilians to leave, any that disobeyed have forfeited their status as civilians. Because the United States and its British followers have blocked the resolution to stop the killing, Israel will continue until Hezbollah “is no longer present.” But remember Hezbollah has been redefined to include all those “still in south Lebanon.” This crude logic renders all the people of southern Lebanon hominus sacres.

A serious war crime may be imminent. The responsibility to protect civilians does not end when an invading army asks them to clear out. An Nahar also reported that hundreds of people were trapped in southern villages. Moreover, there is evidence that some who tried to flee north in cars have been targeted.

On his web log informedcomment.com, Juan Cole argued on Monday that since Hezbollah fighters cannot effectively aim their rockets, and since they must understand they are most likely to hit civilians, they are therefore guilty of war crimes themselves. Hezbollah leaders would undoubtedly respond that they are not intentionally targeting civilians. From the beginning of the war, Israeli leaders have justified the deaths of Lebanese civilians by claiming that they also never target civilians; it is simply that Hezbollah fights from civilian areas and there is a lot of collateral damage when they are targeted.

All of this is bad enough, but what may be in store if the frustrated IDF begins to treat all people in south Lebanon as enemies will be a war crime of a different magnitude. In most past wars, the victors had the luxury of telling the story, and prosecuting the war crimes. In this war, the eyes of the world are squarely fixed on what is about to happen. Israel’s powerful alley may be able to prevent prosecutions of its decision makers, but all will know what decision they made. Most importantly the Arab World we know, and will not forget. Israel has a decision to make. '

Patrick McGreevy
Beirut'

http://www.juancole.com/2006/07/criminalizing-civilians-patrick.html

Sunday, July 30, 2006

The Qana Massacre, Part II

Israeli war planes scored a direct hit on a building in the Shiite village of Qana where destitute farming folk, including old people, women and children, had taken refuge in the basement from Israeli bombing raids. At least 54 are dead, as bodies are pulled from the rubble. 19 children are confirmed dead and another 11 are thought still to be in the basement. The Israelis say they had pamphleted the region demanding that all civilians leave, and high Israeli officials have openly said that anyone who remains is fair game (low civilianity index, and maybe low humanianity index, too). The Israelis don't say, however, how desperately poor hardscrabble farmers including the aged and infirm and children are supposed to travel to Beirut over the roads and bridges that the Israelis have bombed out, and on what they are supposed to live when they get there.

The Israelis had launched 80 air raids on the village of Qana overnight, with large numbers of buildings flattened, according to CNN.

The Israelis appear to be engaged in a concerted campaign of ethnic cleansing in the Shiite towns and villages of southern Lebanon, and are indiscriminately bombing all buildings in the area south of the Litani River. They have chased hundreds of thousands of residents out, and are destroying the property they left behind in a systematic way, rather as they destroy the houses belonging to the family members related to suicide bombers. In other words, the Israelis are engaged in collective punishment on a vast scale. They maintain that rocket launching sites are embedded in these villages. But since Hizbullah keeps firing large numbers of rockets, it does not actually appear to be the case that the Israelis are hitting the rocket launchers. They are demonstrably hitting civilian houses and apartment buildings in a methodical way. There is no independent evidence that this civilian building in Qana was used for any military purpose. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has called for an international investigation and an immediate ceasefire, and he summarily sent Condi Rice away until she brings such a proposal.

Thousands of Lebanese in Beirut demonstrated in response and invaded the UN HQ in the capital. They also chanted against the United States ambassador in Lebanon, Jeffrey Feltman, screaming "Feltman out now!"

Feltman seems to be trapped in the US embassy, away from which most embassy employees have already been sent abroad. He expressed his regret to the Lebanese government for not being able to come to Baabda.

The Israelis bombed the Beirut-Damascus highway again on Saturday, adding to the crippling of Lebanon's infrastructure. Damascus is Beirut's inland trading partner and Lebanese trying to get out of the country have to go that route.

The War in Context" analyzes the decision-making that led to Qana.

Hamid Mir in Beirut finds that even some Christian nightclub owners are supporting Hizbullah! Opinion polls show Christian support for Hizbullah's resistance to the Israelis to have risen to over 50 percent in recent days, from the mid-40s.

Question 1: In what way is the Israeli compaign in South Lebanon different from Slobodon Milosevic's campaign in Bosnia?

Question 2: Since Bush and Rice derailed any move toward a ceasefire of the sort that the entire rest of the world demanded, aren't they directly implicated in this bloodshed?

AP reports on what the moral response would be of a normal human being in high political office:


' French President Jacques Chirac's office said "France condemns this unjustifiable action, which shows more than ever the need to move toward an immediate cease-fire, without which other such dramas can only be repeated."

Jordan's King Abdullah II condemned "the ugly crime perpetrated by Israeli forces in Qana," calling it "a blatant violation of the law and all international conventions."'



We know what we can expect from W.

Issandr El Amrani links to pictures of the Qana massacre and reminds us of the massacre of ten years ago.

Brent Scowcroft argues for a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since the Arab League made such an offer to Israel way back in 2002, I'd say the ball is in Olmert's court. Good luck.

The Crisis Group has also put up a comprehensive peace plan.

Between 2000, when the Israelis withdrew unilaterally from their illegal military occupation of Lebanon's south, through July 12, 2006, six Israeli civilians died in border violence.

Israel's attack on fuel stations at the Christian port of Jounieh and elsewhere have caused massive oil spills on Lebanese beaches, perhaps the biggest environmental disaster ever in the Mediterranean.

posted by Juan @ 7/30/2006

So shameful...so sad.

A dead child is a dead child---wrong no matter what. Let me reiterate---no matter what. The problem is that there are so many, many more dead arab (Lebanese, Palestinian) children than Israeli.
And in spite of your efforts to deflect, the fact remains that this child is NOT a dead israeli child, this child is a dead child because of Israeli terror.

JERUSALEM - Israel suspended air attacks on south Lebanon for 48 hours in the face of widespread outrage over an airstrike Sunday that killed at least 56 Lebanese,

In addition to suspending air attacks, Israel will also allow the opening of corridors for 24 hours for Lebanese civilians who want to leave south Lebanon for the north and would maintain land, sea and air corridors for humanitarian assistance, officials said.

Qana, is a Lebanese village, a small village that I know.
In the matter of fact, almost everyone in the region knows Qana, and that's not because of it's beautiful nature, nor because of any certain thing the villagers of Qana do better than the rest of Lebanese people, and not because a famous leader, poem or writer comes from it, no, not because of any of that.
Qana is very famous, because of a mascare that happened in it, ten years ago, in April 1996 "Israel" bombed that village killing tenths of civilians. And today, the very exact thing happened again.
"Israel" bombed a civilian building, killing over 57 un-armed civilians, out of 63 people that form two families (yes, two whole families) "Shalhoob" and "Hashim".
Among the 57 people that were murdered, 37 children. Thirty seven children.
T h I r t y S e v e n C h I l d r en.

Is it possible to have enough tears to be shed over them?

Needless to say that "Israel" said/will say that weapons were hidden in the village.

T h i r t y S e v e n C h i l d r en, I am assuring you: None of them had a missile, nor a rocket for sure, were killed today.

"Israeli" army and decision makers are cowards and inhumane, thinking that by killing more and more people, they will create enough pressure to gain whatever political demands they have.

They have always been, and are only cowards.
Even in the battle ground, they are weak and they are cowards, how else did a tiny hardly trained group like Hizbollah beat the hell out of them in every direct fight since the beginning of this mess? They are supposed to be number 13 on the list of the most powerful armies in the world, and yet, Hizbollah which is not even an army, made them a joke in front of the whole world. They only know how to press the buttons, and kill civilians from distance, they are not men enough even to be able to do it themselves.

And the world's reaction? Of course they will condemn! What else? And if they tried to work out any practical solution, guess who will use the Vito to stop it?

Yes, you are right.


Oh wait, I am so sorry, I lied, I hid an important peace of information: Condi is sorry!
how sweet is that?

Over 750 civilians killed this far in Lebanon (including five from the one family in another location in the south today, too) and thousands injured, and counting.

http://secretsinbaghdad.blogspot.com/2006/07/sad-qana.html

hey'll say, "Well.. it could have been a Hezbollah hide-out.
We know they'll put themselves among civilians, they're so
terrible. Willing to kill innocent Lebanese people." And
then, they'll bomb bomb shelters, or apartment buildings.
They won't warn anybody, but just say they did and corporate
news America will refuse to confirm or deny the made routinely
baseless allegations THROUGH their/OUR "unbiased", we don't
need any evidence, bin Laden did it, broadcasts.


Nazi Israel


http://hamilton.indymedia.org/usermedia/audio/7/Nazi_Israel.mp3
http://istanbul.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/nazi_israel.mp3
http://la.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/nazi_israel.mp3
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/nazi_israel.mp3
http://english-cyprus.indymedia.org/usermedia/audio/6/nazi_israel.mp3
http://houston.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/nazi_israel.mp3
http://miami.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/nazi_israel.mp3
http://madison.indymedia.org/usermedia/audio/3/43399_1.mp3




"It might have been Hezbollah." Olmert, the anti-Jew spew.

They'll say, "Well.. it could have been a Hezbollah hide-out.
We know they'll put themselves among civilians, they're so
terrible. Willing to kill innocent Lebanese people." And
then, they'll bomb bomb shelters, or apartment buildings.
They won't warn anybody, but just say they did and corporate
news America will refuse to confirm or deny the made routinely
baseless allegations THROUGH their/OUR "unbiased", we don't
need any evidence, bin Laden did it, broadcasts.

Firstly, most of the 'towns' in Israel are military bases.
That is why your never shown who these people are. Second,
you have to already acknowledge, as a person who lives is
Israel being a so named "Jewish" person, that your victimizing
innocent People. You are stealing an innocent person's home,
as a political function of your criminal body. That's
accepted by everyone, all Jews concur, even the nazi jews say,
"Well, we deserve it, cause G-D says we could steal an
in-ocent per-on's hom- and make 'them' suf-er by pu-ting
'them' in a concentrati-n camp, depriv-ng 'them' their food
and water. We're the goo- guys from 'The Book' don't you
know" Then, when you look at The Book, The Book says, God
comes down and chastises those who steal the Jewish name, by
victimizing the innocent to steal Our values, to steal Our
worths. Israel won't speak reason, right? They can't
negotiate honorably across an open table, because they are
thieving an innocent person's property. They put people in
prison without trial, without EVIDENCE. Then we'll ask,
"What's the guy's crime?" and they'll say "He's a Lebanese
guy, or Afghan, or Iraqi, or, he's a Palestinian Christian who
tried to eek out a living in this world honorably, and we just
kidnap 'them' and put 'them' in prison, and no, he doesn't get
a lawyer, don't be silly, heavens, we might even torture his
children if they should throw a rock at an invading nazi tank
bulldozing 'their' once happy Home." That is why they can't
negotiate an honorable settlement, THEY'RE CRIMINALS.
Victimizing our G-D, victimizing Ourselves, by pirating Your
authority. Where is the Messiah when we need him on CNN, CBC,
FOXNews, and the Coast to Coast radio network?

Look, CNN, CBC, and FOXNews KNOWS the bushmob did 911, [VIDEO
of WTC7 is forbidden on all OUR corporate news broadcasts] and
will smile to us ALL while lying to American Soldiers who die
cowardly as teenage dumfuks for the satanic neocon LIAR
enemies of God.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14208.htm

/ / Did the American people see on CNN the child whose face
was burnt by Israeli phosphorous bombs in Lebanon? Did they
hear him screaming in pain at Sidon Hospital, with his mother
falling to pieces in agony beside him because of the injury he
sustained from the terrible bombs? How can the American
people accept their elected President George W. Bush's
rejection of a ceasefire?

Dan Gillerman, enemy of the Jew, tells US, the demon
antichrist forces warned the dirt poor citizens of Qana to
leave the town somehow, but at the same time, nazi Israeli
forces would target us people in trucks, buses, cars and red
cross ambulances fleeing the town. Two, the demon enemy of
Christ, Dan Gillerman on Meet the Press, has officially
admitted, they, the liar zionist enemies of Creation, true
terrorists, have NO EVIDENCE, that any missiles had come from
anywhere near the vicinity, where the enemies murdered almost
entirely, more than fifty innocent children of God. Yet, the
demon enemy of Humanity Gillerman has suggested boldly, that
it was all just Hezbollah's fault anyway, for letting these
People get in the way of their ten's of thousands of
indiscriminate bombing campaigns they've waged against God.
War crimes trials must be demanded, and the rightful execution
of those responsible for such indiscriminate targeting must
meet their fate as the other similar nazis did during
Nuremberg. As so does, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, Sattler,
Blount, Russell, Mattis, and Bering like torturing enemies of
the United States of America.

Peres the DEVIL: 'why do they shoot at us?, and please, no wisdoms of cease-fire'
(the Hezbollah missiles were only sent after the Israeli attack was well under way).


http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2006/07/suicide-mission-to-fill-swimming-pools.html

/ / The captured Israeli soldiers were captured inside Lebanon
(summarized here; see also here and here and here). That
means the self-defense pretext is a lie, and the concept that
Israel has a right to defend itself, spouted by all its
apologists, is irrelevant (the Hezbollah missiles were only
sent after the Israeli attack was well under way). In fact,
Hezbollah only poses a military threat inside Lebanon
defending it from Israel, and is absolutely no military
'existential' threat to Israel itself, meaning that all the
discussions by the disgusting apologists for war crimes, fine
considerations of when you can murder citizens under the
pretext of 'self-defense', is immoral bullshit.

-

Colmes "Ambassador Ginsberg, I keep hearing about 1559, why
don't I hear as often about 242, which deals with 1967
borders, which is also is in contention here. I don't hear
the same people talking about that particular violated U.N.
resolution." [One of almost every other that's been violated
as routinely criminal by nature, ungodly Israel.]

Ginsberg "Oh Alan, come on now. Alan.. Alan look.. you know,
If you want. to start that game.." Hah!

Colmes, you don't have to play in the zionists ungodly world
of trying desperately to mislead Americans into killing their
undefended kids for cash. I feel, you put to much faith into
the bushite's honesty on being trusting fair gamers. They
there at FOXNews want to cheat America as the disenfranchised.
Why? On a level playing field, with open line communications,
we would win as the virtuous. Colmes you talk a mean game,
but the bushite cheat. Venture out on your own, like millions
of others do, and though it may seem so, truly you wont be
alone in your concerns. Example: 'Hannity, did you know that
the FBI contend that General Ahmad funded 911's Atta?'

-

http://smokingmirrors.blogspot.com/2006/07/fools-on-down-road-israeli-terror.html

/ / They use the anti-Semitic slur whenever any criticism
surfaces, even though they are not Semitic, they are
ashka-Nazis. They are warlike Khazars with absolutely no
connection to ancient Israel.

If we HAVE to delineate a race of people to the Jewish
faith, they'd be all black guys from Ethiopia. Zionists are
openly, knowingly evil to our poorer, more intellectually
challenged. They leverage the intellect of the sacrificing
bushite grunt, the coward, the traitor. The bushite wants to
believe in treachery for America, because IT knows it doesn't
have the courage, honor or virtue to for example, arrest ANY
Aegis employee for murder. Who as all do openly operate,
taxing by America's expense, (as a wise pro-bush business
investment tool,) to get killed just ANY AMERICAN teen
soldier/dumfuk whore for the pleasure of taking further more
in Rumsfeld favors - of still leaving Freedom as Justice TRULY
unprotected.

-

Saddam

They say of Saddam, he might be executed because he okayed a
judicial judgment be enforced to put down a criminal group
fighting for sole control of oil, a group that were trying to
overthrow Iraq's entire government, to leave everyone else
without. And when innocent people's lives were jeopardized,
Saddam called a halt to firing. ('Kurds' war 'Kurds' because
both sides tell each other their fighting for the same
Homeland, when in truth, it's just war mongers trying to grab
up more oil for themselves privately with mercenary forces.
While children die in Iraq, they to this day, drown in money
horded.) While America and Israel Generals are committing the
worst war crimes known of in History, against the Innocent as
ourselves unfairly represented. Like bushite Sattler ordering
the murder of more than 250,000 innocent people in Fallujah as
just one example of many.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0607/S00383.htm

/ / IOF chief of staff Dan Halutz "has given the order to the
air force to destroy 10 multi-storey buildings in the Dahaya
district (of Beirut) in response to every rocket fired on
Haifa," reports Khaleej Times, citing IOF radio.

Look, whoever you are, a policeman perhaps or a janitor, maybe
a truck driver, JUSTLY kill with pleasure this war criminal of
OUR Humanity, the ungodly mass murdering nazi TERRORIST Dan
Halutz. After confiming this allegation as verified correct.

-

The Bohemian Grove antichrist death Cult is a REAL top secret
Morningstar scheme captured on video tape for all the World to
see.

George Walker Bush, proud card carrying member of the
"secret", lets kill American kids for cash cult, would quote
the Grove's motto thus: "weaving spiders come not here" and I
would respond "Err.. okay, I'll ask them know you said so if
they should spell tomorrow, (however, I really don't believe
they'll listen, for flies alone can be trying somedays), but,
why I ask pray tell?, and speak better, for I'm hard of
hearing you coherently." Like, tell US again, what's with the
Cult's lodge-room 322, and the silly little pentagram on the
wall you mock life's prayers to? Or, what is the curious
story line function of the player who gets dressed up as the,
heads or tails Reaper deceiver to pretend you bad guys get it
all back in the end? I was just wondering what the hell you
people think your really doing over there worshipping oh..
nothing in particular, while openly stealing America's blood
and treasure from freedom fighting liberators - The unjustly
dying "Army of One" fellows?


/ / In other words, the Israeli generals sent their young
conscripts over the Lebanese border with the intention that
they be captured or die, all in order to create the excuse for
the pre-planned attack on Lebanon. I'm sure the relatives of
the soldiers are proud of them, on the assumption that their
sacrifice was made to protect [anti-Jew Zionist] Israel.


/ / We're told another soldier was kidnapped by Hamas and that
the kidnappers dug a tunnel 650 meters under sand in order to
accomplish this. This is bullshit.


/ / And on-going spiteful acts of destruction are reported.
"Most commonly, Israeli tanks are driving over and flattening
cars whether on the streets or parked on pavements in front of
residences. Personal property inside houses is being
destroyed in house-to-house searches."


/ / Israel is a big military base established on stolen land,
any "right" the world has given it to exist is in violation
of, not in compliance with, universal standards of justice.

-


What is a war crime good for anyway?

/ / The kidnapping of the Israeli corporal is a well known
fact. This "news" has been around the world more times than a
keyhole satellite. It was used as a pretext for Israeli
troops and equipment to move back into Gaza. What most DON'T
know is the very day before, the Israelis kidnapped a
physician and another member of his family. Their whereabouts
and status remain unknown.

It has been widely suggested by the available evidence, that
the Zionists originally sent the anti-Semitic soldiers on a
suicide mission into Lebanon, to lie American Christians into
giving even more to them to victimize further US. Zionists
would kill confused stupid Jews for the easy cash too, see?

-

Nobody puts me up on a cross without a fight to your finish.

Condi, demon witch, NEVER ELECTED, demands Israel be allowed
to continue indiscriminately MURDER US. Has she not seen ANY
footage recently of the bombing in Beirut? Or the targeting
of the Red Cross? Schools? Of course she has. DEMONIC
ISRAEL states they, as Humanity's enemy, would never target
the UN, but will indiscriminately murder whomever should live
in this region of ours as the godly and innocent BETRAYED.

They suggested that Hezzbollah was secretly near there, solely
on the testimony discovered after the event, from a guy that
is now dead. Additionally, this group of observers would be
likely, truly counting terrorist strikes from their vantage
point impartially, if they hadn't been murdered deliberately.
REMOVE "APPARENTLY"!

Start acting honorably with the hunting to arrest or kill
escaping zionist neocon terrorist enemies, my American Patriot
warring to die for Idiots:


Giving Birth to Monster

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=25070

/ / The Palestinians are not my enemies, nor are the Lebanese.
You, have become my enemy. And I will fight you, and so will
many other sane people around the world. But let's look again
at what Rice said: a "New Middle East." What could she have
meant by that? Just what kind of Middle East can you have
when Israel is systematically ethnically cleansing the region
of - well... anybody but Israelis. And there's your answer.
That is, after all, the vision of Israel. And so we see just
what kind of "New Middle East" Condoleezza Rice is talking
about: she is pregnant and giving birth to a Monster.

-

Condi's position to forbid any cease-fire, is to say Peace is
NEVER possible with HER in charge. See, a stop to
hostilities, is no way to end a war against You as the
INNOCENT EVER. Death after trial to Condi for 911.


Israel, the Nazi State

Look, Israel states that because they kidnap innocent persons,
while thieving as demon enemies to Christ, Hitler was right in
gassing the Jews. Why? Because they bomb Lebanon to punish
US, the godly as innocent, stating that would be the correct
thing to do by god. But they are wrong. Why? Being Jewish
is antithetical to the demonic zionist CRIMINAL cause. Israel
is not a "Jewish" state, but that of an ungodly regime that
treats ALL People as G-d unfairly. See?, Israel states
Lebanon has two democratically elected Hezbollah members, "The
Liberators", therefore all the other millions or so people are
up for murder as freedom fighters under their Zionist war
criminal nazi dictate, doing Hitler's banker proud. What is
the crime in wanting to liberate your nation from a bunch of
thieves that plan to treat all others as second class
citizens? With no rights to scream for war crime trials
against the true Nazis? One more time: Okay - so Israel is
saying killing Jews would be the thing to do, because Israel
tells US, all religious Hezbollah relationships deserve
executions, while all “Jews”, support blindly without room for
question, the "Jewish" State’s FUNDAMENATALIST dictate always.
So, since the “Jewish” State supports firing rockets, or
dropping bombs on the innocent in hospitals, schools,
churches, and cars, therefore, like Israel says, all religious
Jews in relationship should be found executed without trial,
like Israel has determined for the determinate value of the
Human population in Lebanon. See, Israel would say, - all
People who fight for fairness through freedom by Justice, are
just guilty because they’re not blindly “Jewish” - UNEQUAL in
Rights -, and as such, would fight back for fairness as the
innocent being robbed if Israel didn’t try to murder more of
them as WE keep coming. See?, Zionist Israel would say for
all of US, all Jews hate all of God, therefore we’re all
worthy of indiscriminate bombing, for what if WE, all people
being of Love, stood up for our rights, as the Human
bloodline? US all, the godly innocent by scriptures, will
defeat the criminal values of the Zionist. A zionist LIAR
profiting off our God as the Innocent suffering, must not be
allowed to remain victimizing. Where is the care for the
murder victims that Israeli soldiers have caused? The
zionists being ungodly war criminals who congratulate such
wicked viciousness against the innocent families in Lebanon or
Gaza?, I thought we left these Nazis defeated after WWII, but
look as Zionist Israel expressing itself reminiscently of the
uncaring deeds Hitler’s regime did, with concentration campers
victimized for theft. Israel is being pure nazi EVIL as enemy
of the Jew, the TRUE Jew. Zionism isn’t tenable. Jews don’t
murder Jews just because they’re Jews, for, that would be
suicide. (Did I tell you Peres is the actually for real,
genuine Devil dealer playing US all wrong super duper stupidly
now?) Why should Lebanon’s democracy be punished by those who
call such ungodly criminal action as justified? Peres, the
DEVIL, just says Israeli terrorist actions are 'justified',
with no need to explain to un-biased zionist newscasters not
interested in defending ourselves from indiscriminate
carnage. No, the bushmob gives them more bombs to assist in
further war crimes. See? the antichrist and Donald "Sexy
cluster dud dropper" Rumsfeld get killed undefended American
kids for the easy cash. And let me tell you, it is easy!
These so called American Patriot Soldiers are total dumfuks,
dying for nothing but their personal cowardice and betrayal.
Just look at what corporate America is doing in support of
democracy in Mexico, or Haiti, or Uzbekistan. Do you think
FOXNews disregard for their freedoms, aren't attitudes they
would have with them when they forbid to report the demon
antichrist, the American Cop killer George Walker Bush wasn't
even verifibly elected in Johnny's America?

America: Death to the bushites, death to Our enemies. Or,
more innocent people will fall dead as murder victims because
of Your apparent confusion on this freedom from bushite enemy
tyranny, they murder US issue. These bushite zionists are
LYING to your American child through our magic tvs, while the
zionist company, Aegis is OFFICIALLY getting the MARINES
killed FOR SURE, in your Name, for a fast bushite buck. Now,
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT??! Jesus would suggest talk
radio, or perhaps is it as true American, you can't be
bothered to try Yourself either. Whatever, later.

Your Freedom Loving Bushite Jailer,

Johnny Wizard - The Son of Man, King to Jews

-

https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/4940/index.php

/ / Those messages say: "from the children of Israel to the
children of Lebanon". Can any one explain this... What is
this madness?

The zionist enemy tries to steal the soul of Jewish children,
but WE ain't buying. All children are God's children, and
zionists, we see, would kill not only Our children, but even
their 'own' for a fast bushite buck. Well, and, sadly, I
suppose, many Americans would do so also. [you probably
missed the video of bushite soldier families cheering at the
prospect of never ending war to sacrifice their kids for.. [on
hopes of course they'll get that big fat life insurance
pay check. [That never comes. [.]]]]

The Son of God HATES evil soulless enemy bushite vermins.

/ / Israel orders the people in the south to evacuate their
villages: when the people try to leave their villages Israel
targets them with Apache helicopters and kills them

/ / Was it wrong for Hezbollah to defend their country and
chase Israel from Lebanese soil? Is that terrorism?


Nazi Israel bans reporting of use of "unique" weapons in Lebanon

http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/israel_censor.htm

While enemy FOXNews compLIES.

-

Death to Our Enemies

Again, soldiers everywhere, my friends, CBC, CNN, and FOXNews
Zionist demon liar broadcasters KNOW the bushmob did 911, but
forbid US to communicate freely for Justice. Instead, they
wish US to war against each other for their demonic pleasures.
Instead of US needlessly slaughtering ignorant ungodly bushite
dumfuks, let's support the FBI's conclusion, on who TRULY
funded the terrorist operations of 911 to nab the REAL EVIL
doers. Or, suffer more from the tyrannies of YOUR cowardice
to stand up for yourself as worth something. With FOXNews
broadcasting about the terrible evils of tin can rockets,
while forbidding US to witness the TERRORIST carnage in
Lebanon, is an insult to every Child loving Human Being.

FOXNews enemy David Hunt 'Do as many Hezbollah like killing as you can.'
Nazi Israel 'Lebanese Christians and Jews are indistinguishable from Hezbollah'
The actual DEVIL! (Peres) 'no civilians or infrastructure is being targeted'

Justice for God

"Demon enemies to God are committing acts of terrorism, hunt
to kill the zionist enemy liars of the Jew" - King of the Jews

http://qc.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/killing_christians.mp3
http://www.stlimc.org/usermedia/audio/4/killing_christians.mp3

War criminals need to be found executed as enemies to Humanity.

911 war criminal Condoleezza Rice 'no cease-fire against the innocent'

911 war criminal antichrist bush snickering 'it's Syria's fault we're giving nazis more bombs'

Peres the !DEVIL! 'no civilians or infrastructure is targeted'

Enemy FOXNews hannity 'ALL civilians are legitimate targets for
MURDER because they might be hiding weapons in their basements'

Remember: Hezbollah liberated Lebanon from nazi thieving savages.
Lebanon, a nation who then, after becoming liberated, became a
democracy.

Nazi Israel, enemy of God and the Jew, has nazi soldiers
targeting all truck drivers in Lebanon for murder, apartment
buildings and Public infrastructure, and therefore, MY
Humanity, God’s Humanity, will not stop until every last nazi
Israeli responsible for such terrorist targeting will be
executed as REAL war criminals. Those who support the
continuing censorship of the clearly documented, ungodly
criminality of the thieving Zionist will be hunted down by US
all, and pay with their Satanic lives instead of our innocent
own held forsaken in God’s name. Death to the bushite, death
to our enemies.

FBI: Zionist antichrist Bush's buddy, General Ahmad funded
911's hijacker Atta. And bush had immediately closed, all
outstanding criminal investigations regarding the terrorist
event of 911. A TRAITOR to ALL American 'dumfuk' Soldiers.

Nazi Israel, the thieving enemies to God, has thousands in
prison as the kidnapped, and regularly, as Zionist enemy of
the Christians, shoots indiscriminately into Palestine for
their TRUE demonic pleasure. Where is their love for any God
when they murder as they have done in Lebanon? Where is their
love for any God when they steal as they have done in Gaza?

From Iran's Ahmadinejad:

/ / "Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him)
the great Messenger of God . . . and at the same time have
countries attacked? The lives, reputations and possessions of
people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of a
few criminals in a village, city or convoy, for example, the
entire village, city or convoy set ablaze?" he writes.
Indeed, I've been wondering the same thing myself.


http://www.rense.com/general63/hez.htm

/ / It is time America understood Hezbollah for what it really
is, not what the Israelis and their Zionist friends say it is.
Unfortunately, our President, Bush, and Conde Rice,
misunderstand, or prefer to remain ignorant of, the truth
about Hezbollah.


Kevin Barrett responds to Bill O'Reilly's Nazi-like attack:

/ / 9/11 was an act of high treason and mass murder, and media
figures complicit in the cover-up will be viewed, a few years
hence, the way we now view Dr. Goebbels. The last time a
bunch of empire-builders tried to trample on our rights, we
had a little uprising called the American Revolution. It’s
time for another one. Let’s kick it off with another Boston
Tea Party—a little red-white-and-blue version of
V-for-Vendetta—and throw the whole Fox News crew[...]

EVERY FOX EMPLOYEE DEMON LIAR WILL FACE PUBLIC TRIAL FOR HIGH TREASON.

/ / July 20, 2006 -- WMR reported that the Israeli military
was using poison gas on villages in south Lebanon. According
to a former U.S. weapons expert who served in Iraq, the
artillery shell in a photo taken in Lebanon (below) is a
chemical weapon delivery device.

An American nation without a disciplined belief in Justice or
God, is a nation that will fall to terror under it’s own will
power.


What Israel is doing in Lebanon is what bushite term "Terrorism".

http://miami.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/killing_christians.mp3
http://english-cyprus.indymedia.org/newswire/usermedia/audio/4/killing_christians.mp3
http://la.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/killing_christians.mp3
http://houston.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/killing_christians.mp3
http://dc.indymedia.org/usermedia/audio/4/killing_christians.mp3
http://baltimore.indymedia.org/usermedia/audio/4/killing_christians.mp3
http://istanbul.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/killing_christians.mp3
http://hamilton.indymedia.org/usermedia/audio/11/killing_christians.mp3
http://arkansas.indymedia.org/usermedia/audio/4/killing_christians.mp3
http://hawaii.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/killing_christians.mp3
http://maineindymedia.org/usermedia/audio/4/killing_christians.mp3

HELP GOD

/ / But where are the Christians? Why is Pope Benedict
virtually alone among Christian leaders to have spoken out
against what is being done to Lebanese Christians and Muslims?
When [pro-bush] al-Qaida captured two U.S. soldiers and
barbarically butchered them, the U.S. Army did not smash power
plants across the Sunni Triangle. Why then is Bush not only
silent but openly supportive when Israelis do this?

Why? Because as the most heinous criminal enemy of Humanity
in history, personally responsible for the escape of himself
with the 911 terrorists, he gets off on having innocent people
murdered for our stolen values. [Did you see the enemy
grinning like a filthy pig with Blair while the bombs were
dropping EVERYWHERE in Lebanon?] An enemy of Christ and
America, he counts that the corporate professional news
sleuthers will refuse to support Justice for ourselves, or the
God of any religion. All for the war mongering neocon
zionists to sacrifice America to HIS brainwashed soulless nazi
bush bitch punks as further glorious satanic bounties by
LYING. For there is no true God, nor true Son who begs
America to support ourselves. Support Justice, support
Humanity, support the trial and execution of FOXNews
propagandists for stating Iran is continuing with it's nuclear
bomb program, the Holocaust never happened, or stating a great
number of other diliberate LIES, as REAL TREASON punishable by
LAW never absent Here. If only you could believe -

1. Pakistani ISI Director General Ahmad funded 911's hijacker Atta.
2. Laden didn't put explosives into WTC building seven, so who did?

Please, I beg, hunt down pro-bush war criming rapists and
torturers in America's name to the ends of this earth to save
Yourselves from the dying hells of tyranny:

Aegis, who self confessed commits terrorist offences as a
profitable zionist corporation, documented by video to murder
PRO-IRAQI People is an ENEMY who gets American Marines killed
indiscriminately. KILL IT PROUDLY. TODAY. NOW. Thanks.
Then, if need be, me and you will fight together later.

-
!!!HOLY FUCK!!!

/ /.... Why is a US defense contractor hosting a known
terrorist website? Here is the evidence showing United
Defense's Al-Hejailan Projects Co. hosting the Hizballah
website.

Realize, why wouldn't any just political military faction,
just call for the hunting of zionist bushite enemies to Christ
or Allah? Against the TRUE 911 TERRORISTS? The actual, FOR
REAL antichrist enemies of God in my beloved America? Why
not?... See? CNN, CBC, and FOXNews KNOWS bush did 911, but
forbids dying as dumfuked teen soldiers to know so. Why? So
the UNGODLY zionists can kill more Innocent American kids for
cash.

-

Iraq: Understanding Why They Raped

/ / How can I condemn any soldiers for wartime rape-murder if
I can't answer for myself? What kind of savagery might I
inflict on a [INNOCENT GOD LOVING] woman or child if [MY
UNAMERICAN lawless pro-bushite] war pushed me [as disciple of
the REAL demon antichrist] far enough?

An American nation without a disciplined belief in Justice or
God, is a nation that will fall to terror under it’s own will
power.


These pictures from Sabbah

/ / AP Photo caption: Israeli girls write messages [love &
peace] on a shell [to murder innocent Lebanese kids] at a
heavy artillery position near Kiryat Shmona, in northern
[DEVIL] Israel

/ / Six days ago there were four buildings with 8 to 10
stories high and a little garden in front of them. My parents
home used to be on the second floor in the building in the
middle. They did not harm anybody their entire life. Neither
did their neighbors.

Demon enemy liars, Zionist anti-Semites, don't need a sliver
of evidence, so the bushite 'just' needs to say, all the
Christians and Jews murdered in Lebanon were hiding among
terrorists, and FOXNews, CNN, and CBC would report US as such
without question. Eight Canadians who were murdered by an
Israeli precision strike were at an emergency health service
center. Is DEVIL Peres to tell US it was secretly not?
Without a shred of evidence to suggests as much. Again, Nazi
Israel is saying if someone victimizes innocent People, like
they have, you would be justified in gassing all the Jews like
Hitler did. And touché, the Zionist neocon best bud bush,
had the grand dad who was Hitler's banker. But, well, who
cares really for the FACTS right lawless "American" citizen?

-

I told you, pro-antichrist Zionist Peres - is the actual DEVIL!

"It all started on July 12 when Israel troops were ambushed on
Lebanon's side of the border with Israel."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HG15Ak02.html

CONFIRMATION: ISRAELI SOLDIERS WERE INSIDE LEBANON WHEN CAPTURED

http://www.voltairenet.org/article142056.html

TRANSLATION FROM SECOND PARAGRAPH:

"In a deliberated way, Tsahal sent a commando in the Lebanese
back-country to Aïta Al Chaab. It was attacked by Hezbollah,
making two prisoners."


http://houston.indymedia.org/uploads/thewall.wmv
http://hawaii.indymedia.org/uploads/thewall.wmv

-

"If they want to hit Hezbollah, let them hit Hezbollah, but not
the civilians. But civilians are all that they are hitting."

That's because as the ungodly enemy of Jews, [see Old
Testament], feel they can escape murdering innocent god loving
people to thieve from as zionists, for CNN, CBC, and FOXNews
forbids the truth from being reported. The CRIMINAL Israeli
zionist government THEIVES innocent peoples homes. Period.
Bush closed outstanding CRIMINAL investigations immediately
after the terrorist events of 911. Period.

-
In Mexico, 2.5 Million Missing Votes Reappear:

/ / If they are so sure they “won,” why do they oppose a full
recount?

-

http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/gassing_the_jews.mp3
http://houston.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/gassing_the_jews.mp3

Israel is saying that Hitler was right in Gassing the Jews.

Thousands of people are held kidnapped in prison in Israel,
without any trial, no evidence is brought against them. They
the Zionists, encourage you to follow their mode of reasoning.
You can slaughter everybody in Israel, and they'd say, "Well
yah, that's what likudniks do too. We totally agree with you.
That is the proper course of action to do, indiscriminate
murder campaigns, against our family and friends, for we do
not believe in a just cause, or a loving God."

They say they're justified in slaughtering the Jews in
Lebanon, because they say a soldier has been kidnapped and
moved on to Iran immediately, it's all Syria’s fault, but they
can kill Jews and Christians in Lebanon endlessly. And yet,
the Lebanese government in power apposes the victimization of
innocent people. While Nazi Israeli accusation after
accusation is given to G-d without a shred of evidence. Nadda.

Enemies of God in anti-Semitic zionist Israel say, it's
appropriate to kill innocent people in Lebanon because they
hold thousands in prison without trial or evidence. Oops, no,
that's nazi Israel,.. I mean because some outside faction
kidnapped a nazi soldier and ferreted him immediately to Iran.
An action Syria is completely responsible for. So, what do
they do? Nazi Israel murders innocent Christians and Jews.

So, as the nazis did, these enemies of Creation believe
mankind does not have the will or the power to speak in
defense of the innocent like Christ is, for our corporate
media masters forbids our truths to be spack freed.

REMEMBER: ZIONIST CBC, CNN, and FOXNews managements know as
Creation’s ENEMIES, according to the FBI, demon antichrist
George Walker Bush’s business partner, General Mahmoud Ahmad
funded 911’s terrorist network - that murdered thousands of
Innocent Americans held worthless to their bottom lines.

-

HELP ME PLEASE

Two seriously dishonorable cops are refusing to defend
Canada's interests, and are threatening the freedoms of me and
my friends. Likely, as cowards who refuse to support the FBI,
side with TRUE TERRORIST fascist enemy forces. I am told,
soon, they are going to attempt fraudulently arresting me,
PIRATING WINNIPEG'S JUSTICE SYSTEM, in support of demon bush's
mass murdering rapist traitors. Now, likely, Winnipeg's local
papers, who criminally cash in on stolen revenues taken from
elderly lottery players, will refuse to inform our Winnipeg
citizenry, soldiers included, that I have been arrested here
in CANADA at the top secret fascist nazi police state request
of George W. Bush and Rumsfeld, because of my public
statements in support of REAL FBI officers, and those two
demons direct culpability for the terrorist crimes of 911.
Please, help yourself, by helping me gain true Justice for our
World community. The ONLY way that they can deprive me my
freedom, is to deny YOURSELF justice on this matter. Please
suport the right cause, and defend myself from those who
insist on aiding and abetting the terrorist crimes of the Bush
Administration.

Pakistani ISI Director General Ahmad orders an aide to wire
transfer about $100,000 to hijacker Atta. Ahmad later resigns
after the transfer is disclosed in India and confirmed by the
FBI. [Dawn, 10/8/01, Times of India, 10/9/01, Wall Street
Journal, 10/10/01, AFP, 10/10/01]

Please, help yourself by forwarding this, my last post to
everyone everywhere, to defend America, to defend FBI officers
who do their job to the best of their ability, and to defend
myself, the Innocent left forsaken.

http://hawaii.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/guilty-of-innocence.mono.mp3
http://miami.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/guilty-of-innocence.mono.mp3

-

An IDF soldier speaks out:

Look who's been kidnapped!

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_22471.shtml

/ / To this very day, there are hundreds of prisoners rotting
in Shin Bet prisons and dungeons, people who have never been
- and never will be - tried. And Israelis are silently resolved
to this phenomenon.

-

A cotush rocket doesn't go more than 37 miles. [20 is MAX 12 is norm]
The nation who harbored the attack in Hi-the, is Israel. Nazi
Israel's reason for killing INNOCENT Christians and Jews in
Northern Lebanon is wrong, and rightly, the likudniks should
be bombing THIEF likudniks, who as alleged by their own words
and actions, have failed to reign in terrorism within their
own borders. [The "craters" in Hi-the measured to be near about
12 inches in diameter.]

http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/the_king_of_the_jews.mp3

The King of the Jews

Hello Humanity, how are you doing?, Johnny Wizard here. I
guess as good as can be expected, considering Israel is still
bombing People indiscriminately. Targeting primarily
Christian and Jews who live in Northern Lebanon. They're
going to punish the government too, when they told US the
soldier prisoner was ferreted over to Iran, and it's all
Syria's fault that this is taking place. So they can kill
near half a billion, not involved innocent People and be
'justified'. Cause the demon antichrist, George Walker Bush
said, Israel has a right to defend herself, all nations do,
against terrorist activities. So Israel can bomb whoever,
doesn't matter. Cause Iran said, their allegations they have
are totally baseless. But, corporate bushite america doesn't
go by facts. [Ahmad funded 911's Atta]. The reason Israel
can not broker a honorable settlement for Peace, is because
they're dishonorable. They STEAL innocent peoples homes.
Corporate America will never show Americans that. Why?
Because as soon as you learn it, the arguments are over. You
know, well, that's a CRIME.

Under American Law, these demon bushites would be gloriously
executed. Like the TERRORISTS Tim Spicer and Cofer Black
would be also, along with the neocons responsible for 911.
But American corporate media masters is going down the way of
lawless bushite nazi grunt contusions, a satanic demon force
that American People refuse to defend themselves over with
just causes.

American tax payers are paying for the indiscriminate mass
murder of the innocent people of our Earth, while bushite
corporate american newscasters continue to tell US, the bad
guys responsible have done nothing wrong with bushite
weaponry. For, the pro-lawless bushite enemies of God's once
great Creation allege the only terrorist destruction taking
place is in ignorant American tax paid for anti-Semitic
Israel. BUSHITES know the neocons did 911, and as TRAITORS
feel American men are not MAN enough to hunt them down and
kill them to defend our falling murdered loving innocent
families. Please help our forsaken God.

-

/ / Don't care about the innocent Iraqi men that PANTANO
murdered, confessed already as done by PANTANO, completely.
All the evidence is in. Read his own statements. He can not
be a better friend, to someone he is opening thieving from as
bushite enemy. That's the best friendship he can extend to
ANYONE on this planet. And that's what his America is all
about. Don't take my word for it, listen to PANTANO!

-

60 Afghan civilians dead in US air strikes

/ / "No, there was no civilian injured, and we have no report
to support the claim," said Tamara Lawrence, spokesperson of
the coalition. The US military in a press release issued
Monday said that the coalition attacks had left more than 40
extremists dead in villages 10 km away from Trinkot.

Almost in the same sentence. Tamara Lawrence claims those
that wish to support the FBI to protect America though
Justice, are up for murder by the ungodly criminal "lawless"
antiChrist forces, claiming YOU and your innocent children,
will be just uncivilized extremists, not worthy of life, but
only their ungodly hatred for Freedom in America.

/ / In May, the coalition dropped bombs in Afghanistan on no
fewer than 750 occasions, more than the ordnance dropped in
Iraq.

/ / When Is a 14-Year-Old Girl a 'Woman'?

/ / Hail the [lawless bushite anti-}American heroes...

-

Make It So

http://dc.indymedia.org/usermedia/audio/13/i_am_johnny.mp3
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2006/07/04/i_am_johnny.mp3

Look, my friends, bushite are the real enemy. They refuse to
allow open discussions in our newspapers and radio TV
broadcasts. I know a producer at the CBC, Canadian's
Broadcast Corporation, a producer that was promptly 'let go'
for starting on a informative depleted uranium program to
attempt educating Our DYING teen Soldiers. Cancelled DEAD.

Trust me please. CNN, CBC, and FOXNews corporate managements
know, bush and the neocons did 911, but as the contemptibly
ungodly, it's only YOUR LIFE they are willing to sadistically
sacrifice for more criminal ill gotten gains as the TRULY
Satanic. They rarely have any true power, but for to know
they secretly work to have you murdered for the Antichrist.
While, I, as Creator, am Life and Death. So, needless to say,
I know what I speak to be so really. I am willing to do
public presentations through our media against any or all
bushites, for we are Self created as the Earth's Supreme
bushite educator/executioner, but the worthless millionaire
media masters, don't want US to win by freely communicating
truly see? Why? They, in a free market place of ideas, would
have nothing we would willingly buy from them as our
sell-outs. We'd have not to pay for free energy, free water,
or, free love.

Look, bushites are consciously aware that they are, enemies of
all Human beings as the TRULY ungodly. Bush bitch E-N-E-M-Y
George Norry KNOWS Ahmad funded Atta, but forbids DYING
America to know so as TRAITORS to themself. It's like when
Cheney lobbed Publicly for torturing innocent people as a
bushite enemy's pleasure. A crime that Reagan DID MAKE LAW
that STANDS STILL in Johnny's America, to now have demanded
life term prison sentences against ALL bushites who would
treasonously fight as such, and death to those who directly
participate in the murder of an innocent other.

Make it so.

-

'Joke' song about Iraqi [innocent child] killings to be recorded

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1164556.ece

/ / A [satanic bushite] radio talk-show host is to record and
release a song written by a [thieving] US Marine corporal about
killing [innocent childhood] members of an Iraqi family.

A song celebrating the murder of innocent children sung by
proud to be enemies of God.. a big smash hit or bomb perhaps
inside the dying new Antichrist demon "lawless" America? Fuck,
do I HATE BUSHITE with everything I am as me. DIE BUSHITE DIE.

-

CCR PUBLISHES FIRST REPORT ON TORTURE AT GUANTÁNAMO

...INNOCENT Prisoners being interrogated by BUSHITE at Guantánamo have been:

· sexually harassed and raped or threatened with rape;
· beaten [likely to death, for 'escapes' 'later' get found dead];
· tortured at bases abroad before transfer to Guantánamo;
· threatened with transfer to a foreign country, for torture;
· held in solitary confinement for periods exceeding a year;
· deprived of medical treatment for serious conditions, or allowed
treatment only on the condition that they "cooperate" with interrogators;
· deprived of sleep for days and weeks and, in at least one case, months;
· exposed to prolonged temperature EXTREMES;
· routinely "short-shackled" for hours and even days during interrogations.

KILL THE UNGODLY BUSHITE ENEMY FOR CHRIST
http://www.cair-net.org/images/lcpl11.jpg

-

http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/news-tunes.mp3

Johnny on CPAC

http://istanbul.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/johnny-on-cpac.mp3
http://houston.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/johnny-on-cpac.mp3

A BUSHITE GRUNT PRISSING PROUD AS OUR ENEMY "I grabbed her
little sister and put her in front of me . . as the bullets
began to fly, the blood sprayed from between her eyes, and
then I laughed maniacally." [, then were heard the cheers of
godless bushite dumfuk traitors obscening to God and Man as
the unholy enemy.]

What ever happened to butterfly kisses after evening prayers?

Are you telling me, an American Father, wouldn't gloriously
kill this lawless bushite enemy and his demonic ilk, for our
love of girls everywhere? Or, how about the UNARRESTED
soldiers we witnessed on video beat shoeless children
practically to death while laughing and cheering? Or like
those that speak zero defenses for Haditha's confessed MASS
MURDERING irrational women and child killers? The REAL demons
CONFESS to going into a house, WITHOUT reasoned approach, and
slaughtering an entire INNOCENT family.. for nothing but
their lifeless SATANIC pleasures. The 'cause'? "The [mass
murdered unarmed innocent neighbor's] back door was open.."
To, for God, gloriously, with love, kill these un-arrested
murderous continuing ungodly bushite nazi savages, is to war the
TRUE enemies of Humanity to save the lives of our precious loved
ones. Please help US, please help God, and bag a demon LIAR
bushite to defeat the 911 "escaping" terrorists, the enemies
of America, the enemies of Johnny, the enemies of Life.
Again, these very same thieving bushites of Haditha, admit
Publicly also to targeting for indiscriminate MURDER, the
innocent Peoples of Fallujah, and insist, that's what all
bushite soldiers do most normally in combat for the antiChrist
EVIL George Walker Bush - the thieving traitor forces siding
against our great God's Creation, being led lowly as fascist
nazi cowards, too weak and afraid to defend US innocent in war
time. A "lawless" bushite soldier wars in contempt of all
logic and reason as EVERYONE'S ENEMY.

DIE BUSHITE DIE.

/ / She was afraid, she told her mother. Her unspeakable
tragedy illustrates a basic fact of [bushite enemy]
occupation: Iraqi civilians are at the mercy of immature
young Americans [truly soulless bushite rapists, the "lawless"
disciples of the for real demon antichrist, 911's Mr. bush
Jr.] with guns. They have no rights.

See, the bushite enemies, claim they can not be found
accountable to a RULE of Law. "Lawless" the demon enemies
claim to armed freedom fighting American Patriots. ANYONE in
America's America, who claims bushite grunts can not be found
accountable, such as the likes of a Tim Spicer at Aegis, Cofer
Black at Blackwater, or South African death squad goons, shoot
dead as our sworn enemies my brother. PANTANO claims he can
not be judged publicly by God or America, as a war criminal
who freely admits he murdered AT LEAST two unarmed innocent
Iraqis for no justified reason. He, as bushite enemy, states
instead, he has been "acquitted" for the first degree murders,
without any criminal American judge judging so. Just him and
his nazi lover, his bush bitch bum buddy whore everyone is
gunning for, Maj. Gen. Richard Huck, enemy commander of the
2nd Marine Division based at CAMP LEJEUNE. These two enemies
of Freedom feel that America must be denied Justice for
Humanity under the tyrannies of their treasonous bushite
CRIMINAL decree. Why not just execute the lowly traitors
instead my friends, and in that process, potentially free
millions of lives, as something truly flag waving
Pro-American? Death to the bushites, death to our enemies who
claim Justice un-attainable by our standards not there
presently commanding our moral courage as outrage.


I AM,

Johnny Wizard

p.s. The crimes of bushite, are the crimes CNN claims are
crimes of the terrorist enemies in Iraq. Corporate america sucks.

-

Pope Paul IV, "If you want peace, work for justice"

/ / See the bushite liar enemy of Liberty and freedom who
denies this Justice, then feel glad to kill it for your love
of a real God suffering.

-

They go, "Yah, but we were elected.", yah, but you didn't tell
us you were going to be a traitor when you took office.

http://la.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/07/i_am_johnny.mp3
http://baltimore.indymedia.org/usermedia/audio/13/i_am_johnny.mp3

-

KNOW:

George Bush did 911 with General Ahmad, according to the FBI

Know, that all the emails that foxnews take from the Public,
all the emails that cbc takes from the Public, and all the
emails that cnn takes from the Public, have received my posts.
Stating, George Walker Bush did 911 with General Ahmad,
according to the FBI, and our corporate news professionals,
don't want our soldiers to know that. They’d rather see them
die as cowards, as enemies of Freedom, assisting the
terrorists who committed mass murder in our names back in New
York City on 911.

FBI says, ‘No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11'

“The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it
is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department
of Justice than decides whether it has enough evidence to
present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998
United States Embassies being bombed, bin Laden has been
formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not
been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11
because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to
9/11.“


CNN's Anderson Cooper broadcast on July 3rd, 2006

"bin Laden's got company, and it isn't pretty. Terrorists,
polygamists, and just plain thugs. Inside the FBI's 10 Most
Wanted. How they track down and capture some the worst
criminals in the world. Tonight, on 360."

Bring it On! - A Vet Speaks Out

” Before you start on the Taliban supported Bin Laden drivel
though, show me ANYWHERE on the FBI most wanted terrorist
page ANY information linking OBL specifically with the events
of 911.“

Neocon bush bitches, who work at our private news corporate
headquarters, are traitors to Christ as TRUE enemies to the
American flag, freedom as Justice for US all. The fair minded
Son of a God included.

In August 2001, a month before 911, Collin Powell gave the
Taliban 43 million dollars. So, why don't you arrest Collin
Powell?, why shouldn't Collin Powell be bombed? With a
thousand pound bomb, and kill, you know, everybody else who
lives in his village too, because he's a "Taliban". WHY? You
see? you go, "Well, yah, that's true, it's completely
documented correct 100 percent, but, it doesn't fit in with
our bullshit demon lies – that serve the demon antichrist who
kills our kids for cash! Undefended kids for the continuing
big cash withdrawals regarding Your personal inaction to
support ourselves on this Justice for our Humanity subject.

The windfalls of tyranny can be quite staggering when you
don’t think about it actually costing you something.

We had to call the Chief News director at Al-jezzerah.

/ / In an even more bizarre twist, just hours before the tape
was found and aired by AlJazeera, Colin Powell announced in
the US Senate that a “Bin Laden tape is coming proving Iraq’s
links with Al-Qaeda.

Strangely, this uruknet.com writer, was not aware that the
Chief News Director at aljazeerah or aljazira or aljazeera or
aljazeerah or.., didn't have the Mr. Powell tape in their
possession, until hours after he, Mr. Powell, pronounced they
had already received the tape clandestinely, through the same
single top secret channel they always have. And, second,
where did this quote “Bin Laden tape is COMING proving Iraq’s
links with Al-Qaeda.” come from as recorded before the Laden
tape showed up late? I'd wager that quote didn't show up
until after the prime event in question, because I had no
recollection. For, it wasn't believed by Powell, that they
hadn't the tape already from "Al-Qaida", he had previously
heard of.. mistakenly. Specifically. From somebody. Whom?
Unless, perhaps, Powell speaks a poor Arabic..

/ / Powell claimed to have an audio tape proving that Saddam was
supporting Osama Bin Laden. But independent translation of
the tape revealed Osama's wish for Saddam's death.


According to whom?

Example 1:

/ / Although no where in the tape, so-called ``Bin Laden''
referred to his alliance with Saddam Hussein of Iraq, the US
media and government are DESCRIBING IT AS A PROOF
[nonetheless] to their allegations that Saddam has links with
Al-Qaeda.

Example 2:

Just before the ending to neocon Zarqawi, Zarqawi released a
four hour tape. FOUR HOURS! And in it, he as per-usual
advocates the INDISCRIMINATE murder of innocent Iraqis, but
then he did something else. He advocated "Al-Qaida" to not
even bother targeting American forces for now. No lie.
[Think of all those that co-operated with Rumsfeld for 911, or
Spector for JFK, and how certainly, they could not be trusted
for blabbing as dishonorable thieves,.. right? Work for a
zionist neocon enemy of Life, and they'll steal from
themselves behind your back, when nobody is looking, every
time.]

Then, the new and improved Laden series came out, praising
Zarqawi's wise words! While, 'without reason' correcting the
Zarqawi parlance - by killing three American Soldiers right
off, just to make it look good for the zionist neocon
traitors. Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc.
Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., “killed in a barbaric
way.”, and Spc. David J. Babineau, 25, of Springfield,
Mass., all were from the 101st Airborne Division out of Fort
Campbell, Kentucky. Left alone on the most dangerous
intersection in the entire Middle East. Who was the proud to
be front line decision maker worrying for bush's thiefdum of
demon liars I say? Doesn't want to talk freely eh...

Was he just like this bushite illusioning escapist, rapist and
murderer? http://www.cair-net.org/images/lcpl11.jpg

-

New laws to punish whistle blowers

/ / He wants longer jail sentences and the removal of a key
legal defence of "necessity" for whistleblowers.

Look, the government has to live up to obeying the law. So,
to disclose a government official's criminal wrong doing, is
to uphold the Constitution or the Flag, and certainly not as
FoxNews or the American Supreme Court would proclaim,
treasonous to their ungodly criminal kind.

Did you know that a bushite liar will victimize anybody,
including a fellow bushite liar for a stolen nickel as our
Humanity's dumfuk nazi enemies? A good bushite, is a lifeless
dead bushite WAR CRIMINAL, halted from further victimizing our
innocent Humanity. Death to the murderous bushite, death to
America's true terrorist enemies.

Ariel Sharon, before he died, was caught personally involved
in the criminal attempt to blow up the Mexican Congress with
dynamite - as a bonifide war mongering terrorist leader of
america’s Holocaust denying, cowardly nazi lying Israeli
racist military don't you know. What?, too many worlds?

Can I help everyone single handedly take over the news word
with good old reasons, namely, our own presently?.. Measure
is good to me. Evidence is the formulation of ANYONE’S guilt,
EVIL bushite demon liars spew otherwise as our criminally
benefacting ungodly enemies. Traitors. WE, THE PEOPLE,
instead, want to nab the true, evil doing terrorists from the
criminal acts committed in our names in New York City on 911.
Starting with everyone of the criminally malfeasant – War
Criming Bush Administration. Held without sails until we can
together, talk politically this thing through internationally
with powerful words on Justice. All stolen Iraqi assets will
be tracked down religiously, then returned with interest,
while emergency food, water, and health care provisions will
be trucked in by the cargo holds, paid for additionally, by
the stolen funds that will be returned through treasonous
price-fixing Halliburton. Har har.

By the way, Joe, how are the funds? can you front me a couple
a'grand, so I can attempt to hire some constitutional lawyers
for my legal defense up here in, we love Canada? Then, as a
plus, we can go on to save the world? With a detailed, let's
just wing it, Justice for All including Johnny strategy?

Have I told you it’s a-l-m-o-s-t becoming acceptable to go to
prison here in corporately censored North America for simply
being a truth telling Human, as real Justice is?, Godly?

Chris Mathews, Olberman, and the rest of you lot from the
comedy channels, make way, here comes Johnny Jesus! Holy Fff!

-

5 GIs probed in Iraq rape, killings
Chicago Sun-Times

” The official said the rape and killings appear to have
been a ''crime of opportunity,'' noting that the [lawless
pro-bushite] soldiers had not been attacked by insurgents but
had noticed the woman. [undefended by a real man]“

-

"Support Our Troops"

” "That phrase [Support Our Troops] has become associated
with the uncritical, unthinking, blind support of the American
position in Afghanistan and Iraq," he said. "It isn't just a
folksy saying any more. If they wanted us to be thinking of
the troops, perhaps that's what the T-shirts should say."“

-

US-led offensive in southern Afghanistan kills hundreds

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m24368&hd=0&size=1&l=e

” The Pentagon routinely describes all victims of military
operations as Taliban, even if they turn out to be women
and children.“

-

/ / Interior Minister Roni Bar-On told Israel Radio: "Hamas
well understands ... that the sky will fall on them if they
harm Gilad Shalit."

No demon enemy. Nazi Israel will murder, TERRORIZE, as they
have for decades, like nazis do, completely innocent people,
in no way connected to any alleged crime. Like the gas
chambers of the Holocaust, Likudniks murder helpless people on
the brink of starvation to thieve from as the ungodly. More
than 8000 missiles had been fired indiscriminately into Gaza
Since January 2006, and the request to release 1000
Palestinian prisoners, is of prisoners held without trial, or
evidence of any indictable offenses. Enemies of the Innocent,
enemies of Christ is what an anti-Semitic neocon thieving
likudnik TERRORIST is. Just read the Old Testament about
these LIAR demon G-d betrayers. No love for People anywhere,
especially Jews.

Besides, it is well documented, Hammas, was financially backed
by the Likudniks to destabilize a freeing people in the region
for criminal profits stolen from ignorant "Christian" American
tax payers.

” You see? you go, "Well, yah, that's true, it's completely
documented correct 100 percent, but, it doesn't fit in with
our bullshit demon lies - that serve the demon antichrist who
kills our kids for cash!“

-

The Cruelest "Apartheid Wall" of All:
Protecting Israel, Intimidating Congress, Lying to the
American People

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/32145

-

REPUGLICON ENEMIES

"Al-Qaida" = "General Mahmoud Ahmad" = "bush's ungodly partners in crime"

http://istanbul.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/06/repuglicon-enemies.mp3
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/repuglicon-enemies.mp3

-

Where is enslaved by the demon antiChrist America really truly going?

http://www.freetheslaves.net/2006/06/22/trafficking-in-iraq/


”"A recent DOD investigation...identified a number of abuses, some of
them considered widespread, committed by DOD contractors or
subcontractors of third country national (TCN) workers in Iraq. Some of
these abuses are indicative of trafficking in persons...."“

Thank You Lt. Ehren Watada

http://thankyoult.live.radicaldesigns.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view
&id=35&Itemid=43

"Al-Qaida" = "General Mahmoud Ahmad" = "bush's ungodly partners in crime"

Terror Expert: London Bomber Was Working For MI5
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2006/270606londonbomber.htm

-

http://houston.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/06/people-of-earth.mp3
http://houston.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/06/myth---a_johnny_wizard_journey.mp3
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/people-of-earth.mp3
http://la.indymedia.org/uploads/2006/06/people-of-earth.mp3


BUSHITES REACH NEW LOW
dying for lies no longer in disguise

Again, realize, FOX, CNN, and CBC will all in the thousands,
receive this information about 9/11's Ahmad, but will refuse
to support honorable Police officers, our Humanity's cause for
Freedom through Justice, or our beliefs in any religion.
They, as murderous sadists, fascists, obstruct Justice for
ourselves by refusing to report on the facts of why America
continues to fight, dying sacrificed, while censoring your
cries for understanding. FOXNews decisions don't formulate
our interests by relying upon documented TRUTHS as protections
about this silently dying as unfairly victimized world. Left
forsaken, in Your name..

”"Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for killing the
soldiers, " [..] i.e., World War Four, as plotted by the
neocons.“ Three soldiers left alone on the most dangerous
check point in Iraq? All of what any soldier singly
strategizes, thrown completely out the door without the
simplest considerations? Soldiers are dumb, true, but
generally, not that. Goes to show. Follow this..

See, it is now officially acknowledged worldwide, "Al-Qaida",
is just General Mahmoud Ahmad, bushite liar Kimmit, task force
626, and beheader Blackwater mercenaries who dress up as Arabs
for the easy money in getting Marines killed as the leaderless
bad guy dumfuks. How dumfuked? They, "The Marines", broke
out of prison two bushites that were dressed up as Arabs, who
were caught shooting at Iraqi police officers, in a car laced
with explosives to keep the war going for the neocon's P2OG.
TO GET MARINES KILLED. See?, total dumfuks. Or TRUE cowards.

”Lt Col Tim Spicer [the Aegis anti-Iraqi terrorist] asserts
that the soldiers who shot an unarmed teenager in the back,
having searched him, did no wrong. In our view this is a
totally unsuitable individual to be awarded such a
potentially controversial contract in Iraq.“

”[COWARDLY] US troops take over mosque, turn it into a
headquarters for themselves in ar-Ramadi Saturday.“ See?
How stupid is that?

Why can they not stand up as real men, to war those truly
responsible for the cowardly terrorist acts of nine-eleven, or
the bombing of Samarra? No, as cowardly demonic enemies of
America, brag about murdering innocent women and children,
like, I'd kill him easy, Gunnery Sergeant John Merriman, "At
first I froze on seeing the civilian woman. She then crossed
back again with the child ["no older than 10"] and went behind
a wall. Within less than a minute a guy with an RPG came out
and fired at us from behind the same wall. This happened a
second time so I thought, 'Okay, I get it. Let her come out
again'. She did and this time I took her out with my M-16."

See? I'd joyously kill this dumfuk bushite in praise to God.
"Let her come out again". Think about it. Death to the
bushite, death to our enemies. To kill a bushite thief, is to
save the lives of the godly innocent they murder in our names.
Here's another, that any real man from any country, likewise
would kill instantly in defense of Freedom and Liberty.

”Mike Brooks was one of the commanders who had given the
order to shoot at civilian vehicles. It weighed on his mind,
even though he felt he had no choice but to do everything to
protect his marines from another ambush.“

Weighed on his mind to indiscriminately commit mass murder?
Fuck you. See the bushite, you kill it for Christ, you kill
it for America, you kill it for the Love God has for children
everywhere. Die bushite die.

Who would have thought a soulless bushite slave would kill
another bushite slave for a stolen nickel that they likely
spooked from an undefended American grand parent, left still,
in the repuglicon clutches of the lawless demon anti-Christ?
I did. As does many others.

”Marine Airhart who quit in disgust of witnessing the truly
demonic behaviors of the bushite enemy forces "I was there
four months," he says of Guantanamo, "and there wasn't a day
that there wasn't some sort of prisoner-beating festivity
going on." “

Oh, and by the way, bushites are currently wishing to pirate
our public justice system here in Canada, and I might actually
go to prison fraudulently, for pro-totalitarian interests, as
the TRUE Leader of the Free World, all because You apparently
refuse to defend yourself by helping me out some. Private
interest media maestros don't want to tell our dying for bush
soldiers, our

How many must die before Israel's thirst for dead children is quenched

Not in My Name
Nour Odeh, The Electronic Intifada, 30 July 2006

A demonstrator leaves a placard in a Lebanese army post outside the UN house, 30 July 2006. (Christian Henderson/(IRIN)
Words are cheap when used to describe the ongoing slaughter and destruction in Lebanon and Palestine at the hands of the US-funded Israeli occupation army. No matter how eloquent or expressive, words stand helpless and ring hollow when confronted with the distressing human suffering inflicted on Lebanese and Palestinian civilians by the Israeli war machine and the utter apathy, even indifference, of world powers towards them.

Israeli attacks have killed at least 615 Lebanese civilians in the past 18 days and 160 Palestinians over the past month. Yet, in the name of "self-defense," Israel is shielded from criticism and allowed to continue to systematically destroy Palestinian and Lebanese infrastructure, attacking residential areas, Red Cross convoys, medical crews, and even civilians fleeing death and destruction at the demand of the Israeli army. At least 800,000 Lebanese civilians are now displaced, forced to seek shelter in schools, worship houses of all faiths, and even public parks. They are short of water, food and medicine because Israeli air strikes have targeted or prevented the movement of aid convoys that attempt to come to their rescue. In the meantime, the over 1.3 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and already brought to the brink of starvation by over four months of a choking economic siege, are without water or electricity after Gaza's only power plant was bombed and water networks were destroyed, while fuel and food supplies are running out.

Despite this bleak humanitarian situation, the United States, Israel's patron and ultimate protector, continues to declare that the time remains "inappropriate" to seek a ceasefire in Lebanon, or Palestine for that matter. In the United Nations, the undiplomatic US representative, Ambassador John Bolton, went as far as saying that there is "no moral equivalence" between the thousands of Lebanese civilians, killed, crushed, burned, and maimed by the Israeli assault with the Israelis wounded by Hezbollah attacks. Even a simple condemnation of the Security Council for the Israeli bombing of a UN observation post in Southern Lebanon, which killed four international observers on 26 July, was blocked by the United States representative.

Perhaps given his declared disdain to the United Nations, Mr. Bolton forgot to read its Charter or the Fourth Geneva Convention, which does not distinguish between civilian victims and award them all, without exception, equal protection - in theory. International human rights law, which seems to be more of a nuisance rather than a reference to Mr. Bolton, also states that regardless of the pretext, states that attack civilians and civilian infrastructure commit war crimes, liable to international reproach and punitive action - again, in theory. But one cannot blame the undiplomatic diplomat for his offensive and outright racist comments, for he represents an administration that has allowed itself to commit war crimes and openly defy international human rights law under the pretexts of "fighting terrorism" and "defending/spreading democracy." Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure and neighborhoods in Afghanistan and Iraq are but a few examples of the above.

President Bush Jr. showed equal indifference when the crisis first broke while he was visiting Germany on 13 July. He was then more interested in the wild boar roast he was going to have with his German host later that evening than the fires feeding on Lebanese flesh and blood. Mr. Bush was also more enthusiastic about the war when he declared that Syria too "must be held responsible" for this crisis, widening the scope of political and military tension in the explosive crisis. Four days later, and as the human toll of the crisis was rising, Mr. Bush was caught off guard in St. Petersburg talking to Tony Blair regarding the situation with a language expected only from the crudest of laymen.

The Israeli side has attempted to market this campaign of death and destruction in Lebanon and Palestine as "self-defense" intended to "defend peace," in the words of Shimon Peres, who in 1996 gave the orders to bomb a UNIFIL post in Qana, South Lebanon, where hundreds of civilians had sought refuge. That attack burned 106 Lebanese civilians to death, also in the name of Israeli "self-defense." Israeli officials have also allowed themselves the audacity of speaking on behalf of the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples they are assaulting. In the UN, the Israeli representative Ambassador Dan Gillerman was able to lecture the Security Council with a straight face about the right of the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples to live in peace and prosperity. He also couldn't hide his country's contempt for both peoples and their choices or rights. The Israeli Ambassador claimed that the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples had been hijacked by Hamas and Hizbollah, respectively, even though both parties had risen to power (in varying degrees) through US-backed free and democratic elections. So much for respecting free choices!

To top off this shameless Israeli public diplomacy campaign, Ms. Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, states repeatedly, without the slightest embarrassment, that her country's assault on Lebanon is meant to "help" the Lebanese government exercise its sovereignty and implement Security Council resolution 1559! Unfortunately, she has yet to be asked how the bombing of Lebanese bridges and roads, army barracks, and communications antennas is meant to help the government nor how infringing upon the sovereignty of Lebanon is meant to solidify that country's sovereignty. More importantly, this shocking remark did not invite a response that would remind the Israeli official that her country infringed upon Lebanon's sovereignty through land, air, and sea over 11,000 times in the past six years. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, it must be noted that there is no other country in the world that has defied more Security Council resolutions than Israel. Hence, it is baffling to see it use the implementation of resolution 1559 as one of its pretexts for the offensive.

The crowning jewel of this crisis, with its twisted logic and perverse objectives, is the statement of the US Secretary of State, calling the current carnage "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." These "pangs" of a foreign-grown and forcibly implanted pregnancy are more like deafening "bangs" that shatter the homes, hopes, and future of Lebanese and Palestinian children. They are the blows Ms. Rice is allowing to continue to burn, maim and kill civilians in Lebanon and Palestine. Ms. Rice's "new" Middle East is being molded by the charred remains of children and their hopes for a dignified life in Palestine and Lebanon. These "pangs" are gaining momentum from the fires raging in Palestine and Lebanon and at their peoples' expense. It seems that bucketfuls of Palestinian and Lebanese blood are also the required paint for this "new" Middle East, with their moans and cries of pain -- the background music. The question then becomes, who is this "new" Middle East for and who asked Ms. Rice to volunteer in ushering it in with such disgraceful and outright racist apathy to Middle Easterners' suffering and pain?

This cataclysmic American ideology that justifies death and destruction in the name of "peace" is feeding the fires in the Middle East. It feeds these fires literally, through the hastened shipment of even more bombs to Israel, including the horrific "bunker busters." It also does so metaphorically, through the political position that prefers to keep the civilian death toll rising by impeding the UN Security Council from seeking as much as a "cessation of hostilities."

Usually, the lady of justice is blind because she is unbiased and fair. Today, we live in a world where blindness only occurs to the suffering and violated rights of the weak. The Lebanese and Palestinian peoples seem to be the Children of a lesser God for America and whose blood and suffering are necessary "pangs" for the realization of its policy goal. This goal sees no sovereignty but that of Israel and only affords its citizens the advantages of being civilians. It also envisions a Middle East where Israeli occupation is made irrevocable, acceptable, and not subject to as much as verbal defiance. It protects the last occupation army in the world, allowing it to persist in its occupation and select when, if ever, to respect the sovereignty of its neighbors. However, it is undeniable that after this carnage, the real "pangs" will come when the Israeli occupation regime will crumble just as all other racist and oppressive regimes before it did. That's a historical eventuality and only then will these "pangs" be voluntary, home-grown, and welcome.

Finally, it must be said that there is a very large mental banner blanketing the Middle East in response to this policy and supposed birth "pangs" for America's "new" Middle East. It says: Not in my Name ...

here were no Hezbollah missile launchers or fighters in or around the building that the Israeli Air Force destroyed in Qana on Sunday.

August 1, 2006

In its lead story [1] today (August 1), the Hebrew edition of Ha’aretz Online reported that the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) claim that Hezbollah missile launchers and Hezbollah fighters were in and around the building in Qana which they shelled early Sunday morning was false.

Oddly, this article which points to Israeli culpability and recklessness in what some are calling the IDF's second massacre in Qana (the first was in 1996), has been largely ignored in the international press.

According to the newspaper, the IDF “decided to attack houses in a specific radius of a place that was used in the past to launch missiles.” The article states that the tactic of choosing buildings as targets that are near areas from which rockets were launched in the past has been used before.

Initially, Israeli military sources had reported [2] that the deaths in Qana where caused not by the Israeli air attack early Sunday morning, but by an accidental explosion, many hours later, of Hezbollah ordinance which was stored inside the building. According to the Ha’aretz article, this is not true. Israeli Air Force sources have admitted, according to Ha'aretz that the deaths in Qana where caused by the Israeli shelling. Between 30 and 60 deaths were reported as a result of the building collapse. Many bodies are still believed to be buried beneath the rubble.

Additionally, the claim of the IDF that leaflets were dropped on the weekend which warned of an attack were also untrue. The leaflets were actually delivered "some days" before the weekend, according to military sources.

[1] Ha'aretz Online, August 1, 2006, "Call For A Official Commission to Investigate the Explosion at Qana" http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/745130.html

[2] Jerusalem Post, July 30, 2006, "Kana Collapse Was Hours After Attack," http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1153292036218&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

War of the Generals
Knife in the Back

By URI AVNERY

The day after the war will be the Day of the Long Knives.

Everybody will blame everybody else. The politicians will blame each other. The generals will blame each other. The politicians will blame the generals. And, most of all, the generals will blame the politicians.

Always, in every country and after every war, when the generals fail, the "knife in the back" legend raises its head. If only the politicians had not stopped the army just when it was on the point of achieving a glorious, crushing, historic victory

That's what happened in Germany after World War I, when the legend gave birth to the Nazi movement. That's what happened in America after Vietnam. That's what is going to happen here. The first stirrings can already be felt.

* * *

THE SIMPLE truth is that up to now, the 22nd day of the war, not one single military target has been reached. The same army that took just six days to rout three big Arab armies in 1967 has not succeeded in overcoming a small "terrorist organization" in a time span that is already longer than the momentous Yom Kippur War. Then, the army succeeded in just 20 days in turning a stunning defeat at the beginning into a resounding military victory at the end.

In order to create an image of achievement, military spokesmen asserted yesterday that "we have succeeded in killing 200 (or 300, or 400, who is counting?) of the 1000 fighters of Hizbullah." The assertion that the entire terrifying Hizbullah consisted of one thousand fighters speaks for itself.

According to correspondents, President Bush is frustrated. The Israeli army has not "delivered the goods". Bush sent them into war believing that the powerful army, equipped with the most advanced American arms, will "finish the job" in a few days. It was supposed to eliminate Hizbullah, turn Lebanon over to the stooges of the US, weaken Iran and perhaps also open the way to "regime change" in Syria. No wonder that Bush is angry.

Ehud Olmert is even more furious. He went to war in high spirits and with a light heart, because the Air Force generals had promised to destroy Hizbullah and their rockets within a few days. Now he is stuck in the mud, and no victory in sight.

* * *

AS USUAL with us, at the termination of the fighting (and possibly even before) the War of the Generals will start. The front lines are already emerging.

The commanders of the land army blame the Chief-of-Staff and the power-intoxicated Air Force, who promised to achieve victory all by themselves. To bomb, bomb and bomb, destroy roads, bridges, residential quarters and villages, and - finito!

The followers of the Chief-of-Staff and the other Air Force generals will blame the land forces, and especially Northern Command. Their spokesmen in the media already declare that this command is full of inept officers, who have been shunted there because the North seemed a backwater while the real action was going on in the South (Gaza) and the Center (West Bank).

There are already insinuations that the Chief of Northern Command, General Udi Adam, was appointed to his job only in homage to his father, General Kuti Adam, who was killed in the First Lebanon War.

* * *

THE MUTUAL accusations are all quite right. This war is plastered with military failures - in the air, on land and on the sea.

They are rooted in the terrible arrogance in which we were brought up and which has become a part of our national character. It is even more typical of the army, and reaches its climax in the Air Force.

For years we have told each other that we have the most-most-most army in the world. We have convinced not only ourselves, but also Bush and the entire world. After all, we did win an astounding victory in six days in 1967. As a result, when this time the army did not win a huge victory in six days, everybody was astounded. Why, what happened?

One of the declared aims of this war was the rehabilitation of the Israeli army's deterrence power. That really has not happened.

That's because the other side of the coin of arrogance is the profound contempt for Arabs, an attitude that has already led to severe military failures in the past. It's enough to remember the Yom Kippur war. Now our soldiers are learning the hard way that the "terrorists" are highly motivated, tough fighters, not junkies dreaming of "their" virgins in Paradise.

But beyond arrogance and contempt for the opponent, there is a basic military problem: it is just impossible to win a war against guerillas. We have seen this in our 18-year stay in Lebanon. Then we drew the unavoidable conclusion and got out. True, without good sense, without an agreement with the other side. (We don't speak with terrorists, do we? - even if they are the dominant force on the ground.) But we did get out.

God knows what gave today's generals the unfounded self-confidence to believe that they would win where their predecessors failed so miserably.

And most of all: even the best army in the world cannot win a war that has no clear aims. Karl von Clausewitz, the guru of military science, pronounced that "war is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means". Olmert and Peretz, two complete dilettantes, have turned this inside out: "War is nothing more than the continuation of the lack of policy by other means."

* * *

MILITARY EXPERTS say that in order to succeed in war, there must be (a) a clear aim, (b) an aim that is achievable, and (c) the means necessary for achieving this aim.

All these three conditions are lacking in this war. That is clearly the fault of the political leadership.

Therefore, the main blame will be laid at the feet of the twins, Olmert-Peretz. They have succumbed to the temptation of the moment and dragged the state into a war, in a decision that was hasty, unconsidered and reckless.

As Nehemia Strassler wrote in Haaretz: They could have stopped after two or three days, when all the world agreed that Hizbullah's provocation justified an Israeli response, when nobody was yet doubting the capabilities of the Israeli army. The operation would have looked sensible, sober and proportional.

But Olmert and Peretz could not stop. As greenhorns in matters of war, they did not know that the boasts of the generals cannot be relied on, that even the best military plans are not worth the paper on which they are written, that in war the unexpected must be expected, that nothing is more temporary then the glory of war. They were intoxicated by the war's popularity, egged on by a herd of fawning journalists, driven out of their minds by their own glory as War Leaders.

Olmert was roused by his own incredibly kitschy speeches, which he rehearsed with his hangers-on. Peretz, so it seems, stood in front of the mirror and already saw himself as the next Prime Minister, Mister Security, a Second Ben-Gurion.

And so, like two village idiots, to the sound of drums and bugles, they set off at the head of their March of Folly straight towards political and military failure.

It is reasonable to assume that they will pay the price after the war.


* * *

WHAT WILL come out of this whole mess?

No one talks anymore about eliminating Hizbullah or disarming it and destroying all the rockets. That has been forgotten long ago.

At the start of the war, the government furiously rejected the idea of deploying an international force of any kind along the border. The army believed that such a force would not protect Israel, but only restrict its freedom of action. Now, suddenly, the deployment of this force has become the main aim of the campaign. The army is continuing the operation solely in order to "prepare the ground for the international force", and Olmert declares that he will go on fighting until it appears on the ground.

That is, of course, a sorry alibi, a ladder for getting down from the high tree. The international force can be deployed only in agreement with Hizbullah. No country will send its soldiers to a place where they would have to fight the locals. And everywhere in the area, the local Shiite inhabitants will return to their villages - including the Hizbullah underground fighters.

Further on, the force will also be totally dependent on the agreement of Hizbullah. If a bomb explodes under a bus full of French soldiers, a cry will go up in Paris: bring our sons home. That is what happened when the US Marines were bombed in Beirut.

The Germans, who shocked the world this week by opposing the call for a cease-fire, certainly will not send soldiers to the Israeli border. That's just what they need, to be obliged to shoot at Israeli soldiers.

And, most importantly, nothing will prevent Hizbullah from launching their rockets over the heads of the international force, any time they want to. What will the international force do then? Conquer all the area up to Beirut? And how will Israel respond?

Olmert wants the force to control the Lebanese-Syrian border. That, too, is illusory. That border goes around the entire West and North of Lebanon. Anybody who wants to smuggle weapons will stay away from the main roads, which will be controlled by the international soldiers. He will find hundreds of places along the border to do this. With the proper bribe, one can do anything in Lebanon.

Therefore, after the war, we will stand more or less in the same place we were before we started this sorry adventure, before the killing of almost a thousand Lebanese and Israelis, before the eviction from their homes of more than a million human beings, Israelis and Lebanese, before the destruction of more than a thousand homes both in Lebanon and Israel.


* * *

AFTER THE war, the enthusiasm will simmer down, the inhabitants of the North will lick their wounds and the army will start to investigate its failures. Everybody will claim that he or she was against the war from the first day on. Then the Day of Judgment will come.

The conclusion that presents itself is: kick out Olmert, send Peretz packing and sack Halutz.

In order to embark on a new course, the only one that will solve the problem: negotiations and peace with the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Syrians. And: with Hamas and Hizbullah.

Because it's only with enemies that one makes peace.

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.

Thanks for posting this. We need to stop sending billions in welfare to the terror state of israel.

UNCLE SATAN (GEORGE WARMONGER BUSH) & IDF IAF NAZIS/SATANIC CHILD ABUSERS : "Sorry to Oil the Satanic Ritual Child Abuse by IDF IAF Nazis / Likud Satanic Brownshirts / Irgun Zvai Leumi Pedophiles but Oil comes First. FILL HER UP ???????"

Good to see some have courage and think for themseves.

Fliers admit aborting raids on civilian targets as concern grows over the reliability of intelligence

Inigo Gilmore at Hatzor Air Base, Israel
Sunday August 6, 2006
The Observer

At least two Israeli fighter pilots have deliberately missed civilian targets in Lebanon as disquiet grows in the military about flawed intelligence, The Observer has learnt. Sources say the pilots were worried that targets had been wrongly identified as Hizbollah facilities.

Voices expressing concern over the armed forces' failures are getting louder. One Israeli cabinet minister said last week: 'We gave the army so much money. Why are we getting these results?' Last week saw Hizbollah's guerrilla force, dismissed by senior Israeli military officials as 'ragtag', inflict further casualties on one of the world's most powerful armies in southern Lebanon. At least 12 elite troops, the equivalent of Britain's SAS, have already been killed, and by yesterday afternoon Israel's military death toll had climbed to 45.

As the bodies pile up, so the Israeli media has begun to turn, accusing the military of lacking the proper equipment, training and intelligence to fight a guerrilla war in Lebanon. Israel's Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, on a tour of the front lines, was confronted by troubled reserve soldiers who told him they lacked proper equipment and training.

Israel's chief of staff, Major-General Dan Halutz, had vowed to wipe out Hizbollah's missile threat within 10 days. These claims are now being mocked as rockets rain down on Israel's north with ever greater intensity, despite an intense and highly destructive air bombardment.

As one well-connected Israeli expert put it: 'If we have such good information in Lebanon, how come we still don't know the hideout of missiles and launchers?... If we don't know the location of their weapons, why should we know which house is a Hizbollah house?'

As international outrage over civilian deaths grows, the spotlight is increasingly turning on Israeli air operations. The Observer has learnt that one senior commander who has been involved in the air attacks in Lebanon has already raised concerns that some of the air force's actions might be considered 'war crimes'.

Yonatan Shapiro, a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot dismissed from reserve duty after signing a 'refusenik' letter in 2004, said he had spoken with Israeli F-16 pilots in recent days and learnt that some had aborted missions because of concerns about the reliability of intelligence information. According to Shapiro, some pilots justified aborting missions out of 'common sense' and in the context of the Israeli Defence Force's moral code of conduct, which says every effort should be made to avoiding harming civilians.

Shapiro said: 'Some pilots told me they have shot at the side of targets because they're afraid people will be there, and they don't trust any more those who give them the coordinates and targets.'

He added: 'One pilot told me he was asked to hit a house on a hill, which was supposed to be a place from where Hizbollah was launching Katyusha missiles. But he was afraid civilians were in the house, so he shot next to the house ...

'Pilots are always being told they will be judged on results, but if the results are hundreds of dead civilians while Hizbollah is still able to fire all these rockets, then something is very wrong.'

So far none of the pilots has publicly refused to fly missions but some are wobbling, according to Shapiro. He said: 'Their target could be a house firing a cannon at Israel and it could be a house full of children, so it's a real dilemma; it's not black and white. But ... I'm calling on them to refuse, in order save our country from self-destruction.'

More
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1838437,00.html

Here's a few pics of Israeli terror:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&hs=CmX&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official_s&sa=N&resnum=0&q=pictures%20of%20Qana%20massacre&spell=1&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wi

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Escalate Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)

# 25 Palestinians, including 6 children and an old man, were killed by IOF.
# 3 of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF in the West Bank.
# 59 Palestinian civilians, including 26 children and women, were wounded by the IOF gunfire.
# IOF launched a series of air strikes on a number of houses in the Gaza Strip.
# 3 houses were destroyed after their residents were warned that the houses would be attacked.
# IOF have continued to shell the northern Gaza Strip and al-Shouka village near Rafah, and many families were forced to leave their homes.
# IOF conducted 38 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and moved into several areas in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.
# IOF destroyed 41 houses and razed at least 557 donums [1] of agricultural land in Rafah.
# IOF arrested 44 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and 20 others in the Gaza Strip.
# IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT; IOF have imposed a tightened siege on the Gaza Strip and there have been shortages of foodstuffs and fuels; IOF positioned at a checkpoint in the West Bank arrested a Palestinian civilian.
# IOF have continued to construct the Annexation Wall in the West Bank; they confiscated areas of land in Hebron and burnt at least 100 donums of agricultural land in Tulkarm.
# Israeli settlers have continued attacks Palestinian civilians and property in the OPT; a Palestinian civilian was killed and his son was wounded by settlers.

Summary

As the international community has remained silent, IOF have continued to wage a full scale offensive on the Palestinian people, especially in the Gaza Strip. During the reported period, IOF have waged a media war against Palestinian civilians. They have dropped leaflets in streets and on roofs of houses, phoned civilians threatening to destroy their houses if they helped Palestinian resistance activist, and ordered a number of Palestinian resistance activists through phone calls on their mobile phones to evacuate their houses, which would be destroyed. IOF have further continued their Operation Grasshopper, under which they move in a certain area, commit crimes there and then redeploy outside it. They then move into another area and do the same.

PCHR, monitoring with utmost concern the developments of this offensive, calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and United Nations, to immediately intervene to force IOF to stop this offensive and allow the passage of foodstuffs, medical supplies and fuels into the Gaza Strip.


Read More
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5481.shtml

Might want to look at this link before basing opinions on mainstream media photographs;

http://www.zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/

www.zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/

At this writing, Israel has killed six hundred civilians in Lebanon,...





BECKY: Human Rights Watch reported on Aug 5/6 2006 in an article appearing at none other than COUNTERPUNCH, that the death toll had just passed 500 deaths.



source: http://counterpunch.com/bouckaert08052006.html



...including more than one hundred children, and killed another one hundred and fifty in Gaza. It has created hundreds of thousands of refugees and destroyed enough bridges and power stations and apartments to create misery for years to come.



Nothing is more dishonest than attempting to justify this barbarism with "Islamist fundamentalists declare their goal openly to destroy the state of Israel and kill Jews."



BECKY: First it is dishonest to deny that Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah in Lebanon has openly declared his intent to destroy Israel and kill the Jews. Second, Israel can't just go around attacking any tinhorn outlaw state who wants to destroy Israel and kill the Jews, for it would never get any other work done if they did so. Third, there are hundreds of thousands of refugees in Israel from the Katyusha rocket attacks, which have hit two hospitals, schools, businesses, a train station, and apartment buildings. If no bridges or power stations were hit, then give them time. Chuckman is not interested in Israeli misery.



....There is no possibility that Israel can be destroyed by Islamic fundamentalists: the notion is simply a fantasy.



BECKY: Just a fantasy? And the Nazi Holocaust never happened, right?



....This is so not just because of Israel's ready willingness to bomb and kill, but because of great-power guarantees.



BECKY: Great power "guarantees" which Counterpunch weekly attempts to undermine.



...It is so also because no Arab state believes any longer that Israel's destruction is a sensible or possible goal, despite their leaders, public rhetoric.



BECKY: Oh really? So killing Jews and destroying Israel is soooo last century? Wake up and smell the Jihad. LOTs of Arab and Muslim countries have fanatical chapters and they are recruiting. Arab oil money can fund large and dangerous militants. Spoken like someone who lives in CANADA!!



....And it is true because the enemies Israel claims are so threatening, organizations such as Hezbollah or Hamas, are militarily weak by any rational standard of calculation.



BECKY: Large armies have a lot of trouble dealing with covert terrorist organizations. Its not the slam-dunk Chuckman would have readers believe. Hezbollah has the 5th largest army in the mideast.



....Israel began by moving into a bad neighborhood, and everyone involved understood this from the beginning....



BECKY: Considering the neighborhood they moved from, this was an upgrade.



....yet Israel behaves as though it should be normal to enjoy a pristine Disney-like suburb with white-picket fences. It reacts to activities in the bad neighborhood that disturb its fantasy with ferocious indignation. Israel's destructive behavior is explained largely by this delusional expectation.



BECKY: Chuckman thinks Israelis are "delusional" for expecting to be able to live in peace and security in their own country.



If Israel had spent half the resources it has spent on war over the last fifty years instead on helping its neighbors and building up their economies, the region would be a far better place today.



BECKY: First, it has been the Arab threat that has forced Israel to arm itself to the teeth at great expense. For them it is a matter of survival. But criticizing Israel for not "helping its neighbors" or "building up their economies" demonstrates a remarkable ignorance of the history of the West Bank and Gaza prior to the Oslo Accords. From 1967 to 1993 (The year Arafat was installed as the leader of the Palestinian Authority) Israel built 166 health clinics, expanded sewage, water, and electrification grids. Due to Israeli business investments, the GNP for the Palestinians increased 13% per year between 1967 and 1980. Israel paid universal health insurance for all Palestinians. Israel built 6 Universities and 20 Community Colleges for the Palestinians. Infant mortality rates dropped precipitously and literacy rates soared. They even built them a sports stadium! When Israel passed civil control of the West Bank and Gaza to Arafat, the unemployment rate among the Palestinians was 5%.



source: www.israel-UN-org/archive/latest-archive.htm#1999



www.hrw.org/wr2k



....And if Israel had been willing to make reasonable concessions to the needs of others in the region, there might well be lasting peace today.



BECKY: Israel or Jewish organizations have made 13 separate credible attempts to set up a Palestinian state beginning in 1937. Some of the latest have been Barak/Clinton in 2000 and Bush's "Roadmap" in 2002. In EACH case, the Palestinians could not stop the terrorist attacks that were a prerequisite to proceeding. The Oslo Accords were such an attempt. Israel withdrew from S. Lebanon in 2000 hoping it would bring peace. They withdrew from Gaza in 2005 in a very painful concession involving displacing 8,000 Jewish residents from their homes, schools, and businesses---all in an effort to make peace.



....The irony of Israel's current destructive behavior.....



BECKY: Israel's DEFENSIVE behavior against attacks from Hezbollah..



....is that a healthy, prosperous Lebanon is in Israel's long-term interest, just as it is in Israel's interest to have all of its neighbors prosperous and flourishing.



But, instead, Israel's response to any provocation from any gang or individual is always war and maintaining "the iron wall" - an early Zionist phrase that has provided the foundation of Israeli policy for over half a century - against all outsiders with disregard for their interests or needs.



BECKY: False! Israel attempted diplomatically to pressure Lebanon to abide by UN resolution 1559 passed in 2004 to police its own southern border and prevent Hezbollah from lobbing missiles over the fence.



...Deception is an important tool in any war, and Israel's extensive use of it shows us how it regards neighbors and others it should have cultivated as friends.



BECKY: So the Jews are liars? Is he saying that the Israelis lie MORE than Hezbollah or Hamas or the Lebanese government? What about Mohammed Dura? What about the so-called Jenin "massacre" in 2002? You know, the one that never happened? Or women being coached at Palestinian hospitals to tell reporters they gave birth in the dirt of an Israeli checkpoint? Or the latest Gaza beach deaths that were falsely blamed on the Israelis by the PA? How about claims of phosphorus weapons and cluster bombs? Deception is a tool used far more often by the Palestinians and their supporters than by the Israeli government.



....Look at the bombing of a UN observation post in Lebanon, killing four unarmed UN workers. Israel says it was an accident, but the post had been there for years, and it was well marked. Moreover, the UN workers were killed in a bunker, meaning that a certain kind of munition had to be used to kill them. According to a BBC report, the UN peacekeepers had contacted Israeli forces ten times about artillery shelling in the hours before they were hit by a precision-guided missile. How possibly can this have been an accident?



BECKY: Is Chuckman obscuring the known fact that Hezbollah rocketeers were firing repeatedly from those areas as well, at least 2 or 3 days earlier and perhaps that day as well? Why wouldn't the UN "observers" report those Hezbollah rockets? Maybe they are not as neutral as we would like. The UN failed its responsibility as well. They were supposed to be there to prevent rocket attacks on Israel. Instead, the observation posts provided protective cover for rocket attacks. Israel says they accidently hit the post. I believe them.



....Could the failed international conference in Rome where proposals for an immediate cease-fire and an international force in Southern Lebanon were advocated have provided Israel's motive? The cease-fire proposal was quickly killed by the United States to give Israel more bombing time. Was the proposal for an international force the target of Israel's attack? Who would commit observers or troops if this is what would happen to them? We know Israel does not want outside interference in Lebanon. More broadly, Israel has shown intense hostility towards the UN for years, perhaps one of its closest bonds with Bush's mob.



BECKY: Chuckman is way out on a limb here with his conspiracy theories. The answer is much simpler. Israel needs more time to root out the Hezbollah militant capabilities which the Lebanese army won't do, and the United Nations failed to do. As for Israel's dislike of the UN, one need only look at the dozens and dozens of anti-Israel resolutions passed by the Arab/Muslim block of nations and the failure of a single one against any Arab country to explain Israel's point of view.



....There is some evidence that the Israeli soldiers kidnapped at the beginning of the current bombardment were actually kidnapped inside Lebanon on a provocative mission. I have no idea whether this true, but it is far from improbable. The kidnapping has certainly provided an excuse for bombing the hell out of southern Lebanon.



BECKY: Why not rewrite history to say it never happened? Chuckman would rather a history he WISHED had happened than one that actually did. This is a poor quality in a news writer. He also "forgets" that in addition to the kidnappings of the two IDF soldiers---Hezbollah simultaneously launched a hail of Katyusha rockets over the border at Kiryat Shmona and other nearby Israeli villages in an unprovoked attack.



....Israel's many past deceptions naturally enough leave one uncomfortable about any of its official statements on any important matter. First was the covert creation of a nuclear arsenal, a fact not acknowledged to this day.



BECKY: That was not a deception. It was a state secret. Two different things.



...Then there was Israel's secret assistance to apartheid South Africa, including still-unacknowledged assistance in creating and testing a nuclear weapon. There was Israel's manipulation of events leading to the Six Day War, a war Israel knew it could handily win for great gains (see my March, 2003, article, Was Einstein Right? ).



BECKY: The UN determined the 1967 war was a defensive war on the part of the Israelis. The Arab armies massed on its borders and The Voice of the Arabs proclaimed (May 18, 1967):



"As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to



protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain



any more to the UN about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against



Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of the Zionist's



existence."



On May 20, 1967, Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad announced that



"the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation."



Egyptian President Gamal Nasser said on May 27, 1967 "Our objective will be the destruction of Israel."



BECKY:



...There was Israel's attempt to sink the U.S.S. Liberty, an American spy ship, during the Six Day War, an event never meaningfully explained but likely intended to prevent evidence of atrocities against captured Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai being recorded.



BECKY: That was a fluke. If he American govt. was satisfied, why isn't Chuckman?



....A large group of Israeli spies was arrested after 9/11, but their extensive activities in the United States leading up to that event have never been explained.



BECKY: Chuckman crosses over into downright falsehood here. A group of VERY YOUNG Israelis WERE arrested when found videotaping the tragedy and acting very hyped up. Thousands of people videotaped 9/11. Virtually anyone in the area with a camera videotaped the WTC. They were not spies. They were just goofy college students. They were held for three weeks and released.



....Only a few weeks ago, before its attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Israel mounted an effort claiming the munition which wiped out a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach belonged to someone else, when in fact a collected scrap of casing clearly showed its American origin, a type of munition not made available to anyone else in the region.



BECKY: A scrap collected by Hamas supporters is suspect evidence. On June 22nd, the pro-Palestinian organization, B'Tselem, retracted their claim of Israeli culpability.



See: http://www.btselem.org/english/Press_Releases/20060622.asp





"The statistics (of deaths) relate to the period of 20/05/2006 – 21/06/2006, and do not include the members of the Ghaliah family, in regard to whom B'Tselem cannot currently confirm with certainty who is responsible for their deaths."


....All gangs and individuals who rudely remind Israel that it really does live in a bad neighborhood are simply flattened, but flattening the perpetrators is never enough. Always Israel takes the lives of innocents and destroys their property, believing that such ruthlessness eventually will intimidate everyone around into a zombie-like peace, but this is simply another delusion.



BECKY: Those gangs and individuals have taken a lot of innocent Israeli civilian lives over the years. For Chuckman, Jewish lives lost simply don't count. Those "gangs" TARGET civilians. Israel never has and never will.



....The logic of Israel's behavior taken to its limit would have a two- or three-hundred mile perimeter around Israel's border (whatever that is) bulldozed and paved over. This would certainly provide complete security, but it is utter fantasy, just as impossible as the destruction of Israel.



BECKY: No one in Israel has proposed this. But shouldn't the Lebanese control their own border?



....What is the solution in the Middle East? It is found in so simple an act as Israel's dealing fairly with its neighbors and negotiating to sort things out. Israel has never yet done this. It presents only an iron wall, bristling with weapons. When breakthroughs do come, as with the Oslo Accords, Israel's establishment quietly ignores them or works actively against them while still talking about peace.



BECKY: Chuckman turns reality on its ear. It was the inability of the Palestinians to give up violence against Israelis that caused the breakdown. How do you negotiate with people who's only goal is to exterminate you?



....Israel has all the advantages. It has advanced weapons. It has great-power guarantees. It has billions of dollars in assistance every year. It has unmatched access to American intelligence and government. By comparison, Hamas and Hezbollah are pretty anemic forces.



BECKY: Hezbollah is funded with $100 million a year from Iran. Hamas gets funding from the Arab league. These forces are quite dangerous.



....Organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas owe their very existence to Israel's past behavior. Hezbollah flourished as a guerrilla force opposing Israel's previous invasion of Lebanon and its long-term partial occupation. It served also as an important charity in the midst of chaos. Hamas was created with the deliberate help of Israeli intelligence, intending to create a rival for the PLO and introduce instability into Palestinian politics.



BECKY: It's true that the Israeli govt. helped to set up Hamas. But long ago, when Hamas embraced terrorism, that Israeli support ended. Both owe their existence to intense Jew-hatred and a belief that any land that was EVER under Islamic control (and Palestine was conquered in the 7th century by Islamics) remains Islamic homeland and must be kept out of the hands of infidels (non-Muslims.)



....When Hamas was elected recently as part of the government of Palestine, it was only after innumerable excuses from Israel for not meeting with Abbas and after imprisoning and threatening Arafat for several years before his death. How are Palestinians to deal with an Israel that always has an excuse for not negotiating, for not even speaking, to its government? Israel has now kidnapped the cabinet of an elected government, but this is quietly supported by Bush,s democracy-loving mob.



BECKY: Hamas charter calls for the elimination of the Jewish State, the driving of the Jews from "Palestine", and the establishment of an Islamic state. Hamas leaders, once elected, vowed no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of the right of Israel to exist, and that they would not honor agreements signed by previous PA administrators.



Now the charge is ISRAEL wouldn't MEET with them? Now the charge is that ISRAEL won't recognize the legitimately elected government? Hamas militants tunneled under the international border into pre-1967 sovereign Israeli territory, seized (captured/kidnapped) one 19 yr-old corporal, killed two IDF, and injured 4 more. The Hamas govt., rather than use their forces to retrieve and return the soldier, urged the kidnappers to hold out for their ransom. Israel considered this an act of war, with the Hamas legislators the perpetrators.



....Israel wants us to accept the simplistic assertion that organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas are proof of Islamist determination to destroy Israel. So long as this is the accepted view, greatly over-simplifying a truly complex situation, there can be no understanding and no sensible approach to peace. Refusing even to talk with the democratically-elected Hamas government....



BECKY: The same government that in January announced it refused to talk to the Israeli government.



....and cutting it off from all connections and revenues was an act of war in response to party slogans. You can't build peace on fantasy.



BECKY: ...revenues that would go to fund terrorist actions against Israel....



....I said Israel could not be destroyed by anyone, but there is an important exception to that statement: Israel could well be destroyed by itself.



BECKY: No! The 20 Arab/Muslim countries that refuse to recognize Israel's right to exist, the suicide bombers, the lynchings of "collaborators" with Israel, the constant rocket attacks, and now the kidnappings of its soldiers are somehow, magically NOT A THREAT to Israel. The Iranians who are waging a proxy war against Israel are feverishly building nuclear weapons which they have already announced will be used to "wipe Israel off the map" are NOT A THREAT to Israel.


NO, according to Chuckman, it is Israel's attempts at self-defense that pose the greatest threat!!

Becky: "And the Nazi Holocaust never happened, right?"

nuff said

Becky: "Just a fantasy?"

Yup, that's right, cuz no Arab leader has the slightest doubt that your camp is psycho enough to grease every Arab city with thermonukes if that's what it takes to continue worshipping the Izzie-Molech. Arab leaders aren't out to get their cities greased. That would be lunacy, and they're not lunatics. You're just out arrogantly palming off the **meme** that they're all lunatics as if you're dealing with babies and morons. C'mon Beck, you think we're all babies and morons, admit it. Only Jews have full human minds, isn't that right?

Becky: "Great power "guarantees" which Counterpunch weekly attempts to undermine"

Oh yes, that dreaded hyperpower -- COUNTERPUNCH.

Jeez, yer gonna make me pull a laugh muscle!

Becky: "Wake up and smell the Jihad. LOTs of Arab and Muslim countries have fanatical chapters and they are recruiting."

Yup, that's right, AND THAT'S JUST HOW ALL YOU IZZIE-WHACKS LIKE IT!! The more conspicuously they clamor for your blood, while at the same time being too feeble militarily to make good on their words, the more arrogantly you can continue to kill them and steal everything they've got, which of course just feeds right back into the whole vicious cycle JUST LIKE YOU IZZIE-WHACKS LIKE IT!! Oh, you're clever, all right. Demonic also, but definitely clever.

Becky: "Arab oil money can fund large and dangerous militants."

By this I take it you mean the money generated by Arab countries' mineral resources. I must say, you make a good point there. It's a good thing, then, that 99% of that money is lining the greazy pockets of the Rockefeller Dynasty, the Getty Dynasty, and all the other Western imperialists staking your horse. The only Arabs granted a SMALL piece of this action are utterly corrupt reptiles like Saudi Arabia's Hashemites, who will obviously go along with ANYTHING the West wants. Let an Arab who advocates FOR ARABS wrangle a piece of it -- Qaddafi, Qassem, Saddam, Assad, Nasser -- and his ass will get waylaid EVERY TIME!!!

Becky: "Large armies have a lot of trouble dealing with covert terrorist organizations."

ha ha ha ha! What a good snapping snarling Orwellian gate-hound you are! 1) Hizbollah is not a "covert terrorist organization" 2) "covert terrorist organizations" in any case is just an Orwellian crock of shit cooked up by criminals like you to deny the last bit of legitimacy and justice to people you've robbed and killed

Becky: "Considering the neighborhood they moved from, this was an upgrade"

Huh? Brooklyn's that bad? That's where the worst murder-whacko settlers are from (e.g. Baruch Goldstein). S'funny how the US produces the worst murder-whacko zionists. Why is that, Beck-O? You should know.

If Izzie-Molech and its worshippers don't want Peru to be a bad neighborhood, maybe they should stop helping US megalomaniacs fuck over Latin America all the time

Becky: "Chuckman thinks Israelis are "delusional"..."

Chuckman's right. It's delusional to invade a people's territory, killing them and cheating them in order to steal it, and then expect them to turn right around and snuggle up and love you. As much as you're cast from the same mold as Jabotinsky, at least he spoke of these things honestly

http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/ironwall.htm

Becky: "...it has been the Arab threat that has forced Israel to arm itself to the teeth..."

Uh-huh, and how is it that the "Arab threat" originated? No, it didn't just appear out of nowhere one day -- unlike zionists. To get a clue, read the aforementioned Jabotinsky polemic

There's a difference between HELPING a neighbor and incidentally tossing him a few crumbs as you make profit-minded INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENTS. In the second case, they don't owe you any favors because you didn't do them any. You were just out to help yourself. Arabs aren't stupid. They can tell the difference. If you're paying them jack-shit slave-wages while sealing off other opportunities for them, this really just amounts to colonial exploitation as seen in the Mexican maquiladoras. So just keep your "help."

Yah, let's cite Izzie's diplomatic corps to the UN as if they don't want to lay the UN in a grave alongside the Arabs -- yeah, THEY can be trusted ha ha ha ha! Why don't you just tell us about the IDF's program to give every Arab kid a free teddy bear wearing a kippa with a Star of David on it.

Becky: "13 separate credible attempts to set up a Palestinian state"

Oh please. This should be beneath even you! The zionist state entity has NEVER sincerely wanted a viable Palestinian state. How do you keep chewing land away from such a thing with any semblance of propriety? All such "efforts" have been fig leaves slapped over zionism's pathological determination to rip off every dunum of that land, and THAT is why none of them have ever come together -- because Israel didn't want them to and wrote in whatever conditions would stymie the deal. If "terrorism must end" hadn't worked (but you made sure it did) you would have switched to "all Palestinians must aim their asses at Mecca and fart while praying."

Do you really think you're that hard to figure out?

Becky: "Israel's DEFENSIVE behavior..."

ha ha ha ha! The classic Orwellian lie of ALL wars of aggression:
"aggression is DEFENSE!"

rhymes with
"War is PEACE!"
and
"Ignorance is STRENGTH!"

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

uh whoops! I mean 'dese. arnt. duh. droidss. I'm. look. ingk. for. duh-doy-drool. Don't garrot me in my sleep!

Lying-ass Becky: "What about Mohammed Dura? What about the so-called Jenin "massacre"? ...women being coached at Palestinian hospitals to tell reporters they gave birth in the dirt of an Israeli checkpoint? ...the latest Gaza beach deaths? ...claims of phosphorus weapons and cluster bombs?"

Amazing! First you try throwing around the "anti-Semite" accusation, then you completely blow your own point by flinging around J-Post-prepped LIES! Get this through your thick skull Beck-O: nobody on this side of the fence believes your sources

Becky: "Israel says they accidently hit the post. I believe them."

Wow, you don't fukkin say! Yawn, clunk, snore

Becky: "Chuckman is way out on a limb here with his conspiracy theories."

Naw, he's right on the money, especially with his point that "Israel has shown intense hostility towards the UN for years"

Becky: "Chuckman would rather a history he WISHED had happened than one that actually did."

HAR! HAR! HAR! This is a ZIONIST HYPOCRITE LIAR saying this!! What projection! Too rich!

Becky: "That was not a deception. It was a state secret. Two different things."

It depends on who's not being told and whether or not they have a right to know. If they do, 'deception' is not an unfair word. Zionists constantly shoot loads of cum all over themselves barking hosannahs to "Israel the ONLY MID-EASTERN ***DEMOCRACY!!!*** (unhn, spasm, spurt)" The terms of this conceit would seem to give Israel's citizens the right to CHOOSE whether or not to live in a bullseye on the Global Nuclear Armageddon map. And yet Mama Izzie kept them totally in the dark. Hmm, it would seem somebody somewhere's fulla shit bout sumpin. Probly a zionist. They always are.

Becky: "the 1967 war..."

which Israel INITIATED, yup, uh-huh

Oh, that's right: "aggression is DEFENSE!"

Becky: "[The attack on the USS Liberty] was a fluke."

A fluke in what sense? You mean it's the only time Israel's hostility has been directed toward the US? Oh really?

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/04/314824.shtml

Becky: "If he American govt. was satisfied ... ?"

No, what you mean is the Johnson administration CHOSE TO BURY IT for reasons that have never seen the light of day

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-boston.html

Both links attest to the FACT that the Executive Branch has been a pack of TRAITORS for many years, just a bunch of slut technicians for no-name billionaire cartels in New York and London

Becky: "A group of VERY YOUNG Israelis WERE arrested when found videotaping the tragedy..."

Wow, Beck-a-hoor's just a-pilin on the lies now! She must be DESPOT!

1) He's not talking about the 'White Van' spies. He's talking about the 'Art Student' spies.

http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/unanswered_questions_911.html#israel

Here's the DEA's report on the "art student spy ring"
http://cryptome.org/dea-il-spy.htm

140 of whom were arrested prior to 9-11, then afterward 60 more were rounded up:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A3879-2001Nov22¬Found=true

2) the 'White Van' Spies WERE TOO spies. Well, if you believe The Forward, that is

http://tinyurl.com/kdlwd
"According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., served as a front.

You're full of shit as to their not being ejected from the country, also (of course):

"After their arrest, the men were held in detention for two-and-a-half months and were deported at the end of November, officially for visa violations."

This storyline remains in limbo to this day because in December '01 Dubya's goons told the press that pursuing it further would be "career suicide." We can see what they meant from Dan Rather's example.

'Land of the Free' -- ha ha ha ha!! Americans are so FUCKED! Thanks to the efforts of "dual-loyalty" types like you, of course...

Becky: "For Chuckman, Jewish lives lost simply don't count."

Oh, FUCKING BULLSHIT!!!! Your grievance with Chuckman is that the Jews' VICTIMS *also* matter, not a wit less, and are vastly greater in number. You just can't fucking stand that

Becky: "Chuckman turns reality on its ear."

Nupe. He's got you Izzie-Molech-maniacs pegged precisely. You always find a way to lay landmines for Palestinian sovereignty cuz its anathema to you.

Becky: "Hezbollah ... Hamas ... quite dangerous."

Yup: divert, deflect, distract, deny. Meanwhile, Chuckman's right: Israel DOES have absolute weapons superiority over any foreseeable foe. Where are Hamas/Hizbollah's attack choppers? F-16s? Submarine-launched H-bombs?

Becky: "It's true that the Israeli govt. helped to set up Hamas."

Translation: it's true, but just forget all that. It doesn't matter

Becky: "But long ago, when Hamas embraced terrorism, that Israeli support ended."

hahahahahaa!! BULLSHIT!! Israel knew EXACTLY what it was getting into! Israel LOVES Arab terrorists -- unless they actually threaten to succeed! Otherwise, they just serve to keep alive all the prime excuses for Israel's very existence!

Becky: "...intense Jew-hatred..."

This being MUCH WORSE than hatred of mere non-Jews, you see

Becky: "...belief that any land that was EVER under Islamic control ... remains Islamic homeland..."

hahahahaha!! This coming from a zionist whacko of EUROPEAN ancestry whose hypocrisy is of psychotic proportions

Becky: "Hamas leaders, once elected, vowed..."

What? You're COMPLAINING? Why? They're doing exactly what you want. Shit, they could still be on your payroll for all anybody knows. It would fit perfectly.

"Hamas militants tunneled under the pre-1967 border ... kidnapped one 19 yr-old corporal..."

Why don't you mention the abduction of the Palestinian doctor they were retaliating for? Oh, I know: it DOESN'T MATTER!! Oh, of course!

Becky: "The Iranians ... are feverishly building nuclear weapons..."

hahahahahahaa!! Look you FUCKING NASTY BITCH, ***WE*** didn't fall for that lie even the FIRST time around, when it was aimed at Saddam. We sure as hell aren't falling for it this go-round. Who is it you imagine you're addressing?

That cartoon sums up the default arguments and accusations that fly when the lying zionist filth run out of real arguements for Israeli terror. Keep up the good work.

SI cannot make a coherent aregument, so in a futile attempt to post something (anything) he desperately spams copycat messages. We laugh merrily as you humiliate yourself day after day, chasing your tail.
LMFAO!

That's so much material that the really PRIMO stuff will probably get missed. Therefore I'm lifting it out to highlight here:

Here's Becky's single most flagrant lie:

"Chuckman crosses over into downright falsehood here. A group of VERY YOUNG Israelis WERE arrested when found videotaping the tragedy and acting very hyped up. Thousands of people videotaped 9/11. Virtually anyone in the area with a camera videotaped the WTC. They were not spies. They were just goofy college students. They were held for three weeks and released."

And here's the bunker-buster that blew it to smithereens:

1) Chuckman isn't talking about the 'White Van' spies. He's talking about the 'Art Student' spies.

http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/unanswered_questions_911.html#israel

Here's the DEA's report on the "art student spy ring"
http://cryptome.org/dea-il-spy.htm

140 of whom were arrested prior to 9-11, 60 more afterward:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A3879-2001Nov22¬Found=true

2) the 'White Van' spies WERE TOO spies. Well, if you believe The Forward, that is

http://tinyurl.com/kdlwd
"According to one former high-ranking American intelligence official, who asked not to be named, the FBI came to the conclusion at the end of its investigation that the five Israelis arrested in New Jersey last September were conducting a Mossad surveillance mission and that their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, N.J., served as a front."

Becky's full of shit as to their not being ejected from the country, also (of course):

"After their arrest, the men were held in detention for two-and-a-half months and were deported at the end of November, officially for visa violations."

This storyline remains in limbo to this day because in December '01 Dubya's goons told the press that pursuing it further would be "career suicide." We can see what they meant from Dan Rather's example.

'Land of the Free' -- ha ha ha ha!! Americans are so FUCKED! Thanks to the efforts of "dual-loyalty" types like Becky, of course...

Let's talk about the IDF's fondness for cluster munitions packed with razor-sharp **flechettes**. As anti-personnel explosive munitions go, these are much more sophisticated and about a thousand times as vicious as simple ball-bearing-laden bombs. Ball bearings settle into one spot. If they don't kill you right away, it's possible for them to encapsulate and benignly incorporate into your body. Flechettes on the other hand are the most sadistic hate-dripping shrapnel ever invented. If not removed surgically -- a MAJOR reconstructive undertaking if there are a lot of them, and there usually are -- they keep migrating and slicing into new tissue as long as you remain alive and keep moving, continually severing nerves, tendons, muscles, internal organs, blood vessels, etc. The last results in massive hemmorhage and/or local necrosis (gangrene, peritonitis), i.e. certain death of an especially gruesome sort. Picture a patch of your abdomen turning black and stinking like a corpse as you die over the course of several days from your brain getting cooked by high fever.

The use of flechettes in artillery munitions was introduced by the United States during the Vietnam War, much like the equally vicious M-16.

Nowadays the IDF's hate-crazed Jabotinskyites use them on Palestinian civilians (US-supplied munitions, of course). Immediately after one of these rounds goes off over a nice-size crowd of women and children exiting a mosque, the IDF Satans flop down on the ground grunting and convulsing as they blow their sadistic nuts off inside their pants
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2003/04/29/isrlpa5821_txt.htm

Yeah, I'm demonizing, aren't I? That's okay: it's empirically obvious that I'm talking about demons. If you don't like that, maybe you should retreat from the Jabotinsky Demon's ideology. Until Israel and zionists worldwide do this collectively, my characterization of both as demonically evil will remain justified

Flechette injury, if not immediately deadly or surgically corrected, is an exquisitely horrible death sentence, and as such a deliberate brainchild of the distinctively European brand of insane hatred.

This is just one of 15,000 subject areas where you shouldn't go pointing fingers around, sick hypocrite Euro-demon.

What decisively converted Malcolm X to Islam was his brother hitting him with the idea that White "civilized" (i.e. European) *culture* is Satan's main manifestation on earth in our time. I don't go along with the mystical aspect of this idea, but its power as a social/historical thesis is undeniable. That Malcolm X could appreciate this, and he definitely did, is a testament to his lucidity. Middle Eastern Moslems see it also, and are justified in doing so

"Immediately after one of these rounds goes off over a nice-size crowd of women and children exiting a mosque, the IDF hiss snarl burp belch puke"

Let's talk about your fondness for lying and throwing everyone off your pet exterinators' malice:

First, you're deflecting to some off topic item that doesn't concern the present war in the Lebanese front.
Second, the URL opens to a page discussing flechetters 3 fucking years ago. Hardly the present, you self-centered megalomaniac piece of shit.
Third, this was only used in the Gaza strip, so there's no proof here of IDF fondness for the use of this technology.
Last (intentionally repeating myself), your complaint is off topic to the Hizbollah instigated mess. Deflect, divert, distract -- all in the service of your precious Islamofascist baby murderers, you grave pisser wannabe.

"What decisively converted Malcolm X to Islam was his brother hitting him with the idea that White "civilized" (i.e. European) *culture* is Satan's main manifestation on earth in our time. I don't go along with the mystical aspect of this idea, but its power as a social/historical thesis is undeniable. That Malcolm X could appreciate this, and he definitely did, is a testament to his lucidity. Middle Eastern Moslems see it also, and are justified in doing so"

Judaism has enough theological space to host the same notion, more or less, so I'm hardly impressed by your exaltation of Malcolm X's insights or those of Middle Eastern Muslims. if you're desperately trying to tell us you've converted to Islam, just do it instead of capering around the urge. You've got no reason to be ashamed of yourself or fear scorn.


"If you don't like that, maybe you should retreat from the Jabotinsky puke fart"

If you don't like my contribution to this site and other IMCs, you ought to resign yourself to the reality that I'll keep hounding your ass in an array of manners as you're a chickenshit cowardly keyboard warrior who has no guts to live in a real danger zone where these very ball bearings may kill or maim you. Out here in the real world you're just hot air, ravings and incapable of even volunteering to assist Hizballah or Hamas in non-combat capacities in the region itself where life danger is clear and present. You and your ilk are the most lowly of cheerleaders for Jihadist monstrosity, one rung beneath the ISM-ers that at least have risked their lives to pursue what they believe in. The jihadist ideologies you support are unidentical to but resemble Nazism as they incorporate many of its salient tenets. Among Westerners it doesn't get much more diabolic than you.

Now get your sick hypocrite Euro-demon ass out of the US and into Scottland.

Because, you see, I'M NOT LIKE YOU. I have defected from your own Euro-lunacy and found grace. The wild Druid strain is strong in me, the rat-like Briton strain weak. I am not an end-product of 300 generations of Western urban horror

"Judaism has enough theological space to host the same notion, more or less, so I'm hardly impressed by your exaltation of Malcolm X's insights or those of Middle Eastern Muslims. if you're desperately trying to tell us you've converted to Islam, just do it instead of capering around the urge. You've got no reason to be ashamed of yourself or fear scorn."

Is this you expressing identification, CT, with the Moslem rejection of Western culture and virulent aggression?? Say it ain't so!

Rally went great! 2,000 Jihadis, (indy bay says 10,000, but we know they lie), 500 of us. Good press coverage, lots of enthusiasm, support and love on our side. A couple of arrests of foaming at the mouth jihadis . The evildoers were promoting this as the largest anti-Israeli rally in the country. Heh, Heh, Heh.... JA and Toady didn't show their scally little faces.
The congregation of a local orthodox synagogue walked over and joined us for part of the event.
Its beautiful to see people mobilizing in time of crisis. If only we could mobilize this energy all the time.
What the word on the street re: the "ceasefire" ?

I don't accept your assumption that Israel isn't presently using flechette weapons in Lebanon

"Because, you see, I'M NOT LIKE YOU. I have defected from your own Euro-lunacy and found grace."

But, see, Hizbollah cheerleader, I've never belonged to any type of Euro-anything, at least not intentionally. And whatever Euro-cultural element I've spotted, I don't let it influence me. My culture is, and has always been in varying degrees of the two components, Amero-Israeli or Isramerican. But above all I'm Jewish also culturally and not exclusively drawing from Ashkenazi wellsprings.

"The wild Druid strain is strong in me, the rat-like Briton strain weak. I am not an end-product of 300 generations of Western urban horror "

But your frequent violence laden, profanity laden forms of expression are unmistakably American and therefore Western (even if the urban part is dropped). What are the main components that history fused into the hodge-podge known as Western culture? The Judeo-Christian (some relevance derived from the latter part), Hellenistic/Greek (germain to my claim), Roman (germain to my claim), Germanic (germain to my claim). You're suffering from a habitual inertia in that you're taking me for a know-nothing with no clue.
You're hinting you're not Muslim but spiritually Druid but not nominally Druid? (Spiritual suffices for me 'cause as a secular person my denominational affiliation has very little palpable content or meaning.)


- Judaism has enough theological space to host the same notion, more or less, so I'm hardly impressed by your exaltation of Malcolm X's insights or those of Middle Eastern Muslims.

"Is this you expressing identification, CT, with the Moslem rejection of Western culture and virulent aggression?? Say it ain't so!"

What kind of drivel is this? You were alluding to the Muslims of the Mideast. There's no overarching Muslim rejection of aggression, virulent or otherwise, especially not in this region! (you even insist I commit atrocities in _Hebron_). A large percentage of the Muslims wordwide embrace aggression. Western culture seems to have been rejected by most Mideastern Muslims but a substatial minority have embraced it. I've seen quite a few myself.

"I don't accept your assumption that Israel isn't presently using flechette weapons in Lebanon"

See if I care. What you believe is inconsequential to me personally. Like your fellating defender/s, you've got zero influence on the region in which I live.

Haw! Haw! Haw!

The impending ceasefire is to go into effect Monday, Aug 14 at 8:00 AM Jerusalem time. It is said the IDF will have reached the Litani by then and cut off the Hizballah forces to the south so as to be in a superior position in case the battles resume.

Israel has squandered nearly a month without launching a massive ground offensive. Two million people in Israel underwent gruelling hardship, possibly for naught. Many people, myself included, formed this opinion early on. The question is whether the styoopid Olmert will continue acting weakly and stupidly - will he allow the Hizbollah to fill in the missing ranks and be resupplied? Experience teaches Olmert will have to surprise everyone to prove he cares more about Israeli lives than international public opinion and Condi Rice's. In the very probable event that Hizbollah adheres to the ceasefire terms minus being disarmed and/or returning the POWs unconditionally, Israel is fucked

Drain the cesspool of Israel, get rid of all the IDF scum.

"I've never belonged to any type of Euro-anything ... My culture is ... Amero-Israeli or Isramerican"

Uh, but stoopid, American is HYPER-European. That's why it's top imperial dog now. It's the absolute WORST of what I mean by 'European,' lifted out of the actual European mosaic of local influences, many of which are actually *good*, and then homogenized and concentrated. It's the hypercompetitive urbanite greed, for example, except not tempered by the European visceral grasp of history -- a valuable counterweight.

"There's no overarching Muslim rejection of aggression, virulent or otherwise, especially not in this region!"

That's not what I meant. Their militance has expanded greatly in recent decades and is a A DIRECT RESPONSE to Western imperial encroachment, which has been belligerent and bastardly from the beginning

"I've never belonged to any type of Euro-anything ... My culture is ... Amero-Israeli or Isramerican"
====================================

" American is HYPER-European. That's why it's top imperial dog now. It's the absolute WORST of what I mean by 'European,' lifted out of the actual European mosaic of local influences, many of which are actually *good*, and then homogenized and concentrated."

At the same time America has been predicated on the rejection of what's European, at least consciously. Isolationism? Huh?

" It's the hypercompetitive urbanite greed, for example, except not tempered by the European visceral grasp of history -- a valuable counterweight. "

This latter portion is an emotional statement that fails to account for much European political behavior that has failed iserably in recent centuries to do that. Notwithstanding your ultra-leftist paradigms of thought, European behavior has, in the past 1.5 recent decades, shown a steep increase in historical amnesia. See Kosovo, Bosnia, Chechenia, the Socialist ascent to power in Spain, the rampant appeasement of Jihadist elements in Europe and the Middle East, etc.

"There's no overarching Muslim rejection of aggression, virulent or otherwise, especially not in this region!"

"That's not what I meant. Their militance has expanded greatly in recent decades and is a A DIRECT RESPONSE to Western imperial encroachment, which has been belligerent and bastardly from the beginning"

You've just slunk through your favorite rathole trying to deflect. The MAIN motivations since 1948 have always been hatred of Jews and anyone that supports Israel in any way shape or form, and objection to any aspect of Western thought or lifestyle. I don't care for your excuses for the rise of more venomous Jew haters like Hamas and IJ because I know the truth which is removed from all the strata of mouth foaming Jew hating or Israel hating bile you try to coat it wth.

"THAT is the REAL grand historical context of what's gone on there all through the 20th century,"

Not all. American power over Mideastern Arab nations was first roughly equal and rivaled by that of the USSR, then reached a climax during the first half ogf the 1990's, then has gradually scaled down somewhat, you piece of cowardly keyboad warring crypto-Nazi shit.

"and of their resentment of asshole Westerners of every sort (including AshkeNAZI Jews) swaggering into their domain and taking over. You trigger-pumping monkeys in Izzie-stan are just a bunch of useful idiots, that's all, the Ghurkahs of the Middle east. HAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAAHAHA!! And that's the WHOLE reason you've become an object of special hatred there. They're not stupid. They know their own history. They know you have about as much business bing there as a bunch of Eskimoes"

You forgot to shriekingly place your wish for Judenrein in my country as their own holy will. You're dismissed as a Scottish-descended uebermensch goosestepper living on land stolen from its indigenous inhabitants who's too afraid to assist his beloved Jihadists hands on in the region while I left the US and came to live in my rightful national inheritance. If you object, come over here and try to eject me -- go one bolder than the ISM-ers.

Jewish Dissidents Must Challenge Israel
Our Silence is Complicity
Jewish Dissidents Must Challenge Israel

By HENRI PICCIOTTO

I grew up Jewish in Beirut. Although I left nearly 40 years ago, my memories of Lebanon -- vibrant and multicultural -- have stayed with me. And so, my wife and I had started talking about taking a trip there.

I would show her the neighborhood where I grew up, the beaches where I swam in the warm Mediterranean waters and the small mountain hotel we loved to stay at in the summer. I would also show her my school, where Jewish, Christian and Muslim children learned and grew together.

After the past few weeks, we may never be able to take this trip. Israeli bombings have killed more than 700 Lebanese civilians. Hundreds of thousands -- more than one-fifth of the population -- have become refugees, uprooted from their homes. Lebanon's civilian infrastructure has been systematically destroyed.

We, as Americans, bear a special responsibility for this carnage. If Washington would withhold its unconditional military, economic and diplomatic support for Israel, the Israeli government would waste no time in starting genuine negotiations. Current U.S.-backed cease-fire proposals are so unfair to Lebanon that the Lebanese government has already indicated it cannot accept the terms, which do not even include a full Israeli withdrawal.

This one-sided U.S. policy is the result of a combination of factors, but it thrives on the myth that all American Jews stand uncritically behind the Israeli government.

Many believe that American Jews unanimously and unconditionally support the Israeli government. That what we learned from the Holocaust is to shoot first and ask questions later. That our commitment to justice and equal rights is a quaint feature of our past.

There is a saying ``two Jews, three opinions.'' Now we are told ``1 million Jews, one opinion.''

In fact, our community is profoundly divided:

o Hundreds, if not thousands, of Jews all over the country have demonstrated to demand an end to the bombing of Gaza and Lebanon. In one of these demonstrations, 17 Jewish protesters were arrested in an act of civil disobedience.

o In the past few days, thousands of Jews have signed a petition demanding that the United States intervene to stop the wanton killing of Lebanese civilians by the Israeli war machine.

o Jewish organizations that sponsor such demonstrations and petitions, such as Jewish Voice for Peace (on whose board I serve), are experiencing exponential growth. Jews are looking for ways to express their outrage at the actions of the Israeli government, and of the blind support accorded by the Jewish establishment in this country.

We are appalled by the Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli cities, just as we were the earlier attacks by Israel on Lebanese cities. We mourn the loss of Israeli, Palestinian and Lebanese lives equally. We are outraged by the destruction of Lebanese airports, roads and bridges, the bombing of homes and private cars, the killing of children, and the other horrors visited by the Israelis on their neighbors.

It is this kind of past Israeli behavior that gave birth to both Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that have strengthened immeasurably in recent weeks. Israeli intransigence has made Israel a pariah state, and is the biggest enemy of all the people of the Middle East -- Arabs and Israelis alike.

Jewish American leaders work tirelessly to promote the myth of Jewish consensus. Their tactics include refusing to rent space to dissenters, threatening funding cuts when Jewish institutions question Israel's actions and canceling meetings when they suspect debate might occur. Their most ubiquitous weapon is the hurtful charge of anti-Semitism, hurled at both dissenting Jews and Gentiles.

Many Jews question Israel's policies, but are afraid to speak out in their congregations or even to their families. But the time has come for Jewish dissidents to challenge the policies of the Israeli government. In the short run these policies kill Arabs, mostly innocent civilians; in the long run, they can result only in disaster for Israelis and Jews worldwide. Our silence in this time of crisis is complicity. We need to help bring about the peace that would one day make my visit to Beirut -- and the visit of all Jews -- possible.

HENRI PICCIOTTO of Berkeley is a mathematics educator and chairman of the board of Jewish Voice for Peace

Zionism as a Racist Ideology
Reviving an Old Theme to Prevent Palestinian Ethnicide

By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON

During a presentation on the Palestinian-Israeli situation in 2001, an American-Israeli acquaintance of ours began with a typical attack on the Palestinians. Taking the overused line that "Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity," he asserted snidely that, if only the Palestinians had had any decency and not been so all-fired interested in pushing the Jews into the sea in 1948, they would have accepted the UN partition of Palestine. Those Palestinians who became refugees would instead have remained peacefully in their homes, and the state of Palestine could in the year 2001 be celebrating the 53rd anniversary of its independence. Everything could have been sweetness and light, he contended, but here the Palestinians were, then a year into a deadly intifada, still stateless, still hostile, and still trying, he claimed, to push the Jews into the sea.

It was a common line but with a new and intriguing twist: what if the Palestinians had accepted partition; would they in fact have lived in a state at peace since 1948? It was enough to make the audience stop and think. But later in the talk, the speaker tripped himself up by claiming, in a tone of deep alarm, that Palestinian insistence on the right of return for Palestinian refugees displaced when Israel was created would spell the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. He did not realize the inherent contradiction in his two assertions (until we later pointed it out to him, with no little glee). You cannot have it both ways, we told him: you cannot claim that, if Palestinians had not left the areas that became Israel in 1948, they would now be living peaceably, some inside and some alongside a Jewish-majority state, and then also claim that, if they returned now, Israel would lose its Jewish majority and its essential identity as a Jewish state.*

This exchange, and the massive propaganda effort by and on behalf of Israel to demonstrate the threat to Israel's Jewish character posed by the Palestinians' right of return, actually reveal the dirty little secret of Zionism. In its drive to establish and maintain a state in which Jews are always the majority, Zionism absolutely required that Palestinians, as non-Jews, be made to leave in 1948 and never be allowed to return. The dirty little secret is that this is blatant racism.

But didn't we finish with that old Zionism-is-racism issue over a decade ago, when in 1991 the UN repealed a 1975 General Assembly resolution that defined Zionism as "a form of racism or racial discrimination"? Hadn't we Americans always rejected this resolution as odious anti-Semitism, and didn't we, under the aegis of the first Bush administration, finally prevail on the rest of the world community to agree that it was not only inaccurate but downright evil to label Zionism as racist? Why bring it up again, now?

The UN General Assembly based its 1975 anti-Zionist resolution on the UN's own definition of racial discrimination, adopted in 1965. According to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, racial discrimination is "any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life." As a definition of racism and racial discrimination, this statement is unassailable and, if one is honest about what Zionism is and what it signifies, the statement is an accurate definition of Zionism. But in 1975, in the political atmosphere prevailing at the time, putting forth such a definition was utterly self-defeating.

So would a formal resolution be in today's political atmosphere. But enough has changed over the last decade or more that talk about Zionism as a system that either is inherently racist or at least fosters racism is increasingly possible and increasingly necessary. Despite the vehement knee-jerk opposition to any such discussion throughout the United States, serious scholars elsewhere and serious Israelis have begun increasingly to examine Zionism critically, and there is much greater receptivity to the notion that no real peace will be forged in Palestine-Israel unless the bases of Zionism are examined and in some way altered. It is for this reason that honestly labeling Zionism as a racist political philosophy is so necessary: unless the world's, and particularly the United States', blind support for Israel as an exclusivist Jewish state is undermined, unless the blind acceptance of Zionism as a noble ideology is undermined, and unless it is recognized that Israel's drive to maintain dominion over the occupied Palestinian territories is motivated by an exclusivist, racist ideology, no one will ever gain the political strength or the political will necessary to force Israel to relinquish territory and permit establishment of a truly sovereign and independent Palestinian state in a part of Palestine.

Recognizing Zionism's Racism

A racist ideology need not always manifest itself as such, and, if the circumstances are right, it need not always actually practice racism to maintain itself. For decades after its creation, the circumstances were right for Israel. If one forgot, as most people did, the fact that 750,000 Palestinians (non-Jews) had left their homeland under duress, thus making room for a Jewish-majority state, everyone could accept Israel as a genuine democracy, even to a certain extent for that small minority of Palestinians who had remained after 1948. That minority was not large enough to threaten Israel's Jewish majority; it faced considerable discrimination, but because Israeli Arabs could vote, this discrimination was viewed not as institutional, state-mandated racism but as the kind of discrimination, deplorable but not institutionalized, faced by blacks in the United States. The occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, with their two million (soon to become more than three million) Palestinian inhabitants, was seen to be temporary, its end awaiting only the Arabs' readiness to accept Israel's existence.

In these "right" circumstances, the issue of racism rarely arose, and the UN's labeling of Israel's fundamental ideology as racist came across to Americans and most westerners as nasty and vindictive. Outside the third world, Israel had come to be regarded as the perpetual innocent, not aggressive, certainly not racist, and desirous of nothing more than a peace agreement that would allow it to mind its own business inside its original borders in a democratic state. By the time the Zionism-is-racism resolution was rescinded in 1991, even the PLO had officially recognized Israel's right to exist in peace inside its 1967 borders, with its Jewish majority uncontested. In fact, this very acceptance of Israel by its principal adversary played no small part in facilitating the U.S. effort to garner support for overturning the resolution. (The fact of U.S. global dominance in the wake of the first Gulf war and the collapse of the Soviet Union earlier in 1991, and the atmosphere of optimism about prospects for peace created by the Madrid peace conference in October also played a significant part in winning over a majority of the UN when the Zionism resolution was brought to a vote of the General Assembly in December.)

Realities are very different today, and a recognition of Zionism's racist bases, as well as an understanding of the racist policies being played out in the occupied territories are essential if there is to be any hope at all of achieving a peaceful, just, and stable resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The egg of Palestine has been permanently scrambled, and it is now increasingly the case that, as Zionism is recognized as the driving force in the occupied territories as well as inside Israel proper, pre-1967 Israel can no longer be considered in isolation. It can no longer be allowed simply to go its own way as a Jewish-majority state, a state in which the circumstances are "right" for ignoring Zionism's fundamental racism.

As Israel increasingly inserts itself into the occupied territories, and as Israeli settlers, Israeli settlements, and Israeli-only roads proliferate and a state infrastructure benefiting only Jews takes over more and more territory, it becomes no longer possible to ignore the racist underpinnings of the Zionist ideology that directs this enterprise. It is no longer possible today to wink at the permanence of Zionism's thrust beyond Israel's pre-1967 borders. It is now clear that Israel's control over the occupied territories is, and has all along been intended to be, a drive to assert exclusive Jewish control, taming the Palestinians into submission and squeezing them into ever smaller, more disconnected segments of land or, failing that, forcing them to leave Palestine altogether. It is totally obvious to anyone who spends time on the ground in Palestine-Israel that the animating force behind the policies of the present and all past Israeli governments in Israel and in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem has always been a determination to assure the predominance of Jews over Palestinians. Such policies can only be described as racist, and we should stop trying any longer to avoid the word.

When you are on the ground in Palestine, you can see Zionism physically imprinted on the landscape. Not only can you see that there are settlements, built on land confiscated from Palestinians, where Palestinians may not live. Not only can you see roads in the occupied territories, again built on land taken from Palestinians, where Palestinians may not drive. Not only can you observe that water in the occupied territories is allocated, by Israeli governmental authorities, so inequitably that Israeli settlers are allocated five times the amount per capita as are Palestinians and, in periods of drought, Palestinians stand in line for drinking water while Israeli settlements enjoy lush gardens and swimming pools. Not only can you stand and watch as Israeli bulldozers flatten Palestinian olive groves and other agricultural land, destroy Palestinian wells, and demolish Palestinian homes to make way for the separation wall that Israel is constructing across the length and breadth of the West Bank. The wall fences off Palestinians from Israelis, supposedly to provide greater security for Israelis but in fact in order to cage Palestinians, to define a border for Israel that will exclude a maximum number of Palestinians.

But, if this is not enough to demonstrate the inherent racism of Israel's occupation, you can also drive through Palestinian towns and Palestinian neighborhoods in and near Jerusalem and see what is perhaps the most cruelly racist policy in Zionism's arsenal: house demolitions, the preeminent symbol of Zionism's drive to maintain Jewish predominance. Virtually every street has a house or houses reduced to rubble, one floor pancaked onto another or simply a pile of broken concrete bulldozed into an incoherent heap. Jeff Halper, founder and head of the non-governmental Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), an anthropologist and scholar of the occupation, has observed that Zionist and Israeli leaders going back 80 years have all conveyed what he calls "The Message" to Palestinians. The Message, Halper says, is "Submit. Only when you abandon your dreams for an independent state of your own, and accept that Palestine has become the Land of Israel, will we relent [i.e., stop attacking Palestinians]." The deeper meaning of The Message, as carried by the bulldozers so ubiquitous in targeted Palestinian neighborhoods today, is that "You [Palestinians] do not belong here. We uprooted you from your homes in 1948and now we will uproot you from all of the Land of Israel."

In the end, Halper says, the advance of Zionism has been a process of displacement, and house demolitions have been "at the center of the Israeli struggle against the Palestinians" since 1948. Halper enumerates a steady history of destruction: in the first six years of Israel's existence, it systematically razed 418 Palestinian villages inside Israel, fully 85 percent of the villages existing before 1948; since the occupation began in 1967, Israel has demolished 11,000 Palestinian homes. More homes are now being demolished in the path of Israel's "separation wall." It is estimated that more than 4,000 homes have been destroyed in the last two years alone.

The vast majority of these house demolitions, 95 percent, have nothing whatever to do with fighting terrorism, but are designed specifically to displace non-Jews and assure the advance of Zionism. In Jerusalem, from the beginning of the occupation of the eastern sector of the city in 1967, Israeli authorities have designed zoning plans specifically to prevent the growth of the Palestinian population. Maintaining the "Jewish character" of the city at the level existing in 1967 (71 percent Jewish, 29 percent Palestinian) required that Israel draw zoning boundaries to prevent Palestinian expansion beyond existing neighborhoods, expropriate Palestinian-owned lands, confiscate the Jerusalem residency permits of any Palestinian who cannot prove that Jerusalem is his "center of life," limit city services to Palestinian areas, limit development in Palestinian neighborhoods, refuse to issue residential building permits to Palestinians, and demolish Palestinian homes that are built without permits. None of these strictures is imposed on Jews. According to ICAHD, the housing shortage in Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem is approximately 25,000 units, and 2,000 demolition orders are pending.

Halper has written that the human suffering involved in the destruction of a family home is incalculable. A home "is one's symbolic center, the site of one's most intimate personal life and an expression of one's status. It is a refuge, it is the physical representation of the family,maintainingcontinuity on one's ancestral land." Land expropriation is "an attack on one's very being and identity." Zionist governments, past and present, have understood this well, although not with the compassion or empathy that Halper conveys, and this attack on the "very being and identity" of non-Jews has been precisely the animating force behind Zionism.

Zionism's racism has, of course, been fundamental to Israel itself since its establishment in 1948. The Israeli government pursues policies against its own Bedouin minority very similar to its actions in the occupied territories. The Bedouin population has been forcibly relocated and squeezed into small areas in the Negev, again with the intent of forcing an exodus, and half of the 140,000 Bedouin in the Negev live in villages that the Israeli government does not recognize and does not provide services for. Every Bedouin home in an unrecognized village is slated for demolition; all homes, and the very presence of Bedouin in them, are officially illegal.

The problem of the Bedouins' unrecognized villages is only the partial evidence of a racist policy that has prevailed since Israel's foundation. After Zionist/Israeli leaders assured that the non-Jews (i.e., the Palestinians) making up the majority of Palestine's population (a two-thirds majority at the time) departed the scene in 1948, Israeli governments institutionalized favoritism toward Jews by law. As a Zionist state, Israel has always identified itself as the state of the Jews: as a state not of its Jewish and Palestinian citizens, but of all Jews everywhere in the world. The institutions of state guarantee the rights of and provide benefits for Jews. The Law of Return gives automatic citizenship to Jews from anywhere in the world, but to no other people. Some 92 percent of the land of Israel is state land, held by the Jewish National Fund "in trust" for the Jewish people; Palestinians may not purchase this land, even though most of it was Palestinian land before 1948, and in most instances they may not even lease the land. Both the Jewish National Fund, which deals with land acquisition and development, and the Jewish Agency, which deals primarily with Jewish immigration and immigrant absorption, have existed since before the state's establishment and now perform their duties specifically for Jews under an official mandate from the Israeli government.

Creating Enemies

Although few dare to give the reality of house demolitions and state institutions favoring Jews the label of racism, the phenomenon this reality describes is unmistakably racist. There is no other term for a process by which one people can achieve the essence of its political philosophy only by suppressing another people, by which one people guarantees its perpetual numerical superiority and its overwhelming predominance over another people through a deliberate process of repression and dispossession of those people. From the beginning, Zionism has been based on the supremacy of the Jewish people, whether this predominance was to be exercised in a full-fledged state or in some other kind of political entity, and Zionism could never have survived or certainly thrived in Palestine without ridding that land of most of its native population. The early Zionists themselves knew this (as did the Palestinians), even if naïve Americans have never quite gotten it. Theodore Herzl, father of Zionism, talked from the beginning of "spiriting" the native Palestinians out and across the border; discussion of "transfer" was common among the Zionist leadership in Palestine in the 1930s; talk of transfer is common today.

There has been a logical progression to the development of Zionism, leading inevitably to general acceptance of the sense that, because Jewish needs are paramount, Jews themselves are paramount. Zionism grew out of the sense that Jews needed a refuge from persecution, which led in turn to the belief that the refuge could be truly secure only if Jews guaranteed their own safety, which meant that the refuge must be exclusively or at least overwhelmingly Jewish, which meant in turn that Jews and their demands were superior, taking precedence over any other interests within that refuge. The mindset that in U.S. public discourse tends to view the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from a perspective almost exclusively focused on Israel arises out of this progression of Zionist thinking. By the very nature of a mindset, virtually no one examines the assumptions on which the Zionist mindset is based, and few recognize the racist base on which it rests.

Israeli governments through the decades have never been so innocent. Many officials in the current right-wing government are blatantly racist. Israel's outspoken education minister, Limor Livnat, spelled out the extreme right-wing defense of Zionism a year ago, when the government proposed to legalize the right of Jewish communities in Israel to exclude non-Jews. Livnat justified Israel's racism as a matter of Jewish self-preservation. "We're involved here," she said in a radio interview, "in a struggle for the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jews, as opposed tothose who want to force us to be a state of all its citizens." Israel is not "just another state like all the other states," she protested. "We are not just a state of all its citizens."

Livnat cautioned that Israel must be very watchful lest it find in another few years that the Galilee and the Negev, two areas inside Israel with large Arab populations, are "filled with Arab communities." To emphasize the point, she reiterated that Israel's "special purpose is our character as a Jewish state, our desire to preserve a Jewish community and Jewish majority hereso that it does not become a state of all its citizens." Livnat was speaking of Jewish self-preservation not in terms of saving the Jews or Israel from a territorial threat of military invasion by a marauding neighbor state, but in terms of preserving Jews from the mere existence of another people within spitting distance.

Most Zionists of a more moderate stripe might shudder at the explicitness of Livnat's message and deny that Zionism is really like this. But in fact this properly defines the racism that necessarily underlies Zionism. Most centrist and leftist Zionists deny the reality of Zionism's racism by trying to portray Zionism as a democratic system and manufacturing enemies in order to be able to sustain the inherent contradiction and hide or excuse the racism behind Zionism's drive for predominance.

Indeed, the most pernicious aspect of a political philosophy like Zionism that masquerades as democratic is that it requires an enemy in order to survive and, where an enemy does not already exist, it requires that one be created. In order to justify racist repression and dispossession, particularly in a system purporting to be democratic, those being repressed and displaced must be portrayed as murderous and predatory. And in order to keep its own population in line, to prevent a humane people from objecting to their own government's repressive policies, it requires that fear be instilled in the population: fear of "the other," fear of the terrorist, fear of the Jew-hater. The Jews of Israel must always be made to believe that they are the preyed-upon. This justifies having forced these enemies to leave, it justifies discriminating against those who remained, it justifies denying democratic rights to those who later came under Israel's control in the occupied territories.

Needing an enemy has meant that Zionism has from the beginning had to create myths about Palestinians, painting Palestinians and all Arabs as immutably hostile and intransigent. Thus the myth that in 1948 Palestinians left Palestine so that Arab armies could throw the Jews into the sea; thus the continuing myth that Palestinians remain determined to destroy Israel. Needing an enemy means that Zionism, as one veteran Israeli peace activist recently put it, has removed the Palestinians from history. Thus the myths that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, or that Palestinians all immigrated in modern times from other Arab countries, or that Jordan is Palestine and Palestinians should find their state there.

Needing an enemy means that Zionism has had to make its negotiating partner into a terrorist. It means that, for its own preservation, Zionism has had to devise a need to ignore its partner/enemy or expel him or assassinate him. It means that Zionism has had to reject any conciliatory effort by the Palestinians and portray them as "never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity" to make peace. This includes in particular rejecting that most conciliatory gesture, the PLO's decision in 1988 to recognize Israel's existence, relinquish Palestinian claims to the three-quarters of Palestine lying inside Israel's pre-1967 borders, and even recognize Israel's "right" to exist there.

Needing an enemy means, ultimately, that Zionism had to create the myth of the "generous offer" at the Camp David summit in July 2000. It was Zionist racism that painted the Palestinians as hopelessly intransigent for refusing Israel's supposedly generous offer, actually an impossible offer that would have maintained Zionism's hold on the occupied territories and left the Palestinians with a disconnected, indefensible, non-viable state. Then, when the intifada erupted (after Palestinian demonstrators threw stones at Israeli police and the police responded by shooting several demonstrators to death), it was Zionist racism speaking when Israel put out the line that it was under siege and in a battle for its very survival with Palestinians intent on destroying it. When a few months later the issue of Palestinian refugees and their "right of return" arose publicly, it was Zionist racism speaking when Israel and its defenders, ignoring the several ways in which Palestinian negotiators signaled their readiness to compromise this demand, propagated the view that this too was intended as a way to destroy Israel, by flooding it with non-Jews and destroying its Jewish character.

The Zionist Dilemma

The supposed threat from "the other" is the eternal refuge of the majority of Israelis and Israeli supporters in the United States. The common line is that "We Israelis and friends of Israel long for peace, we support Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, we have always supported giving the Palestinians self-government. But 'they' hate us, they want to destroy Israel. Wasn't this obvious when Arafat turned his back on Israel's generous offer? Wasn't this obvious when Arafat started the intifada? Wasn't this obvious when Arafat demanded that the Palestinians be given the right of return, which would destroy Israel as a Jewish state? We have already made concession after concession. How can we give them any further concessions when they would only fight for more and more until Israel is gone?" This line relieves Israel of any responsibility to make concessions or move toward serious negotiations; it relieves Israelis of any need to treat Palestinians as equals; it relieves Israelis and their defenders of any need to think; it justifies racism, while calling it something else.

Increasing numbers of Israelis themselves (some of whom have long been non-Zionists, some of whom are only now beginning to see the problem with Zionism) are recognizing the inherent racism of their nation's raison d'etre. During the years of the peace process, and indeed for the last decade and a half since the PLO formally recognized Israel's existence, the Israeli left could ignore the problems of Zionism while pursuing efforts to promote the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza that would coexist with Israel. Zionism continued to be more or less a non-issue: Israel could organize itself in any way it chose inside its own borders, and the Palestinian state could fulfill Palestinian national aspirations inside its new borders.

Few of those nettlesome issues surrounding Zionism, such as how much democracy Zionism can allow to non-Jews without destroying its reason for being, would arise in a two-state situation. The issue of Zionism's responsibility for the Palestinians' dispossession could also be put aside. As Haim Hanegbi, a non-Zionist Israeli who recently went back to the fold of single-state binationalism (and who is a long-time cohort of Uri Avnery in the Gush Shalom movement), said in a recent interview with the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, the promise of mutual recognition offered by the Oslo peace process mesmerized him and others in the peace movement and so "in the mid-1990s I had second thoughts about my traditional [binational] approach. I didn't think it was my task to go to Ramallah and present the Palestinians with the list of Zionist wrongs and tell them not to forget what our fathers did to their fathers." Nor were the Palestinians themselves reminding Zionists of these wrongs at the time.

As new wrongs in the occupied territories increasingly recall old wrongs from half a century ago, however, and as Zionism finds that it cannot cope with end-of-conflict demands like the Palestinians' insistence that Israel accept their right of return by acknowledging its role in their dispossession, more and more Israelis are coming to accept the reality that Zionism can never escape its past. It is becoming increasingly clear to many Israelis that Israel has absorbed so much of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem into itself that the Jewish and the Palestinian peoples can never be separated fairly. The separation wall, says Hanegbi, "is the great despairing solution of the Jewish-Zionist society. It is the last desperate act of those who cannot confront the Palestinian issue. Of those who are compelled to push the Palestinian issue out of their lives and out of their consciousness." For Hanegbi, born in Palestine before 1948, Palestinians "were always part of my landscape," and without them, "this is a barren country, a disabled country."

Old-line Zionist Meron Benvenisti, who has also moved to support for binationalism, used almost identical metaphors in a Ha'aretz interview run alongside Hanegbi's. Also Palestine-born and a contemporary of Hanegbi, Benvenisti believes "this is a country in which there were always Arabs. This is a country in which the Arabs are the landscape, the natives.I don't see myself living here without them. In my eyes, without Arabs this is a barren land."

Both men discuss the evolution of their thinking over the decades, and both describe a period in which, after the triumph of Zionism, they unthinkingly accepted its dispossession of the Palestinians. Each man describes the Palestinians simply disappearing when he was an adolescent ("They just sort of evaporated," says Hanegbi), and Benvenisti recalls a long period in which the Palestinian "tragedy simply did not penetrate my consciousness." But both speak in very un-Zionist terms of equality. Benvenisti touches on the crux of the Zionist dilemma. "This is where I am different from my friends in the left," he says, "because I am truly a native son of immigrants, who is drawn to the Arab culture and the Arabic language because it is here. It is the land.Whereas the right, certainly, but the left too hates Arabs. The Arabs bother them; they complicate things. The subject generates moral questions and that generates cultural unease."

Hanegbi goes farther. "I am not a psychologist," he says, "but I think that everyone who lives with the contradictions of Zionism condemns himself to protracted madness. It's impossible to live like this. It's impossible to live with such a tremendous wrong. It's impossible to live with such conflicting moral criteria. When I see not only the settlements and the occupation and the suppression, but now also the insane wall that the Israelis are trying to hide behind, I have to conclude that there is something very deep here in our attitude to the indigenous people of this land that drives us out of our minds."

While some thoughtful Israelis like these men struggle with philosophical questions of existence and identity and the collective Jewish conscience, few American defenders of Israel seem troubled by such deep issues. Racism is often banal. Most of those who practice it, and most of those who support Israel as a Zionist state, would be horrified to be accused of racism, because their racist practices have become commonplace. They do not even think about what they do. We recently encountered a typical American supporter of Israel who would have argued vigorously if we had accused her of racism. During a presentation we were giving to a class, this (non-Jewish) woman rose to ask a question that went roughly like this: "I want to ask about the failure of the other Arabs to take care of the Palestinians. I must say I sympathize with Israel because Israel simply wants to have a secure state, but the other Arabs have refused to take the Palestinians in, and so they sit in camps and their hostility toward Israel just festers."

This is an extremely common American, and Israeli, perception, the idea being that if the Arab states would only absorb the Palestinians so that they became Lebanese or Syrians or Jordanians, they would forget about being Palestinian, forget that Israel had displaced and dispossessed them, and forget about "wanting to destroy Israel." Israel would then be able simply to go about its own business and live in peace, as it so desperately wants to do. This woman's assumption was that it is acceptable for Israel to have established itself as a Jewish state at the expense of (i.e., after the ethnic cleansing of) the land's non-Jewish inhabitants, that any Palestinian objection to this reality is illegitimate, and that all subsequent animosity toward Israel is ultimately the fault of neighboring Arab states who failed to smother the Palestinians' resistance by anesthetizing them to their plight and erasing their identity and their collective memory of Palestine.

When later in the class the subject arose of Israel ending the occupation, this same woman spoke up to object that, if Israel did give up control over the West Bank and Gaza, it would be economically disadvantaged, at least in the agricultural sector. "Wouldn't this leave Israel as just a desert?" she wondered. Apart from the fact that the answer is a clear "no" (Israel's agricultural capability inside its 1967 borders is quite high, and most of Israel is not desert), the woman's question was again based on the automatic assumption that Israel's interests take precedence over those of anyone else and that, in order to enhance its own agricultural economy (or, presumably, for any other perceived gain), Israel has the right to conquer and take permanent possession of another people's land.

The notion that the Jewish/Zionist state of Israel has a greater right to possess the land, or a greater right to security, or a greater right to a thriving economy, than the people who are native to that land is extremely racist, but this woman would probably object strenuously to having it pointed out that this is a Jewish supremacist viewpoint identical to past justifications for white South Africa's apartheid regime and to the rationale for all European colonial (racist) systems that exploited the human and natural resources of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia over the centuries for the sole benefit of the colonizers. Racism must necessarily be blind to its own immorality; the burden of conscience is otherwise too great. This is the banality of evil.

(Unconsciously, of course, many Americans also seem to believe that the shameful policies of the U.S. government toward Native Americans somehow make it acceptable for the government of Israel to pursue equally shameful policies toward the Palestinians. The U.S. needs to face its racist policies head on as much as it needs to confront the racism of its foremost partner, Israel.)

This woman's view is so very typical, something you hear constantly in casual conversation and casual encounters at social occasions, that it hardly seems significant. But this very banality is precisely the evil of it; what is evil is the very fact that it is "hardly significant" that Zionism by its nature is racist and that this reality goes unnoticed by decent people who count themselves defenders of Israel. The universal acceptability of a system that is at heart racist but proclaims itself to be benign, even noble, and the license this acceptability gives Israel to oppress another people, are striking testimony to the selectivity of the human conscience and its general disinterest in human questions of justice and human rights except when these are politically useful.

Countering the Counter-Arguments

To put some perspective on this issue, a few clarifying questions must be addressed. Many opponents of the occupation would argue that, although Israel's policies in the occupied territories are racist in practice, they are an abuse of Zionism and that racism is not inherent in it. This seems to be the position of several prominent commentators who have recently denounced Israel severely for what it does in the West Bank and Gaza but fail to recognize the racism in what Israel did upon its establishment in 1948. In a recent bitter denunciation of Zionist policies today, Avraham Burg, a former Knesset speaker, lamented that Zionism had become corrupted by ruling as an occupier over another people, and he longed for the days of Israel's youth when "our national destiny" was "as a light unto the nations and a society of peace, justice and equality." These are nice words, and it is heartening to hear credible mainstream Israelis so clearly denouncing the occupation, but Burg's assumption that before the occupation Zionism followed "a just path" and always had "an ethical leadership" ignores the unjust and unethical policy of ethnic cleansing that allowed Israel to become a so-called Jewish democracy in the first place.

Acknowledging the racist underpinnings of an ideology so long held up as the embodiment of justice and ethics appears to be impossible for many of the most intellectual of Israelis and Israeli defenders. Many who strongly oppose Israel's policies in the occupied territories still, despite their opposition, go through considerable contortions to "prove" that Israel itself is not racist. Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the Jewish magazine Tikkun and a long-time opponent of the occupation, rejects the notion that Zionism is racist on the narrow grounds that Jewishness is only a religious identity and that Israel welcomes Jews of all races and ethnicities and therefore cannot be called racist. But this confuses the point. Preference toward a particular religion, which is the only aspect of racism that Lerner has addressed and which he acknowledges occurs in Israel, is no more acceptable than preference on ethnic grounds.

But most important, racism has to do primarily with those discriminated against, not with those who do the discriminating. Using Lerner's reasoning, apartheid South Africa might also not be considered racist because it welcomed whites of all ethnicities. But its inherent evil lay in the fact that its very openness to whites discriminated against blacks. Discrimination against any people on the basis of "race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin" is the major characteristic of racism as the UN defines it. Discrimination against Palestinians and other non-Jews, simply because they are not Jews, is the basis on which Israel constitutes itself. Lerner seems to believe that, because the Palestinian citizens of Israel have the vote and are represented in the Knesset, there is no racial or ethnic discrimination in Israel. But, apart from skipping over the institutional racism that keeps Palestinian Israelis in perpetual second-class citizenship, this argument ignores the more essential reality that Israel reached its present ethnic balance, the point at which it could comfortably allow Palestinians to vote without endangering its Jewish character, only because in 1948 three-quarters of a million Palestinians were forced to leave what became the Jewish state of Israel.

More questions need to be addressed. Is every Israeli or every Jew a racist? Most assuredly not, as the examples of Jeff Halper, Haim Hanegbi, Meron Benvenisti, and many others like them strikingly illustrate. Is every Zionist a racist? Probably not, if one accepts ignorance as an exonerating factor. No doubt the vast majority of Israelis, most very good-hearted people, are not consciously racist but "go along" unquestioningly, having been born into or moved to an apparently democratic state and never examined the issue closely, and having bought into the line fed them by every Israeli government from the beginning, that Palestinians and other Arabs are enemies and that whatever actions Israel takes against Palestinians are necessary to guarantee the personal security of Israelis.

Is it anti-Semitic to say that Zionism is a racist system? Certainly not. Political criticism is not ethnic or religious hatred. Stating a reality about a government's political system or its political conduct says nothing about the qualities of its citizens or its friends. Racism is not a part of the genetic makeup of Jews, any more than it was a part of the genetic makeup of Germans when Hitler ran a racist regime. Nor do Zionism's claim to speak for all Jews everywhere and Israel's claim to be the state of all Jews everywhere make all Jews Zionists. Zionism did not ask for or receive the consent of universal Jewry to speak in its name; therefore labeling Zionism as racist does not label all Jews and cannot be called anti-Semitic.

Why It Matters

Are there other racist systems, and are there governing systems and political philosophies, racist or not, that are worse than Zionism? Of course, but this fact does not relieve Zionism of culpability. (Racism obviously exists in the United States and in times past was pervasive throughout the country, but, unlike Israel, the U.S. is not a racist governing system, based on racist foundations and depending for its raison d'etre on a racist philosophy.) Many defenders of Israel (Michael Lerner and columnist Thomas Friedman come to mind) contend that when Israel is "singled out" for criticism not also leveled at oppressive regimes elsewhere, the attackers are exhibiting a special hatred for Jews. Anyone who does not also criticize Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong Il or Bashar al-Assad for atrocities far greater than Israel's, they charge, is showing that he is less concerned to uphold absolute values than to tear down Israel because it is Jewish. But this charge ignores several factors that demand criticism of Zionist racism. First, because the U.S. government supports Zionism and its racist policy on a continuing basis and props up Zionism's military machine with massive amounts of military aid, it is wholly appropriate for Americans (indeed, it is incumbent on Americans) to call greater attention to Zionism's racism than, for instance, to North Korea's appalling cruelties. The United States does not assist in North Korea's atrocities, but it does underwrite Zionism's brutality.

There is also a strong moral reason for denouncing Zionism as racist. Zionism advertises itself, and actually congratulates itself, as a uniquely moral system that stands as a "light unto the nations," putting itself forward as in a real sense the very embodiment of the values Americans hold dear. Many Zionist friends of Israel would have us believe that Zionism is us, and in many ways it is: most Americans, seeing Israelis as "like us," have grown up with the notion that Israel is a noble enterprise and that the ideology that spawned it is of the highest moral order. Substantial numbers of Americans, non-Jews as well as Jews, feel an emotional and psychological bond with Israel and Zionism that goes far beyond the ties to any other foreign ally. One scholar, describing the U.S.-Israeli tie, refers to Israel as part of the "being" of the United States. Precisely because of the intimacy of the relationship, it is imperative that Zionism's hypocrisy be exposed, that Americans not give aid and comfort to, or even remain associated with, a morally repugnant system that uses racism to exalt one people over all others while masquerading as something better than it is. The United States can remain supportive of Israel as a nation without any longer associating itself with Israel's racism.

Finally, there are critical practical reasons for acknowledging Zionism's racism and enunciating a U.S. policy clearly opposed to racism everywhere and to the repressive Israeli policies that arise from Zionist racism. Now more than at any time since the United States positioned itself as an enthusiastic supporter of Zionism, U.S. endorsement, and indeed facilitation, of Israel's racist policies put this country at great risk for terrorism on a massive scale. Terrorism arises, not as President Bush would have us believe from "hatred of our liberties," but from hatred of our oppressive, killing policies throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds, and in a major way from our support for Israel's severe oppression of the Palestinians. Terrorism is never acceptable, but it is explainable, and it is usually avoidable. Supporting the oppression of Palestinians that arises from Israel's racism only encourages terrorism.

It is time to begin openly expressing revulsion at the racism against Palestinians that the United States has been supporting for decades. It is time to sound an alarm about the near irreversibility of Israel's absorption of the occupied territories into Israel, about the fact that this arises from a fundamentally racist ideology, about the fact that this racism is leading to the ethnicide of an entire nation of people, and about the fact that it is very likely to produce horrific terrorist retaliation against the U.S. because of its unquestioning support. Many who are intimately familiar with the situation on the ground are already sounding an alarm, usually without using the word racism but using other inflammatory terms. Israeli commentator Ran HaCohen recently observed that "Israel's atrocities have now intensified to an extent unimaginable in previous decades." Land confiscation, curfew, the "gradual pushing of Palestinians from areas designated for Jews" have accompanied the occupation all along, he wrote, but the level of oppression now "is quite another story.[This is] an eliminationist policy on the verge of genocide."

The Foundation for Middle East Peace, a Washington-based institution that has tracked Israeli settlement-building for decades, came to much the same conclusion, although using less attention-getting language, in its most recent bimonthly newsletter. Israel, it wrote, is "undertaking massive, unprecedented efforts beyond the construction of new settlement housing, which proceeds apace, to put the question of its control of these areas beyond the reach of diplomacy." Israel's actions, particularly the "relentless" increase in territorial control, the foundation concluded, have "compromised not only the prospect for genuine Palestinian independence but also, in ways not seen in Israel's 36-year occupation, the very sustainability of everyday Palestinian life."

It signals a remarkable change when Israeli commentators and normally staid foundations begin using terms like "unprecedented," "unimaginable in previous decades," "in ways not seen in Israel's 36-year occupation," even words like "eliminationist" and "genocide." While the Bush administration, every Democratic presidential candidate (including, to some degree, even the most progressive), Congress, and the mainstream U.S. media blithely ignore the extent of the destruction in Palestine, more and more voices outside the United States and outside the mainstream in the U.S. are finally coming to recognize that Israel is squeezing the life out of the Palestinian nation. Those who see this reality should begin to expose not only the reality but the racism that is at its root.

Some very thoughtful Israelis, including Haim Hanegbi, Meron Benvenisti, and activists like Jeff Halper, have come to the conclusion that Israel has absorbed so much of the occupied territories that a separate, truly independent Palestinian state can never be established in the West Bank and Gaza. They now regard a binational solution as the only way. In theory, this would mean an end to Zionism (and Zionist racism) by allowing the Jewish and the Palestinian peoples to form a single secular state in all of Palestine in which they live together in equality and democracy, in which neither people is superior, in which neither people identifies itself by its nationality or its religion but rather simply by its citizenship. Impossible? Idealized? Pie-in-the-sky? Probably so but maybe not.

Other Israeli and Jewish activists and thinkers, such as Israel's Uri Avnery and CounterPunch contributor Michael Neumann, have cogently challenged the wisdom and the realism of trying to pursue binationalism at the present time. But it is striking that their arguments center on what will best assure a decent outcome for Palestinians. In fact, what is most heartening about the newly emerging debate over the one- versus the two-state solution is the fact that intelligent, compassionate people have at long last been able to move beyond addressing Jewish victimhood and how best to assure a future for Jews, to begin debating how best to assure a future for both the Palestinian and the Jewish people. Progressives in the U.S., both supporters and opponents of present U.S. policies toward Israel, should encourage similar debate in this country. If this requires loudly attacking AIPAC and its intemperate charges of anti-Semitism, so be it.

We recently had occasion to raise the notion of Israeli racism, using the actual hated word, at a gathering of about 25 or 30 (mostly) progressive (mostly) Jews, and came away with two conclusions: 1) it is a hard concept to bring people to face, but 2) we were not run out of the room and, after the initial shock of hearing the word racist used in connection with Zionism, most people in the room, with only a few exceptions, took the idea aboard. Many specifically thanked us for what we had said. One man, raised as a Jew and now a Muslim, came up to us afterward to say that he thinks Zionism is nationalist rather than racist (to which we argued that nationalism was the motivation but racism is the resulting reality), but he acknowledged, with apparent approbation, that referring to racism had a certain shock effect. Shock effect is precisely what we wanted. The United States' complacent support for everything Israel does will not be altered without shock.

When a powerful state kills hundreds of civilians from another ethnic group; confiscates their land; builds vast housing complexes on that land for the exclusive use of its own nationals; builds roads on that land for the exclusive use of its own nationals; prevents expansion of the other people's neighborhoods and towns; demolishes on a massive scale houses belonging to the other people, in order either to prevent that people's population growth, to induce them "voluntarily" to leave their land altogether, or to provide "security" for its own nationals; imprisons the other people in their own land behind checkpoints, roadblocks, ditches, razor wire, electronic fences, and concrete walls; squeezes the other people into ever smaller, disconnected segments of land; cripples the productive capability of the other people by destroying or separating them from their agricultural land, destroying or confiscating their wells, preventing their industrial expansion, and destroying their businesses; imprisons the leadership of the other people and threatens to expel or assassinate that leadership; destroys the security forces and the governing infrastructure of the other people; destroys an entire population's census records, land registry records, and school records; vandalizes the cultural headquarters and the houses of worship of the other people by urinating, defecating, and drawing graffiti on cultural and religious artifacts and symbols ­ when one people does these things to another, a logical person can draw only one conclusion: the powerful state is attempting to destroy the other people, to push them into the sea, to ethnically cleanse them.

These kinds of atrocities, and particularly the scale of the repression, did not spring full-blown out of some terrorist provocations by Palestinians. These atrocities grew out of a political philosophy that says whatever advances the interests of Jews is acceptable as policy. This is a racist philosophy.

What Israel is doing to the Palestinians is not genocide, it is not a holocaust, but it is, unmistakably, ethnicide. It is, unmistakably, racism. Israel worries constantly, and its American friends worry, about the destruction of Israel. We are all made to think always about the existential threat to Israel, to the Jewish people. But the nation in imminent danger of elimination today is not Israel but the Palestinians. Such a policy of national destruction must not be allowed to stand.

-----

* Assuming, according to the scenario put forth by our Israeli-American friend, that Palestinians had accepted the UN-mandated establishment of a Jewish state in 1948, that no war had ensued, and that no Palestinians had left Palestine, Israel would today encompass only the 55 percent of Palestine allocated to it by the UN partition resolution, not the 78 percent it possessed after successfully prosecuting the 1948 war. It would have no sovereignty over Jerusalem, which was designated by the UN as a separate international entity not under the sovereignty of any nation. Its 5.4 million Jews (assuming the same magnitude of Jewish immigration and natural increase) would be sharing the state with approximately five million Palestinians (assuming the same nine-fold rate of growth among the 560,000 Palestinians who inhabited the area designated for the Jewish state as has occurred in the Palestinian population that actually remained in Israel in 1948). Needless to say, this small, severely overcrowded, binational state would not be the comfortable little Jewish democracy that our friend seems to have envisioned.

Bill Christison joined the CIA in 1950, and served on the analysis side of the Agency for 28 years. From the early 1970s he served as National Intelligence Officer (principal adviser to the Director of Central Intelligence on certain areas) for, at various times, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa. Before he retired in 1979 he was Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis, a 250-person unit.

Kathleen Christison also worked in the CIA, retiring in 1979. Since then she has been mainly preoccupied by the issue of Palestine. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession.

They are also contributors to CounterPunch's hot new book: The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

The Christison's can be reached at: christison@counterpunch.org


Weekend Edition Features for Oct. 25 / 26, 2003

Saul Landau
Cui Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off

Noam Chomsky
Empire of the Men of Best Quality

Bruce Jackson
Midge Decter and the Taxi Driver

Brian Cloughley
"Mow the Whole Place Down"

John Stanton
The Pentagon's Love Affair with Land Mines

William S. Lind
Bush's Bizarre Korean Gambit

Ben Tripp
The Brown Paste on Bush's Shoes

Christopher Brauchli
Divine Hatred

Dave Zirin
An Interview with John Carlos

Agustin Velloso
Oil in Equatorial Guinea: Where Trickle Down Doesn't Trickle

Josh Frank
Howard Dean and Affirmative Action

Ron Jacobs
Standing Up to El Diablo: the 1981 Blockade of Diablo Canyon

Strickler / Hermach

This Pain Has No Ceasefire
Israeli Missiles Still Crash into the Memory of What Once Was

By BARUCHA CALAMITY PELLER

Beirut.

Five hours after the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. In a village just north of the Litani River I walk over houses, houses that have become ruins of what once was. Here are prayerbeads still in their box, there a single shoe, a little farther-a babywalker. Lift up this foam mattress and there is the blood of the child who slept there when the missile hit.

Walking through the rubble I come across something more lying there, something somehow familiar. They are two photographs -- moments frozen in time, something that once was, suspended in my shaking hand. A woman with black eyes like arrows piercing space, lips set and her hand motionless holding a piece of fruit. The next photograph is a group of people, men, women, girls and boys, posed with hands on each others' backs in the foyer of a home.

A man walks through the rubble, he picks up pieces here and there and drops them again. Suddenly he walks towards a bulldozer with a Hezbollah flag waving from the top and directs the driver towards one end of the wreckage before walking back in my direction. His mother, sister, nephew and cousin were asleep where this home once stood when the Israeli missile struck fierce a few nights ago. The ceasefire has permitted him to come back to the site to silently sift through the remains of his family.

I stumble over the ruins to him and gently hand him the photographs. He shuffles slowly through the pictures of his family, one over another, three times, and puts them in his pocket. He looks at me, looks through me, eyes empty.

There is a ceasfire, but how to put the pieces back together?

Twenty minutes before seven am, when the ceasefire was scheduled to take effect, Israeli bombing could be heard in all directions, near and far, and the missiles seemed to race against the last seconds of war. Fifteen minutes before ceasefire, one of these missiles hit a home outside of Nabitiye and killed a forty year old disabled man who lived alone. His neighbors did not rejoice in the ceasefire-they were busy collecting the man's body parts. His head was found severed with a single finger in the mouth. Today many Lebanese people, displaced by the four week war, left the schools, centers, and parks housing refugees in the north to return to their homes. Many of them did not know if their houses were still standing, and what had become of family members and friends left behind in the villages. Some, whose homes had been destroyed, remained in the centers, or arranged to stay with relatives.

Because Israel bombed virtually all of the roads and bridges in the south of Lebanon and over the Litani River, those returning spent hours on the road as a makeshift bridge was hastily constructed.

There was some joy, though not entirely celebratory, visible on the roads and entrances to towns. Hezbollah flags were held in passenger's hands and the portrait of Nasrallah a common sight in rear windows. As the Israeli soldiers retreated from southern Lebanon with occasional glances over their soldiers, and missile-launching planes vanished from the sky, people felt at ease on their land again. After the destruction of two Israeli warships, fourteen tanks, and the deaths of over 70 soldiers, all culminating in a somber Israeli retreat, Hezbollah claimed the ground war victory. For many Lebanese this was predictable. If during its 23-year occupation here Israel was unable to defeat Hezbollah and the Lebanese resistance (finally being pushed out by Hezbollah in 2000), then how could Israel expect to disarm and crush Hezbollah in one month? Yet amongst the relief of the Israeli retreat, there is an utter sadness of returning to places in the south where there were once parks, stores, homes, schools and entire villages, where now only a few houses remain and the rest is flattened, where histories have become totaled beneath cement. Some villages stink with the decomposition of bodies, and as the cleanup continues, the Lebanese civilian death count will surely multiply. And from within the anguish of the rubble and lives lost there is danger: undetonated grenades, cluster ammunitions, and fragmentations illegally used by the Israelis. In the first day of the ceasefire a few people returning to their homes and a red cross worker have triggered these weapons.

As a United Nations MAC worker (part of a mine cleaning team) put it: "We just finished cleaning these things up in the south from the last time the Israelis used them. They (Israelis) even gave us maps of where they were. Now they scattered them everywhere all over again. It's like going right back to zero."

The families must start all over again as well. A group of sisters and their small children, who have been living in a refugee center in Saida, plan to stay with relatives in Beirut. They survived the bombing in their village on the Israeli border for twenty days. When the house they were in got hit the women called out the names of their children and where able to find the ones that survived.

One woman with her children was unaware that her sister was only meters away for an entire week obstructed by the rubble that had fallen between them. Another, who was seven months pregnant with twins, gave premature birth into the toilet while the village burned and bombs fell continuously. Among the sounds of bombs were her cries and those of the first baby she birthed,a girl who came out feet first and died instantly. A boy was birthed afterwards and died 24 hours later. She had been trying to concieve for four years before the war. The sisters were able to walk with their children to another village, and then another, under impossible circumstances of air bombardment and artillery fire of soldiers crossing over from Israel, and were eventually evacuated by the Red Cross to Saida.

In refugee centers in Saida survivors of the first Qana massacre in 1996 await return to Qana once again, where this month an Israeli missile killed 41 people, mostly children. A family with eight children from a village outside of Nabatiye will stay with relatives -- their house was destroyed by a missile and they hid out for a week, as two of the children fell very sick from having no water or food, until escaping the bombardment to arrive to relative safety in Saida.

There is a ceasefire, but how to put the pieces back together?

Families shattered, scattered from graveyards to the long highway home. Eyes tatooed with scenes of horror. Bodies waiting beneath wreckage to be named and buried. Homes gone. Yes, there is a ceasefire. A ceasefire that cannot stop the pain.

Dahiye, the southern suburbs of Beirut, is a city of rubble. People appear miniscule walking amongst the skyscraping ruins. Even in the chaos of wreckage- clothes and toys strewn about, rebar twisting towards the sky, mountains of concrete and remains-there is a certain absoluteness to destruction, somehow everything that is still remaining becomes the same -- gone.

The walls of homes that once protected families and cradled their lives are now in pieces, shreds, fine dust. Sift through the rubble. Kick the rubble. Stand still, silent, alone with the absoluteness of destruction and accompanied by the millions of shattered pieces of everything that was here before. Leave the rubble. Try to forget. Walk away from the terrible sight. But your mind is in pieces, lives in pieces, people who never again will stand in the doorway with greetings. You can walk away. There is a ceasefire. But missiles fall, they fall, not from the skies, but behind Lebanese eyes, they fall forever in memory, they are still crashing into what once was.

The Lebanon War, a Post-Mortem
Israeli Militarism and the Necessity of a One-State Solution

By ALAN HART

I'm going to suggest to you that what we might now be witnessing is the long beginning of the end of the Zionist state of Israel. In the next 10 minutes or so I will talk my way to an explanation of why I think so; and then I'll address the question of what the most likely consequences would be. I can see two--One State of Palestine for All and real, lasting peace, or Catastrophe for All... and by "All" I don't just mean Israeli Jews and the Arabs of the region, I mean all of us, everywhere. I thought I would be the first to give voice in public to the idea that Israel might be planting in Lebanon the final seeds of its own destruction, but while I was working on my text for this evening, I came across an interview given by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was PresidentCarter's National Security Adviser. He said: "Eventually, if neo-con policies continue to be pursued, the United States will be expelled from the region and that will be the beginning of the end for Israel as well."As Israel's bombardment of Lebanon unfolded, a great deal of nonsense was written and spoken by pundits and policymakers throughout the mainly Gentile Judeo-Christian world about why it was happening. The main thrust of the nonsense was that Hizbullah started the war and that Israel was merely defending itself. I think the truth about Hizbullah's role in triggering the war can be summarised as follows--bearing in mind that the border incident of 12 July was one of many since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, and which more often than not, according to UN monitors, were provoked by Israeli actions and/or Israeli violations of agreements. By engaging an IDF border patrol, killing three Israeli soldiers and taking two hostages, and firing a few rockets to create a diversion for that operation, Hizbullah gave Israel's generals and those politicians who rubber-stamp their demands the pretext they wanted and needed to go to war--a war they had planned for months.

I was reminded of what was said to me on the second of the six days of the 1967 war when I was a very young ITN correspondent reporting from Israel. One of my sources was Major General Chaim Herzog. He was one of the founding fathers of Israel's Directorate of Military Intelligence. On the second day of that war he said to me in private conversation: "IfNasser had not been stupid enough to give us a pretext for war now, we would have created one in the coming year to 18 months." Hizbullah's purpose in taking Israeli prisoners/hostages was to have them as bargaining chips - to secure the return of Lebanese prisoners Israel had refused to release in a previous prisoner exchange. As former President Carter implied in an article for The Washington Post on I August, it was not unreasonable for Hizbullah to assume that an exchange would be possible because "the assumption was based on a number of such trades in the past." But on 12 July 2006 the government of Israel was not interested in trades. It did not give a single moment to diplomacy or negotiations of any kind. It did not even consider a local retaliation to make a point. Israel rushed to war. As Defence Minister Amir Peretz put it: "We're skipping the stage of threats and going straight to the action."

On the subject of Hizbullah's rockets, (which are hit-and-miss low tech weapons when compared with Israel's state of the art firepower), it is right to ask-Why, really, were they there? What, really, explains Hizbullah's stock-piling and its bunkering down? The honest answer, which has its context in the whole history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Zionism's demonstrated designs on Southern Lebanon in particular, is this: Hizbullah was strengthening itself militarily for the same reason as Eygpt did when President Nasser, with great reluctance after America had refused to supply him, accepted weapons from the Soviet Union. Nasser did not upgrade Eygpt's military capabilities to make war on Israel. He wanted to be able to demonstrate to Israel that attacking Eygpt to impose Zionism's will on it was not a cost-free option. In other words, Hizbullah had been improving its military capability to deter Israeli incursions and attacks, which was something the Lebanese army was incapable of doing. Am I suggesting that Hizbullah would not have let loose its rockets if Israel had not gone for the war option? YES! The notion that, on 12 July 2006, Hizbullah was joined in conspiracy with Iran and Syria to wipe Israel off the face of the earth is nothing but Zionist and neo-con propaganda nonsense--to justify Israel's latest war of aggression and also, perhaps, to justify, in advance of it happening, war on Iran.

It's true that the rhetoric of Iran's President gave and gives a degree of apparent credibility to Zionist and neo-con spin--but only to those who are unaware of, or don't want to know, the difference between the facts and documented truth of the real history of the Arab-Israeli conflict (as in my book) and Zionism's version of it. To those who really want to understand why the Zionist state of Israel behaves in the way it does, and is (as described in a recent article courageously carried by The Independent) "a terrorist state like no other", I say not only read my book, but give special attention to page 485 of Volume One. On it I quote what was said behind closed doors in May 1955 by Moshe Dayan, Israel's one-eyed warlord and master of deception. He was in conversation with Israel's ambassadors to Washington, London and Paris. At the time the Eisenhower administration was pressing Israel to abandon its policy of reprisal attacks.

Eisenhower was aware that Nasser did not want war with Israel, and that he would, when he could, make an accommodation with it. Eisenhower also knew that Israel's reprisal attacks were making it impossible for Nasser to prepare the ground on his side for peace with Israel.

In conversation with Israel's three most important ambassadors to the West, Dayan explained why he was totally opposed - whatever the pressure from the West - to the idea that Israel should abandon its policy of reprisal attacks. They were, he said, "a life drug." What he meant, he also explained, was that reprisal attacks enabled the Israeli government "to maintain a high degree of tension in the country and the army."

What, really, did that mean? Israel's standing or full-time army was (as it still is and must be) relatively small, not more than about 23,000 souls in all. The other quarter of a million fighting men and women who could be mobilised in 48 hours were reservists from every walk of Israel's civil society. The real point? Without Israeli reprisal attacks and all that they implied--that the Zionist state was in constant danger of being annihilated - there was a possibility that some and perhaps many reservists would not be motivated enough to respond to Zionism's calls to arms.

Put another way, what Dayan really feared was the truth. He knew, as all of Israel's leaders knew, that Israel's existence was not in danger from any combination of Arab forces. And that was the truth which had to be kept from the Jews of Israel. Dayan's fear was that if they became aware of it, they might insist on peace on terms the Arab regimes could accept but which were not acceptable to Zionism. Among those present when Dayan explained the need for Israeli reprisal attacks as a "life drug" was the Foreign Ministry's Gideon Rafael. He reported what Dayan told the ambassadors to Prime Minister Moshe Sharret-in my view, and with the arguable exception of Yitzhak Rabin, the only completely rational prime minister Israel has ever had. And we know from Sharret's diaries what Rafael then said to him: "This is how fascism began in Italy and Germany!"

Ladies and gentlemen, I think future historians may say that was how fascism began in the Zionist state of Israel.

The idea of Israel as a fully functioning democracy is a seriously flawed one. It's true that Israeli Jews are free to speak their minds (in a way that most Jews of the world are frightened to do), and to that extent it can be said that Israel has the appearance of a vibrant democracy... But in reality, and especially since the countdown to the 1967 war, it's Israel's generals who call most of the policy shots, even when one of them is not prime minister.

In June 1967 Israel's prime minister of the time, the much maligned Levi Eshkol, did not want to take his country to war. The war, was imposed upon him by the generals, led by Dayan. As I explain in Volume Two of my book, what really happened in Israel in the final countdown to that war was something very close to a military coup in all but name.

And that's where we are today--the generals effectively calling the shots in Israel, to the applause of the neo-cons. Why, really, did Israel's generals want to make war on Lebanon? There was obviously much more to it than the collective punishment of a whole people as part and parcel of a stated objective - the destruction of Hizbullah as a Moslem David which could hit and hurt the Zionist Goliath. I think there were two main reasons. The first was that Israel's generals believed they should and could restore the "deterrent power" of the IDF (Israel's war machine). They believed, correctly, that it had been seriously damaged by Hizbullah's success in not only confronting the IDF following Sharon's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, but eventually forcing it to withdraw, effectively defeated and humiliated... I think it is more than reasonable to presume that for most if not all of the past six years, Israel's generals were itching to make war on Lebanon to repair that damage--to restore the IDF's deterrent power. Put another way, it was time, Israel's generals believed, to give the Arabs (all Arabs, not just Hizbullah) another lesson in who the master was.

The second main reason for the insistence of Israel's generals on 12 July this year that war was the only option...? I think it's also more than reasonable to presume that they saw the opportunity to ethnically cleanse Lebanon up to the Litani River, with a view, eventually, to occupying and then annexing the ethnically cleansed territory. For Zionism this would be the fulfilment of the vision of modern Israel's founding father, David Ben-Gurion - a Zionist state within "natural" borders, those borders being the Jordan River in the East and the Litani River of Lebanon in the north. Israel gained control of theJordan River border in its 1967 war of expansion, but prior to its rush to war on 12 July, all of its attempts to establish the Litani border had failed. Since 1982 because of Hizbullah's ability to cause the occupying IDF forces more casualties than Israeli public opinion was prepared to tolerate. According to those currently calling the policy shots - Israel's generals and politicians, the neo-cons in and around the Bush administration and their associate in Downing Street - the name of the game is creating a "new Middle East". It is happening. A new Middle East is being created.

But what kind of new Middle East will it actually be? In my analysis it will be one in which the Zionist state of Israel, having rejected a number of opportunities to make peace with the Palestinians and all the Arab states, will become increasingly vulnerable and, at a point, actually for the first time ever in its shortish history, could face the possibility of defeat. In my view the seeds of that possible defeat have just been sewn in Lebanon. The fact is that Israel's latest military adventure has been totally counter-productive in that it has caused Hizbullah to be admired by the angry and humiliated masses of the Arab and wider Moslem world. That being so, would it really be surprising if, in growing numbers, Arabs and Moslems everywhere begin to entertain- if they are not already entertaining-something like the following thought: "If 3,000 Hizbullah guerrillas can stand up to mighty Israel for weeks and give it a seriously bloody nose, what would happen if we all joined the fight?" (Do I hear the sound of pro-Western Arab regimes being toppled? Yes, I think so). I imagine that even the thought of Israel being defeated one day will bring joy to very many Arabs and other Moslems. But there ought to be no place for joy because there's no mystery about what would happen in the event of Israel actually being on the brink of defeat. I want to quote to you now from one of my Panorama interviews with Golda Meir. (It can be found, this quote, on the second page Volume One of my book, in the Prologue which is titled Waiting for the Apocalypse).

At a point I interrupted her to say: "Prime Minister I want to be sure I understand what you're saying... You are saying that if ever Israel was in danger of being defeated on the battlefield, it would be prepared to take the region and the whole world down with it?" Without the shortest of pauses for reflection, Golda replied: "Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying." In those days Panorama went on-air at 8 o'clock on Monday evenings. Shortly after the transmission of that interview The Times had a new lead editorial. It quoted what Golda had said to me and added its view that "We had better believe her." How, actually, would the Zionist state of Israel take at least the region down with it? It would arm its nuclear missiles, target Arab capitals, then fire the missiles. Such an End-Game to the Arab-Israeli conflict, if it happened, and which I would describe as a self-fulfilled Zionist prophesy of doom, would probably take many years to play out. But the countdown to such a catastrophe would be speeded up if, as Brzezinski put it, "neo-con policies continue to be pursued." If they are, and if Iran is attacked, I think that a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic, would become unstoppable.

Is there no way to stop the madness and create a "new Middle East" worth having? Yes, of course, there is, but it requires the agenda of the neo-cons and their associates to be thrown into the dustbin of history, in order for there to be a resolution of the Palestine problem, which I describe as the cancer at the heart of international affairs. Unfortunately, and because of the facts Zionism has been allowed to create on the ground in Israel/Palestine, it's already much too late for a genuine two-state solution, one which would see Israel back behind more or less its pre-1967 borders with Jerusalem an open city and the capital of two states. The conclusion which I think is invited is this:

If the countdown to catastrophe for all is to be stopped, the only possible solution to the Palestine problem is One State for All. That would, of course, be the end of Zionism's colonial enterprise and of Zionism itself. But in my view that's what has to happen if there's to be a "new Middle East" in which there can be security and peace for all, Arabs and Jews. Ladies and gentlemen: I'm not a politician or, any more, a working journalist and broadcaster who must write and speak in way that doesn't offend very powerful vested interests. I am a reasonably well informed human being who cares and who is free to say what he really thinks. (Which probably makes me a member of a very small club!)

And in summary of all that I've said this evening, what I really think comes down to this: The equation is a very simple one: No justice for the Palestinians = no peace for any of us.

Alan Hart is a well-known Middle East scholar.

Get ready for Schtarker's daily meltdown--expect umpteen postings saying his usual one-line quip, "Toady, you're an idiot".
LOL!

who cares?
Zionists kill children

How do you represent the phrase "Zionists kill children" in Hebrew?
Thank You

I mean is it correct for the phrase 'zionists kill children'?
If so, how is it scribed in Hebrew?

Do you know of a translation site like Babblefish for translation? Free, of course. w/o registration.

Apparently this site's technical properties don't enable more than 2-3 Hebrew words in the top header. So here's the full sentence for you :

שונאי ציון רוצחים ילדים

If that's what you say it is .

It's not that I don't believe you or anything.
Honest.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A few hours after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan blamed the Israeli army squarely for violating a UN-imposed truce that ended hostilities between Tel Aviv and the Lebanese resistance movement Hizbullah, Israel threatened Sunday, August20 , to carry out more such raids.

"As long as the Lebanese army and the international forces are not deployed (in south Lebanon), the Israeli army will not stop its flights in the region to stop the transfers of arms from Syria," Environmental Minister Gideon Ezra told public radio, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Israeli warplanes and helicopters bombed Saturday, August19 , roads leading to the village of Bodai, west of the ancient city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, and a power plant.

Helicopter-borne Israeli commandos in two vehicles were on their way to attack an office of senior Hizbullah official Sheikh Mohammed Yazbek in Bodai when they were spotted and ambushed by resistance fighters.

One commando was killed and two others injured before other forces pulled out under the cover of fierce air strikes.

Israel claimed the raid was aimed at halting weapons smugglings.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 calls for Israeli troops to withdraw from south Lebanon with the deployment of the Lebanese army and a strengthened UN peacekeeping force of up to 15 , 000troops.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora blasted the Israeli operation as a "blatant violation" of the truce, which took effect on Monday, August14 , to end a conflict that has claimed close to1 , 300Lebanese, mostly civilians.

Lebanon warned it might suspend the deployment of army troops in the south, which began on Thursday, August17 , if the United Nations failed to ensure Israel honored the resolution.

Violation

Annan said the Israeli operation was a violation of the ceasefire deal.

"The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about a violation by the Israeli side of the cessation of hostilities as laid out in Security Council resolution1701 ," a statement issued by Annan's spokesman said.

"The Secretary-General further calls on all parties to respect strictly the arms embargo, exercise maximum restraint, avoid provocative actions and display responsibility in implementing resolution1701 ."

A visiting UN envoy in Lebanon has warned that such incidents threatened to spark war again and scare off states which may help boost a UN peacekeeping force.

"We may slip into war again, this is why incidents such as what happened yesterday are not very helpful," Terje Roed-Larsen said in an interview with Lebanon's leading An-Nahar newspaper.

"The incident does not help maintain the fragile ceasefire and will not encourage potential participants in the new international forces to contribute with soldiers," he added.

The UN has been urging countries, particularly Europeans, to send troops, but most governments want more details on the precise mandate of the force before contributing.

More
http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-08/20/01.shtml

Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes for deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Lebanon. In a report released yesterday, the human rights group criticized Israel for destroying homes, bridges, roads, water treatment plants and fuel tanks.

Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes for deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure in Lebanon. In a report released yesterday, the human rights group criticized Israel for destroying homes, bridges, roads, water treatment plants and fuel tanks. The report said such attacks were an "integral part" of Israel’s strategy in the war.

The group is calling for a United Nations investigation into whether Israel and Hezbollah broke humanitarian law.

The report is based on research from Amnesty missions in Lebanon and Israel, including interviews with victims, UN officials, Israeli military officers and members of the Lebanese government.

In a few minutes we are going to get a response on the report from Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Daniel Carmon, but first we take a closer look at the report’s findings with Marty Rosenbluth. He is a specialist for Israel, the Occupied Territories and the Palestinian Authority for Amnesty International-USA. He was on one of the research missions for the group that helped compile this report.

* Marty Rosenbluth, specialist for Israel, the Occupied Territories, and the Palestinian Authority for Amnesty International-USA.

Related Links:

* Amnesty International report "Lebanon: Destruction of civilian infrastructure"
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/lbn-230806-feature-eng
* Satellite images showing the destruction in Lebanon
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/lbn-satellite-eng

LISTEN ONLINE:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/24/1425205

Dear Hostmaster,

This is to clarify our position in regards to the posting on your website and thereby to neutralize any plausible implications that may be construed thereof.
The following is the link to the original posting in question.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/170000_comment.php





At the outset, it will be logical to start with the relationship between the three companies mentioned in your post, Al Hejailan Projects Engineering, Horizon Communication Services and Horizon Satellite Services.

Al Hejailan Projects Engineering Co. is a reputed company established in Saudi Arabia way back in the 80s and as a holding company, it offers a diverse range of services and products through many of its subsidiaries. The activities of these subsidiary companies range from construction, telecoms, manufacturing and other services. Al Hejailan Projects Engineering Co. supports its subsidiaries with Management and Financial Support services.

Both, Horizon Communication Services, registered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and Horizon Satellite Services, registered in Dubai, UAE are fully owned subsidiaries of Al Hejailan Projects Engineering Co.

Horizon Communication Services (HCS) provides IT infrastructure implementation and maintenance support to Al Hejailan Projects Engineering Co. Whereas Horizon Satellite Services (HSS) provides internet-via-satellite connectivity solutions for the Middle East region.

As an Internet Service Provider, HSS is a member of RIPE (http://www.ripe.net) and conducts business in strict adherence to regulations stipulated by RIPE including those related to issuing of IP addresses to clients. Accordingly, we are required to specify the usage and update the RIPE database to reflect our customers’ details as and when new IP addresses are issued.

IP address 82.205.138.35 was assigned to Horizon Communication Services (HCS) in May-06. In due course, when HCS requested more IP addresses, we (HSS) assigned them with a new set of IP addresses and gave their old IP address 82.205.138.35 to one of our customers in Lebanon. However, we did not update this information on the RIPE database to reflect the new change, since it is a standard practice to do this periodically and not as soon as an IP address is changed. This explains why the search to www.nazrolla.org led to the fact that it was hosted on 82.205.138.35 and why the RIPE database was still showing Horizon Communication Services’ name.

Further, Al Hejailan’s name was not registered to that IP address but the address of one of the persons registered in the RIPE database, Karthikeyan K which mentioned Al Hejailan Projects Engineering’s name.

As an Internet Service Provider, these kinds of issues are common and whenever HSS receives inquiries related to usage of its services, in the larger interest of all concerned and that of the society we live in and contribute to, it is our policy to disclose all necessary information, within our means and knowledge, on the person or company using our Internet services, including IP addresses that have been issued by us. However, when it comes to content, understandably, we do not have control over the content hosted by customers using our services.

I hope this explains the situation and trust you will be kind enough to use this clarification to clear up this issue with the owner of the blog. Also, kindly remove this posting from your website.

Please feel free to revert back to us in case you need any more details or clarifications.

Thank you & kind regards,





Mohd. Subair Mullappilly
Operations Director
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