Boycott Now!

By VIRGINIA TILLEY

Johannesburg, South Africa.

It is finally time. After years of internal arguments, confusion, and dithering, the time has come for a full-fledged international boycott of Israel. Good cause for a boycott has, of course, been in place for decades, as a raft of initiatives already attests. But Israel's war crimes are now so shocking, its extremism so clear, the suffering so great, the UN so helpless, and the international community's need to contain Israel's behavior so urgent and compelling, that the time for global action has matured. A coordinated movement of divestment, sanctions, and boycotts against Israel must convene to contain not only Israel's aggressive acts and crimes against humanitarian law but also, as in South Africa, its founding racist logics that inspired and still drive the entire Palestinian problem.

That second goal of the boycott campaign is indeed the primary one. Calls for a boycott have long cited specific crimes: Israel's continual attacks on Palestinian civilians; its casual disdain for the Palestinian civilian lives "accidentally" destroyed in its assassinations and bombings; its deliberate ruin of the Palestinians' economic and social conditions; its continuing annexation and dismemberment of Palestinian land; its torture of prisoners; its contempt for UN resolutions and international law; and especially, its refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. But the boycott cannot target these practices alone. It must target their ideological source.

The true offence to the international community is the racist motivation for these practices, which violates fundamental values and norms of the post-World War II order. That racial ideology isn't subtle or obscure. Mr. Olmert himself has repeatedly thumped the public podium about the "demographic threat" facing Israel: the "threat" that too many non-Jews will - the horror - someday become citizens of Israel. It is the "demographic threat" that, in Israeli doctrine, justifies sealing off the West Bank and Gaza Strip as open-air prisons for millions of people whose only real crime is that they are not Jewish. It is the "demographic threat," not security (Mr. Olmert has clarified), that requires the dreadful Wall to separate Arab and Jewish communities, now juxtaposed in a fragmented landscape, who might otherwise mingle.

"Demographic threat" is the most disgustingly racist phrase still openly deployed in international parlance. It has been mysteriously tolerated by a perplexed international community. But it can be tolerated no longer. Zionist fear of the demographic threat launched the expulsion of the indigenous Arab population in 1948 and 1967, created and perpetuates Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, inspires its terrible human rights abuses against Palestinians, spins into regional unrest like the 1982 attack on Lebanon (that gave rise to Hezbollah), and continues to drive Israeli militarism and aggression.

This open official racism and its attendant violence casts Israel into the ranks of pariah states, of which South Africa was the former banner emblem. In both countries, racist nationalist logic tormented and humiliated the native people. It also regularly spilled over to destabilize their surrounding regions (choc-a-block with "demographic threats"), leading both regimes to cruel and reckless attacks. Driven by a sense of perennial victimhood, they assumed the moral authority to crush the native hordes that threatened to dilute the organic Afrikaner/Jewish nations and the white/western civilization they believed they so nobly represented.

A humiliated white society in South Africa finally gave that myth up. Israel still clings to it. It has now brought Israel to pulverize Lebanon, trying to eliminate Hezbollah and, perhaps, to clear the way for an attack on Iran. Peace offers from the entire Arab world are cast aside like so much garbage. Yet again, the Middle East is plunged into chaos and turmoil, because a normal existence -- peace, full democracy -- is anathema to a regime that must see and treat its neighbors as an existential threat in order to justify the rejectionism that preserves its ethnic/racial character and enables its continuing annexations of land.

Why has this outrageously racist doctrine survived so long, rewarded by billions of dollars in US aid every year? We know the reasons. For too many Westerners, Israel's Jewish character conflates with the Holocaust legacy to make intuitive sense of Israel's claim to be under continual assault. Deep-seated Judeo-Christian bias against Islam demonizes Israel's mostly Muslim victims. European racist prejudice against Arabs (brown-skinned natives) casts their material dispossession as less humanly significant. Naïve Christian visions of the "Holy Land" naturalize Jewish governance in biblical landscapes. Idiot Christian evangelistic notions of the Rapture and the End Times posit Jewish governance as essential to the return of the Messiah and the final Millennium (even though, in that repellent narrative, Jews will roast afterwards).

All those notions and prejudices, long confounding international action, must now be set aside. The raw logic of Israel's distorted self-image and racist doctrines is expressed beyond confusion by the now-stark reality: the moonscape rubble of once-lovely Lebanese villages; a million desperate people trying to survive Israeli aerial attacks as they carry children and wheel disabled grandparents down cratered roads; the limp bodies of children pulled from the dusty basements of crushed buildings. This is the reality of Israel's national doctrine, the direct outcome of its racist worldview. It is endangering everyone, and it must stop.

Designing the Campaign

Much debate has circulated about a boycott campaign, but hitherto it has not moved beyond some ardent but isolated groups. Efforts have stalled on the usual difficult questions: e.g., whether a boycott is morally compulsory to reject Israel's rampant human rights violations or would impede vital engagement with Israeli forums, or whether principled defense of international law must be tempered by (bogus) calls for "balance". Especially, recent debate has foundered on calls for an academic boycott. Concerns here are reasonable, if rather narrow. Universities offer vital connections and arenas for collaboration, debate, and new thinking. Without such forums and their intellectual exchange, some argue, work toward a different future is arguably impeded.

But this argument has exploded along with the southern Lebanese villages, as Israeli university faculties roundly endorse the present war. As Ilan Pappé has repeatedly argued, Israel's universities are not forums for enlightened thought. They are crucibles of reproduction for racist Zionist logics and practice, monitoring and filtering admissible ideas. They produce the lawyers who defend the occupation regime and run its kangaroo "courts"; the civil planners and engineers who design and build the settlements on Palestinian land; the economists and financiers who design and implement the grants that subsidize those settlements; the geologists who facilitate seizure of Palestinian aquifers; the doctors who treat the tortured so that they can be tortured again; the historians and sociologists who make sense of a national society while preserving official lies about its own past; and the poets, playwrights, and novelists who compose the nationalist opus that glorifies and makes (internally, at least) moralistic sense of it all.

Those of us who have met with Jewish Israeli academics in Israeli universities find the vast majority of them, including well-meaning liberals, operating in a strange and unique bubble of enabling fictions. Most of them know nothing about Palestinian life, culture, or experience. They know strangely little about the occupation and its realities, which are crushing people just over the next hill. They have absorbed simplistic notions about rejectionist Arafat, terrorist Hamas, and urbane Abbas. In this special insulated world of illusions, they say nonsense things about unreal factors and fictionalized events. Trying to make sense of their assumptions is no more productive that conversing about the Middle East with the Bush administration's neo-cons, who also live in a strange bubble of ignorance and fantasy. Aside from a few brave and beleaguered souls, this is the world of Israel's universities. It will not change until it has to - when the conditions of its self-reproduction are impaired and its self-deceptions too glaring.

The Real Goal: Changing Minds

The universities represent and reproduce the bubble world of the Israeli Jewish population as a whole. And no people abandons its bubble willingly. In South Africa, Afrikaners clung to their own bubble - their self-exonerating myths about history, civilization, and race -- until they were forced by external sanctions and the collapsing national economy to rethink those myths. Their resistance to doing so, while racist, was not purely vicious. Many kind and well-meaning Afrikaners simply didn't believe they had to rethink ideas that manifested to them as givens and that shaped their reality. (One valued Afrikaner friend here recalls her life during apartheid South Africa as being like The Truman Show, a film in which a man unknowingly grows up in a television show, set in an artificial dome world designed to look like a small town.) When their reality fell apart, suddenly no one would admit to ever having believed or supported it.

The Zionist worldview is an even more complete system. All historical and geographic details are provided to create a total mythical world, in which Jews have rights to the land and Palestinians have none. It is a fully realized construction, like those Hebraized maps carefully drawn by the Zionist movement in the 1930s to erase the ancient Arabic landscape and substitute Hebrew biblical references. It is also very resilient. The "new historians" have exposed the cherished national historical narrative of 1948 and 1967 as a load of fictions, but the same fictions are still reproduced by state agencies to assure Israeli and diaspora Jews of their innocence and the righteousness of their cause. The vast majority of Israelis therefore remain comfortable in their Truman Show and even see any external pressure or criticism as substantiating it. We need no more graphic evidence of that campaign's success than the overwhelming support among Israeli Jews for the present catastrophic assault on Lebanon, reflecting their sincere beliefs that nuclear-power Israel is actually under existential threat by a guerrilla group lobbing katyushas across the border. Staggering to observers, that belief is both sobering and instructive.

To force people steeped in such a worldview to rethink their notions, their historical myths, and their own best interests requires two efforts:

(1) Serious external pressure: here, a full boycott that undermines Israel's capacity to sustain the economic standards its citizens and corporations expect, and which they associate with their own progressive self-image; and

(2) clear and unwavering commitment to the boycott's goal, which - in Israel as in South Africa - must be full equality, dignity, safety, and welfare of everyone in the land, including Palestinians, whose ancestral culture arose there, and the Jewish population, which has built a national society there.

That combination is essential. Nothing else will work. Diplomacy, threats, pleading, the "peace process," mediation, all will be useless until external pressure brings Israel's entire Jewish population to undertake the very difficult task of rethinking their world. This pressure requires the full range of boycotts, sanctions, and divestment that the world can employ. (South African intellectual Steven Friedman has observed wryly that the way to bring down any established settler-colonial regime is to make it choose between profits and identity. Profits, he says, will win every time.)

What to Target

Fortunately, from the South African experience, we know how to go forward, and strategies are proliferating. The basic methods of an international boycott campaign are familiar. First, each person works in his or her own immediate orbit. People might urge divestment from companies investing in Israel by their colleges and universities, corporations, clubs, and churches. Boycott any sports event that hosts an Israeli team, and work with planners to exclude them. Participate in, and visit, no Israeli cultural events - films, plays, music, art exhibits. Avoid collaborating with Israeli professional colleagues, except on anti-racist activism. Don't invite any Israeli academic or writer to contribute to any conference or research and don't attend their panels or buy their books, unless their work is engaged directly in anti-racist activism. Don't visit Israel except for purposes of anti-racist activism. Buy nothing made in Israel: start looking at labels on olive oil, oranges, and clothing. Tell people what you are doing and why. Set up discussion groups everywhere to explain why.

For ideas and allies, try Googling the "boycott Israel" and "sanctions against Israel" campaigns springing up around the world. Know those allies, like the major churches, and tell people about them. For more ideas, read about the history of the boycott of South Africa.

Second, don't be confused by liberal Zionist alternatives that argue against a boycott in favor of "dialogue". If we can draw any conclusion from the last half-century, it is that, without the boycott, dialogue will go nowhere. And don't be confused by liberal-Zionist arguments that Israel will allow Palestinians a state if they only do this or that. Israel is already the only sovereign power in Palestine: what fragments are left to Palestinians cannot make a state. The question now is not whether there is one state, but what kind of state it comprises. The present version is apartheid, and it must change. However difficult to achieve, and however frightening to Jewish Israelis, the only just and stable solution is full democracy.

Third, be prepared for the boycott's opposition, which will be much louder, more vicious, and more dangerous than it was in the boycott of South Africa. Read and assemble solid documentable facts. Support each other loudly and publicly against the inevitable charges of anti-Semitism. And support your media against the same charges. Write to news media and explain just who the "Israel media teams" actually are. Most pro-Israeli activism draws directly from the Israeli government's propaganda outreach programs. Spotlight this fact. Team up to counter their pressure on newspapers, radio stations, and television news forums. Don't let them capture or intimidate public debate. By insisting loudly (and it must be sincere) that the goal is the full equality of dignity and rights of everyone in Israel-Palestine, including the millions of Jewish citizens of Israel, demolish their specious claims of anti-Semitism.

Finally, hold true to the principles that drive the boycott's mission. Don't tolerate the slightest whiff of anti-Semitism in your own group or movement. Anti-Jewish racists are certainly out there, and they are attracted to these campaigns like roaches. They will distract and absorb your energies, while undermining, degrading, and destroying the boycott movement. Some are Zionist plants, who will do so deliberately. If you can't change their minds (and don't spend much time trying, because they will use your efforts to drain your time and distract your energies), denounce them, expel them, ignore them, have no truck with them. They are the enemy of a peaceful future, not its allies - part of the problem, not the solution.

Boycott the Hegemon

This is the moment to turn international pressure on the complicit US, too. It's impossible, today, to exert an effective boycott on the United States, as its products are far too ubiquitous in our lives. But it's quick and easy to launch a boycott of emblematic US products, upsetting its major corporations. It's especially easy to boycott the great global consumables, like Coca-Cola, MacDonald's, Burger King, and KFC, whose leverage has brought anti-democratic pressures on governments the world over. (Through ugly monopoly practices, Coke is a nasty player in developing countries anyway: see, for example, http://www.killercoke.org.) Think you'll miss these foods too much? Is consuming something else for a while too much of a sacrifice, given what is happening to people in Lebanon? And think of the local products you'll be supporting! (And how healthy you will get).

In the US, the impact of these measures may be small. But in Africa, Latin America, Europe, and the Arab and Muslim worlds, boycotting these famous brands can gain national scope and the impact on corporate profits will be enormous. Never underestimate the power of US corporations to leverage US foreign policy. They are the one force that consistently does so.

But always, always, remember the goal and vision. Anger and hatred, arising from the Lebanon debacle, must be channelled not into retaliation and vengeance but into principled action. Armed struggle against occupation remains legitimate and, if properly handled (no killing of civilians), is a key tool. But the goal of all efforts, of every stamp, must be to secure security for everyone, toward building a new peaceful future. It's very hard, in the midst of our moral outrage, to stay on the high road. That challenge is, however, well-known to human rights campaigns as it is to all three monotheistic faiths. It is what Islam knows as the "great jihad" - the struggle of the heart. It must remain the guiding torch of this effort, which we must defend together.

Virginia Tilley is a professor of political science, a US citizen working in South Africa, and author of The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock (University of Michigan Press and Manchester University Press, 2005). She can be reached at tilley@hws.edu.

"We Showed Israel Our Dead, Why Don't The Israelis Show Us Their Rocket Launchers?"

For Israel, Innocent Civilians Are Fair Game

By PETER BOUCKAERT

Tyre, Lebanon.

The voice of Mohammed Shalhoub, 61, a farmer from Qana, still quivers with shock and exhaustion. He was in a basement shelter with more than 60 relatives when two Israeli bombs hit, killing at least 28, including 16 children. As I interview him in hospital, relatives arrive with more news of the victims. A woman starts screaming as she looks at the pictures of the dead and Mohammed's eyes well up with tears.

But his voice turns cold with impotent fury when I ask if there were Hezbollah fighters near the home when the bombs fell. "If the Israelis really saw the rocket launcher, where did it go?" he asks. "We showed Israel our dead; why don't the Israelis show us the rocket launchers?"

The world doesn't seem to put much credence in the testimonies of Lebanese civilians, preferring to buy generic Israeli statements about Hezbollah using civilians as human shields, "precision strikes" at terrorist targets, and a "proportionate" bombing campaign. But after days of contradictory statements about Qana, the Israeli military was reported as saying it had no indication of rocket fire or Hezbollah presence in Qana on the day of the strike, and had bombed the area in retaliation for rockets launched days earlier.

Israel's claims about pin-point strikes and proportionate responses are pure fantasy. As a researcher for Human Rights Watch, I've documented civilian deaths from bombing campaigns in Kosovo and Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. But these usually occur when there is some indication of military targeting: high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein's regime present in a house just before it is hit, for example, or an attack against militants that causes the collateral deaths of many civilians.

In Lebanon, it's a different scene. Time after time, Israel has hit civilian homes and cars in the southern border zone, killing dozens of people with no evidence of any military objective.

My notebook overflows with reports of civilian deaths. On July 15, Israeli fire killed 21 people fleeing from Marhawin, including 13 children; no weapons, no Hezbollah nearby. On July 16, an Israeli bomb killed 11 civilians in Aitaroun, including seven members of a Canadian-Lebanese family on vacation; again, no Hezbollah, no weapons. On July 19, at least 26 civilians were killed in Srifa when Israeli bombs flattened an entire neighborhood; no evidence of military targets. On July 23, at least seven civilians were killed when Israeli warplanes bombed dozens of cars trying to flee the south after receiving Israeli instructions to evacuate immediately; no indication of weapons convoys in the vicinity. The list goes on, with about 500 civilians killed so far.

Israel says the fault for the massive civilian death toll lies with Hezbollah, claiming its fighters are hiding weapons inside civilian homes and firing them from civilian areas. But even if the Israeli forces could show evidence of Hezbollah activity in some civilian areas, it could not justify the extensive use of indiscriminate force that has cost so many lives.

Not only has Israel failed to distinguish between military and civilian targets; its own officials suggest that they have decided any civilian still in the south is fair game. Last week, Justice Minister Haim Ramon reportedly said, "All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah."

So if you are too frightened to flee southern Lebanon, or are sick, injured or too poor to pay the more than $1,000 it now costs to get out, you are a "terrorist" and eligible for attack. As for those who heeded the Israeli warnings to flee, the roads are littered with bombed civilian cars, many with white flags still attached to their windows. After all, the Israelis tell us, they could have been transporting arms. Israel is prefabricating excuses to justify killing civilians.

Tragedies happen in the fog of war, but Israel's strikes on civilians can't all be excused as accidents or mistakes. The unacceptably high death toll is the natural result of Israel's failure to distinguish between civilian and military targets, and Israel is responsible for the deaths.

Israel must target its fight on Hezbollah, not Lebanese civilians. To do otherwise is not only wrong, but may very well be criminal, and Israel's leaders, and its friends elsewhere in the world, must face up to this harsh reality.

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, is co-author of the report "Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon," released Thursday.

Boycots only hurt the already poor and disenfranchised. Look at the result o f the sanctions program in Iraq- hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children died. Is taht what you want to see repeated?

How would you suggest we deal with Israeli terror then?

Clarify your terms then. How are sanctions different than boycotts? How would you guarentee that the net result of sanctions/boycotts wouldn't be the death of Arab children in Nazereth from malnutrition, lack of childhood vaccines, etc?

Or, do you suppose it doesn't matter anyway, because you could turn it around and blame it on Israel?

Notice how at the beginning, the phoney fucktard tried to feign "concern" for how the boycott would impact "arab children". So I asked, well what do you suggest we do about Israeli terror?

Then, as I predicted, the truth came out. There was no concern at all--it was simply another zionazi defending all things israel who really wasn't "concerned" about the effectiveness of boycotts.

LMFAO

Although there was a split in the british government over supporting zionism, even many british foreign service experts who _opposed_ supporting zionism warned about and predicted this.

We get your point of view all day long in the right wing, pro-war, pro-israel, pro-corporate lackey media---we come here for an alternative to the mainstream.

So---we are not looking for balance, this site IS a balance to everything else we read/listen to/watch.

It is not a chatroom--there are plenty out there if you'd like a referral.

Thanks.

Dictionary.com definitions of race (we've only gone through this a dozen times already)

1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.

2. A group of people united or classified together on the basis of common history, nationality, or geographic distribution: the German race.

3. A genealogical line; a lineage.

4. Humans considered as a group.



Sigh. You are just incapable of absorbing new info, aren't you?

'Racist' and 'bigot' are not interchangeable. 'Bigot' has the broader meaning. That's why the definition you're reciting encompasses racism as one of bigotry's several categories, get it monkey?

So are Jews a race or what? Yes or no? You brought up dictionary definitions of RACE, not racism. Now you're just trying to run off down a new rat-hole cuz you know you fucked up. You'd be better at avoiding these tangled webs if you weren't such a fucking liar

They just don't admit to their pro-Jewish racism. They have double standards about Palestine and Lebanon and single it out for opprobrium. They use the codeword "terrorist" for "Muslim" or "arab"". This reference is borne out by their support for rightwing, neo-con, Zionists, who wield power in the government, the mainstream media and Hollywood, among other things. Doesn't this prove they're using the name "Terrorists" as a figleaf for their hatred of Muslims and arabs? A parallel phenomenon occures in the mainstream media --

Some of these obsessive pro-Israel bashers post outright threats, troll incessantly and spam the thread in their futile attempts to turn indymedia into something it is not.

A partial list of the right wing, pro-war, pro-israel obsessed loonies that post here who've been caught time and time again displaying their racism/supremism/bigotry:

Schtarker Yid (toatal nutjob)

"shetizdayen.." (had multiple aliases before, spamming, trolling basket case who lives in Israel, but doesn't have the courage to engage the same way on the Israel IMC)

'Tia' (a bit more reasonable most of the time, a bit less trolling)

Becky Johnson ( a true fanatic who will lie any chance she gets, and call herself a "journalist" LOL)

Lord Locksley ( a total right wing basket case who has used special words like "faggot" and "nigger" to express his feelings)

Generally, the best place to buy Israeli consumer goods are Arab markets. The organized Arab community is begining a campaign of internal "pressure" to force these small shop-owners not to carry Israeli products. A national database of stores that don't carry Israeli products is being developed- these stores will be given a special sticker to place in their window. Its starting now.

Subject: RE: A note from beleaguered Safed

Dear******



Anyway, the bottom line is that the mayor, Yishai Maimon, confirmed what we said yesterday. The overwhelming need right now in Safed is food. People do not have food and cannot get it. The Mayor promised that if WE could raise the money to buy the food Safed needs, the city’s staff and organization would arrange logistics of the distribution. They are already trying, but they don’t have the resources and the coverage is very “hit or miss.”

The Mayor said that the population of Safed is 30,000. He estimates that there are about 10-12,000 people left here now. Right now, nobody knows who or where they are; as you can imagine, many of those remaining are people without resources, family, or other support. He is sending soldiers out into the neighborhoods to knock on doors and locate these people to make sure that they are not abandoned and get the help and services they need. While we were there, a social worker from the welfare department came to report on some elderly people who are alone at home, terrified, with nowhere to go and no one to help them. They will try to arrange for them to be moved to the old age home so that they can be taken care of. This is where my wife works.

I asked the Mayor how much money we need for food alone. Of course, he couldn’t answer – he said we’d need to figure out ourselves. We need to realize that this is NOT a “one shot deal” where we give people a meal and “shalom al Yisrael” – this is ongoing and, G-d forbid, might last a long time. Somebody gave out meals here for Shabbes, but there weren’t nearly enough and the food was gone before they even started. And what about Sunday? Monday? People need to eat every day – not just once a week!

It’s important to emphasize, that in a situation like this, EVERYBODY needs help – not just the poor, not just the religious, not just the elderly, … EVERYBODY! This is not charity (tzedakah) in the normal sense. Even a wealthy person needs to eat. If he can’t access his resources, they aren’t worth anything! If he can’t walk to the store, his money is valueless. People here are paralyzed – the city is closed: food stores are open until 1:00. Nothing else is open – no banks, no post office, no buses, nothing. There is virtually nobody on the street. There have already been for air-raid alerts today. Yesterday there were 10-15. Missiles fell in Safed. People are immobilized – either physically (no transportation) or psychologically (I’m scared to go out).

Incidentally, also the people that fled from Safed need help – these people left here in a panic with nothing and no place to go. Many are just as badly off as the people remaining here.

I won't lend you a hand in your vanity shrill spectacle, so I'm disregarding your shrill bunk. However, this following snippet is belly-aching in the laghter it induces:

"They'd rip you to shreds [in Israel-IMC]. "

Let's follow your line of thought to its origin, baseless as it is. Why do think that would happen, O ultra-left demigod?

With hundreds dead, many of them slaughtered in their own homes, hundreds of thousands take flight, terrified of suffering the same fate at the hands of a regime possessed of vastly superior military force, which claims that its ongoing war against a terrorist force gives it a mandate to expel an entire population.. The mass exodus is deliberately encouraged by the propaganda of the regime, which publicizes the atrocities to stampede the population. The ultimate goal: ethnic cleansing, and the replacement of the local population with settlers mobilized by the regime.

That was the scenario in Kosovo in March-April 1999—and that is what is beginning to take place in southern Lebanon in July-August 2006. The difference, of course, is that in the first case the US government used ethnic cleansing as a pretext for war, while in the second case, the ethnic cleansing is a joint US-Israeli project.

In Kosovo the regime of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was viewed as an obstacle to US foreign policy. Accordingly, the Clinton administration engineered a NATO bombing campaign which ultimately forced Serbian withdrawal from Kosovo, while the American media demonized Milosevic as the Hitler of the Balkans and lauded the Kosovo Liberation Army as “freedom fighters.” (The KLA’s tactics included reprisal massacres of Serb civilians, as well as planting bombs in restaurants and bus stops in Pristina, the capital of the province. Its financing came largely from two sources: CIA subsidies and narcotics trafficking.)

Today, the Bush administration views Israeli expansionism as a key component of its strategy to reshape the Middle East and give American imperialism control of vast oil resources. Accordingly, the US has chosen to ally itself with the invading power, Israel, in an operation in which US-built warplanes flown by Israeli pilots drop American-supplied bombs on the people of Lebanon. The American media, working in sync with this policy, excuses Israeli atrocities as acts of self-defense, while demonizing the guerrilla fighters of Hezbollah as “terrorists.”

More

http://wsws.org/articles/2006/aug2006/koso-a07.shtml

I guess that Israel will have to go massacre some more defenseless women and children in response.

CORRECTION (Wed, Aug 8): It was WORSE* than we thought, Zio-boys. The Jerusalem post reported *37* wounded and ABC News reported *38* wounded.

One of our IDF Zio-blitzkrieger boys actually accidentally shot and *killed* another of our IDF Zio-blitzkrieger boys!

Hizbollah also destroyed several of our tanks and an armored personnel carrier.

OY VEY...!! SUCH A DAY I SHOULDN'T WISH UPON ONE OF MY WORST GOY BROTHER-IN-LAWS!!

He takes the word of an **arch-Zionist** media organ and yet **Doubbbbbts** that 40 Hizbollah fighters were killed yesterday!!! HA HA!!

OH! 'Dem NOI boyz jes' crack me up!!!

Or is that an **arch-Zionist** media organ too?

"State to construct tent encampment for evacuees

Ra'anan Dinor, the director-general of the Prime Minister's Office, said Wednesday that the state would erect a tent encampment in Rosh Ha'ayin's Afeq Park similar to the one built last summer in Nitzanim to house settler evacuees from the Gaza Strip.

The encampment is said to be able to hold 3,000 residents from the north. Tel Aviv municipality announced it would also absorb 3,000 inhabitants of Kiryat Shmona and the surrounding areas, relocating them to the Israel Trade Fairs and Convention Centers.

More than 500 Kiryat Shmona residents left the town yesterday. "I CAN'T STAY HERE ANYMORE. I don't have air," Morris Ben-Itah said before boarding the bus to Netanya's Beit Goldmintz, a military rest and recreation compound.

Kiryat Shmona Deputy Mayor Sami Malul supports the idea of getting the residents out of the city. "At the point they will be going for a week. It may be longer. We want to get the people in the shelters out to some fresh air." Malul says in the coming days about 1,000 people will be sent out."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/747814.html

I've just been *caught* quoting from ***another!*** (soft) Zionist Israeli newspapaer but **still** can't get the facts right! HA HA!!!

You see boyz, 6000 Israelis from the country's northern part will be staying for a week or two in CENTRAL Israel on a **rotating** basis! At least 800,000 Israelis now live in the north. So you do da math!!

Oh! 'Dem NOI dudes 'jes crack me up!

zionist: "I've just been *caught* quoting from ***another!*** (soft) Zionist Israeli newspapaer."



zionist: "At least 800,000 Israelis now live in the north."

Yeah, they're just sitting in their cafes, talking long leisurely walks, lounging in the back yard, right?



zionist: "[Northern Israelis] will be staying for a week or two"

Damn...!! Even their zio-nazi 'brothers and sisters' don't want to put up with their zio-nazi 'brothers and sisters' (especially those EXTRA-CRAZY _Jewish_ fundamentalist settlers) from "North Israel" for longer than just a week or two! And even then they have to stay in _tents_! I can understand. I can't put up with a zio-nazi for more than a _minute_ or two!



zionist: "in CENTRAL Israel"

Uh-huh, call it whatever makes you _feeel_ better. Ha-ha!



zionist: "on a **rotating** basis!"

Good! They can rotate their asses right back to the Katyusha's!



(By the way, what happened today to the "expanded" VAUNTED israeli military offensive that israel promised today?)

...so you can see that i don't care!

ha-ha-ha!!

(gee that must have taken you a good 15-20 minutes -- fo' NUTHIN'!)



shetizdayen: "the anti-tank missile problem it is suffering from is because of red tape -- authorizations of a contract to supply the defense ministry a certain brand of defensive means against anti-tank missiles has been lagging in the pipeline, YADA YADA YADA..., YADA YADA YADA..., YADA YADA YADA..."

EXCUSES, EXCUSES, EXCUSES!!

BOOOOO-HOOOOO...!!



[WHOOOSHHH, WHOOOSHH, WHOOOSH, WHOOOSH, WHOOOSH...!!]

UH-OHHH!! SOUNDS LIKE YIDIOT IS DUE FOR ANOTHER WEATHER REPORT!



[KABBBOOOOOMMMM...!!]

UH-OHHH!! SOUNDS LIKE _ANOTHER_ ISRAELI TANK GOT DESTROYED!



(I guess it's time for Israel -- out of COWARDLY frustration -- to go bomb some more defenseless Lebanese women and children huddled together in a makeshift shelter.)

Israel has already _LOST_ this war -- in the court of world public moral opinion.

shetizdayen: "Remember: 2 more months, if not sooner, and there will be 0 Hizbis."

Hahaha!

speaking of "screeeds" (shetizdayen indeebay Thursday, Aug. 10, 2006 at 4:34 PM)!



shetizdayen: "Keep on kidding yourself and conflating yourselves with "world public moral opinion"."

Worldwide Protests Against Israeli Aggression:

and

Mass Demo Against Israeli Attacks:

(just a _few_ photos)

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/347004.html

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/07/345845.html

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/346973.html

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/07/345812.html

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/08/347043.html?c=on#comments

http://www.indymedia.org.uk .



shetizdayen, keep typing boy.

(wake me up when there's o Hizbollah)

shetizdayen: "There were 1,200 Hizbollah men at the outset"

shetizdayen: "Wake me up when Hizbollah has regrouped and been resupplied to its pre-war extent."

HAHAHA! EVEN _ISRAEL_ ADMITS THAT HIZBOLLAH IS NO WHERE *NEAR* BEING DEFEATED!! AND THAT HIZBOLLAH HAS _PLENTY_ OF ROCKETS LEFT! HAHAHA!!



_HERE'S_ YOUR ALARM CLOCK, shetizdayen!:

[WHOOOSHHH, WHOOOSHHH, WHOOOSHHH, WHOOOSHHH, WHOOOSHHHHH...!!]

UH-OHHH!! SOUNDS LIKE YIDIOT IS DUE FOR ANOTHER WEATHER REPORT!



[KABBBOOOOOMMMM...!!] KABBBOOOOOMMMM...!! KABBBOOOOOMMMM...!!]]

UH-OHHH!! SOUNDS LIKE _MORE_ ISRAELI TANKS JUST GOT DESTROYED!



VAUNTED Israeli soldiers: "MOMMY...!! MOMMY...!! MOMMY...!! I WANT MY _MOMMY_...!!"

More on worldwide protest against Israel:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk

http://sydney.indymedia.org/node/37881

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/117451.php

http://southafrica.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/10844.php

http://italy.indymedia.org

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77505

http://scotland.indymedia.org/newswire/display/3075/index.php

http://madrid.indymedia.org

http://melbourne.indymedia.org

Irish Labour Party President and spokesman on foreign affairs Michael D. Higgins: "The response of Israel, supported by the most powerful country in the world, is outrageous both in terms of the killing and injuring of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, which is occurring in such fashion as to even make impossible the delivery of humanitarian relief by the United Nations and its agencies. Such destruction is something which should not surprise the international community. Israel has followed this policy for decades in Gaza and the occupied territories of the West Bank. At the heart of the policy lies the principle of collective punishment of civilians, the denial of human rights and the destruction of a way of life."

Here's a great link:

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

also:

http://www.ifamericansknew.org

ה

ומזהירה מפני פלישה רחבה לאזור בקרוב. כוחות גדולים כבר הוזזו למעבר ארז. תושב העיירה אל-שוכה, בן 65, נפצע קל. לפחות שני בתים נהרסו, וכן המפקדה הימית הפלסטינית, שהופצצה על-ידי חיל הים

עזה.gif

ישראל חידשה היום (רביעי) את ההפצצות על יעדים אזרחיים ברצועת עזה, ומפקדי הצבא מזהירים מפני פלישה רחבה לאזור. עדי ראייה דיווחו כי ישראל הזיזה עשרות טנקים ודחפורים ליד מעבר ארז, במטרה לפלוש לאזור בית לאהיא. מפקדים בצבא הישראלי אמרו כי הצבא יפלוש לבית לאהיא ויישאר שם 72 שעות.

מאז שעות הבוקר מפציצה ישראל יעדים שונים ברצועה, והרסה שני בתים לפחות. כמו במקרים דומים, גם הפעם ישראל טוענת שהפציצה מקומות שבהם התנהלו אחסון וייצור של אמצעי לחימה.

מקורות פלסטיניים מסרו כי בהפגזות על בתי התושבים בעיירה אל-שוכה שממזרח לרפיח נפצע סולימאן אבו עמראון, בן 65. הוא הועבר לבית-החולים יוסף אל-נגא'ר ברפיח ומצבו מוגדר קל.

מוקדם בבוקר הפציצה ישראל בית פלסטיני במחנה הפליטים אל-בוריג' שבמרכז הרצועה. עדי ראייה מסרו כי מסוקי קרב שיגרו טיל לעבר הבית והרסו אותו כליל. הבית היה ריק מאחר שבעליו הוזהר חצי שעה קודם לכן בידי ישראל. נזק רב נגרם לבתים הסמוכים.

בו בזמן הפציצה ישראל בניין מגורים אחר ממערב לעזה בארבעה טילים והרסה אותו כליל. לא דווח על נפגעים.

מקורות פלסטיניים דיווחו כי ספינת מלחמה ישראלית הפגיזה מוצב של המשטרה הימית ממערב למחנה הפליטים אל-שאטי בעזה. נמסר כי המוצב נהרס עד היסוד. לא נמסר על נפגעים.

אתמול שיחררה ישראל את השר לענייני אסירים ברשות הפלסטינית, וספי קבהא, שאותו חטפה עם שרים וחברי

ISRAELI TANK ROLLS OVER -- AND OF COURSE *KILLS* -- TWO OF ITS *OWN* SOLDIERS! HA-HA-HA..!! BEFORE, ISRAELI SOLDIERS SHOT AND KILLED ONE OF THEIR OWN TOO!! HA-HA!!

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/749479.html

Hezbollah shoots down IAF helicopter deep inside Lebanon

24 IDF soldiers killed Saturday in south Lebanon

By Amos Harel, Yoav Stern and Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondents, and Agencies

Twenty-four Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed and another 11 seriously wounded in heavy clashes Saturday with Hezbollah forces in south Lebanon, after Israel dramatically expanded its ground operation in the area.

Five air crewmen were believed to be dead after an Israel Air Force helicopter was shot down by Hezbollah fire late Saturday, the IDF said. Hezbollah claimed the helicopter was struck by an anti-tank missile. IDF sources confirmed a helicopter had gone down and that the five crewmen were missing.

Eight of the fatalities have been named so far. The funerals of two soldiers were announced: Corporal Ya`ar Ben Giat, 19, of Kibbutz Nahsholim is to be buried at 6.30 P.M. Sunday at the kibbutz' cemetery; Staff Sergeant Tzachi Krips, 20, of Kibbutz Hama'apil is to be buried at 6.30 P.M. Sunday at the kibbutz' cemetery.

The six other fatalities were identified as Corporal Tamer Amer, 20, of Julis; Staff Sergreant Itay Steinberg, 20, of Carmei Yosef; Sergeant Yaniv Temerson, 21, of Tzipori; Sergeant Yosef Abitboul, 19, of Gan Ner; Sergeant Yonathan Ankonina, 21, of Netanya; and Captain Shai Bernstein, 24, of Be'er Sheva.

Under cover of intense artillery fire, IDF forces reached the Litani River, which is some 20 to 30 kilometers inside Lebanon, military officials said Saturday evening.

As part of the expanded operation, IAF helicopters dropped a large number of Israeli troops deep inside Lebanese territory on Saturday, in the largest operation of its kind since 1973.

IDF troops were engaged in heavy exchanges of fire with Hezbollah, as forces thrust northward to the Litani River under cover of intense artillery fire. IDF sources said more than 80 Hezbollah fighters had been killed in the clashes over the weekend, at least 40 of them on Saturday.

Israel has nearly tripled the number of forces in Lebanon as part of its expanded ground war, and expects to fight for another week, despite a United Nations cease-fire resolution, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said Saturday. Halutz said IDF troops would stay in Lebanon until an international force arrives. "We have almost tripled our forces that are operating in Lebanon," Halutz told reporters.

A top IDF official has said that the army will stop its offensive as soon as it is ordered to do so by the political leadership and later it will begin to retrace its steps to uncover any pockets of resistance that may remain in the area.

UN Middle East envoy Alvaro de Soto told Reuters on Saturday the UN force could begin deploying in seven to 10 days, suggesting there is still some time before the "immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations," as called for in the resolution.

At least 23 soldiers taken to Rambam Hospital

Dozens of soldiers were hurt during the fighting in Lebanon on Saturday. At least 23 of them were taken to Rambam Medical Center in Haifa for treatment.

None of the soldiers killed on Saturday were reservists.

An IDF spokeswoman said an IDF officer and two soldiers were killed Saturday when Hezbollah fighters fired an anti-tank missile at their tank.

She said another soldier died when Hezbollah launched a similar attack on a structure in the area where he and other troops had taken position.

Two soldiers from the Golani Brigade were killed in an accident that occured when an IDF tank accidentally ran them over in the village of Shakif-al-Amal in the East. Two other soldiers were wounded in the accident, one seriously and the other lightly.

In the eastern section, one soldier was killed when an anti-tank missile hit his tank close to the village of Kanatra. Another soldier was killed when troops exchanged fire near the village of Hadata on the eastern section.

Three other soldiers were seriously wounded in separate attacks on tanks and an armored vehicle near the villages of Tyre and Dir Sirin.

With the expansion of the ground offensive in Lebanon, four divisions were operating in south Lebanon and most of the activity was focused in areas from where Hezbollah has been firing short-range rockets into Israel. Sources in the IDF General Staff said four to seven days would be needed to complete the occupation of the area.

An IDF soldier was killed in clashes with Hezbollah in the village of Rashef in south Lebanon on Friday and another sustained moderate wounds. According to the IDF, at least ten Hezbollah militants were killed overnight.

All recite the Perfect Wisdom of the Ministry of Truth

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Ain't it a gas fuckin with these nuts?

No man is an island entire of itself; every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

JA and TW- two of a kind haters.

Tia (the moral highground???): "JA and TW- two of a kind haters."

Tia and Becky: defending the deaths of specifically targeted, defenseless Lebanese women and children.

Bullshit Becko: "These Israeli deaths are on Hezbollah's hands for they launched an unprovoked attack on the people of Israel YADA YADA YADA..., more Zionist propaganDA. And that's why Israel sent in all those IDF soldiers to *DIE* (not to mention critically/murderously disrupts the lives and all-but destroyed the country of 4 million Lebanese) trying to 'rescue' *2* Israeli soldiers (arguably caught in Israeli-occupied Lebanon)!"

Get it straight Bullshit Becko: Israel *STARTED* mass bombing Lebanon *FIRST*. *ISRAEL* turned this into a full-blown war. But those HEZBOLLAH fighters were THA WRONG BAD-ASS 'NIGGAS' TA FUCK WITH. Didn't Israel learn that when their asses were run out of Lebanon before by Hezbollah? So, the IDF and Israel got what it had comin' to it. Israel should have just negotiated a trade for Hezbollah/Lebanese prisoners, like Israel has done before.

Poor little israel.

BOOO-HOOO...!!

HA-HA-HA...!!!

better send in more IDF body bags.

Always geat to see you Zionists type so much when I DON'T CARE. Gee, that must have taken you 20-30 minutes to type, Bullshit Becko? (Btw, have you -- and all your Zio-nut friends like Tia Hun-nee -- gotten your job back at Street Spirit yet? Ha-Ha-Ha-!!)



"JA Trying to Re-write JULY 2006 History"?: I guess that's why the people of the world have morally CONDEMNED *ISRAEL*.

I guess that's why there are marches all over the world against *ISRAEL*.

Israel has already *LOST* this war in the opinion of world public moral outrage. In fact, Israel has finally *BLATANTLY* thrown away its 'moral card' pretense. Israel has finally *OPENLY* and *BLATANTLY* shown that it doesn't *give a fuck* anymore about Israel's moral *PRETENSE*. Yo, Bullshit Becko!: how is *ISRAEL* going to morally cry on and on about *Israeli* civilian deaths with a straight face in the future!!??? ...Well, I'm sure that *Zionists* will manage to do so. But, Becko, hasn't Israel pretty much shot itself in both feet, all ten toes, both ankles, and both legs and knee caps on that issue??? The world will say to Israel, "*You're* crying about civilian casualties!?"

Btw, this is the same Israel that *still* continuously occupied part of Lebanon since its last invasion and holds many Lebanese people as prisoners. So, capturing Israeli soldiers as prisoners was *certainly* fair game for Hezbollah.) Israel had reached the point where it thought that it could do *ANYTHING* against any Arabs and the world would just agree. This is the biggest moral turning point for Israel since 1948. Whatever was left of Israel's moral mask, Israel itself -- through the unchecked hubris of the past 60 years -- has finally thrown away. I'm glad that diehard Zionists Bullshit Becko and Tia Hun-nee have lived to see it. It's *DOWNHILL* for Isrsael from now on out.



==========================================================



[ IDF body bags??

by TW Sunday, Aug. 13, 2006 at 5:12 PM ]

I **LOVE** IT!!

HA-HA-HA...!!



==========================================================



Also see:

CounterPunch

http://counterpunch.org/lin07252006.html

July 25, 2006

Sharat G. Lin

Chronology of the Latest Chrisis in the Middle East



July 12

Responding to the mounting carnage in Gaza, and the Israeli seizure of much of the Palestinian government leadership, the Lebanese Hezbollah militia engages in border skirmishes with Israeli troops. In the ensuing battle, Hezbollah forces kill 3 Israeli soldiers and capture two. With Israeli forces in hot pursuit into Lebanon, another 5 Israeli soldiers die. Hezbollah casualties were not immediately announced.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert responds by saying, “Lebanon is responsible and Lebanon will bear the consequences of its actions.”

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora calls for an urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Council, appealing for help in preventing the impending Israeli invasion of Lebanon.



July 13

Israel responds with military assaults from the air, land, and sea into southern Lebanon. Its combat operations in southern Lebanon are the first since withdrawing in 2000. Israel launches a aerial bombardment of Beirut International Airport, the surrounding southern suburbs where Hezbollah operates, and the main highway connecting Beirut with Damascus.

Residents of Beirut stream out of the city desperately seeking refuge in the mountains or towards Syria. With the Israeli naval blockade and the country’s only international airport inoperable, nearly all normal means out of the country are blocked.

Hezbollah fires scores of Katyusha rockets into Israel, most falling around the beach town of Nahariya. A single larger missile hits Haifa, some 20 miles south of the Lebanese border, much farther than any previous Hezbollah rocket attacks. Hezbollah rockets also strike Raifa.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sharat G. Lin writes on global political economy, India, and the Middle East. He lived in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, and spent time in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Captured by a Palestinian militia in 1973, he has first-hand experience of their internal workings.

[Somehow I think that Sharat Lin (who's a friend of mine) has a *LOT* more credibility than Bullshit Becko.]

All those Jewish billionaires in SF (the Bechtels, the Fishers, the Sandlers, Bernard Osher, George Lucas, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Charles Schwab, etc.) and it took you TEN DAYS to raise a lousy million bucks? Ah well, it's high time they woke up

After getting caught in a lie this flagrant

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/170000_comment.php#173765

do you still think you have any credibility to trade on around here?