The Case for Boycotting Israel

by VIRGINIA TILLEY •



The Case for Boycotting Israel

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.

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LASTAIR CROOKE and MARK PERRY • Friday, Oct. 13, 2006 at 4:18 PM

Israel's decision to launch a ground war to accomplish what its air force had failed to do was made hesitantly and haphazardly. While Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) units had been making forays into southern Lebanon during the second week of the conflict, the Israeli military leadership remained undecided over when and where--even whether--to deploy their ground units.

Part Two: Winning the Ground War

How Hezbollah Defeated Israel

By ALASTAIR CROOKE and MARK PERRY

Israel's decision to launch a ground war to accomplish what its air force had failed to do was made hesitantly and haphazardly. While Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) units had been making forays into southern Lebanon during the second week of the conflict, the Israeli military leadership remained undecided over when and where--even whether--to deploy their ground units.

In part, the army's indecisiveness over when, where and whether to deploy its major ground units was a function of the air force's claims to victory. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) kept claiming that it would succeed from the air--in just one more day, and then another. This indecision was mirrored by the Western media's uncertainty about when a ground campaign would take place--or whether in fact it had already occurred.

Senior Israeli officers continued to tell their press contacts that the timing of a ground offensive was a tightly kept secret when, in fact, they didn't know themselves. The hesitation was also the result of the experience of small IDF units that had already penetrated beyond the border. Special IDF units operating in southern Lebanon were reporting to their commanders as early as July 18 that Hezbollah units were fighting tenaciously to hold their positions on the first ridgeline overlooking Israel.

At this point, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a political decision: he would deploy the full might of the IDF to defeat Hezbollah at the same time that his top aides signaled Israel's willingness to accept a ceasefire and the deployment of an international force. Olmert determined that Israel should not tip its hand--it would accept the deployment of a United Nations force, but only as a last resort.

First, he decided, Israel would say that it would accept a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) force. In keeping with this strategy, Israeli reserve forces were called to the front on July 21. The surprise call-up (the IDF was to defeat Hezbollah first from the air, and then--if that failed--use its regular forces, with no reserve forces to be called) made the initial deployment of the reserves hurried and uncoordinated. (It is, to repeat, likely that Israel did not believe it would have to call on its reserves during the conflict, or it would have called them much earlier.)

Moreover, the decision to call the reserves took key senior reserve officers, usually the first to be notified of a pending call-up, by surprise. The reserve call-up was handled chaotically--with the reserve "tail" of logistical support lagging some 24-48 hours behind the deployment of reserve forces.

The July 21 call-up was a clear sign to military strategists in the Pentagon that Israel's war was not going well. It also helps to explain why Israeli reserve troops arrived at the front without the necessary equipment, without a coherent battle plan, and without the munitions necessary to carry on the fight. (Throughout the conflict, Israel struggled to provide adequate support to its reserve forces: food, ammunition and even water supplies reached units a full 24-48 hours behind a unit's appearance at its assigned northern deployment zones.)

The effect of this was immediately perceived by military observers. "Israeli troops looked unprepared, sloppy and demoralized," one former senior US commander noted. "This wasn't the vaunted IDF that we saw in previous wars."

In keeping with Olmert's political ploy, the IDF's goal of the total destruction of Hezbollah was also being markedly scaled back. "There is one line between our military objectives and our political objectives," Brigadier-General Ido Nehushtan, a member of Israel's general staff, said on the day after the reserve call-up. "The goal is not necessarily to eliminate every Hezbollah rocket. What we must do is disrupt the military logic of Hezbollah. I would say that this is still not a matter of days away."

This was a decidedly strange way of presenting a military strategy--to conduct a war to "disrupt the military logic" of an enemy. Nehushtan's statement had a chilling effect on IDF ground commanders, who wondered exactly what the war's goals were. But other IDF commanders were upbeat--while the IAF had failed to stop Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli cities, fewer rockets were fired at Israel from July 19-21 than at any other time (a very small number on July 19, perhaps as few as 40 on July 20 and 50 on July 22).

July 22 also marks the first time that the United States responded militarily to the conflict. Late on the day of the 21st, the White House received a request from Olmert and the IDF for the provision of large amounts of precision-guided munitions--another telltale sign that the IAF had failed in its mission to degrade Hezbollah military assets significantly during the opening rounds of the war.

The request was quickly approved and the munitions were shipped to Israel beginning on the morning of July 22. Senior Pentagon officials were dismayed by the shipment, as it meant that Israel had expended most of its munitions in the war's first 10 days--an enormous targeting expenditure that suggested Israel had abandoned tactical bombing of Hezbollah assets and was poised for an onslaught on what remained of Lebanon's infrastructure, a strategy that had not worked during World War II, when the United States and Britain destroyed Germany's 66 major population centers without any discernable impact either on German morale or military capabilities.

But there was little grumbling in the Pentagon, though one former serving officer observed that the deployment of US munitions to Israel was reminiscent of a similar request made by Israel in 1973--at the height of the Yom Kippur War. "This can only mean one thing," this officer said at the time. "They're on the ropes."

In spite of its deep misgivings about the Israeli response (and the misgivings, though unreported, were deep and significant--and extended even into the upper echelons of the US Air Force), senior US military officers kept their views out of public view. And for good reason: criticism of Israel for requesting a shipment of arms during the 1973 war led to the resignation of then Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) chairman General George Brown. Brown was enraged that US weapons and munitions were being sent to Israel at the same time that American commanders in Vietnam were protesting a lack of supplies in their war in Southeast Asia.

The current JCS chairman, Peter Pace, who remained notably silent during the Israeli-Hezbollah war, understood history, saluted, and remained silent. But the JCS and senior military commanders were not the only US officials who were worried about Israel's performance. While the new US munitions were winging their way to Israel (via Prestwick, Scotland), intelligence officials were conducting initial assessments of the war's opening days, including one noting that in spite of the sustained Israeli air offensive, Al-Manar was still broadcasting in Beirut, though the IAF had destroyed the broadcast bands of Lebanon's other major networks. (This would remain true throughout the war--Al-Manar never went off the air.) How effective could the Israeli air campaign have been if they couldn't even knock out a television station's transmissions?

The call-up of Israel's reserves was meant to buttress forces already fighting in southern Lebanon, and to add weight to the ground assault. On July 22, Hezbollah units of the Nasr Brigade fought the IDF street-to-street in Maroun al-Ras. While the IDF claimed at the end of the day that it had taken the town, it had not. The fighting had been bloody, but Hezbollah fighters had not been dislodged. Many of the Nasr Brigade's soldiers had spent countless days waiting for the Israeli assault and, because of Hezbollah's ability to intercept IDF military communications, Israeli soldiers bumped up against units that were well entrenched.

IDF detachments continually failed to flank the defenders, meeting counterpunches toward the west of the city. Special three-man hunter-killer teams from the Nasr Brigade destroyed several Israeli armored vehicles during the fight with light man-made anti-tank missiles. "We knew they were going to do this," Ilay Talmor, an exhausted Israeli second lieutenant, said at the time. "This is territory they say is theirs. We would do the same thing if someone came into our country."

While the IDF continued to insist that its incursions would be "limited in scope", despite the recall of thousands of reserve troops, IDF battalions began to form south of the border. "We are not preparing for an invasion of Lebanon," said Avi Pazner, a senior Israeli government spokesman. The IDF then called Maroun al-Ras its "first foothold" in southern Lebanon. "A combination of air force, artillery and ground-force pressure will push Hezbollah out without arriving at the point where we have to invade and occupy," Pazner said.

The difference between "pushing" out a force and invading and occupying a town was thereby set, another clear signal to US military experts that the IDF could enter a town but could not occupy it. One US officer schooled in US military history compared the IDF's foray into southern Lebanon to Robert E Lee's bloody attack on Union positions at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War. "Oh I can get there, all right," Lee's lieutenant said during that war, "it's staying there that's the problem."

After-battle reports of Hezbollah commanders now confirm that IDF troops never fully secured the border area and Maroun al-Ras was never fully taken. Nor did Hezbollah ever feel the need to call up its reserves, as Israel had done. "The entire war was fought by one Hezbollah brigade of 3,000 troops, and no more," one military expert in the region said. "The Nasr Brigade fought the entire war. Hezbollah never felt the need to reinforce it."

Reports from Lebanon underscore this point. Much to their surprise, Hezbollah commanders found that Israeli troops were poorly organized and disciplined. The only Israeli unit that performed up to standards was the Golani Brigade, according to Lebanese observers. The IDF was "a motley assortment", one official with a deep knowledge of US slang reported. "But that's what happens when you have spent four decades firing rubber bullets at women and children in the West Bank and Gaza."

IDF commanders were also disturbed by the performance of their troops, noting a signal lack of discipline even among its best-trained regular soldiers. The reserves were worse, and IDF commanders hesitated to put them into battle.

On July 25, Olmert's strategy of backing down from a claimed goal to destroy Hezbollah was in full force. The Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz was the bearer of these tidings, saying that Israel's current goal was to create a "security zone" in southern Lebanon. His words were accompanied by a threat: "If there is not a multinational force that will get in to control the fences, we will continue to control with our fire towards anyone that gets close to the defined security zone, and they will know that they can be hurt."

Gone quite suddenly was a claim that Israel would destroy Hezbollah; gone too was a claim that only NATO would be acceptable as a peacekeeping unit on the border. On July 25, Israel also reported that Abu Jaafar, a commander of Hezbollah's "central sector" on the Lebanese border, was killed "in an exchange of fire" with Israeli troops near the border village of Maroun al-Ras--which had not yet been taken. The report was not true. Abu Jaafar made public comments after the end of the war.

Later on July 25, during US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to Jerusalem, the Israeli military fought its way into Bint Jbeil, calling it "Hezbollah's terror capital". The fight for Bint Jbeil went on for nine days. But it remained in Hezbollah hands until the end of the conflict. By then, the town had been destroyed, as Hezbollah fighters were able to survive repeated air and artillery shellings, retreating into their bunkers during the worst of the air and artillery campaign, and only emerging when IDF troops in follow-on operations tried to claim the city.

The Hezbollah tactics were reminiscent of those followed by the North Vietnamese Army during the opening days of the Vietnam conflict--when NVA commanders told their troops that they needed to "ride out the bombs" and then fight the Americans in small unit actions. "You must grab them by their belt buckles," a Vietnamese commander said in describing these tactics.

On July 24, as yet another sign of its looming failure in Lebanon, Israel deployed the first of thousands of cluster munitions against what it called "Hezbollah emplacements" in southern Lebanon. Cluster munitions are an effective, if vicious, combat tool and those nations that use them, including every single member of NATO (as well as Russia and China), have consistently refused to enter an international agreement banning their use.

The most responsible nation-states that use them, however, "double fuse" their munitions to cut down on the failure rate of the "bomblets" after they have been deployed. During the administration of US president Bill Clinton, defense secretary William Cohen agreed to the double-fusing of US cluster munitions and a phase-out of the "high dud rate" munitions in the US stockpile, which was intended to cut the failure rate of these munitions from 14% (some estimates are higher) to less than 3% (though some estimates are lower).

While investigations into Israel's use of these munitions is not yet complete, it now appears that the IDF deployed single-fused munitions. Recent reports in the Israeli press indicate that artillery officers carpeted dozens of Lebanese villages with the bomblets--as close to the definition of the "indiscriminate" use of firepower as one can get.

The Israeli munitions may well have been purchased from aging US stockpiles that were not double-fused, making the United States complicit in this indiscriminate targeting. Such a conclusion seems to fit with the time-line of the resupply of munitions to Israel on July 22. The IDF may well have been able to offload these munitions and deploy them quickly enough to have created the cluster-munitions crisis in Lebanon that plagues that nation still--and that started on July 24.

On July 26, IDF officials conceded that the previous 24 hours in their fight for Bint Jbail was "the hardest day of fighting in southern Lebanon". After failing to take the town from Hezbollah in the morning, IDF commanders decided to send in their elite Golani Brigade. In two hours in the afternoon, nine Golani Brigade soldiers were killed and 22 were wounded. Late in the afternoon, the IDF deployed its elite Paratroopers Brigade to Maroun al-Ras, where fighting with elements of the Nasr Brigade was in its third day.

On July 27, in response to the failure of its units to take these cities, the Israeli government agreed to a call-up of three more reserve divisions--a full 15,000 troops. By July 28, however, it was becoming clear just how severe the failure of the IAF had been in its attempts to stop Hezbollah rocket attacks. On that day, Hezbollah deployed a new rocket, the Khaibar-1, which hit Afula.

On July 28, the severity of Israel's intelligence failures finally reached the Israeli public. On that day, Mossad officials leaked information that, by their estimate, Hezbollah had not suffered a significant degradation in its military capabilities, and that the organization might be able to carry on the conflict for several more months. The IDF disagreed, stating that Hezbollah had been severely damaged. The first cracks in the Israeli intelligence community were beginning to show.

Experts in the US were also beginning to question Israel's strategy and capability. The conservative Brookings Institution published a commentary by Philip H Gordon (who blamed Hezbollah for the crisis) advising, "The issue is not whether Hezbollah is responsible for this crisis--it is--or whether Israel has the right to defend itself--it does--but whether this particular strategy [of a sustained air campaign] will work. It will not. It will not render Hezbollah powerless, because it is simply impossible to eliminate thousands of small, mobile, hidden and easily resupplied rockets via an air campaign."

Gordan's commentary reflected the views of an increasing number of military officers, who were scrambling to dust off their own air plans in the case of a White House order targeting Iranian nuclear sites. "There is a common misperception that the [US] Air Force was thrilled by the Israeli war against Lebanon," one Middle East expert with access to senior Pentagon officials told us. "They were aghast. They well know the limits of their own power and they know how it can be abused.

"It seemed to them [USAF officers] that Israel threw away the book in Lebanon. This wasn't surgical, it wasn't precise, and it certainly wasn't smart. You can't just coat a country in iron and hope to win."

The cold, harsh numbers of the war point up the fallacy of the Israeli air and ground campaign. Hezbollah had secreted upwards of 18,000 rockets in its arsenals prior to the conflict. These sites were hardened against Israeli air strikes and easily survived the air campaign. Hezbollah officials calculated that from the time of firing until the IAF was able to identify and deploy fighters to take out the mobile rockets was 90 seconds. Through years of diligent training, Hezbollah rocket teams had learned to deploy, fire and safely cover their mobile launchers in less than 60 seconds, with the result that IAF planes and helicopters (which Israel has in much fewer numbers than it boasts) could not stop Hezbollah's continued rocket fire at Israel ("Israel is about three helicopters away from a total disaster," one US military officer commented).

Hezbollah fired about 4,000 rockets at Israel (a more precise, though uncertain, figure calculates the firing of 4,180 rockets), bringing its stockpiles down to 14,000 rockets--enough to prosecute the war for at least three more months.

Moreover, and more significant, Hezbollah's fighters proved to be dedicated and disciplined. Using intelligence assets to pinpoint Israeli infantry penetrations, they proved the equal of Israel's best fighting units. In some cases, Israeli units were defeated on the field of battle, forced into sudden retreats or forced to rely on air cover to save elements from being overrun. Even toward the end of the war, on August 9, the IDF announced that 15 of its reserve soldiers were killed and 40 wounded in fighting in the villages of Marjayoun, Khiam and Kila--a stunning casualty rate for a marginal piece of real estate.

The robust Hezbollah defense was also taking its toll on Israeli armor. When Israel finally agreed to a ceasefire and began its withdrawal from the border area, it left behind upwards of 40 armored vehicles, nearly all of them destroyed by expertly deployed AT-3 "Sagger" anti-tank missiles--which is the NATO name for the Russian-made vehicle- or man-deployed, wire-guided, second-generation 9M14 Malyutka--or "Little Baby".

With a range of 3 kilometers, the Sagger proved enormously successful in taking on Israeli tanks, a fact that must have given Israeli armor commanders fits, in large part because the Sagger missile deployed by Hezbollah is an older version (developed and deployed in 1973) of a more modern version that is more easily hidden and deployed and has a larger warhead. If the IDF could not protect its armor against the 1973 "second generation" version, IDF commanders must now be wondering how it can possibly protect itself against a version that is more modern, more sophisticated, and more deadly.

Prior to the implementation of the ceasefire, the Israeli political establishment decided that it would "clear drop" Israeli paratroopers in key areas along the Litani River. The decision was apparently made to convince the international community that the rules of engagement for a UN force should extend from the Litani south. Such a claim could not be made unless Israel could credibly claim to have cleared that part of Lebanon to the Litani.

A significant number of Israeli forces were airlifted into key areas just south of the Litani to accomplish this goal. The decision might well have led to a disaster. Most of the Israeli forces airlifted to these sites were immediately surrounded by Hezbollah units and may well have been decisively mauled had a ceasefire not gone into effect. The political decision angered retired IDF officers, one of whom accused Olmert of "spinning the military"--using the military for public relations purposes.

Perhaps the most telling sign of Israel's military failure comes in counting the dead and wounded. Israel now claims that it killed about 400-500 Hezbollah fighters, while its own losses were significantly less. But a more precise accounting shows that Israeli and Hezbollah casualties were nearly even. It is impossible for Shi'ites (and Hezbollah) not to allow an honorable burial for its martyrs, so in this case it is simply a matter of counting funerals. Fewer than 180 funerals have been held for Hezbollah fighters--nearly equal to the number killed on the Israeli side. That number may be revised upward: our most recent information from Lebanon says the number of Shi'ite martyr funerals in the south can now be precisely tabulated at 184.

But by any accounting--whether in rockets, armored vehicles or numbers of dead and wounded--Hezbollah's fight against Israel must be accorded a decisive military and political victory. Even if it were otherwise (and it is clearly not), the full impact of Hezbollah's war with Israel over a period of 34 days in July and August has caused a political earthquake in the region.

Hezbollah's military defeat of Israel was decisive, but its political defeat of the United States--which unquestioningly sided with Israel during the conflict and refused to bring it to an end--was catastrophic and has had a lasting impact on US prestige in the region.

Click Here to Read Part One: Winning the Intelligence War

Next: How Hezbollah won the political war

Alastair Crooke and Mark Perry are the co-directors of Conflicts Forum, a London-based group dedicated to providing an opening to political Islam. Crooke is the former Middle East adviser to European Union High Representative Javier Solana and served as a staff member of the Mitchell Commission investigating the causes of the second intifada. Perry is a Washington, DC-based political consultant, author of six books on US history, and a former personal adviser to the late Yasser Arafat.

(Research for this article was provided by Madeleine Perry.)

The BBC and Israeli Propaganda: Israel's Plan for a Military Strike on Iran

By JONATHAN COOK

The Middle East, and possibly the world, stands on the brink of a terrible conflagration as Israel and the United States prepare to deal with Iran's alleged ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. Israel, it becomes clearer by the day, wants to use its air force to deliver a knock-out blow against Tehran. It is not known whether it will use conventional weapons or a nuclear warhead in such a strike.

The BBC and Israeli Propaganda

Israel's Plan for a Military Strike on Iran

By JONATHAN COOK

The Middle East, and possibly the world, stands on the brink of a terrible conflagration as Israel and the United States prepare to deal with Iran's alleged ambition to acquire nuclear weapons. Israel, it becomes clearer by the day, wants to use its air force to deliver a knock-out blow against Tehran. It is not known whether it will use conventional weapons or a nuclear warhead in such a strike.

At this potentially cataclysmic moment in global politics, it is good to see that one of the world's leading broadcasters, the BBC, decided this week that it should air a documentary entitled "Will Israel bomb Iran?". It is the question on everyone's lips and doubtless, with the imprimatur of the BBC, the programme will sell around the world.

The good news ends there, however. Because the programme addresses none of the important issues raised by Israel's increasingly belligerent posture towards Tehran.

It does not explain that, without a United Nations resolution, a military strike on Iran to destroy its nuclear research programme would be a gross violation of international law.

It does not clarify that Israel's own large nuclear arsenal was secretly developed and is entirely unmonitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or that it is perceived as a threat by its neighbours and may be fuelling a Middle East arms race.

Nor does the programme detail the consequences of an Israeli strike on instability and violence across the Middle East, including in Iraq, where British and American troops are stationed as an occupying force.

And there is no consideration of how in the longer term unilateral action by Israel, with implicit sanction by the international community, is certain to provoke a steep rise in global jihad against the West.

Instead the programme dedicates 40 minutes to footage of Top Gun heroics by the Israeli air force, and the recollections of pilots who carried out a similar, "daring" attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor in the early 1980s; menacing long shots of Iran's nuclear research facilities; and interviews with three former Israeli prime ministers, a former Israeli military chief of staff, various officials in Israeli military intelligence and a professor who designs Israel's military arsenal.

All of them speak with one voice: Israel, they claim, is about to be "wiped out" by Iranian nuclear weapons and must defend itself "whatever the consequences".

They are given plenty of airtime to repeat unchallenged well-worn propaganda Israel has been peddling through its own media, and which has been credulously amplified by the international media: that Iran is led by a fanatical anti-Semite who, like Adolf Hitler, believes he can commit genocide against the Jewish people, this time through a nuclear holocaust.

Other Israeli misinformation, none of it believed by serious analysts, is also uncritically spread by the film-makers: that Hizbullah in Lebanon is a puppet of Iran, waiting to aid its master in Israel's destruction; that Iran is only months away from creating nuclear weapons, a "point of no return", as the programme warns; and that a "fragile" Israel is under constant threat of annihilation from all its Arab neighbours.

But the programme's unequivocal main theme -- echoing precisely Israel's own agenda -- is that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is hellbent on destroying Israel. The film-makers treat seriously, bordering on reverentially, preposterous comments from Israel's leaders about this threat.

Shimon Peres, the Israeli government's veteran roving ambassador, claims, for example, that Iran has made "a call for genocide" against Israel, compares an Iranian nuclear bomb to a "flying concentration camp", and warns that "no one would like to see a comeback to the times of the Nazis".

Cabinet minister Avi Dichter, a former head of the Shin Bet domestic security service, believes Israel faces "an existential threat" from Iran. And Zvi Stauber, a former senior figure in military intelligence, compares Israel's situation to a man whose neighbour "has a gun and he declares every day he is going to kill you".

But pride of place goes to Binyamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister and the current leader of the opposition. He claims repeatedly that the only possible reason Iran and its president could want a nuclear arsenal is for Israel's "extermination". "If he can get away with it, he'll do it." "Ayatollahs with atombic bombs are a powerful threat to all of us." A nuclear Iran "is a threat unlike anything we have seen before. It's beyond politics" -- apparently worse than the nuclear states of North Korea and Pakistan, the latter a military dictatorship and friend of the US barely containing within its borders some of the most fanatical jihadist movements in the world.

Apart from a brief appearance by an Iranian diplomat, no countervailing opinions are entertained in the BBC programme; only Israel's military and political leadership is allowed to speak.

The documentary gives added credence to the views of Israel's security establishment by making great play of a speech by Ahmadinejad -- one with which the Israeli authorities and their allies in Washington have made endless mischief -- in which the Iranian president repeats a statement by Iran's late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, that went unnoticed when first uttered.

In the BBC programme, Ahmadenijad is quoted as saying: "The regime occupying Jerusalem should be eliminated from the page of history". This is at least an improvement on the original translation, much repeated in the programme by Netanyahu and others, that "Israel must be wiped off the map".

But for some strange reason, the programme makers infer from their more accurate translation the same diabolical intent on Ahmadinejad's part as suggested by Netanyahu's fabricated version. Iran's nuclear weapons, we are told by the programme as if they are already in existence, have "presented Israel's leaders with a new order of threat". In making his speech, the BBC film argues, Ahmadinejad "issued a death sentence against Israel".

But, as has now been pointed out on numerous occasions (though clearly not often enough for the BBC to have noticed), Khomeini and Ahmadinejad were referring to the need for regime change, the ending of the regime occupying the Palestinians in violation of international law. They were not talking, as Netanyahu and co claim, about the destruction of the state of Israel or the Jewish people. The implication of the speech is that the current Israeli regime will end because occupying powers are illegitimate and unsustainable, not because Iran plans to fire nuclear missiles at the Jewish state or commit genocide.

Overlooked by the programme makers is the fact that "fragile" Israel is currently the only country in the Middle East armed with nuclear warheads, several hundred of them, as well as one of the most powerful armies in the world, which presumably make most of its neighbours feel "fragile" too, with far more reason.

And, as we are being persuaded how "fragile" Israel really is, another former prime minister, Ehud Barak, is interviewed. "Ultimately we are standing alone," he says, in apparent justification for an illegal, unilateral strike. Iran's nuclear reasearch facilities, Barak warns, are hidden deep underground, so deep that "no conventional weapon can penetrate", leaving us to infer that in such circumstances Israel will have no choice but use a tactical nuclear strike in its "self-defence". And, getting into his stride, Barak adds that some facilities are in crowded urban areas "where any attack could end up in civilian collateral damage".

But despite the terrifying scenario laid out by Israel's leaders, the BBC website cheerleads for Israel in the same manner as the programme-makers, suggesting that Israel has the right to engineer a clash of civilisations: "With America unlikely to take military action, the pressure is growing on Israel's leaders to launch a raid."

As should be clear by now, the Israeli government's fingerprints are all over this BBC "documentary". And that is hardly surprising because the man behind this "independent" production is Israel's leading film-maker: Noam Shalev.

Shalev, a graduate of a New York film school, has been making a spate of documentaries through his production company Highlight Films, based in Herzliya, near Tel Aviv, that have been lapped up by the BBC and other foreign broadcasters. With the BBC's stamp of approval, it is easy for Shalev to sell his films around the world.

Shalev, who claims that he doesn't "espouse a political view", started his career by making documentaries on less controversial subjects. He has produced films on Ethiopian immigrants arriving in Israel, and on the Zaka organisation, Jewish religious fundamentalists who arrive at the scene of suicide attacks quite literally to pick up the pieces, of human remains.

In the past his films managed to bypass the reticence of broadcasters like the BBC to broach the combustible subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict outside their news programmes by touching on the topic obliquely. Importantly, however, Shalev's films always humanise his Israeli subjects, showing them as complex, emotional and caring beings, while largely ignoring the millions of Palestinians the Israeli government and army are oppressing.

According to a profile of Shalev published in the Israeli media in 2004, his success derives from the fact that he has developed a "soft-sell approach", showing Israel in a good light without "the straightforward 'hasbara' [propaganda] efforts which explain Israel's case that Israel's Foreign Ministry is required to disseminate to European and American news outlets."

In the words of an Israeli public relations executive, Shalev has a skill in telling Israel's story in ways that international broadcasters appreciate: "[Shalev] also shows the Israeli side, he is not one of those traitors who sell their ideology for money. He has the skill to market it in such a way that overseas they want to see it, and this is very important."

But recently Shalev has grown more confident to try the hard sell for Israel, apparently sure that the BBC and other foreign broadcasters will still buy his films. And that is because Shalev offers them something that other film-makers cannot: intimate access to Israel's security forces, an area off-limits to his rivals.

Before the disengagement from Gaza last year, for example, Shalev made a sympathetic documentary, shown by the BBC, about a day in the life of one Israeli soldier serving there. The film largely concealed the context that might have alerted viewers to the fact that the soldier was enforcing a four-decade illegal occupation of Gaza, or that the Strip is an open-air prison in which thousands of Palestinian have been killed by the Israeli army and in which a majority of Gazans live in abject poverty.

Interviewed about the documentary, Shalev observed: "The army really is very, very careful. There is no indiscriminate firing. I saw, and this was not a show put on just for us, that before any shot is fired there is confirmation that there is nobody behind or in front of the objective. The army is very sensitive to non-deliberate fire."

In other words, Shalev's film for the BBC shed no light on why Israel's "deliberate" fire has killed hundreds of Palestinian children during the second intifada or why a large number of civilians have died from Israeli gunfire and missile strikes inside the Gaza Strip.

Earlier this year Shalev made another film for the BBC, "The Hunt for Black October", to coincide with the release of Stephen Spielberg's movie Munich. "The BBC gains exclusive access to the undercover Mossad agents assigned to track down the Palestinian group responsible for the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics," the BBC was able to glow in its promotional material.

Shalev's latest film, "Will Israel bomb Iran?", follows this well-trodden path. Arabs and Muslims are again deprived of a voice, as are non-Israeli experts.

So why did the BBC buy this blatant piece of propaganda?

Here are a few clues. Shalev's film includes:

* footage taken from inside Hizbullah bunkers under the supervision of the Israeli army as it occupied south Lebanon.

* a "rare view" of the inside of the Israeli army's satellite control room, which spies on Israel's Arab neighbours and Iran and which, according to programme, is "incredibly guarded about its security arrangements".

* an exclusive appearance by Israel's former military chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, who we are told is "rarely interviewed".

* a glimpse inside a Rafael weapons factory, which the programme tells us is "rarely filmed".

In other words, the BBC, and the other broadcasters who will air this "documentary" in the coming weeks and months, has been dazzled by Shalev's ability to show us the secret world of the Israeli army. So dazzled, it seems, that it has forgotten to check -- or worse, simply doesn't care -- what message Shalev is inserting between his exclusive footage.

It might have occurred to someone at the BBC to wonder why Shalev gets these chances to show things no one else is allowed to. Could it be that the "hasbara" division of the Israeli Foreign Ministry has got far more sophisticated than it once was?

Is the Israeli government using Shalev, wittingly or not, and is he in turn using the BBC, to spread Israeli propaganda? Propaganda that may soon propel us towards the "clash of civilisations" so longed for by Israel's leadership.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. He is the author of the forthcoming "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State" published by Pluto Press, and available in the United States from the University of Michigan Press. His website is http://www.jkcook.net

EDITOR: I'm reposting a comment on an insulting hatful article. I want this comment to remain up. Remember, hating my comment isn't grounds for hiding it. If you love Islam and jihad, more power to you, you're entitled to your opinion but not to deprive me of mine.

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

This Virginia Tilley and whoever submitted the article evidently believe Israel and the US should be singled out for opprobrium. We witness the typical apologogia for jihadist aggression and flouting of international law, the tired lie about what "jihad" (holy war undertaken for Allah's sake conducted to conquer countries outside of Muslim domination and bring them under Muslim rule) really means and couching it in the worst misnomer posible, a "human right" among other human rights. The placement of Israel in the "terrorist states" category isn't even worth my attention.

You wanna see an obsessed NUT? Check THIS

http://la.indymedia.org/news/hidden.php?id=182987#183218

You might want to put a little more thought into your language, psycho-boy

your rodent isn't anatomically correct. It looks like a cross between a chimp and a rodent.



http://www.worldisround.com/articles/2378/photo2.html

first color photo 1872

This is Yael, one of my rats. (Yes, SJ. My rats have Hebrew names) She is sweet, gentle, intelligent and very responsive to human interaction. Contrast that with TW, who is neither sweet, gentle, intelligent nor responsive to human interaction.

A Zionist rat indeed...



PS: did you ever try to observe how well she interacts and gets along with a sheepdog?

A Zionist rat indeed...

I'll see if I can find a photo of Shed, the little devil. He's a black hooded rat. Quite a charmer.

PS: did you ever try to observe how well she interacts and gets along with a sheepdog?

All of my animals get along with each other. At one point, my rabbit had escaped into my backyard, and it was one of the cats that alerted me to the fact.

However from my experience, sheepdogs can be slow witted and unpredictable. I wouldn't trust anything small and vulnerable to such a lumbering dim creature.

Hey zio-moron, what part of this is impossible for you to grasp

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/10/183177_comment.php#183417

Your statement: "There was NO SUCH THING as color photography in 1890."

You are wrong.

http://frontiers.loc.gov/pp/pphome.html

archive of early photography, including color shots taken from exotic locations

Maybe you wouldn't appear to be such a raving lunatic if, when backed into a corner (ie: Dillig, color photography, Hal Turner, et al) you admitted you were wrong.

It doesn't diminish you as a man or as a human being to admit you've made a mistake. You look like a fool trying to defend yourself from these untenable positions.

So, TW- is Hal Turner a legitimate newssource?

Was color photography available in 1890?

Is the female furher a good source of information on Judaism?

Just wundering.

Even the subject of boycott is a raw nerve.

Sanctions and criminal investigations are in order, as a cancerous conflict of American interests is and has been the working principle of this 'relationship/.

Whenever anyone calls TW on his crap, he starts doing a rooster strut about "hitting a nerve," hoping you won't notice that he's melting in a puddle on the floor -- in this case because he's backing a well-known hate source, Hal Turner.

Is the racist SOB Hal Turner a reputable source, Tink?

Why can't you answer this question, Tink?

What's the hold up, Tink?

Cat got your tongue, Tink?

@%<

Ted Turner has nothing to do with my post.

The proposed boycott of Israel is too mild. There needs to be total divestment and criminal investigations of all dual Israeli citizens in the US government who are driving the ship of state into the reefs.

Deal with it. Not your strawmen.

But that would require honest analysis which is beyond your capabilities, and therefore the side distractions about non issues at which gehrig is queen.

I meant Hal Turner to which no one but the new editor at zionist safe UC IMC

seems to want to discuss.

"I meant Hal Turner to which no one but the new editor at zionist safe UC IMC seems to want to discuss."

I can sure see why Tink sure wouldn't want to discuss it. I mean, Hal Turner is just an obscure hatemonger and racist -- in fact, the only reason that he was mentioned here at all is that Tinky Wink shot himself in the foot by bringing him up as an example of reputable journalism, and is too much of a weasel to admit that he's hopping around on one foot because of a self-inflicted wound, let alone that called a white supremacist a reputable source.

Poor Tink does tend to shoot himself in the foot pretty frequently, though, doesn't he.

@%<

You know, let's take a closer look at how Tink "thinks." He's been caught defending an obvious white separatist named Hal Turner. He's dug himself into a big ol' hole but won't admit it. It's funny to watch.

TW is incapable of saying "oooops," so let's look as he does the Pat Buchanan/George Bush thing of attacking the attacker while pretending perfect innocence.

Tink: "Same thing with this Hal Turner thing. I don't give a fuck who or what you do or don't like."

To Tink, Hal Turner's easily demonstrated overt racism doesn't matter. To Tink, the central issue isn't that Hal Turner is a well-documented racist and white separatist, but that he's someone Tia doesn't like. That's how distorted Tink's thoughts are when it comes to racism. Now, we know that Tink hasn't bothered to actually, you know, LOOK to see what kind of guy Hal Turner is. Why? Because then even HE would know what a fool he's being. And so he'd rather just rant rant rant in defense of a white separatist.

And I'm loving it, by the way. Keep digging, Tink!

Tink: "The 90% of wikipedia contributors who are frantic hasbarah volunteers just like you, I don't give a fuck who or what they don't like either. Is that clear?"

So once again, the issue for TW isn't that Hal Turner is a well-documented, easily demonstrated racist, but that -- wait for it -- Zzzzzzzionists run Wikipedia!

Tink: "Hal Turner's information would be very easy to DEFINITIVELY confirm or refute."

And it was refuted. The original AP story was found to contain no reference to the bullshit Israeli hotspot that was later (and ungrammatically) hacked into the story. Tink knows this. Tink knows the white-power version of the story has been refuted. He must, however, pretend that he does not. That's why he won't mention the fact that the original version of the story, as posted on several websites, matches completely but does not match the way it later appears on the white separatist Hal Turner's site, with the ungrammatical hack added.

Tink: "It's of that nature."

It's in the nature of having been already refuted. He would rather scream than admit it. Why? Something about being a pre-adolescent used to getting his way by throwing tantrums, apparently. He can't handle the fact that his first-grader techniques aren't changing the facts.

To review the bidding: someone yotz takes an old AP story from September, hacks an anti-Israel paragraph into it, and then posts it here. TW, always drooling for any pretext he can use against The Jews, long having since abandoned the mantle of mere "anti-Zionism" and letting his antisemitic flag fly, glommed onto the hacked version as another excuse to do his little dance.

The hack was almost instantaneously proved to him to be a hack, and he was given at least two URLs pointing to the original, unhacked story.

The result was a true Tinky Wink comic extravaganza, in which Tink -- constitutionally unable to admit error -- spun into one of his little Tasmanian Devil imitations, spewing and spitting and raging like... well, like a Tinky Wink who's been humiliated, but believes that if he throws a big enough tantrum, no one will notice.

@%<

"Uh, but hun-neeee, this is nothing but a huge diversionary move on your part, just like with the color photography thing. That picture of Nablus was a hand-tinted black & white. It's OBVIOUS."

Firstly- you are the one who brought up the history of color photography- not I, not SJ.

And its not obvious- look at the other early attempts at color photography- they all have that same quality of light and color. So, as usual, you are wrong. The falafel recipes, however- now that was a diversionary tactic!

I bet you are one of those guys that never asks for directions, no matter how lost he is. Am I right?

"You can go on chattering and nattering about the experiments going on in Paris and Boston all you want. "

Huh? I wasn't chattering about experiments in Boston or Paris. More TW delusions, perhaps?

"The 90% of wikipedia contributors who are frantic hasbarah volunteers just like you, I don't give a fuck who or what they don't like either."

Do you have a source for that 90% figure? And no, I still won't accept Hal Turner as a legitimate source.

"Is that clear? Hal Turner's information would be very easy to DEFINITIVELY confirm or refute."

Ok. Go ahead and do it. And feel free to share your results.

'Boy, you desperate boiling hole-chewers sure love your NOISE, though!"

Ah, yes, the joyful NOISE of truth shining through the miasma of indymedia filth. Yep, best beloved, you can bet it will continue until our sweet sounds of truth drown out your chorus of hate

Ya know, TW, Sheepdog thinks YOUR entire presence at LA IMC is a diversionary tactic - what do you think of that? Even your "allies" think you are batty.

Amazing attempt to divert discussion from any kind of sanctions on 'israel'.

Running like hell in circles to raise dust.

'Israel' deserves no aid.

'Israel' is a rogue and renegade nuclear entity.

'Israel' is a cancer in the middle east.

'Israel' is running US foreign policy to its own advantage.

'Israel' is a bane upon the earth.

ignorant statemnet: 'Israel' is a bane upon the earth.

Yeah, right:

An Israeli company has developed a simple blood test that distinguishes between mild and more severe cases of Multiple Sclerosis.

An Israeli-made device helps restore the use of paralyzed hands. This device electrically stimulates the hand muscles, providing hope to millions of stroke sufferers and victims of spinal injuries.

Young children with breathing problems will soon be sleeping more soundly, thanks to a new Israeli device called the Child Hood. This innovation replaces the inhalation mask with an improved drug delivery system that provides relief for child and parent.

A researcher at Israel's Ben Gurion University has succeeded in creating human monoclonal antibodies which can neutralize the highly contagious smallpox virus without inducing the dangerous side effects of the existing vaccine.

Two Israelis received the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Doctors Ciechanover and Hershko's research and discovery of one of the human

cells most important cyclical processes will lead the way to DNA repair, control of newly produced proteins, and immune defense systems.



The Movement Disorder Surgery program at Israel's Hadassah Medical Center has successfully eliminated the physical manifestations of Parkinson's

disease in a select group of patients with a deep brain stimulation technique.

For women who undergo hysterectomies each year for the treatment of uterine fibroids, the development in Israel of the Ex Ablate 2000 System is a welcome

breakthrough, offering a noninvasive alternative to surgery.

Israel is developing a nose drop that will provide a five year flu vaccine. These are just a few of the projects that you can help stop with

your Israeli boycott.



Most of Windows operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel.



The Pentium NMX Chip technology was designed at Intel in Israel. Both the Pentium 4 microprocessor and the Centrum processor were entirely designed, developed, and produced in Israel.

Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.

The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 in Israel by four young Israelis.

Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R. & D. facilities outside the US in Israel.

Cell phone technology was also developed in Israel by MOTOROLA which has its biggest development center in Israel. Most of the latest technology in your mobile phone was developed by Israeli scientists.

"Even your "allies" think you are batty."

But that's part of the psychology necessary for the whole Axis of Nutbardom, isn't it. They've got to believe EVERYBODY is against them, EVERYONE else is a crazy fool, even the other nutbars on the Axis. So Sheepdog hates his twin brother, Hex, and the hate is reciprocated; sheepdog, Tink, and Hex all think nessie's a doof -- as does the rest of the IMC network; Sheep and Tink can't agree on the time of day, or anything except that they should yell at each other as loudly as possible.

It's like LA Indymedia is a magnet for dysfunctional personalities under the guise of "anti-Zionism" -- where, on LA Indymedia, "anti-Zionism" means "try to outshout everyone who isn't you and then spam porn."

@%<

I'm certainly not fooled by your 'clever' little antics.

Like diverting the subject of this thread away from feeding the rancid criminal israeli 'state' with my tax money and the blood of my countrymen.

Don't you have a nice zionist safe IMC to beat off on?

heh heh...

Yeah, I aint too proud of my past. But I have learned.

And if the huge amount of aid to 'israel' had not been given, some other provider of technical luxuries would be there to provide them.

End all aid to 'israel'.

You and the crew of psychopaths you run with provide the added incentive to reenforce this opinion.

I've never actually made falafel from scratch, but I've sure eaten enough of it. My campus hangout during my undergrad years had really good falafel (and a great beer selection too -- that's where I first had a Pilsner-Urquell, somewhere around 1987, and there oughta be a plaque there commemorating that historical event). The only problem with falafel in a pita is that once you've started eating it, you can't set it down again because it'll explode on your plate, and even while holding it you have only a certain amount of time before the hummus eats through the seam of the pita.

@%<

-- store bought, that is. That was ages ago though.

I'd take the bulgur.

Another late introduction to the falafel dish (introduced in the 1980's if memory serves) is French Fries (stuffed in the pitta pocket)... believe it. Some would die for it. I forgo this. We spell it here: פלאפל.

Another foodstuff, though not Israeli, is shawarma, שווארמה, (erroneously rendered shwarma) in laffa (flatbread). If I were religious I wouldn't eat shawarma as various sheep fats are added in which might include the tail-like fatty lump which is forbidden by the Torah (one of the items that fall in the khelev category -- the forbidden fats).

And if 'israel' needs any more aid we should tell them the Yid will chip in.

Problem solved.

I tried falafel mix out of desperation when I first came to California from New York. Bleak.

"Another late introduction to the falafel dish (introduced in the 1980's if memory serves) is French Fries (stuffed in the pitta pocket)... believe it. Some would die for it. I forgo this. We spell it here: פלאפל. "

Wow, that sounds weird. I must try it. Life is too short to forgo deep fried fatty foods. Or Pilsner Urquell. (This is something I am deeply ashamed of, but I will confess. I joined Costco- big baffling warehouse type mega-store simply because they had Pilsner Urquell for $19.99 a case.I realized it was a betrayal of my anarcho-zionist roots, but hell- $19.99 a case!)

If I were religious I wouldn't eat shawarma as various sheep fats are added in which might include the tail-like fatty lump which is forbidden by the Torah (one of the items that fall in the khelev category -- the forbidden fats).

"Tail like fatty lumps?" You make it sound so appealing. I didn't realize that about kashrut- I assumed all parts of a kosher animal were kosher. It never came up much for me, though, having been vegetarian since my teens years.

Hmmm. Imagine walking into a deli and asking for "tail like fatty lumps" on rye with mustard. Nah. Even in New York, it wouldn't go over well.

French fries in your פלאפל? No thanks. Cucumber, lettuce, and hummus? Yes. Absolutely. Sadly, there aren't any places left on campus that do both falafel and beer, although the local Chabad has a stand on the quad once a week giving out falafel free.

Pilsner-Urquell has been my #1 choice for about twenty years now. And it's been great seeing it become more and more available; there was even a time when one of the local live music venues had it on tap, although all things must pass.

I've even visited the Praždroj brewery in Plzeň, though it was off-season so I didn't get the tour. Somewhere there's a picture of me standing next to those big gates that are on the Pilsner-Urquell bottle cap. It'd tempt my anti-big-box stance pretty strongly to see a $20 case.

And in answer to the question "who's the idiot?" that would be the "progressive" who apparently thinks antisemitic blood libel jokes are just a riot.

@%<

One of my best beloveds brought me a pound of z'atar (?) from Israel a few weeks back. I've been adding it to roast new potatoes. Hmmmmm. Its also good mixed with a bit of high quality olive oil and garlic and drizzled in a rustic artisan loaf - perhaps a nice crusty batard? Kinda like a mid-eastern garlic bread.

This would be complimented nicely by a cold Pilsner Urquell.

However, even roadkill would be complimented nicely by a cold Pilsner Urquell.

Sheepdog, what is your favorite flavor of roadkill?

Everyone knows about nitrosamines that result in burnt meat.

This is why napalm is frowned upon and simple machine gunning is preferred.

Nitrosamines and Cancer

Richard A. Scanlan, Ph.D.

Dean of Research Emeritus

and Professor of Food Science

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/f-w00/nitrosamine.html

Nothing but nothing can beat a flaming zionazi on a roll.

Well, since I've consumed Löwenbrau and that mediocre, American-produced brand whose name escapes me now -- even occasionally in Israel when they first imported it in 1985 -- I'll try to get my hands on Pilsner Urquell.

Micro-brews are big in America now. Some are good, some aren't. Compared to Goldstar, however....anything is an improvement

" I joined Costco- big baffling warehouse type mega-store simply because they had Pilsner Urquell for $19.99 a case.I realized it was a betrayal of my anarcho-zionist roots, but hell- $19.99 a case!"

Betrayal of anarcho-Zionism? What does Zionism have to do with this at all?

Don't you know? Zionism has to do with EVERYTHING! Its all a big gigantic humungous ZIONIST conspiracy. Every little thing. Zionists in your tea. Zionists in your cornflakes. Zionists in your falafels. Zionists in your IMC.

Sheep don't have a real tail but a fatty lump that seems like a tail. It's very yummy...

And for this, my friend, I will take you at your word.

Why is it that IMC pseudo-Progressives have no sense of humor?

I don't even want any more of my taxes spent on ANY military hardware.

We don't need this huge military. We have the 2nd amendment. We only need a defensive force and an armed citizenry.

As for 'israel' we should show them the door out.

Then we could have a more secure future without the hate and outrage this aid to colonial piracy generates.

"unbearable arrogance" You're wrong. I can bear it all day long. And the next day etc.

But I appreciate the thought. Actually, it feels pretty good. Damn fine, in fact. Almost doglike.

Flattery, however doesn't excuse the criminal and dangerous military aid we donate to the israel gangster 'state'..

Time to end ALL 'aid' [ meaning death technology that only serves to fatten some bastard;'s pockets ] to EVERYONE...

Being a super genius [ I can't tell you 'cause you wouldn't believe me anyway ] might be the reason I am able to 'bear' the weight of my own ego.

5 1/2 comments from the weasel crew w/chief weasel itself coming to the fore.

The new reader should do a bit of research.

Achille Lauro +mossad.

Obviously a bad subject.

So how about those sanctions?

Except for food and medicine and cooking materials. No need to punish the children.

I know the majority of the world will breath a sigh of relief when israel is defanged.

I'm in favor of material sanctions.

Seizure of all their American assets, and prosecution of all involved traitors.

Too bad it bothers you.

Genocide bothers me, particularly from religious/ethnic/ racial supremacists who pretend to be the victims Of their own atrocities...

Any cessation of terror is beneficial.

Sanction on the israeli squatters and murders would be a fine start.

Then we could deal with the lesser criminals.

Did I say lesser?

Good lord, the US needs to disband and prosecute the terrorists we employ world wide as our client 'states'.

Wow.

I can tell when the zionists are hurting when a single comment requires more than two responses to deal with it.

Yes, it's GENOCIDE as the dictionary defines it.

Of course, you need to alter this little fact.

Or be in denial of it.

I'm glad you tacitly admitted you have nothing to supply in the way of any rebuttal.

Don't you know the zio-victimologists OWN this word

You can't just blurt it out like that! First you have to spell it right

Geסאcמוe®

and then you have to USE it right, meaning only in ways that advance the zionists' Ultimate Victim mythology.

Don't make them call their lawyers!