Note to the U.S.: The View from the Arab Street

When the U.S. and the West wallows in heartfelt indecision on Libya, and decisive ambivalence about Mideast democratic revolutions in general, it sends a clear message to the Arab "Street" - as opposed to the Arab "throne", from which emanate winks, nods, and solemn, secret applause. The message is that the U.S., and the West,
WANT, NEED, tyrants in the Middle East. The U.S. and NATO want to avoid "instability". They can't "interfere" in "civil wars". The West will help with "humanitarian efforts" - the band-aids. But to get at the cause??? Well, everybody loves a tyrant!

Arabs on the Street see the West has adopted their much-loved "domino theory". If one tyrant goes, others could fall. And the U.S., apparently, NEEDS tyrants.

Oh yes, we condemned Qaddafi. Reagan even tried to assassinate him back in the day. And we have no problem with regime change, assassination, fomenting civil wars in other countries, or even occupying them. Just look at Iraq, and don't forget Vietnam. But Libya?? Heavens, no!

Why? Simple. We're not calling the shots. We didn't start the revolt. Libyans did. Therein lies the issue, the trigger-finger block. We loathe any revolution that wasn't, shall we say, "made in the U.S.A." If it wasn't our idea, to tell with it.

But...let's look more closely at this domino theory. We're not talking about nations falling to communist revolutions. We're talking about repressive regimes falling to democratic revolutions, about fights for freedom, democracy and representative government - the West's rhetorical ideals. We're talking about the very sorts of revolutions we've been blaming the Arabs for not having for decades, the lack of which has been brought out ad nauseum as proof of Arabs' "backwardness" and lack of "readiness for democracy". And now, here's your true-blood, liberal, Western-style revolt! These are not Islamists. They want a real, free democracy. They want out of dictatorships.

Yet the West gives credence to the worst of all regimes, buying into Qaddafi's "civil war" story, buying into his propaganda that his people "love" him. The West doesn't quibble with this, presumes - for their own convenience - that he has loyalists who have not been bought or terrorized into submission, and that these loyalists are fighting for what they conceive of as a legitimate cause.

The U.S. backed Mubarak until it became openly hideous to do so, and now backs Qaddafi by allowing him to decimate his population and call it a "civil war" instead of a massacre. It seems the U.S. is also trying to shore of Yemen's Ali Saleh, and OMG don't mention the Saudi regime - now there's one hell of a repressive regime if there ever was one! Let alone...please don't say it... the unmentionable, the sacred, the fetus-in-a-jar...Israel. (When Israel openly supports fellow democracies in the region instead of trying to decimate them in some way as per Lebanon, I'll stop calling it a fetus. A democracy that doesn't support democracy is not a democracy, but some kind of hybrid. Is the US trying to rebrand itself, too?)

So what is the Arab on the street to presume? That the West loves democracy? That they believe in human rights and freedom? Or that they only impose, by force of arms, "freedom" when it suits their needs, when they are in full control of that freedom. But isn't "freedom under someone's control" an oxymoron???

War on Terror: An Israeli Fund-Raising Scheme?

Len Hart's great post on the Terror Racket is exactly what we need to hear, what I've been saying all along.

The whole War on Terror is an invention. Even the use of the word "terrorist" could be called an Israeli invention, a means of villainizing the Palestinian population and hence legitimizing their own oppression, disenfranchisement, and displacement of them. The latter has been systematic, and financed essentially by the IRS - the same folks who come after honest working U.S. citizens, who tax self-employed entrepreneurs at 15.3% even if they only make $401 a year and don't hire anybody. That money then goes - one could say forcibly - into the pot which, among many other things, is then "donated" to Israel, "one of the richest countries in the world", to finance their long-standing takeover of Palestinian lands, crops, cities, homes.

Now forward to the "War on Terror". Who are the "terrorists"?? This is not about the Red Army, the Basque Separatists, or South American groups. This is about - exclusively - Islamic terrorists. And Israel knows very well that they are the one galvanizing issue uniting all Muslims, regardless to whether they are Arabs, Pakistanis, East Indians, even Americans. It is the obvious oppression of a group of fellow Muslims, the ramrodding of this oppression and its financing by the ostensible Superpower, that galls Muslims. They don't really have an issue with Jews per se. Often anger at Israel flares into anti-Semitism, but this is something Israel will have to deal with - by positing themselves as the "Jewish State", an essentially racist concept, all denials notwithstanding, they open up this Pandora's box on themselves... After all, what's wrong with Palestinians, except being non-Jewish? It's their DNA, supposedly, their culture, not any criminal activity, that is being used to destroy them, to deprive them, to disenfranchise them.

The so-called "terrorists", then, however horrific their actions, are basically a small, international, ragtag group that could much more effectively have been handled by simply revving up already existing law enforcement agencies/structures. Instead, the U.S. created a gigantic, unweildy Department with its own budget, presumably much of it black, and uses it as a means of oppression of all sorts of non-terrorism-related sectors of the population - citizens who disagree with the government, liberals, populists, migrants. And it has been a monumental failure and a showpiece of extravagance and waste.

A little stat from Harper's Index:

Average number of arrests made each year since 2001 by all 4,000 Federal Marshals combined: 4. - Federal spending this represents per arrest: $200,000,000.

And this is a very small segment of the monolith called Homeland Security. Which makes the following even more alarming:

Former Secretary of State Shultz 'credited' Netanyahu for 'effecting a change in American policies on terrorism'. That's 'political speak' for 'Israel extorted billions of dollars in aid by raising the specter of 'terrorism'. Fear of 'terrorism' is responsible for the transfer of billions of dollars to Israel because the U.S. tax payer is brainwashed, literally trained to fear anyone with a tan wearing a turban. Terrorism is how the moneys 'given' to Israel are officially justified. What is 'terrorism' but the practice by the U.S. and its client state, Israel, to extort billions from U.S. taxpayers?

So who's idea was the War on Terrorism in the first place? Israel's? And what does that say about the autonomy of the U.S. government, when it is so powerfully influenced by a small, rather distant, ostensibly foreign nation. A nation that has no problem committing assassinations for political purposes in the name of security, as the Dubai incident shows.

And what do we have to show for all our "largesse" toward this Utopian "Dream State" called Israel, this Holy of Holies? As this Canadian post so succinctly states:

The set of deliberately misleading and discredited assumptions followed by the proponents of the War on Terror must be repudiated. The government is wasting 10s of billions of dollars, propping up this sham, in the wake of the enforced fearmongering that has crept in since 9/11. In return for the tax dollars that pay for blooding our hands, we had habeas corpus struck down, arbitrary “no-fly lists” are implemented, our government is perpetrating terror hoaxes on the people, and over 100 Canadian soldiers have died fighting what Stephen Harper admits is an unwinnable war.

With the economy in the shambles it is, and with economic and even survival conseque4nces for the whole world, I think it is time for the whole world to take a good, hard look at the U.S.-Israeli cozy relationship. Is this the way we want our money spent? It's not just an "Islamic" issue, or a U.S. issue, any more. And if the U.S. is indeed The Superpower. what does it say about the balance of power on this planet, and the future of its inhabitants, that the Biggest Bro on the Block is run by the special interests of a small, well-to-do elite nation whose citizenship is based on DNA, and hence, excludes the vast majority of earthlings? Is this the future?

At least for the foreseeable future in the U.S., even blatant building of new settlements on Palestinian lands - a direct rebuff to anything called "peace process" - is not cause for reviewing the massive "aid" the U.S. bestows on Israel, no questions asked. The truth is that not assassinations, not settlements, not bombing an unarmed civilian population - in the Gaza, in Lebanon (an independent nation, or so we're told), or wherever else they seest that they need - no atrocity is too bad to say "no" to Israel.

This is how the United States lost their conscience, and are actively working to prevent its return. Doubletalk, hypocrisy, and meaningless posturing are, and will always be, the order of the day.

So if you like your planet back, maybe you'll need to review some history of Haiti - where a population of slaves literally overthrew their masters, including the armies of France and England. Even though subsequent economic slavery brought them to the horrific situation they are now in, the lesson remains: people can get things done by never giving up.

So why should voices of reason remain silent? Are we really voiceless, helpless in America? Those who see current U.S. rubber-stamp policy with Israel where they can do no wrong, we will corrupt all our ideals to make them happy, and be happily bled by a racist client state, as anathema, as unconscionable, should finally speak up. And who will fight to the death for my right to say this???

Israel's Future Is Gaza's Shadow

Israel is a nation that likes to think of itself as being founded on a dream. It likes to think of itself as a righter of wrongs, a homeland of justice for Jews after their horrific suffering under the Nazi extermination and torture program, the Holocaust. But they do not like to look at facts on the ground today, and try to balance this dream - which now looks more like propaganda than inspiration - with the nightmare of what Israel is actually doing to human beings in a little space of earth called "Gaza" in which fellow humans are routinely, collectively starved to death or near-death, or forced to suffer in unconscionable ways, family by family, child by child, home by home. This is Gaza's shadow, and it will soon completely overcast Israel's dream and Israel's future. It is not just the demographic threat so frequently mentioned as The Threat - it is the moral ground irreparably lost by a nation supposedly founded on nothing less than... its moral ground.

In this reference, Heathlander's post "The Betrayal of Gaza", is required reading.

Next week will mark the one year anniversary of ‘Operation Cast Lead‘, the three week orgy of killing and destruction that left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, the vast majority of them civilians, including hundreds of children.

Beside the civilian casualties - were they all really a threat to Israel's existence? who, outside of Pat Robertson and other deluded liars, believes that? - Gaza's ability to function as an abode for human life was decimated.

During the massacre Gaza’s civilian infrastructure was systematically targeted. Entire residential areas were “almost completely flattened”, dozens of hospitals and clinics were severely damaged, hundreds of schools were destroyed or damaged and 700 private businesses were either partially or totally destroyed. In total a full third of all public buildings [.pdf] and perhaps 14% of all buildings [.pdf] in Gaza were affected.

And since then, Israel blocks the flow of supplies both for rebuilding what was destroyed and for feedling those who survived, down to below the level of a trickle.
Almost 80% of Gazans must rely on foreign aid to survive in the most basic sense. Think of it. They would be far better off in a jungle, or some wilderness. This even beyond collective punishment. It is mass, national imprisonment. Is there a word for mass incarceration? It's a form of slavery.

But there will be repercussions. Not in the form of terrorism, bombs, or the usual suspects. If "what goes around, comes around" has any meaning or truth, this kind of mass crime cannot go without consequences. This is the very moral ground on which Israel claims to have been founded! And now Israel will have to deal with the karma their own actions have brought upon them. There is no justice, no balance, no peace, no human value, no morals, no consideration coming from the policies that led to this overkill in Gaza. What peace were they looking to find - and what has happened to the dream of "never again" genocide, when the people of that dream themselves have perpetrated their own taboo?????

An Better Mideast Strategy: Independent Democracies, Sans Israel

The Muslim World faces a dilemma, a forced choice between two alternatives, each worse than the other, and none freely determined by Muslims themselves in anything approaching "normal circumstances". In the so-called "War on Terror", they are called upon to "choose" between "Islamist" extremists, aka "terrorists" (the quote doesn't mean I dispute that there is terror here, just that it's loosely applied to a whole scope of movements), and brutal dictatorships sponsored largely by the West and/or Israeli interests represented by the governments of developed nations.

Are you "with us" - i.e., supportive of your repressive, non-democratic, dictatorial, brutal, economy-busting regimes - or "against us" - i.e., supportive of "terrorists", who are the only guys out there standing up to the West/Israel's overwhelming power plays??? And the "West" claims that it is "fighting for freedom" and "pro-democracy". So which group looks more democratic - the ragtag fighters who consider themselves to be, in Afghanistan for example (Battlefield I, you could say), fighting for their country, their families, and their right to self-govern and protect themselves from invaders? Or, say, Hosny Mubarak, the U.S.'s client in Egypt, whose brutality does not exclude rape, political prisoners en masse, police terror, torture and other crimes against basic rights??

Everyone knows that Mubarak's election is a sham. He plainly embarrasses his U.S. supporters. They are not happy with him, because his obvious corruption and totally failed government shines a bad light on anyone who supports him. But he does do one thing. And that is appear as a nominal "Arab" and (for all Muslims, now's the time for pepto-bismol) "Muslim" in so-called "peace negotiations" regarding the Palestinian issue. He is the supreme lackey in international politics. He will do whatever it takes to maintain the charade of a "peace process" without actually making Israel in the least uncomfortable. And what else does the U.S. really want than a lackey who provides pillows for Israel's every nervous breakdown?

Does the U.S. want peace in the Middle East?? Sort of. It sure would be nice. Intellectually, we want it! Rhetorically, we want it! All we ask for is that beautiful thing called "parity". First, Israel must be fully armed, including nuclear arms, no questions asked. Second, whatever they want, arms, money, aid, they must get because they are our "friends" - which means taxpayer-supported womb-dwellers. Peace would mean delivery. They would have to be actually born. They would no longer be a dream. Anathema! Real countries compromise. Real countries can't be racially exclusive. Real countries have to accept real circumstances of real people, not some imagined religious dream that, in application, means applying the ideals of the Third Reich, only with Jews substituting for Germans. No, the U.S. doesn't want Israel to get real, because Israel won't let the U.S. want that. And Peace means Getting Real. So the U.S. doesn't want real actual REAL peace in the Mideast. No.

No, the U.S. sets up and supports client dictators in almost all Muslim countries. Except for the Hated Mr. Ahmedinejad of that nasty country, Iran, which unfortunately for the "democracy-loving West", is a democracy, albeit with a theocratic backdrop. Many, especially conservatives, in America pine for the days of the Shah - who executed and tortured innocent women and political prisoners. We don't see any hatefests here denouncing Hosny Mubarak, let alone the Saudi regime (would the petroleum industry seriously stand for that??). Nobody was particularly upset about Sukarno when he ruled Indonesia. The Gulf principalities/emirates are go-to guys for U.S. interests. And money keeps their low-population-density citizens happy. Hamid Karzai isn't looking too good either, with his tainted election. Gee, we just can't seem to pick the right rulers for the countries whose resources we want to control, or whose proximity to Israel we need to rein in. As for Syria's Assad dynasty - well, it seems Muslims have a problem of their own in working toward a democracy.

Which should be puzzling, considering Islam, the religion. Its original principles are highly democratic. In the early days of the Prophet Mohammad, all Muslims had a vote (all men, that is - remember women's suffrage is only a 20th C thing in the US), elections were held, wealth was shared by law (not in a communist-type model, but with a tax whose proceeds are dedicated to the poor), usury was prohibited, free trade was encouraged, "jihad" meant self-control and self-defense (and offense if it is determined to be necessary for defense - ask any military strategist), there was religious freedom (it was illegal to force anyone to adopt any religion, including Islam), freedom of speech, standards of ethics and common decency, and measures for the elimination of slavery which was viewed as wrong, but given time to change. But as certain families were given more power than others, and wealth built up as well as power within Muslim society, corruption and schisms also appeared, until a more autocratic-style government gradually became the norm. It is not Islamic. The so-called dream of a "caliphate" is not in itself Islamic. What should be the "dream" would be a resurgence of the highest values, mentioned in part above - but that, at the moment, seems impossible.

The "terrorists", seen against the backdrop of corrupt and brutal regimes, look much more democratic. Anyone is welcome to join, regardless of race or national origin. (Women are welcome, too, but in a different, "traditional" role as support people.) They come off as a people's movement, challenging the West, the moneybags of their oppressors - or, of late, the Invaders of their Homeland. What the West calls "Extremists" come off in the Muslim world as a movement against corruption and oppression, pro-family values, pro-religion, patriotic. Because the West has consistently aligned itself with dictators for their own profit at the expense of the citizen-victims, they cannot expect sympathy from the Muslim population in general.

In fact, the "West" has consistently fought AGAINST democratic movements in the Middle East. In the case of Saudi Arabia, a budding, and passionate democratic movement by a Dr. Faqih, residing in the UK, had to put up with his assets being frozen and even personal arrests and attacks by UK authorities at Saudi behest. His crime? Speaking out against Saudi abuses. Oil interests absolutely trump human rights and democracy. "Freedom-loving"? Hardly. Some attempts to provide another party (the Tomorrow party) in Egypt were met with Mr. Mubarak's infamous bulldozer-n-bury government machine. The U.S.'s choice, on his own without any support except ethereal cheerleading, has entered the Land of the Disappeared. Even the Muslim Brotherhood, very popular in Egypt, would at least be far better than what is going on now. Is it not better to have an actual government that works than anarchy controlled by a police state? No - because anything with the name "Islam" tacked onto it is - and this Republican paradigm is still dogma and doctrine - flash some red lights, please - "Terrorism" with a cap T.

But there is something more insidious here. Why is Ahmedinejad constantly demonized but not Mubarak? Because Mubarak doesn't badmouth the Holocaust or say nasty things about Israel. Because Mubarak does not openly support the Palestinians in any meaningful way. Because Mubarak openly supports Israel in principle. And Israel plays a bigger role in international politics than people here generally think. In fact, US Mideast policy is a virtual extension of Israeli security, an obvious fact not lost on most Mideast nations. And Israeli security is seen, by Israel itself, as being so dire that it requires all Arab and/or Islamic nations be weak, or under Western control/influence as much as possible. To this end, dictatorships can be useful insofar as they are amenable to Israeli interests, as is the case with Mubarak, the Saudi regime, the Gulf states, Jordan, and in some weird inverse way, Syria. After all, it was none other than Syrian dictator Hafez el-Asad who slaughtered 20,890 Muslims who were considered Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers and nationalists who wanted to fight for the re-patriation of the Golan Heights. With help like that, why play the Bad Guy? Israel can just stand and watch the Arabs slaughter each other.

Except for those nasties, those terrorists - ah, that wonderful word, "terrorist"! - the Palestinian nationalists, now cornered as Hamas, and their Lebanese sympathizers (as well as Lebanese nationalists), Hezbollah. And their sole supporters in the Middle East, Iran. There you have it. Satan's legions are the anti-Israeli, democracy-seeking, freedom-seeking, independence-seeking, evil Palestinian & Lebanese nationalists who won't kowtow to Israel's "security" policies, and their one powerful ally, democratic, free-speech-daring Iran. Speak against Israel? Dare to speak against Israel? That's not free speech, we say. That's genocide.

But to slaughter women, children, old, young, and helplessly disarmed, deliberately starved people in Gaza over a couple of ineffectual rocket attacks - however unnerving they may be - is not genocide. It's not even overkill. It's self-defense.

Meanwhile, what is Israel? Israel is a race-based state. It is a Jewish homeland. It is not homeland to Palestinians who are the land's indigenous people, Jews having been imported from various locales around the world. Palestinians are 2nd class citizens, barely tolerated in Israel. The nation was founded for one race, and one race only - the Jews. Sound like a Third Reich with the roles reversed? Strange coincidence, isn't it? And who dares to say such a horrible thing? Only the reviled devil, Ahmedinejad, apparently. And what if the Palestinians procreate faster than the Jews? It's a real problem, it's happening now, and everyone knows it.

Right now, Palestinians are living in an open-air prison, supervised by Israeli Jews. The so-called "territories" are in fact a gulag archipelago overseen by cruel armed guards who often shoot to kill. Palestinians are called "terrorists", and viewed by Israelis as inferior, evil, enemies, threatening. Is that neighborly behavior, I ask you? Am I saying Palestinians are angels? What idiot insists that if someone is not a devil, he must then be an angel? We're asking for human/human relations to rise above this degenerate level of race-based politics. And if anti-semitism is a form of racism, then so is Zionism, if Zionism means setting up an exclusively Jewish nation. The concept of exclusivity to one race in one nation is no longer a viable idea. One would have hoped that Nazi Germany was that idea's last stand.

But with Israel fighting for its ideological survival, apparently to the death, to the tune of how many Palestinians and others, it seems that idea is still gasping for breath.

In fact, the so-called War on Terror is an Israeli construct, an Israeli idea. Yes, you can bring out 9-11, al-Qaeda, and all that. But these are a rag-tag troupe of right-wing extremists left over from the U.S.'s failed strategy to get the USSR/Russia out of Afghanistan when it was their war. The U.S. created the force called the Taliban and their nationalistic jihadi bent to counter Russia. Now Russia is out - and the U.S. is in - fighting those very same warriors. And so what's Israel got to do with it? Israel is playing this card for all it's worth, to make the word "terrorist" a household word, to make anti-Islamic sentiment a knee-jerk Western posture (and especially an American posture), and to paint Arabs and Muslims generally as untrustworthy enemies, uncivilized, and hence, in need of Western control and suppression. In contrast, Israel will thereby appear as the Knight in Shining Anti-Terrorist Armor, out to Save Us From Evil.

This is nothing new. The Iran-Iraq War was one of their ideas, to wear down the two countries Israel feared most in a deadly fight with one another. But when U.S. help to Iraq in that war bolstered Saddam's regime, and Saddam began to bluster and bray anti-Israeli rhetoric, that was it for him. The Gulf War was another manufactured war, created by lies ("The Rape of Kuwait"), intrigue (luring Saddam to invade Kuwait), and Israeli urging. Bush Sr's son just finished the job in the Iraq War, which has ended dismally as a total failure, even by Israeli standards. In fact, all facets of the War on Terror can be linked to Israeli security policy, and its insistence on being in a continuous state of war with Muslims and/or Arabs. And the U.S. never, never fails to totally comply with this in every respect possible, both in funds and blood. Excuses and rhetoric vary, but the facts are obvious.

On the other hand, the American public have a romanticized notion of Israel and the Holocaust. There is no logical basis to presume that the slaughter of millions of victims necessarily must be redressed by the removal of another population from some spot of land, and the importation of those ethnically related to the original victims to replace the indigenous population. In other words, as Ahmedinejad often repeats, what do the Palestinians have to do with the Holocaust? Why must they pay the price for the crimes of the Nazis? They are and were not Nazis. It is not their crime. Why, then, must they be removed?

It is true that the British share great responsibility in this injustice. It is true that "well, now, it's happened, and what can we do now? We can't turn back time." Yes, but we can stop oppression and redress wrongs. We can admit what wrongs were made. We can start to act as if justice has a place in international relations. But we absolutely will not. The U.S. has no stomach for justice in matters relating to Israel. Why? Well, it's in too deep...

And so look at who Israel is today. What is Israel now? It is the country that slaughered people in Gaza whom it first starved to near-death, who have no means to make a living or even obtain basic supplies, who are not armed to be mentioned. It is the country with nuclear weapons, armed to the teeth. Genocide is not abhorrent to them, as long as they are not the victims. In fact, they have no problem killing Palestinians with no just cause, in a manner that is abominable. World opinion means nothing to them. Obviously, the Israelis are the first to forget the Holocaust. And who is America to remind them? Who are the Israelis to cause all these wars, all this death and destruction, this outrageous expense, even to Americans? You shall know them by their fruits.

And so what is the Muslim world supposed to do, support radical extremists - and risk having a destabilized country run by possible autocrats posing as Islamic populists, not to mention being unable to come up with a legitimate government - or support pro-Western dictators who make life impossibly miserable and oppressive? This is not a choice at all. And yet many in the West, particularly Republicans and their ilk, bombastically blame Islam and Muslims for some alleged instrinsic disability and disinclination for democracy. If what the West, as imposed by Israeli security policy, offers is limited to these choices, then to hell with them.

Democracy is universal, after all. Those who fight against it cannot lead in the fight for it. If the U.S. cannot stand on its own ideological two feet, then the Muslim world needs to reject them completely and stand for themselves. After all, the Qur'an has a better definition of democracy than the Bible: "The Rule of Law is determined by mutual agreement between you (all)." It's time to mutually agree that dictatorship has gotta go, and extremism is not the only way out. And that democracy does not require recognition of or sympathy with Israel to be viable, free, and independently worthy of recognition.

What if Israel were to become a nation like any other nation, even a refuge preferring Jews but not excluding Palestinians? Israel would not then be a separate issue - it is now the West that has overtly presented the Islamic world with two untenable choices: stand with the West, which often appears to mean standing against one's country, one's survival, one's honor, and one's religion or ethnic identity - especially in the case of the Palestinians - or join the terrorists, the "Islamists", in a desperate last-ditch battle for God and country and honor and all that good stuff - but in the most horrific, thoughtless way that may - or may not - end up destroying all one is fighting for.

On the one hand, we have West-aligned dictatorships that are doing nothing but terrorizing their civilian population, or at best, decimating their economy and lives. On the other hand, we have extremists who defy the Qur'an and the Prophet by bombing fellow Muslims and destroying mosques and basically decimating the people's economy and lives. A good decision requires some objectivity, some careful consideration of the two sides or, hopefully, a better way than either of them. When the knife is at your children's throats, who, I ask, has time or guts for that?

The West, permeated by hypocrisy, lies, and false promises and platitudes, will never come out the winner if they pursue the same demands and same false dichotomy. Israel cannot survive under its current demanding, petulant modus operandi. Islamic countries cannot be viable if they are not free to make their own decisions, both as people and as governments. The human race, civilization, and all that we hold dear - whoever we are - is at stake. Is it not far past time to work toward better choices?

Israel Needs Moral Compass - And This Is a Tough Sell?

First post in what seems like a century. Have changed my priorities and am blogging less, if at all. But some important things still keep popping up. Like Israel's inhumanity. And look at where U.K. weapons go:

UK weapons are still being used against civilian populations.

Ministers confirmed to the MPs that British-built components were almost certainly used as part of Israeli weapons systems against the Palestinians in Gaza.

What about U.S. weapons? Goes without saying. And what is Israel defending? Children, perhaps? Read this post:

Former Israeli military commander Efran Efrati recently testified to the BBC that Palestinian children are ‘routinely ill-treated’ by Israeli soldiers:

“You take the kid, you blindfold him, you handcuff him, he’s really shaking… Sometimes you cuff his legs too. Sometimes it cuts off the circulation.

“He doesn’t understand a word of what’s going on around him. He doesn’t know what you’re going to do with him. He just knows we are soldiers with guns. That we kill people. Maybe they think we’re going to kill him.

“A lot of the time they’re peeing their pants, just sit there peeing their pants, crying. But usually they’re very quiet…

“When the kid is sitting there in the base, I didn’t do it, but nobody is thinking of him as a kid, you know – if there is someone blindfolded and handcuffed, he’s probably done something really bad. It’s OK to slap him, it’s OK to spit on him, it’s OK to kick him sometimes. It doesn’t really matter.”

When will the lessons of the Holocaust ever be learned? When will people ever learn anything? I guess power is a very addictive drug, and it kills the conscience.

Am I Not Human? Gazans ask Israel

After the invasion of Gaza, this question again points to Israel. If Gazans are human, why do you starve them to death? Why attack the nearly defenseless?
Here is a poem relevant to that.

Gaza

Their faces rise only after slaughter
as your gaunt faces rose accusingly
in the windows of German officers
still-drunk with power, their wives
haunted by the skins of the departed
who shall never depart.

Their faces haunt behind your curtains
drawn inside, further, further,
and you call them terrorists
but what terrifies are not the rockets,
but the same gaunt faces,
that incessant mirror-image insanely
proclaiming they are human,
Human, they are you.

by
Omyma C. Hu

UK Jewish MP: Israelis Acting Like Nazis in Gaza

Yes, it is true, and finally someone has the courage to say it: Israelis are doing to Gazans what Nazis did to them, albeit on a smaller scale. They rounded them up, starved them nearly to death, and then proceeded to slaughter the defenseless people. And the reasons are the same, too. It is first, and publicly, for security. It is second, and less publicly, for the benefit of the Chosen, the Superior ethnic group. In short, it is slaughter based on racism and militaristic security-hype.

Israel Wipes Gaza Villages Off the Map

Jonathan Miller's report exposes the massacre:



This is unconscionable. It is horrific. It is a war crime. It is beyond words. And it is sponsored by U.S. weapons, and a long-standing policy of treating Israel like the spoiled, beloved child who can do no wrong. Congratulations! You're the proud sponsor of mass murder in the time-worn tradition of Security Trumps Compassion.

Israel traded its conscience for its view of security - apartheid, a protected Elite within a fortress, against the world. That's not a vision of the future. That's a vision of atrocities followed by doom. Good luck with that screwed world view.

Palestinians Eat Grass in Gaza: For Israel, the Ultimate Holocaust Denial

This incredible blog post is all the more powerful for the comments. Meanwhile, the Times reported that:

AS a convoy of blue-and-white United Nations trucks loaded with food waited last night for Israeli permission to enter Gaza, Jindiya Abu Amra and her 12-year-old daughter went scrounging for the wild grass their family now lives on.

“We had one meal today - khobbeizeh,” said Abu Amra, 43, showing the leaves of a plant that grows along the streets of Gaza. “Every day, I wake up and start looking for wood and plastic to burn for fuel and I beg. When I find nothing, we eat this grass.”

Abu Amra and her unemployed husband have seven daughters and a son. Their tiny breeze-block house has had no furniture since they burnt the last cupboard for heat.

“I can’t remember seeing a fruit,” said Rabab, 12, who goes with her mother most mornings to scavenge. She is dressed in a tracksuit top and holed jeans, and her feet are bare.

Israel forgot their own experience from the Holocaust, as described by commenter Sonja:

“I used to get …very hungry,” Blum said. “And then something came to me. I said, ‘The cows eat grass to live. How come I can’t do that?’ So I started hunting for grass. But you couldn’t find grass too many places. You find the roots. I used to clean the grass off the roots and chew on the roots, too. But then I discovered an area behind the kitchen. It was a restricted area. Nobody was allowed to go in, and the grass was growing nice. And I used to smuggle myself inside somehow… I ran in, took a handful [of grass] and ran out.”
By Rosa Blum, holocaust survivor, Romania

Holocaust in Romania, by Matatias Carp (6. Life and Death in Transnistria)
June 10, 1942
The buildings on the right housed deportees who had managed to save some
of their money, or because of their good connections were able to receive
aid in Moghilev. On the left side, however, hunger reigned. A number of
those interned had no choice but to eat grass from the meadows and leaves
from trees.

Yom HaShoah: The Train to Belzac
By Eva Galler (holocaust survivor)
It was cold. In one corner there was a little iron stove but no fuel. We were not given enough to eat. The children looked through the garbage for food. There was not enough water to drink. There was one well in the backyard, but it would not produce enough water for everybody. To be sure to get water you had to get up in the middle of the night. Once I had a little water to wash myself, and my sister later washed herself in the same water.
Some people started to eat grass. They would swell up and die. Because of the unsanitary conditions people got lice and typhus. My brother Pinchas got night blindness from lack of vitamins. Every day a lot of people died.

Holocaust survivors remember Lodz ghetto
Reuters - August 29, 2004
LODZ, Poland - Sam Weinreich remembers the last time he came to Radegast train station in Poland’s second-largest city - the day in 1944 he was forced into a cattle car and sent to Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz death camp.
“They promised us bread, so we came here … when you’re hungry, you’ll eat grass. People in the ghetto became like animals,” said Weinreich, one of some 400 survivors who on Sunday commemorated the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto 60 years ago.

Story of Survival - Holocaust experience remembered
by Johnell Lytle-Davis
“Why do they hate us?” Meisel said she asked her mother. “Because we are Jews,” her mother replied. “At least we are alive.”
Meisel revealed that she survived on about 300 calories in a day. “I would eat grass I was so hungry,” she said.

Thank you, Sonja, for this incredible collection of relevant stories.

It seems Israel has no intention of respecting or remembering, let alone learning from, the Holocaust.

Instead, they are trying to create, on perhaps a smaller scale - but in terms of human tragedy, is the death of children ever small for the conscience? - their own little Holocaust, inflicted on someone else.

And the reason is always the same. Security. For the Fatherland.

Palestinian Dr's Daughters Killed While Interviewed on Israeli TV

There seems to be no limits to the Israeli government's love of atrocity. I haven't been able to keep up with it all. The atrocity that is Israel's invasion of Gaza is beyond description, beyond words. It is totally unconscionable.

Just one case in point: frequently interviewed on Israeli TV, Dr. Ezz-El-Din Abu El-Eish, a Palestinian and resident of Gaza who works at works at Israel’s largest hospital, Tel Hashomer near Tel Aviv, was interviewed by cell phone while his daughters were killed by Israelis as described in this heartwrenching report:

This impressive and peaceful man has been stranded at home during the war. Israel’s Channel 10 TV has regularly interviewed him by phone about the situation. On one occasion, a tank gun aimed at his home - and Israeli media intervention saved him…

What we see in the clip [above] is Israeli anchor Shlomi Eldar holding a cellphone with Dr. Abu El-Eish on the other side, howling with misery. A tank shell has just hit his home and immediately killed three of his children (apparently they cut off the first seconds when the shell actually hit).”

And here's a part of the transcript:

“Eldar: …we have on the line Dr. Abu El-Eish, we have been talking with him over the past period… he [his home] was just shelled, his family is wounded, maybe I can replay…

Dr. Abu El-Eish: No one can get to us… (unclear)… Ya Rabi, Ya Rabi (my god).. [he continues to cry throughout while Eldar talks to the audience]

Eldar: They killed his family, over the past few days we have been… I think I’m a bit overwhelmed too because,… (tearing up) Dr. Abu El-Eish is a Tel Hashomer physician, [to the doctor] Abu El-Eish we are now in the studio, [back to the audience] and he kept fearing his family would get hurt, once this week he went on air to Gabi Gazit [another anchor], because this was the only way [apparently referring to the previous near-miss incident]…. In short, he was now hit, who was hurt Abu El-Eish?

Dr. Abu El-Eish: My girls, Ya Allah, Ya Allah

[around 1:00 into clip]

Eldar: He has eight children whom he has protected throughout the war, at his home in Beit Lahiya, maybe the only thing we can do is to ask someone who can, maybe in the IDF, Abu El-Eish can you tell me where your house is, maybe they will enable ambulances to get there

Dr. Abu El-Eish: (unclear) …to save them, to save them, but they are dead already they were hit in the head, it was in their heads [died] on the spot, on the spot, Shlomi, Ya Allah, … what have we done, what have we done [repeatedly]… they killed the family… [more screams in the background]“

It's an atrocity. The entire invasion of Gaza is a horrific slaughter and a tragedy. And to think this is being done to get votes from Israelis? Do they want the world to think the Israeli public is bloodthirsty, or what? If not, what the hell happened to their brains?

Apparently, their brains went the way of their hearts.

Olmert Plays Pawns Bush, Rice: Israel Dictating US Foreign Policy

For years, many have said that U.S. foreign policy, especially in the middle east, is basically run by Israel. Under Bush II, this rumor has been engraved in granite. In fact, W has seen fit to let Israel basically run wild with whatever right-wing schemes it could come up with. And these schemes tend to run to the bloody, overkill side. But now Olmert is up front and center about it. Or should I say, he's bragging about how he called Bush up in the middle of the night, told him to get Condi to last-minute reneg on her planned support for a cease-fire agreement on the Gaza massacre, so, of course, ol' George cain't say no, and made poor Condi back out in an embarrassing breach of promise.

But then, there is no such thing as a promise from the US to anyone other than Israel, or so it seems. In his own bravado:

Olmert: "It transpired all of a sudden that a vote would be held in 10 minutes' time. I tried to find President Bush, and I was told he was attending an event in Philadelphia. I know that if somebody tried to find me on the phone right now, it would have to be something unusual and extraordinary for them to say: Leave it all and go to some room to talk to me. In this case, I said: I don't care, I have to talk to him right now. He was taken off the podium and brought to a side room.

I spoke with him; I told him: You can't vote for this proposal. He said: Listen, I don't know, I didn't see, don't know what it says. I told him: I know, and you can't vote for it! He then instructed the secretary of state, and she did not vote for it.
It was a proposal she had put together, one she formulated, one she organized, one she maneuvered. It left her rather embarrassed, abstaining in the vote on a proposal she herself had put together. That was why the French and the Brits said she had pulled a fast one on them, she having been the one to spur them to submit the proposals."

The NYT indicates Rice & the State Dept deny any such influence, stating this was their plan all along.

After the vote, Ms. Rice said the United States “fully supports” the resolution, which called for “an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza,” but opted to abstain to see the outcome of an Egyptian-French peace initiative.

Well, WAS the call in the middle of a speaking engagement by Bush made by Olmert the reason Rice backtracked on the cease-fire plan she allegedly drafted herself? And was she really embarrassed?

About "embarrassed", I have my doubts. It didn't embarass her when Israel destroyed Lebanon's airport and infrastructure and many civilians were slaughtered because of two kidnapped Israeli soldiers. It didn't embarrass her when Israel invaded Gaza, a civilian population with none but the most rudimentary self-defense. Why would this embarrass her? Ah, according to Olmert, it's her ego that was wounded.

So Olmert's getting bored with killing civilians and destroying lives of millions for political gain. So now he wants to mess with superpower egos.

Let's hope this whole thing backfires. Do tyrants and criminals ever pay a price? After 8 years of Bush and right-wing Israelis, one sincerely wonders. Now Obama's coming, so maybe Israeli neocons are having their bloodthirsty last stand. But will there be a similar sea change inside the borders of Israel itself, a shift to the left?

When the slaughter of innocents becomes how you impress an Israeli citizenry, it seems the opposite is true. Will Obama join the legacy of Bush and others to applaud massacres by standing on the sidelines blaming Hamas? Or will there be hope for the future? We are waiting...and hoping...and hoping...

Israel Uses Unconventional Weapons Against Gazans

OUTRAGE! As if it's not enough to massacre hundreds of civilians in a show of overwhelming force by Goliath Israel against the prepped-by-starvation population of Gaza, now we learn from Mads Gilbert, a brave Norwegian doctor working in Gaza, that Israel is using unconventional weapons in their war on Palestine aka "War On Hamas". According to Dr. Gilbert:

"The Israelis are using a new type of very high explosive weapons which are called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and are made out of a tungsten alloy. These weapons have an enormous power to explode."

"All that is happening in Gaza here now is against international law, it is against humanity."

"Almost all of the patients we have received have these severe amputations. They seem to have been affected by this kind of weapon. Of course, we have many fragment injuries and burns but those who have got their limbs cut off, constitutes quite a large proportion.

You know we have a lot to do. Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics do an incredibly heroic job to save their people. Doctor Eric and I are just a small drip in the ocean, but we learn from them."

IN an interview, Dr. Gilbert addresses allegations that Israel is using depleted Uranium and is deliberately targeting civilians.

Doctor Mads Gilbert is a member of a Norwegian triage medical team present in the besieged Gaza Strip. The team has exposed that Israel has used depleted uranium weapons in its war on the impoverished territory which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians. He described the conditions inside Gaza in an exclusive Press TV interview.

Press TV: What can you tell about the uranium findings?

Dr. Mads Gilbert:The findings about the uranium I cannot tell you much about, but I can tell you that we have clear evidence that the Israelis are using a new type of very high explosive weapons which are called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and are made out of a tungsten alloy.
These weapons have an enormous power to explode.

The power of the explosion dissipates very quickly and the strength does not travel long, maybe 10 meters, but those humans who are hit by this explosion, this pressure wave are cut in pieces.

This was first used in Lebanon in 2006, it was used here in Gaza in 2006 and the injuries that we see in Shifa [Hospital] now, many many of them I suspect and we all suspect are the effect of DIME weapons used by the Israelis.

On the long term, these weapons will have a cancer effect on those who survive. They will develop cancer we suspect. There has been very little research on this but some research has been among other places in the United States, which show that these weapons have a high tendency to develop cancer. So they kill and those who survive risk having cancer.

If true, it appears to be a mass campaign of terror aimed and demoralizing the Palestinian people into capitulating into accepting a gulag archipelago as a so-called "homeland", which will be overseen and administrated by their captors, the Israelis, and in which their actual autonomy will be severely limited by the double-whammy of checkpoints and physical isolation and separation of these prison-islands from one another. Of course, rejection of the right of return means that it will not be a Palestinian "homeland" in the sense that Israel is a Jewish "homeland", but will be more of a pre-fabricated, US-Israeli-dictated residential living zone where basic human needs will be more likely to be allowed than they are in the current situation. Of course, neither the U.S. nor Israel considers "basic human needs" to include freedom of movement, or the ability of people expelled from their homes to return to their families and relatives.

And I have an appeal to the Israeli doctors and nurses. They are my colleagues. We belong to the same international community, the medical community. I wish that the good doctors and nurses in Israel tell their government to stop these atrocities. We cannot continue with this. We may differ in opinions, but you cannot treat the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza in this way.

And who are the majority of the victims? Terrorists?

Half of the population in Palestine are below 15 years and 80 percent of the people in Gaza live below the level of poverty defined by the UN. Now they don't have food, they don't have electricity. It's cold they don't have warmth and in addition to that, they are killed.

And so how many people have been affected by these unconventional weapons?

Dr. Mads Gilbert: Almost all of the patients we have received have these sever amputations. They seem to have been affected by this kind of weapon. Of course, we have many fragment injuries and burns but those who have got their limbs cut off, constitutes quite a large proportion.

It would seem that Israel is indeed using unconventional weapons. But since when did Israel care about conventions of war? Pre-emptive attacks, pre-emptive assassinations, collective punishment against civilians, and the imprisonment of an entire civilian population within its secure walls and guarded fences, the deprivation of liberty and the means of living, all these are against international law. And Israel joins with Dick Cheney, when faced with the condemnation of those who are brave and outrageously daring enough to give a damn about the people of Palestine:

"SO?"

How long will these outrageous acts continue? As long as the world looks on like a giant piece of inert protoplasm. Israel's banking on it.

Israel's "Up Yours" to Arabs Goes Down Wrong-Way Street

This calls for a toast. Israel, in a celebratory send-off to Favorite Neocon Dick "Mr. Torture" Cheney, is slaughtering "terrorists" (Israeli-speak for Palestinians) en masse in that super-powerful Security Threat, Gaza.

Gaza, where the civilian population has been under an indefinite siege, deprived by Israel of food, medicine, water, gas, and other staples as "collective punishment" for being ... for being ... in Gaza, and somewhat "self-governed" by Hamas. What crime could be worse than "self-government"? Gaza, where unemployment is the highest in the world at 49%. Gaza, where

Half the city's residents receive water only once a week for a few hours.

Gaza, which most of the world recognizes as a "humanitarian disaster." Gaza, where the average income was estimated in better times, last summer, to be about $2/ a day. And that's for those who can find income. Gaza, which has been reduced to living on the dole:

more than one million Palestinians in Gaza live on the modest assistance provided by the UNRWA and FAO in addition to other Arab and Islamic charitable organizations.

Gaza, where no one goes in or out without first passing through a surly Israeli guard at a checkpoint:

The population of Gaza is subject to Israeli closures and checkpoints, which often make it impossible to travel to or work in Israel and the West Bank, and Hamas' leadership are at constant risk of being killed by Israeli security forces.

Gaza also lives under a tight blockade, which often makes it impossible for food, water, medical supplies and other essentials to reach the population.

Gaza, governed as much as that is possible by Hamas, called a "terrorist organization" but which is also a political party and provider of public services in a population which has none of the above - and with less corruption that Yasser Arafat's old party. Gaza, from whose soil Hamas soldiers fired rockets into Israel in protest of Israel's provocative killing of 5 Hamas soldiers. Israel, of course, is always in the process of killing anyone associated with Hamas, having been given that neocon green light for assassination by Bush/Cheney, the darlings of the right-wing in power these days in Israel.

Rockets? Oh, yes, those rockets. Disturbing Israeli civilians. The answer? Death to thy neighbor. And all thy neighbor's wives, children, parents, grandparents, relatives, friends, and anyone and anything that is thy neighbor's. Of course, Gazans are not "neighbors" to Israelis. They are "terrorists". Every man, woman and child.

Oh, yes, Israel must attack Gaza, of all places. After the people have been starved nearly, but not quite, to death. Gaza, a prison masquerading as a "territory" masquerading as a "homeland" masquerading as a "dream". Well, not exactly a prison. Unlike a prison, people can procreate. Unlike a prison, they get no food or water to feed their children. Unlike a prison, they are told to fend for themselves, while being prevented from being able to do just that. Unlike a prison, they are not convicted of any crime, except being Palestinian, which is not a crime, and of defending themselves or fighting for their human rights, which is called "terrorism", which is a neocon crime.

But like am unjust prison, Gaza's only hope of human dignity is for its people to riot. And like a prison, all the power is in the hands of their jailers, guards, and executioners.

But...if all the power is in the hands of their jailers, the Israelis...who are nuclear armed...have supersonic jets...advanced weaponry...a well-trained standing military machine...

WHY THE HELL ARE THEY THREATENED BY A RAG-TAG, STARVING, IMPRISONED POPULATION WITH NO ARMY AND ONLY HOMEMADE OR STON-AGE PRIMITIVE WEAPONS??????

Because Gazans have lots of one things Israelis have less of: powerful motivation. You se, unlike the Israelis, Gazans are fighting to SURVIVE. And everybody knows, ain't no motive like that survival motive. It shoots adrenalin into the brain. It makes guys blow themselves up just to spite their tormentors. It takes people to their extremes, in endurance, in passion, in uniting for a cause. And Israel'[s attacks are increasing that motive, exponentially!

Israelis, on the other hand, have a more amorphous, philosophical motive: The Dream. The Dream of a Homeland for the Jews, especially after the Holocaust. Never mind that to achieve the Dream one must displace millions of inhabitants from that land. Compassion, comesmash'em! It's all about the Dream. It's like, more ideological. We're number one, and you're number nothing!

But what really is problematic here is that the Israelis are also amorphously-guided, by a cloud, as it were. A pillar of fire from the bombing of innocents by night, and a pillar of smoke from their ashes and the ashes of homes, hospitals, schools are more destroyed by day. They have no clear plan, except to react to every little perceived "provocation" like a high-strung cliffhanger on steroids. All they have to go on is a Dream and a Prayer.

The Dream: God told us to take this land OR ELSE.
The Prayer: Please take all those nasty Palestinians offa my land NOW.

The Tactic: Nuke 'em! Screw 'em! Bulldoze 'em! They're not even human! They're terrorists! They hate us! They're out to kill and destroy us! THEY ARE GOING TO DESTROY OUR DREAM!

The Strategy: Kill the Palestinians' motive to survive, their will to live, their human dignity, their pride, their children, whatever they hold dear, to totally annihilate their humanity, so they will agree to be placed in a Gulag Archipelago under Israeli supervision where they can be brutalized and never raise their voices, hands, heads, or hearts in any meaningful way.

Sounds a lot like Cheney's "robust interrogation".

Problem is, it doesn't work. You can't kill the human soul. Correction: when you try to kill the human soul, the only thing you succeed in killing is your own conscience. And with it, your own soul.

Ooops! That means, the Israelis are messing with their own conscience! Their own collective souls! And then...we all know God doesn't "choose" people without a conscience. And...wasn't that the Dream? The Motive? The Biblically sanctioned Holy Land of Israel? Wasn't it supposed to be...divinely ordained? But if God doesn't choose people with dead souls and dead consciences, then he... will choose someone else. A different people... a people who do not idolize the ideals of Dick Cheney and the neocons. A people who don't slaughter to impress their own constituency, as if the Israeli people vote based on bloodlust - whoever slaughters the most Palestinian children gets voted into office. Please tell me it ain't true! It sure as hell looks and sounds like it. But I don't want to believe...

Is THAT what Israel is all about? Is THAT what Israel represents? Power at all costs? Comfort for a few privileged - "comfort" meaning "lack of rocket volleys that shake us up" - at the cost of starvation of millions? Or the direct, deliberate, intentional murder, genocide of hundreds???? Is that the Dream? What the hell kind of a Dream is that, Israel????

This genocide will not go down easy.

Remember when "tough guys" didn't gun down women and children because it was beneath them? When it was too "low" for them to kill those who were weaker than them? How do you talk to Israelis who forgot that murder has consequences? Is it not "murder" when you're in power and using a military "machine" to do the killing? So it has no consequences? So Israel is blame-free? Why do they always attack those weaker than them, at their weakest point? Why don't they ever show that higher ground of "tough guys" in Westerns, of days gone by? Why don't they give a damn about families?

The world may croak like a freshly-slaughtered capon. The Arabs may make Very Strong Statements, signifying nothing. The U.S. may IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS, ask ("pretty please") Israel (the beautiful, cruel, temptress girlfriend) to "try" not to kill "too many" civilians. Israel may answer "OK, we'll try, but...we'll won't promise, and we're not gonna stop bombing, invading, etc..."...

Yes, the whole world may join with Cheney in a rousing chorus of "So?"

But you can't eradicate the soul and heart of a nation in order to find the soul and heart of your own nation. It doesn't work that way.

Face it, Israel. Or better yet, say goodbye to right-wing Zionism like we're saying goodbye to Dick Cheney and the discredited neocons. For Israel to survive, it's got to have a goal that INCLUDES the existence of REAL, LIVE, NON-TERRORIST, NON-KOWTOWING, UPPITY, PROUD, HONEST, HUMAN......PALESTINIANS. With dignity. On both sides, not just your side of the border.

And while you're at it, watch your morals when you claim divine rights. Or the disaster you are toasting:
"Up Yours!"
may be your own.

Lawrence of Cyberia: Why Don't Zionists Adopt Gandhi's Methods?

Just discovered this post which makes this astute point:

It takes a special kind of nerve to embark upon a project - Zionism - that can be fulfilled only through the violent destruction of another people, and then criticize the people you are destroying for their failure to adopt non-violence.

Which is followed by this quote from Gandhi, showing his distaste for Zionism:

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. …Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home. The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred.

… I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.

-- The Jews In Palestine, by Mahatma Gandhi; The Harijan, 26 Nov 1938

According to Gandhi, it was the Zionists, not the Palestinians, who invented terrorism.

JPost: US Airstrike on Iran Likely "Within Weeks"

According to this post, there's an actual airstrike against Iran in the works, probably something like W's Last Stand. Now, when everyone's all in a tizzy over Palindrome and the election. It may be just a well-placed rumor, and it doesn't make any sense, but knowing the recklessness of Bush/Cheney, it might just be true, and it might just help to blow this thing wide open before it hits the world:

From the Jerusalem Post:

The Dutch intelligence service, the AIVD, has called off an operation aimed at infiltrating and sabotaging Iran's weapons industry due to an assessment that a US attack on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program is imminent, according to a report in the country's De Telegraaf newspaper on Friday.

The report claimed that the Dutch operation had been "extremely successful," and had been stopped because the US military was planning to hit targets that were "connected with the Dutch espionage action."

The impending air-strike on Iran was to be carried out by unmanned aircraft "within weeks," the report claimed, quoting "well placed" sources.

According to the report, information gleaned from the AIVD's operation in Iran has provided several of the targets that are to be attacked in the strike, including "parts for missiles and launching equipment."

"Information from the AIVD operation has been shared in recent years with the CIA," the report said.

On Friday, Ma'ariv reported that Israel had made a strategic decision to deny Iran military nuclear capability and would not hesitate "to take whatever means necessary" to prevent Teheran from achieving its nuclear goals.

According to the report, whether the United States and Western countries succeed in thwarting the Islamic Republic's nuclear ambitions diplomatically, through sanctions, or whether a US strike on Iran is eventually decided upon, Jerusalem has begun preparing for a separate, independent military strike.

Are they playing the old "Israel, Bully to the World" bit? Is it telling that the Jerusalem Post is the one to "break" this "story" about something as impossible to verify as the Dutch intelligence service?

Another Sy Hersh Blockbuster: Cheney Planned Israel's Disastrous War on Lebanon

Remember 2006, when Israeli bombers decimated the Beirut airport, along with a significant number of innocent civilians - men, women, children, the elderly - while Condi Rice played Head Cheerleader? Remember the news coverage that wept at an Israeli woman's shattered nerves and dented car, but barely managed a quick pan of the human debacle, the decimated infrastructure, the wailing mothers, the dead children, that was on the ground in Lebanon? Remember how Hezbollah brought the Mighty Israeli Military Machine of Legends Past to its knees? Remember how the Middle East saw Nasrallah as a hero conquering the oppressors who kill thousands because of two?

No wonder the U.S. was whistling Dixie and looking in the other direction... it was their idea! With friends like that.... what was Israel thinking??? And guess who was the sinister mastermind behind the carnage? Who else? The ominous Dick Cheney...

Adding to the growing list of war crimes committed by Dick Cheney is a report by Sy Hersh that Cheney actually planned the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon. He also considers it "a prelude to a potential American preemptive attack" on Iran. Ominous times, these...

President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

According to Hersh, a middle east expert stated:

“The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because, if there was to be a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities, it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both. Bush was going after Iran, as part of the Axis of Evil, and its nuclear sites, and he was interested in going after Hezbollah as part of his interest in democratization, with Lebanon as one of the crown jewels of Middle East democracy.”

Note the pattern: YOU WILL BE A DEMOCRACY. But not until we demolish you first! It's crush and convert, the new Holy War, a right-wing "love-fest", sort of like their own Woodstock, except instead of rapes and orgies with women, they assault whole nations, especially middle eastern nations, whom they learned they can call "terrorist" and get away with murder... literally! Instead of drugs, they have Rovespeak, always the perfect way to disconnect reality and "turn on, tune out, drop the opposition off", preferably at the morgue.

Israel Antoinette Always Gets the Cake, So Why Does She Use Thug Tactics?

Dahr Jamail tells of this harrowing experience suffered by Muhammad Omer, a Palestinian journalist who, along with Dahr Jamail, received the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in London on 16 June (1).

On his return home, Omer was badly beaten up and physically and psychologically abused by Israel's security forces, Shin Bet. At the Allenby Bridge crossing, from Jordan to the West Bank, he was met by the Dutch official who was to ferry him back into Gaza. The official waited outside as Omer entered the Israeli building. Omer was told to turn off his mobile phone and remove the battery. When he asked if he could call his embassy escort, he was told sternly he was not allowed. A Shin Bet officer searched his luggage and rifled through his documents. "Where's the money?" he asked Omer. "Where are the English pounds you have?" They wanted to confiscate his prize money, which Omer was wise enough not to carry on his person.

Omer was surrounded by eight armed Shin Bet officers. This is how he described what happened next. "A man called Avi ordered me to take off my clothes. I had already been through an x-ray machine. I stripped down to my underwear and was told to take off everything. When I refused, Avi put his hand on his gun. I began to cry: `Why are you treating me this way? I am a human being.' He said: `This is nothing compared with what you will see now.' He took his gun out, pressing it to my head, and with his full body weight pinning me on my side, he forcibly removed my underwear. He then made me do a concocted sort of dance. Another man, who was laughing, said:
`Why are you bringing perfumes?' I replied: `They are gifts for the people I love.' He said: `Oh, do you have love in your culture?'

"I had now been without food and water and the toilet for 12 hours and, having been made to stand, my legs buckled. I vomited and passed out. All I remember is one of them gouging, scraping and clawing with his nails at the tender flesh beneath my eyes. He scooped my head and dug his fingers in near the auditory nerves between my head and eardrum. The pain became sharper as he dug in two fingers at a time. Another man had his combat boot on my neck, pressing it into the hard floor. I lay there for over an hour. The room became a menagerie of pain, sound and terror."

Now you may think this can't be a pattern of behavior, it may be, as reported back in 2000 by the Guardian, typical of the era from '88-'92, the Intifada, and things have since been rectified. And such practices of physical coercion were banned by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999. Since then it's documented that only "moderate physical pressure" can be exerted against terrorist or other suspects. What that means may be open to interpretation. Perhaps humiliation, sexual degradation, and physical deprivation are "moderate" to Shin Bet.

Or maybe the right-wing in Israel considers all of that irrelevant: declare a self-defense and its battles, and impose a humanitarian disaster on an entire population of men, women and children. Which, of course, means Gaza. As stated here:

The humanitarian condition of the one and a half million men, women and children illegally incarcerated in Gaza is now at its worst point in the last 40 years of Israeli occupation.

Israel’s pitiable attempts to achieve absolute security through absolute domination have only led us all into disaster. The rocket attacks by militants in Gaza against Israeli civilians are as deplorable as they are predictable – given the suffering caused by this blockade – but these attacks are also irrelevant to the humanitarian catastrophe caused by Israel’s siege. The one does not justify the other. The one cannot justify the other.

Self-defense to Israel also can mean, say, decimating the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon - like the country's one major airport - in response to the kidnapping by one group of two Israeli soldiers. This is certainly not covered by "torture" statutes. It's war, and all's fair...

Meanwhile, what's wrong with a little incarceration? What's wrong with incarcerating the entire population of Gaza because of the rocket attacks on Israel? What's wrong with incarcerating Palestinian journalists? What's wrong with slanting the news? What's wrong with violating human rights? What's wrong with a little "pressure" now and then? What's wrong with a few lies? What's wrong with being heavy-handed? What's wrong with Israel holding more than 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them without charges, detention being renewable every 6 months??? Israel cannot be held accountable for any of its actions. Israel is above reproach. Israel has not been fully born yet, apparently. Israel considers itself forever under siege, extremely delicate, more so than Marie Antoinette, a virtual fetus trapped in a virtual womb, waiting to be born. Born, presumably, by C-section, judging by the heavy use of the virtual, or actual, sword, or its more explosive surrogates.

As the very astute Seth Freedman of the Guardian said in reporting about Israeli Jews with a totally different attitude towards Palestinians:

Despite the general perception that Israeli Jews are under constant threat of attack when they venture into the Wild West Bank, a group of dedicated volunteers from the Villages Group put paid to that myth on their regular solidarity visits to local Palestinian farmers. "Perhaps we cannot bring about a general peace," reads their website, "but we can perform deeds of peace."

In fact, Mr. Freedman titles his article "Ehud, Noam and Elad disprove the myth that Jews who venture into the West Bank are putting their lives in danger", referring to members of the Villages Group who are dedicated, along with other humanitarian groups, to creating a bridge between Israeli and Palestinian people in spite of all efforts of the Israeli government to keep the two neighbors in a constant state of war, fear, and conflict.

But for every small step forward Ehud and his colleagues make in terms of bridge building, the Israeli government and the IDF make ten massive leaps back. We visited the cave village of Mukfara, whose recently-built, minuscule mosque has just been issued with a demolition order by the army. "Settlers build illegally day after day," said Mahmud Hammada, the muchtar of the hamlet, "whilst we are on our recognised land yet still cannot even build a mosque in which to pray."

As Dahr Jamail pointed out:

The fourth Geneva Convention (GC) (1949) states: (1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons: (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture (c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."

B'tselem documents so much Israeli violation of the Geneva Conventions - to this very day and hour - that it's obvious Israel joins Dick Cheney & George W. Bush et. al. in their disregard for human rights when it comes to human rights-abusers' favorite Reason for All Abuses: security. They seek absolute security. Absolute control. In the case of Israel, absolute authority of Jews over and to the exclusion of all other nationalities. And this is unconscionable. It corrupts absolutely. Let the guilty take responsibility.

The Israeli military regularly bombs and uses snipers to attack Palestinian ambulances. Article 20 of the 1949 GC states: "Persons regularly and solely engaged in the operation and administration of civilian hospitals, including the personnel engaged in the search for, removal and transporting of and caring for wounded and sick civilians, the infirm and maternity cases shall be respected and protected."

Is it not ethnic cleansing? And why torment journalists for telling the truth? What is Israel trying to hide, if "security" truly justifies all?

Israel has blockaded Gaza, isolating and starving the 1.5 million Palestinians who live there. In 2006 Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet,
but not to make them die of hunger."

He's so out of touch with compassion, he makes a joke out of it.

Article 23 of the 1949 GC states: "Each High Contracting Party shall allow the free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for religious worship intended only for civilians of another High Contracting Party, even if the latter is its adversary. It shall likewise permit the free passage of all consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under 15, expectant mothers and maternity cases."

The Israeli government has threatened to close orphanages for Palestinian children in Hebron, which would be another violation of international law, for article 24 of the Geneva Convention states clearly: "The Parties to the conflict shall take the necessary measures to ensure that children under fifteen, who are orphaned or are separated from their families as a result of the war, are not left to their own resources, and that their maintenance, the exercise of their religion and their education are facilitated in all circumstances. Their education shall, as far as possible, be entrusted to persons of a similar cultural tradition."

Obviously, GC principles were also violated in Omer's treatment by the Shin Bet.
The Israeli government sees itself as above the Geneva Convention, in much the same way the Bush-Cheney administration sees itself as above the GC, and for the same reason: Security.

Security is the reasons all human rights abusers use to justify their abuse. All dictators use security to justify their abuse of power. And it's the number one reason they "suppress the press." Strongarming journalists is normally the tactic of totalitarians, governments who don't want the people to know what's going on. Is that the case with Israel, or what????

Attacking journalists is not new. On 16 April Fadel Shanaa, a Palestinian
cameraman working for the news agency Reuters, was killed by a rocket fired
during an Israeli military incursion into the Gaza Strip. His assistant, Wafa Barbakh, was seriously injured. Both were in vehicle clearly marked "Press". This appears to be part of systematic targeting of journalists by the Israeli military. Since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000, the Israeli military has killed at least nine journalists, including an Italian and a Briton. At least 170 other journalists have been wounded by the Israeli military during this period.

Former Dutch ambassador Jan Wijenberg said of what happened to Omer: "This is by no means an isolated incident, but part of a long-term strategy to demolish Palestinian social, economic and cultural life... I am aware of the possibility that Mohammed Omer might be murdered by Israeli snipers or bomb attack in the near future. . . [Omer] is a moderating voice, urging Palestinian youth not to court hatred but seek peace with Israel."
Janet McMahon, managing editor of the Washington Report on Middle East
Affairs, for which Omer writes, says he is still in hospital. "He may go home,
or have an operation. He's still in a lot of pain, and it's hard for him to
swallow, or to breathe deeply. He's being fed intravenously."

Obviously, to the Israeli government, Omer is merely a security risk, not a human being, much less a journalist with certain rights. They don't bother to see if he really poses a threat, but bulldoze him like so much Palestinian ... paraphernalia? what's the term that combines "homes" with "trash"? ... like the unwanted Palestinian presence bulldozed for the ethnically pure settlers whose rights are inalienable, unlike the rights of Palestinians. Is this not racist?? Well, honestly, is not Israeli policy both racist - OPENLY racist! - and at the same time smacks of totalitarianism, if you happen to be born on the wrong side of the DNA tracks.

Israel's "gross imbalance of power" is funded by none other than Uncle Superpower. It's absolutely cool on all sides of the U.S. political spectrum to sing the praises of Israel and vow to defend it tooth and nail, even if it means violating a Geneva Convention clause or two. Who gives a damn about the Geneva Conventions anyway? We want power, security, not "human rights". Damn those "human rights activists", always getting in the way.

That's why "absolute power corrupts absolutely." Human rights are the basis for most moral codes, and abandoning those, even partly, means one has become corrupt.

According to Defence for Children International, Israel has "engaged in gross violations of international human rights and humanitarian law". Between 1967 and 2003, Israel destroyed over 10,000 Palestinian homes, and that continues.

So how can they claim to be any better than Bush, Cheney, or any of a number of dictatorships in Africa, Asia, or elsewhere that we will not name, and whom we dare condemn? How in good conscience can America give a carte blanche to this flagrant affront to justice and goodwill in the name of security? Easy. Do it all the time. In the Middle East, America makes sure Israel Antoinette always gets the cake. And America makes sure she defends it, too. By all means, by all means...

Israeli Soldiers Stand Guard as Settlers Tie Palestinian Farmer to Pole, Beat Him

Alerted by Heathlander at this post, you can also see the original article in Ha'aretz, with videos on both sites.

A group of West Bank settlers on Saturday beat a 31-year-old Palestinian man in the southern Hebron Hills, after having tied him to a telephone pole. Left-wing activists later videoed a settler kicking Madahat Abu-Kirash, the victim, as he remained tied up and was surrounded by Israeli security forces. The soldiers subsequently removed the settler from the scene. Hebron police opened an investigation into the incident after Abu-Kirash submitted a complaint, claiming that he had been beaten all over his body.

According to the left-wing organization Ta'ayush, whose members were close to the scene of the assault and witnessed part of it, the incident began when residents of the settlement of Asael accused Abu-Kirash of setting a field alight a few hundred meters away from their homes. Abu-Kirash, a teacher, told the settlers in response that he had come to perform agricultural work on land he owns. He denied any connection to the fire. Ta'ayush members said that the Palestinian's explanation was of no avail, and the settlers proceeded to forcibly take him to the bounds of the settlement, where they tied him up and beat him.

IDF troops who were called to the area gave him medical treatment on the spot, after which a Red Crescent ambulance took him to a hospital. Abu-Kirash later returned to his home from the hospital. "When we arrived at the scene there were already lots of the army's troops. I saw a settler approach him and kick him, as he was tied to the pole... [Abu-Kirash's] whole body was bound up, I saw they bandaged a head wound and he was half unconscious," said a Ta'ayush activist who was present during the incident. The chairperson of the South Hebron hills regional council, Zviki Bar-Hai told Haaretz that those responsible for starting the fire and setting the nearby fields ablaze were not from the area, rather they were either Palestinians or extreme left-wing activists.

A month ago, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem released a video which it said showed the start of an assault on Palestinian farmers by masked, stick-wielding Israeli settlers.

Will this too be sanitized before people can see it?

Truce Between Hamas & Israel: Reprieve or Improvement?

From the Guardian:

On Thursday at 6 am, following a furious final burst of activity from Qassam rocket teams against the residents of the towns of the Western Negev, and by Israel's air force against the Qassam rocket teams, silence descended on Gaza and its environs. The six-month "tahdiya" (period of calm) declared between the Hamas rulers of Gaza and Israel is the latest move in a long and exhausting war currently under way in the Middle East. This war pits a coalition of rejectionist (mainly Islamist) forces centered on Iran against pro-western elements in the region. A central goal of the pro-Iranian alliance is the destruction of Israel. Hamas is the main representative of this alliance in Gaza and the West Bank. The "tahdiya" represents a significant achievement for Hamas, and therefore for this camp.
The "tahdiya" is the fruit of the campaign of attacks launched by Hamas against the communities of the western Negev. This campaign began in the days following Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in the summer of 2005. Since that time, of course, Hamas has won PA elections, and destroyed its Fatah opponents in Gaza. The Egyptian-brokered period of calm is a de facto recognition by the government of Israel of the Hamas regime in the Strip.
Hamas gave some ground in the indirect negotiations in the period leading up to the ceasefire. Most significantly, the movement had originally wanted the ceasefire to extend to the West Bank. Israel, fearing the possibility of a creeping Hamas takeover of this area, refused. But this caveat notwithstanding, the tahdiya will allow Hamas a breathing space in which it will consolidate its rule and build up its forces.
According to the ceasefire, Israel will begin to ease its blockade of Gaza if the quiet holds for three days. A week later, again dependent on the maintenance of quiet, Israel will then further ease restrictions on cargo crossings. Talks will then begin over the re-opening of the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza, and for the release of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. (The causal relation between these two final aspects is not clear, and it will be interesting to observe whether the Egyptian decision to re-open Rafah will indeed be conditioned on progress regarding Shalit, or whether the one will be quietly de-coupled from the other in the weeks to come.)

Israel's Breach of Conscience Breeds More Terrorism Than Peace

Even when a new "shaky" ceasefire is in place, it helps to consider the plight of Gaza again.
When this came out last May 30

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has denounced the international community for its "silence and complicity" on what he called Israel's "abominable" 11-month blockade of Gaza.

and

The Archbishop, mainly here on a UN mission to investigate what he called the Beit Hanoun massacre of 21 civilians by Israeli tank shelling 18 months ago, said: "All we had heard about conditions in Gaza – deprivation, a sense of despair, the lack of economic activity – had not prepared us for the stark reality which we saw."

Of course, this gets little response, thanks to "fear of AIPAC." But AIPAC may ultimately be working against Israel's long-term interests, and so are others who support the blockade, which has radicalized more moderates and villainized Israel to more people than any "Islamist" propaganda ever could.

Nobody in their right mind expects the candidates to stand in sympathy with Gaza or the Palestinians. Candidates have to be all things to all people, and even more particularly, all things to all power-brokers. So to whom do we turn to stand up to the almighty power of AIPAC about which is said:

Former president Bill Clinton defined it as "stunningly effective". Former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich called it "the most effective general-interest group across the entire planet". The New York Times as "the most important organization affecting America's relationship with Israel".

and

AIPAC maintains a virtual stranglehold over the US Congress. Critics of the Israel lobby other than Walt and Mearsheimer also contend that AIPAC essentially prevents any possibility of open debate on US policy towards Israel.

Or towards Palestinians. Or towards ... Iraq?

It has become relatively fashionable for some members of the Israeli lobby to deny any involvement in the build-up towards the war on Iraq. But few remember what AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr told the New York Sun in January 2003: "Quietly lobbying Congress to approve the use of force in Iraq was one of AIPAC's successes over the past year."

And in a New Yorker profile of Steven Rosen, AIPAC's policy director during the run-up to the war on Iraqi, it was stated that "AIPAC lobbied Congress in favor of the Iraqi war".

Compare it with a 2007 Gallup study based on 13 different polls, according to which 77% of American Jews were opposed to the Iraq war, compared to 52% of Americans.

Walt and Mearsheimer contend

"the war was due in large part to the lobby's influence, and especially its neo-con wing. The lobby is not always representative of the larger community for which it often claims to speak."

Does this mean AIPAC is overextending itself and in fact, doing the Jews - or actual human beings who identify themselves as Jews - and even Israel in a more long-term sense - more harm than good??

Does that apply also to the Palestinian issue? Of course it does! Look at Amy Goodman, who frequently hosts Palestinian-sympathizing guests and expresses strong opposition to the hawkish Security First line.

Nothing ever gets solved without the willingness to actually discuss and communicate as human beings. Once both sides become Untouchable Aliens, there is no solution but war, violence and suffering. And this doesn't occur in a vaccuum.
The problem also lies in what has been defined as "nationalism" vs. "patriotism".

George Orwell wrote that nationalism was one of the worst enemies of peace. He defined nationalism as the feeling that your way of life, country, or ethnic group were superior to others. These types of feelings lead a group to attempt to impose their morality on any given situation. When those standards were not met, more often then not, war would result.

In contrast he stated that patriotism was the feeling of admiration for a way of life etc. and the willingness to defend it against attack. The obvious difference between the two is that while patriotism is a passive attitude, nationalism is aggressive by nature.

Israel's Security First right wing enforces strong nationalism. Nationalism that displays in US foreign policy that blares to the world "Israel Right or Wrong". It's presented as a patriotic thing, but in practice, with the pre-emptive attack policy, it cannot be described as merely "defense".

On the other hand, Israel has failed to recognize that it actually has neighbors to whom it must prove itself as a good neighbor so as to get off US life-support, finally graduate from Protected Fetus status, and become a viable nation in every sense of the word. In other words, Israel will remain in vitro, a sort of implant in the Middle East, as long as it keeps this "I am God, You are Dirt" attitude. The blockade of Gaza signs, seals and delivers that impression on all those neighbors. Those nasty little vermin anti-semitic terrorists/ tyrants.

Can't you even pretend they're human? Turn on the electricity or open some freaking road so the dying can get treatment in the hospitals? Can't you see how tyrannical, nasty, mean, racist, and downright immoral this looks? The taste of genocide is in the air... where's those talented PR guys??? A token loaf of bread, some baby formula, something...

Israel cannot maintain its current position forever, much to some Israeli right-wingers' disbelief. The US empire is crumbling in the wake of the disastrous so-called "War on Terror" which has proved to be more of an apocalyptic-styled war on any non-totalitarian Muslim society that claims to have an "Islamic" government.

The US and Israel, by their policies, are feeding the fire, creating more terror, more enemies, more worldwide resentment. They are becoming, in the eyes of the rest of the world, pariahs. Their policies are intransigent, highly aggressive, featuring torture and "pre-emptive strikes". What was once the sole domain of Israel and done with some trepidation is now US foreign policy and done without a single pang of conscience.

What is conscience? An inconvenience? A nagging UN-leftwing-bleedingheart-vegan-weenie-antisemitic rant? Or is it that very thing that forces humankind to do what they hate most - consideration for others? It is that painful, dreaded submission of pride to some alien group again.

Conscience is replaced by rhetoric. Discourse is replaced by rant.

On the one hand, we hear citations of numerous threats by Hamas or Hamas sympathizers that they will somehow return Palestine to its original, Jew-free state. Just as Palestinians see Israel's insistence that recognition include the phrase "Jewish Homeland" which they take to mean recognition of the right of Israel to expel all non-Jews from Israel, to create an Arab-free state. But everyone knows reality is never dictated by threats, dreams, commands, or dictates issuing from leaders or governments.

Even Hamas leader Misha'al stated (quoted here)

We have the Palestinian Conciliation Document of 2006, in which all the organizations agreed clearly to a state based on the borders of 1967 including Jerusalem, the right of return and full sovereignty.

At some point, Israel will have to listen to its own people and take them into consideration, not for their fears but for their hopes and aspirations - but realistically. That means facing the ugly consequences of what the Israeli government is doing now so aggregiously, so aggressively, so cold-heartedly. So devoid of conscience. As Desmond Tutu said:

"The entire situation is abominable. I believe the ordinary Israeli citizens would not support this blockade if they knew what it really meant to ordinary people like themselves... My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity, especially on the situation in Gaza, shames us all. It is almost like the behaviour of the military junta in Burma."

And here's the crux of the matter:

... he said that events in both South Africa and Northern Ireland had shown that peace would come through negotiations "not with your friends. Peace can only come when enemies sit down and talk".

Of course, fat chance of that from nationalist Israel:

... less than 24 hours after the Archbishop's visit to Beit Hanoun, 60 Palestinians were arrested during a pre-dawn raid by the Israeli military on the northern Gaza town. Palestinian witnesses said that residents had been summoned to a local square before dozens were taken away for questioning, and that armed military bulldozers had destroyed some farmland in the area.

Some think they can obliterate a population and then, as if committing the perfect crime, simply deny they ever existed, thus exonerating their deed. Others prefer using semantics, calling Palestinians "terrorists" and "antisemites" (implying "racist") while Jews are "God's chosen people" and part of Biblical destiny and "holocaust victims" - meaning not simply victims of the Holocaust, but people who, having collectively undergone such a horrible disaster, now are justified in doing anything whatsoever to maintain their security. It's a feeling, but Israel needs more self-confidence, less defensiveness. Hey, they're nuclear armed in a sea of Arab military nothingness!

Finally, the net result of Israel's blockade of Gaza may be to create more extremism and terrorism in the region, since all Palestinians and Arabs can see of Israel is cruelty and oppression and a callous disregard for their humanity. They don't see that Hamas is also culpable in this, that they may be "abusing" their population in some ways.

Palestinian children in Hamas-controlled Gaza are being taught to take an active role in terrorist operations against Israel and are thus placed in mortal danger by those who should be responsible for their safety and well-being. The children, too young to fully understand even the meaning of death, are taught to aspire to "martyrdom" in children's television shows produced by the Hamas.

The blockade is NOT having the desired effect of limiting Hamas' power, but rather increasing their hold on people who see Hamas, like them, as being victimized. It gives Hamas the role of "voice of the people", a role I believe Israel, in its most nationalistic right-wing dream, would prefer it not to have.

Conscience has its perks. People recognize good works and human consideration for others. They really do. And ultimately, what could hurt Israel in the region is disregard for Palestinians and the human wasteland they've made of Gaza. You can blame Hamas. You can call them terrorists. But what the people feel is that Israel wants to destroy them, not Hamas. And only Israel can have a change of conscience. The US will do nothing with theirs, as long as Bushco and AIPAC remain in their positions of unmitigated power.