Tag: Israel

The shape of things to come


Israel is NOT a democratic state, and the people who live there are not interested in democracy.  In the “old days” saying that made one an enemy of America, or at the least, a place to be colonized and brought democracy, but our special relationship with Israel simply doesn’t allow such solutions be applied to the Israeli problem.  What is surely a sign of things to come is this news coming from that troubled country

A community in northern Israel has changed its bylaws to demand that new residents pledge support for “Zionism, Jewish heritage and settlement of the land” in a thinly veiled attempt to block Arab applicants from gaining admission.   Critics are calling the bylaw, adopted by Manof, home to 170 Jewish families in Galilee, a local “loyalty oath” similar to a national scheme recently proposed by the far-Right party of the government minister Avigdor Lieberman.   Other Jewish communities in the central Galilee — falling under the umbrella of a regional council known as Misgav — are preparing similar bylaws in response to a court petition filed by an Arab couple hoping to build a home in Misgav.

Reading the article at the link above is like being taken back into the early 1900s in American history.  The language used to justify such racist actions is steeped in fear and bigotry from a group of people who promised, at least indirectly, never to be apart of such action and or speech again.  How quickly they’ve forgotten and how pathetic their reality has become.  America should not enable such “hate speech” any longer.

Peace is not an option for the occupiers of the West Bank


MIDEAST-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-WEST BANK-SHOOTING-VIDEOFollowing up on the story posted below about the Global Peace index and how low Israel ranks comes this story that underscores that ranking and demonstrates how a country is sometimes its own worse enemy.

Two Israeli officers have testified that troops in the West Bank beat, bound and blindfolded Palestinian civilians as young as 14.

Both the soldiers, from the Harub battalion, highlighted the tight tying of the plastic hand restraints placed on detainees. “There are people who think you need to tighten the restraints all the way, until no drop of blood will pass from here to there,” one soldier said. “It doesn’t take much time until the hands turn blue. There were a lot of people that you know weren’t feeling anything.”

“The soldiers who took [detainees] to the toilet just exploded [over] them with beatings; cursed them with no reason. When they took one Arab to the toilet so that he could urinate, one of them gave him a slap that brought him to the ground. He had been handcuffed from behind with a nylon restraint and blindfolded. He wasn’t insolent, he didn’t do anything to get on anyone’s nerves … [it was] just because he’s an Arab. He was something like 15 years old.” The soldier said he saw a lot of soldiers “just knee [Palestinians] because it’s boring, because you stand there 10 hours, you’re not doing anything, so they beat people up.

There were a lot of reservists that participated, and they totally had a celebration on the Palestinians: curses, humiliation, pulling hair and ears, kicks, slaps. These things were the norm.”

This is systematic violence against people for the most part are under the authority of the Israeli government and it is this type of government sanctioned violence that keeps Israel in much the same company as Sudan, Somali, and Iraq, and it is all done with the knowledge and blessings of the US government.

The Global Peace Index


israeli_flagThe Global Peace Index offers some interesting insight into what is considered a peaceful country and what isn’t.  The top ten peaceful countries are in order, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Sweden, Japan, Canada, Finland, Slovenia.  Denmark and Norway have been the scene of some pretty violent opposition to Muslim immigration to their countries, but evidently the citizens have managed to coexist peacefully with one another.  The Netherlands another country that has seen stiff opposition to immigrants is the 22nd most peaceful country and France is ranked number 30.  America is ranked 83 which surprised me considering we invaded three countries and are the only country at war with other countries, or forces in other countries.  The ten most violent countries in the world are Zimbabwe, Russia, Pakistan, Chad, The Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Israel, Somalia, Afghanistan and finally Iraq, the most violent country of the 144 countries considered.  With the exception of Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan, all of the other worst offenders are fighting their own populations and not foreigners invading their territory. (Guess who that invader is in two of the cases.)  Only one of the 10 worst countries is an ally of America, while the others have cold to almost no relations with the United States and face some sort of condemnation from America as a result of their human rights violations against their own.   Israel meanwhile continues to enjoy copious amounts of US aid,  materiel and support for its apartheid like policies towards its Arab citizens and neighbors.  Noteworthy too is the fact that Israel has been in the bottom 5 consistently for the last three years. It is definitely time for CHANGE.

Main Stream Media At it Again-What the AP left out of Obama’s speech


The AP posted a transcipt of Obama’s speech in Cairo, but this is what they left out:

Threatening Israel with destruction — or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews — is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.  For more than 60 years they’ve endured the pain of dislocation.  Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead.  They endure the daily humiliations — large and small — that come with occupation.  So let there be no doubt:  The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.  And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.  (Applause.)

For decades then, there has been a stalemate:  two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive.  It’s easy to point fingers — for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought about by Israel’s founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond.  But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth:  The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.  (Applause.)

That is in Israel’s interest, Palestine’s interest, America’s interest, and the world’s interest.  And that is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience and dedication that the task requires.  (Applause.)  The obligations — the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the road map are clear.  For peace to come, it is time for them — and all of us — to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence.  Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed.  For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation.  But it was not violence that won full and equal rights.  It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding.  This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia.  It’s a story with a simple truth:  that violence is a dead end.  It is a sign neither of courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus.  That’s not how moral authority is claimed; that’s how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build.  The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have to recognize they have responsibilities.  To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel’s right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s.  The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.  (Applause.)  This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace.  It is time for these settlements to stop.  (Applause.)

And Israel must also live up to its obligation to ensure that Palestinians can live and work and develop their society.  Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel’s security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be a critical part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

And finally, the Arab states must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities.  The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems.  Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state, to recognize Israel’s legitimacy, and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.

America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and we will say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs.  (Applause.)  We cannot impose peace.  But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away.  Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state.  It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.

Too many tears have been shed.  Too much blood has been shed.  All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra — (applause) — as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.  (Applause.)

The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons.

This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran.  For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is in fact a tumultuous history between us.  In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.  Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians.  This history is well known.  Rather than remain trapped in the past, I’ve made it clear to Iran’s leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward.  The question now is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.

I recognize it will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude, and resolve.  There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect.  But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point.  This is not simply about America’s interests.

Hat tip to Kabobfest.

Response to the No Comment video below


dollarsGoing against my No Comment column rules, I have decided to address the raw and racist nature of the remarks in the video below.  Not because of what is said, I believe in the right of people to say whatever they want to say, and if I don’t like their speech, I simply don’t listen, but I’m addressing who is saying it.  Basically it boils down to not biting the hand that feeds you.

Israeli Jews are free to vent and display their true thoughts about the President of the United States, but they should remember we, American citizens are footing their bill and as such don’t take too kindly to outward signs of disrespect for the institutions which are making it possible for them to live in peace and security while sowing the seeds of destruction and murder they do on a daily basis with their neighbors.   If you don’t like the President, tell him to stop giving you, yes that’s right giving you, because we all know you aren’t paying any of it back, the more than 30 billion dollars in US aid you hope to get over the next decade.  While I know that’s not as much as Uncle Bernie probably gave you in his heist of US wealth, it’s still more than a pay check of mine or two which I could use to educate my own children instead of some ungrateful spoiled brat who’s double dipping.  Yes I heard the reference in the video to “our country” and wondered which one you were talking about!

And if you insist on pissing people off like you have us, with your disrespect of the President….then don’t expect us to look the other way when you break the law.  Expect that we’ll be as hard with you on enforcing the law as we are with your enemies.  All those blockades we supported when you cried terrorist this and that will be used against you when you engage in illegal activity in much the same way as your opponents.  It’s only fair because when you don’t give any quarter you shouldn’t expect any, right!!  So, give back all the free military hardware you received with a wink and nod….it’s not yours in the first place, it’s ours and by ours I mean America’s!

To show you how democratic we are, when you try to take away the right of people living in your borders to express themselves without violence, we’re going to call you on it and start boycotting those institutions of yours that support such racist laws as those your foreign minister wants to pass against Palestinians, because that’s not democratic, and we won’t call you our only democratic ally in the Middle East any longer.  Please don’t cry about this being interference in your internal affairs.  The world is a smaller place and made smaller by the billions of dollars of loans that go back and forth across borders, and you for the moment are not a truly independent state.  We’ve invaded countries where people living there have said far less than the petulant lads and lasses in this video, so don’t get snippy with US.  You are here today, but can easily be gone tomorrow!  Remember Saddam Hussein?

Finally, I refer you all to Glen Greenwald’s excellent blog on this subject.  It’s another smack down for those who want their cake and eat it too when it comes to Israel and her indiscretions.

Netanyahu whines


Of course that’s the way it’s portrayed to the West, but we all know, Netanyahu threatened, but the essence of what happened is this:

after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told journalists that the Obama administration “wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a confidante. Referring to Clinton’s call for a settlement freeze, Netanyahu groused, “What the hell do they want from me?”

For starters Ben, how about respecting the territorial integrity of your neighbors and cease and desist from IAF overflights of Lebanese airspace?  In fact, gearing up for another war, Israel has threatened to attack Hizbollah forces, read Lebanese Hizbollah forces, on Lebanese soil if they attempt to defend themselves from such Israeli aggression!  Talk about chutzpah.

Meanwhile, since the US president has stated he would like to see a cessation of settlement activity in the West Bank, he should make it conditional on the uninterrupted flow of US aid in dollars and materiel to Israel.  If they want to keep it, they have to give up settlement expansion. Perhaps Israel thinks the American empire is in decline and cannot make such demands on them, which accounts for their refusal to entertain the idea of halting settlement growth.  The message to Netanyahu is ‘if you want your settlements, you build them with your own dime, or shekel as it were, but not with US tax payer dollars’. The US economy could certainly use the money it gives in aid to Israel to strengthen not only our own economy, but our backbone when it comes to dealing with the recalcitrant Israelis as well.  Are you listening Mr. President?

We are committed to censorship and racism


Well at least that’s what we’re saying when we support the current government of Israel whose foreign minister has said he wants to ban Arab Israelis from marking the anniversary of the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Arab Palestinians in 1948.  How does that go over in a country, the US, which allows Jews to mark and commemorate the Holocaust?

Christian Evangelism and Christian-Jewish Zionism have destroyed the Republican Party


That’s not me talking, although I believe it and more.  Not wanting to stop at just the Republican Party, I believe the two forces in the headline above are on their way to wrecking the country, the Republic of America in ways that could be irreparable.  The above forceful statement was made by a former Republican Frank Schaeffer who came to his realization after years of rubbing elbows with Republicans and their colleagues both the famous and the foot soldiers.  Schaeffer echoes themes that are very prominent in the blogsphere about the nature of today’s America and her alliances.  Several quotes of his are right on the money.

Two religions (in the broadest sense of the term) have destroyed the Republican Party: evangelical Christianity and Christian/Jewish Zionism. Evangelical Christianity created the Religious Right which forever linked the Republican Party to the antiabortion, anti-sex education, anti-evolution and anti-gay crusades. And both Christian and Jewish Zionism linked the Republican Party to what became the neoconservative movement with its roots in such publications as Commentary magazine and their shrill Israel-can-do-no-wrong anti-Arab agenda. (I knew the late editor of Commentary Norman Podhoretz quite well, and we met several times to build alliances between evangelicals and the far American Zionist far right. When it came to Arabs, I believe he was a real racist.)

So what did the Republicans become? They are the party of unnecessary wars both actual and cultural and the party of the rich — those who never serve in the military, just put up flags to “support the troops.” The actual war in Iraq was (as everyone knew with a wink and a nod, but few dared say) really about our commitment to Christian and Jewish Zionism as it was “understood” by the born-again fool Bush. The culture war is also an unnecessary and unmitigated war that pitted the “real America” (in other words white mostly uneducated, lower-middle-class evangelical/Catholic working Americans) against everyone else.

The writer’s conclusion is equally insightful.  I wish other writers would write as clearly and explicitly as Schaeffer.  Because they don’t, I conclude with his words.

The choice for America has always been between inclusive pluralism and exclusion. The kind of religion and Evangelical/Zionist/neoconservative cabal used to take over the interests of the Republican Party is just too small for this big diverse, tolerant and open country of ours. So the Republicans have a choice: become an American political party again serving American interests or continue to serve the narrowly defined religious interests of two angry and fearful Jewish/Evangelical minorities who are themselves bastardized offshoots of their Christian and Jewish traditions.

Another in your face moment, brought to you by the Likudiniks


The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin  Netanyahu visited the US this week amid all sorts of speculation surrounding the US/Israeli “special relationship”.  One thing is certain, despite all the talk of “change” coming to Washington, Israel still runs the show when it comes to US foreign policy, and especially policy regarding the Middle East.  Casting all doubts whether the current Israeli government is for a two state solution, which Obama has said he favors, Netanyahu’s visit came on the eve of the announcement Israel was going to expand settlements in the West Bank which goes to show you a US president can say whatever he wants but it has no basis in reality as far as Israel is concerned.  Take that, Obama!!

No doubt about it! The Fix is in!!!


LiebermanWe are constantly reminded of Pope Benedict’s nefarious past with the Nazis and how that impacts life today as he visits the Middle East.  Why don’t we read in the western press about the past connections of Avigdor Lieberman with Kach, a terrorist organization on the US’ terrorist watch list and the attendant public outrage as he travels the world?  Lieberman isn’t the first Israeli politician cleaned and spruced up after an ugly and bloodthirsty past for public consumption and if you can’t remember who else in recent Israeli history shares such a distinction it is an indication of the power of the Lobby to remove their logs,  murderous politicians,  from  the eyes of the public while magnifying the specks in the public eye of others who oppose them.

Interesting insight into the Israeli national mentality


No matter what they say about nuclear weapons possessed by Iran or hostile Arab neighbors who want to drive the Jews into the sea, it’s the least of Israeli worries, just as  Saddam Hussein’s WMDs were no threat to Israel or anyone else for that matter, because they simply didn’t exist. What is interesting is reading what Israel thinks are their problems and why and the list is far more revealing than any I’ve seen to date.  Here they are in the order mentioned in this article Seven Existential Threats.

1.The Loss of Jerusalem; partly due to the absence of Zionists living in the city.

2.The Arab Demographic Threat; Israel must be 70% Zionist in order to be legitimate and Arabs are having too many children

3. Delegitimization; Israel’s sins are receiving world wide attention which is bad for it’s reputation.

4.Terrorism; we’ve heard it all before.

5. A Nuclear-Armed Iran; we’ve heard this all before too.

6.The Hemorrhaging of Sovereignty; Israel doesn’t exert its control over people under its authority.

7.Corruption;The breakdown of public morality especially among it’s leaders.

The blog, War In Context,  does a decent job dismantling some of the above notions but looking at Oren’s list, the originator of the 7 deadly threats to Israel, it appears his biggest complaint and remedy for it is the absence of Zionism and the need for more Zionism.  Not much mention of Judaism as a religion, but rather Zionism as a political movement.  One other line in his piece that brought about a chuckle was this assertion:

Israel, the Jewish State, is predicated on a decisive and stable Jewish majority of at least 70 percent. Any lower than that and Israel will have to decide between being a Jewish state and a democratic state. If it chooses democracy, then Israel as a Jewish state will cease to exist. If it remains officially Jewish, then the state will face an unprecedented level of international isolation, including sanctions, that might prove fatal.

Is he saying democracy is a threat to and not consistent with Israeli interests?  Ohh, America, are you listening?

Egypt finally has the courage to ‘say the right thing’


Yes, I know they have their own problems, the Egyptians do, with their special brand of democracy and their nose planted firmly in the behind of an American foreign policy which allows for renditions of Muslims from all over the world to their bases to be tortured or disappeared, but it was all in the interest of American interests, right?  But now, they have taken a somewhat independent track by their pronouncement that Israeli nukes are a greater threat to security in the region  than Iranian ones. In my mind that’s not really saying much since at the moment Iran doesn’t have any nuclear weapons whereas Israel does, but it’s the symbolism that counts, and it’s significant for obvious reasons.  A state has taken a critical position against Israel at a time when the Jewish state refuses to accept, acknowledge or even entertain criticism of its actions.  There’s no indication the Egyptian statement will be met with anything other than typical Israeli obfuscation and bluster.Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmo’s flippant ‘unless he produces evidence to support his claims’ statement is an indication of that.  Would that someone said to Palmo the same when he asserts so vividly that Iran has nuclear weapons it has threatened its neighbors with. (Let’s not forget, Iran has inspectors monitoring its nuclear program, Israel doesn’t.  Fancy that.)  And all this comes on the news that Israel had a practice run from its border to Gilbraltar in preparation for a strike against Europe…..err make that Iran.  Coming so soon after warning the European Union that it would not tolerate criticism of the new government, the flight path of Israeli warplanes practicing for a strike against a country 180 degrees in the other direction clearly is meant to send more than a few  signs.  In light of that, Egypt was right to say what it said.  The “evidence” is rather overwhelming; what’s unfortunate is Egypt lacks the moral authority to make that call; it surrendered it as did the US when it gave in to the dark side of US foreign policy and embraced torture as its rule of law.  Unencumbered by such moral indignation, Israel feels free to do whatever it pleases and is taking the world perilously close to another war of death and destruction.  Why we continue to embrace an ally who takes us down that path is anyone’s  guess.

Israel Warns EU to tone down


Warnings usually accompany threats, as in ‘if you don’t stop doing this I’m going to do something in response’, so what is Israel’s warning of consequence?

Israel warned the European Union on Thursday to tone down its criticism of the new Israeli government or risk forfeiting the bloc’s role as broker in Mideast peace efforts.

So my question is what is it Israel can threaten the European Union with? Israeli military threats against Europe have been made before and with rabid Israeli politicians now in power, the implication of Israel’s warning is probably not lost on Europeans.  Also, Israel has never accepted the EU’s role as a peace broker, the latest Gaza offensive, is proof of that when the Israelis bombed, strafed and blocked aid supplies to Palestinians in Gaza which came from Europe.  What is really at stake here is Israeli access to European markets.  The Israelis want to ply their trade of espionage, industrial, political and military and they can’t do that now as easily as they can in the US.  Evidently old habits die hard in the relations between Europeans and Jews.

Israeli Health Minister Yakov Litzman representin’….for Islam!?


Interesting the Minister of Health in Israel wants to identify with Islam and Muslims in some strange way or is that the AP talking?

The outbreak of swine flu should be renamed “Mexican” influenza in deference to Muslim and Jewish sensitivities over pork, said an Israeli health official Monday.

Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman said the reference to pigs is offensive to both religions and “we should call this Mexican flu and not swine flu,” he told a news conference at a hospital in central Israel.

Both Judaism and Islam consider pigs unclean and forbid the eating of pork products.

Israelis Consider American Jews First Jewish Then Israeli


At least that’s what they’ve told Rahm Emmanuel.

National Union chairman Ya’acov “Ketzele” Katz sent a letter to White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel last week admonishing him not to forget his Jewish and Israeli origins.

Katz claims that in a private meeting with the unnamed leader, Emanuel said, “In the next four years, there will be a peace agreement with the Palestinians on the basis of two states for two peoples, and it does not matter to us who is the prime minister.”

In the letter, a Hebrew version of which was provided to The Jerusalem Post by Katz’s parliamentary aide, Katz wrote: “For many Israelis, this report is a cause for worry because it reveals a condescending attitude toward our prime minister and Israeli public opinion. This is an attitude that Israel does not expect from a real friend such as the US, and all the more so from an Israeli Jew who has succeeded in being appointed White House chief-of-staff.”

Katz was hinting that Emanuel should use his influence to protect Israeli interests, which, he believes, are best served by preventing the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

One has to wonder how many other Jewish Americans in government have been given the same message and acted on that message/hint/threat, that Israeli/Jewish interests supersede American interests. Perhaps that explains the current hot water Congresswomen Jane Harman finds herself in as she tried to make deals with a member of the Israeli government to influence American policy in exchange for his help in gaining her an influential position in government, the House Committee on Intelligence no less!  The Harman episode is dramatic because it reveals how the US government was keeping wiretapes on Israeli espionage in this country before 911 which representative Harman got caught up in.  Most likely other Jewish Americans used their influence to shut this aspect of wiretapping, i.e. connections between Israeli officials and the events of 911 out of the public domain and for many that is considered their job!

Jihad- Jewish style


The religion of peace is like an epitaph Islamophobes almost spit out to denigrate Islam while making a commentary on the latest news surrounding Islam and Muslims.  We hear a heckuva whole lot about jihad and Islam but not many people reveal the jihad of other religions and groups of people equally bent on destroying peoples, societies and civilizations.

The Islamic Workplace has a series of articles that outline the jihad undertaken by the Israelis against the Palestinians earlier this year, and if you didn’t know any better you’d think you were listening to what the media says is the refrain most often repeated by Muslims!!

Soldiers interviewed by the Military Institute and Breaking the Silence also allege the army’s chief rabbi used an inflammatory religious and nationalist rhetoric to encourage soldiers to see the Gaza attack as a sacred fight to expel non-Jews from Jewish land.
The rabbi’s office passed out booklets during the war that among other things urged soldiers not to show mercy to the enemy. The army’s chief rabbi, Brigadier General Avichai Ronsky, is from Itamar, a West Banks settlement with a history of right-wing activism. Former soldier Yehuda Shaul says the picture that emerges is of a chief military rabbi promoting the fight in Gaza as a holy war.
“[There is] a biblical ban on surrendering a single millimeter of it [the Land of Israel] to gentiles, though all sorts of impure distortions and foolishness of autonomy, enclaves and other national weaknesses. We will not abandon it to the hands of another nation, not a finger, not a nail of it.”
Such rhetoric is usually applied to Muslims’ justification for fighting infidels in and on the Arabian peninsula and as such is met with stern disapproval from a frightened and galvanized west.  Would that the same call to action against Israeli/Jewish extremism be sounded in the halls of US government and on the pages of prominent American publications.  It’s not difficult to see however why that is not the case!

Take that……….AGAIN!


The new Israeli foreign minister is bitch slapping another US administration, again, and calling the shots for where, when and how Americans should be sacrificed to protect Israeli interests.

The Obama Administration will put forth new peace initiatives only if Israel wants it to, said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in his first comprehensive interview on foreign policy since taking office.

“Believe me, America accepts all our decisions,” Lieberman told the Russian daily Moskovskiy Komosolets.

……Regarding his changing view on Israel’s greatest threats, Lieberman said that since he began warning against the nuclear threat from Iran, nuclear threats have become more prevalent. Meanwhile, a more urgent problem has developed in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“Pakistan is nuclear and unstable, and Afghanistan is faced with a potential Taliban takeover, and the combination form a contiguous area of radicalism ruled in the spirit of Bin Laden,” Lieberman said.

“I do not think that this makes anyone in China, Russia or the U.S. happy … these countries [Pakistan and Afghanistan] are a threat not only to Israel, but to the global order as a whole.”

A true master-slave relationship if there ever was one.

If you work for AIPAC spying is not illegal


Or so that’s what they want the government to think.

To be effective, organizations engaged in advocacy in the field of foreign policy need to have earlier and more detailed information about policy developments inside the government and diplomatic issues with other countries than is normally available to or needed by the wider public. ‘Agencies of the government sometimes choose to provide such additional information about policy and diplomatic issues to these outside interest groups in order to win support for what they are doing among important domestic constituencies and to send messages to select target audiences.

The meaning is clear; members of some p.a.c.s fully expect to be able to steal state secrets and not be held accountable for doing that, because their organizations have a right to this information in order to help the US government set policy!  Talk about chutzpah.

Who will win


Avigdor Lieberman is clearly a terrorist. At one point in his career he was aligned with a party the US government has placed on a list along with all the other terrorist organizations the world over, you know like al-Qaide, HAMAS and others.  So how is it that he has become the foreign minister of a particularly influential US ally?  It doesn’t seem he will voluntarily step down so perhaps now is the time the US boycott Israel?  I don’t think the present American leadership can stand up to an ally hell bent on pursuing criminal intent with criminals at the helm.  Perhaps this bit of news of an investigation that might cut short Lieberman’s career is America’s way of suggesting to Israel they won’t support such an ardent racist as a member of the Israeli government. At least that’s what I hope the news signals.  If Lieberman steps down, then score one for Obama; if he stays, then it’ll be another in a long line of bitch slaps US presidents have received at the hands of the Israelis.  Stay tuned!