ISN’T IT TIME to divest ourselves of Israel, boycott their businesses, and cancel their US military subsidy? At some point we enablers have to leave the racist supremacists to make friends with their would-be neighbors in the Middle East, or they should pack up their carpet bags and come home. How many more Palestinians and Lebanese have to die before we can confirm that the Zionist theology of these white colonial overseers is rabid?
Israel-Palestine can be a democracy like anywhere else. There’s no reason an unpopular, non-Muslim theocracy need be imposed on the Middle East, especially by force and by theft of the land. The Zionist occupiers are Europeans and Americans. Let them stay as expats if they choose, but we could certainly expect them to respect the ways of their hosts. No?
Hey, Eric, did you know it is ILLEGAL under US law to boycott Israel?
How’s the for the antithesis of freedom?
When will you protest Hamas firing rockets into Israel? When will you protest Hamas using civilians as shields, a war crime?
Why?
What option do the Palestinians have? Their land stolen, living under occupiers who treat them as third class citizens, intern them behind walls, imprison many, kill many more through embargo or outright military assault.
An occupied people have the right to resist and have no obligation to accept their occupiers’ “right to exist” on their land.
Beside the Israeli lobby and the US media are bringing up the issue of the rockets. I prefer to point my criticism at the culprits.
Well, Israel disengaged from Gaza in 2005, so there is no “occupation” in Gaza. Except, Israel left the vegetable greenhouses to allow the Palestinians to help feed themselves, and my father contributed nearly $100,000 in private funds to help with the greenhouses, but, the Palestinians burned the greenhouses down. So, let’s be clear, there is no occupation in Gaza. Thomas Friedman, no right-winger, said the other day the Palestinians had a chance to build Singapore and, instead, they chose to build Somalia. Making excuses for bad behavior on the part of Hamas and the Palestinians won’t help matters.
This article details why Gaza is not “occupied” by Israel. Actually, Gaza is occupied by Hamas…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/09/AR2008050902296.html
To say “Gaza is not occupied” is so disingenuous. Gaza is like an American Indian reservation besieged and blockaded by Israel, an internment camp basically, administrated for Israel by Fatah kapos. (Hamas is the democratically elected union they formed to organize a prison break.)
You cannot build a wall around an entire population and expect them to build a “Singapore.” Neither Friedman nor the Washington Post have any credibility on humanitarian subjects. The entire of Palestine is “occupied.” Israel is a foreign-imposed occupation.
The Palestinians need the RIGHT OF RETURN, or fair compensation, and the RIGHT TO VOTE in their own homeland. Until then, of course you face their insurgency. How far do they get, resisting only peaceably, as you drive them to their deaths with your torments?
Isreal “disengaged” from Gaza, but its Israeli settlers still wait at the border’s edge, to follow the next “incursion” and reestablish their illegal settlements.
You still have not addressed the original occupation of Gaza and the West Bank by Egypt and Jordan, respectively, prior to ’67. Nobody else seemed to care, either. And, neither Gaza nor the West Bank “belong” to the Palestinians. Those territories are disputed and were under the control of the Ottomans and, since then, no body has given legal ownership of those territories to the Palestinians..
UN Resolution 242 states that Israel pull out of the West Bank as part of a negotiated peace. Has Hamas negotiated peace? Israel disengaged from Gaza because Israelis want a 2-state solution. Even Sharon has conceded to a 2-state solution. That’s a fact. Israel left Gaza as a test to see how Palestinians would respond. Israel went so far as to have the IDF forcibly uproot the settlers in Gaza. They even unearthed corpses of dead Jews in the cemetaries in Gaza. And, as a gesture of goodwill, Israel left greehouses for Palestinians to grow vegetables—The Palestinians burned the greenhouses down, which was not a good sign. Palestinians had their own land, finally, and it was free of all Jews.
Oh, and by the way, is that not racist that no Jews can live in Gaza? Thomas Friedman, of the New York Times (Not the Wash Post), is an acknowledged expert on the Middle East and he is not an Israeli apologist. So, when he tells the truth about how the Palestinians have missed yet another opportunity to create a good life for themselves, you insult him. Your problem is you only wish to hear your own point of view, even if it’s misguided.
I don’t like the blockade either, but, Israel did the blockade because Hamas has vowed to destroy Israel and Israel has a right to protect itself. The fact is, it is Hamas who is occupying Gaza. Nobody, not even Arabs, believes Hamas has the Palestinians’ best interests at heart. Hamas wants to use Gaza as part of a totalitarian Islamic caliphate.
Finally, the reality is, when Israel had control of the West Bank and Gaza, life for Palestinians was much, much better than when under control of Hamas. Read what Ephraim Karsh wrote about life under Israel “occupation” when Palestininans all had good jobs and the economy was flourishing…
http://emperors-clothes.com/israel/karsh-occ.htm
If you were really fair and honest, in addition to protesting Israel’s blockade, your organization would also protest Hamas stealing millions of dollars from the Palestinians that could have bettered their lives and, instead, diverted those millions to buy rockets to fire into Israel. For God’s sake, man, they wasted all that time digging hundreds of tunnels to Egypt to receive the rockets when they should have been building streets and roads and sewers. All this money and time pissed away and, meanwhile, Israel has more high-tech companies listed on NASDAQ than any other country except for America. Israel uses money to advance themselves and the Palestinians don’t even have toilets. There is enough blame for the dismal plight of the Palestinians to go around, but, you only focus on Israel. If you addressed the other ills, I’d have more respect for your organization.
Dude, you have to give up on right of return. It ain’t gonna happen. The 2-state solution is the universally accepted model. You need to start lliving in the real world or else you’re never going to stop protesting, and protesting is no way to live your whole life.
Israel doesn’t belong in the Middle East? LOL, I believe the Bible disagrees with you. God, too. LOL. I think you need to do more research before you form your opinions.
You need to give more attention to the harm Hamas is doing to the Palestinians. Such as, using Palestinians as human shields in the war, which has been documented. They burrow themselves into residential areas and store rockets in mosques and schools. This is a war crime. Ultimately, Hamas is interfering with peaceful relations with Israel. Hamas is the true oppressor.
What happened, did the blog just get bombarded by a gang of RightWing comedians called Marc, Michelle, and British 18? I especially love that schtick by British 18 about Thomas Friedman supposedly not being a Right Winger, and the nonsense he put in about ‘ $100,000 greenhouses’, Dead Jews in Gaza cemeteries, the UN, and so on! US-Israel murders off hundreds of Palestinian children by bombing civilian areas and this is it, Brit 18? You want us all to talk about Thomas Friedman of the NYT?
You guys really suck, you know? Israel and the US have nuclear weapons and have fucked up Lebanon, Somalia, Gaza, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and are on board to also go on and screw up Syria and Iran, too, and this piffle is the best excuse making you can come up with for why the US-Zionist crew are spilling all this blood of other peoples? These 2 governments might even push Pakistan and India into some sort of nuclear pop and you guys just keep swallowing the sickest propaganda BullShit about it all! What’s wrong with you people? It’s like your brains are all gumped up?
And Marc and Michelle goes on about how Hamas has fucked up Israel’s concentration camp/ Arab ghetto in Gaza, Just pathetic! Plus the usual ‘human shields’ crap borrowed from the Pentagon Prop Dept. Hey, Marc, the US government used civilians as human shields when Al-Qaeda hit the Pentagon, too, using your logic? Good work! Bizzarro-ville! Those damn Pentagon ‘tunnels’!
Michelle, comes up with the clincher! She pulls out her Holy Bible and says here! God is on our side! Sicko, Kid. Who is your mullah?
It’s just really hard to actually deal with people so brainwashed as these people are? They have no education and talking ot them reminds one of all that time previously talking to all those Republican nuts who got livid at Slcik Willie for getting it on with an intern. The level of dialog just disintegrates when brainwashed Zionists get their stuff going, and there’s not much you can do about it other than just weep.
1. Previous legal ownership of Palestine:
That’s the argument we used to justify MANIFEST DESTINY unto the lands of Native Americans. They didn’t “own” the land so we were entitled to take it. And just because occupiers have historically always jostled for Jerusalem, does not mean it shouldn’t really belong to those living there.
2. Palestinians better off under Israeli rule:
That’s how we justify all COLONIAL RULE. Westerners claim to be better administrators than the indigenous people. We do it to exploit them.
3. Hamas stealing millions:
Hamas was democratically elected in a ploy actually hatched by the US to bolster Fatah. ( http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0112/p09s01-coop.html ) Hamas is responsible to administrate and Israel has been denying them the funds.
4. Two-State-Solution:
It’s the “universally accepted model?” Israel has been rendering a viable second state impossible. Is Israel a democracy or not? Make them repeal racism, give the vote to everyone and let the people decide. Christians, Jews, and Muslims coexisted peaceably until the Zionists started mobilizing for a Jews-only homeland.
5. Hamas burrowing with human shields:
Hamas are the Palestinian partisans. They have every right to resist occupation. Rights are not afforded the invaders to massacre them. Occupiers have the responsibility to enforce laws. They can arrest subjects, and put them on trial. If someone fired a rocket in your neighborhood, would you expect the police to call in an airstrike to obliterate all “human shields” in the vicinity?
5. The Bible as Middle East road map?
My goodness, enough said.
Have you even been to “the Zionist entity? lol Whenever someone starts talking about Zionists, I begin to smell an anti-Semite, but, I digress.
Fact is, a large percentage of Israel’s population is comprised of non-Jews. This, while Jews are forbidden to live in most Arab nations, at least without being harrassed. Indeed, Arabs and Muslims sit in Parliament in Israel. Ironically, Arabs enjoy full freedoms in Israel–freedom of speech and protest, freedom of religion, freedom to petition the government–while denied these basic human rights in virtually every Arab dictatorship/country. Why are you not protesting the lack of a judicial system under Hamas?
If someone is merely accused of a crime, they are subject to execution w/out a trial. Ask the dozens of accused Israeli “collaborators” who were killed recently by Hamas about human rights in Gaza, or the West Bank, for that matter.
As for the US occupying the land of the native Indians, why are you living on occupied land then? You ought to move somewhere else.
And as for your response to Hamas using civilians as shields, that response was lame gibberish, with all due respect. Israel is taking far more precautions to save Palestinian lives and here Hamas has no interest in saving lives, indeed, Hamas wants to see Palestinians killed for propaganda purposes. How sick is that?
The reality is Israel has far greater respect for human life than their Arab brethren, who relish death more than life. All this stuff about jihad and martyrdom and suicide bombings is not civilized behavior. It’s psychotic. Golda Meir, you know, that Zionist, said there will only be peace in the ME when Arabs love their children more than they hate Israelis. And, if I were living in total squalor and a group of people came to occupy me with a good job, basic human rights, a nice house and amenities such as those enjoyed by the Israelis, I’d say bring on the occupation, baby! lol
You don’t like Israel. OK, that’s your right. But, Israel is here to stay and so you and your friends in the ME better get used to it. Hamas is not a partner for peace and you seem very amenable to excusing them for every act or war and every war crime, and every roadblock to peace.
Incidentally, I don’t know how close your ties are to the Middle East, however, the Arab countries are quietly supporting Israel in their war with Hamas. You don’t see the same level of outrage this time as in past confligrations.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in particular, are tacitly supporting Israel. Why? When you get past the issues that separate Jew from Arab in the ME, Arabs want peace, especially in their own countries. Arabs are no fans of Hamas and are no fans of their supporters in Iran. They recognize Hamas’s objective for a global Islamofascist caliphate that threatens their own stability. The last thing Arabs want is for Hamas to prevail in the current conflict with Israel.
Indeed, Palestinians, who are sick of being oppressed and suppressed by Hamas, are providing key information to Israeli intelligence about Hamas leaders, which is why Israel is having such success in this war. When the thumb of Hamas is lifted from the Palestinians, Gaza, the ME and the world will be better places in which to live.
I smell a racist white-supremacist. No laugh. ISRAEL IS STOLEN LAND. You sound like a bully to say “better get used to it.”
I’m certainly in favor of making amends to the Native Americans. Likewise, Israel should offer amends, and offer full civil-rights to all their citizens. The land’s original inhabitants should be treated as equals, not as a dark-skinned lesser.
Thank you for enlightening this discussion, and making clear the extent and motive of the disinformation being circulated about this conflict. Your allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia are both repressive dictatorships kept in power by the US. They represent nothing of the interests of their populations.
So, Michelle, have you lived in Israel? Is that where you ‘learned’ that Arabs have ‘full rights’ but are ‘psychotic’, or was it in the US that you learned that? That sounds like the typical American antiArab racist speaking more than anything else, you know?
Your ‘reasoning’ with us poor antiwar fools here on this blog falls just one short step away from the guy who shouted out to us at the library vigil ‘Kill ’em All!’, referring to Hamas, no I meant the Palestinian population in Gaza. Hey, according to you they deserve just that, don’t they?
Isn’t that in fact your real program without any adornments attached when it comes right down to it? It think it is and you’re just mincing words to get to where you really want to go. They deserve to die don’t they in your play book?
“…if I were living in total squalor and a group of people came to occupy me with a good job, basic human rights, a nice house and amenities such as those enjoyed by the Israelis, I’d say bring on the occupation, baby!”
Michelle, I know a few hookers who’d agree with you.
Ha–I’m African American, so, white supremacist I don’t think so lol
As for Israel being stolen land, UN Resolution 181 legally established the state of Israel and nothing was stolen. Israel purchased the land from Arab landowners fair and square. Much of the land was uninhabitable, as Mark Twain pointed out during his visits. All swamps.
Indeed, the Palestinians were offered their own state in ’48, too, but, they chose war against Israel, instead. History repeats itself. Had the Palestinians agreed, maybe they’d have a decent life like the Israelis. What Israel has done with a desert is nothing short of a miracle. Orange groves, the most advanced universities, the most advanced technology companies, unbelievable.
As for repressive dictatorships, nearly every Arab nation is one, esp. Hamas. Israel is virtually the only Democracy in the Middle East, which is one reason the Islamofascists have vowed to destroy it. Anyway, your hypocrisy is pretty self-evident, but, shalom to you.
‘Ha–I’m African American, so, white supremacist I don’t think so lol’
Michelle, I think that the only ‘swamp’ land involved might be your mind. Nobody accused you of being a White Supremacist so where did you dig that stuff up? However, I sincerely have doubts that you are either ‘michelle’ or an African American as you claim to be. I think that you are nothing more than the typical Zionist posting disinformation and nonsense on blogs that don’t love Israel and its death and destruction like you think that they should. Spam of a sort.
If this were the ’40s would we have empathy for Nazi Germany?
“How many more Palestinians and Lebanese have to die before we can confirm that the Zionist theology of these white colonial overseers is rabid?”
Interesting query which doesn’t take into account that more Palestinians died in a few weeks at the hands of the late King Hussein of Jordan, during Black September, than have died in conflicts with Israel spanning over 60 years, or that the Lebanese force their Palestinian population to live in squalid refugee camps, denying them citizenship so they cannot obtain healthcare and employment. Let’s not single out Israel because far, far more Arabs have been killed by and are oppressed by other Arabs.
The Israelis love King Hussein!
“At some point we enablers have to leave the racist supremacists to make friends with their would-be neighbors in the Middle East…”
Yet another ironic and erroneous statement considering nearly 1.5 million Arabs live free in Israel and have the same human rights accorded Israeli Jews. Arab citizens in Israel are even exempted from military service because the Israeli government deems it inhumane to compel an Arab to fight another Arab in military conflict, even if in defense of his own country. Does this sound like the policy of a racist state? In stark contrast, Jews are virtually banned from living in Arab countries. Those few Jews who do live in Arab states are forced to live under Islamic dhimmitude, a system of subjugation in exchange for protection. Jews are routinely mocked in the Arab media as descended from pigs and apes. Jews are accused of using the blood of Arab children in the making of food. And, recently, the PA and Hamas in the “Palestinian territories” passed legislation forbidding any Palestinian from selling land to a Jew, an offense punishable by death. Yes, death. Indeed, Gaza is, too, “Judenrein”, as is the case throughout the Arab world. I could go on. Racism in the Middle East? Most definitely, but, to place the onus on Israel is a detachment from reality and unfair.
‘Arab citizens in Israel are even exempted from military service because the Israeli government deems it inhumane to compel an Arab to fight another Arab in military conflict, even if in defense of his own country. Does this sound like the policy of a racist state?’
Quite a line of bullshit!
“Quite a line of bullshit”
Prove me wrong.