Can Idle No More First Nations assert their sovereignty for real?

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Eric Verlo

Here’s an idea for First Nations rattling their chains with IDLE NO MORE. Declare your sovereignty for real. “Sovereignty” has become a meaningless descriptor, now counting puppet states of Iraq and Afghanistan. How did we expect George W. Bush to explain what sovereignty meant? Even he probably knew what it was supposed to mean, and so do you. Sovereignty doesn’t mean captive reservations, rural ghettos, Gaza Strips or West Banks slowly being ethnically cleansed by attrition. Sovereignty means independent nation states, not dupes of duplicitous treaties. Chief Theresa Spense is right to hold out to meet with the Canadian Prime Minister and a representative of the English crown. First Nations leaders deserve to meet with fellow heads of state, if the treaty lands are truly sovereign.

Help this Settler-Zombie video go viral before totalitarian zombiehood spreads

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Eric Verlo

OMGoodness, finally a settler video to go viral. There’s no bashing of Palestinian heads, no brandishing of guns, no drunken West Bank Settler mob on the rampage, nothing Youtube can censor, it’s pure comic theater! Here is a proverbial fat bully lurching as best he can, goading, coaxing, even screaming primordially, itching to pummel the young Palestinian cameraman who stays nimbly out of reach.

The scenario is spelled out in the Youtube comments, the cameraman is trying to document his friends’ efforts to tend their West Bank land, while Israeli Settlers repeatedly force police confrontations which result in the area being declared “militarized” and thence, theirs. While the cameraman observes, an angry settler who is already trying to allocate the land for his vineyard decides to run him off with brute force.

The ZOMBIE characterization describes Deutch’s particular Lurch-like lack of agility, but the relentless advance is a disturbing body language of Israeli Settler aggression. The hopped-up settlers move upon Palestinians with the confidence that their victims are unarmed and dare not strike back, that the Palestinian can presume that their attackers might have guns, and that sympathetic policemen have the the Israelis’ back. So yes, when it’s an able-bodied young settler advancing at a clip, clapping his fist, looking to draw blood, the effect is less comic.

Obviously, most settler videos are violence porn. Not this one — if you ignore what would have happened had Moshe Deutch got his mitts on him. That footage of course would not have survived.

Be sure to watch the follow-up, where a younger settler arrives at a gallup to reinforce Moshe Deutch’s stalled advance. The cameraman is forced to run, then looks on as the settlers slash all four tires of his car. It’s the high price he pays, but he’s got the West Bank’s Funniest Home Video.

West Bank Settlers intimidating unarmed Palestinian farmers

In the struggle for Middle East land, Palestinian violence will always win

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Eric Verlo

Israel can build all the new settlements it wants, take heart, it only takes one horrific Tate-Labianca-like crime scene to curb the Zionist homecoming charade. Israel can terrorize Gaza to smithereens, the Palestinians have nowhere to flee. American Jews on the other hand, are not going to leave comfortable digs, to relocate to Jerusalem where their 11-month-old might be slashed to death in her crib. Such dastardly strategy comes at a price of course, against a military willing to defy international law and exact collective punishment for the deed of one zealot, but Israel knows that even its US billions in weapons cannot compete with one Palestinian knife that finds its mark.

Odd, isn’t it? On the battlefield, Goliath can slay an entire West Bank of Davids, but when the contest is holding ground, you can take it, but if you can’t convince your people to settle it, the land will revert to its rightful inhabitants.

I’ll leave you to decide if the murder of an Israeli settler family is off-limits. They’re moved unto properties appropriated from Palestinians, illegal settlement of occupied land, they’re ferried by armored SUVs in military convoys, their rooftops, front gates, walls and streets are guarded by soldiers, their neighborhoods buffered by “sterile zones” purged of all inhabitants, the persistence of their habitation is used to advertise for more settlers and demoralize the non-Jewish native population in waiting of cleansing. Are settlers “innocent civilians,” irrespective old or young age? Who is to blame for putting settler children into homes whose previous inhabitants have been put out on the street, who can only assail their walls with stones?

Remember too, it’s the Israeli settlers, more than the IDF soldiers, who routinely raid Palestinian homes, orchards and farms, killing their neighbors with impunity. Where does any settler get to pretend they should be considered an innocent civilian?

Arab Palestine is confronted with a slow death by attrition. Israel has never disguised its plan to ethnically purge the entire of what it calls Judea and Sumaria. What does it matter then, if resistance violence begets occupier retaliation, if this brazen home-invasion-family-murder provokes an avenging of deaths ten fold? The Russian Partisans paid fifty to one. The Gaza massacre was 300 to one. The Gilad Shalit prisoner ratio is tens of thousands to one, still well shy of US military disproportional force.

Peace activists want to curb armed resistance in favor of nonviolence, calculating that peace will come when Palestinian martyrdom awakens the Israeli conscience, or whichever comes first, Palestinian blood runs dry. This suits Israel of course, its Apartheid State needs the Palestinians gone, for Jews cannot forever pretend they have a Democray while subjugating an inferior untouchable class. So long as one Palestinian remains who fights back, Israel will never conquer Palestine.

Israel can plan all the settlement construction sites it wants, the more beautiful the better, in the end the people of Palestine can claim them in partial compensation.

Flotilla massacre then Old Testament: Israel exacts girl’s eye for its black eye

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Palestinian solidarity volunteer Emily Henochowicz was protesting Israel’s brutal raid on the Gaza relief convoy, to be more precise, she was acting as Western observer to protect the Palestinian right to protest, and she lost her eye when she was hit by an IDF teargas canister. You might have hoped Israel forces would temper their tactics after having shocked world opinion with the Mavi Marmara massacre, but no. Only the day after, IDF policemen aimed high velocity teargas rounds directly at the faces of the solidarity activists. Emily lost her eye and requires metal plates to reconstruct her face.

Does Israel’s STAND WITH US stand against humanitarian aid to Gaza?

Posted on May 27, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Hey! Let’s seize this opportunity to get around the usual US media blackout on sympathy-for- Palestine activism. American members of Stand With Us, the Israeli outreach group on American college campuses, do YOU stand against the relief convoy defying Israel’s naval blockade to bring humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinians of Gaza? StandWithUs is forming an IDF-booster fleet to protest the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as it seeks passage between the Israeli navy ships.

Stand With Us accuses the convoy organizers of trying to make Israel look bad. By holding Gaza under siege, who exactly is pretending not to look bad? If Israel’s navy indeed raids the convoy ships and arrests all on board, Israel’s image will be degraded further.

Now add yahoos in the water, egging on their soldiers, or more probably, protesting that they’re not beating the activists severely enough. Won’t that mirror the settler behavior in the West Bank, where they torment the Palestinians under the protection of the IDF? And when prevented by the soldiers, the settlers take their anger out on the Palestinians again.

It appears Israel’s Stand With Us club intends to make all their members look bad.

Why would anyone block humanitarian relief? If indeed the peace activists are trying to give Israel a black eye, let them pass.

What can you do? Contact a local chapter of Stand With Us and as them if they are lobbying for solidarity with such an activity as their counter-flotilla.

Here’s an excerpt from the Jerusalem Post in which StandWithUs leaders deny there’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Enjoy:

“What the other anti-Israel flotilla is doing is ignoring human rights abuses and focusing on a fake situation,” Michael Dickson, StandWithUs Israel Director, told The Jerusalem Post Thursday.

Dickson believes the European flotilla cares more about hurting Israel than helping the Palestinians in Gaza.

Lior Meyer, a StandWithUs Project Manager planning the counter flotilla, hopes their demonstration will show that Gaza is under Hamas siege, rather than Israeli occupation.

“I hope they’re not expecting anything. When someone’s surprised by the truth it’s only a good thing,” Meyer said, claiming that few people know the nature of Hamas’s control.

Dickson said that the European activists’ aid could have reached Gaza in one day instead of one week if they weren’t interested in making a publicity statement.

“I think that the key thing is that this is not some fare minded mission coming in that cares for peace. Their flotilla is driven by hate rather than peace. They don’t really care about the victims who live under Hamas in Gaza and the south of Israel,”

West Bank purge of settlement goods: boycotting your own pantry hurts who?

Posted on May 25, 2010 by Eric Verlo

The Palestinian Authority’s issuing stickers to West Bank houses who’ve destroyed their goods from Israeli settlements reminds me of wingnut hate-mite Michelle Malkin in 2007 instructing her viewers to scour their homes for products to “boycott.” The technique brims with spirit, but misses the point of bringing economic pressure to bear. Foregoing what you’ve already paid for is to boycott what’s yours. How convenient for Fatah to put the burden on Palestinians themselves, meanwhile endorsing no interruption of trade with Israel. IE’s Ali Abunimah suggests Mahmoud Abbas aims to undermine the BDS campaign. Israel is certainly pleased to publicize the settlement businesses placed in jeopardy, as well as divert international energy from the spreading BDS movement.

John Pilger: Gaza flotilla is one of most important direct actions of our lifetime

Posted on May 15, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Still waiting for aerial photos of MV Rachel Corrie leaving Ireland for the Mediterranean. Feel like you’re missing out? This quote from Journalist-superstar John Pilger won’t help: “The Freedom Flotilla is one of the most important direct actions of my lifetime. With its desperately-needed supplies and range of people from all over the world, representing sheer human decency, it sends a message of disgust to Gaza’s oppressor and, above all, reaches out unreservedly to the people of Gaza.” –John Pilger, 8 May 2010

Besides releasing the photo above, the latest update from the Rachel Corrie came at GMT 14:23 today, reported by @FreeGazaOrg:

Leaving the coast of Ireland on her way around the bottom of England. All is well, weather is excellent

The Israeli press is beating the war drum against the convoy’s arrival, lampooning the would-be Gaza rescuers as International Peace Schlamazels.

On the seas, the Ma’an News Agency echos reports of preparations Israel is undertaking to battle the relief convoy:

“About half of the Israeli naval forces will participate in an operation that was approved by the cabinet. [Israeli] Defense Minister Ehud Barak will supervise the operation,” an Israeli official told the Arabic-language satellite TV station Al-Hurra.

An Israeli security source told Ma’an that authorities will prevent the arrival of the boats “at any price.”

This lead Freedom Flotilla followers on Twitter to strategize that if the Free Gaza blockage runners could double their numbers, the Israeli navy would be forced to deploy ITS FULL FORCE to maintain the siege. A marginal increase in the convoy size would thus prove a bigger flotilla than Israel could repel!

Meanwhile Israeli border patrol gunships continue to strafe Palestinian fishing boats.

UPDATE: Noam Chomsky, just denied entry into the West Bank, sends best wishes to the Freedom Flotilla:

“I have been deeply impressed with the courageous and honorable efforts to break through the savage and criminal siege of Gaza, utterly lacking in credible pretext, designed to crush any hope of meaningful Palestinian independence. My best wishes for your success in this critically important undertaking, which I hope will also help to awaken the consciousness of the world.” — Noam Chomsky, 10 May 2010

Simon Wiesenthal Center makes best case against Israel colonial legitimacy

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Give Israel credit for answering their critics head on, but that is the Zionist hubris. Simon Wiesenthal is propagating the latest Hasbara crib sheet to counter the ten most threatening lies about Israel. We couldn’t have summarized the arguments better ourselves. One man’s “lies” are his victim’s desperate appeals to confound systemic myopic denial. Here it is in their own nutshell:

Israel was created by European guilt over the Nazi Holocaust. Why should Palestinians pay the price? … Had Israel withdrawn to its June 1967 borders, peace would have come long ago. … Israel is the main stumbling block to achieving a two-state solution. … Nuclear Israel, not Iran, is the greatest threat to peace and stability. … Israel is an apartheid state deserving of international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns. … Plans to build 1,600 more homes in East Jerusalem prove Israel is “Judaizing” the Holy City. … Israeli policies endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. … Israeli policies are the cause of worldwide anti-Semitism. … Israel, not Hamas, is responsible for the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. … Goldstone was right when he charged that Israel was guilty of war crimes against civilians. … The only hope for peace is a single, binational state eliminating the Jewish State of Israel.

Even dissembled, the case weighs hard against Zionist mendacity.

OK, a tad capricious
To Wiesenthal’s credit, the arguments are loaded with a laudable reserve of disingenuity:

5,500 MORE HOMES have been zoned for East Jerusalem, not 1,600, (and yes, Jerusalem’s mayor has set quotas, a Jewish to non-Jewish target ratio to counter a higher Arab birthrate).

Israeli policies are the cause of [PROLIFERATION] of worldwide anti-Semitism,

The Gaza “humanitarian catastrophe” soft-pedals the critics’ real accusation: MASSACRE. Imagine referring to the Holocaust as befalling its victims with the ambivalence of a tsunami.

JUDGE Goldstone isn’t the only accuser who’s documented the criminality the world witnessed WITH ITS OWN EYES.

Apartheid legitimizers blink
Further demonstrating the disintegrating global support for a Jewish haven-state, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has all but dropped its cover as Holocaust-remembrance-sledgehammer to directly shore up the supposed public grant of legitimacy to Zionist colonialism.

Trying to turn the argument on Israel’s “de-ligitimizers” couldn’t be more out of touch.

While the US fights in expanding but downward spirals against the entropy of Pax Americana, Western public support for empire-building erodes for even the pretext of “globalization.” White Man’s Burden has smartened to Carbon Debt, missionary zeal evolved to indigenous and environmental protectionism. Religious crusades haven’t held water for centuries, but what an Auld Testament to Zionism’s xenophobic tenacity to posit the Jewish People as “chosen” to revive God-manifested destiny.

What part of “Apartheid is for Neanderthals” do Palestine’s neo- Afrikaners fail to understand? Even an 18th Century South African settler categorization gives the mid-twentieth century European transplants in Zion too much credit for pretended genealogical roots in the Middle East.

Only State Solution
Not very well concealed in Wiesenthal’s framing of the “Top Ten Lies” is a specious conceit formed by straw arguments three and ten, which presume the desirability of a “two-state solution” and/or a misguided hope for an inevitable “binational state.” Only in Wiesenthal’s rebuttal is there utterance of Israel’s true taboo –unmentionable because it will be self-fulfilling. The single state solution is dismissed with cavalier aplomb as “a non-starter.”

They desperately wish. On what basis do Zionists imbue themselves authority to trump international consensus? Hopefully it is not their nuclear arsenal. No other religious ideology, armed with nukes or without, asserts any permutation of divine refugee-status provenance to an autonomous “homeland.” Not even Tibet.

I expect sooner than the Zionists like –but then the self-defeatist arrogance may bely my presumption– the Simon Wiesenthal Center will be scrambling to bolster rationalizations against the only peaceful solution already on everyone’s mind and taxing our humanitarian patience: the single-state multi-theist modern egalitarian democracy.

Hasbara desperation
We reprint a near-complete representation of the SWC brochure below for our readers, if also to facilitate the identification of pro-Israel internet trolls by the tracts they are presently copy-and-pasting all over blog discussions. Who would have suspected that the resurgent wave of Zionist troll tripe was so transparently linked to official AIPAC and Wiesenthal Center press releases. We give the IDF Hasbara budget too much credit.

A recent IDF-merc commenter goaded us to “envy Israeli intellectual superiority.” I will admit it, I am in awe. Eagerly too. I know where it got Icarus.

Israel goes Titanic. Gotta love a good spectacle.

Appendix
Here then, courtesy of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the 2010 Top Ten Anti-Israel Lies, enjoy!

2010 TOP TEN
ANTI-ISRAEL LIES

Israel is under assault!
Here’s what you need to know.
Act now…

Lie No. 1: Israel was created by European guilt over the Nazi Holocaust. Why should Palestinians pay the price?

Three thousand years before the Holocaust, before there was a Roman Empire, Israel’s kings and prophets walked the streets of Jerusalem. The whole world knows that Isaiah did not speak his prophesies from Portugal, nor Jeremiah his lamentations from France. Revered by its people, Jerusalem is mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures 600 times, but not once in the Koran. Throughout the 2,000-year exile of the Jews, there was a continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land.

Lie No. 2: Had Israel withdrawn to its June 1967 borders, peace would have come long ago.

Since 1967, Israel repeatedly has conceded “land for peace.” Following Egyptian President Sadat’s historic 1977 visit to Jerusalem, Israel withdrew from the vast Sinai Peninsula and has been at peace with Egypt ever since. But the Palestinian Authority has never fulfilled its promise to end propaganda attacks nor drop the Palestinian National Charter’s call for Israel’s destruction. In 2000, Prime Minister Barak offered Yasser Arafat full sovereignty more than 97 percent of the West Bank, a corridor to Gaza, and a capital in the Arab section of Jerusalem. Arafat said no.

Lie No. 3: Israel is the main stumbling block to achieving a two-state solution.

The Palestinians themselves are the only stumbling block to achieving a two-state solution. With whom should Israel negotiate? With President Abbas, who for four years has been barred by Hamas from visiting 1.5 million constituents in Gaza? With his Palestinian Authority, which continues to glorify terrorists and preaches hate in its educational system and the media? With Hamas, whose Iranian-backed leaders deny the Holocaust and use fanatical Jihadist rhetoric to call for Israel’s destruction?

Lie No. 4: Nuclear Israel, not Iran, is the greatest threat to peace and stability.

The United States and Europe can afford to wait to see what the Iranian regime does with its nuclear ambitions, but Israel cannot. Israel is on the front lines and remembers every day the price the Jewish people paid for not taking Hitler at his word. Israel is not prepared to sacrifice another 6 million Jews on the altar of the world’s indifference.

Lie No. 5: Israel is an apartheid state deserving of international boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns.

In fact, Israel is a democratic state. Its 20 percent Arab minority enjoys all the political, economic and religious rights and freedoms of citizenship, including electing members of their choice to the Knesset (Parliament).

Lie No. 6: Plans to build 1,600 more homes in East Jerusalem prove Israel is “Judaizing” the Holy City.

Ramat Shlomo was not about Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem but about a long established, heavily populated Jewish neighborhood in northern Jerusalem, where 250,000 Jews live (about the size of Newark, N.J.) — an area that will never be relinquished by Israel.

Lie No. 7: Israeli policies endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

A resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would benefit everyone, including the United States. But an imposed return to what Abba Eban called “1967 Auschwitz borders” would endanger Israel’s survival and ultimately be disastrous for American interests and credibility in the world.

Lie No. 8: Israeli policies are the cause of worldwide anti-Semitism.

From the Inquisition to the pogroms, to the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis, history proves that Jew hatred existed on a global scale before the creation of the State of Israel. It would still exist in 2010 even if Israel had never been created. For example, one poll indicates that 40 percent of Europeans blame the recent global economic crisis on “Jews having too much economic power” — a canard that has nothing to do with Israel.

Lie No. 9: Israel, not Hamas, is responsible for the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. Goldstone was right when he charged that Israel was guilty of war crimes against civilians.

The United Nations Human Rights Council is obsessed with false anti-Israel resolutions. It refuses to address grievous human rights abuses in Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and beyond. Faced with similar attacks, every U.N. member-state, including the United States and Canada, surely would have acted more aggressively than the Israel Defense Forces did in Gaza.

Lie No. 10: The only hope for peace is a single, binational state eliminating the Jewish State of Israel.

The one-state solution is a non-starter because it would eliminate the Jewish homeland. However, the current pressures on Israel are equally dangerous. In effect, the world is demanding that Israel, the size of New Jersey, shrink further by accepting a three-state solution: a P.A. state on the West Bank and a Hamas terrorist one in Gaza. All this as Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, stockpiles 50,000 rockets, threatening northern and central Israel’s main population centers. Current polls show that while most Israelis favor a two-state solution, most Palestinians continue to oppose it.

The Cairo Declaration

Posted on January 2, 2010 by Eric Verlo

Ambitions for a greater Gaza Freedom March have been set aside for another decade, but the hopeful delegates thwarted in Cairo issued the following declaration:

End Israeli Apartheid?
Cairo Declaration
?January 1, 2010

We, international delegates meeting in Cairo during the Gaza Freedom March 2009 in collective response to an initiative from the South African delegation, state:

In view of:

* Israel’s ongoing collective punishment of Palestinians through the illegal occupation and siege of Gaza;?

* the illegal occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the continued construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall and settlements;?

* the new Wall under construction by Egypt and the US which will tighten even further the siege of Gaza;?

* the contempt for Palestinian democracy shown by Israel, the US, Canada, the EU and others after the Palestinian elections of 2006;?

* the war crimes committed by Israel during the invasion of Gaza one year ago;?

* the continuing discrimination and repression faced by Palestinians within Israel;?

* and the continuing exile of millions of Palestinian refugees;?

* all of which oppressive acts are based ultimately on the Zionist ideology which underpins Israel;?

* in the knowledge that our own governments have given Israel direct economic, financial, military and diplomatic support and allowed it to behave with impunity;?

* and mindful of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (2007)

We reaffirm our commitment to:

Palestinian Self-Determination?Ending the Occupation?Equal Rights for All within historic Palestine?The full Right of Return for Palestinian refugees.

We therefore reaffirm our commitment to the United Palestinian call of July 2005 for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to compel Israel to comply with international law.

To that end, we call for and wish to help initiate a global mass, democratic anti-apartheid movement to work in full consultation with Palestinian civil society to implement the Palestinian call for BDS.

Mindful of the many strong similarities between apartheid Israel and the former apartheid regime in South Africa, we propose:

1) An international speaking tour in the first 6 months of 2010 by Palestinian and South African trade unionists and civil society activists, to be joined by trade unionists and activists committed to this programme within the countries toured, to take mass education on BDS directly to the trade union membership and wider public internationally;

2) Participation in the Israeli Apartheid Week in March 2010;

3) A systematic unified approach to the boycott of Israeli products, involving consumers, workers and their unions in the retail, warehousing, and transportation sectors;

4) Developing the Academic, Cultural and Sports boycott;

5) Campaigns to encourage divestment of trade union and other pension funds from companies directly implicated in the Occupation and/or the Israeli military industries;

6) Legal actions targeting the external recruitment of soldiers to serve in the Israeli military, and the prosecution of Israeli government war criminals; coordination of Citizen’s Arrest Bureaux to identify, campaign and seek to prosecute Israeli war criminals; support for the Goldstone Report and the implementation of its recommendations;

7) Campaigns against charitable status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

We appeal to organisations and individuals committed to this declaration to sign it and work with us to make it a reality.

Signed by:

(* Affiliation for identification purposes only.)

1. Hedy Epstein, Holocaust Survivor/ Women in Black*, USA?
2. Nomthandazo Sikiti, Nehawu, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), Affiliate International Officer*, South Africa?
3. Zico Tamela, Satawu, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) Affiliate International Officer*, South Africa?
4. Hlokoza Motau, Numsa, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) Affiliate International Officer*, South Africa?
5. George Mahlangu, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) Campaigns Coordinator*, South Africa?
6. Crystal Dicks, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) Education Secretary*, South Africa?
7. Savera Kalideen, SA Palestinian Solidarity Committee*, South Africa?
8. Suzanne Hotz, SA Palestinian Solidarity Group*, South Africa?
9. Shehnaaz Wadee, SA Palestinian Solidarity Alliance*, South Africa?
10. Haroon Wadee, SA Palestinian Solidarity Alliance*, South Africa?
11. Sayeed Dhansey, South Africa?
12. Faiza Desai, SA Palestinian Solidarity Alliance*, South Africa?
13. Ali Abunimah, Electronic Intifada*, USA?
14. Hilary Minch, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Committee*, Ireland?
15. Anthony Loewenstein, Australia?
16. Sam Perlo-Freeman, United Kingdom?
17. Julie Moentk, Pax Christi*, USA?
18. Ulf Fogelström, Sweden?
19. Ann Polivka, Chico Peace and Justice Center*, USA?
20. Mark Johnson, Fellowship of Reconciliation*, USA?
21. Elfi Padovan, Munich Peace Committee*/Die Linke*, Germany?
22. Elizabeth Barger, Peace Roots Alliance*/Plenty I*, USA?
23. Sarah Roche-Mahdi, CodePink*, USA?
24. Svetlana Gesheva-Anar, Bulgaria?
25. Cristina Ruiz Cortina, Al Quds-Malaga*, Spain?
26. Rachel Wyon, Boston Gaza Freedom March*, USA?
27. Mary Hughes-Thompson, Women in Black*, USA?
28. David Letwin, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN)*, USA?
29. Jean Athey, Peace Action Montgomery*, USA?
30. Gael Murphy, Gaza Freedom March*/CodePink*, USA?
31. Thomas McAfee, Journalist/PC*, USA?
32. Jean Louis Faure, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN)*, France?
33. Timothy A King, Christians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East*, USA?
34. Gail Chalbi, Palestine/Israel Justice Project of the Minnesota United Methodist Church*, USA?
35. Ouahib Chalbi, Palestine/Israel Justice Project of the Minnesota United Methodist Church*, USA?
36. Greg Dropkin, Liverpool Friends of Palestine*, England?
37. Felice Gelman, Wespac Peace and Justice New York*/Gaza Freedom March*, USA?
38. Ron Witton, Australian Academic Union*, Australia?
39. Hayley Wallace, Palestine Solidarity Committee*, USA?
40. Norma Turner, Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign*, England?
41. Paula Abrams-Hourani, Women in Black (Vienna)*/ Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East*, Austria?
42. Mateo Bernal, Industrial Workers of the World*, USA?
43. Mary Mattieu, Collectif Urgence Palestine*, Switzerland?
44. Agneta Zuppinger, Collectif Urgence Palestine*, Switzerland?
45. Ashley Annis, People for Peace*, Canada?
46. Peige Desgarlois, People for Peace*, Canada?
47. Hannah Carter, Canadian Friends of Sabeel*, Canada?
48. Laura Ashfield, Canadian Friends of Sabeel*, Canada?
49. Iman Ghazal, People for Peace*, Canada?
50. Filsam Farah, People for Peace*, Canada?
51. Awa Allin, People for Peace*, Canada?
52. Cleopatra McGovern, USA?
53. Miranda Collet, Spain?
54. Alison Phillips, Scotland?
55. Nicholas Abramson, Middle East Crisis Response Network*/Jews Say No*, USA?
56. Tarak Kauff, Middle East Crisis Response Network*/Veterans for Peace*, USA?
57. Jesse Meisler-Abramson, USA?
58. Hope Mariposa, USA?
59. Ivesa Lübben. Bremer Netzwerk fur Gerechten Frieden in Nahost*, Germany?
60. Sheila Finan, Mid-Hudson Council MERC*, USA?
61. Joanne Lingle, Christians for Peace and Justice in the Middle East (CPJME)*, USA?
62. Barbara Lubin, Middle East Children’s Alliance*, USA?
63. Josie Shields-Stromsness, Middle East Children’s Alliance*, USA?
64. Anna Keuchen, Germany?
65. Judith Mahoney Pasternak, WRL* and Indypendent*, USA?
66. Ellen Davidson, New York City Indymedia*, WRL*, Indypendent*, USA?
67. Ina Kelleher, USA?
68. Lee Gargagliano, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (Chicago)*, USA?
69. Brad Taylor, OUT-FM*, USA?
70. Helga Mankovitz, SPHR (Queen’s University)*, Canada?
71. Mick Napier, Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign*, Scotland?
72. Agnes Kueng, Paso Basel*, Switzerland?
73. Anne Paxton, Voices of Palestine*, USA?
74. Leila El Abtah, The Netherlands?
75. Richard, Van der Wouden, The Netherlands?
76. Rafiq A. Firis, P.K.R.*/Isra*, The Netherlands?
77. Sandra Tamari, USA?
78. Alice Azzouzi, Way to Jerusalem*, USA?
79. J’Ann Schoonmaker Allen, USA?
80. Ruth F. Hooke, Episcopalian Peace Fellowship*, USA?
81. Jean E. Lee, Holy Land Awareness Action Task Group of United Church of Canada*, Canada?
82. Delphine de Boutray, Association Thèâtre Cine*, France?
83. Sylvia Schwarz, USA?
84. Alexandra Safi, Germany?
85. Abdullah Anar, Green Party – Turkey*, Turkey?
86. Ted Auerbach, USA?
87. Martha Hennessy, Catholic Worker*, USA?
88. Father Louis Vitale, Interfaile Pace e Bene*, USA?
89. Leila Zand, Fellowship of Reconciliation*, USA?
90. Emma Grigore, CodePink*, USA?
91. Sammer Abdelela, New York Community of Muslim Progressives*, USA?
92. Sharat G. Lin, San Jose Peace and Justice Center*, USA?
93. Katherine E. Sheetz, Free Gaza*, USA?
94. Steve Greaves, Free Gaza*, USA?
95. Trevor Baumgartner, Free Gaza*, USA?
96. Hanan Tabbara, USA?
97. Marina Barakatt, CodePink*, USA?
98. Keren Bariyov, USA?
99. Ursula Sagmeister, Women in Black – Vienna*, Austria?
100. Ann Cunningham, Australia?
101. Bill Perry, Delaware Valley Veterans for Peace*, USA?
102. Terry Perry, Delaware Valley Veterans for Peace*, USA?
103. Athena Viscusi, USA?
104. Marco Viscusi, USA?
105. Paki Wieland, Northampton Committee*, USA?
106. Manijeh Saba, New York / New Jersey, USA?
107. Ellen Graves, USA?
108. Zoë Lawlor, Ireland – Palestine Solidarity Campaign*, Ireland?
109. Miguel García Grassot, Al Quds – Málaga*, Spain?
110. Ana Mamora Romero, ASPA-Asociacion Andaluza Solidaridad y Paz*, Spain?
111. Ehab Lotayef, CJPP Canada*, Canada?
112. David Heap, London Anti-War*, Canada?
113. Adie Mormech, Free Gaza* / Action Palestine*, England?
114. Aimee Shalan, UK?
115. Liliane Cordova, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN)*, Spain?
116. Priscilla Lynch, USA?
117. Jenna Bitar, USA?
118. Deborah Mardon, USA?
119. Becky Thompson, USA?
120. Diane Hereford, USA?
121. David Heap, People for Peace London*, Canada?
122. Donah Abdulla, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights*, Canada?
123. Wendy Goldsmith, People for Peace London*, Canada?
124. Abdu Mihirig, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights-UBC*, Canada?
125. Saldibastami, Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights-UBC*, Canada?
126. Abdenahmane Bouaffad, CMF*, France?
127. Feroze Mithiborwala, Awami Bharat*, India?
128. John Dear, Pax Christi*, USA?
129. Ziyaad Lunat, Portugal?
130. Michael Letwin, New York City Labor Against the War (NYCLAW)?
131. Labor For Palestine

Israel reveals Gaza is Palestine Gulag

Posted on December 23, 2009 by Eric Verlo

In so many words. Israel is negotiating for the release of POW Gilad Shalit. Of the 1,000 Palestinian POWs to be exchanged, Israel is demanding that 100 or so be denied return to the West Bank, and instead be exiled or remanded to the Gaza Strip.

Israel sends deputy consul general to CC

Posted on November 12, 2009 by Eric Verlo

The Israel Today event changed the speakers on us, instead of the Israeli Consul General to Los Angeles, it’s the Deputy Consul Gil Artzyeli. But the act’s still on. Get to Gaylord hall sometime before noon, it’s the conference room at the Southeast corner of the Worner Center building. We’ll stand outside with our repudiation of Mr. Artzyeli’s message, then go inside to assure the discussion steers toward being honest. I found this quote by Artzyeli, addressing the Denver Jewish community earlier this year about the Gaza incursion:

“This is not a war for territory … The first war is to protect the citizens of Israel, the second war is against Iran and the third war is against lies and disinformation.”

Any takers? My first question, if I’m given the chance: Mr. Artzyeli, are you here only to speak, or will you listen?

Cyndy Kulp put together a handout for the occasion:

Human Rights Issues in “Israel Today”

Israel is a pariah nation condemned by the UN and much of the international community for its multiple violations of international human rights law, including:

• Continuing the occupation of the Palestinian people

• Building housing settlements on confiscated land

• Seizing additional land and property from Palestinians to build “The Wall”, highways for the exclusive use of Israelis, and military areas, etc.

• Using extremely disproportionate and indiscriminate force in the invasion of the Gaza Strip during “Operation Cast Lead” in Dec. 2008

• Inflicting heavy casualties on Palestinians, many civilians and children with no way to escape the bombing

• Refusing to compensate the 5.8 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants who were displaced from their homes and properties during 1948

Israeli Diplomats, like our speaker today, should not be given a public platform from which to promote their views as long as they refuse to recognize and cooperate with international laws.

HERE ARE FURTHER DETAILS:

? In June 1967, the Israeli military invaded the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. These areas of historic Palestine under military control are the “Occupied Territories,” comprising some 3.5 million Palestinians, and they are systematically being incorporated into the state of Israel in violation of international law.

? Life under occupation is very harsh. The Palestinians have virtually no human or civil rights. Unemployment is rampant. In order to go about their daily lives, the people in the Occupied Territories must line up and go through multiple checkpoints manned by the Israeli army. Proper paperwork, including Palestinian ID’s, and permits are required to pass through, and many people are denied entry, even into East Jerusalem which is Palestinian territory and home to many hospitals, schools, and employers.

? Israel has built 200+ settlements in the West Bank, and over 400,000 Israelis have moved onto Palestinian land. Many of the settlers are armed and aggressive extremists, and their actions are regularly protected by Israeli Defense Forces.

? Israel has seized a majority of the West Bank land as military bases, settlements, security areas, “land reserves,” by-pass roads linking settlements with Israel, and other areas forbidden to Palestinians. Palestinians are confined to small fragmented areas resembling Bantustans in an Israeli version of Apartheid.

?? Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem is questioned by the international community, and contrary to what the Israelis would like you to believe, Jerusalem does not belong to Israel. This is why other nations have their embassies in Tel Aviv instead.

? East Jerusalem was declared as an occupied territory in UN Security Council Resolution 242 which specifically emphasized the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Yet Israel continues to seize homes and land and allow Israeli settlers to move into East Jerusalem.

? Over 10,000 Palestinian homes have been destroyed, leaving 30,000 people homeless. Housing demolitions and displacement are common for Palestinian families, and they are powerless to protect their properties or get legal permission to build homes.

? The Gaza strip remains under siege today. Despite the withdrawal of Israeli settlers in 2005, Israel still controls entry into Gaza. People cannot leave and cannot get the goods and services they need. They are literally locked into a ghetto.

? In Dec. 2008, Israel invaded the Gaza strip, causing massive destruction and Palestinian causalities. The vast majority of the Palestinians killed in Israel’s operation were innocent civilians rather than combatants, according to a new report by B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization. Of the 1,387 deaths, 773 were non combatants. 320 of these were under the age of 18, and 109 were women.

? Nine Israelis were killed during the Gaza war — four by rocket fire on southern Israel, including three civilians and one soldier, while the other five were soldiers killed in combat, primarily from “friendly fire” incidents.

? The Goldstone Report which investigated the Gaza Invasion for the UN concluded that both Israel and the Palestinians had committed violations of International Law, but that Israel because of it’s huge army and sophisticated weaponry was more culpable and guilty of Crimes Against Humanity in it’s 2008/09 Gaza onslaught.

? U.S. aid has made Israel’s army one of the most powerful military forces in the world. Israel is using U.S. F-16 fighters and Apache helicopters in attacks against Palestinian civilians. This violates the U.S. Foreign Arms Export Act. Over $3 billion in US foreign aid is given to Israel, and most of it is used for military operations.

There Will Be No Security For ISRAEL Until There Is Justice For PALESTINE.

Resources For more information:
• Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
• B’tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
• Bethlehem University
• Mazin Qumsiyeh
• Machsom Watch
• Breaking the Silence
• Women in Black
• Sabeel

• Stop the Wall Campaign

• US Campaign to End the Occupation

–END THE OCCUPATION
–COMPLY WITH INTERNATIONAL LAWS
–FREEZE SETTLEMENTS
–NEGOTIATE AN EQUITABLE SOLUTION ON LAND AND WATER

The US claims to be an “honest broker” –fair to both sides– in the so-called peace process. At the same time, the U.S. proclaimed itself the unswerving ally of Israel. These roles are contradictory. Massive U.S. aid funds the occupation. Since 1949, the U.S. has given Israel well over $100 billion in grants, loans and other assistance. This amounts to over $15,000 per Israeli citizen. ?
A genuine peace with a minimum of justice requires an independent and viable Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 (West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem). Jerusalem should be shared as the capital of both Israel and Palestine. Palestine should be an equal neighbor alongside Israel with peace and security for both peoples. ?

Who says there is no good news?

Posted on September 15, 2009 by Eric Verlo

1. Celebrity activists have joined to condemn the Toronto Film Festival’s celebration of the movie industry of Tel Aviv, inappropriate while an Israeli regime ruthlessly exterminates its Palestinian Problem by seizing their lands, driving them into exile, and interning those who refuse to leave in the ghettos of Gaza and the West Bank, then making warm fuzzy movies about it.
2. Iraqi Bush Shoe-Thrower Muntadhar al-Zaidi has been freed! He says he was tortured for his act, but he didn’t regret it. “I got my chance and I didn’t miss it,” he said, now missing a few teeth. The US media is equating Joe Wilson’s affront to earnest debate to al-Zaidi’s internationally-hailed angry repudiation of a lying mass-murderer. Good luck with that.
3. Activists have been arrested for protesting war recruiting in a Philadelphia mall where children were being offered an “Army Experience Center”. Alright, arrests are not good news, in particular when they include the OpEdNews reporter covering the action, but it’s always encouraging to see Americans stand between Army recruiters and their prey.

Note on #1: Signers of the complaint to the TIFF, who include Naomi Klein and Howard Zinn, explain that they are protesting the festival’s framing of the Israeli films, they are not “black listing” the films as the defenders of Israel charge. To me, equating a protest of the festival to blacklisting smacks of decrying “anti-Semitism.”

The chief celebrities rushing to counter the TIFF complainants are, according to the Toronto Star: Jerry Seinfeld, Natalie Portman, Sacha Baron Cohen , Lisa Kudrow, David Cronenberg, Minnie Driver, Simon Wiesenthal Center founder and filmmaker Marvin Hier, Cineplex Canada CEO Ellis Jacob, Norman Jewison, Lenny Kravitz, Sherry Lansing (former head of Paramount Studios), producer Robert Lantos, the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Interesting pattern?

In the interim, a UN probe determines war crimes were committed in Gaza incursion, and US envoy seeks to reach compromise with Israel over illegal settlements.

IDF targets al-Jazeera on West Bank

Posted on September 12, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Did you catch it on Democracy Now? Al-Jazeera reporter Jackie Rowland, broadcasting live from the West Bank covering the weekly Palestinian protests of the Israeli Apartheid Wall at Bil’in, was interrupted by the IDF. The protesters were accustomed to being shelled with tear gas, but this time the Israeli soldiers targeted the reporter.

While she was on the air, the IDF soldiers repeatedly fired gas canisters, until she could no longer speak, and a cameraman had to come to her rescue with a spare gas mask.

Here’s the original footage:

Zionism’s unholy alliance

Posted on May 17, 2009 by Marie Walden

Christian plus Zionists equals unholy alliance Tonight is Colorado Springs’ first annual A Night to Honor Israel, an event put on by the local chapter of Christians United for Israel. On the face of it — at least on the flyer for it — the gathering appears to be an outreach of the Christian community to our Biblical compatriots in their “hour of need”, whatever that means. Ostensibly a lovely gesture, but below the surface it’s murkier.

Does anyone remember Jerry Falwell? In 1979, Falwell founded the political lobby known as the Moral Majority on the following four principles:

1. opposition to abortion
2. support of the traditional family
3. strong American military
4. unconditional support for Israel

Abortion, family, even military I understand. But unconditional support for Israel? Why would right-wing Christians be unabashedly pro-Israel? Jerry Falwell saw Israel’s fate as a crucial international issue for Christians because of the role it plays in Biblical eschatological schemes.

To Christian Zionists, the land of Israel is covenant land — land that belongs not to Jews or Arabs but to God himself. It is on God’s land that the Second Coming of Christ will occur. It is on God’s land where the Chosen, the Jewish people, will perish by the millions in the battle of Armageddon, excepting those few Jews who accept Christ’s final offer of salvation. To Christians, Israel is a key player in the Biblical apocalypse and little more. Christian Zionism is, at its core, supremely self-centered and anti-semitic.

Not surprisingly, Christian Zionists are a major obstacle to a just peace between Palestine and Israel, pressuring both the U.S. and secular Israeli governments to refuse to cede a single inch of the Promised Land, indeed to take the entire West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and all of Jerusalem — a message that American Jews are more than happy to embrace.

Since 9/11 a growing contingent of the Christian Right has been aligned with Israel in another important respect. Both see militant Islam as the greatest threat to Judeo-Christian culture, a common enemy that must be defeated. Pastor John Hagee, who founded Christians United for Israel with the active assistance of none other than Jerry Falwell, has called for Israel to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran, not to ensure the safety of the Jewish homeland, but to hasten Christ’s return to earth and the certain annihilation of the Jewish people. I guess it is acceptable to be anti-semitic as long as you’re pro-Israel.

Although called to be peacemakers, Christian Zionists are happy to warmonger in the Middle East and will keep continued pressure on the U.S. government to support Israel’s right to exist and be safe in the midst of the Islamic world — at least until the Second Coming provides the Final Solution.

Jewish State Israel’s slow construction of more war and more Apartheid

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Tony Logan

settler savagery
On March 2, 2009, the Israeli advocacy group Peace Now issued a report saying that the Israeli housing ministry plans to build 73,000 housing units in the West Bank. Peace Now said 15,000 of these units had already been approved, with another 58,000 awaiting approval. This article continues at The Settler Question- What Israeli Peace Process?

They talk two state solution even as they dismantle Arab neighborhoods. They talk Peace, even as they insure that there will be more war. Always they build racism instead of coexistence. That simply is Israel at work today, as it slowly builds toward more future conflict in the Middle East. The Jewish State doesn’t want Peace, since it simply wants still more Palestinian land.

Obama wants to attack us still, says Iranian general

Posted on March 10, 2009 by Tony Logan

Iranian general “We cannot claim that the (U.S.) Democrats are not warmongering like the Republicans. They are just as warmongering and mischievous, and they would like to do that (attack Iran),” Iran’s top military commander, Major-General Hassan Firouzabadi said.

And the US under Barack Obama continues to carry out the Pentagon fund raiser ‘Global War on Terrorism’, too. That means more killer drones murdering Pakistani civilians, more US occupation terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq, and more backing Israeli terrorism against the Palestinians of Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. It means that war with Syria and Iran might be started on a second’s notice by the US. It mean’s also that Barack Obama will try to hide away clandestine US military use of torture and that the concentration terror camps of the Pentagon will not be fully stopped. It means that the US government will continue to secretly take away the rights of its own citizens.

Obama wants to attack us still, says Iranian general? You bet he does! And I would not be over confident that the US under Barack Obama will not be any less reckless in using the military to bankrupt the economy than Dubya and Dick were. The military-inudstrial complex comes first for the Democratic Party, same as with the Republicans.

See Reuters… Iran says U.S. still “warmongering”

Strip Gaza bare to put down a prison riot

Posted on January 17, 2009 by Eric Verlo

ISRAEL IS READY TO DECLARE A CESSATION OF ITS MOP UP OF GAZA? Israel moved its troops into Gaza under the pretext that Palestinians imprisoned there had rioted. As if tanks can stop the rocket fire with brute force. What society has eradicated crime by threatening collective punishment of its subjects? As jailer of Gaza and the West Bank, Israel intends to strip the Palestinians of everything: food, shelter, dignity, even their children, but then Israel will have to throw away the key.

The world won’t stand idly by, but America, Israel’s lone supporter, and financier, is being kept in the dark by a corporate media which doesn’t want to interrupt the lucrative military contracts which depend upon unrest in the Middle East.

While Israel bombs hospitals and UN shelters, and blocks every effort to bring aid to the besieged civilians, Israeli pundits divert attention to envoys purportedly trying to discuss a ceasefire. Bombing the UN headquarters, full of food supplies, not to mention 700 refugees, with no less than the chemical weapon white phosphorous, and the leading news headline on US networks, including BBC World, is a casualty-free plane crash and, by the way, Israeli envoys waving a white flag while its soldiers continue to attack even the journalists who are trying to document their heavy handed repression?!

Peace or Rest In Peace.

Why else have Israeli soldiers been targeting hospitals, food supplies and aid providers? Why won’t Israel permit aid agencies to bring relief to the Gazans? Does Israel accuse the U.N. of smuggling rockets?

The Qassam rockets fired by Hamas were in response to Israel failing to lift its 18 month blockade of the Gaza borders, in default of their previous ceasefire agreement.

Here’s what the prisoners of Attica were rioting about:

“We are not beasts, and we do not intend to be beaten or driven as such…. What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed.”

Israeli fury seals a Single State Solution

Posted on January 7, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Israel’s relentless and unrepentant program to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza, will yield but a single outcome. And it would certainly please the Palestinians, if they live to see it. First, if Palestine is deprived of viability as an independent state, Israel is left with only a single state solution. Second, with Israel convinced that its security from rocket fire depends on every last Arab neighbor being interned or interred, there is no other choice but cloistered Apartheid. Will the international community long tolerate a feudal theocracy constantly inflaming the resentment of its indigenous laborers?

I was being facetious to suggest that Palestinians will not live to see Israel vanquished.

Much as Israel might try, the Palestinians won’t be killed off like North America’s original natives. Neither Gaza nor the West Bank will succumb to genocide, alcoholism or uranium poisoning, nor vanish like an eclipsed civilization. They can be driven off, and dispersed among the neighbors, but the Palestinian diaspora will hang interminable with a much fresher claim to the lands of their fathers than ever had the Zionists.

But on the ground, the captive Palestinians will never reconstitute even a client state, so long as Israel pens them in like Soweto. Lands allotted to Palestinians will be work camps, and prison camps, with every un-free man’s right to rebel against the yoke of occupation. Israel will dodge rockets until the last slave is shackled.

And I guess the world will sit by and let them do that. However blatant they want to be about it.

Knowing that after Lebanon and Gaza, Israel has disciplinary actions aimed at Syria and Iran, what are the prospects for cohabitation in the Middle East? Does Israel expect that its “right to exist” grants it a swath of no-man’s zone, extended beyond the borders of all its neighbors? Israel’s wrathful attack on Gaza, as retaliation for Hamas’ motley rockets, the disproportionality of the air strikes, and the IDF’s disregard for innocent civilian casualties, betrays Israel’s racist ambivalence about the fate of non-Jews. Without a humanitarian regard for others, how can Israel expect to be asked to the adult’s table?

So Israel has sealed its own fate. Obliterate the Palestinians or drive them off, ostracize the neighbors until you are all alone. Israel will be a solitary state, inhabited by the white elite, separated by a state religion forbidden to their darker working castes. The untouchables will live behind apartheid walls until delivered by an Arab Mandela. Then international pressure, hopefully too a domestic conscience, will bring Democracy, and then, as current opponents of a single-state-solution fear, a popular vote will eradicate the oppression of religious rule.

Say goodbye to Israel, the Jewish State. It will “be wiped off the map” of the Middle East, and left for Jews and Palestinians to inhabit with equality. So long as particular Palestinians do not survive who have claims to properties appropriated by the Zionists, or so long as some compensation is offered to buy off the Palestinian’s right of return, the rich Jewish enclaves will coexist with the have-nots, like the gated communities of any other third world nation.

Or Israelis could choose the single state solution right now.

Targeting the reporters

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Tony Logan

The police in the US are targeting reporters. At the Democratic Party Convention they went after the ABC reporter, and now in Minnesota at the Republican Party Convention, they have gone after the news team from Democracy Now. It is getting just plain dangerous for any citizen to hold a camera in their hand these days, especially while exercising your Right to Free Speech and filming the police as they go about their daily duty of terrorizing people.

In Iraq, the Pentagon went after al jazeera’s reporters, as they had done previously in Yugoslavia when they bombed the Yugoslav television station during that war. In the West Bank, Israel targets those who do the reporting there about the Jewish abuse of Palestinians. Israeli army targets family over brutality film

Isn’t it always the same with dictatorships? In Mexico, they do the same, also, as in Colombia and all the other US Empire’s stooge states. Is there any real difference between the US government and the Chinese government in how political dissidence is targeted by the police for elimination? Especially when there is a camera in hand alongside a pen.

Racist Jewish Israel keeps killing kids

Posted on July 31, 2008 by Tony Logan

Israeli terrorism It is a sad state for the world Jewish community to now be about the leading group of racists in the world these days.

Quite simply, Jewish Israel refuses to give equal rights to its Arab population, continues an occupation of Arab Lands with the goal of annexing them, puts Arabs in the occupied territories into ghettos, and runs continual racist pogroms targeting for murder and injury the Arabs under Jewish domination. See Haaretz.com for the latest.. Palestinians: IDF troops wound 9 at boy’s funeral in West Bank They had already murdered the 11 year old boy, but that was not enough for the racist troops of Israel.

What is this Zionism then? The word is RACISM. Racist terrorism like that practiced by Israel and the US breeds a countering terrorism. The Japanese and Germans learned that the hard way in WW2 when the US and its allies responded to racist fascist terrorism by in turn terrorizing German and Japanese civilians.

American government’s love affair with bunkers and walls

Posted on July 14, 2008 by Tony Logan

Birds eye view of our Navy
Check this out! An actual building in San Diego accidentally built by the Pentagon that looks like the Nazi swastika! The Navy is now spending over $600,000 to change the appearance of their building!

Everywhere one looks, American government is building bunkers and walls! All though out Baghdad, the Pentagon is building bunkers and walls. In the West Bank, Israel and the Pentagon together are building bunkers and walls. On our southern border with Mexico, YES you guessed it, America is building bunkers and walls.

Do we think for one split second that the rest of the world hasn’t noticed that America is about bunkers and walls these days? All the sugary sweet talk in the world is not going to hide that fact away from the world. When one drives by an American embassy anywhere in the world one sees bunkers and walls. When one drives down the road in much of America, one sees bunkers and walls (prisons). Oh Sweet Land of Liberty…. Hardly!

Yes, America is now an imprisoning nation, land of bunkers and walls. Do you live in a gated community? Probably not, since you would not be likely to be reading this commentary if you were into that sick mindset. But many, if not in fact the majority of us, live behind bunkers and walls.

Bunkers and walls need regulations, lots of them. They need tickets, passports, and papers to go with this order. They need guns, barbed wire, and tasers. They need dope, lots of it, because bunkers and walls are shall we say it? … they are depressing. Bunkers and walls need uniforms, officials, and lawyers, though not to enforce the law but to break it.

Once it was parking lots, shopping malls, and interstate freeways. Today, it is more bunkers and walls. United We Stand. Divided We Fall. We are falling with bunkers and walls. Bunkers and walls is what brought elites, other than our own, down before, simply because most people hate bunkers and walls.

American government has a love affair with bunkers and walls.

A vaccine for PTSD.

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Brother Jonah

There is a natural (perhaps “unnatural”) Immunity Factor to counter Post Traumatic Stress Disorder…

It’s called “sociopathy” and its evil twin “narcissism”.

I know, some people will only accept the opinion of Army scientists on what causes or prevents the disease, so I’ll use a paraphrase of their definitions.

It started to be a really really noticeable problem at the time of our Civil War and the Crimean War(s)…

A time when large standing armies of conscripts were suddenly the norm rather than an aberration.

A time of weapons technologies wherein somebody you could not see or hear, somebody perhaps miles away, could kill you, or your comrades, large numbers of you at a time.

But the truly extraordinary stress, wasn’t from the sudden spurts of violence, not directly, at least.

It was the vastly longer times Between barrages, between battles…

The disruption of you natural Circadian rhythms, sleep patterns and waking patterns, the “attack at dawn” because Dawn is the point at which all living creatures, from the lowest proto-bacterium to the Great Apes, and Humans, are at their lowest level of energy.

So you had to be awake, and aware, by dawn. Guards have to be maintained at all hours… thus intermittent episodes of sleep deprivation. And that not on a regular basis.

The randomness of that is also a factor.

Then there’s the acts of pure murder. You can train yourself to ignore your conscience, or be trained en masse to ignore your collective conscience… to supress the certain knowledge that you are doing something totally against your basic humanity…

But the Basic Training itself, aka Indoctrination, aka Pavlovian Conditioning, aka Brainwashing, is designed not to strenghten your resolve, or your ability to think logically… but to break those barriers, those mental and spiritual bits of armor provided by God, that keep most people from committing outrageous crimes.

You can, if your indoctrination is constantly reinforced, maintain that level of denial… but only for as long as your indoctrination is reinforced.

Once you are separated from your army, or from your cult, or whatever group is brainwashing you, the denial becomes harder and harder to maintain.

False “patriotism”, or devotion to whatever OTHER similar lower-case “g” god you’ve been trained to worship, and a simple fear of admitting, mostly to yourself or your comrades, that you have done wrong, is a very powerful reason to keep it sublimated, to bottle it and suppress it.

Alcohol and other drugs are one really commonly used method.

Perhaps it’s the reason members of the military are actually Encouraged to drink. Somebody who’s a total drunkard might be punished or looked down upon, but so are tee-totallers.

People who abstain from social drinking are actually looked upon as having antisocial tendencies, or at least, not being as suggestible, “not a team player”.

So, what would be a good, non-destructive vaccine, a good prevention for PTSD?

not maintaining a Standing Army for one.

It might sound kind of idealistic, like what would then prevent some foreign power from invading and enslaving America…

Well, for one thing, we haven’t been invaded since 1814. And then it was one of the Superpowers of its time, Great Britain. And they couldn’t maintain their other, bigger wars and still attempt to occupy even those small patches of American ground that they DID gain.

Too much drain on their manpower, materiel and other resources, especially money.

Much like our Federal Government spending DEFICIT after 7 years of Bush is now 5 times (approximately) the Government Budget for the entire 4 years of the “tax and spend liberal” Carter Administration. Add in, (or subtract) an equal amount which was the Projected SURPLUS for 2007, made in 2001 when Bush took office.

That might sound like phantom accounting, unless you realize that the “Liberation” was projected to actually make a profit.

Just not for, you know, the average American or the average “Liberated” Iraqi.

And this is from the economy that the Capitalist Masters say is “The Strongest on earth”.

Israel, one of our proxy states, could not maintain an occupation in Lebanon even with massive American money aid. They can’t maintain an occupation of the West Bank, populated with the poorest Arab nation there is, where their most advanced military technology is a reworked Russian rocket-propelled grenade… without massive American financing.

If we had simply left “goddam insane” alone in 1991, the other Arab nations, and the simple economics, would have ended the invasion.

We’re a rich nation, how would the poorest nations maintain it? Historically, they’ve done it the way Hussein maintained his battle with Iran… with massive amounts of money.

Donated money.

So it’s do-able. People who point out that it’s never worked before fail to recall the other side of that equation, it’s never been tried before.

The same people who say we need to pour (literally) countless trillions of dollars into occupying the Arabian Peninsula for the rest of our national existence, were the same ones who cut the funding for every actual Peace initiative whenever a snag was hit in the progress thereof.

That’s the REAL “surrender mentality”.

The notion that peace would be very difficult to achieve, therefore we shouldn’t even try, and just surrender to Endless War and the Dictatorship necessary to maintain it.

And the economic degradation. And the inescapable fact that our children or grandchildren or hell, maybe even our very own generation, would be occupied by a foreign power when the Empire falls.

And then there’s the medical costs, not least the cost of PTSD.

Even if somebody doesn’t have full-blown psychoses as a result of PTSD, it degrades the physical health, medical problems like Diabetes, Heart, lung, kidney diseases, even arthritis, become more common. The human immune system is suppressed by PTSD.

That’s the most common symptom of it, actually, according to the Army. The most expensive.

We have one candidate for president, has said that he WILL cut “social spending”, like public health, VETERANS health care, etc etc etc.. to fund his Masters (Satans) Endless War.

We need to innocculate the entire American public against PTSD, with the knowledge that war is NOT a “necessary evil”. With the knowledge of WHY it can be ended and HOW it can be ended.

It beats living Hell out of the alternative ~~possibilities~~ probabilities.

Farfour Mouse vs Mickey

Posted on June 30, 2007 by Tony Logan

It’s hard to believe how lost in LaLaLa Land are America’s proZionist conservatives. One big issue for some of them is the supposed ‘hostage taking’ of Mickey Mouse by Gaza Strip’s Farfour Mouse. I’m not making this stuff up either! See Farfour for yourself.

These lunatics of the American Right don’t get riled up about what Israel and the US have done to the million plus people of the Gaza Strip, way over 50% of them children. It matters not the least to them that Gaza has the lowest standard fo living in the world, and that most of the inhabitants living in this total misery are children. No. Instead they are worried about this mouse, Farfour! They’re worried that he’s a terrorist rat teaching the kids to hate! Can you imagine how lost in nonsense these nuts actually are? They’re our neighbors, too. Scary.

Here is another clip with some CNN commentary of Farfour in action, but go read the American posters’ comments and see who is really sick in the head. And nobody seems too concerned about Farfoura. But then again she’s not a mouse, is she? She’s more the butterfly… The Daffy Zionist Ducks can handle that. But don’t pick on Walt’s pre-WW2 made fascist rodent, or they get all upset.

And nobody seems to care about Walt Disney himself. He wa a rather loathsome character.
——————————————…………….
Below is the real situation in Gaza, where per capita GDP is now around $500-$600 per year and falling.
…………………………………………………………………

on the 40th anniversary of occupation my statement in the UN
SPECIAL MEETING TO MARK 40 YEARS OF OCCUPATION
BY ISRAEL OF THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORY,
INCLUDING EAST JERUSALEM

UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK
7 June 2007
STATEMENT BY

DR. MONA EL FARRA
PROJECTS DIRECTOR
MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN’S ALLIANCE

Red Crescent Society For Gaza Strip
GAZA

?Your Excellency Mr. Paul Badji, Chairman of the Committee,
Distinguished guests and Excellencies,

It is my honour to be amongst you today, despite the gravity of the occasion being commemorated, on this 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

First, let me say that 2007 is the 40th anniversary of 59 years of the brutal occupation of the Palestinian people.

As we called for an end to apartheid in South Africa and the right of all people to live together and have equal rights, we must now, before it is too late, call for true justice for the Palestinians.

Today, we heard about the economic plight of the Palestinian people. We heard about Palestinians in Israeli prisons which number close to 8,000 men and women, including approximately 350 children under the age of 14, most of whom have been tortured.

How many UN resolutions must be passed by the UN? How many years of calling for 2 States before there is an understanding that Israel continues its aggression on the ground against women, children and men, the demolition of thousands of homes and the continued building of the apartheid wall?

Let us not just speak of the Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza. We must never forget those who live as second-class citizens inside Israel and most of all, those who were forced from their homes and lands in 1948.

Now is the time to call for a real peace, with justice for all the children in the region. This can only be accomplished by supporting the right of return of all Palestinians.

Now is the time to acknowledge that the two-State solution is not the answer.

From Gaza I came, where the children of my country have no safe homes, no safe streets, no proper and adequate health facilities, no proper food, clean water, or regular electrical power, no recreational activities and no good education. The list of deprivation of their basic needs is too long to count.

I lived this occupation as a child, and am still living it as an adult. I can see it in the eyes of my daughter when she is afraid, tired, restless and exhausted because of the unsafe and unpredictable quality of life in Gaza under occupation. I saw it as soon as we crossed the borders on our way to Egypt, where she sensed something new and different: freedom, safety and space. Gaza is like a big, unsafe prison. And it is a very small place for 1.4 million people, half of whom are children.

I face the occupation every day during my work when hundreds of Palestinian patients are denied permits and accessibility to proper medical treatment, outside Gaza. There are a few lucky patients who get a referral and permit for treatment outside Gaza. The majority, however, have to wait and wait. Many die while waiting.

What is more heart-breaking than children who do not have adequate food and a healthy atmosphere to grow up to be well rounded adults? According to the Health Work Committees Organization, 42 per cent of children in Gaza under the age of 5 suffer from iron deficiency anemia and 45 per cent suffer from some form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, due to the experiences that they are subjected to as a result of the non-stop military actions of the Israeli Occupation Forces, which almost always affect civilians in one way or another.

I will never forget the story of a woman in labor, who had to wait several hours at a checkpoint last November, during one of many Israeli military operations in the north of Gaza. Eventually she arrived at the Al Awda hospital in Jabalia refugee camp where she gave birth to her baby. When she left the hospital with the baby to go to home in the village of Beit Hanoun, there was no home; her home had been demolished by the Israeli occupying army. There are many cases and many stories, but I believe it is not the numbers that really matter, even one incident such as the above is one enough human rights violation.

I remember a 4-year old child in the same village who was forced to stay in one room with all members of his family for 48 hours while the Israeli Army commandeered their home. The child was thirsty and the soldier was there with his bottle of water, the occupied and the occupier in the same space. The soldier offered water to the thirsty child. The child said “no, no, no”. The child’s natural reaction was a combination of fear of what the soldier represents and the steadfastness in the face of the occupation. This is what characterizes the Palestinian people: steadfastness and resistance in the face of all adversity; even small children can express it with their natural reactions more than any words or speeches. The soldier on the other hand is a human being that has been forced by the Israeli occupation machine to lose his humanity.

Whenever I think of Palestinian children and their lives under occupation, I always think of the Israeli children. As adults, we have a commitment to both sets of children to provide a safe environment for them to live peacefully. It is not the occupation or the wall or the ongoing aggression against my people that will bring safety or security for Israeli children, only peace that is based on justice will do so. Justice means that the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people must be considered. Israel must recognize its moral responsibility towards the Palestinian refugees.

While Israel is physically outside Gaza, it still completely controls our lives, all aspects of our lives: health, education, economy and freedom of movement.

Life under occupation is degrading to human dignity. It has deprived us of our freedom, and only free people can make peace. It is most peculiar that we are forced to deal with the patterns of life under occupation as normal, well-established facts and when people lost hope and faith in the world or any future chances for change, and when the world turns its head away.

On the 40th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, it is fitting to call once again on the international community to put pressure on Israel to fulfil its obligations by abiding by the UN resolutions related to Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israeli occupation should be ended now and the right of return must not be forgotten.

Thank you.

The Warsaw Ghetto was a two-state solution and so is Gaza

Posted on June 28, 2007 by Tony Logan

For many years the world got hood winked into thinking that a two-state solution was supposedly the viable option in the Middle East. The thinking went that this was the only thing that the Jewish population of Israel would agree to in order to make peace.

Unfortunately, as the situation in the West Bank and Gaza shows, the only two-state solution that the US and Israel ever have had in mind for the Palestinians was one modeled on the two-state solution of the Warsaw ghetto of WW2. That being the case, many are now reconsidering the whole issue and have returned to advocating a one-state solution where Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews might be given equality inside one country, not dominated by one ethnic group or religion. That would be a secular state like we live under in the US.

See The One State Solution in al jazeera

Israel obstinate

Posted on April 23, 2007 by Eric Verlo

More nations gave formal recognition to the PLO, a terrorist group, than to Israel. Thus more people thought the Palestinian Liberation Organization had a “right to exist” than did Israel, a chunk of Arab land appropriated to make a Jewish State. To date Israel has rejected 70 UN resolutions against its actions. I think it bears repeating them, lest typifying Israel’s behavior as illegal, be dismissed as a rant.

# 1. General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947): the 1947 Partition plan of Palestine and the creation of Israel.
# 2. General Assembly Resolution 194 (1947): Palestinian Refugees have the right to return to their homes in Israel.
# 3. Resolution 106 (1955): condemns Israel for Gaza raid.
# 4. Resolution 111 (1956): condemns Israel for raid on Syria that killed fifty-six people.
# 5. Resolution 127 (1958): recommends Israel suspend its no-man’s zone’ in Jerusalem.
# 6. Resolution 162 (1961): urges Israel to comply with UN decisions.
# 7. Resolution 171 (1962): determines flagrant violations by Israel in its attack on Syria.
# 8. Resolution 228 (1966): censures Israel for its attack on Samu in the West Bank, then under Jordanian control.
# 9. Resolution 237 (1967): urges Israel to allow return of new 1967 Palestinian refugees.
# 10. Resolution 242 (1967): Israel’s occupation of Palestine is Illegal.
# 11. Resolution 248 (1968): condemns Israel for its massive attack on Karameh in Jordan.
# 12. Resolution 250 (1968): calls on Israel to refrain from holding military parade in Jerusalem.
# 13. Resolution 251 (1968): deeply deplores Israeli military parade in Jerusalem in defiance of Resolution 250.
# 14. Resolution 252 (1968): declares invalid Israel’s acts to unify Jerusalem as Jewish capital.
# 15. Resolution 256 (1968): condemns Israeli raids on Jordan as flagrant violation.
# 16. Resolution 259 (1968): deplores Israel’s refusal to accept UN mission to probe occupation.
# 17. Resolution 262 (1968): condemns Israel for attack on Beirut airport.
# 18. Resolution 265 (1969): condemns Israel for air attacks for Salt in Jordan.
# 19. Resolution 267 (1969): censures Israel for administrative acts to change the status of Jerusalem.
# 20. Resolution 270 (1969): condemns Israel for air attacks on villages in southern Lebanon.
# 21. Resolution 271 (1969): condemns Israel’s failure to obey UN resolutions on Jerusalem.
# 22. Resolution 279 (1970): demands withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon.
# 23. Resolution 280 (1970): condemns Israeli’s attacks against Lebanon.
# 24. Resolution 285 (1970): demands immediate Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
# 25. Resolution 298 (1971): deplores Israel’s changing of the status of Jerusalem.
# 26. Resolution 313 (1972): demands that Israel stop attacks against Lebanon.
# 27. Resolution 316 (1972): condemns Israel for repeated attacks on Lebanon.
# 28. Resolution 317 (1972): deplores Israel’s refusal to release.
# 29. Resolution 332 (1973): condemns Israel’s repeated attacks against Lebanon.
# 30. Resolution 337 (1973): condemns Israel for violating Lebanon’s sovereignty.
# 31. Resolution 347 (1974): condemns Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
# 32. General Assembly Resolution 3236 (1974): affirms the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine to self-determination without external interference and to national independence and sovereignty.
# 33. Resolution 425 (1978): calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon.
# 34. Resolution 427 (1978): calls on Israel to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon.
# 35. Resolution 444 (1979): deplores Israel’s lack of cooperation with UN peacekeeping forces.
# 36. Resolution 446 (1979): determines that Israeli settlements are a serious obstruction to peace and calls on Israel to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
# 37. Resolution 450 (1979): calls on Israel to stop attacking Lebanon.
# 38. Resolution 452 (1979): calls on Israel to cease building settlements in occupied territories.
# 39. Resolution 465 (1980): deplores Israel’s settlements and asks all member states not to assist its settlements program.
# 40. Resolution 467 (1980): strongly deplores Israel’s military intervention in Lebanon.
# 41. Resolution 468 (1980): calls on Israel to rescind illegal expulsions of two Palestinian mayors and a judge and to facilitate their return.
# 42. Resolution 469 (1980): strongly deplores Israel’s failure to observe the council’s order not to deport Palestinians.
# 43. Resolution 471 (1980): expresses deep concern at Israel’s failure to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
# 44. Resolution 476 (1980): reiterates that Israel’s claim to Jerusalem are null and void.
# 45. Resolution 478 (1980): censures (Israel) in the strongest terms for its claim to Jerusalem in its Basic Law.
# 46. Resolution 484 (1980): declares it imperative that Israel re-admit two deported Palestinian mayors.
# 47. Resolution 487 (1981): strongly condemns Israel for its attack on Iraq’s nuclear facility.
# 48. Resolution 497 (1981): decides that Israel’s annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights is null and void and demands that Israel rescinds its decision forthwith.
# 49. Resolution 498 (1981): calls on Israel to withdraw from Lebanon.
# 50. Resolution 501 (1982): calls on Israel to stop attacks against Lebanon and withdraw its troops.
# 51. Resolution 509 (1982): demands that Israel withdraw its forces forthwith and unconditionally from Lebanon.
# 52. Resolution 515 (1982): demands that Israel lift its siege of Beirut and allow food supplies to be brought in.
# 53. Resolution 517 (1982): censures Israel for failing to obey UN resolutions and demands that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon.
# 54. Resolution 518 (1982): demands that Israel cooperate fully with UN forces in Lebanon.
# 55. Resolution 520 (1982): condemns Israel’s attack into West Beirut.
# 56. Resolution 573 (1985): condemns Israel vigorously for bombing Tunisia in attack on PLO headquarters.
# 57. Resolution 587 (1986): takes note of previous calls on Israel to withdraw its forces from Lebanon and urges all parties to withdraw.
# 58. Resolution 592 (1986): strongly deplores the killing of Palestinian students at Bir Zeit University by Israeli troops.
# 59. Resolution 605 (1987): strongly deplores Israel’s policies and practices denying the human rights of Palestinians.
# 60. Resolution 607 (1988): calls on Israel not to deport Palestinians and strongly requests it to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention.
# 61. Resolution 608 (1988): deeply regrets that Israel has defied the United Nations and deported Palestinian civilians.
# 62. Resolution 636 (1989): deeply regrets Israeli deportation of Palestinian civilians.
# 63. Resolution 641 (1989): deplores Israel’s continuing deportation of Palestinians.
# 64. Resolution 672 (1990): condemns Israel for violence against Palestinians at the Haram Al-Sharif/Temple Mount.
# 65. Resolution 673 (1990): deplores Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the United Nations.
# 66. Resolution 681 (1990): deplores Israel’s resumption of the deportation of Palestinians.
# 67. Resolution 694 (1991): deplores Israel’s deportation of Palestinians and calls on it to ensure their safe and immediate return.
# 68. Resolution 726 (1992): strongly condemns Israel’s deportation of Palestinians.
# 69. Resolution 799 (1992): strongly condemns Israel’s deportation of 413 Palestinians and calls for their immediate return.
# 70. Resolution 1397 (2002): affirms a vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders.
# 71. General Assembly Resolution ES-10/15 (2004): declares the wall built inside the occupied territories as contrary to international law and asks Israel to demolish it.

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