Sign of the times

by Philip Weiss on January 31, 2009 · 40 comments

3239235527_e697f79a30
From WiZaNe's flikr photostream.

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  2. Scenes from the ‘new Nakba’
  3. First sign of how Obama will deal with a Lieberman government
  4. Umm al-Fahm violence is a sign of things to come in Lieberman’s Israel
  5. Another sign Lieberman has a chance of weakening US-Israeli relationship

{ 40 comments }

1 jonathan ekman January 31, 2009 at 11:34 am

This man cannot be taken seriously; he is obviously an irrational anti-Semite who needs psychiatric help, preferably of the Freudian kind.

2 Richard Witty January 31, 2009 at 11:41 am

Hamas, PRC, and Islamic Jihad are responsible for the rocket attacks on civilians only.

They are NOT nothing, and not justifiable.

3 Jim Haygood January 31, 2009 at 12:25 pm

So-o-o-o … once the Jews in the Warzaw ghetto shot at their Nazi oppressors, they became 'terrorists' and all that followed was justified.

Right, Richard?

Or is shooting back only bad when Palestinians do it?

4 contrarian January 31, 2009 at 12:25 pm

Nor, Richard, are they a proper justification for all of the Israeli actions enumerated in the top portion of that sign.

5 Rowan January 31, 2009 at 12:28 pm

how could those unguided tin cans with fins, the qassams, be described as aimed at anyone at all? conversely, how could the rather more formidable grads be described as aimed at anything but strategic targets, like the oil installations at ashkelon, or the port there?

i mean, sorry to get technical, and all that, but just leaving aside the selective 'human aspects' for a moment …

6 American January 31, 2009 at 12:57 pm

That sign sums it up perfectly.

The Israeli are midget nazis. Destroy them.

7 chris berel January 31, 2009 at 1:32 pm

At least 'american' is honest. A refreshing change from Kelly and others who barely mask their true intent.

I don't recall the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto launching missles at population centers in Germany, or Poland, or Holland, or France. Those two latter nations who helped the Germans so well in their quest to rid the world of your particular problem.

8 Richard Witty January 31, 2009 at 1:52 pm

If Jewish resistance took potshots from the ghetto or German civilians they would be terrorists.

When Hamas fires AT civilians only, they become terrorist, NOT resistance.

Don't rationalize please.

9 Dan Kelly January 31, 2009 at 2:30 pm

When the Israelis target civilians, which happens on a much wider scale (is in fact part of the strategy as announced by the Israeli government and military itself), then they are terrorists as well, correct?

Richard, I know that you are a fan of Chomksy, and he has spent a lifetime telling us (correctly) about the ridiculous use of "terrorist" in describing only acts of defense against what is much greater state-sponsored terrorism (which is not called terrorism, as it should be).

Of course, Chomsky only uses this in describing the American military. In fact, he was asked once about Israeli military actions towards Palestinians, and he said something to the effect of "I wouldn't exactly call it terrorism."

So, who's rationalizing?

10 MM January 31, 2009 at 2:31 pm

Richard, help us understand your double standard here:

How does it work that Israel has full military conscription (lovely), yet the Qassam rockets are fired "at civilians," while Israel fires laser-guided munitions at police stations and the targets are considered militants?

11 Eva Smagacz January 31, 2009 at 2:31 pm

Richard,

Hamas does not fire at civilians only. Their weapons are not sophisticated enough to distinguish its targets. It's target is the country of the occupier. Most of the adult population of Israel is made up of military reservists.

12 Richard Witty January 31, 2009 at 2:58 pm

Please don't prove my point, you two.

MM,
Hamas fires at civilian centers. Its a random event that there might be a soldier there.

ODD.

Take a strong side on this. Don't rationalize for terror, and call it principled "resistance".

13 Eurosabra January 31, 2009 at 3:01 pm

Right, "Last Man Standing" and I have nukes.

Thanks, Eva.

14 Duscany January 31, 2009 at 3:17 pm

Witty: "Take a strong side on this. Don't rationalize for terror, and call it principled "resistance"."

The Palestinians fight with unguided rockets which kill about one person a year. Israel fights with F-16s which regularly blow up whole families, including wives, children, and relatives out to the third generation twice removed. I don't know about you, but it seems clear which is the real terror weapon to me.

15 Richard Witless January 31, 2009 at 3:20 pm

If I have a hi-tek surgical bomb (–hey, I got it free from USA), and you have a sling-shot, I realize
you are the terrorist.

16 Eurosabra January 31, 2009 at 3:23 pm

Eva,

Indiscriminate attacks which could conceivably strike a military target are (in law) banned because they are indiscriminate, not allowed because they could conceivably hit military targets.

If the target is a country as a whole, that is genocidal intent, with a few exceptions made for infrastructure. There is some unseemly grandfathering of blockades, quarantines, in intl. law. Israelis who argue that the next war will be "against Lebanon" are begging for a trip to the Hague, if the scale of destruction is large enough.

The police are armed members of a government security service, and are participants in combat to the same extent as the Israel Border Police when they are carrying arms, or in security installations. Unlike the traffic police, who were not hit, they can be assumed to have standing orders to participate in combat when needed. Men w/guns with orders to use them, in a security facility = combatants. Israel Police don't expect immunity either, and Israeli civilians have learned from shootings in their shopping districts that PA police don't respect Israeli civilian immunity worth jack-shit anyway.

MM doesn't believe in the existence of Israeli civilians. Nothing new there.

17 Sam January 31, 2009 at 5:29 pm

Richard,

Will you admit that the blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza for years now is an act or war?

(yes/no) -Sam-

18 Richard Witty January 31, 2009 at 5:35 pm

So, don't encourage them to provoke.

Why would you want to see horror on any side when horror is easily avoidable?

19 Sam January 31, 2009 at 6:49 pm

Richard,

You didn't answer my question. I shall repeat: Will you admit that the blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza for years now is an act or war?

(yes/no) -Sam-

20 chris berel January 31, 2009 at 7:14 pm

The blockage Israel imposed on Gaza is no more an act of war then the boycott of South Africa during aparthied.

21 MM January 31, 2009 at 8:41 pm

Eurosabra, Geneva Conventions for Israelis, but not Palestinians. I get it. Supremacist much?

22 MM January 31, 2009 at 8:42 pm

Israelis who argue that the next war will be "against Lebanon" are begging for a trip to the Hague

Ha ha ha. Because Israel is going to ratify the Rome Statute of the ICC sometime soon, right Eurosabra? When should we be expecting that?

23 LanceThruster January 31, 2009 at 9:11 pm

Israel uses the public bus system to mobilize troops. So why doesn't Israel acknowledge that under their standard, a bus is a military target?

24 Mattie January 31, 2009 at 9:17 pm

Richard: If Jewish resistance took potshots from the ghetto or German civilians they would be terrorists.

When Hamas fires AT civilians only, they become terrorist, NOT resistance.

Don't rationalize please.

Me: Tom Hurndell, James Miller, Shaden Abu Hijlah, Rachel Corrie – four who were TARGETED AND MURDERED by the IDF. Do their murders fit your definition of taking "potshots" Richard? Or does the IDF get a pass on your definition of a terrorist because Tom happened to be helping a terrified little Palestinian girl get out of the way of IDF gunfire? And James just happened to be documenting what was going on in Rafah. And Shaden just happened to be embroidering, but that embroidery needle could have been used as a weapon against the IDF soldiers,right? And Rachel, she just happened to be helping a Palestinian family try to save the home they’d worked so hard to build. And when that home finally succumbed to the IDF bulldozers was there a tunnel found under it? NO, and that’s a fact. Rachel – a fellow American citizen of yours Richard – her tax dollars helped pay for her own death, helped buy the CAT bulldozer. As an American citizen are you outraged by the “potshot” taken at her? Did you, as an American Jewish citizen, ask for there to be a transparent and credible investigation into her death? Or were you a silent American Zionist citizen? All these deaths – innocent mistakes Richard – or “potshots”?
Who's rationalizing Richard? Really?

25 chris berel January 31, 2009 at 9:33 pm

Only in your intent.

26 Sam January 31, 2009 at 9:40 pm

>> The blockage Israel imposed on Gaza is no more an act of war then the boycott of South Africa during aparthied (sic).

Chris, You fancy yourself a clever gent. So why the nonsense? Are you really saying that a blockade is the same thing as a boycott? Really? Putting restrictions on traveling rugby teams is the same thing as ramming boats with humanitarian supplies?

But why bring SA into it. Why not stick with Israel?

The following describes a meeting between president Johnson and Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban pre-'67 war (sourced from the Presidential library):

"Eban opened the discussion by saying the Cabinet meeting on Sunday/2/ was very important; there has never been a moment like this in Israeli history; and the country is on the footing of expectancy. If Israel is denied access to the Gulf of Aqaba, its primary line to East Africa and Asia–half of the world–would be cut off. From a legal point of view, the Law of the Sea Conference in 1958 clearly supported the principle of freedom of the seas as applied to Gulf of Aqaba and Strait of Tiran. Nasser has committed an act of aggression and his objective is the strangulation of Israel. Israel is confronted with two alternatives: either to surrender or to stand, and we are confident if we stand we will win."

http://www.zionism-israel.com/hdoc/Eban_Johnson_Meeting_1967.htm

Elsewhere, Eban is quoted as saying:

"To blockade, after all, is to attempt strangulation–and sovereign states are entitled not to have their State strangled. The blockade is by definition an act of war, imposed and enforced through violence. Never in history have a blockade and peace existed side by side."

From "The Israel/Arab Reader" Second ed. Ed. Walter Laqueur (1971ed.) pp. 219.

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2009/01/abba-eban-on-blockades.html

Now again, Chris, you fancy yourself a clever gent. Is it ok for Israel to attack other countries because it feels blockaded but it is not ok for Gaza to resist their own strangulation which, by just about any measure, is several times more severe? Or is it because — let's be honest! — Gazans are sandniggers that they be deprived of the right of self-defense? It's ok Chris, you can be straight with us. Tell us what you really think.

27 chris berel February 1, 2009 at 12:29 am

I am saying that the blockage is no more an act of war then the boycott of South Africa during their period of aparthied.

I don't fancy myself clever, just armed with the truth.

It appears Sam is just a racist.

28 Sam February 1, 2009 at 12:54 am

Chris,

Now, now. Let's keep the conversation civil, yes?

Back to the meat. You characterize what your beloved Israel is doing to Gaza right now as a "blockage". Deft!

But what about your beloved Israel attacking its neighbours because of the "blockage" it suffered in '67? You, for lack of comment, appear to approve such aggression. So therefore you would understand and justify Gaza attacking its offedning neighbour for same?

Simple question put to you.

29 Joachim Martillo February 1, 2009 at 1:30 am

As far as I know, shipments to Apartheid SA were not interdicted, and in any case apartheid SA was a self-sufficient economy.

The sanctions regime on SA was a decision not to trade with SA and certainly was not a blockade by any stretch of the imagination except for the most psychotic apologists for Zionist crimes.

As for the issues of terrorism versus resistance, Nuremberg Law, which the USA helped to create, is clear on the issue.

The resistance may kill civilian invaders and interlopers sent to colonize a region as part of a program of ethnic cleansing or genocide. Otherwise, an organization engaged in genocide could make a genocide irreversible simply by moving civilians into an ethnically cleansed region as the German Nazis tried in E. Europe and the Zionists have done in Stolen and Occupied Palestine.

Not only do Palestinians and the world community have the right to drive the criminal conglomeration of Zionist genocidaires out of Stolen and Occupied Palestine by force if necessary, but they have the obligation to do so.

Note that the USA targets civilian Pakistani Muslims without the legal cover of Nuremberg Law: Nuremberg: Israeli Jews, Pakistani Muslims.

Jewish Zionists like Richard Witty, Eurosabra, and Chris Berel are vile precisely because they believe that Jews have the right to plunder and kill non-Jews with impunity.

If Aryan is substituted for Jew and Jew for non-Jew, their mentality would be the essence of German Nazism.

Because these three are "aiding and abetting" Zionist terrorism and Zionist genocidalism, by US and international law all three should be arrested, deprived all of their assets, convicted, and interned for the rest of their lives. See Corrupt Jewish Social Networking Rules!

Not only are the Zionist invaders, interlopers, and thieves squatting in stolen Palestine enemies of the human race, but supporters of Zionism like Witty, Berel, and Eurosabra anywhere in the world are likewise international criminals and outlaws by international consensus.

30 Joachim Martillo February 1, 2009 at 1:32 am

A cartoon and another picture.

31 Rowan February 1, 2009 at 2:44 am

berel's mechanical little word games are certainly getting more and more random and unrelated in content.

32 chris berel February 1, 2009 at 7:36 am

Joachim, as there is no ongoing action to ethnically cleanse the gazan region, nor any action to commit genocide, the actions taken by the gazan people amount to war crimes and are punishable. Be it as it may, sovereignty issues arise and I'm sure the psuedo-legal pundits will arrive in full force showing how that means you can't sent Hamas leaders to jail for such.

However, in the short run, the best way to handle this unlawful terror is by direct assault on it's strongholds. Which was done.

Hopefully Hamas will have learned something other then how to use this loss as a propaganda tool.

33 Joachim Martillo February 1, 2009 at 9:36 am

Excuse me, but a bunch of racist murderous genocidal Eastern Europeans ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from a lot of Southern Palestine, and the vast majority became refugees.

Not only do they have the right under international humanitarian law and just war theory to attack the criminal conglomeration of genocidaires squatting on their lands, but we Americans have treaty obligations to take actions against Zionist genocidaires.

Personally, I would rather see the dismantlement of the State of Israel handled under the auspices of the UN.

I am more concerned with racist Jewish Zionist garbage stinking up Ft Lauderdale with its putrescence and guilty of aiding and abetting both Zionist terrorism and also Zionist genocide.

34 chris berel February 1, 2009 at 1:50 pm

Seems to me that those racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans exhibited admirable restrant in that all they did was ethnically cleanse a few hundred thousand Arabs from a lot of southern palestinian region.

You would think that those racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans would have exterminated a few hundred thousand Arabs living in southern palestinian region, but they didn't.

And no one with your intelect knows why they didn't, even though they were racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans.

Perhaps you are just a racist spouting of nonsense through ignorance? Certainly a more plausible theory then what you espouse.

35 chris berel February 1, 2009 at 1:57 pm

Seems to me that those racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans exhibited admirable restrant in that all they did was ethnically cleanse a few hundred thousand Arabs from a lot of southern palestinian region.

You would think that those racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans would have exterminated a few hundred thousand Arabs living in southern palestinian region, but they didn't.

And no one with your intelect knows why they didn't, even though they were racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans.

Perhaps you are just a racist spouting of nonsense through ignorance? Certainly a more plausible theory then what you espouse.

36 chris berel February 1, 2009 at 2:04 pm

Seems to me that those racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans exhibited admirable restrant in that all they did was ethnically cleanse a few hundred thousand Arabs from a lot of southern palestinian region.

You would think that those racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans would have exterminated a few hundred thousand Arabs living in southern palestinian region, but they didn't.

And no one with your intelect knows why they didn't, even though they were racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans.

Perhaps you are just a racist spouting of nonsense through ignorance? Certainly a more plausible theory then what you espouse.

37 chris b February 1, 2009 at 2:14 pm

Seems to me that those racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans exhibited admirable restrant in that all they did was ethnically cleanse a few hundred thousand Arabs from a lot of southern palestinian region.

You would think that those racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans would have exterminated a few hundred thousand Arabs living in southern palestinian region, but they didn't.

And no one with your intelect knows why they didn't, even though they were racist, murderous, genocidal Eastern Europeans.

Perhaps you are just a racist spouting of nonsense through ignorance? Certainly a more plausible theory then what you espouse.

38 chris berel February 1, 2009 at 4:54 pm

Pardon the multiple posts. Seems I thought because I did not see it, it wasn't posted. My apologies. I was not trying to spam.

39 LanceThruster February 1, 2009 at 8:13 pm

It's OK chris, the posts suck just as much whether a single one or in multiples.
~

40 sell wow gold April 8, 2009 at 3:33 am

It's a protest. The man is voicing out his concern and yes, he was effective in doing it as this is caused a debate in this blog. Now that made me think, did the guys who he is protesting to had a debate as well? I don't think so.

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