This video refers to the exchange of letters between President Bush and Ariel Sharon in 2004. Sharon went to DC to win concessions from the White House in preparation for the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. More than just getting some new aid, Sharon came home with a written US endorsement of the occupation. Bush's letter stated:
In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.
This paragraph in effect changed stated US policy. Whereas before this letter the US was still calling in theory for Israel to leave the occupied territories as part of a two-state solution, the Bush administration was now saying that parts of the occupation should be permanent. In case you think this was just done without anyone noticing, the Senate voted two months later to affirm this policy change by a vote of 95-5.
Fast forward to 2008 when the Bush administration was finally trying to get more engaged in peacemaking efforts through the Annapolis peace conference. The US quickly found out that the 2004 letter was a huge obstacle. Writing in the Washington Post, Glenn Kessler's April 24, 2008 article "Israelis Claim Secret Agreement With U.S." explained,
Ehud Olmert, the current Israeli prime minister, said this week that Bush's letter gave the Jewish state permission to expand the West Bank settlements that it hopes to retain in a final peace deal, even though Bush's peace plan officially calls for a freeze of Israeli settlements across Palestinian territories on the West Bank. In an interview this week, Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed this understanding in a secret agreement reached between Israel and the United States in the spring of 2005, just before Israel withdrew from Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered his perspective:
Over time this understanding came to include the Jordan Valley as a security buffer, the Israeli-only roads that connect the settlements to Israel and the land Israel all but annexed by building the separation wall.
Some had hoped that an Obama administration, wanting to abandon failed Bush policies and engage in Israel/Palestine from the beginning, would undo this disastrous position. Think again. From Ha'aretz's coverage of George Mitchell's first visit to Israel as American special envoy to the Middle East:
Mitchell told Israeli officials that the new administration was committed to Israel's security, to the road map, and to the 2004 letter by president George W. Bush stating Palestinian refugees would not return to Israel and the border between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would take into consideration facts on the ground, meaning large settlement blocs would remain in Israeli hands.
This of course raises the question - how can there be a Palestinian state under these conditions? Since the beginning of the Oslo peace process critics made the observation that Oslo would leave the Palestinians with a state similar to the bantustan system in apartheid South Africa. Writing in 2000 at the beginning of the second intifada, Edward Said explained in the Nation:
The portents of this disarray, however, were there from the 1993 start, as I duly noted in The Nation (September 20, 1993). Labor and Likud leaders alike made no secret of the fact that Oslo was designed to segregate the Palestinians in noncontiguous, economically unviable enclaves, surrounded by Israeli-controlled borders, with settlements and settlement roads punctuating and essentially violating the territories' integrity.
From watching the map in this video it looks like mission accomplished. The similarities between the South African and Israel/Palestine maps are striking.
It is clear that the map in the video can never lead to an end of the conflict. Unless the Obama administration abandons the Clinton and Bush policies that led to the map above, there is no doubt the two-state solution is dead. The new question becomes - what replaces it?
(Adam Horowitz)
Israel needs it's lebensraum!
CORRECTION: Israel needs its lebensraum!
It's good people are using that term because it explains Zionism in a nutshell.
Is Obama continuing Bush policy of endorsing Palestinian bantustans?
Does a bear shit in the woods? Is the Pope Catholic?
If I might return to the theme of troll psychology, just once more – the reason they so often accuse people of being fascists, is in order to provide themselves with 'left cover'.
With their anti-fascist hats on, the zionist trolls can still get automatic cover from the entire jewish left, and I mean automatic. This is because the left is required by the right in jewish politics to be twice as anti-fascist as would be rational for it to be, in order to fend off accusations about its weak loyalty to jewish core values.
Great, now all of us know why Rowan considers himself a troll.
Back to business:
It has been expected that Israel will retain some of the settlements and that the Arabs will receive other land to make up for the loss. No requirement exists, other then in the minds of islamic fascist supporters, that Israel is required to relinquish all of the land attained in the defensive wars of 1967 and 1973.
Chris,
I see you are trying to hide on another thread here. Before I get back to the question, twice-dodged, let's consider your latest brilliant non sequitor:
"No requirement exists, …, that Israel is required to relinquish all of the land attained in the defensive wars of 1967 and 1973."
You can wage a defensive war, or you can acquire land by war, but you can't acquire land in a defensive war, now, can you? I mean, think about it.
[Not that you care, but the UN also forbids acquiring land by war. Of course, in your mind, they are Islamic fanatics as well.]
When you've removed foot from mouth, please answer the question that you keep avoiding:
Do you support an investigation into alleged war crimes perpetrated by the IDF in Gaza? And if found guilty, do you support punishment according to the norms of international law?
"Do you support an investigation into alleged war crimes perpetrated by the IDF in Gaza? And if found guilty, do you support punishment according to the norms of international law?"
In a way, I kinda wish there would be, by an impartial objective investigation team.
I'm pretty sure it would shut you hatemongers up for awhile.
BTW–I take it that suicide bombings and lobbing rockets into Israel are war crimes worthy of investigation too, right non-hypocrite?
Suzanne, nothing shuts up hatemongers like Sam.
Sam has already declared, on another thread, that Hamas is legally allowed to commit War Crimes. I don't know what law he is utilizing as he did not cite such.
I wonder when the leadership of Hamas will be indicted for war crimes and when they will go before the Hague.
The Palestinians would gladly use the weapons to defend themselves that the Israelis have used on them if given the chance, but alas they don't have the backing of the American government and the West.
Chris and Suzanne are part of the Judeofascist Hasbara brigade signed up by the Zionist regime to spam blogs with their Zionist propaganda.
'One democratic state' is a terrific slogan. Unlike the two state 'solution', it actualy addresses the status of Palestinian Israelis and the refugees, while obviating the problem of securing the corridor between Gaza and the West Bank. But if there's one thing the two staters are right about – and there is just the one – it's that a unified Palestine in the foreseeable future is a pipedream. (
But anti, the palestinians would not defend themselves, they would wage a genocidal war in the hopes of killing every single Jew.
But you knew that, didn't you?
Isn't it cute how the anti-semites are worried that it looks like they are too few in number here?
So now some of them are inventing new identities.
So endearing. haha!
Chris: you are projecting again. That is the desire of the Israeli religious right, to slay all. The Book of Joshua isn't in the Qu'ran.
Hamas will sign a deal if you go back to 1967 borders… but that worries you. It's not enough, is it?
Why should the Palestinians get 22% of their land, when you can beat them back to nothing?
BTW, that video isn't from a Jewish organization. What's up with that? Are Americans now to be allowed to hear gentile opinions on the Middle East?
What's next, women's suffrage?
I must say that I don't believe one bit in two state solution as it is expressly against Likud charter and the people of Israel are likely to vote for it.
This means that the buntustans are here to stay and shrink. Idea of Lebensraum carries with it a concept of "food for us", which is denial of food for the indigenous population, so that the indigenous population may shrink in time.
It takes only 15% – 20% reduction in food rations for the female fertility to be markedly affected.
This vision outlined in Mein Kampf is a cookie cutter copy of the policy being played out in the Gaza, which is just a test of how much world opinion can swallow.
It takes only 15% – 20% reduction in food rations for the female fertility to be markedly affected.
Poles and Jews did not die in gas chambers alone. Huge numbers died of hunger and disease.
I wager good money that the individual buntustans in West Bank will be shut down in the due course.
"Iron wall surrounding non-people in iron masks"
Funny, Eva, you people say we are starving Gaza yet the fertility rate is the highest in the world. Must be that you are lying.
No one ever stated that the Jews only died in gas chanmbers.
Hamas is in no position to dictate biorders.
Chris, keep drinking the Zionist Koolaid. You and your ilk keep talking about the destruction of Israel. How about the destruction of Palestine in 1948? Thousands of Palestinians were killed, hundreds of thousands were expelled and uprooted, their houses and lands were occupied and confiscated. If that wasn't genocide, then what is? I have no doubt it in mind that Israel would and will use genocidal tactics. What irritates and infuriates the Judeofascists and their amen crowd is that the Palestinians didn't wave the white flag and go off into the sunset.
Eva has a point. The diet that Weisglass put the Gazans on is very likely to have affected female fertility, though so far not sufficiently to affect birth rate. It has only been going on now for 3 years. But there is one statistic for where it is showing an effect and that is in the incidence of childhood malnutrition. This is only affecting the poorest of the poorso far.
" No one ever stated that the Jews only died in gas chanmbers."
Wonder if her history source is www.bishopwilliamson.ick
Suzane writes: " No one ever stated that the Jews only died in gas chanmbers."
implying that she is quoting a "her" (Eva) but in fact quoting Chris who is implying that Eva said such a thing, but in fact said nothing of the sort.
Spread confusion, lies, smoke and diversion and declare victory for your side of the argument. It worked for Geobbels, why shouldn't it work for the Zionist?
so what exactly is this diet that the Gazans are on? Can someone provide an objective, unbiased source that gives details?
I did a search and all I can find is the quote and no further context.
Interesting that Hamas is stealing the food meant to go to Gazans. Perhaps they have a breeding program limiting the number of Fatah babies. As the newest palestinian nazi party, Hamas is following their practice.
paul craig roberts has this piece over at counterpunch.com
http://counterpunch.com/roberts02042009.html
Hamas is a small organization armed with small caliber rifles incapable of penetrating body armor. Hamas is unable to stop small bands of Israeli settlers from descending on West Bank Palestinian villages, driving out the Palestinians, and appropriating their land.
The great mystery is: why after 60 years of oppression are the Palestinians still an unarmed people? Clearly, the Muslim countries are complicit with Israel and the US in keeping the Palestinians unarmed.
The unsupported assertion that Iran supplies sophisticated arms to the Palestinians is like the unsupported assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. These assertions are propagandistic justifications for killing Arab civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in order to secure US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
Funny, antihas announced his total ignorance and no one commented.
Phil. If you do a simple count on the comments from e.g. the last half dozen posts, you will find that berel & suzanne outnumber the rest of us in the number of comments they post. All their comments, of course, are derisory, and are intended solely to prevent discussion of the topic or topics in the article or thread. This is unacceptable: you need to moderate them down to a level where conversation is still possible. I shouldn't need to say this, and the fact that I DO need to say it makes me wonder what you really think you're playing at here.
Seems that Rowan is jealous of something. Perhaps it is the fact that Rowan's posts are little more then uneducated whines.
I notice, like the Nazis he emulates, Rowan asks for censorship. That, of course, should be unacceptable in a free society, but it is the norm in Rowan's imaginary society.
The Myth of Disengagement
Gaza is a prison; and Israel seems to have thrown away the key.’
-John Dugard, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights
In 2004, former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced to the world his plan to unilaterally ‘disengage’ from the 37 year occupation of the Gaza Strip.
According to Sharon, protecting the small number of Israeli settlers within one of the world’s most densely populated and hostile environments was becoming far more trouble than it was worth.
Underneath this seemingly pragmatic discourse though was the growing belief/fear inside of Israel over the explosion of the ‘demographic bomb’ in historical Palestine – in which Palestinians would soon outnumber their Jewish counterparts leading to charges of Apartheid. By ‘disengaging’ or supposedly ‘de-occupying’ the Gaza Strip, Israel was able to cleanly shave off nearly 1.4 million Palestinians from under its perceived control.
Sharon’s decision led to the breakdown of Likud’s coalition and eventually the Likud party itself. Sharon forged on by picking up rare support from the Israeli left and forming the more centrist Kadima party to carry out his unilateral plan under a new governing coalition.
On June 6th, the Government of Israel adopted the ‘Disengagement Plan’ and in August 2005 it began. The deadline for voluntary and compensated removal of 21 Settlements, 9,100 settlers and dozens of military installations was set at August 15th, 2005, but was not completed until September 12th of that year.
Despite the chain of events described above, Israel’s claim to have withdrawn from Gaza has proven to be nothing more than a myth and one would only have to ask the simplest of questions to see through the lie:
If the disengagement from Gaza was wholeheartedly supported by Palestinians, then why would the decision have to be made unilaterally by the Israelis, rather than through negotiations which would ensure the durability of any such agreement?
The answer is equally simplistic. Palestinians would never have agreed to the terms of the Israeli disengagement because they know that settlements are only a part of the occupation of Palestine. International Human Rights organizations felt the same way.
Prior to the Disengagement, the International Committee of the Red Cross made it clear in a position paper that removal of settlers did not mean an end to the occupation, and that ‘Israel (would) maintain significant control over the Gaza Strip (…) Thus it seems that Gaza will remain occupied under International Humanitarian Law.’
This position was reinforced by Harvard’s Programme on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research which stated, ‘The partial redeployment of Israel’s military presence in and around the territory is not the controlling factor in international law to determine the end of occupation … The end of occupation rests essentially on the termination of the military control of the Occupying Power over the Government affairs of the occupied population that limits the people’s right to self determination’.
Israel was trying to unilaterally shed the responsibilities of ‘Occupier’ over nearly 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza while maintaining full control over the borders, air space, sea access, economy, currency and even the diets of the Gazan people.
Even while Israel was claiming to have left Gaza by removing their settlements, military raids, targeted assassinations, air strikes, arrests and house demolitions continued on a regular basis. In other words, nothing had changed – except now Israel’s military could take an even freer hand in an area cleared of its own citizens.
The ‘Myth of Disengagement’ has been one of the most repeated lies of Israeli spokespeople before, during and since their vicious assault on the Gaza Strip.
They have stood before the cameras and said:
What occupation? We left Gaza completely in 2005 and gave them a chance for peace and development. All we got in return though was a wave of inexplicable terror in the form of rockets on our citizens in the south.
If you swallow the Myth – and many around the world have – you lose sight of the bigger picture that is unable to be captured in the 30 second sound bytes of Israeli spokespeople. Israel was shedding its responsibility over Gaza, but instead of doing so as a means of furthering the Road Map, they were simply doing so as a means of slowing down any real, negotiated peace process.
Nearly one year before the proposed Disengagement, Ariel Sharon’s Chief of Staff Dov Weissglass illustrated this point to the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz,
‘The significance of Disengagement is the freezing of the peace process (…) When you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state and you prevent discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Disengagement supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians’ (my emphasis).
Israel never ‘left’ Gaza. Instead they isolated it from the West Bank and walled it off from the rest of the world. According to Paul McCann, former spokesmen of UNRWA in Gaza between 2000 and 2005, writing on August 16th – only one day after the deadline for voluntary withdrawal of settlers,
‘(…) just because the most visible and oppressive signs of the Israeli occupation will be gone, no one should be under the illusion that Gaza will cease to be the world’s largest prison camp’.
Rowan don't get upset about these people, who have obviously come to this blog on the request of their "Ministry for Migrant Absorption".
Consider this: most of us writing here have a pretty accurate impression of the nature of the Jewish State. What we would like to achieve is that neutral bystanders do get better informed as well.
It is very unlikely that the posts of these people will make them more receptive to Israeli propaganda. I would say that rather the opposite is likely to happen.
They are obviously crude, ignorant, victims of their internal propaganda and, above all, arrogant. Frankly, they are pretty horrible people and quite a few observers would conclude that they must be the products of a pretty horrible society.
So let them have enough rope to hang themselves. As I wrote to Berel: keep it up, with every post of yours our aversion of where you come from deepens.
UNRWA report excerpts 22/1/09:
Logistics: Only a few of the land crossings into Gaza remain open, its seaports and airport remain closed by the Israeli authorities, and the makeshift tunnels along the Egyptian border are largely destroyed. The restricted flow of mainly food items is insufficient for re-stocking shelves after nearly 20 months of continuous economic blockade, so food supplies are limited in variety and quantity. There continues to be a desperate shortage of items such as spare parts and construction materials that are needed to repair or rebuild the heavily damaged infrastructure.
Access: Only a limited number of persons (mainly severe medical cases, each with a maximum of one accompanying relative) are permitted out of the Gaza Strip. Although movement on the streets is no longer barred by Israeli soldiers, movement continues to be risky (even for well-marked ambulances and relief trucks), difficult (due to rubble in the streets), and sometimes impossible (since gasoline supplies are uncertain at best).
Nutrition: Sufficient quantities of wheat grain are still not being allowed into the Gaza Strip, and only some of the mills have been able to re-open. Few bakeries remain fully operational, due to the irregular supply of flour and cooking gas. Such limitations have greatly increased the reliance of two-thirds of Gaza’s 1.5 million people on UNRWA, the World Food Program, and various NGOs, which distribute their limited food stocks as they become available. Such shortages worsen the already persistent nutritional deficiencies, which has resulted in widespread cases of acute anemia, vitamin A deficiency and stunted growth.
Yes, Rowan, don't get so upset. And Arie is here to burp you.
Seems you forgot that Hamas provided the rope upon which they were recently hung. And they deliberatedly included so many innocent Palestinian people by surgecally attaching their necks.
Pretty horrible, if you ask me or any other person not so enthralled with islamic fascism.
It's not just hungry, Israel made sure its captives go thirsty as well:
And from the same report UNRWA, 22/01/09:
Water and Sanitation: The sewage and water systems have been seriously disrupted. Two-thirds of the water wells were shut down due to lack of power, shortage of parts, or actual physical damage, and most of these have not been re-activated. Over 400,000 persons lack a regular water supply, and most of what is available is salty and polluted. Diesel fuel and chlorine, which are needed for purifying the water and treating the wastewater, are in perilously low supply. Sewage and wastewater pool in the midst of populated areas and are starting to overflow into overcrowded neighborhoods. Large quantities of untreated sewage spill directly into the Mediterranean. The World Bank warns that epidemic outbreaks could result from the combination of untreated sewage, lack of clean water, uncollected solid waste, disruption of vaccinations and regular healthcare, high population density, and the general stress, exhaustion and hunger of Gaza’s population.
I spoke in my previous post about a horrible society producing horrible people.
There is a good chance that our hasbara spreaders have served in the IDF for their national service. This is what it does to people, even if they are not directly involved in war crimes.
`I punched an Arab in the face'
by Gideon Levy
Haaretz 25 november 2003
Staff Sergeant (res.) Liran Ron Furer cannot just routinely get on with his life anymore. He is haunted by images from his three years of military service in Gaza and the thought that this could be a syndrome afflicting everyone who serves at checkpoints gives him no respite. On the verge of completing his studies in the design program at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, he decided to drop everything and devote all his time to the book he wanted to write. The major publishers he brought it to declined to publish it. The publisher that finally accepted it (Gevanim) says that the Steimatzky bookstore chain refuses todistribute it. But Furer is determined to bring his book to the public's attention."You can adopt the most hard-line political positions, but no parent would agree to his son becoming a thief, a criminal or a violent person," saysFurer. "The problem is that it's never presented this way. The boy himself doesn't portray himself this way to his family when he returns from the territories. On the contrary – he is received as a hero, as someone who is doing the important work of being a soldier. No one can be indifferent to the fact that there are many families in which, in a certain sense, there are already two generations of criminals. The father went through it and now the son is going through it and no one talks about it around the dinner table."
Furer is certain that what happened to him is not at all unique. Here he was – a creative,sensitive graduate of the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts, who became an animal at the checkpoint, a violent sadist who beat up Palestinians because they didn't show him the proper courtesy, who shot out tires of cars because their owners were playing the radio too loud, who abused a retarded teenage boy lying handcuffed on the floor of the Jeep, just because he had to take his anger out somehow.
"Checkpoint Syndrome" (also the title of his book), gradually transforms every soldier into an animal, he maintains, regardless of whatever values he brings with him from home. No one can escape its taint. In a place where nearly everything is permissible and violence is perceived as normative behavior, each soldier tests his own limits of violence impulsiveness on his victims – the Palestinians.
His book is not easy reading. Written in terse,fierce prose, in the blunt and coarse language of soldiers, he reconstructs scenes from the years in which he served in Gaza (1996-1999),years that, one must remember, were relatively quiet. He describes how he and his comrades forced some Palestinians to sing "Elinor" – "It was really something to see these Arabs singing a Zohar Argov song, like in a movie"; the emotions the Palestinians aroused in him -"Sometimes these Arabs really disgust me,especially those that try to toady up to us -the older ones, who come to the checkpoint with this smile on their faces"; the reactions they spurred – "If they really annoy us, we find a way to keep them stuck at the checkpoint for a few hours. They lose a whole day of work because of it sometimes, but that's the only way they learn."
He described how they would order children to clean the checkpoint before inspection time;how a soldier named Shahar invented a game: "He checks someone's identity card, and instead of handing it back to him, just tosses it in the air. He got a kick out of seeing the Arab have to get out of his car to pick up his identity card … It's a game for him and he can pass a whole shift this way"; how they humiliated a dwarf who came to the checkpoint every day on his wagon: "They forced him to have his picture taken on the horse, hit him and degraded him for a good half hour and let him go only when cars arrived at the checkpoint. The poor guy,he really didn't deserve it"; how they had a souvenir picture taken with bloodied, bound Arabs whom they'd beaten up; how Shahar pissed on the head of an Arab because the man had the nerve to smile at a soldier; how Dado forced an Arab to stand on four legs and bark like a dog;and how they stole prayer beads and cigarettes- "Miro wanted them to give him their cigarettes, the Arabs didn't want to give so Miro broke someone's hand, and Boaz slashed their tires."
Chilling confession
The most chilling of all the personal confessions: "I ran toward them and punched an Arab right in the face. I'd never punched anyone that way. He collapsed on the road. The officers said that we had to search him for his papers. We pulled his hands behind his back and I bound them with plastic handcuffs. Then we blindfolded him so he wouldn't see what was in the Jeep. I picked him up from the road. Blood was trickling from his lip onto his chin. I led him up behind the Jeep and threw him in, his knees banged against the trunk and he landed inside. We sat in the back, stepping on the Arab … Our Arab lay there pretty quietly,just crying softly to himself. His face was right on my flak jacket and he was bleeding and making a kind of puddle of blood and saliva,and it disgusted and angered me, so I grabbed him by the hair and turned his head to the side. He cried out loud and to get him to stop,we stepped harder and harder on his back. That quieted him down for a while and then he started up again. We concluded that he was either retarded or crazy."The company commander informed us over the radio that we had to bring him to the base.`Good work, tigers,' he said, teasing us. All the other soldiers were waiting there to see what we'd caught. When we came in with the Jeep, they whistled and applauded wildly. We put the Arab next to the guard. He didn't stop crying and someone who understood Arabic said that his hands were hurting from the handcuffs.One of the soldiers went up to him and kicked him in the stomach. The Arab doubled over and grunted, and we all laughed. It was funny … I kicked him really hard in the ass and he flew forward just as I'd expected. They shouted that I was a totally crazy, and they laughed … and I felt happy. Our Arab was just a 16-year-old mentally retarded boy."
Not an individual case
Furer is out to prove that this is a syndrome and not a collection of isolated, individual cases. That's why he deleted a lot of personal details from the original manuscript, in order to underscore the general nature of what he describes.… "The more confident I became with the situation,as soon as we reached the conclusion – each one at his own stage – that we are the rulers, we are the strong ones, and when we felt our power, each one started to stretch the limits more and more, in accordance with his personality.
As soon as serving at the checkpoint became routine, all kinds of deviant behavior became normal. It started with`souvenir collecting': We'd confiscate prayerbeads and then it was cigarettes and it didn'tstop. It became normative behavior."After that came the power games. We got the message from above that we were to project seriousness and deterrence to the Arabs.
Physical violence also became normative. We felt free to punish any Palestinian who didn'tfollow the `proper code of behavior' at the checkpoint. Anyone we thought wasn't polite enough to us or tried to act smart – was severely punished. It was deliberate harassment on the most trivial pretexts."During my army service, there wasn't a single incident that made us understand, or made our commanders interfere. No one talked about what was permitted and what was not. It was all a matter of routine. In retrospect, the biggest source of guilt feelings for me didn't happen at the checkpoint, but by the Gush Katif fence,when we caught the retarded boy. I demonstrated the most extreme behavior. It was a chance for me to catch one – the closest thing to catching a terrorist, a chance to vent all the pressure and impulses that had built up in all of us. To lash out the way we wanted to. We were used to giving slaps, to handcuffing, to a little kicking, a little beating, and here was a situation in which it was justified to let go entirely. Also, the officer who was with us was himself very violent. We gave the kid a real beating and as soon as we got to the post, I remember having a great feeling of pride, thatI'd been treated like someone strong. They said, `What a nut you are, how crazy you are,'which was basically like saying, `How strong you are.'
"At the checkpoint, young people have the chance to be masters and using force and violence becomes legitimate – and this is a much more basic impulse than the political views or values that you bring from home. As soon as using force is given legitimacy, and even rewarded, the tendency is to take it as far as it can go, to exploit it much as possible. To satisfy these impulses beyond what the situation requires. Today, I'd call it sadistic impulses ……Today, I feel confident saying that even the most senior ranks – the brigade commander, the battalion commander – are aware of the power that soldiers have in this situation and what they do with it. How could a commander not be aware of it when the more crazy and tough his soldiers are, the quieter his sector is? The more complex picture of the long-term effects of this violent behavior is something you only become conscious of when you get away from thecheckpoint."Today it's clear to me that that boy whose father we humiliated for the flimsiest of reasons will grow up to hate anyone who represents what was done to his father. I definitely have an understanding of their motives now. We are cruelty, we are power. I'm sure that their response is affected by elements related to their society – a disregard for human life and a readiness to sacrifice lives – but the basic desire to resist, the hatred itself, the fear – I feel are completely justified and legitimate, even if it's risky tosay so.
…
…" I saw theremnants of the syndrome in India – something about being in the Third World, among dark-skinned people, brings out the worst of the `ugly Israeli,' which is as Israeli as it gets. Or the way you react to a smile: When Palestinians would smile at me at the checkpoint, I got tense and construed it as defiance, as chutzpah. When someone smiled at me in India, I immediately went on the defensive.
(Abbreviated)
While you try to paint all Israelis with anecdotal information, lets paint all palestinians:
The Palestinians, after disabling the car via ambush, calmly walk up and shot to death a pregnant mother and her four young daughters. They calmly and thoughtfully put a single bullet in the brain of each one.
What we do not know is if they killed the mother first or last. If they killed two girls to maximize the suffering of the mother, killed her, then killed the other two. Or did they start by killing the youngest first, thereby increasing the terrror, one by one, as the older girls, knowing by each maturing moment, that their turn was next?
Only needs one coating.
Let's paint the Zio-fascist supermen, chris berel. They marched into the Palestinian village. They rounded up the inhabitants. They shot the men in front of the women and children. They raped the women in front of the children. They shot the children. After the warriors of Zion were done, over 100 were dead. A few escaped.
We don't know if they killed the women before they killed the children. Did they start with the pregnant women? The youngest children? The oldest men? Or did they start by killing the youngest first, thereby increasing the terrror, one by one, as the older girls, knowing by each maturing moment, that their turn was next? Did they kill them all? Or did they allow a few to escape, to tell others that resisting Zionism was fatal?
Only needs one coating. The Zio-fascist one.
Here's the context for this thread, wiped of hasbara sun glasses–I call it "crying and shooting":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/07/gaza-israel-palestine
"…the makeshift tunnels along the border with Egypt are largely destroyed."
Good, no more Grads on Be'ersheva once the ones in Gaza are destroyed, and no Zelzals on Tel Aviv.
I call the approach taken by these rabbis the Tsuris Theory of Jewish Survival. Under this theory, the Jews need external troubles to stay Jewish. Nor has this fearful, negative perspective on Jewish survival been limited to ultra-Orthodox rabbis. Many Jewish leaders, both religious and secular, have argued that Jews need enemies–that without anti-Semitism, Judaism cannot survive. Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism and a secular Jew, believed that "our enemies have made us one … It is only pressure that forces us back to the parent stem." In a prediction that reflects an approach to the survival of Judaism strikingly similar to that of the founder of the Lubavitch Hasidim, Herzl warned that if our "Christian hosts were to leave us in peace … for two generations," the Jewish people would "merge entirely into surrounding races." Albert Einstein agreed: "It may be thanks to anti-Semitism that we are able to preserve our existence as a race; that at any rate is my belief." Jean-Paul Sartre, a non-Jew, went even further, arguing that the "sole tie that binds [the Jewish people together] is the hostility and disdain of the societies which surround them." He believed that "it is the anti-Semite who makes the Jew."
Alan Dershowitz, from the Introduction to 'The Vanishing American Jew'
The trolls, having apparently chosen to live by the 'Tsuris Theory of Jewish Survival', can only thrive if they are engaged. If ignored, they will become irrelevant.
"the World Food Program, and various NGOs, which distribute their limited food stocks as they become available. Such shortages worsen the already persistent nutritional deficiencies, which has resulted in widespread cases of acute anemia, vitamin A deficiency and stunted growth."
Not to be glib, but why don't they do air drops?
No one has been ambitious enough– or able to credibly disprove the Israelis' argument that tunnels, airports and seaports are entry points for arms.
Countries always act in self-interest. Israel is no exception. Maybe Hamas should start rehearsing for the role of responsible leadership.
Right now they are holding their own people hostage.
Airdrops?
Would Israel grant airspace clearance for that? I hardly think so.
Suzanne,
What a brilliant idea, air drops.
But Gaza is not occupied – remember?
It is free to build itself to be a Dubai on the Mediterranean and welcome business men and women and tourists from all over the World into this picturesque land of milk and honey, palm threes, vineyards and golden sand.
Here is example of Royal Navy repeatedly ramming the small boat delivering aid to Gaza:
Hamas has been elected in democratic elections, and is the representative of the people of Palestine. You may hold your nose, but the smell is no different than when dealing with democratically elected Israeli government, the only difference is that Israeli government has much, much more civilian blood on its hands.
"Not to be glib"
Suzanne, why change the habits of a lifetime? I would like to ask you, and indeed Chris, the following questions@
1/ how did you find out about Phil's website, and what attracted you to it?
2/ why do you feel it is a productive use of your time to post here?
3/ given that this is a site which is distinguished by its support for Palestinian human rights and dignity, why do you think your endless posting of tired and deeply ignorant hasbarah 101 talking points will advance debate? Are there not more fruitful places, perhaps on teenage chatsites, where you could post all this stuff and where it might actually be given some credence?
Why doesn't Hamas concentrate its efforts on nurturing this?:
http://www.aqaria.com/gazahome.htm
http://www.aqaria.com/padico.htm
http://www.aqaria.com/almasayef.htm
How many freakin' ids do Berkeley and Martillo have anyway?
It's like Sybil just developed 7 more personalities….jaysus!
any chance of answering my questions, Suzanne?
1/ how did you find out about Phil's website, and what attracted you to it?
2/ why do you feel it is a productive use of your time to post here?
3/ given that this is a site which is distinguished by its support for
I'm not one of the people you addressed, but I'll answer anyway.
1)I was looking at hate sites on the net, went to the David Duke site, saw Phil being frequently quoted and was curious to find out who this guy David Duke spoke of so fondly was.
2)It's not productive. Does everything have to be productive?
3)This site is hardly distinguished. Mostly a bunch of Jew haters hosted by an out of work far leftist writer who needs the money. "This is my chief source of income; please help keep this site going."
Even people I disagree with need to eat, so I come here to help him out.
just a test to figure out hyperlinks–yep! now we're cooking!
gaza real estate
more gaza real estate
and even more
"bernard g" (yeah right!)
ditto Julian. Plus it's good to keep up with the latest fanatical thinking.
YWH is not a real estate broker.
Al-Masayef Steps is a Palestinian settlement dominating the hillside and crushing the land under concrete towers, proving that the "natives" (3rd-country Palestinian investors and overseas Fatahniks) can rape the land as efficiently as any French Hill dwellers.
Anyone read that brilliant Roger Cohen Op-Ed in the NYT yesterday?