Comments on: Americans who wonder ‘why they hate us?’ should consider Ain al Hilweh in Lebanon

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:17:56 +0000

I honestly don't understand why so many of my fellow citizens are so woefully ignorant of what's being done to the Arabian people in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere. The news media grossly distorts the story, but very few people I know actually trust the media anymore. On the other hand, I don't see people demanding to hear the truth, and even at some of our most respected Universities the majority of the students are woefully ignorant of what's actually happening around the world and the role our own government plays in various regional conflicts. On the other hand, I am seeing more people begin to stop and ask serious questions about what they're being told. Maybe the financial crisis will start to rouse the middle class from its complacency.

By: dis

dis — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:30:36 +0000

Israel has still never committed genocide on the scale of Saddam's Iraq in Kurdistan or Nasser's UAR in Yemen. Of course this is utter nonsense and damages whatever sensible things he has to say. We are suspicious of this notion that the Lidice-like liquidation of a thousand people in a concentration camp, prevented from even escaping, was not so bad (especially in light of other Israeli crimes). We are suspicious of well-off Lebanese who despise the Palestinians and are so eager to work together with the greatest threat to security in the region. We are suspicious of all this unacceptable, nonsensical moral relativistic pseudo-algebra which maintains as its one anchor the whitewashing of Israel amid token promises of liberalish disapproval. Isn't the worst thing after all how law-proof Israel is still doing this stuff decades later, and shows every sign of continuing until the moral of the world stop them?

By: andrew

andrew — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:42:53 +0000

"My greatest fear is that someday Israel will become an "Arab" power, and end the conflict by treating Arabs as their own people do. While an unpleasant national security state, Israel has still never committed genocide on the scale of Saddam's Iraq in Kurdistan or Nasser's UAR in Yemen. I fear that the Ashkenazi Westernization of Israel is actually the last restraint on the "big men". This may be a bit Occidentalist, but I am, after all, an Oriental." Then Hitler was an Arabization of Europe? And it was the European elite who irradiated Moroccans (c.f. the documentary the Ringworm Children). Whenever a Zionist gloats about the high body county of western-supported dictators, all I can think is they're either glad someone else did the dirty work or they're jealous.

By: MRW.

MRW. — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

When I talk about it to people who aren't already informed, they tell me I am just “too angry” and should “let go and move on.”

Right. You're supposed to move on, but the Holocaust? Never.

Great account, Leila.

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Unfortunately, you are only describing what Israel has done.

The description of the cycle is incomplete.

"When you terrorize people without utterly exterminating them, they don't become cowed, they just rise up another day."

Hopefully the message of that is not to exterminate, but to treat others kindly.

Jews, Israelis are also still waiting for kindness, acceptance, even willingness to allow them equal due process before the law, even in Lebanon, where there was a prior rich Jewish community that was expelled through some combination of invitation to Israel and oppression.

By: Susie Kneedler

Susie Kneedler — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Exactly, Leila and MrW: "Never forget!" for Israel-Firsters, but "Get over it!" for anyone else.
Reminds me of studying British film in the 70s, when Brits in the industry agreed that nostalgia for WWII dominated the art. WWII seemed a vestige of lost "greatness," at a time when the Empire was gone and and few had yet learned to rejoice.

And any U.S. citizen who gives such callow advice as your friends gave to you, Leila, is a bleeding hypocrite. We allowed Bush-co to wreak bloody vengeance in our name: in Iraq as a whole, Falujah after the contractors were killed, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantanamo, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Everyone who cares about this blog tried to stop the revenge, but our country still failed. And how many politicians even remembered the charitable willlingness of the Vietnamese not to retaliate for the infinite damage the U.S. did to it? We have a lot of talking to do to help our country act more benevolently.

By: Susie Kneedler

Susie Kneedler — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

And check out the ghastly news about Israel's latest iniquity:

http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/03/gaza-update-israel-blocks-provocative-shipment-to-gaza/#more-36766

Gaza Update: Israel Blocks “Provocative” Shipment to Gaza
By: Siun Tuesday February 3, 2009 7:00

Sometimes a little story just sums up so much. Today I read something in the Jerusalem Post that says just about everything there is to say about the continuing Israeli blockade of Gaza.

The office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories slammed UNRWA on Monday and accused the United Nations organization of creating a provocation at the Kerem Shalom crossing by bringing trucks to it carrying supplies that had not been approved by Israel for entry into the Gaza Strip.

And what were those “provocative” supplies?

Paper and plastic bags.

It seems UNRWA had asked permission to include them in the shipment of aid to Gaza but Israel had not approved them.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said the organization's schools in Gaza, which opened last week, only had 60 percent of the needed textbooks and that the paper was needed to fill the gap.
"We are running schools for 200,000 kids in Gaza and we have said for weeks that we would need to get it in…," Gunness said.

The need for plastic bags is explained in the latest Field Update from the UN’s humanitarian coordinator:

For example, on 30 January, UNRWA was not allowed to bring in the plastic bags that it uses to distribute supplies. With some 20,000 food parcels distributed daily, these bags are a vital component of UNRWA’s assistance.'

By: Mohammad

Mohammad — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Nice personal note. Israel is an Anglo-Saxon tragedy. Israel is created out of too much Shakespeare. From the day the British Army invaded Palestine in 1917 to now, All of these crimes, all of these losses, sit heavily on the shoulders of the Anglo-Saxon civilization. Beginning with UK and, since the world war 2, USA.

We will not forgive and we will not forget, And one day justice will be served. Hopefully in symbolic recognition of the genocide and in monetary compensation, trillions of it.

By: Stephen Frug

Stephen Frug — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Leila, good to see you over here! Thank you for writing this, and sending it.

By: Rowan

Rowan — Mon, 29 Nov 1999 23:00:00 +0000

Mohammed, there are continuing links between Israel's hard-liners on the one hand, and an important part of the British ruling class - this is why the chief rabbi of the United Synagogues is referred to as 'chief rabbi of the British Empire', and is always a high grade Freemason - but there is nothing especially 'anglo-saxon' about of them, in my experience.