Could you elaborate on why you think Israel is a communist country? Certain elements of socialism (even in the Leninist sense) were incorporated into the dominant stream of Zionism, mostly for show (as convincingly demonstrated by Sternhell), but even these have long since disappeared. Israel has a small communist party that has never been Zionist and has always been suspect and marginalised. A very small number of Zionists were admirers of Stalin (with the mustaches to prove it) until ’56. I can think of other communist-related curiosities having to do with Israel and Zionism (virtually all in the distant past), but none of them a communist state make.

Anecdote time: Russian revolutionary and Zionist, Ber Borochov – who advocated a kind of national-communism – was once told by Lenin that if he tries to sit on the chairs of socialism and nationalism at the same time, he will end up falling in the crack between them.

The Israel Lobby uses the US media as a lever to manipulate not just the American government but the American public as well. Those manipulated American Jews who respond to the media manufactured propaganda that Israel is an innocent party, with their support for any and every atrocity Israel commits, must be seen as much victims of our media as are the Palestinians who have the audacity to resist occupation and ethnic cleansing. When dealing with these Jewish victims of the US media, it makes sense to always keep in mind on which end of the lever they are.

I challenge anyone to provide conclusive proof that these substances are either toxic or innocuous, you probably won’t find it because the necessary research hasn’t been (and won’t be anytime soon) conducted yet.

But in the absence of such results most of us (chemists included or perhaps even more so) will continue to take precautions to prevent contact, inhalation and possible transfer into soil or food of such materials. I manipulate vanadium based compounds regularly in my potting-shed lab and am very careful around them, even though they’re not known for their high toxicity.

Not so some armies in the world that use this kind or related substances on civilian populations without consideration for any yet unknown health problems their residues may cause in the medium-long term…

It’s my understanding that many kibbutzim no longer accept volunteers, and rely on hispanic or other thirld-world labor to be shipped in and exploited. Israelis don’t confuse the willingness to perform migratory labor with citizenship, unless one is Jewish–and by my experience, Jews weren’t expected to perform migratory labor, or worry about citizenship status.

This is the sort of thing that makes one get tired of blog comment sections.

Logic like that, and you are a chemist? That’s the logic I would expect from an alchemist. So if the producers of the weapons won’t spend the money to prove that these weapons are in fact, dangerous even to those who use them against others, thab they can’t be proved dangerous, or carcinogenic? Sure, okay, and keep this guy away from the vinegar and baking soda!