Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 543 (since 2009-08-13 23:50:39)

lyn117

wasp

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• US to differentiate between 'personally displaced' Palestinian refugees and their descendants
  • lyn117 May 26, 2012 at 7:12 pm

    If the quote from David Ben-Gurion is accurate "the old will die and the young will forget," it was part of the Israeli plans from early on to escape the consequences of their crime by waiting for the original victims to die.

    Certainly before a lot of the refugees had been expelled, the zionists had stated plans to start a propaganda campaign to get them resettled elsewhere, as well as preventing cultivation by Arabs and destroying villages.

  • lyn117 May 26, 2012 at 7:04 pm

    "changing the rules of the game just to screw the Jews”

    Right, next you'll be arguing that genocide is OK because it was practiced for 1000s of years, but now the rules are being changed retroactively just to screw the Jews because they aren't allowed to practice genocide.

    ... suddenly and retroactively its “international law says no”

    What, are you saying the UN was formed after Israel? Or how do you figure the rules saying no to conquest of territory by force (which are in the UN charter) are being applied retroactively?

    Nor was most of Israel formed on "Jewish" land, the vast majority of what became known as green-line Israel either legally belonged to Palestinian Arabs or was used in a traditional manner by them (e.g. nomadic grazing). At most about 6% of Palestine could legally be considered "Jewish" land prior to 1948 (or after), and that because the JNF put racist covenants on land they bought stating that it could be used or sold only to Jews.

    The Arabs fought a defensive war in 1948. Most Arab armed forces never entered that part of Palestine recommended by the UN as part of the Jewish state, most of the fighting (as well as most of the major massacres by Zionist forces) were outside of the proposed Jewish state.

  • lyn117 May 26, 2012 at 6:46 pm

    "A Jew from anywhere in the world is welcome to attend services in my synagogue."

    Being welcome in a house of worship is what makes it a common religion, not a common nationality or culture. For example, any Catholic can take communion at any Catholic church throughout the world (assuming they can enter the particular country), without regard to nationality or culture.

• The Messiah's Donkey: Settlers fire on Palestinian villagers as the Israeli military watches
  • lyn117 May 22, 2012 at 3:11 am

    @ykohen,

    I don't know how the winds usually blow in the occupied West Bank (which isn't, by the way, Israel)

    However, in the videos, the smoke is drifting towards the left, which would be more or less north, the opposite direction from which the settlers originally came. I.e. more towards Asira al-Qibliya. It would therefore seem that the settlers claim that Arabs were trying to destroy some settlement neighborhood is as bogus your claim to be logical.

• The awakening: Missouri paper runs a Jew's call for equal rights for all
  • lyn117 May 20, 2012 at 10:16 pm

    Nonreligious is somewhat ambiguous when a lot of people state they are atheist Jews and some atheist Christians or Muslims. On the other hand, it seems perfectly correct summary when describing oneself as a member of a congregation of a religion to which you don't belong. I hope the community continues to welcome you. More, I hope they welcome your ideas on equal rights. You don't come right out and say you advocate the right of return, well, perhaps it would be too much for the Beth Shalomers.

    Unconverted seems to say the idea of converting has some attraction. Just imagine, you wouldn't just be becoming a Jew, you'd be converting to an anti-semitic Jew! Well, better that than the rage-filled zionists I occasionally encounter who've called me unmentionable names and seemed ready to physically attack me.

• U. of Haifa stops Nakba commemoration, as prof writes hate post calling for 'Many Nakbas'
  • lyn117 May 19, 2012 at 12:49 pm

    USC is not UCLA. But of course its easy to check whether Pezzati is a professor at either university, since they publicly list their professors and at least USC has a search engine for them.

    It's beyond belief why zios, especially right-wing ones, are such congenital liars.

  • lyn117 May 19, 2012 at 12:38 pm with 3 replies

    @fredblogs, you're the one assuming Blake is referring to some race when he says "Even their intellectuals are madman." I don't know how you know who he's referring to, it may very well be zionists. I find your assumption presumptive, and probably racist.

• Neverending Nakba: Israel breaks lull, attacks Gazan farmers
  • lyn117 May 19, 2012 at 10:43 pm

    If Israel's so concerned about violence from people approaching the fence it could establish a buffer zone on its side. Not that most Palestinians in Gaza don't have every right to go over the fence and rebuild their homes in Israel under the terms of UN resolution 194. Israel has no right to shoot people inside Gaza, simply for approaching the fence.

  • lyn117 May 19, 2012 at 10:42 pm

    Lets not forget that the justification Israel used to establish the settlements was that they served security needs. In other words, every settler is acting to further the military conquest of the territories and to pacify the local population. Many of the settlers are armed.

    Most settlers, however, most don't regularly wear uniforms even though they are acting as part Israel's military. It isn't just that they're civilian aides or something. Quote from affidavit of the Israeli government: "... In times of calm these settlements serve the purpose of presence and control of vital areas, maintaining observation, and the like. The importance of these settlements is enhanced in particular time of war when the regular army forces are shifted, in the main, from their bases for purposes of operational activity and the said settlements constitute the principal component of presence and security control in the areas in which they are located."

    So, the Israeli government purposefully used its civilian population to further its military aim, though a lot of them were glad to do so. It isn't as if the settlers are a bunch of civilians who don't have any army do wear a uniform of, acting in defense of their land and rights, they're part and parcel of Israel's military invasion. So why aren't they wearing uniforms?

• We're still losing
  • lyn117 May 12, 2012 at 4:20 pm

    I seem to recall that Germany was admired for its technical expertise, pre-WWII. Not to make comparisons, but perhaps the admirers of "start-up nations" should be reminded.

• Right of Return key goes on tour
  • lyn117 May 11, 2012 at 11:37 am

    @giladg, "Anyone supporting the right of return of Palestinians ... is saying that Israel, the single Jewish country on this planet, will no longer exist. "

    Israel achieved its Jewish majority and hence existence as a "Jewish state" by expelling them, so it seems to me what you are saying is Jewish countries should be allowed to commit mass murder, terror, ethnic cleansing and religious discrimination. I don't see you claiming this so-called right for any other kind of country, do you think Aryan nations had that right? Why do you think Jews have the "right" to mass murder and ethnic cleansing?

• A portrait of a former Zionist (Part 1)
  • lyn117 May 11, 2012 at 9:51 pm

    @Oleg, as someone said spare us the usual propaganda

    The main motive for the suicide bombings was vengeance for people that the Israelis had killed. If Israel was really interested in "security" for its people, it wouldn't have used live ammunition to quell protests against its land grabs, stirring up those acts of vengeance. Or it would have instituted a system of justice which all people have access on basis of equal rights under the law. It did not, instead, it put in place a system where Israel and its settlers can grab Palestinian land at will for Jewish-only use, and allows its settlers and soldiers to kill innocent Palestinians virtually with impunity. Where there's a fair system, there's a legitimate alternative to vengeance and retribution.

    Snide remarks about "bad bad occupation" don't make it any less a fact that Israel was the primary instigator and contributor of violence, the one most likely to restart it after things had calmed down, and the Palestinians were primarily reacting to Israeli violence. The Israeli public was a victim of Israeli policy as well.

    Please also spare me the comments about the wonderful "Supreme Court" changing the line of the fence if it inflicts "disproportional damage to the Palestinian population." Disproportional to what? It hasn't save single Palestinian life or helped a single Palestinian living under occupation which would be the only legitimate reason an occupying power might have for building it. You can claim it saves lives if your only concern is solely Israeli lives - that's racist in my book, especially when Israel is killing mostly innocent people while the Palestinians (however random their aim) still managed to kill more guilty people than innocent, and far fewer in total. All of the bad effects are on the only people who legally inhabit the territory that most of it is built on, and no bad effects on the settlers whose presence in that territory is illegal.

• Shmully and guilt
  • lyn117 April 27, 2012 at 12:34 pm

    "You may agree with the reasons why Palestinians rejected partition but reject they did and war was fought with the intention to cleanse on both sides."

    It's clear from the writing of dominant zionists from Herzl on that they wanted to get rid of the Palestinian Arabs from the start of the zionist project. Palestinian leadership, on the other hand, supported equal rights regardless of creed. Rejected by zionists because they wanted to dominate. Its true Palestinians attempted to limit Jewish immigration prior to 1947, but there's no indication that to cleanse was the dominant intent on the part of Palestinian leadership. Some may have wanted it, others supported partition. As Ilan Pappe reports, the war in 1948 was for the most part instigated and kept alive by the zionists. The Palestinians were largely unarmed, and unwilling to fight having suffered immensely during the 1936 uprising. Zionists had every opportunity to approach Palestinian Arab leadership and come to an agreement. Who knows, perhaps Palestinian Arabs would have been moved as much as anyone by the story of the holocaust, had they not been under attack by people who acted in the name of Jews? Too late for that now, of course.

    I believe your view of history is colored by your support for a Jewish state. I too see nothing theoretically wrong with a Jewish state, but everything wrong with the one that exists. Whatever one has to say about forced or coerced religious conversion which of course, was done by Christians, Jews and Muslims, and by communists as well if you count the forced conversion to communism under communist rule, most of the Muslim states became that way by conversion, not by ethnic cleansing.

  • lyn117 April 26, 2012 at 8:55 pm with 2 replies

    Congratulations on throwing yourself into the den of lions, so to speak, and coming out alive (I venture God didn't have anything to do with coming out alive).

    As for the Chabad folks, whoever said their religious beliefs are racist nailed it. I have to admit, I take a little offense that they think I'm not fully human.

    Facts don't matter if racist religious beliefs work for them, and their racism (along with the cutesy singing rabbis and telethons) work for them. Yes it blinds them to inconvenient facts and logical universal thinking too. Which wins in an argument, facts or religion? Logic or religion? Please don't feel guilty about eating the food, you paid for it. Be glad they didn't make you drink poison, like Socrates. Think instead about making their racism not work for them. I'd like to know how your wife would have broached the subject with them.

• The new landscape: big media cover former Palestinian P.M.'s obit for two-state solution
  • lyn117 April 27, 2012 at 12:13 am

    Funny, the only "vast wave" of terror attacks originating in the West Bank occurred well after Israel had instituted hundreds of checkpoints, preventing people from accessing jobs, schools and houses of worship, as well as employed "security measures" such as torture, beatings, imprisonment without trial and sniper fire to quell demonstrations against Israeli takeover of territory.

    Sorry, Fredblogs, people on this blog are mostly too smart and knowledgeable to fall for stupid zionist thinking, in this case making up some imaginary and improbable but frightening scenario of what would happen if Israel actually withdrew from the occupied territories, to use as an excuse not to make any genuine effort at peace.

• Sequestering young people in religious/ethnic schools breeds alienation and hatred (Magid takes on Beinart)
  • lyn117 April 21, 2012 at 12:12 pm with 2 replies

    Its actually quite hard to buy non-kosher food, unless you're buying bacon or something. Practically everything in the the grocery store is kosher. I'd be surprised if you couldn't get kosher food at many public schools, but anyway you can always bring your own lunch. I'd be surprised if today any camp didn't offer kosher food, tho maybe not the strictest kosher food. Certainly when I was going to summer camp the Jews could go off to the weekly worship service separately from the other kids, and that was well over 30 years ago.

    BTW I know a fair number of Jews who love bacon.

• Assange's first guest on RT world premier: Nasrallah says US & Israel seek civil war in Syria
  • lyn117 April 20, 2012 at 12:37 am

    Now here's something I don't understand - why is it worse for a despot to murder "thousands of his own people" than for some Israeli generals to murder 10s of thousands of people they considers less than fully human, in the process of ridding territory his state claims of those people they considers undesirable?

• Barghouti to U.S. Jews: I know you don't like the word apartheid, but what do you call a system that gives a settler 50 times more water than a Palestinian?
  • lyn117 April 18, 2012 at 12:42 am

    @Winnica, I have no idea what "narrative" you're talking about, or which blemishes are misconstrued. Are you speaking about the deliberate ethnic cleansing carried out by Israel's founders, including a number of incidents where zionists ordered villagers to line up and then gunned them down in mass, or threatened them with mass murder if they didn't leave the land Israel claimed?

    If not, please be more specific.

• P5 +1 Iran nuclear talks went swimmingly! Netanyahu is fuming
  • lyn117 April 16, 2012 at 1:46 am

    And like the talks with Iraq, I guess, when it was fudging the gullible West about its WMDs - oh wait, we were fudging our own gullible selves. Well, I guess some people aren't content with being fooled once, and also look forward to the repeat of a major disaster, in all likelihood, a much bigger one.

• Amira Hass explains why Israel's U.S. model of ethnic cleansing failed, and why 'Jewish regime' will 'crumble'
  • lyn117 April 13, 2012 at 1:00 pm

    "For Israel to use the analogy is an admission to genocide."

    Pro-Israel hasbarists very commonly use the analogy, I don't know how often I've been asked by bloggers if I'd give my house back to the Native Americans. As far as it being an admission to genocide, I agree. Zionists had/have serious intent of committing genocide against Palestinians.

    As far as not holding Indians were terrorists for defending themselves, "terrorist" wasn't a word in the common vernacular during the Indian wars. People used more common pejoratives like "savage" and I'm sure if the wars were going on today the Native Americans would be called "terrorists"

    The U.S. recognized many native tribes as independent nations, until what, 1920 or so, that's why they could make treaties with them. Israel still doesn't recognize Palestine.

    It has been reported that Zionists did use biological warfare in 1948.

• Orlando Fox affiliate calls neo-Nazis a 'civil rights group'
  • lyn117 April 14, 2012 at 12:25 pm

    I tend to agree. However, I'm not convinced that the US flag-waving, "America first" part of her message shows no political common sense, it shows a different sense that may in fact be much more attractive to the broader American public than the message by the more moral and dedicated leftist support for Palestinian equal rights, which often has a more flag-burning aspect.

  • lyn117 April 13, 2012 at 11:10 pm

    Anti-semites really are often attracted to the pro-Palestinian movement. I don't count Alison Weir as a true anti-semite, at least, not consciously. I'll bet she would disavow any anti-semitic or racist view of the John Birch society. The closest she might come is to espousing their views is to say that sometimes those racists dig up interesting facts and should be listened to. I sometimes wonder if its because she's white and has blond hair, and on top of it more on the flag-waving American right politically than most advocates of human rights, she fits the stereotype of an anti-semite? However, she is pretty careful about using the best evidence available to back any of her claims. So no, I don't think she's a racist and certainly not racial supremacist, at least not consciously, I just think she's too blinded by her anti-Israel stance & the usual charge that Israel is covering up the truth to have any sense of smell or judgment herself about the real racists like Clayton & Co.

• Mustafa Bargouti: Jerusalem is at the heart of the Palestinian cause
  • lyn117 March 25, 2012 at 5:32 pm

    @giladg, someone "stole" the land and Jerusalem from the Jews, is that the best answer you can come up with?

    Note that a) the vast majority of Jews who lived in "the land and Jerusalem" had adopted Christianity by 400 CE, b) the descendants of the Jews of Roman times mostly continued to live in "the land and Jerusalem" as citizens of whatever governmental body ruled from then until they were evicted by the zionists, c) ancient "ownership" of the land by "Jews" (meaning, I guess, King Herod and his army) only lasted maybe 200 years out of its 7000 year history d) according to biblical record the "Jews" stolen the land from its earlier owners anyway, e) most Jews of Roman times (the period following independent "Jewish rule) who emigrated from "the land and Jerusalem" did so entirely voluntarily, and f) most people, both Jewish and non-Jewish who come from around the Mediterranian basin have some ancestry from the same place you claim Jews came from, meaning that all people in Southern France and Sicily could make as legitimate a claim of coming from "ancient Israel" as any European Jew.

    Considering the above, please provide some evidence that any modern Jewish person could claim legal title based on provable deeded inheritance from someone whose land was "stolen" 2000 years ago when the land was considered belonging to "Jews" because Judaism was the dominant religion. Provide evidence that the legal owner of that land you claim was "stolen" did not, in fact, convert to another religion and continue to hold his land, or abandon it voluntarily for opportunity somewhere else.

    Actually Juan Cole explains this history much better than me - if you follow Shingo's link

  • lyn117 March 24, 2012 at 12:56 pm

    @fredblog,
    "if such a man is your enemy"

    You left out the part of the story that gives the reason the man is your enemy. The reason he's your enemy is that you stole his property, destroyed his home and killed, abused or tortured him or his relatives. You should turn yourself in to the police and make every attempt at honest restitution. What you are claiming is that criminals (such as many zionists) should kill off victims who don't agree to remain victims, because those victims might come after you to get their property and rights back.

    And in fact, if you made an honest attempt at restitution, there is a significant possibility that he would forgive you. While I don't doubt some individuals or obscure groups have said it, I've heard no Palestinian say, "no peace until you are dead." The major parties, including Hamas, have welcomed Jews who come in the spirit of justice, including avowed zionists.

  • lyn117 March 23, 2012 at 11:10 pm

    @fredblogs,

    Israel has set a precedent, that it's OK to kill innocent and expel people who don't happen to follow your faith, in order to acquire their property and establish a solid majority for the people of your faith in your state, to "purify" the land ("purify" being term used by Zionists do describe operations to get rid of "Arabs"). Please explain to me, if it's OK to kill and expel people because they happen to be of a faith you don't want (which you've just asserted), why it's wrong to kill or expel people because they happen to be Jewish?

  • lyn117 March 23, 2012 at 11:01 pm

    @Fredblogs, aren't you confusing statehood with personhood? States do not have minds or points of view. A state that ceases to exist is not considered dead. As far as I'm concerned, a state that does not grant any rights to the native people of the land it occupies, in Israel's case the Palestinian people, should change to grant full rights, or else cease to exist.

  • lyn117 March 23, 2012 at 10:52 pm with 3 replies

    @giladg, why do you think your "special connection" gives you the right take the property of the native people and to expel them, or discriminate against them?

    How about if I start claiming a "special connection" to some billions of dollars in the local bank, and go and take it? Would you recognize it? How about if I start claiming a "special connection" to all of your worldly goods, and took them. Would you recognize it?

  • lyn117 March 23, 2012 at 10:48 pm

    Wasn't it mostly Muslim blood that the Christians spilled in the Crusades? Although, I understand that the Crusaders didn't care, when they were slaughtering native people of the "Holy" land, whether they were Muslim, Christians or Jews.

    It seems to me that the "Holy" land was probably more "Holy" to the Crusaders than to modern Zionists, but I have no idea whether the Zionists slaughtered more people in conquering it.

• Israel to Europe: Palestinians can't have a state because they can't support themselves
  • lyn117 March 18, 2012 at 4:29 pm with 1 replies

    Not fair to who?

• Mr. President, Palestine has heard you
  • lyn117 March 17, 2012 at 4:55 pm with 1 replies

    It will be a revolution if Mr. President calls for Israel to give up violence as a means of achieving territorial expansion or ethnic cleansing. Or for that matter for the U.S. to give up violence as a means of achieving control over world resources.

• Video: IDF caught in a lie about Tristan Anderson
  • lyn117 March 17, 2012 at 10:11 pm

    @giladg,
    Yeah, tell it to the judge. This is a famous zionist excuse for murder (let me paraphrase): Honest, I was pointing that gun at that "naive romantic activist" and pulled the trigger, but it was just a mistake that he was severely injured - and after all he deserved it for just "pretending" to care, and "pretending" to care about Israel's victims at that. Honest, we didn't mean to get rid of the majority of non-Jews from Palestine in 1948, sure, we conducted a few massacres and ordered people out of their homes at gunpoint and threatened mass murder, but really, it was all an accident, totally unintentional.

  • lyn117 March 17, 2012 at 10:00 pm

    Zionists claim allowing equal rights for the native people of the land Israel controls would be equivalent to the destruction of Israel. In that sense, I support the destruction of Israel.

• Israelis 'were looking to kill me' in '02-- Shadid
  • lyn117 March 11, 2012 at 1:04 am

    PZ, according to your ajr link, 12 incidents, 8/12 and almost certainly 9/12 the perpetrators of violence against journalists were Israeli soldiers, some of them lethal. 2/12 by Palestinians, one clearly violence by Palestinians, another, the Palestinians confiscated some news footage. 1/12 was violence by unknown perpetrators.

    Your link clearly shows who perpetrates most of the violence against journalists in the West Bank. It's the Israelis.

  • lyn117 March 11, 2012 at 12:54 am

    PZ777, suspecting Shadid of being a "terrorist" might be a defense if it weren't that people like you (I mean many zionists) believe that unborn Palestinians children are terrorists, and justify killing pregnant women on that basis.

  • lyn117 March 11, 2012 at 12:46 am

    Shooting Palestinian civilians is Israeli policy. Don't just lay the blame on ill-disciplined IDF troops.

• Why young Palestinians chant the word 'thawra'
  • lyn117 February 23, 2012 at 2:24 am

    "Thankfully a vast majority of the civilized people were and stil are shocked and disgusted by that bare handed murder."

    Its not like they were shooting children for sport, like Israeli soldiers are known to have done. I have to wonder at all the "civilized" people who are shocked and disgusted by the killing of two soldiers by a mob, but not by bulldozing innocent people alive in their homes, like Israelis do. I guess if you civilized Israelis (or Americans) people regard other people as savages or otherwise subhuman, its reasonable to kill or exterminate them at will.

• Asher Grunis discriminates his way to the top of the Israeli Supreme Court
  • lyn117 February 11, 2012 at 3:53 pm with 1 replies

    What ever would give you the idea that this law (which appears from statements about it to apply only to Palestinians) is intended to prevent marriages in order to gain citizenship in a country? Do you really think persons of other origins would never want citizenship in Israel, e.g., "economic refugees" from say, former Soviet block countries, but to which this law doesn't apparently apply?

    Besides which, considering that all Palestinians should have citizenship in Israel particularly refugees, why exclude marriage as a means of gaining rights which should be theirs in the first place? And why do you personally exclude marriages where love is not a precondition, e.g., arranged marriages, from the category of "real marriages?" BTW it's not that I'm in favor of arranged marriages, on the other hand, I have to classify them as "real" marriages, and as far as love goes, people all over the world marry in order to gain status or wealth, rather than for love, and not by having their marriages "arranged" but with full intent.

• Both sides are wrong in the ‘Israel Firsters’ debate
  • lyn117 February 5, 2012 at 6:14 pm with 3 replies

    A local congressman, Brad Sherman, regularly holds "town hall" meetings with the Israeli deputy consulate at a synagogue in his district on the subject of foreign affairs - he's a ranking member of the congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs.

    As far as I know, he advertises that he'll have them only in the local Jewish Journal. I don't know if he sends out notices about them ahead of time on his regular email list, since I haven't signed up for that. Unlike his other town hall meetings, these particular town hall meetings aren't published on his web site.

    I've called Brad Sherman an "Israel firster" in part because of events like this and the amount of effort he spends as a congressman supporting Israel, but I'm not sure it's an accurate description. Israel firster or not, it seems a little underhanded to sort of reserve a town hall meeting for a specific part of his constituency, a segment that he himself is a member of, and exclude from the invitation his general constituency. I think that they'd all have an opinion on the wars on Iraq (which Sherman voted to authorize) and Iran (which he apparently supports), if nothing else. Conversely, I'm sure Sherman's Jewish constituents have an interest in more than just foreign policy vis-a-vis Israel. Maybe it's just his "glaring" lack of publicity on the foreign policy town halls that makes it seem underhanded.

    Anyone else want to weigh in? Should Brad Sherman get the "Israel firster" label?

• New additions to the Mondoweiss comments policy
  • lyn117 January 26, 2012 at 10:02 pm

    "I am saying that not all of the refugees were expelled; many fled fighting that was taking place in the their towns and villages, which is perfectly understandable. .... But I do believe that the war resulted from the Arabs’ (I don’t want to say the Palestinians because they never had a say in the matter) rejection of the partition and the refugee crisis resulted from the war."

    Robert, this seems to me you're blaming the victims for their expulsion, which is no better than saying the Jews were to blame for the holocaust. Indeed, I'm sure the Jews were leaders in rejection of German rule over every country the Germans invaded in WWII.

    The fact is the Zionists were the ones who lobbied the UN for the partition, Palestinians mostly did reject the division of their land and giving over the majority of it to what could be considered invaders. The war was the result of the partition, not the Arabs rejecting of it. Nor does it matter whether the Zionists had a plan or a policy of expelling the Arabs, the fact is, they had a goal of expelling or finding a way of "cleansing" the land of non-Jews, some Zionists had this goal pretty much since the beginning of the Zionist movement.

  • lyn117 January 26, 2012 at 9:27 pm

    A real anti-semite might say the holocaust happened, and was a good thing. Those who deny it are in a perverse way agreeing it was a horrible crime. Ok, I see no reason to allow any holocaust denying on your blog. I haven't seen much of it anyway, though I have seen the infamous excuses (blaming the victims) which might be worse.

    I don't suppose there's a policy against saying the Nakba was a good thing, or necessary (I count these descriptions more or less the same in this context) which is what our favorite commentator RW does all the time.

    Note I am making this comment before reading everyone else's 251 comments. Please excuse me if this ground has been covered.

• The Mondo crew hosts WBAI’s 'Beyond the Pale' to discuss Ron Paul, Dennis Ross and the myth of Obama's 'Jewish problem'
  • lyn117 January 22, 2012 at 3:37 pm with 6 replies

    The U.S.'s foreign policy
    1. The U.S. should support a complete end to all occupied territories and the formation of a Palestinian state in those territories,
    2. The complete and full right of return to what's now Israel of all of its indigenous people, that is, the Palestinian Arabs
    3. Equal rights for all people regardless of creed in all territories formerly know as Palestine
    4. Israel should give up its nukes

    Towards implementing this, the U.S. should give up ties and sanction Israel until it complies

• Publisher of the 'Atlanta Jewish Times' suggests Mossad should assassinate Obama
  • lyn117 January 20, 2012 at 8:18 pm with 2 replies

    Do you suppose he's an "Israel-firster?"

    I hope I'm not being anti-semitic

• Israel is trying to hook us into a war with Iran-- Matthews and Baer speculate
  • lyn117 January 15, 2012 at 3:00 pm

    Yes, and I include plants in "we, as in all living beings." Having certain rights, like the right not to suffer genocide, except for maybe certain harmful bacteria. Bacteria mutate so quickly it might be impossible to define genocide against a bacteria anyway. Clearly, killing all the blue whales or polar bears would be genocide.

    I absolutely include every zionist and RW in "we, human beings," I also have to Adolph Hitler.

    Not sure where to place viruses. I'm not an animist either. OK, I didn't really mean to get goofy about this.

  • Page: 5
  • lyn117 January 14, 2012 at 7:12 pm with 1 replies

    I don't actually exclude any human being from my concept of "we." Sometimes, I include animals. Elephants or whales or great apes have at least some sentience, and certainly many mammals have emotions we can recognize, if we ourselves are capable of such.

    That being said, when I say "we human rights advocates," "we who believe in equality under law," "we who believe in fairness and justice," "we who are capable of understanding and applying logic," "we who abhor killing or oppression of people because of their ethnic group," "we who are against racism in any form," or "we who abhor perversion of language", I sadly and specifically have to exclude virtually every zionist and RW.

• Israeli Supreme Court upholds discriminatory citizenship law: 'Human rights shouldn’t be a recipe for national suicide'
  • lyn117 January 13, 2012 at 1:37 am

    "Palestinian Arabs are decendants (sic) tribes that conquered the land of Israel in 8th-9th centuries ..."

    Oh, please, how often do we have to listen to this kind of nonsense. There wasn't any such thing as a "land of Israel" in the 8th-9th centuries for starters. Unlike the Israelis, the Arabian tribes didn't mass murder and expel the majority of the population, the Palestinians who were living there then (and it was called Palestine then) are basically the same people who had been living there for 1000s of years. To be sure they adopted new religions as they arose, most Jews as well as others in that land had become Christians by around 400 CE (according to my history book, Christianity was very popular) and after the Muslim invasion most eventually adopted Islam. To be sure there was some intermingling with other groups who came by trade or conquest, but the Palestinians are as indigenous as possible in a land that's at the crossroads of continents and trade routes. It's quite correct to call them "indigenous people" in the land that's now called Israel.

    Amazing what nonsense zionist propagandists would have you believe.

• Happy New Year
  • lyn117 January 2, 2012 at 2:05 am with 1 replies

    May all the zionists find enlightenment in 2012. Best wishes for the new year for the rest of us.

• Thanks, my enemy. I love Palestine
  • lyn117 January 1, 2012 at 10:10 pm

    From RW:

    “The liberation of one was the nakba of the other.”

    I agree with that.

    And you "primarily celebrate" the event, you've said so many times, therefore, you celebrate the nakba. You celebrate the deliberate murder in mass of people who never did you any harm.

    The liberation was our survival. (My wife’s family, my childrens’ antecedents.)

    The vast majority of people who were murdered by zionists in 1948 weren't killed fighting, were simply unarmed civilians, and of those who were armed most were killed while defending themselves, not attacking. The vast, vast majority of people who were expelled were expelled simply because if an election had been held they would have voted against the zionist parties. That such an election wasn't held, to see whether the people desired their land split or who would represent them in a sovereign country, could be blamed on the UN or Britain. However it was the zionist parties who demanded that no democratic institutions be built in Palestine which could conduct free and fair elections, for the very reason that they knew they were a minority. It was the zionist parties who insisted on partition, rather than voting and referendum to decide the future of Palestine, and they're the ones who stirred up the war that they could use as cover to expel the Palestinians from their villages.

    Perfectly peaceful means for Jews to live in Palestine existed prior to 1948, who knows, had the zionists not made it their goal to take over from the native people, perhaps those native people (whose culture from my observations is one of openness, generosity and hospitality) might have learned of the holocaust and been as horrified as the rest of the world and been fully open to welcoming more refugees. But no, the zionists insisted on Jewish rule which meant no rights for non-Jews, they insisted on Britain giving them favorable treatment until they had enough military strength to force out the Palestinians by means of terror and massacres.

    I seriously doubt your wife's family would have been in much danger unless they were part of zionist militias, and only because the zionists insisted on first, partitioning a territory that didn't belong to them, giving themselves the majority area, and secondly, stirring up more violence, throwing bombs into crowds and so forth. The only reason for the "war" in 1948 was to establish a "Jewish state" with a clear Jewish majority. It was in no way a war for the survival of the Jewish people, either in Palestine or elsewhere.

  • lyn117 December 30, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    "Calling someone “enemy” anyone, multiplies the number of enemies in the world."

    You celebrate the nakba. You approve of deliberate mass murder of his compatriots, and the expulsion of all his people from their land of origin. Why do you resent being called an "enemy" if indeed you were called that?

  • lyn117 December 30, 2011 at 9:22 pm

    According to , he does not deny the holocaust. Please provide evidence that Atzmon believes that "American Jews already control the world by proxy." As far as I can determine, he only thinks zionists control U.S. foreign policy. Zionists, not Jews in general, and not the whole world.

  • lyn117 December 30, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    Ethnic cleansing, the nakba, was a necessary wrong only if an ethnically purified Jewish state was necessary. If your goal was people living in peace and equality with each other, far more options were available. A single state, which all the Arab leadership and most of the population supported, rather than the giving away of the majority of the territory to recent immigrants (many of them illegal immigrants) and depriving native people of sovereignity in their own land which the zionists were after, was a perfectly achievable without resorting to mass murder or driving anyone into the sea.

    RW, are you incapable of noticing that the zionist goal of ethnic supremacy against the will of the majority of the people is a racist goal in the first place, regardless of whether they achieved it by deliberate mass murder and terror (and it;s clear that was the zionist intention)?

    Do you really think that the wrongs of racist policy can be "healed" without ending the zionist official state-sponsored and imposed racist policies?

• 'New York Times' implies anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic
  • lyn117 December 27, 2011 at 1:47 am

    "Zionism is a form of Jews associating as Jews. "

    Sure, and the KKK was a form of white people associating as white people, as were many exclusive clubs that barred blacks, native Americans and frequently Jews. Similarly, zionists bar most natives of the land Israel claims from citizenship in the zionist political entity there, and they've frequently killed people simply because they weren't Jews, because they inhabited and have a more valid claim to inhabit the land zionists want. I really don't see any difference between the KKK and zionist organizations other than the specific ethnic group, both are racist to the core, both are bent on denying rights of people not in their ethnic group to the point of mass murder. It isn't a matter of hating.

• Europe asks: Where's Israel's proposal?
  • lyn117 December 24, 2011 at 1:52 pm

    Where in the Guardian article are any lies about Israel exposed?

    Honestly, that you would characterize the link as exposing lies about Israel is in itself, a false characterization, i.e., a lie

• The Ron Paul moment-- bad and good
  • lyn117 December 24, 2011 at 5:34 pm with 1 replies

    Evidently, the writers of the 1990's "Ron Paul Political Report" are both racist and fans of Ron Paul.

    I don't mean to imply libertarians are racist. I can't even say whether Ron Paul is racist. More that racists latch onto libertarians (and their anti-government message) and libertarians don't always disavow them the way, say, left-wing anarchist of the pacifist variety (who have an anti-government message of a different kind) would.

  • lyn117 December 24, 2011 at 1:27 pm with 3 replies

    "Lame" describes Ron Paul's "apology" perfectly. I don't really understand why libertarians hang out with racists, or vice versa. Sadly there are huge numbers of racists around, of the old-fashioned anti-semitic anti-black kind, and I'm sure Ron Paul is aware that they form a significant part of his political base. I would not be surprised to learn there were more racists than conscious anti-racists. I thought the video was great too, considering its obviously low-budget production.

• How a comic book healed the wounds of normalization
  • lyn117 December 16, 2011 at 1:18 am

    My personal definition of a zionist working for "normalization": someone who wants reconciliation, half-truth and no end to apartheid

• David Remnick erases Norman Finkelstein
  • lyn117 December 16, 2011 at 1:35 am

    Let me try to explain how RW thinks. Peters used the word "the", and obviously "the" is true. Since when does a word, or a string of words need to form a complete statement for it to be true or false? Hence the book is partially true.

• Beinart says Israel must give citizenship to Palestinians under occupation
  • lyn117 December 6, 2011 at 1:24 am

    "that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws "

    Trick answer. Israel doesn't have a constitution. People in Israel have been prosecuted for stating Israel should be a state for all its citizens, interpreted by the GOI as Israel should not grant preference to Jews. I.e. Israel demands of its non-Jewish citizens that they pledge allegiance to the state of Jewish supremacy. Our constitution, on the other hand, explicitly states that all citizens are equal before the law regardless of religion or place of national origin.

• Roll over Ben-Gurion and tell Jabotinsky the news (even Tablet's had enough)
  • lyn117 December 5, 2011 at 1:57 am

    "Jews who make aliyah do so because they feel that they are committed to advancing a higher cause;"

    Can you please explain to me why mass murder and ethnic cleansing of native people of a land, in this case Palestinians, is a "higher cause"? I was always taught murder was wrong. I'm not a Jew, in my understanding of the religion I didn't used to think that Judaism espoused racism and encouraged killing people because they aren't Jews. Am I wrong?

• A documentary guide to 'Brand Israel' and the art of pinkwashing
  • lyn117 December 1, 2011 at 1:11 am

    If there were truth in their advertising, I suppose the zios would advertise the IDF as a paradise for sadists.

• NPR story on Dead Sea Scrolls makes listener feel like a goose being force-fed Israel propaganda
  • lyn117 November 20, 2011 at 8:31 pm

    "Yahweh was since the beginning not a deity among others but the “one true God”. ???

    Yet even the bible mentions other gods. At least the NJB and Dead Sea scrolls certainly do. I'm not sure what truth value one should put in a religious tract written hundreds of years after the events it purportedly reports on anyway. I mean, it also reports that Moses came down from the mountain with the 10 commandments inscribed by "God" on tablets in Hebrew script. Well, Hebrew script didn't actually exist at the time he supposedly did this. Why would "God" write commandments using an alphabet that would be practically indecipherable to the people trying to read it at the time?

    You are claiming a certain tract of land called variously Israel or Palestine, and its contents as belonging to Jews because it's their "historical and cultural heritage" and the only evidence you provide comes from some religious doctrine. If I believe you, that also implies that people who convert to another religion have no right to property or cultural artifacts of their ancestors, or even to live in land their ancestors lived in for 1000s of years simply because some ancestor of theirs converted, for example, most people in Palestine had adopted Christianity by 400 CE, including former Jews.

    To me it's the mark of the fanatic who says that people who happen to be of the wrong religion lose any or all rights.

  • lyn117 November 20, 2011 at 2:38 pm

    Jonah, I can't find anything in your own wikipedia link that claims there was indeed a united kingdom of Israel under David and Salomon (sic). It doesn't matter, archeological evidence shows that even if David and Solomon existed, grand king or tribal chief, they were pagans, not Jews.

    Syncretism? I'm sure there's been syncretism. To call the Canaanite paganism a cult is somewhat derogatory and backwards. Yahweh was after all, just one of the Canaanite deities, don't you find it curious David didn't choose to worship Salem, the Canaanite god of the dusk, after whom Jerusalem is named? There's absolutely no doubt that many bible stories are nearly identical to earlier pagan ones. My history book mentions the "cult of Yahweh" which rose out of the pagan culture, later it was adopted as the state religion of the Hasmonian kingdom who force-converted surrounding people it conquered to its monotheistic faith. Even then, the early monotheistic faith was very different from modern Judaism.

  • lyn117 November 19, 2011 at 7:34 pm with 1 replies

    And, it is pretty common for religious fanatics to try to use science to "prove" religious doctrine. Creation "science" being one of the best examples. So-called scientific studies of genetics of Jews are another field ripe with people trying to prove a religious belief, that Jews "came" from the Levant." What they've managed to find is that European Jews do have some ancestry from the Middle East. However, they're more closely related to southern French than to Middle Eastern populations. And what they leave out is that most people from around the Mediterranean have some ancestry from the Levant, for good reason, the Phoenicians whose sea-trading empire lasted for 1000 years established colonies all around the area. Saying Jews came from the Levant is as accurate as saying Sicilians came from the Levant. There's no real evidence that such ancestors of European and North African Jews who came from the Levant were members of any Judaic sect when they left (unless you include pre-monotheistic paganism), there's every evidence that the migration was voluntary. There's also plenty of evidence that ancient monotheists proselytized extensively, at one time converting as many as <a href="link to blogs.discovermagazine.com
    of the Roman empire had converted to Judaism.

  • lyn117 November 19, 2011 at 7:10 pm with 13 replies

    Why I should argue with religious fanatics, I'm not sure

    is part of the historical and cultural heritage of the Jewish people, since the territories were called originally “Judea and Samaria,” the heart of the ancient kingdom of Israel.

    Just one problem with this statement is that there were no Jews at the time the "ancient kingdom of Israel" supposedly existed. All the people were pagans.

    And yes, from that time on, there were no major exoduses of people from what became known as Palestine including ancient Judea and Samaria, until the Zionists came. A few of the leaders decamped after some brutal crackdowns by Romans and there were some other times when armies came through and committed some mass murders, but by and large most of the people stuck around, farmed their farms, herded their flocks or whatever, and adopted new religions as they came along. So its quite fair to say the Palestinians are the descendants of the people of the Hasmonian kingdom.

  • lyn117 November 19, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    I guess I'm offended by perversions of "science" (if you call archeology science) as much as language. Note the recent attempt to call Phoenician script "paleo-Hebrew"

• Ross's departure will hurt Obama's reelection hopes, Abrams explains
  • lyn117 November 11, 2011 at 12:42 pm

    The Christian zionists wouldn't vote for a muslim anyway. I agree with most of what you wrote though, zionism is the model of the future US for the Republican party, and Obama already handed his "adverseries" key victories on that front.

• Threatening letter to Obama on chilling Turkey is signed by 7 Jewish House members, says Peace Now
  • lyn117 November 6, 2011 at 3:42 pm

    You are actually believing your own propaganda.

    I suppose you are talking in the usual zionist double-speak, when you say Palestinians get 80% of "mandate Palestine" that they get 0% of historical Palestine and the 80% of the mandate that wasn't Palestine (and only briefly part of the mandate if ever), i.e., give the Palestinians Jordan. It's still ethnic cleansing, you're still banning the native people of the land you claim from life in their land of origin. I support safety for Jews in general, safety for innocent people everywhere, but why do people who commit ethnic cleansing, who institute policies of ethnic supremacy, who give themselves permission to kill with impunity anyone who objects to being pushed out of their land, actually deserve to be able to kill innocent people or take their property in safety?

• Occupy Wall Street responds to controversy over Gaza flotilla
  • lyn117 November 6, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    I think MLK said it (and probably a few others)

    Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere (not sure of the exact quote)

    If you can't support equal rights in Palestine, you don't support equal rights. If you support use of collective punishment of Gazans in the form of economic siege and destruction of their ability to farm, trade, produce their own electricity, run hospitals or operate sewage treatment plants, or leave or enter, if you support the state-sponsored confiscation of Palestinian land for use by settlers in blatant ethnic discrimination, you're supporting not just state-enforced economic inequality along ethnic lines, you're supporting state-enforced impoverishment of a whole ethnic group. What moral standing do you have to object to exclusion of the 99% from a more equitable distribution of wealth, while supporting the exclusion of the native people of Palestine/Israel, and only the native people Palestine/Israel, who would be a majority of maybe 66% if they were still living there, from the rights and wealth in their own land?

• Say Yes To Colonialism!
  • lyn117 November 4, 2011 at 8:32 pm

    The U.S., Canada and most of the Americas were colonized by people from multiple places in Europe. There is nothing that says a colonial enterprise has to be a colony of another (single) country. If you insist, Britain absolutely qualifies as the colonizing country for Israel being as they invited the colonists, supported and protected them, and trained their militias until they were able to successfully break off.

  • lyn117 November 4, 2011 at 12:50 am

    "... I would say that is closer to Nazi tactics

    I guess you don't count boarding up people in their homes for days without food or water before killing them by blowing up the homes, as the Israel did in its ethnic cleansing operations in 1948 as a nazi act. Or, lining up captive civilians against walls and gunning them down in mass as they've done on a number of occasions, or bulldozing people while alive in their homes, or shooting children for sport as reported during the recent intifada.

• Palestine's UNESCO bid to come up Monday (amid Simon Wiesenthal Center hypocrisy)
  • lyn117 October 28, 2011 at 5:55 pm

    Museum of Intolerance is what they call it here in LA

• Feingold says Palestinian Authority doesn't acknowledge Israel's right to exist
  • lyn117 October 22, 2011 at 12:45 am

    You're right. It's dishonest people who get the most funding, not the dumb ones. And of course, since dishonest ones get the most funding, they have more to give to their ilk.

    Though I have to admit G. W. Bush was pretty dumb, and he got a ton of funding. I don't think he was that dishonest, just a swaggering fool.

• Don't just stand there, let's get to it, strike a pose, there's nothing to it
  • lyn117 October 15, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    Wonderful scarf

    It looks like I have to wait until November to comment on-line - I can't find this photo anywhere on vogue.com. Hope they don't pull it.

• Neocon orgs seek to paint Wall St protests as anti-semitic
  • lyn117 October 14, 2011 at 7:09 pm with 2 replies

    If you're talking about the man talking to the Jewish guy wearing a kippah, in a longer where he's I think called a bum (sorry my link is slow and tends to drop sound bytes) and told to find a job by the man wearing a kippah, he says he's Jewish himself, has a job (low paying) and works hard, he's there because the corporations pay $7 an hour, his family's home was foreclosed on. All left out of the clip from commentary.

    Well, I honestly can't find anything anti-semitic in that interchange. In fact, it's pretty laughable to call it anti-semitic.

    The guy with the sign was the only anti-semitic one on the whole video. And I certainly wouldn't be surprised to find he was at some of the tea-party rallies too, or even an infiltrator - an infiltrator of some protesters of drones was reported on k-talk in another situation.

  • lyn117 October 14, 2011 at 4:05 pm

    I guess I disagree. Jews are disproportionally represented in finance in part having to do with outlawing the practice of usury by Christians, but not Jews (against Christians), in early European history. This gave them a boost in the finance industry that continues to today. I regard it as an accident of history, not something even rich Jews should be blamed for, but it does connect Jews with finance. That being said, to blame the greed of financiers solely on Jewish financiers, or blame their greed on being Jewish as the one sign in the you-tube video did, is of course, anti-semitic, and clearly wrong.

    On the other hand you, eee and virtually all supporters of Israel scream anti-semitism even when it doesn't exist, yet support racism when Israeli Jews practice it. I've heard some of you support and excuse killing people whose sole differentiating characteristic from people you think shouldn't be killed is that they're Jewish. Could you please give me a good reason why I should care that much if you supporters of racism are the victims of some rather small amount of racist speech? I mean, I don't want my movement tarred supporting any racism, but yours does, why should I care if you're the victim of the kind of movement you support?

• In Cairo, we consecrate the freedom of religion
  • lyn117 October 9, 2011 at 2:09 pm with 1 replies

    I thought it was after Israel attacked Egypt in 1956 that the Jews were expelled from Egypt. I read somewhere that half of them were foreign Jews, I don't know if its true. There both because they were fleeing the nazis and because of the long decades of European colonialism.

    However, Egypt is one of I believe only 2 Arab states from which Jews were actually expelled. Syria and Iraq passed laws to prevent Jews from leaving - surely a violation of their rights but a long way from "ethnic cleansing". In Algeria (and probably Tunisia), the French gave full citizenship to native Jews, something they didn't grant to native Muslims (I guess the colonial Jews already had citizenship). Consequently most Jews left with the other colonial French when Algeria gained its independence.

  • lyn117 October 9, 2011 at 1:42 pm

    If I understand your argument, you're saying it's better to attack innocent people living peacefully in their villages, with the purpose of expelling the native people of the land from their homes, if it's done by a militia as the zionists/Israelis did?

• Palestinians have their own Gandhis and Kings
  • lyn117 October 9, 2011 at 4:35 pm

    Witty, what "substantive" comment did Pam make that was incorporated in Kristof's criticism? I mean, other than the ones Pam acknowledged? Let's review Pam's major comments:

    Paragraph 3 (Pam's first substantive comment on Kristof's column) Are you claiming that the settlements, or hard line by Israeli leaders only started with Netanyahoo as Kristof implies?

    Paragraph 4 (her second) Are you claiming that statistics, in fact, show that Israel does not use violence to the extent Palestinians do? Or are you claiming that Kristof incorporated this into his column? I can't find this kind of unbiased observation anywhere in it.

    Nor can I find the list of longstanding abuses by Israeli occupation forces and settlers in Kristof's column anywhere. Could you please quote it for me? Or do you think that Israeli soldiers directing violence against civilians "... to punish, deter or tighten control over the Palestinian population" is not substantive?

  • lyn117 October 9, 2011 at 4:17 pm with 1 replies

    Maybe Kristoff is falling for his own propaganda.

• Kol Nidre in Cairo. Not
  • lyn117 October 7, 2011 at 11:44 pm

    This is from your jewishvirtuallibrary link:

    "On July 29, 1947, an amendment was introduced to the Egyptian Companies Law which made it mandatory for at least 75% of the administrative employees of a company to be Egyptian nationals and 90% of employees in general. This decree resulted in the loss of livelihood for many Jews. "

    It seems to me that if so many Jews in Egypt were foreign nationals, the cause of any riots in which Jews were killed must have been more the anti-colonial fervor than anti-Jewish fervor. In fact the jewishvirtuallibrary site hints as much. Most non-zionists sources I've been able find in a quick web search describe the riots as anti-British.

• Abbas at the United Nations a game changer? Maybe.
  • lyn117 September 25, 2011 at 2:53 am with 1 replies

    Jerusalem was named after that Canaanite deity, Salem, god of the west or setting sun.

    As for whether there was ever a country called Palestine, I don't know why it's important, but after all, before 1948 there was never a country called Israel either. As LLI likes to note, there were places called Judea and Samaria. Samaria, together with Galilee is roughly encompassed in the territory labeled as "Israel" in some biblical maps. The biblical maps are, of course, notorious for being reconstructions from the rather grandiose and already exaggerated biblical claims, created at least 1000 years after the kingdoms supposedly existed.

    I think Judea was an independent kingdom with a "Jewish" ruler for a brief 200 years out of 10000 or so years of history. Not to say all the people were Jewish, hence, debatable whether it was a "Jewish state" however, the "Jews" of that period did practice putting people to death who didn't accept their faith, so maybe you could say it was.

    I put "Jew" in quotes because the religion was led by hereditary priests and very different from the rabbinical Judaism we're more familiar with. There were monotheists that many people call Jews, however, given that most people of that area adopted the branch of the Abrahamic faith known as Christianity, who knows but what Christians can claim they are the root trunk from which Judaism sprang rather than vice versa. In which case, one should say that there was never a Jewish kingdom in Palestine before 1948, but a Christian or proto-Christian one.

• The privileged divide-- non-Jews want to talk the issue, Jews don't
  • lyn117 September 17, 2011 at 12:48 pm with 5 replies

    "OK, I know; many Jews are afraid to talk to me."

    I'm afraid to talk to some of my Jewish friends about the subject (none of whom are particularly privileged, at most comfortably middle class). Also my uncle, who qualifies as privileged east coast liberal but who married a Jewish lady and has been a supporter of Israel as much as Dersh. I'm afraid to talk to a lot of my non-Jewish acquaintances too.

• Arab Sources: Bishara on Palestine's UN bid
  • lyn117 September 16, 2011 at 8:44 pm

    Jewish property has been returned this many years after the holocaust. And yes, Poland has been dragging its feet after coming out from communism, under which I guess private persons didn't have the right to sue the state for their property. However, getting property returned to Jews is not out of the question, and suits are ongoing.

    I note your former statements that taking property away from Palestinians was moral. Do you agree also, that the Nazis confiscation of property belonging to Jews was moral? Do you disagree with the rabbi in the following article, who says not returning property is immoral?

    link to dw-world.de

  • lyn117 September 16, 2011 at 3:41 pm

    "Jews immigrated to Palestine because the sovereign allowed them to do so."

    The terms under which Britain ruled Palestine were never accepted by the people or the political leadership. As such, Britain's rule was not legitimate, in particular the immigration policies it imposed. Nor did Britain ever claim Palestine as part of its territory, so it wasn't the sovereign. Had it made all the Palestinians it's citizens it could have claimed sovereign status, had it held a referendum on its policies they might, or might not have achieved legitimacy. Britain had the right to allow unfettered Jewish immigration to its own territory, but it never did so.

    Nor is it accurate to say Jews who immigrated to Palestine didn't push anyone from their homes prior to 1948. First, as land ownership law in Palestine was in a state of transition since 1856 or so, it's a little dubious that Jews always bought the land from the rightful owners or persons who should have owned the land, and those rightful owners may not always had the wherewithal, cognizance of legal ownership on land they'd always farmed, or political connections, to assert their rights and thus lost them. Under the Ottomans, bribery could occasionally be used to simply make up deeds and hand them over to immigrant Jews, under the British, land which had always been farmed by certain villages might still have been considered "public" on the books, and thus could be sold to immigrants out from underneath them and themselves evicted, unless they had good, timely legal representation. Second, as the major Zionist organizations had a policy of only allowing Jews to live in or work land they bought, in many cases they evicted the Arab tenants simply because they weren't Jewish. The resulting "landless peasants" became a serious problem.

    The land owned by Palestinian refugees in Israel should be returned to them, the same as buildings and property that has been returned to Jews who were forced from Austria, Germany, Poland and other places in which the Nazis were the sovereigns at one time. Now, who here wants to make the claim that forcing the Jews out of Austria and Germany and Poland, and the confiscation of their property, was legitimate?

• 'Forward's ad director says he's chosen not to visit Israel because it's gone 'so far afield'
  • lyn117 September 25, 2011 at 2:39 pm

    What is the falsehood in "Zionists ethnically cleansed Palestinians"?

• See the children's drawings that terrified the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council and the Jewish Federation of the East Bay
  • lyn117 September 13, 2011 at 2:00 am with 6 replies

    From the proisraelbaybloggers:

    Notice the use of Jewish stars in the "art" turning this from simply a chronicle of childrens experiences during war, into a demonization of Jewish state.

    Next thing, they'll be declaring Israel isn't a Jewish state.

  • lyn117 September 13, 2011 at 1:56 am with 2 replies

    Finally??

• 'NYT' calls Dogan a Turk-- yes, and how many other American deaths go unaudited?
  • lyn117 September 13, 2011 at 1:50 am

    Where is the proof that the three Americans protecting the academic review committee were killed by Palestinian terrorists? As I recall, the culprits were never caught, and some Israeli tank drove all over the site destroying any evidence.

    The piece you cite is an opinion. Jeff Jacoby doesn't have to stick to the facts, and zionists are known for lying.

• 'Hands at your side like a soldier,' first-graders belt out 'Hatikvah' --at NY school with public funding
  • lyn117 September 8, 2011 at 12:26 am

    It excludes anyone not of the Jewish religion. That absolutely makes it a religious song. And if it were more honest, it would say "our hope is to rid Israel of the Palestinians so that the state will be as Jewish as possible"

• Gabe Schivone and the new hyphenated-Jewish identity
  • lyn117 September 8, 2011 at 1:05 am

    I want to know Valerie Saturen's credits. Here's a quote from her book review of Vittorio Arrigoni's Gaza: Stay Human:

    "It seems, though, that it is not just members of the international community whose humanity is at stake, but also the Israeli soldiers who participated in the offensive and the Palestinians who will bear the scars of this war for the rest of their lives. "

    Clearly, making an equivalence between Israel soldiers' suffering and the suffering of the people they bombed during the Gaza offensive of 2008-2009.

    And here's a quote from her review lauding David Grossman's To the End of the Land:
    "The novel consists mainly of evocative dialogue enveloped within an intricate description of Israel's natural beauty. "

    I'd say her claims she makes in her letter to Haraatz of supporting Palestinian rights are dubious, there's a good deal of evidence that she's a solid supporter of Israel, a zionist.

    from link to middleeastmirror.com

• Israelis uproot trees in occupied Walaja to make room for more Jewish settlers
  • lyn117 September 6, 2011 at 11:29 am

    I really only point fingers at and call "monsters" those who support monstrosities like this deliberate ethnic cleansing. Most of the people in countries around the world have limited influence over their government's actual policies. You, on the other hand, clearly support and encourage your government's monstrous behavior. The label fits, why do you object?

• Avnery says UN vote could bring violence/crackdown to West Bank
  • lyn117 September 5, 2011 at 5:32 pm

    "When the world sees this, much like the first intifada, they will mobilize in favor of the Palestinians, "

    I'm a little more cynical. I think the world, such as they mobilize, is already mobilized in favor of the Palestinians. It's mainly the western powers who are not, and as such Israel propaganda is aimed at westerners.

    There are of course cracks being opened, people being made aware. I just wish there weren't so many of us who's racism is open to being exploited.

• Turkey talking tough to Tel Aviv
  • lyn117 September 3, 2011 at 7:29 pm with 1 replies

    Bravo for Turkey!

    There's hope - they stood up against us when we tried to get them to let us use bases in Turkey to launch our war on Iraq.

• The end of civilization: no 'dignity' in remaining silent at BBC Proms
  • lyn117 September 3, 2011 at 7:58 pm

    Checked the orchestra members. I couldn't find any Arab-sounding names, tho plenty of Russian-sounding ones. I suppose if I were an Israeli Palestinian, I might refuse to participate in Israel's branding efforts as well.

• Taking himself to woodshed, Derfner says his 'awful truth' column isn't what he believes and stood in opposition to 'my allegiance to Israel'
  • lyn117 September 3, 2011 at 9:57 pm

    "Should he [Phil Weiss] condemn [the Israeli attacks on the PRC] on the basis of suspicion, or should he oppose, or believe, or suspect?"

    ?? Phil is suspicious that Israel killed a whole bunch of people who were innocent of any wrongdoing especially involvement in the bus attack, and he condemns this Israeli.

    Can I take it that you question whether one should condemn killing people who have not been proven guilty of anything and for whom evidence of guilt is decidedly lacking. That is, as long as it's uncertain whether they're guilty and there's no proof of their innocence, it's perfectly OK to kill them?

  • lyn117 September 3, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    Genetic studies show genetic linkages between most people from around the Mediterranean, including to the Levant. I.e., genetic linkages to Palestinians among Europeans is not unique to Jews. Certainly there's 2 or 3 well known invasions of the Levant by Europeans (Greece, Roman, the Crusades) and migrations and invasions the other way, the Phoenician empire, beginning circa 1200 BCE included establishment of settlements around the Mediterranean and probably they brought with them a number of "Jews" following the establishment of monotheism in the region (circa 600 BCE). Several people have documented the early proselytizing by early members of some Abrahamic sects from Palestine (not sure you can call them "Jews" in 200 BCE)

    The real point is, so what? The "Jews" of 2000 years ago who established "Jewish" communities throughout the Roman empire, assuming they even came from Palestine and were not the result of conversion (which was extensive in the Roman empire), almost certainly left voluntarily, for trade, missionary work or just opportunity. Does everyone in Europe who has some genetic connection to the Levant have the right to claim Palestine away from the Palestinians? That would be probably everyone who lives around the Mediterranean, and then some. And what about those people in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, North Africa, Cypress or Turkey who have some genetic connection to Italy, France or England (remembering the Crusades)? Do they all have the right to "return" to e.g. England and expel the present-day English? Does everyone in the world have the right to "return" to Africa and expel the Africans?

    Curiously, only Zionists make this claim that Jews and only Jews have the right to "return" and expel the present-day inhabitants of some land where some ancestors, who contributed a minority of their genetic makeup, likely migrated from. That seems somewhat racist to me.

  • lyn117 September 2, 2011 at 3:38 pm

    In sympathy to Derfner, I occasionally say things I don't believe in or that I retract/modify after careful thought. On the other hand, this is part of the Forward's description of itself:

    "Launched as a Yiddish-language newspaper on April 22, 1897, the Forverts (Jewish Daily Forward) fought for social justice, helped generations of immigrants to enter American life, broke some of the most significant news stories of the century, and eloquently defended democracy and Jewish rights."

    So now Derfner's proclaiming his absolute loyalty to Israel? That, and the firing for his earlier blog post, pretty much implies the Forward's loyalty to Israel trumps any of its original, rather laudable goals. All my sympathy to him for his firing or slightly mis-stated (according to him) post is lost, in fact, when he proclaims loyalty to a state bent on ethnic cleansing I'm perfectly happy they fired him, although, I won't be surprised if they hire him back either.

• UN report on flotilla raid: Israel shot em the wrong way but everything else it did was fine
  • lyn117 September 2, 2011 at 1:07 am

    Yes, RW, you've posted your approval of ethnic cleansing several times.

• Attack dogs of the West Bank
  • lyn117 September 2, 2011 at 1:04 am

    Notice the trainer's perfect U.S. accent

• 'Brand Israel' has failed
  • lyn117 August 31, 2011 at 2:02 am

    Yeah, he complains that the hummus, a cultural item confiscated by the Israelis from the original people isn't being openly sold as Israeli. Whatever.

• Ahmad Tibi rips AIPAC junket in Salon
  • lyn117 August 28, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    I read some of the comments. When will these zionists ever give up making the irrelevant claim that Palestine was never a state? And in the next breath, claim that the state of Palestine lost the war against Israel and therefore has no claim to any territory in historic Palestine?

• Independent: How Israel takes its revenge on boys who throw stones
  • lyn117 August 27, 2011 at 7:37 pm

    RW, I'm sure you meant to say, "Palestinian prisoners usually are not summarily murdered," because that would be factual. Not to worry, we're used to your way of muddled thinking.

  • lyn117 August 27, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    It's the zionist mindset. They send soldiers to help steal land and natural resources and help in their state's ethnic cleansing, all outside any recognized borders of their state. When kids whose parent's land is being stolen throw rocks at the invading soldiers, zionists claim that arresting and torturing the kids into making false confessions is self-defense.

• Libyan triumph exposes the west's double standard for Palestine
  • lyn117 August 21, 2011 at 11:58 pm

    When Iraqis were being butchered by Saddam, it was mostly with US support because it was in the context of Saddam's war on Iran, which the US supported. Israel and its soldiers use torture and killing of innocent people for the very same reason Assad does, to prove who's the boss. They both use tanks and air fire against civilians. Israel also uses torture, killing and denial of access to water and their own farms to take away people's land and exile them because they don't happen to be Jewish. The Assad regime is horrible and should go, but not it's not bent on ethnic cleansing.

• Congressman says, I'm going to Israel, and his site is flooded with ragefilled comments about 'sucking teat of AIPAC' to serve ethnocratic, apartheid state
  • lyn117 August 21, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    I only saw a few, like the ones you listed, that were overtly anti-semitic. I do see a lot of rage at congresspeople for putting the interest of Israel over the interest of the U.S. people, and I sort of sympathize, some of it may be sublimated anti-semitism and it may not be. Israel (the state) has shown over and over again that it would happily shaft us if they gained and advantage, yet they get our unconditional support in a way no other foreign country does. Through what appears to be threats against congresspeople (e.g. of targeted campaigns if they don't toe the line) and bribes. I don't know if he really ranks Israeli interests above U.S. interests, there are a couple of congresspeople who do (e.g. Sherman and Berman) but by and large I think they're mostly after their own self-interest above that of the people. I would have applauded Meehan if he'd traveled around the world and put the interest of all the people of the world on more or lest equal footing with the people of the U.S. But he didn't.

• IDF cites int'l law against use of white phosphorus in 'inhabited areas'--then removes the tweet
  • lyn117 August 21, 2011 at 7:21 pm

    You're unaware of any injuries from Israeli bombarding of Gaza City with white posphorous? Who are you kidding, other than yourself?

• Roger Cohen says Jewish identity must be founded on opposition to Israeli treatment of Palestinians
  • lyn117 August 22, 2011 at 12:15 am

    Jews, with their history, are just as capable as anyone else at editing out the bad parts. I think they were the first of the Abrahamic faiths to practice forced conversions on peoples they conquered. Well, maybe I'm annoyed with this "we're better than everyone else because of our history" attitude. I realize it's a common human failing, but that doesn't prevent me from wanting to take it down a notch or two.

  • lyn117 August 22, 2011 at 12:04 am

    Sure, or not proud. Human beans don't have that great a record. We're destroying the planet after all.

  • lyn117 August 21, 2011 at 2:52 pm with 2 replies

    With all due respect, as heartfelt as Cohen's piece was, it's still sort of self-absorbed. The "whispers" about being Jewish and such self-absorption are two sides of the same coin. I suppose some of it is understandably defensive, but really, despite some anti-semitism Jews in the US and Britain really aren't in any way an oppressed or threatened minority.

    Labling something Jewish e.g. "Jewberry" isn't strictly an insult, unless you've internalized the idea that something's wrong with being Jewish, like it needs whispering about. Neither, really, is calling Jews "clever" although it's certainly stereotyping.

    I haven't met very many Jews who were anything other than proud of it. I hope we'll get to a place where you can call someone a Jew and it just be a statement about them, and everyone can be proud of what they are.

    To those who noted Cohen's failure to divorce from political zionism, right on!

• If 1.5 million Jews were locked up in Gaza, where would 'Commentary' be on violent resistance?
  • lyn117 August 20, 2011 at 1:20 pm

    If you compare the ratios of people killed to population under attack, the proportions are fairly close in Syria by the Syrian regime and in the occupied territories by Israel during the first few months of the latest Intifada. Both regimes have used torture, beatings including beating people to death, imprisonment and denial of access by news media and human rights activists (Israel has certainly killed a few journalists, I think Syria has too). You're complaining about Syria, but Israel is no better, and of the two, only Israel is currently trying to ethnically cleans areas. Of the two, Israel denies people their rights purely on the basis of religion (or whatever you call Judaism) - Syria may show favoritism to those of the ruling Alawite clan but I'm sure if any Alawites joined the opposition they'd treat them as brutally as any of the other opposition members. I.e. Israel is the only officially racist one of the two.

    Furthermore, the Alawites are indigenous to Syria, just as the Palestinians are indigenous to what's now Israel. Most of Israel's Jews aren't. Israel, whose ruling class is European Jews originating in Europe, is ethnically cleansing and exiling indigenous people. I'm not saying Israeli Jews don't have the right to live there in peace, or that brutality by indigenous peoples is acceptable, but it's much worse for an invading political group, the Zionists in this case, to go into someone else's land and treat the native people as if they have no human or civil rights, to murder and expel them and just take their land and property.

    PS I was just at a progressive talk on the atrocities in Syria a couple of weeks ago. Assad is pretty despised by the progressives I know from the pro-Palestine movement.

• Israeli Ministers promote racist vision for Israel (and Judaism)
  • lyn117 August 17, 2011 at 3:55 am

    Not a few Jewish genetic scientists study Jewish genetics specifically for the purpose of proving that Jews originated in the Middle East. As such, any evidence that ancestors of Jews lived in the Middle East tends to get emphasized, even to the point of exaggeration, and all the evidence of ancestors who originated elsewhere is downplayed. Thus proving that genetic scientists aren't immune from trying to use "science" to prove religious myth. Behar, cited in the wikipedia link given by hopmi, is one of the worst offenders from what I read in terms of distorting the findings.

    One recent genetic study found results that "trace the origins of most Jewish Diaspora communities to the Levant." Funny that many European Christians (and North African Muslims) also have some ancestry from the Levant, but no one comes up with the same idea that their origins can be traced back to the Levant.

• Israeli textbooks portray Palestinians as 'terrorists, refugees, and primitive farmers'
  • lyn117 August 10, 2011 at 2:23 am

    Agreed. The zionist myth is only 99% bullshit. What's the Palestinian myth again?

  • lyn117 August 10, 2011 at 2:12 am

    "Courts, police, bus systems, schools, health clinics, social welfare systems, roads, electrical infrastructure, airports, passports, Israeli civic life."

    Right
    Courts:
    useful to Palestinians for approving land confiscation by the Israeli government, not to mention military courts which are useful for preventing access to lawyers by Palestinian detainees, accepting without question testimony from Israeli soldiers against Palestinians, accepting confessions obtained by torture. All of the above applied to Israeli Palestinians pre-1966. Approving land confiscation and other forms of discrimination applies post-1966 to Palestinian citizens of Israel.
    Police: Do you mean the border police, useful for shooting Palestinian kids for sport?
    bus systems: Were you aware that Palestine had buses before Israel existed?
    schools: Were you aware that many of the 500+ villages Israel razed had schools?
    health clinics: They had these in Palestine before Israel too.
    social welfare systems: Yeah, I suppose you're claiming these were an Israeli invention too.

    As far as Gaza, you neglected to mention the million refugees Israel has supplied that land. I could go on, but next time you beg for understanding as one human to another, please try to understand some of our feelings of nausea at your claims.

• Tent 1948
  • lyn117 August 7, 2011 at 2:41 pm

    Israel claimed all the Jewish Palestinians as its citizens, and as zionists are so fond of pointing out, there is no Palestinian state for the Jewish Palestinians to be citizens of anyway. The Jewish Palestinians have full privilege in the Israeli parliament. So why does it matter how many Jews there are in the Palestinian parliament? This is just zionist diversionary propaganda.

    And of historical note, the PLO had a couple of Jews in ministerial positions long before there were any Palestinian Israelis in Israeli ministerial positions.

• Bahour says Palestinians will call for secular democracy after statehood initiative fails
  • lyn117 August 5, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    Sam Bahour is a wonderful voice of reason.

  • lyn117 August 5, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    @eee, great, you rule Palestinian society for 44 years then say it's completely demented and untrustworthy. Maybe because of its rulers?

• 'NYT' columnist cites Congressional unanimity on Gaza slaughter--and embraces 'J Street' to 'balance' lobby
  • lyn117 August 6, 2011 at 9:00 pm

    Werdine,
    You obviously ignore the fact that zionists, from Herzl on, had been figuring out ways and means of getting rid of the native Palestinian Arabs from Palestine. As far as self-determination, the people of Palestine were never asked if they wanted the land divided. We don't know what would have happened if the UN had proposed conducting a referendum on their partition recommendation, if every Arab voted against it and every Jew for it, it obviously would have failed. We don't know what would have happened if the zionists had followed the part of UN 181 recommendation that required of granting full rights to the Arab minority within the proposed Jewish state either. It seems quite likely that many Arabs would have been fairly satisfied with full democracy and rights under a Jewish state, if that was their only option. However, they weren't asked. The zionists started expelling them almost immediately, and had already conducted a number of terrorist attacks, mostly at British targets. There really was only one way of providing self-determination to the people of Palestine, and that was to put the various proposals to a vote. Through much of the history of the zionist movement the Arabs were demanding one-person, one vote regardless of creed in structure of government in their land, it was the British, at the behest of the zionists who denied them. It was the zionists who lobbied heavily for the partition, and they didn't ask the people of Palestine what they wanted, neither did the UN.

  • lyn117 August 6, 2011 at 8:41 pm

    Yes I agree Real Jew, the overview gets lost in technicalities.

    The overall point is that whatever the statistics, Israel has been killing the Palestinians in the course of invading and taking over their land. Whatever the status of the victims or legality (under the rules of war) of their death, the Palestinians are fighting an essentially defensive fight, the Israelis an offensive one.

  • lyn117 August 6, 2011 at 2:26 am

    Biorabbi, your March 2000 to July 2008 figures are off:
    Here are pre-cast lead (9/29/2000 to 12/26/2008) figures from btselem

    Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces:
    Gaza: 3000 WB: 1791 Total OT:4791 Israel:69
    Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians
    Gaza:4 WB:41 Total OT:45 Israel:2
    Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians
    Gaza:39 WB:200 Total OT:239 Israel:492
    Israeli security force personnel killed by Palestinians
    Gaza:97 WB:146 Total OT:243 Israel:89

    Since you can't count adult settlers as not participating in hostilities, despite their civilian designation (and I'm not convinced you should count Israeli reservists as civilians either), the Palestinians actually did better proportionally at hitting "participants in hostilities" than did the IDF, despite the randomness of their aim. I of course judge my evaluation of settlers as participating in hostilities based on the Israeli government's original argument for building the settlements, which was that they serve a military purpose.

• Code Pink confronts Howard Berman on boycott (and makes Hava Nagila anti-Zionist)
  • lyn117 August 5, 2011 at 11:09 pm

    Last year or so, Brad Sherman (next door district to Berman's) hosted a town hall meeting on the subject of foreign policy, he being a member of the committee on foreign affairs. It was held at a synagogue and advertised only in the local Jewish newspaper. There still isn't any mention of it on his web site. At his other town hall meetings, to which the general public was invited, he tried to emphasize domestic policy. Well, he didn't escape some questions from local activists.

• Englishman admits he singles out Israel--because his own leaders seem to be Israel's devoted citizens
  • lyn117 August 4, 2011 at 2:37 am

    @Oklahoma farmer, I sympathize, actually, but just keep judging people by the content of their character. Even some zionists are decent & honest people, even if deluded about what zionism is all about.

    Robert Fowke nails it for me too, but I have to add that as a kid I always sympathized with the Indians (Native Americans today) whose lands were stolen.

• Latest twist in Sanchez tailspin underscores cost of being accused of anti-Semitism
  • lyn117 July 31, 2011 at 6:48 pm

    "I mean simply hat Jews are a natural and normal part of the ME ..."

    Jews have been a natural and normal part of Europe almost since the Jewish religion was founded, certainly since it turned to proselytizing some 2300+ years ago, so why is advocating that Jews return to Europe so reprehensible? I mean, compared to the zionist assertion that European Jews should "return" to Palestine/Israel? Israeli zionist leadership is always claiming it's an outpost of western (meaning European) ideals, one would have to conclude from that Israeli Jews (at least the ones who came from Europe) really do come from Europe, culturally. Genetic studies show European Jews to be closer to southern French and Italians than to Levantine populations, making it difficult to support the claim that European Jews as a whole came from Palestine/Israel originally. Besides which, whatever ancestors they have from the ME probably emigrated voluntarily. It may be true that Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian Jews have been a natural and normal part of the ME as well as the small number of native Palestinian Jews, but that doesn't mean that their from Palestine/Israel - haven't you noticed the ME is much larger than Palestine/Israel.

    If you argue that the Jewish religion originated in or near Palestine/Israel, I will agree - but saying that Jews have a right to "return" to where their religion originated (and expel the present day inhabitants whose ancestors held the same religion when it was being formed) because they later adopted some other religion) is essentially making a religious claim.

    But the main point is, you're advocating European (and other) Jews "return" to Palestine/Israel based on a dubious claim that they "came" from that locale (I don't know that means if some part of your ancestors came there but more came from somewhere else), and yet you regard it as reprehensible that Thomas advocates (even though she doesn't) Jews returning to the places from which evidence says they actually came from, historically and culturally, and for the main part of their genetic heritage.

    Like Helen Thomas, I actually believe that Israeli Jews of European heritage should not be required to leave and go back to where they came from, except the illegal settlers should leave the occupied territories. Unlike most zionists, I don't believe the Palestinians whose ancestors came from where Israel is now and who had been living there for the last several 1000 yearsshould be required to leave, or denied the right to live in their place of origin.

• What does secular mean? 'J Street' official says American Jews 'ideally' want the whole 'land of Israel'
  • lyn117 July 31, 2011 at 1:53 pm

    Criticism of the U.S. well taken. This argument that other nations created their states in a bloody manner makes it right for Israel to use force and mass murder to create itself seems a little specious. Nazi Germany used force and mass murder to create itself as an Aryan nation - while the scope of the crime was much larger, the motives are similar - to purify the land of the unwanted ethnic groups (purify is a term used by Ben Gurion to describe emptying the land of the Palestinian Arabs. )

    The Palestinian Arab refugees are the native people of what's now Israel. Israel does not have the right to exist as a state that denies the native people their rights to inhabit and be citizens of it. Self-determination as claimed by zionists is yet another orwellian language twisting, there is no right of self-determination that says an immigrant group (in this case zionists) can go to another land, expel the natives and deny them self-determination. Zionism, first and foremost, is a colonial movement. Self-determination applies to colonized people, not colonials - self-determination is a claim by colonized people to be free of rule by a colonial power, to rule themselves.

    As far as whether eee can keep his house, I don't know whether he bought it knowing it was stolen or on stolen land, or even if it was stolen. Assuming it was, the fact that a deed to stolen land stands up up in an Israeli court just proves Israel is an apartheid state, as the thefts that stand up seem to only be thefts from Palestinian Arabs. However, I'm sure some negotiation can allow him to keep it, e.g., provide the original owner or their heirs an equivalent house, probably he should pay rent for the time he's lived in it as well.

• The Norway massacre and the nexus of Islamophobia and right-wing Zionism
  • lyn117 July 25, 2011 at 1:00 am

    I support Israel because it does more to reduce the number of civilian casualties on both sides than any other country would in similar circumstances.

    So like a zionist to claim moral superiority because they try to avoid killing innocent people in the course of taking their land, in the course of their efforts to expel them from the land their ancestors had inhabited for 1000s of years, depriving them of their heritage, viable livelihoods, sufficient water, equal rights, democracy and self-determination. Never mind that Israel kills 10 times the number of innocent people while ethnically cleansing them than the people who are being ethnically cleansed, as long as you only "accidently" kill innocent people you are robbing, you're morally superior.

• 2 pictures of children
  • lyn117 July 22, 2011 at 5:24 pm

    Considering that the excuse used by the GOI to establish settlements was that they serve a military purpose, why is the GOI using tiny babies for military fodder? And why were the settler parents involving their child in their illegal activities including confiscation of Palestinian land for Jewish-only use in land that doesn't belong to Israel, and possibly using the little baby as a human shield?

• 'Shocked' by tour of occupation, 11 feminists led by Angela Davis 'unequivocally' support BDS
  • lyn117 July 13, 2011 at 2:33 am

    By gosh, I think in 1968 I believed Israel was a bastion of democracy, a poor little innocent and peaceful country which had never made war except in defense, never hurt anyone, anyone surrounded by evil Arabs waving scimitars determined to attack it (OK, I'm making up the scimitars part and I'm not sure I'd even heard the word zionist). What a difference a little bit of knowledge makes!

    So, I have a big problem with anyone asserting that what a person's views were in 1968 reflects what what he would believe now.

• Eric Alterman on his dual loyalty and the U.S. pressuring Palestinians to accept 'their historic position'
  • lyn117 July 8, 2011 at 8:43 pm with 1 replies

    I don't get why Alterman wants to support a state founded by deliberate, premeditated ethnic cleansing, which continues that ethnic cleansing and racism against the original inhabitants of the land it controls, which has made every effort with full malice to destroy the native society.

    If Israel were inhabited by the indigenous people and was beleaguered for some other reason than its crimes and malice against them, I suppose I'd be willing to pay the cost of terrorism inspired by support for it too.

    I can't believe Alterman is supporting Israel's behavior without full knowledge of what it is.

• How many synagogues will give their blessing to July 15 march?
  • lyn117 July 8, 2011 at 2:04 am

    Southern whites very much believed they were the oppressed ones during the segregationist era. Generally oppressed by the northerners, who'd deprived them of their property and so on. Didn't you ever watch Gone With the Wind or Birth of a Nation? That heroic organization, the KKK, was only for the defense of southern white values and of course the purity of the southern women.

• In Hebron: This is not about politics, it is about right and wrong
  • lyn117 July 7, 2011 at 3:13 am with 1 replies

    @hophmi

    The people of Sderot seem to really be suffering. According to all the latest zionist reports, Gaza is a paradise with shopping malls and elevators, and the people are getting fat. I think it would be only fair if all the people in Gaza were to go live in Sderot for a couple of years at least, and the people in Sderot go live in Gaza.

  • lyn117 July 7, 2011 at 3:08 am

    In 1929 about 600-700 Jews who were living in Hebron were attacked by a mob who had been angered by zionists laying claim to the al-Haram ash-Sharif in Jerusalem. Over 400 of the Jews found shelter from the mob in the homes of their Palestinian Arab neighbors. Zionists are always pointing out the Hebron massacre as an example of the irredeemable hatred Arabs have for Jews.

• US flotilla passengers begin fast at US Embassy in Athens
  • lyn117 July 4, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    "The only way that war can be avoided ultimately (or the slow incremental removal of Palestinians from key areas of land) is by peace."

    @RW,

    Thank you for noting that war can be avoided by peace. Not everything you say is totally without merit.

    Thank you also for providing the explanation as to why Israel is avoiding peace, it's goal is the removal of Palestinians from all land in historic Palestine, slow incremental or otherwise, to turn it over for Jewish-only use.

    I also note your use of the threat of more ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians as an argumentative tool to get some of us to condone Israel's previous ethnic cleansing, as you do. I see no reason why I should ever approve or condone mass murder and forced exile of civilians, which is what Israel's ethnic cleansing entails, or even discrimination against the native people of Palestine most of whom are forbidden to live in their land of origin because Israel (and you) want their land for Jewish-only use. Note that acceptance of past ethnic cleansing by Palestinian leadership (Abbas, Arafat) has achieved only more than more ethnic cleansing.

• Israel warns foreign journalists who go on flotilla they could be barred from country for 10 years
  • lyn117 June 26, 2011 at 8:33 pm with 3 replies

    I guess then the "blockade" by Egypt of the Straights of Tiran and closurre of the in 1967 which was in fact in Egypt's own territorial waters, unlike the blockade of Gaza which is in international waters, was perfectly legal having been declared by an appropriate authority.

  • lyn117 June 26, 2011 at 2:59 pm

    Whether or not Hamas employs violence is one thing. Whether or not Hamas agrees with Israel's "right" to exist is a separate issue. Why should Hamas or anyone be forced to accept a specific political stance having nothing to do with its methods in order for Israel not to employ violence against boats of solidarity activists carrying letters to human rights activists in Gaza who aren't even themselves members of Hamas?

    "It is a provocation because they are demanding from Israel to actually allow Hamas to continue it’s acts of war." Thank you once again for providing more evidence that zionism is an injust cause. As you said earlier, "just cause needs no lies." Spot on, some blatant lies about the people on the freedom flotilla.

• Report: Amb Rice says there is 'no greater threat' to US funding for UN than Palestinian statehood initiative!
  • lyn117 June 26, 2011 at 2:48 pm

    "just cause needs no lies"

    Thank you for explaining the almost pathological lying by zionists.

• What do you do when Netroots is just not that into you?
  • lyn117 June 18, 2011 at 3:52 pm

    Google changed "Ziocaine" into "Cocaine" and turned up much more hits

• 'We will boycott Israel' --a cappella flashmob in Brisbane
  • lyn117 June 12, 2011 at 7:28 pm with 1 replies

    the ynet opinion piece says Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is "alleged." Provides no evidence as to the identity of distributors of leaflets supporting Hitler at Durban II, for all we know, it may have been IDF agents seeking to discredit the conference. Provides no evidence regarding what people who saw the leaflets thought of them. Provides no evidence whatsoever to refute the charge that zionism is a racist ideology, just innuendo about the attendees/organizers. Utterly worthless article, don't know why I bothered.

• Portland's 'friendliest' markets refused to meet boycott advocates, and stocked many Israeli brands, and so--
  • lyn117 June 12, 2011 at 1:45 pm

    They zionists brag about Israel being a democracy - but just observe. 1/3 the people under its rule have no vote, this state has persisted for over 2/3 of its existence. You don't need to throw in the fact of its founding, that zionists achieved a Jewish majority by forcing non-Jews out with mass terror and murder. We really need to stop calling it a democracy.

  • lyn117 June 12, 2011 at 1:34 pm

    It would be a simple matter for Omar Barghouti to call the Lebanese government out for 40 years of Apartheid against the Palestinians ...

    Waddya know, the zionists are finding yet more distortions of language to make bds advocates look bad and Israel look better.

  • lyn117 June 12, 2011 at 1:23 am

    "The best definition of fascism I’ve read (in ‘the Nature of Fascism’) is the belief in an organic community which must achieve a certain state of being it previously held."

    I agree there's nothing organic about zionism. Nevertheless, many zionists persist in believing that Jews have a valid claim on the land because the only pre-existing sovereign nation in Palestine was a Jewish one, and furthermore, many believe it was called Israel. Many promote the belief that the "Jewish people" originated in this place, and "returning" to it is therefore returning to a state being previously held. Count a false belief in an organic community among zionist myths, count it as deliberately spread.

    I agree with you on Witty being very much being a stereotypical zionist in perversion of language, and perhaps I didn't make myself clear or was unfair (for which I apologize) to people who point out his muddled thinking, many people do so but I haven't seen as many highlight that the perversion of language like Witty's is symptomatic of zionism.

  • lyn117 June 11, 2011 at 6:41 pm

    When people complain about Witty's confused writings, they neglect to note that perversion of the language is symptomatic of zionists. Only by completely changing the meanings of "fascist" or "racist" can the "right of return" for Palestinian descendants of original refugees be called that. Zionists (as usual) are looking for a negative label to stick on proposals they oppose. The label doesn't stick to this one! In fact, calling for the right of return for Palestinians is the opposite of fascism.

    Here's wikipedia on fascism:
    

    fascism is a radical, authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists advocate the creation of a totalitarian single-party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through indoctrination, physical education, and family policy including eugenics. Fascists seek to purge forces and ideas deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration and produce their nation's rebirth based on commitment to the national community based on organic unity where individuals are bound together by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood

    Those calling for the right of return for the native people of Palestine are doing the exact opposite of trying to create a national community with individuals bound together by ancestry, culture and blood, they're trying to create a more diverse population in Israel. In fact, zionism meets the definition of several aspects of fascism - it seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through indoctrination and does it's level best to use family policy (and other means) to limit the "demographic" threat of too many non-Jews. Zionists certainly seeks to bind Jewish individuals together through "suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood" Yup, zionism is pretty close to fascism, especially the settler ideology.

    Making the claim that bds is racist similarly requires reversing the definition of racism - the bds goal that the native people of Palestine i.e. Palestinian Arabs have equal rights including the right to reside in their land of origin is racist? Yet excluding them, and continuing practice of ethnic cleansing and discrimination which zionists support isn't? Or how about just making things up about bds like it's "directed at the people of one race?" What? Perhaps it's Witty's suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture or blood exhibiting as a nationalistic binding to the zionist state of Israel?

    "To be confidently progressive, the [bds] movement requires clarification" - excuse me while I die laughing. Zionists, Witty is among the forefront of them on this blog, have a pattern of saying up is down and wrong is right. In this case, Witty uses "clarification" to mean "spreading confusion about" or maybe just "calling it anything progressives don't like until it changes into something zionists like (but is totally anti-progressive)"

• White Shirts in Jerusalem cry 'Butcher the Arabs'
  • lyn117 June 4, 2011 at 12:00 am

    As for the so-called "Jewish people's right to self-determination", the right to self-determination is in fact a right accorded to peoples who suffer under colonization or colonial dominance. Zionism is a colonial movement. The Jewish Zionists are colonists. They have no right to self-determination outside their lands of origin, which would be Europe and elsewhere.

    Trust the zionists, in their propaganda efforts, to pervert the language until it loses all meaning - similarly calling the removal of illegal settlers "ethnic cleansing." At at the same time they practice ethnic cleansing against the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine, and deny them their right to self-determination in their own land of origin.

  • lyn117 June 3, 2011 at 7:57 pm with 2 replies

    A little self-mythologizing forgivable, especially among minorities. I think all ethnic groups practice it. It goes with ethnic pride. Of course, for whites, any self-mythologizing or white "ethnic pride" would come across as white supremacy or the like. Consequently, as a white American, I have chosen to identify with the ethnic group of my grandfather, Scottish-American, keeping the white-American bit if only for the sake of liberal guilt, but I'm fully cognizant that while some Scots have supported the fight for justice and equal rights, some have been as racist as anyone. And note, Scots-Americans practice self-mythologizing with the best of them.

  • lyn117 June 3, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    Zionism may be a national movement that believes in the Jewish people's right to self-determination, but it also believes that non-Jewish Palestinian Arabs don't have the right to live in or have equal rights in their own native land.

• BDS flashmobs are largely led by women (who must contend with misogyny)
  • lyn117 May 30, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    As far as inventing positions of those whose position I oppose, there's the issue of logical inference. As far as I'm concerned, if you oppose the ROR for Palestinians, then by inference you support their original ethnic cleansing - mass murders targeting innocent civilians, the whole thing. If you take the position that native people of Palestine (that would be the Palestinian Arabs, including refugees) must be barred from citizenship in the land of their origin (now Israel) simply because they aren't Jews, then you are taking a racist position (using racist in the legal sense which includes discrimination on the basis of religion). I realize a number of zionists don't see it this way, many seem willfully obtuse, others completely blinded by zionist religious doctrine.

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