Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 4461 (since 2010-01-30 17:02:32)

Sumud

Mondoweiss.net supporter

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  • Israel mobilizes special forces to deport 'flytilla' activists
    • Sumud April 17, 2012 at 4:51 am with 2 replies

      Five actually:

      ... Airfoltilla2 ... should be ... Airflotilla2 ... [1st para]
      ... AirFlofilla2 ... should be ... Airflotilla2 ... [2st para]

      I wouldn't normally comment on typos, but that quantity is not professional. Fire your editor Allison :-)

  • The Quartet is worthless
    • Sumud April 11, 2012 at 2:43 am

      My point is that Israel does not engage in a shocking amount of killing, as the apologists keep reminding us: IDF has a much better record than Syrian army.

      If Western powers were funnelling weapons to a Palestinian 'Free Army' I think the IDF's kill rate would be much higher. Syria appears to me a very ugly & evil attempt by the West to provoke a civil war under the guise of the Arab Spring. China and Russia seem on to this, vetoing any SC resolution on Syria after the NATO No-Fly Zone in Libya evolved fairly quickly into a regime change mission.

      You are right about the sadistic nature of the IDF, they're pathetic gutless bullies trying to effect ethnic cleansing in relative slow motion. Pathetic little jewish storm troopers bullying sheep, children and old people. 'A Light Unto The World', not.

    • Sumud April 11, 2012 at 2:35 am with 1 replies

      ugh seafoid - I just threw up in my mouth a little.

      So much BS on that page. It's not one thing, it's fabrication after fabrication. Hard to believe Israel managed to get away with it all for so long.

    • Sumud April 11, 2012 at 2:26 am

      IDF has a very good record with trees, children, leftists etc. Another video showed a demolition of a shed for lambs and troops can kick young lambs very effectively. But an adult sheep is a different matter.

      Don't underestimate The Ziobot piotr - recall Goldstone Report documents about 180,000 chickens being killed by the IDF in Gaza during the bloodbath there a little over 3 years ago, mostly by running over the coops directly with tanks.

      They killed Rachel Corrie with a tank.

      A sheep is [a psychotic] child's play in comparison; no courage required when you're driving a Merkava, except if you're invading southern Lebanon, that is.

  • Jewish press concoct threat against 200 Jewish students in Florida university
    • Sumud April 12, 2012 at 4:17 am

      ( the cure-all when one can’t be bothered making a proper considered response).

      Dear Mayhem,

      I will summarise your response as I read it. You have read a well-researched piece by Phan about fabricated news by a pro-zionist news organisation.You respond somewhat hysterically:

      'very willing to turn a blind-eye towards anti-semitism'
      'It is just those damn Jews again.'
      'The bullying of Jewish and Zionist students'
      'the creation of a hostile environment for Jews'
      'potential violation of federal law and therefore a criminal act.'
      'hotbed of anti-Zionist propaganda'
      'inflammatory political arguments and outright Jew-hatred.'
      'malicious distortion of the facts and are part of a hateful campaign '

      Umm, er, did you actually read Phan's article? The threat against 200 jewish students was FABRICATED. Your response is off-the-scale ridiculous and unrelated to actual events in Florida.

      Go back to the top of the page and read the article again.

      SJP Florida conducted a smart campaign that targeted no students in particular. 'anti-semitism', 'damn jews', 'bullying', 'hostile, 'criminal', 'hatred', 'hateful'; all those scary keywords – they're in your mind only.

      Again, go back to the top of the page and read the article again.

      If hysteria is your response to rational reasoned truth telling about Israel, you really aren't going to like it here.

    • Sumud April 11, 2012 at 3:28 am with 5 replies

      The bullying of Jewish and Zionist students has become commonplace; authorities need to understand that acquiescing to the creation of a hostile environment for Jews is not only immoral; it is a potential violation of federal law and therefore a criminal act.

      What bullying? No jewish students were targeted. This action merely sought to inform other students about the reality of Israel and it's criminal activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.

      Phan says nothing about the content of the leaflets which inculcate the idea that Israel is a brutal oppressor that deliberately murdered an American supporter of the Palestinians.

      But Israel *is* a brutal oppressor and Rachel Corrie *was* deliberately murdered. So your point is...?

      Israel’s critics have a right to express their opinions, but by pasting fake evictions on the doors of a dorm with a considerable Jewish population, the action raises questions about whether the intent was to intimidate Jews as well as to demonize the Jewish state.

      Oh please, spare us, and yourself.

      I'll save my sympathy for the 100,000 or more Palestinian men, women and children whose houses were actually demolished by the IDF. If some zionist students find a leaflet containing that information 'intimidating' they should probably seek psychological help.

      Really ...you expect us to be more concerned about these people than the *actual* victims of home demolitions?! Where is your humanity Mayhem?

      This just reinforces something I have said many times: if you want to bring about change for Palestine it's extremely simple: just tell the truth, again, and again and again. No need to exaggerate, no need to fabricate, no need to embellish.

      Zionism is ugly enough in the real world that's all you need to do.

    • Sumud April 11, 2012 at 3:06 am

      A great creative action by SJP at FAU and another great, thorough article by Phan - thanks!

      I have to laugh sometimes at how easy it appears to be to get international coverage when the issue is I/P. Some little group somewhere does some smart little something and then the zionist press goes nuts, and yet again more and more people are introduced to the reality of I/P.

      You'd think the ziobots would have realised by now what shaky ground Israel is on, how the anti-semitism card has been way over-played, and that when ordinary people learn the truth about Israel they are pretty much always disgusted. "There's no such thing as bad publicity" does NOT apply for Israel.

  • Israeli Big Brother makes the occupation 'a reality' on TV
    • Sumud April 10, 2012 at 6:02 am with 1 replies

      These readers will have a hard time explaining why Pollard wasn’t pardoned.

      As stupid as the lobby is, they aren't that stupid. There's no plausible reason Obama could give for pardoning Pollard, and he would need a damn good reason to do so. Pollard is a traitor, plain and simple. I don't think it's a pot the lobby wants to stir, there's no telling where it could go. You've touched on it though, when you say some of the comments are strongly anti-jewish.

      Every time I hear about the latest attempt to have Pollard released, shortly after I hear about a massive pushback from the intelligence community. As I understand it they don't want Pollard released under any circumstances. I'm sure they have more than enough dirt on Israel to cause significant problems if the issue is forced.

  • Israel bars Gunter Grass from entry under law barring former Nazis
    • Sumud April 10, 2012 at 2:03 am with 1 replies

      He ought to apply for entry into Gaza. He will be denied, yet the ziobots will continue to claim that Gaza is not occupied by Israel.

      Then he should apply for entry to Palestine and state his reasons openly. He will also be denied entry. It makes his case perfectly.

      Time to start talking about the Warsaw Ghetto.

    • Sumud April 10, 2012 at 2:00 am with 1 replies

      Great lysias, it's almost hilarious: Israel's juvenile response is actually antagonising Germans - and the likely result is that true public debate on Israel in Germany will take place, at last.

      Talk about blowback.

      I predict there will be an onslaught of articles, publications and programs in the next few months focusing on any and all neo-nazi groups in Germany. The narrative will be that Germany is a hotbed of anti-semitism in Europe, just look at Gunter Grass the nazi etc.

      Meanwhile, Germany consistently rates as one of the most popular 2 or 3 nations in the world. Sane people will look at the neo-nazi slurs and shrug, and those who are gullible will drink it up, as usual.

  • NY high school students visit Western Wall, Israel Museum, and AJC, but Foxman blasts them for daring to meet Palestinians
    • Sumud April 14, 2012 at 9:10 pm

      Sounds like Mayhem is trying to do what zionists normally do - divert, exaggerate and lie.

      Let's recall his/her original premise: they claim that 1 of the 7 islamic schools in Melbourne have visited to local holocaust museum, and therefore: "That sounds to me like Holocaust denial is very entrenched in Islamic society."

      That's zionist logic for you.

      1.5 billion muslims in the world and a not-sourced claim a few islamic schools in the arse-end of the world haven't visited the local holocaust joint means "Holocaust denial is entrenched in Islamic society".

      Actually, I happen to live in Melbourne also, and until I read Mayhem's unsupported claim I didn't even know there was a 'Jewish Holocaust Museum' in Melbourne. Want to know why? There isn't one. There is a small centre called the 'Jewish Holocaust Centre', and I didn't know about that one either. I've lived in Melbourne for ~20 years now and have actually worked on a project for the local Jewish Museum. I still didn't know there was a Jewish Holocaust Centre.

      Apparently unless you visit it you are a holocaust denier.

      It's a pretty primitive sort of hasbara you're peddling there Mayhem. Might wash with impressionable school kids though.

    • Sumud April 10, 2012 at 10:13 am with 1 replies

      Force-feeding so many kids on these horrors is starting to backfire and making them wonder why these things that happened to the Jews are being made to happen all over to the Palestinians by Jews.

      And wonder may well turn to rage at some point.

      It's shocking enough when you come to understand the true nature of what has happened, and is happening in Israel & Palestine. Then you learn that the perpetrators have endlessly exploited the shoah – which most anyone in a western country has been taught to treat with reverence – and the sense of betrayal is intense. I think of myself of reasonably level-headed, but it did take a while for that feeling to dissipate.

  • 'I've been duped' -- America's travel guide Rick Steves says our media black out the brutal occupation
    • Sumud April 8, 2012 at 10:22 am with 1 replies

      Once you understand what is really happening in Israel and Palestine, there's no going back. One more among the last few millions to awaken becomes aware.

  • Grass smears in 'Times', plus new translation of his 'I've had it with the West's hypocrisy' poem
    • Sumud April 10, 2012 at 3:47 am

      Thanks Woody - you have it spot on.

      If anyone can reasonably claim the Arab Peace Initiative contains a 'trojan horse' it is Palestinians, especially Palestinian refugees.

      The API insists on implementation of international law with regards to all issues *except* that of refugees. On that single issue it is flexible and says it will accept whatever the two parties agree is a just solution. If the parties agree that not a single refugee will return to Israel – in contradiction of international law – the API is OK with that. If they agree that all refugees will be accord their legal rights of return, API is OK with that also.

      All members of the Arab League support API, as do all 50+ members of the OIC, including Iran. One decade after it has been proposed Israel is still yet to make a formal response.

    • Sumud April 8, 2012 at 10:08 am

      The displacement of the Palestinians from their land would not have occurred without the holocaust.

      On what basis do you say that?

      The Nakba occurred because zionists wanted to have as much land as possible with as few Palestinians as possible. The holocaust did not change that, unless you are claiming that some or all of the 6 million would have made their way to Palestine therefore negating the fact that Palestine was overwhelming populated by, well – Palestinians, in 1948.

    • Sumud April 8, 2012 at 5:09 am with 3 replies

      Of course, that was not quite the result so to achieve that end, Israel (with foreign help and our connivance) developed a nuclear arsenal to ensure the security of the Jewish homeland.

      I don't think Israel developed nuclear weapons to ensure the security of the Jewish homeland – after all, who was actually threatening them...? No-one of repute.

      Except for the first few weeks after May 1948 before the weapons arrived from Czechoslovakia there has never been any questions of Israel's security. Pre-state militias and then the IDF invaded the Palestinian partition in 1947/48 and 1949. Israel joined with France and England to invade Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded Egypt and Syria in 1967. These are not the actions of a country that fears for it's safety.

      Even in 1973, when Egypt actually attacked Israel (after two years of warnings by Sadat), the only thing in question was Israel's occupation of the Sinai, not the security of Israel itself. Still, the nuking of Cairo was threatened.

      The primary target of Israel's nuclear weapons is Palestinians, not in the immediate sense, but in that Israel uses nuclear weapons to continue perpetrating the Nakba. Think about why Israel hasn't accepted the now decade-old Arab Peace Initiative. It's more than reasonable, all Israel has to do is withdraw from the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Easy. But they don't, and they won't.

      If Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt joined forces and decided to liberate *only* the occupied Palestinian territories by military force what would Israel do? Get their spokespeople on every TV in the world jabbering about a new holocaust against the jews, meanwhile reaching for their version of the nuclear football. Would they use it? Can you say conclusively no? I can't. That's the 'hot' scenario, what happens when the world is overwhelming demanding of Israel that it end apartheid and transition to a single multi-ethnic state, as will surely happen in the next decade or so? How many of those neo-nazi jewish kids that keep popping up at rallies and shopping centres screaming "death to arabs" will have access to the IDFs nuclear arsenal. It only takes one nut job, and Israel has them by the dozen.

  • Another campus walkout, this one at Wayne State speech on Palestinian child suicide bombers
    • Sumud April 6, 2012 at 9:45 pm with 2 replies

      Poor pathetic Brooke Goldstein, beating her dead horse.

      No suicide bombings in Israel or occupied Palestine perpetrated by child, man or woman or donkey for about 5 years now.

  • The intellectual cowardice of Günter Grass’s critics
    • Sumud April 7, 2012 at 12:25 am with 5 replies

      This is how it works in Grass's case. Grass has written that Israel poses the greatest threat to world peace. Read the headlines, listen to the politicians and commentators. How outrageous! Except there's one small problem: that's not what he wrote.

      Grass may not have written it but according to an EU survey from about 10 years ago most Europeans do believe Israel is the greatest threat to world peace [my emphasis]:

      Israel has been described as the top threat to world peace, ahead of North Korea, Afghanistan and Iran, by an unpublished European Commission poll of 7,500 Europeans, sparking an international row.
      The survey, conducted in October, of 500 people from each of the EU's member nations included a list of 15 countries with the question, 'tell me if in your opinion it presents or not a threat to peace in the world'. Israel was reportedly picked by 59 per cent of those interviewed.
      Israel outraged as EU poll names it a threat to peace

      I agree. In the short term Israel is a demented nation that can't conceive of itself as at peace with Palestinians or any of her other Middle East neighbours, not forgetting of course the relentless warmongering re: Iran. In the medium term it seems entirely possible some nutjob fundamentalists in the IDF will nuke all of the Middle East and Europe rather than allow the apartheid regime to evolve into a single democratic multi-ethnic state with a Palestinian majority.

  • With 'last ink,' Gunter Grass breaks silence on Israeli nuclear program threatening world peace
    • Sumud April 6, 2012 at 11:53 pm

      Interesting how the criticisms that zionists make are often a projection of what zionists themselves have done…..

      I have noticed this over and over Inanna, quite often American politicians and public figures do the same thing.

  • Israel on human rights: It's accountability for Palestinians but 'diplomatic terror' for Israel
    • Sumud March 26, 2012 at 5:40 pm

      Israel is considering sanctions against the Palestinian Authority after the United Nations' Human Rights Council decided to establish an international investigative committee on the West Bank settlements.

      This is just a variation of the "price tag" revenge attacks perpetrated by the settlers. Palestinians are being held hostage by Israel.

      And note: "Israel is considering sanctions against the Palestinian Authority...".

      Sanctions, as in: Boycott Divestment & Sanctions. Israel can't complain when it is also sanctioned - but it will.

  • Jon Stewart keeps upping the ante
    • Sumud March 20, 2012 at 2:26 am

      I know Mayhem, it's even more idiotic than DVD region encoding.

      Fortunately there is a way around it - just temporarily use a free VPN service like Hotspot Shield. Your connection will be routed through a server most likely in the US and the media servers running Jon Stewart's show will not geoblock you.

      Works for me just now, I'm in Australia.

  • Obama rejects a Syrian deal because his team wants F15s (and other stuff I learned at lunch)
    • Sumud March 14, 2012 at 11:04 pm with 1 replies

      I wonder what the best way to describe that is Pixel? "post-Constitutional" doesn't capture the horror of it. When the President can arbitrarily order the execution of any US citizen without any sort of oversight, process or transparency that is the only law in the land that matters.

      It is what then? Fascism? Populist monarchy? Whatever – Obama is now a king not a President. At whatever point the next Presidential election is won by a republican, if they're sufficiently enmeshed in the religious right the groundwork is laid for America's equivalent of Europe's Dark Ages, absolute power revolving around the twin poles of monarcy and church. AKA Saudi Arabia.

    • Sumud March 14, 2012 at 10:50 pm with 1 replies

      he’s smart and right. the zios are pros at messaging.

      Let's have another go Annie ~ the zios are pros at:

      concealing truths
      spin
      distortion
      lying.

      If Phil's lunch partner thinks arabs are behind in terminology, then I say be glad of it. Professional lying is hardly a noble achievement. Such behaviour needs to be exposed, not emulated.

      Palestine as an issue is gaining traction around the world not because Palestinians got to be better liars, but because they have truth on their side. Why start emulating the losing team now?

  • Obama could only take Netanyahu on when Dennis Ross, Bibi's backchannel, was incommunicado
    • Sumud March 14, 2012 at 10:18 pm

      (Israel is thought to have 400 atom bombs, among the biggest stockpiles in the world).

      Some disturbing food for thought, if you think of the right wing zio nutjobs in Israel and their ever increasing influence. I don't see them as rational actors.

      There's no reason for Israel to have 400 nuclear weapons and to keep increasing their stockpile. To what end? When the time comes to transition to one state will there be religious extremists in the IDF who invoke Masada – and hey we've got 400 nukes why not wipe everybody else out also?

  • Ahmed Moor in WaPo: Harvard One State conference 'informed by the uncontroversial view that all people are created equal'
    • Sumud March 4, 2012 at 11:22 am with 1 replies

      I have always wondered, though, what they would name the one-state. It seems trivial, but I feel like it will be a point of contention when the time comes.

      You aren't the first to wonder that shawket. It's not trivial at all.

      We discussed it here a few months ago and a few of us decided that something *relatively* neutral like "Republic of Jerusalem" or just simply "Jerusalem" would be better than it remaining Israel or reverting to Palestine. If either of those names persist the other side will feel as though they have lost. A third name takes that away. We can't turn back the clock, whether it is several thousand years or just 64.

      It (the discussion) all started here on the Hillary/Rosa Parks thread, where Taxi linked to an older comment about an experience he had in southern Lebanon talking to an old shepherd.

  • In 45 minutes with Obama, Goldberg asks repeatedly about Iran, nothing about Palestinians
    • Sumud March 2, 2012 at 6:28 pm with 1 replies

      What Obama also failed to say is that he has America's back. Submitting to Israel's demands and starting a war with Iran is clearly not in America's interest.

      Prioritising the desires of Israel above those of the US is nothing less than treason. I'm not even American and the prospect pisses me off.

  • Judge strikes down lawsuit against Olympia Co-op boycott of Israeli goods
    • Sumud February 27, 2012 at 7:19 pm

      Have I understand this correctly?

      The plaintiffs were therefore ordered to pay $10,000 to each of the collective members and cover legal fees.

      The case was filed by five co-op members, purporting to bring the suit on behalf of the co-op itself, which has approximately 22,000 members.

      So, the plaintiffs owe Olympia Co-Op members $220 million dollars...!?

  • Cornell group circulates petition 'refusing to collaborate' on Technion deal
  • Media critic calls out pundits for ignoring Khader Adnan, their long awaited 'Palestinian Gandhi'
    • Sumud February 19, 2012 at 11:18 am

      But what about someone, right now, resisting Israeli detention practices? Someone whose hunger strike is attracting attention around the world? That is Khader Adnan.

      Khader Adnan has popped up in my local rag, and it's an original piece, not something authored by the Guardian, AP or NYT as regularly happens in Oz newspapers:

      Riots feared as hunger striker's health worsens

      The Jenga State doesn't have the capacity to deal with the situation (again).

  • Cooking magazines dish on new trend: labeling Arabic food Israeli!
  • The story every American should know - The barbaric legacy of the US invasion of Iraq
    • Sumud January 8, 2012 at 6:04 am with 1 replies

      I don’t think the neocons planned the Iraqi factional war after the regime went down;

      Why else would they have de-commisoned the Iraqi Army, Citizen? The goal was to destroy Iraq and the most efficient way was divide and conquer: let the factions destroy the country themselves by just keep pumping in money and weapons to this and then that group.

  • F. W. de Klerk on why apartheid will fail in Israel/Palestine
    • Sumud January 5, 2012 at 1:54 pm with 31 replies

      The Palestinians need the Israelis economically but the Israelis have zero need of the Palestinians.

      Rubbish. What Palestinians need is for Israel to fvck off and stop stealing their resources and choking their economy.

      Granted, Israel has no need for Palestinian labour – but Israel's economy profits immensely from the occupation (ie. over half of Israel's fresh water is stolen from the West Bank aquifers, the billions in US military aid) and US wars. The US is in decline and will eventually have to roll back those operations. Israel's economy will tank shortly thereafter.

      Oh yeah, don't forget Apple's plan to invest in Israel's "high tech economy". I think it's just the ticket to bust BDS into every home on earth.

  • 'New York Times' implies anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic
    • Sumud December 27, 2011 at 10:38 pm

      How do you define “all Arab lands?” Out of curiosity.

      Me personally, or the BDS Movement?

      The text on BDS I used is an exact quote of the 2005 BDS call. Point 1 (as I read it) is about Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, point 2 is about Palestinian Israelis and point 3 is about Palestinian refugees. BDS is a rights-based movement and has no aims as to whether Palestinian rights are respected in a one- or two-state outcome. But, the fact it references Israel as an existing state and calls upon them grant Palestinian Israelis full equality seems to me that it is more inclined to a two rather than one state outcome.

      On the BDS Movement's Introducing the BDS Movement page they present a more precise wording of their goals, the first point specifically references post-1967 occupied Palestinian lands:

      "1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantling the Wall"

      As to what *I* think, it is that Israel's colonisation project in the West Bank has been a huge success (on it's own terms), but that it has absolutely killed any chance of an independent, viable Palestinian state ever coming into existence. I refer to 1967 as Israel's Great Gamble, the mistaken belief that they could replicate their 1948/49 success at invading and occupying Palestinian territory outside Israel, and get away with it.

      Mandate Palestine is now a single apartheid state called Israel, and I'm opposed to apartheid, naturally.

    • Sumud December 27, 2011 at 7:55 pm

      If words or publications are rationally interpretable as ‘they started it’, then the words that are spoken here and in BDS supporting citcles are initiating war on Israel. I think that that is the wrong standard to apply.

      Yet AGAIN: the goals of the BDS Movement are threefold:

      1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall
      2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
      3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

      It's telling that you consider the request that Israel comply with international laws and treaties – which Israel has agreed to observe and abide – as a declaration of war.

      Yet AGAIN, you illustrate that you are simply a jewish supremacist who believes Israeli jews should be permitted to operate outside all legal and moral norms.

    • Sumud December 27, 2011 at 2:37 am

      When the harrassment of Jews by Palestinians made itself institutionally apparent in the 1920′s and 1930′s, and a critical mass of yishuv Jewish residents determined that a state was necessary to survive, then the attitude that the Jews associating as Jews (even “new Jews”) to the thickness of a state, became abhorrent to the left and the Palestinian solidarity right.

      You've got your timeline a bit mixed up there Richard. The harassment of Palestinians by jews – their clear intentions being to usurp Palestine for their own purposes – pre-dated any conflict between Palestinians and jewish immigrants to Palestine, by some decades. Their quest to take over Palestine began before the 1920s and 1930s, don'cha know that by now...?

      You're such the lame revisionist, just *so* perpetually dishonest.

  • Israeli university gaining a toehold in Manhattan specializes in weapons development
    • Sumud December 26, 2011 at 7:19 am

      As much as I don't want to, that's exactly what we've got to do Hamishe. I've used Mac's for 15 years and use iphone. Most unhappy at the prospect of having to seek alternative hardware and platforms, but it's something that's got to be done.

      I'm actually wondering if, because Apple is such a high profile company, they might become a very useful boycott/divest target for the BDS Movement. It's always big news when Apple launches some new device and you often see coverage of hard-core Apple groupies camping out at Apple Stores so they can be first in line - how about some BDS protests imploring those in line to stop supporting Israeli apartheid by buying Apple products?

  • Two critiques of Norman Finkelstein
  • The Ron Paul moment-- bad and good
  • AIPAC posterizes Obama in Senate, 100-0
    • Sumud December 9, 2011 at 12:34 am

      not quite Dan: in Witty-land the others (Palestinians) have to humanise you, but you (Israelis) are free to ethnically cleanse them at will, and Richard will tut-tut and 'hold his nose' as they go about their business. He won't lift a finger to help Palestinians, but he will lecture them as they as are massacred, reminding them that they shouldn't do anything to scare jews.

  • Welcome Annie Robbins as Writer at Large
    • Sumud December 7, 2011 at 4:30 am

      Whoops, sorry Shingo!

    • Sumud December 6, 2011 at 4:54 pm with 2 replies

      I can’t think if a more powerful endorsement than this ungracious, mean spirited attack by the most despised, disrespected, dishonest and irrelevant commenter to this forum.

      I agree chaos, and I'm fairly confident it was written from a place of jealousy, resentment and insecurity. Richard is still trying to convince himself that he can 'hold his nose' on the Nakba (up to 68 individual massacres perpetrated by zionists, 750 000 ethnically cleansed and massive looting and property theft, all driven by ethnic/religious supremacism) and then claim he is a liberal. Utterly ridiculous.

    • Sumud December 6, 2011 at 1:22 am with 1 replies

      Let us recall that you propose ideas more extreme than Avigdor Liebermen (the permanent option of Israeli jews to ethnically cleanse Palestinian Israelis) and then manage to convince yourself that you're a liberal thinker.

      You don't understand your own views, let alone those of other people.

    • Sumud December 5, 2011 at 9:02 pm with 2 replies

      Anniiiieeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

      Congratulations, I'm glad it's official. Smart move Adam and Phil.

      And I already have a request for a story :-)

      Taxi and I have been discussing on the Hillary thread about getting past the paradigm of Israel vs Palestine, a third way – more needed than ever as the death of the two-state solution becomes widely understood.

      Taxi proposed it be known as the Republic of Jerusalem, and I concur, I concur!

      I'd love for you to craft a piece on this, including some input from some Israelis and Palestinians. The discussion started here:

      link to mondoweiss.net

      ...but make sure you scroll back a little and read Taxi's story about the discussion he had with a shepherd in Lebanon.

  • Beinart says Israel must give citizenship to Palestinians under occupation
    • Sumud December 6, 2011 at 9:53 pm

      I think they were immoral and unjust acts. Have I ever stated differently?

      If someone were to say they thought the holocaust was "immoral and unjust" but that they would "hold their nose" as it was being perpetrated – as you have said you would have done if you were alive when the Nakba of 48/49 was occurring, I think the reality of their views would be fairly clear to all.

      People aren't nearly as stupid as you believe Richard.

    • Sumud December 5, 2011 at 6:26 pm with 8 replies

      By all means, listen to Beinart. Just listen to everything he says, not just the parts you want to hear.

      hophmi, try clicking on the big white triangle in the middle of the picture under the headline. It's called video. By embedding it in the blog post, it seems fairly obvious that having people listen to Beinart is exactly what Phil wants.

  • Students stage dramatic walkout on Avigdor Lieberman mouthpiece in Michigan
    • Sumud December 5, 2011 at 4:18 am

      Illustrating the point, yet again, that the only thing Israel has to fear is truth, and for that reason unless they change course rapidly Israel is doomed to self-destruct.

      Look at the radiant joy in these young people's faces in the early part of the video; this is the dignity and energy that comes from working for a truly just cause.

  • Netanyahu throws in with Lieberman on legislation targeting dissident NGO's
    • Sumud December 5, 2011 at 4:02 am with 1 replies

      Yet another example of self-defeating behaviour which will definitely cause sane and rational people to abandon Israel, if they haven't already. One more step in the long march to violent fascism...

      The question remains: how bad will things get before the US says "no more"? Is America really going to let itself go down with Israel?

  • Game changer: Hillary says Israeli restrictions on women remind her of Rosa Parks and Iran
    • Sumud December 5, 2011 at 8:56 pm

      Thanks john h, maybe this is an idea whose time has come? I don't know a whole lot about the breakdown of apartheid in SA, but I do know that Mandela's inclusive thinking contributed greatly.

      I'm gonna ask Annie to do a piece on this, so hopefully: watch this space.

    • Sumud December 5, 2011 at 8:54 pm

      Taxi ~ Republic of Jerusalem, i LOVE it!

      It even translates easily to the three language groups: Yerushalim Republic, Republic of Jerusalem, Al Quds Republic. It's not one or the other, it's all three.

      That emotional complexity of the one-state solution is exactly what I had in mind when I responded to your shepherd's story. And, the feeling of enlightened direction you experienced when considering the idea – I feel that too. I think this idea has legs. I'm going to ask Annie to do a piece on this idea, with some contributions and responses from Israelis and Palestinians (BTW I'm in Australia not Israel so not really in a position poll Israelis about the idea).

    • Sumud December 5, 2011 at 11:57 am

      This is an example of pinkwashing with womens’ rights – criticizing parts of the Middle East’s most advanced country in terms of womens’ rights in order to distract from much worse womens’ rights situations in literally every other country in the region.

      Oh hophmi, if only Israel would accept the Arab Peace Initiative you could actually travel to other countries in the region, and see how silly your hasbara comment is. The rights of women in Saudi Arabia are far far worse than those of women in Israel, obviously, but other countries, no. There are no gender segregated public transport systems anywhere in the region that I'm aware of. Persian Gulf countries such as the UAE have about 60% of tertiary education places taken by women, and women are active and powerful in the workforce, and increasingly so. There hasn't been an outbreak of 60s style western feminism in the arab world, but arab women aren't nearly as meek and powerless as you might hope.

    • Sumud December 5, 2011 at 11:39 am

      Great story Taxi, thanks.

      It touches on something that's been on my mind lately. The two-state solution is dead as a door-nail, this is clearer than ever before. So what is the way forward?

      One possibility is that Israel continues it's descent into fascism and some fanatic like Avigdor Lieberman comes to power, and decides in a desperate all-or-nothing fashion to do ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from Israel and the OPTs. I really don't think this is outside the realms of possibility. It would be catastrophic for all involved and make zionist as dirty a word as nazi. While this might be satisfying for everybody who cares about Palestinians I can't see it happening without *massive* loss of life. Maybe Israelis can't be woken up any other way, but i hope not.

      I wrote a little while ago about the small but vital issue of what a single state might be called. It might be Israel, until the majority Palestinian population enable right of return then change the name to Palestine. Again, while this might be gratifying for all of us who resent the injustice of 60+ years of Nakba, going in this direction still represents a continuity of the Israel vs. Palestine conflict.

      Your shepherd friend's grandfather is extremely wise:

      He said his grandfather used to say that all Palestinians: jews, moslem and christian, were the real and only ‘chosen people’ – chosen by god and more fortunate than all other arabs to be born and to live on holy land – chosen to belong to the holy land.

      He points to a different way of thinking about who is a Palestinian. It's inclusive, and goes beyond Israel vs. Palestine. If there's going to be a single state solution – and there is – then it's either going to be because zionists are forced into it kicking and screaming, or because they adopt it willingly. Whatever it will be, we can't turn back time. An outcome as occurred in Algeria (the suitcase or the coffin) would be every bit as disastrous as Lieberman trying to ethnically cleanse Palestinians. Other than who was the victim, there's no moral difference. We can't and shouldn't ignore the fact that many Israeli jews were born in Israel, and maybe their parents and grandparents were too, even if their ancestors weren't.

      What I'm getting at is that maybe a future single-state needs to not be Israel or Palestine, but something more neutral and inclusive like "Holy Land" (though it sounds clumsy and I'm sure there's a better word). That way, it is not only Israelis who have to give up something to live in a single peaceful multi-ethnic and multi-religious state, but Palestinians also. If they both have sacrificed, then I think there's a better chance that it really does put the Israel-Palestine conflict to bed forever, by mapping out a third way where neither party is seen by the other as being victorious.

      What do you think? I know there will always be zealots on both sides who can only think of victory in terms of their 'side' winning, but maybe the bulk of Palestinians and Israelis can be brought together with a vision of living together, in a new entity that leapfrogs the current us vs them paradigm.

    • Sumud December 5, 2011 at 4:57 am

      Its amazing the people who have been barred from this site cause Philip didn’t like the fact they were Pro Israel, yet he allows hater mongers like yourstruly and lobewyper to post on here.

      Interesting.

      So who has Phil banned from this site because he "didn’t like the fact they were Pro Israel"...? Do you have a list? Do you belong to an organisation that has such a list?

      I understand the Israeli compulsion to occupy and control, but Mondoweiss belongs to Phil and Adam; they can do what the hell they like.

    • Sumud December 5, 2011 at 4:47 am

      I'm not sure how to interpret Hillary's words actually.

      The optimist part of me hopes it is Hillary firing a shot across the bow, a warning to Israel to get their shit together NOW, because it would be Oh-So-Easy to simply start telling the truth about Israel and cause a massive shift in US public opinion towards support for Palestinians. Given how messed up Israel and the OPTs is, zionists are extremely vulnerable on that front. The rest of the world has regular media and has worked it out, and there's only so much damage-control the zionist mainstream media in the US can do.

      But that's the optimist in me, the pessimist in me says Obama still has no spine with regards to Israel, and Hillary is playing checkers rather than chess.

    • Sumud December 5, 2011 at 4:32 am

      All we need now are some angry Israeli jewish lesbians to knock that bit of hasbara on the head annie :-)

  • Nakba denial: 'NYT' removes the word 'expulsion' from article describing Palestinian refugees
    • Sumud December 2, 2011 at 9:16 pm with 1 replies

      In the refugee camps in Gaza in 1948, 49 and 50 infant mortality was 80%. I wouldn't call that a holocaust but ethnic cleansing does not adequately capture the horror of the Nakba and what came after.

      It was a genocide. Zionists wanted to erase Palestinians and many still do; to deny their identity and culture, to tell us they never existed, that they only moved to Palestine from other countries in the 20th century, that nobody used the word Palestine before 1967, that real Palestinians are jews etc.

      It's not a lot different to Australia being declared "terra nullius". The natives simply don't exist, so we don't need to consider them, at all. They have no rights. If they defy our plans we will overpower them and drive them out. Israel is *such* an obvious case of European colonialism. I still can't believe they get away with branding the Nakba as a War of Independence.

  • A documentary guide to 'Brand Israel' and the art of pinkwashing
    • Sumud November 30, 2011 at 8:38 pm

      If there was ever a truly integrated society in Israel, probably over half of all Jewish marriages would be with Arabs. This is one of the real existential threats of which Israel should be worried.

      I wouldn't like to put a figure on potential marriages TovioS but I agree with the sentiment.

      Israelis need to discard the ghetto mentality they have brought with them from Eastern Europe. And that includes the need to have and reliance on friends in high places, such as the US. On that front, zionism has been an abject failure.

      Israel needs to stand on it's own two feet, and fully bear the consequences of it's behaviour. When it does that, then the idea of the "tough jew" (in reality an angry scared ghetto jew with a gun) can be put to rest and there will be peace in the region.

      Thinking about it, that will require a change of mindset, and a lot of forgiveness, on the part of Palestinians too. Perhaps whatever single state comes into existence needs a new name, neither Israel or Palestine, or Palestine/Israel or Israel/Palestine, but something entirely neutral and inclusive like "Holy Land". If that were the case both Palestinians and Israelis would be losing something in the short term, but in the long term they also become part of a single multi-religious multi-ethnic identity living together in one geographic region. It would help to put a very painful past to rest.

    • Sumud November 30, 2011 at 8:04 pm

      The occupation is not an adequate explanation for why Israel is ranked with Sudan and below North Korea. North Korea starves its people. Sudan massacres hundreds of thousands. It’s a function of a press that is overly obsessed with the Holy Land.

      And why are they "obsessed" with it?

      • Israel is the country in defiance of more Security Council resolutions than any other country in the world.
      • Israel is responsible for creating and perpetuating the largest refugee population in the world.
      • Israel is undertaking the longest military occupation in the world.
      • More and more, people understand the links between Israel and 9/11, and the wider phenomenon of islamic terrorism; as well as a backlash against direct US policy in the region (the destruction of Iraq, multiple war fronts, sponsoring of dictatorship), they know that one of the motivating factor of the 9/11 terrorists was US enabling of Israel's disgusting behaviour.

      In short, everyone outside America is pissed off with Israel and wants the situation resolved. They know the hasbara is a load of BS. Polling suggests even Americans want their government to change policy and approach the situation as an honest broker, favouring neither party.

    • Sumud November 30, 2011 at 7:58 pm

      How is looking eastern European “Israeli?”

      Gee hophmi, is your knowledge of history that deficient...?

      "In 1914 Palestine had a population of 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 59,000 Jews."

      source: link to en.wikipedia.org

      First Aliyah (1882-1903):
      "Between 1882 and 1903, approximately 35,000 Jews immigrated to the south-western area of Syria, then a province of the Ottoman Empire. The majority, belonging to the Hovevei Zion and Bilu movements, came from the Russian Empire with a smaller number arriving from Yemen. "

      Second Aliyah (1903-1914):
      "Between 1904 and 1914, 40,000 Jews immigrated mainly from Russia to south-western Syria following pogroms and outbreaks of anti-semitism in that country.

      Third Aliyah (1919-1923):
      Between 1919 and 1923, 40,000 Jews, mainly from the Russian Empire arrived in the wake of World War I, the British conquest of Palestine; the establishment of the Mandate, and the Balfour Declaration.

      Fourth Aliyah (1929-1949):
      "Between 1924 and 1929, 82,000 Jews arrived, many as a result of anti-semitism in Poland and Hungary"

      Fifth Aliyah (1929-1939):
      "The Fifth Aliyah was again driven mostly from Eastern Europe as well as professionals, doctors, lawyers and professors, from Germany."

      Aliyah Bet: Illegal immigration (1933–1948):
      "The British government limited Jewish immigration to Palestine with quotas, and following the rise of Nazism to power in Germany, illegal immigration to Palestine commenced.
      ...
      Following the war, Berihah ("flight"), an organization of former partisans and ghetto fighters was primarily responsible for smuggling Jews from Poland and Eastern Europe"

      Early statehood (1948–1950):
      "After Aliyah Bet, the process of numbering or naming individual aliyot ceased, but immigration did not. A major wave of immigration of over half a million Jews went to Israel between 1948 and 1950, many fleeing renewed persecution in Eastern Europe, and increasingly hostile Arab countries.

      source: link to en.wikipedia.org

      At last, we start to see jewish immigration occurring from somewhere other than Eastern Europe, which occurred primarily over the 20 year period 1948 – ramping up following covert Israeli terrorist attacks on the Iraqi jewish community etc.

      Otherwise it's all from Eastern Europe and to a lesser degree Germany and other adjacent countries to the west. Zionism is an Eastern European phenomenon. Israel is an Eastern European phenomenon.

      I think looking forward a good few decades after Israel implodes and the Arab Spring bears fruit, many arab jews who immigrated to Israel will return to the homelands of their parents and grandparents, and turn away from militant zionism.

      My point about the sex that Israel is selling is that, at least when it comes to gay Israeli men, they look more arab or mediterranean than Eastern European.

      There's a tremendous potential that pinkwashing will backfire; instead of promoting the standard hasbara about civilised Israel in a sea of savages, it will just create curiosity about travelling to adjacent countries.

      And what do you know, it's already happening:

      http://www.amazon.com/Travels-Muslim-World-Michael-Luongo/dp/1560233400

      Really, Israel is just trying to displace Beirut as the cosmopolitan and hedonistic party capital of the region. They aren't the only ones: in the Persian Gulf Dubai has a similar idea.

    • Sumud November 30, 2011 at 2:00 pm with 6 replies

      Sarah Schulman must think gay people are really stupid if she thinks that they will not be able to process both information about the Palestinians and a Tel Aviv ad campaign.

      As a member of that community I can confirm that there are a whole bunch of gay people that are really stupid. Believe it or not, sex sells in the gay community also...

      Funny thing is, the most attractive men in Israel's pinkwashing campaigns look more arab than eastern European (ie 'Israeli').

    • Sumud November 30, 2011 at 1:47 pm

      It is setting your movement back so far, it is sad you guys don’t understand that, it is sadder yet for the cause you are supposed to be supporting.

      Thanks but no thanks.

      I have trouble believing you have an ounce of genuine concern about "our movement", so we'll have to take any advice you give with a heft grain of salt.

  • Now they care
    • Sumud November 30, 2011 at 3:28 am

      Avi_G ~ that YT video is horrific. There's no other word but 'monsters', for people who would do something like that.

  • The last koffiyeh factory in Palestine
  • 'NYT' focuses on extremist attacks on Palestinians inside Israel
    • Sumud November 28, 2011 at 8:54 am with 1 replies

      Such “price tag” attacks, intended to intimidate Palestinians and make Israeli leaders pay a price for enforcing the law against settlers, have become part of the routine of conflict in occupied territory.

      I would question if the price tags are meant to "make Israeli leaders make a price", or if they're just a ruse designed to give Israeli leaders some cover for their obvious but unstated policy: permanent occupation & ever increasing expansion of the settlement areas in the West Bank.

  • Huckabee and Allen West to speak at Hebron Fund settlers gala in Queens
    • Sumud November 21, 2011 at 9:23 pm with 4 replies

      The settlers have Israel by the balls. Maybe this is all part of the cosmic plan.

      It's definitely their plan, but they (the settlers) can't see that it is going to backfire on them badly: Hasbara has been rendered worthless by the internet and social media, the shoah blackmail has lost it's power, US power is in rapid decline, BDS is in rapid growth, and the Arab Spring means that all eyes are on the region – when the IDF starts massacring Palestinians after they rise up, it won't be able to be swept under the carpet as it was during the second intifadah.

      As for cosmic plans, I don't know. I'm comfortable with MLK's long arc of history bending towards justice. If it weren't for the settlers and their hideous colonies I'd say justice could realistically be achieved in one or two states. But 500,000 settlers later I think a single state is the only possible outcome.

  • In 1950, Doubleday censored frank account of Deir Yassin massacre from prominent American's book
    • Sumud November 22, 2011 at 2:14 am

      The description of Mrs. vester is essentially hearsay based on what arab newspapers described in the time and so it doesn’t add to much to clarifying the matter.

      Read the article before commenting benedict. Bertha Vester had direct knowledge of the Deir Yassin massacre, in her hospital she had to deal with the 50 babies whose parents had been slaughtered by zionists. Utley relays Vester's account of events:

      From her lips, for the first time, I heard the terrible story of the Israeli massacre of the inhabitants of the village of Deir Yaseen [in April 1948] which caused thousands of Arabs to flee and become refugees in Jordan and the Gaza Strip.

      With tears in her eyes even after so long a time, Mrs. Vester told me how the Irgun [Jewish terrorist] forces had rounded up the whole population of this Arab village, machine-gunned the men and also many women and children, and how, afterwards, loud speakers mounted on jeeps or armored cars had paraded western Jerusalem warning the inhabitants that, if they did not get out at once, they would suffer the same fat as the people of Deir Yaseen.

      “In my hospital,” she said, “I took in fifty babies under two years old from the martyred village of Deir Yaseen.”

      As she told me, and as she wrote in the expurgated chapter of her book:

      "While I was registering these babies and listening to the horrible recital by the women of what they had been through, a small boy about four years old stood by me. Seeing that I was not an Arab, he gave one shriek and said, ‘Is she one of them?’ and fainted. I ran to get water to revive the child but when I returned with the water, I found that he was dead…."

      It's offensive and stupid to hear you dismiss that as "hearsay".

    • Sumud November 21, 2011 at 8:47 pm with 1 replies

      That clip doesn't contain any new information.

      It is well known that both sides exaggerated events at Deir Yassin, Palestinians to induce surrounding arab state armies to enter the conflict, and zionists to create an environment of terror. To do so they perpetrated anywhere between 24 and 68 other massacres.

      The repetitive snippets of interviews included call into question to the reporting of rapes perpetrated at Deir Yassin, not the massacres. Anyone with half a brain can understand that.

      Why don't you ruminate on the evils Israel has perpetrated instead of posting vary badly constructed hasbara? Bertha Vester has wisdow for you:

      “In my hospital,” she said, “I took in fifty babies under two years old from the martyred village of Deir Yaseen.”

      ...

      She told me that many Jews in Jerusalem were intimidated into supporting the terrorists among them who in their treatment of the Arabs were emulating the Nazis from whom they had escaped. One of her best nurses, a Jewish woman, had telephoned to her while the Jews and Arabs were fighting for possession of Jerusalem to say that she could no longer work in the American Colony hospital. Mrs. Veser assured her that she had nothing to fear from the Arabs, who trusted her completely after her thirty years of service to them. But the Jewish nurse replied, “It is not the Arabs I fear but my own people.”

      And then, for those who haven't yet seen it, I suggest a viewing of the short 1950 documentary Sands of Sorrow:

      Sands of Sorrow

      It's about the desperate situation of the 750,000 in the refugee camps after Al Nakba. Note the mind-blowing statistic that infant mortality in the camps in Gaza was 80% at the time. To put that in perspective, the worst infant mortality rate in any country in the world today is in Angola, 18%:

      Infant mortality: Infant mortality rate in countries

    • Sumud November 21, 2011 at 4:18 pm with 2 replies

      Or Potsherd, perhaps it is time for the book to be re-published, in full, with the missing chapter re-instated. If this can't be done in print form it could at least be done as an e-book.

      Or run here on Mondoweiss.

      And Phil ~ do you have a copy of 'They are Human Too'? I see there is a copy in one of my local libraries. Might be good to run some pictures from it on Nakba Day next year. I volunteer to do the scanning.

  • A boycott of their own? Settlers compiling list of businesses that employ 'Arabs'
    • Sumud November 21, 2011 at 4:58 pm

      Despite a rather large attempt by eee to hijack the thread and claim parity with BDS I concur with the very first comment by seafoid.

      Meir Kahane was a jewish supremacist and a terrorist, and it sounds like his grandson is not an original thinker.

      The first thing this reminded me of is the nazi boycott of jewish businesses which preceded the holocaust. This is just one more sign post along the way to genocide. Nobody gets to say they didn't know what was happening, when the killing starts. With a growing percentage of the IDF being religious nut settlers and "death to arabs" a popular sentiment among Israeli school children, the clock is ticking.

  • 'Proud Zionist' tweets that assassinating Obama is 'tempting'
  • Dueling messages on Iran
    • Sumud November 14, 2011 at 6:56 am

      You’re looking for an accurate term to name-call.

      An accurate term, based on a UN-sanctioned legal definition. You can interpret that as name calling if you wish, but I think that's more about what is left of your conscious than my intentions in using the word.

      Do you want it to change, or to disappear?

      I want it to cease to exist in it's current apartheid form. Whether that occurs in a one- or two-state format does not particularly bother me.

      Practically speaking, I don't believe Israel will ever let a viable and autonomous Palestinian state come into existence, so I make no efforts in that direction.

      I've stated the above opinion many times before; I don't know why you're asking again.

    • Sumud November 13, 2011 at 8:53 am

      That does NOT resemble the Israeli system, in which within Israel, its basic laws (constitution) include the provision for equal voting, free speech, free peaceable assembly, equal due process under the law.

      Maybe it doesn't to YOU Richard, but you're just one zionist 'holding his nose' as others do the dirty work for you.

      The description of Israel as an apartheid state is taking hold in mainstream consciousness because it is fundamentally true.

      When are you going to grow a pair and face up to what a monster Israel is? It will be too late in 10 or 20 years, Israel will cease to exist in a recognisable form.

  • The real question is: Does Netanyahu lie?
  • Bellow: Diaspora Jews support Israel because it restored our 'manliness' after the Holocaust
    • Sumud November 7, 2011 at 9:43 pm

      He’s getting really good at summarizing his immorality and hypocrisy.

      More and more concise. Of course, it's just seconds before RW starts claiming he never actually said it...

  • Strategic asset or rogue state? Israel's threats to Iran 'concern' Pentagon
    • Sumud November 5, 2011 at 2:43 am

      I think there should be a movement developed by people of the world to strip Obama of his Nobel Peace Prize.

      The US just launched drone strikes on another African country, Uganda this time. I can literally not keep up with the number of countries the US is now actively warring against, I think it's 7 now, and that's not including the nearly 100 countries where US 'special ops' are operating.

  • They were sailing for us
    • Sumud November 5, 2011 at 2:05 am

      Actually, since the 'pirates' belonged to a country's navy it is a declaration of war on the flag country of the vessel, Whizdom.

      Turkey could have invoked the NATO treaty after Israel attacked the Flotilla in May 2010 and requested assistance from NATO members in responding to Israel's attack. Would have put the US in a tricky spot.

    • Sumud November 5, 2011 at 2:00 am

      Don't forget all the bought politician around the world, and the christian zionists who want jews transported to Israel for their own nefarious purposes.

    • Sumud November 5, 2011 at 1:58 am

      Was it worth every life Israel took, DBG? Just how many Arab children are worth one Jewish thug?

      About 10 seems to the kill ratio Israel has settled on.

    • Sumud November 5, 2011 at 1:55 am

      What is relevant is that now Hamas is limiting the democratic aspirations of Palestinians and you are doing nothing about it.

      You don't give a fig for the democratic aspirations of the Palestinian people, so don't pretend you do.

      Israel's brutal military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, now in it's 44th year, is far more damaging to the democratic aspirations of Palestinians than Hamas ever has been – and that includes the collusion between the US, Israel, Egypt and Fateh to overthrow Hamas after they were democratically elected a few years ago.

      Where is the Israeli-sponsored democratic referendum in the occupied Palestinian territories, asking Palestinians if they wish to continue living under Israeli rule? There is none, of course. Why is it that jews in the OPTs get to vote in Israeli election but Palestinians don't? Apartheid, that's why.

      eee ~ you must get tired of lying continuously to defend that shitty little state.

  • Reporters again turn State Dep't briefing into moshpit, scorning US 'impotence' in the conflict
    • Sumud November 4, 2011 at 1:56 am

      Genius comment. Yemenite Jews started building Tel Aviv in the late 1800s, what exactly did they demolish?

      Ever heard of Jaffa? Illegally annexed to Tel Aviv in 1950 (scroll down for pictures of zionists pushing Palestinians into the sea).

      According to the Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, the village's remaining structures in 1992 consisted of several houses occupied by Jewish families and the wall of a house.[9]Tel Aviv University lies on the land of Al-Shaykh Muwannis and the former home of the village sheikh serves as the University's faculty club.
      Sheik Munis?

      Menashiya or Manshiyya, was a residential neighborhood of Jaffa, Israel. It was located on the border between Jaffa and Tel Aviv. The neighborhood was demolished in order to build a central business district, but only some of the planned office buildings were constructed.
      Menashiya?

  • Finkelstein on Goldstone
    • Sumud November 4, 2011 at 9:14 am

      Losing as they build and expand illegal settlements? Don’t get that.

      The settlement project has been a fantastic success, so successful in fact that it will be then end of Israel. Even if Israel wanted to it can't halt or abandon the settlements, they are a runaway train. It's the chickens of 1967 – the great gamble – come home to roost. At the time Israelis thought they were only gambling with gaining the final 22% of Palestine. Less than two decades after the Nakba, which had been another fabulously successful zionist undertaking, Israeli hubris held that they could do it again. Little did they know...

      Both Ehuds have said that when Palestinians embark on a campaign for one-person/one-vote in mandate Palestine that Israel is done for. We don't know just when that will be, but it isn't far away.

  • Netanyahu’s party platform 'flatly rejects' establishment of Palestinian state
    • Sumud November 4, 2011 at 8:52 am with 1 replies

      Valid point es1982 (charter vs. platform) but I don't believe for a moment that Likud accepts the idea of a Palestinian state at all.

      From Likud's English website, quotes from the 'highly abridged excerpt of the [2006] constitution for informational purposes only':

      b. Safeguarding the right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel as an eternal, inalienable right, working diligently to settle and develop all parts of the land of Israel, and extending national sovereignty to them.

      We all know what a zionist means when they talk about the 'Land of Israel', and just in case you don't there's the "all parts of" and "extending national sovereignty" hints.

      Likud policy is no different to any of the other parties in Israel, they're just more open about it. Netanyahu is flat-out lying when he says he's accepted a Palestinian state.

  • 'Freedom Waves to Gaza' flotilla leaves Turkey headed to Gaza; Organizers: 'It is time to lift the siege of Gaza which deprives 1.6 million civilians of their rights to travel, work, study, develop their economy and be free.'
    • Sumud November 3, 2011 at 8:41 am

      Tell me what these better purposes are that exceed the feeding of starving children and providing medication that your country actively denies to Palestinians.

      Based on eee's ardent zionism and wholly unoriginal hasbara, his 'better purposes' will consist of spending American taxpayer's money to fund a siege designed to starve children and prevent them and their family from receiving medication, and then spending even more money trying to convince people that the victims of these horrific crimes are all a bunch of terrorists with no reason to be angry – so what does it really matter if we wipe a few thousand out here and there...?

  • Goldstone sugarcoats persecution to try to save Israel
    • Sumud November 2, 2011 at 7:43 am

      And here’s the cite.

      Except the source you provide does *not* back up your claim, not by long shot. Hamas consist of three wings:

      1. political
      2. social welfare
      3. militants

      The militants are by far the smallest part of the organisation. The Haaretz article has Hamas official stating the number of Hamas militants killed was 2-300, not 700.

      And even if it did [support your claim], you still have 300+ children in Gaza slaughtered by the IDF, and for what? Because of rockets from Gaza that have killed 25 Israelis in a decade, while motor accidents have killed about 4,000 Israelis in the same time...?

      How about the fact that for every Israeli minor killed in the last decade Israel has killed more than 10 Palestinian children. Why is it that zionists so love to kill children?

      At least Palestinians are trying to throw off an oppressor, however revolting the tactics that were employed during the 2nd intifadah. Israel has no such noble cause; it kills and kills and kills merely for real estate. Disgusting.

      AND, Israel killed nearly twice as many Palestinians inGaza in 22 days as Israelis killed in 15 years of suicide bombings. Another interesting factoid for you proudzionist777. A decent person wouldn't be proud of that.

  • UNESCO votes to admit Palestine as a full member
    • Sumud October 31, 2011 at 5:33 pm with 2 replies

      Congratulations Palestinian Authority.

      Are you taking the piss, or after all these years on MW do you still not understand the basic governance structures in Palestine?

      It is "Congratulations Palestine", not Palestinian Authority.

      The PA is a temporary administrative body set up under Oslo to be Israel's junior partner in the occupation. The PLO is the body that represents all Palestinians (diaspora and those living under occupation) at the UN.

      UNESCO just admitted Palestine, not the PA, as a full member.

      Palestine, the country.

    • Sumud October 31, 2011 at 5:12 pm

      I'm interested to know of Wilders whether the muslim-hating or pro-Israel rhetoric came first.

      He has close ties to islamophobic Pamela Geller who masquerades as a patriotic American Objectivist – a very unattractive honey-pot for conservatives – but really, with Geller, it's all about Israel. Read Geller's articles at settler rag Arutz Sheva; you get the strong idea she identifies much more as an Israeli settler than an American.

      So Wilders spent time in his teens in Israel and has subsequently visited Israel 40+ times in the last 25 years. That's not tourism. He has no business interests there, something else is going on.

    • Sumud October 31, 2011 at 4:58 pm

      But my comment about Israel returning the Sinai and Gaza, factually correct, was more stupid than seafoid’s?

      Fact-free, not factually correct:

      1. The Sinai was never Israel's in the first place. You don't get kudos for returning stolen property.
      2. Gaza remains under Israeli military occupation.

      As Shingo states, Israel stole a lot of land in the years after Al Nakba with bogus property laws after killing and expelling as many of the locals as possible. Savage behaviour.

  • A weekend of violence in Gaza
    • Sumud October 31, 2011 at 4:42 pm

      I’ve been blogging here for about 3 or 4 days now...

      Oh really...?

      Adam Horowitz and Phil Weiss (and whoever they invite to write articles) are the bloggers, not you.

      Is this a usual zionist trait – to not know your place as a guest, and try to take over wherever you go?

  • Romney promises to abdicate American foreign policy towards Israel . . . to Israel
    • Sumud October 31, 2011 at 5:02 am

      lobewyper ~ I don't necessarily think that it will happen but when you have a presidential candidate openly declaring (in effect) he is more interested in serving a foreign nation than his own, that's extremely dangerous, to say the least.

      To make a broad generalisation, I think people on the right are more easily led by such 'news' sources as Fox News.

      Think of the islamophobia current in many western countries underpinning the 'war on terror'. It's coming from the right, not the left.

      Now picture a scenario where Romney is elected and Israel then attacks Iran, drawing the US into war with Iran. It ain't going to be pretty, and I think will impact average Americans a *lot* more than invading Iraq and Afghanistan has. If things get bad enough (ie. really high unemployment) I can see much unrest in the right and some scapegoating of American jews as a proxy for anger that will develop about Israel exerting too much control over US politics.

      Let's hope it never gets to that. There are some very smart & moral people on the right such as Ron Paul and libertarians. They're not inclined to racism but unfortunately on the right they're only a minority.

    • Sumud October 29, 2011 at 4:48 am with 3 replies

      One word: treason.

      I used to doubt when psychopathicgod said he thought there could be a large and catastrophic outbreak of violent anti-semitism in the US when the general population came to understand the true nature of the relationship between Israel and the US. I'm not so sure these day, sadly.

      If there is, it won't come from the left.

  • 'A historic forum:' Sylvia Schwarz tells Minneapolis gathering that privileging Jews is racism
    • Sumud October 31, 2011 at 5:17 am

      Maximalist, “any descendent of any former Palestinian has the right to ‘return’ to anywhere in Palestine” (whether her family moved in 1935...

      Straw men alert!

      Your 'Maximalist' definition has no relation to reality. Palestinian refugees are all registered with UNRWA. If a Palestinian left Palestine in 1935, they aren't a refugee.

      Or, legal. “Any individual born in the land of Israel...

      Again, no relation to reality. You can't just re-write international because you happen to like to outcome of Israel's 60+ year campaign of ethnic cleansing.

      A court, a fair political process, will consider those limitations, as well as the affects on CURRENT living people...

      Again, you can't wish away international law because you don't like it.

      Ground your thesis in reality Richard – instead of jewish supremacist fantasy – and perhaps you might not find Hostage's substantial posts quite so perplexing.

    • Sumud October 30, 2011 at 3:04 pm

      The options relative to a community that desires to self-govern are to:

      Ho hum. Very boring. You left out *your* fantasy idea of 'self-governance':
      3. 1. Affirm it (and advocate extensions into suppression of others)

      The suppression you advocate is the permanent institution of Palestinian Israelis as second-class semi-citizens who may have their Israeli citizenship revoked at the whim of jewish Israelis

      You're still a racist, still advocating apartheid.

    • Sumud October 29, 2011 at 1:01 am with 9 replies

      And just in case you still don't understand Richard, you are seeking to privilege Israeli jews over other Israelis; a textbook example of what Schwartz is talking about.

      You are advocating apartheid, you are a racist.

    • Sumud October 29, 2011 at 12:58 am

      I am eager to hear Sylvia’s response to the contention that anti-Zionism also contains racism in its credo, that it includes the denial of self-governance,

      Still going with the 'self-governance' schtick Richard?

      We all know you use that as a code for jewish supremacism in mandate Palestine; that in your fantasy zionist state only jews are granted self-governence, and Israeli Palestinians are detritus not even granted basic rights like citizenship, or rather, that they are – but when they feel like it Israeli jews may unilaterally strip them of their Israeli citizenship and ethnically cleanse them.

      How do we know this? Because you've told us a number of time now about your shining vision of 'self-governance', which is even more extreme than that of Avigdor Lieberman.

      I am eager to hear Sylvia's response to your fake-liberalism.

  • Minneapolis panel pitting Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews gets no media attention
    • Sumud October 29, 2011 at 8:37 pm

      If just before becoming independent, some Swedish people would have been exiled and many of them would not have been physically in Sweden at its independence, you can be sure that Sweden would have granted them citizenship anyway.

      RoHa isn't misunderstanding, he's just not a racist fool shooting himself in the foot with his own arguments.

      Let's talk about the Nakba, and how Sweden is *not* like Israel at all.

      If just before becoming independent, some [Israeli] people would have been exiled and many of them would not have been physically in [Israel] at its independence, you can be sure that [Israel] would have granted them citizenship anyway.

      And there is your silly argument in tatters.

      Many of the 3/4 million Palestinians ethnically cleansed in 1948 and 1949 came from within Israel's declared borders of 1948 (those of UN181). They are by right Israelis. They were ethnically cleansed and denied their rights as citizens specifically and exactly because they weren't jewish.

      Slice and dice it any way you like, but zionism as practiced *is* racism, and going the way of the dinosaurs pretty damn fast.

  • What's good for Gaza was not good enough for Shalit
    • Sumud October 23, 2011 at 3:11 pm with 1 replies

      From the Ynet article:

      Asked about Hamas' statement that Shalit was not tortured in captivity, his father said: "I suggest you take anything Hamas says with a grain of salt. Gilad underwent very difficult things during his captivity. I won't go into that now… His treatment did improve a little bit over time."

      Who'd a thunk it? Shalit was in Gaza and underwent "difficult things". Well, when in Rome...

      I've been wondering if Shalit will have a touch of Stockholm Syndrome. He will have experienced the 2008/9 attack on Gaza just like a local.

  • Struggling for water in Gaza
    • Sumud October 23, 2011 at 6:44 am

      If you do, then accept that Israel is free to decide how it negotiates, just like the Palestinians.

      Yup, 20 years after Oslo, 60 years after Nakba, it's clear to one and all just how apartheid Israel "negotiates".

    • Sumud October 22, 2011 at 10:21 pm

      Of course, eee realizes this, and is quite cognizant of the FACT that the “peace process” is a sham. The Israelis are simply buying time as they suck up more land, and work to oppress the Palestinians into a mass of impoverished and demoralized people, incapable of resisting Israeli expansion.

      Except Israeli politician seem capable of hubris but not long-term strategy. I say let 'em build. What they are [unwittingly] doing is making sure that the only possible outcome is a single bi-national state, and the end of the 'jewish state' of Israel.

      Palestinians may not be capable resisting the expansion but time and MLK's long arc of history is on their side. I would hope that the steadfastness Palestinians under occupation have displayed continues and does not give way to demoralisation.

  • Dying of schmaltz
    • Sumud October 23, 2011 at 3:03 pm

      There is no, I repeat NO, other source on the web for the quote than you. Are we supposed to believe that no one but you picked up on a such a Hamas statement at the time? How stupid do you think we are?

      This isn't the first time Richard has miraculously discovered remarkable quotes which later just evaporated.

      Remember a few months ago when he supplied 2 different texts apparently from the BDS Movement's 2005 BDS call? Two versions, different wording, and he claimed one was from a year ago, and one from now, and the claim was that the text had been edited to include "militant warring language", because as Richard sees it, militancy is the only language muslims and arabs understand.

      I asked him for weeks and weeks to supply a link and he never could...

      He's a compulsive liar.

  • Even Fayyad forecasts struggle for equal voting rights in I/P
    • Sumud October 23, 2011 at 6:48 am

      I’ve written elsewhere of the support for a human rights approach (one-person, one-vote) should a viable two-state approach be genuinely blocked and impossible.

      Read back Sumud.

      Of course your version of "a viable two-state approach" includes the perpetual right of Israeli jews to ethnically cleanse Israeli Palestinians should they wish, an even more extreme version of Avigdor Lieberman's plan.

      The way I see it that's not viable, let alone moral.

    • Sumud October 22, 2011 at 3:14 am with 6 replies

      I find Fayyad a lot more credible than his detractors here on MW. He is trying to end the military occupation that began in 1967 through some very smart political moves.

      I tend to agree with you Hostage. I recall about a year ago regular reports of the rivalry between Abbas and Fayyad, and Abbas stating categorically that Fayyad's push to apply for full UN membership would not proceed.

      Then, Tunisia and Egypt, especially Egypt, has Abbas on the back foot and just weeks later Fateh and Hamas are reconciling and the UN statehood bid is back on the table. Abbas power was diminished considerably with the downfall of Mubarak and it seems to me he's been dragged along by history, rather than initiating any useful or strategic action for Palestinians.

      Fayyad reminds me somewhat of a bulldog.

      He's undertaking procedural motions, giving Israelis a series of final chances to end the occupation, and if they refuse (as they inevitably will) then nobody can ever say that Palestinians have not done everything in their power to bring about a viable two-state solution. Wikileaks and the Palestine Papers couldn't have come at a better time and only strengthen the Palestinian position that they have bent over backwards for their state, failed, and now the single state is the only possible and reasonable outcome.

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