It seems the recent execution-style killings of Palestinian fighters in the Gaza and the West Bank together with the car-bombing (an Israeli speciality) in Beirut aimed at killing a Hamas official but ending up killing two Hezbollah men, were deliberate acts of barbarity designed to provoke a reaction from Palestinian fighters that, in turn, would provide a casus belli for Israel to renew their attacks against Hamas in the Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon in the hope that such a war would escalate to include Iran and the US.
Three West Bank Palestinian fighters were executed unnecessarily yesterday while three fighters in the Gaza were callously killed in a helicopter attack without being given the opportunity to surrender. Two Hezbollah officials were also killed when a car-bomb designed to assassinate a Hamas official exploded as the two Hezbollah men were trying to diffuse it. The attempt had all the hallmarks of a Mossad operation. Of particular interest is the design of the bomb; packaged as three linked bombs that look as though they are easily diffused with exposed wires and timer/trigger etc., except one of the packages usually has a well hidden trigger device embedded in it which is then set off remotely by cell-phone or some other radio signal – all classic Mossad stuff.
It’s been a year since the Israelis attacked the Gaza deliberately killing hundreds of innocent civilians including women and children. Now the word is the Israelis are again preparing to attempt to destroy Hamas in the Gaza but are simply waiting for an appropriate opportunity in the shape of some casus belli that will provide them with the excuse they need to attack. Once underway, such a war, they hope, will quickly escalate to include Hezbollah who will use Iranian-supplied rockets to attack Israel which will then provide Israel with an excuse to attack Iran.
Israel’s ultimate endgame has not changed. They want regime change in Iran so that they can deal with Hamas in the Gaza and West Bank and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel can then freely move in and takeover while the rest of the world is distracted by war with Iran.
They’ve tried several times before without success and sooner or later they’re going to try again.
AUSTRALIANS AT WAR
THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY is a compelling factual history of neoconservatism and its influence on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Click on image above for details.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
THE CHUTZPAH OF THE ‘NEW ANTI-SEMITISM’
So, another New Anti-Semitism. First it was ‘being anti-Jewish is anti-Semitism’ – and, of course, so it is. Then the Zionist fanatics came along and, purely for propaganda purposes, tried to posit anti-Zionism into the old-style anti-Semite frame by declaring that ‘anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism’. Then Mearsheimer and Walt came along and woke us up to the fact that anti-Zionism isn’t anti-Semitism because Zionism is a political ideology and not a racial one, a notion supported by the fact that many Jews are also anti-Zionist.
The Zionist fanatics like Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister (and ‘foreign’ minister he indeed is, having come originally from Russia) persisted for a bit with the ‘anti-Zionist is anti-Semitism’ meme but, it seems, has decided that he’s getting nowhere with that nonsense so has now come up with a new meme that he thinks covers all the bases. The New Anti-Semitism, he declares, is: ‘being anti-Israel is anti-Semitism’.
With this new meme Lieberman reinforces the notion of Israel being specifically a Jewish state. Being exclusively a Jewish only state means it is, therefore, an apartheid state. And here’s the chutzpah; while the likes of Lieberman prattle on about the racism of anti-Semitism, they’re actually practicing racism themselves by insisting on a Jewish only state. Go figure!
What ‘they’ hate about ‘us’ is, not our democracies and freedoms, but our hypocrisy and arrogance.
The Zionist fanatics like Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister (and ‘foreign’ minister he indeed is, having come originally from Russia) persisted for a bit with the ‘anti-Zionist is anti-Semitism’ meme but, it seems, has decided that he’s getting nowhere with that nonsense so has now come up with a new meme that he thinks covers all the bases. The New Anti-Semitism, he declares, is: ‘being anti-Israel is anti-Semitism’.
With this new meme Lieberman reinforces the notion of Israel being specifically a Jewish state. Being exclusively a Jewish only state means it is, therefore, an apartheid state. And here’s the chutzpah; while the likes of Lieberman prattle on about the racism of anti-Semitism, they’re actually practicing racism themselves by insisting on a Jewish only state. Go figure!
What ‘they’ hate about ‘us’ is, not our democracies and freedoms, but our hypocrisy and arrogance.
Monday, December 14, 2009
HOW THE ‘JERUSALEM POST’ PROPAGANDISES ITS EXTREME RIGHT-WING VIEWS WITHOUT SEEMING TO BE EXTREME.
I suspect that many exiled Palestinians and their friends and supporters take the trouble to read the ‘Jerusalem Post’ on a regular basis if for no other reason than to get an Israeli perspective of how things are in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and elsewhere and in order to assess the Israeli point of view on these matters.
The ‘Jerusalem Post’ is a politically right of centre newspaper and generally pro-Zionist and pro-Likud though it occasionally publishes works that clearly do not support the right-wing of Israeli politics – but only occasionally, and then only to present it self as a ‘fair and balanced’ journal in support of what they consider is their idea of ‘democracy’. The ‘Jerusalem Post’ tries hard to present its right-wing Zionist views without seeming to be extreme. One of the ways that it does this is to write articles that argues the right-wing cause but without going ‘over the top’ with extremist rhetoric. It then allows its right-wing readership to do the rest by inviting them to comment. The ‘Jerusalem Post’ then censors comments so that the extremists view dominates. The ‘Jerusalem Post’ will publish irrational or just plain stupid comments that dissent from their article in order to belittle and demean the more progressive or left-wing side of the ‘debate’. Sensible progressive or left-wing comments rarely get published.
A good example of how all this works appeared in the ‘Jerusalem Post’ last week when it published an article entitled ‘Security and Defence: Round Two’ by Yaakov Katz. The article was about how Israel is gearing up for, and why the Israel people should expect, another ‘round’ of war against Hamas and the Palestinian people in the Gaza.
Katz is a skilled propagandist and is well practised in the art of expressing an extremist view with such eloquence as to make it seem almost moderate. This is done by presenting his writings as objective analysis rather than obvious propaganda and political rhetoric. As well as the content of his article conveying the message to Israelis and the rest of the world, (the message, incidentally, is; “The IDF believes this future conflict will be far different than its predecessor, and likely more lethal”) Katz leaves it to his readers to express what he really thinks. There’s this one for example:
Round two? Round umpteen! Only one way to fight ethically NOW. Territorial and demographic (non-violent [sic] transfer) VICTORY AND BUFFER to achieve true.. balance in ME (minimally "Big" Israel, how the British Mandate should have been divided anyway) with a minimal amount of casualties. It is NOT ethical anymore to send soldiers into battle without any clear and honest territorial gain. Honesty will win the day. Backed by a diplomatic "offensive" to finally put across Israel's historical rights and position forthrightly and to explain to the Arabs/Mulsims (sic) and West that a "Big" Israel is the best psychological defense against Totalitarian Jihad. Israeli politicians have to back the jewish (sic) soldier! Shalom is the only defense, not rounds of hagana (sic)
No more rounds.
Unlike Katz, this reader is not constrained when it comes to saying what he/she as a Zionist really believes.
Then there’s this which highlights the Zionists belief in a God-given right to lands that don’t belong to them. It’s not something you’ll ever find Katz saying in the ’Jerusalem Post’ but he’d likely endorse the sentiment expressed:
Simon the Maccabbee took Gaza 2150 years ago. That's what we will be forced to do sooner or later.
It is part of our land and the more we try to run away from it the more it chases after us. Most of the Arab there want to leave and would do so in a minute if helped to do so. Which would solve the problem of Gaza once and for all in a humane fashion. The world and especially the 22 Arab states sitting on 1/6 of the Earth's land can certainly find room for these people who want simply to leave. Then the Gush Katif Jews can return rebuild and make the whole of Gaza into a paradise as their own small area was before the destruction.
And there’s this from a reader who calls himself ‘Pedro’ in Australia:
The question is, knowing all this what is Israel going to do about it and why in the first place do you allow this monsters to arm them self to this point?? Why must you wait for them to attack first?
If you link to the article and read it and the comments that follow you’ll soon understand how the propagandists work.
But what’s really frightening is how these people, Katz supported by his readers, can actually endorse blatant violence in order to achieve nothing less than conquest of lands that are not theirs. This is the mindset of the Zionists. The propagandist plants the pestilent seed; the readers that support him supply the manure to fertilise it.
The ‘Jerusalem Post’ is a politically right of centre newspaper and generally pro-Zionist and pro-Likud though it occasionally publishes works that clearly do not support the right-wing of Israeli politics – but only occasionally, and then only to present it self as a ‘fair and balanced’ journal in support of what they consider is their idea of ‘democracy’. The ‘Jerusalem Post’ tries hard to present its right-wing Zionist views without seeming to be extreme. One of the ways that it does this is to write articles that argues the right-wing cause but without going ‘over the top’ with extremist rhetoric. It then allows its right-wing readership to do the rest by inviting them to comment. The ‘Jerusalem Post’ then censors comments so that the extremists view dominates. The ‘Jerusalem Post’ will publish irrational or just plain stupid comments that dissent from their article in order to belittle and demean the more progressive or left-wing side of the ‘debate’. Sensible progressive or left-wing comments rarely get published.
A good example of how all this works appeared in the ‘Jerusalem Post’ last week when it published an article entitled ‘Security and Defence: Round Two’ by Yaakov Katz. The article was about how Israel is gearing up for, and why the Israel people should expect, another ‘round’ of war against Hamas and the Palestinian people in the Gaza.
Katz is a skilled propagandist and is well practised in the art of expressing an extremist view with such eloquence as to make it seem almost moderate. This is done by presenting his writings as objective analysis rather than obvious propaganda and political rhetoric. As well as the content of his article conveying the message to Israelis and the rest of the world, (the message, incidentally, is; “The IDF believes this future conflict will be far different than its predecessor, and likely more lethal”) Katz leaves it to his readers to express what he really thinks. There’s this one for example:
Round two? Round umpteen! Only one way to fight ethically NOW. Territorial and demographic (non-violent [sic] transfer) VICTORY AND BUFFER to achieve true.. balance in ME (minimally "Big" Israel, how the British Mandate should have been divided anyway) with a minimal amount of casualties. It is NOT ethical anymore to send soldiers into battle without any clear and honest territorial gain. Honesty will win the day. Backed by a diplomatic "offensive" to finally put across Israel's historical rights and position forthrightly and to explain to the Arabs/Mulsims (sic) and West that a "Big" Israel is the best psychological defense against Totalitarian Jihad. Israeli politicians have to back the jewish (sic) soldier! Shalom is the only defense, not rounds of hagana (sic)
No more rounds.
Unlike Katz, this reader is not constrained when it comes to saying what he/she as a Zionist really believes.
Then there’s this which highlights the Zionists belief in a God-given right to lands that don’t belong to them. It’s not something you’ll ever find Katz saying in the ’Jerusalem Post’ but he’d likely endorse the sentiment expressed:
Simon the Maccabbee took Gaza 2150 years ago. That's what we will be forced to do sooner or later.
It is part of our land and the more we try to run away from it the more it chases after us. Most of the Arab there want to leave and would do so in a minute if helped to do so. Which would solve the problem of Gaza once and for all in a humane fashion. The world and especially the 22 Arab states sitting on 1/6 of the Earth's land can certainly find room for these people who want simply to leave. Then the Gush Katif Jews can return rebuild and make the whole of Gaza into a paradise as their own small area was before the destruction.
And there’s this from a reader who calls himself ‘Pedro’ in Australia:
The question is, knowing all this what is Israel going to do about it and why in the first place do you allow this monsters to arm them self to this point?? Why must you wait for them to attack first?
If you link to the article and read it and the comments that follow you’ll soon understand how the propagandists work.
But what’s really frightening is how these people, Katz supported by his readers, can actually endorse blatant violence in order to achieve nothing less than conquest of lands that are not theirs. This is the mindset of the Zionists. The propagandist plants the pestilent seed; the readers that support him supply the manure to fertilise it.
Friday, December 11, 2009
JUST REMIND ME AGAIN; WHY DID OBAMA GET A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE?
In Oslo yesterday, President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize. About the same time as he was shaking hands with directors of the Nobel Foundation at the award ceremony, US “engineers are working furiously to prepare for a surge of troops and supplies into Afghanistan to carry out President Barack Obama's war plan”. Referring to Iran in his acceptance speech, Obama said: “Those who claim to respect international law cannot avert their eyes when those laws are flouted. Those who care for their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race in the Middle East or East Asia," he declared. "Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war."
These words are rank hypocrisy. The US has all but withdrawn entirely from most ‘international law’ institutions; where it can, the US uses the United Nations to rubber stamp its wars of aggression, and, when it can’t, it ignores the will of the United Nations anyway. It complains bitterly when its enemies and the enemies of its allies defy the will of the UN yet ignore the will of the UN when they are not in the interests of the US or its allies.
Obama presides over a nation that has armed itself for nuclear war far longer and more heavily than any other nation. It turns a blind eye to the nuclear armament of a nation that is its ally in the Middle East, a nation that has invaded and conquered lands that are not theirs and murdered thousands in the process, yet accuses, without a skerrick of any evidence, another nation, a nation that has not invaded anyone, of having a nuclear weapons program and uses that accusation for purely political propaganda purposes.
Obama’s words epitomise the double standards of the West. It is the US and Israel that have for years flouted international laws. It is the US and Israel that have assembled massive nuclear arsenals. The US and Israel, far from ‘seeking peace’ have been the cause of the strife in the world today. It was the US that invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. It was Israel that invaded the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. It is Israel and the US that is threatening Iran. It has been the US and their allies that have been directly responsible for the deaths of well over a million people in just the first decade of this century and responsible for the displacement of millions more.
Yet it is President Obama of the US that is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
These words are rank hypocrisy. The US has all but withdrawn entirely from most ‘international law’ institutions; where it can, the US uses the United Nations to rubber stamp its wars of aggression, and, when it can’t, it ignores the will of the United Nations anyway. It complains bitterly when its enemies and the enemies of its allies defy the will of the UN yet ignore the will of the UN when they are not in the interests of the US or its allies.
Obama presides over a nation that has armed itself for nuclear war far longer and more heavily than any other nation. It turns a blind eye to the nuclear armament of a nation that is its ally in the Middle East, a nation that has invaded and conquered lands that are not theirs and murdered thousands in the process, yet accuses, without a skerrick of any evidence, another nation, a nation that has not invaded anyone, of having a nuclear weapons program and uses that accusation for purely political propaganda purposes.
Obama’s words epitomise the double standards of the West. It is the US and Israel that have for years flouted international laws. It is the US and Israel that have assembled massive nuclear arsenals. The US and Israel, far from ‘seeking peace’ have been the cause of the strife in the world today. It was the US that invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. It was Israel that invaded the West Bank, the Golan Heights, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. It is Israel and the US that is threatening Iran. It has been the US and their allies that have been directly responsible for the deaths of well over a million people in just the first decade of this century and responsible for the displacement of millions more.
Yet it is President Obama of the US that is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
ISRAEL’S INSIDIOUS INVASION OF THE WEST BANK.
It should be clear to everyone on the face of the planet by now that the Zionists of Israel have absolutely no intention whatsoever of ever allowing a Palestinian state to exist.
For years, successive Israeli governments and their allies have patronisingly talked about ‘negotiations’ and ‘accords’ and ‘road maps to statehood’; none of them have been worth the paper they’ve been written on. Instead of having a sovereign Palestinian state, all the Zionists have given the Palestinians is death and misery as they steal their lands literally from under them. When talks fail because the Palestinians demand the return of their lands and the right of return of the Palestinian people, the Zionists blame the Palestinians for not having a sovereign state by arguing that the Palestinians had the opportunity but refused to take it.
At the very same instant that the Zionists talk of peace and a Palestinian state, they are taking over Palestinian land and building Israeli-only ‘settlements’ on them. Many of these ‘settlements’ are actually substantial modern townships interconnected by highways that only Israelis are allowed to use. Most of these ‘settlements’ are protected by armed ‘settlers’ who, in turn, are protected by the IDF. Meter by meter the Palestinian people are being pushed from their lands in one of the slowest and most insidious invasions in history; one that began over sixty years ago.
The continued occupation of the West Bank by Israel is in contravention of UN resolution 242 which called for the complete withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank after the 1967 war. The occupation of Jerusalem in 1967 and de facto annexation to Israel in 1980 was declared null and void by the UN in resolution 478, yet today the Israelis are evicting Palestinians from their Jerusalem homes, homes that they have lived in for years, and allowing Zionists to take over those homes. Instead of withdrawing, the Zionists have inundated the West Bank with an ever-increasing number of ‘settlers’. Not only do they steal land to build their ‘settlements’ on but they intimidate neighbouring Palestinians by shooting at them, beating them, and by destroying their farmlands and olive groves.
Despite the flagrant flouting of United Nations resolutions by the Israelis, the US and the West continue to directly support Israel as they insidiously continue their invasion and occupation of the West Bank. There will be no ‘freezes’ on settlement building, or even a slow-down of settlement construction as demanded by Obama as a prelude to even more ‘talks’, there will be no talks, and, if there are, you just know they won’t amount to anything.
And what of the Gaza? What does the future hold for the Palestinian people imprisoned in that hell hole? What’s the Zionist endgame for the Gaza Strip? Isolated both geographically and politically from the West Bank, there seems to be no future at all; yet the situation there cannot go on forever. Their future is entirely in the hands of the Israelis. The Zionists cannot insidiously take over the Gaza as they have the West Bank. They have already tried that but it proved too costly for the Zionists to maintain. They withdrew, but they knew that one day they would return. Squeezing the Gazan people with sanctions and deprivations, the Israelis have embarked on a deliberate program of provocation and intimidation designed specifically to induce the Palestinians holed up in the Gaza to rebel and resist Israeli aggression against them to a point where the Israelis can use the situation as an excuse to ultimately invade the Strip and begin deporting the Palestinian people there to either the Sinai or Jordan.
At the moment the Zionists are content to slowly takeover the West Bank and ignore entirely the calls of the West and the Palestinians to stop building. Already the West have given up calling for a complete withdrawal of Israelis from the West Bank and now the Zionists will simply play for time and accuse the Palestinians of making outrageous demands that can’t possibly be met thus enabling the Israelis to continue accusing the Palestinians of rejecting statehood by making these ‘unreasonable’ demands.
With the West Bank now secure in Israeli hands, all the Israelis need to do is wait for the appropriate time to have the war they want with Iran to provide the cover for them to eventually take over the Gaza Strip and occupy south Lebanon up to the Litani River.
There will never be a separate Palestinian state; the Zionists won’t allow it and they know the Palestinians will always refuse to accept a state created under the impossible conditions that the Israelis offer. The only solution now is the One State bi-national solution – a solution that the United Nations must insist on and support; something that should have been done years ago and is the only conclusion that there can ever be for an impasse that has gone on for far too long and caused the deaths directly and indirectly of millions over the years.
The invasion of the West Bank must cease. The world community must insist on a resolution to the conflict now and the only resolution there can possibly be is the One State bi-national solution on terms dictated by the people of the world that will ensure equality for both Jews and Arabs.
For years, successive Israeli governments and their allies have patronisingly talked about ‘negotiations’ and ‘accords’ and ‘road maps to statehood’; none of them have been worth the paper they’ve been written on. Instead of having a sovereign Palestinian state, all the Zionists have given the Palestinians is death and misery as they steal their lands literally from under them. When talks fail because the Palestinians demand the return of their lands and the right of return of the Palestinian people, the Zionists blame the Palestinians for not having a sovereign state by arguing that the Palestinians had the opportunity but refused to take it.
At the very same instant that the Zionists talk of peace and a Palestinian state, they are taking over Palestinian land and building Israeli-only ‘settlements’ on them. Many of these ‘settlements’ are actually substantial modern townships interconnected by highways that only Israelis are allowed to use. Most of these ‘settlements’ are protected by armed ‘settlers’ who, in turn, are protected by the IDF. Meter by meter the Palestinian people are being pushed from their lands in one of the slowest and most insidious invasions in history; one that began over sixty years ago.
The continued occupation of the West Bank by Israel is in contravention of UN resolution 242 which called for the complete withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank after the 1967 war. The occupation of Jerusalem in 1967 and de facto annexation to Israel in 1980 was declared null and void by the UN in resolution 478, yet today the Israelis are evicting Palestinians from their Jerusalem homes, homes that they have lived in for years, and allowing Zionists to take over those homes. Instead of withdrawing, the Zionists have inundated the West Bank with an ever-increasing number of ‘settlers’. Not only do they steal land to build their ‘settlements’ on but they intimidate neighbouring Palestinians by shooting at them, beating them, and by destroying their farmlands and olive groves.
Despite the flagrant flouting of United Nations resolutions by the Israelis, the US and the West continue to directly support Israel as they insidiously continue their invasion and occupation of the West Bank. There will be no ‘freezes’ on settlement building, or even a slow-down of settlement construction as demanded by Obama as a prelude to even more ‘talks’, there will be no talks, and, if there are, you just know they won’t amount to anything.
And what of the Gaza? What does the future hold for the Palestinian people imprisoned in that hell hole? What’s the Zionist endgame for the Gaza Strip? Isolated both geographically and politically from the West Bank, there seems to be no future at all; yet the situation there cannot go on forever. Their future is entirely in the hands of the Israelis. The Zionists cannot insidiously take over the Gaza as they have the West Bank. They have already tried that but it proved too costly for the Zionists to maintain. They withdrew, but they knew that one day they would return. Squeezing the Gazan people with sanctions and deprivations, the Israelis have embarked on a deliberate program of provocation and intimidation designed specifically to induce the Palestinians holed up in the Gaza to rebel and resist Israeli aggression against them to a point where the Israelis can use the situation as an excuse to ultimately invade the Strip and begin deporting the Palestinian people there to either the Sinai or Jordan.
At the moment the Zionists are content to slowly takeover the West Bank and ignore entirely the calls of the West and the Palestinians to stop building. Already the West have given up calling for a complete withdrawal of Israelis from the West Bank and now the Zionists will simply play for time and accuse the Palestinians of making outrageous demands that can’t possibly be met thus enabling the Israelis to continue accusing the Palestinians of rejecting statehood by making these ‘unreasonable’ demands.
With the West Bank now secure in Israeli hands, all the Israelis need to do is wait for the appropriate time to have the war they want with Iran to provide the cover for them to eventually take over the Gaza Strip and occupy south Lebanon up to the Litani River.
There will never be a separate Palestinian state; the Zionists won’t allow it and they know the Palestinians will always refuse to accept a state created under the impossible conditions that the Israelis offer. The only solution now is the One State bi-national solution – a solution that the United Nations must insist on and support; something that should have been done years ago and is the only conclusion that there can ever be for an impasse that has gone on for far too long and caused the deaths directly and indirectly of millions over the years.
The invasion of the West Bank must cease. The world community must insist on a resolution to the conflict now and the only resolution there can possibly be is the One State bi-national solution on terms dictated by the people of the world that will ensure equality for both Jews and Arabs.
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