NOVANEWS
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Israeli ship attacks international solidarity boat crew off Gaza coast
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Emboldened by success of anti-BDS bill, right-wing parties push ‘political inquisition’
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Israel is unable to cope with non-violent Palestinian activism
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Contradictions be damned: Colonel Pinky’s last stand in the case of Rachel Corrie
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9 in 10 Egyptians, Lebanese and Jordanians say Obama has failed to meet their expectations of 2009 Cairo speech
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Yahoo comments on boycott law suggest American backlash against Israel has begun
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Curtains for Zionism? Even Walter Russell Mead & Jeffrey Goldberg want no part of this
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Three months later the murder of Vittorio Arrigoni is still shrouded in mystery
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Canada: The gift that keeps giving to Israel
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Then the Greek policeman told the Palestinian refugee to go home
Israeli ship attacks international solidarity boat crew off Gaza coast
Jul 14, 2011
Hama Waqum
I am writing this exactly twelve hours after I was attacked by an Israeli warship, off the Gaza coast.
As a member of the Civil Peace Service, I board the Oliva boat around twice a week to monitor Gazan fishermen’s human rights. But today, it wasn’t just the fishermen who were targeted.
We approached a cluster of hasaka fishing boats that were being attacked with water cannons at midday on July 13. As we got closer all I could focus on was the officer manning the machine gun, covered from head to toe with black, which struck me as very medieval, if you know what I mean.
Our boat, along with the fishing vessels, was around two miles out to sea, well within the three-mile fishing limit imposed by Israel. We saw marines congregate on deck to watch as the water cannon was angled slowly but deliberately towards us. To my delight they struggled against the wind initially, but eventually managed to angle round us as we fumbled with the water-logged engine. I took one look at the jet being generated vertically and knew what was coming. Sure enough, pellets of water began to rain down on us with stinging force. Then I, camera in one hand, felt the jet stream slap my face directly, staying there for several seconds, before the boat was yanked away by the fishermen around us. I was flung backwards and words I never utter escaped my lips. Struggling to stay up, I forced myself to take it on the chin. Literally. As the assault continued, they repeatedly aimed at my face and each time my nose, eyes and mouth filled with seawater. At one point I even saw a naval officer indicate to the marine controlling the cannon to aim for me. He gleefully obliged.
Israeli naval water cannons are able reach high into the air; even when fired vertically they can reach about four times the height of the gunboat. This warship was about 10 metres away. Imagine someone boxing your face. Imagine that their fist is larger than a bowling ball. Now imagine that punch lasting for ten minutes. This is what it felt like.
For ten minutes we were pursued as we tried to escape the gunboat. There were several fishing boats around us and, if there is a silver lining, it is that our presence distracted the Navy from attacking them.
Our boat began to fill with water and we struggled, along with the fishing boats around us to return to shore. Even as we picked up speed, the gunboat honed in on us, with relentless attack after attack. Eventually at just over one mile off the Gaza shore, the gunboat lagged behind and we were on the home straight.
We were completely drenched through. Our captain had to order us to corners of the boat, worried it was about to capsize or sink from all the water with which it had been filled. My body started to buzz and I’m surprised I didn’t electrocute everyone with the static that was building in my bloodstream. The fishermen were safe, we escaped and I felt like we had won. Even though rinsing my mouth with the salinated Gazan water to make wudu that evening brought my brain right back to gargling waterjets on the Oliva boat, the footage is gold dust and we refused to cower from their water-taunting and domination.
Although the attack was challenging for those of us who experienced it, it is essential to remember that this an everyday occurrence for Gazan fishermen. Earlier that very day, the boat of one fisherman was shot at repeatedly. There were too many bullet holes in the bow of his boat for me to count. His netting cables were shot through and he lost his catch. I’m sure he must have been fishing for grenades or something, right? Whereas I returned to shore simply with a stinging face and drenched clothes, when fishermen are attacked, they are unable to make their living. For the one attack on CPS Gaza, there have been tens if not hundreds of attacks on fishing boats.
International observers of Gaza are being targeted evermore frequently, as witnessed with the sabotage and interception of the 2nd flotilla fleet. Such attacks prevent those who have easier access to the world beyond the siege from witnessing attacks on Gazan civilians. These are the actions of a nation that has something to hide.
Human rights volunteers will continue to monitor violations, regardless of what the Israeli Navy fires at us, not only because we aren’t doing anything wrong, but because we know, and I mean this graciously, we are doing what is right and is what no authority is willing to do: ensuring that when fishermen are shot and attacked, somebody is there to witness and document it. Not everyone is able to get to Gaza, so hopefully the video footage and this account will help to bring Gaza to you.
Update – The Civil Peace Service – Gaza sent out the following press release this morning:
When: 14 July 2011, 6:00 pm local time
Where: Port of Gaza, Palestine
Who: Alexandra Robinson, United States human rights monitor for Civil Peace Service Gaza
Khalil Shaheen, Director of the Economic and Social Rights Unit, Palestinian Center for Human Rights
Mahfouz Kabiriti, President of Palestine Association for Fishing and Marine Sports
What: CPSGAZA crew members and leaders will denounce recent Israeli naval aggression and announce their plans for future missions
For the second consecutive day, the CPSGAZA human rights monitoring boat came under sustained attack by Israeli naval forces, and was threatened for the first time with lethal force.
At approximately 8:15 am, two Israeli gunboats approached the Oliva as it cruised within the three-nautical mile fishing zone unilaterally imposed and enforced by Israeli forces.
After circling it several times, they opened fire on it with water cannons, nearly filling it with water in an apparent attempt to sink it.
Two United States crew members and the Palestinian captain were rescued from the vessel, in imminent danger of capsizing, by a small fishing boat, which transported them to a nearby trawler.
One of the warships then circled the trawler for nearly an hour, firing water cannons at it and taunting its fishing crew over its loudspeaker with cries of, “Where are your fish? Show me your fish!”
The warship eventually departed, after an amplified warning that if it returned to the sea, the Israeli navy would shoot both Palestinian fishermen and international human rights observers.
“Such behavior and threats towards unarmed international observers clearly demonstrates an attempt to hide the ongoing crimes of an illegal blockade,” said Alexandra Robinson, a United States citizen and CPSGAZA crew member who experienced the attack.
Civil Peace Service Gaza is an international third party non-violent initiative to monitor potential human rights violations in Gazan territorial waters.
Background
Restrictions on the fishing zone are of considerable significance to Palestinian livelihood. Initially 20 nautical miles, it is presently often enforced between 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010). The marine ‘buffer zone’ restricts Gazan fishermen from accessing 85% of Gaza’s fishing waters agreed to by Oslo.
During the Oslo Accords, specifically under the Gaza-Jericho Agreement of 1994, representatives of Palestine agreed to 20 nautical miles for fishing access. In 2002 the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan empowered Catherine Bertini to negotiate with Israel on key issues regarding the humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and a 12 nautical mile fishing limit was agreed upon. In June 2006, following the capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit near the crossing of Kerem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom), the navy imposed a complete sea blockade for several months. When the complete blockade was finally lifted, Palestinian fishermen found that a 6 nautical mile limit was being enforced. When Hamas gained political control of the Gaza Strip, the limit was reduced to 3 nautical miles. During the massive assault on the Strip in 2008-2009, a complete blockade was again declared. After Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli army began imposing a 1.5 – 2 nautical miles (PCHR: 2010).
The fishing community is often similarly targeted as the farmers in the ‘buffer zone’ and the fishing limit is enforced with comparable aggression, with boats shot at or rammed as near as 2nm to the Gazan coast by Israeli gunboats.
The fishermen have been devastated, directly affecting an estimated 65,000 people and reducing the catch by 90%. The coastal areas are now grossly over-fished and 2/3 of fishermen have left the industry since 2000 (PCHR: 2009). Recent statistics of the General Union of Fishing Workers indicate that the direct losses since the second Intifada in September 2000 were estimated at a million dollars and the indirect losses were estimated at 13.25 million dollars during the same period. The 2009 fishing catch amounted to a total of 1,525 metric tones, only 53 percent of the amount during 2008 (2,845 metric tones) and 41 percent of the amount in 1999 (3,650 metric tones), when the fishermen of Gaza could still fish up to ten nautical miles from the coast. Current figures indicate that during 2010 the decline in the fishing catch continues. This has caused an absurd arrangement to become standard practice. The fisherman sail out not to fish, but to buy fish off of Egyptian boats and then sell this fish in Gaza. According to the Fishermen’s Union, a monthly average of 105 tons of fish has been entering Gaza through the tunnels since the beginning of 2010 (PCHR 2009).
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR). “The Buffer Zone in the Gaza Strip.” Oct. 2010.
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. “A report on: Israeli Attacks on Palestinian Fishers in the Gaza Strip.” August 2009.
Hama Waqum is a volunteer for CPS Gaza, she writes in a personal capacity and tweets at @WelshinGaza.
Emboldened by success of anti-BDS bill, right-wing parties push ‘political inquisition’
Jul 14, 2011
Paul Mutter
Flush with victory from the passage of the anti-BDS bill by the Knesset on Monday, the nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party and Netanyahu’s Likud party are pushing two controversial legislative bills, both designed to further limit dissent and debate within Israel.
The first, and frankly scarier, of the bills proposes the creation of a “commission of inquiry” to investigate outspoken human rights groups like B’Tselem. The idea was first floated over a year ago but gained traction in sync with the anti-BDS bill. Now Yisrael Beiteinu is pushing for a vote as early as Next Wednesday.
“The Boycott Law has whetted the appetite of the settler Coalition,” MK Zahava Gal-On, chairwoman of the Knesset’s Meretz contingent, told Ynet. “This is an attempt at perpetuating the persecution of left-wing and civil organizations. What will be the next step? Sham trials? Throwing people into gulags.”
The proposal, she added, is nothing less than “a political inquisition.”
Meanwhile, the second bill, which was proposed by Likud MKs Yariv Levin and Zeev Elkin, seeks to grant the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee veto power over appointments to the Israeli Supreme Court. This would effectively give the members of the committee co-equal power with the Judicial Appointments Committee over the appointment process for Supreme Court justices and Supreme Court presidents.
What’s the big deal? One of the bill’s primary sponsors, Yariv Levin, argued that “the [judicial appointments’] bill will break the control of the elite, the radical left in the justice system and restore the sovereignty of the people and the introduction of democratic life in Israel. Those who see themselves fit to annul legislation should be subject to public scrutiny through a democratic and transparent process.”
But to the bill’s critics, the proposal is the opposite of democratic. Not only does it threaten to erase the separation between two historically independent branches of government, it also looks an awful lot like an attempt to “politicize” judicial appointments. Some of the bill’s opponents, like Hadash MK Dov Hanin, have gone so far as to suggest that it is a direct attempt to intimidate judges.
“This proposal was intended to send the Supreme Court a threatening and powerful message ahead of the hearing on the legality of the Boycott Law,” he told Ynet.
“A wave of anti-democratic legislation is threatening to drown us,” he added.
Paul Mutter is a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus and The Arabist. He is currently interning at Culture Project in New York City.
Israel is unable to cope with non-violent Palestinian activism
Jul 14, 2011
Abir Kopty
This week, Israeli Knesset passed the anti-boycott bill, which outlaws the non-violent action of economic, academic and cultural boycott. Last week, it attacked another non-violent action, the fly-in campaign, and week before that, it was the flotilla. Every Friday, it oppresses non-violent demonstration in Bil’in, Nabi Saleh and other Palestinian villages.
Let’s look at the fly-in campaign: To the simple question, why Israel behaved so hysterically towards the arrival of international and Palestinian activists through Ben Gurion airport, there is a simple answer: Israel can’t cope with non-violent Palestinian activism.
Israel is a state which has adopted the language of force throughout its existence, and does not know another language. That is why it seems unready whenever it encounters a creative non-violent activity. As a state that exploited the terms “security threat” and “terrorism” to the maximum, Israel is panicked every time she can’t put these labels on acts that oppose her policy. Lately, it looks like the world is not buying this anymore.
That’s why Israel has invested so many diplomatic efforts, used her common interests with Greece, most probably through blackmail to stop the flotilla to Gaza. Israel was so afraid of the flotilla, a non-violent activity, because if the flotilla arrives, Israel will not be able to stop it without using force, which damages its reputation in the world. That’s why Israel was terrified of the activists’ arrival by air. These activists did not come with weapons but with a foreign passport, and asked to enter Israel like any other tourist; the only difference is that they wanted to make a political statement which frightened Israel.
The Palestinian struggle adapted in recent years strategies of nonviolent struggle. This struggle includes a variety of non-violent actions, demonstrations; marches of return to the border, boycott and sailing or flying-in flotillas.
The weekly demonstrations in Bil’in, Ni’lin, Nabi Saleh and other villages in West Bank are part of this non-violent struggle. Israel failed in coping with them; it suppresses them with great violence, which led to many Palestinians killed, and Israelis and internationals injured. Israel prosecutes activists, executes arbitrary arrests and puts them on trial before military courts. Force was the Israeli way to cope with the marches of return on Nakba and Naksa days, shooting live ammunition and killing unarmed protesters.
Similarly, the hysteria of Israel in response of the PLO’s possible bid to the UN shows the same reaction. Every legitimate non-violent action, which Israel is not able to deal with, generates hysteria and panic.
Not only has Israel stuck in the conception of power, but she also sticks its citizens within the same concept. She runs a production machine of constant fear: once by a spin that flotilla ships were loaded with chemical weapons, or by spreading news that violence in the Palestinian territories has risen, or by various military maneuvers in cases of war or a popular uprising, or by stating that September will bring wave of violence by Palestinians.
Even if Israel managed to stop the flotilla, and prevented the entry of activists through its airport, even if it can damage UN resolution in September, It can’t block the influence these activities have on international awareness and moral support to the Palestinian people, and also the possibilities they create for more and more actions. There’s nothing that Israel can do to thwart Palestinian popular non-violent struggle.
The main conclusion is that Israel is banging its head against the wall, and refuses to understand the fact that in this battle, it will lose.
Israel refuses to recognize the fact that there is no occupation that lasts forever, memory does not erase, generations do not forget. Israel refuses to accept that during 63 years of oppression, a new generation arises, who has learned from its parents and grandparents, and inherited their determination to want a free future for their children. The difference is that the new generation is creative, not traditional. Israel, which is used to speak only the language of force, can’t handle the style of activism of this generation.
Abir Kopty is a Palestinian political activist and media analyst. She is a former city council member in Nazareth and former spokeswoman for Mossawa, the Advocacy Center for Palestinian-Arab Citizens in Israel. You can follow her work on her website and on Twitter at @abirkopty.
Contradictions be damned: Colonel Pinky’s last stand in the case of Rachel Corrie
Jul 14, 2011
Hatim Kanaaneh
The last session of the Rachel Corrie court case in Haifa had been repeatedly postponed on account of the weightiness of the witness. Colonel Pinhas Zuaretz, better known by his nickname, Pinky, was the commanding officer of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade at the time the late peace activist was killed. I decided to display my solidarity with my fellow countryman, to wear my heart on my sleeve so to speak. Lacking pink in my wardrobe I donned the loudest Aloha shirt I had with large off-pink flowery pattern. Pinky turned out to be weighty indeed: a rotund, dark-skinned, middle-aged man with closely cropped salt-and-pepper scalp, thick black eyebrows and bulldoggish jowls. Despite the reassurance of our shared Semitic features, his presence evoked in me the same gut-level discomfort I had always sensed whenever seeing Ariel Sharon or our current foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.
Don’t jump to conclusions, please! Some of my best friends are rotund. I have a teenage neighbor who on occasion helps me collect my free-range chicken eggs. He has a low IQ and an inborn glandular disorder that stores excessive fat on his short torso. Also I have many American friends who tower a foot or more over me. Whether a war criminal, a bar bouncer, a simpleton, or an average well-fed person, the sheer bulk of a corpulent man is enough to intimidate and rile me on the inside. Today’s witness was no exception: I wished I had worn black.
Even before he spoke, I decided that I wouldn’t want to wrestle with the man. His body language and his automatic assumption of priority in communicating with the judge, whose ruddy complexion suggested another longish repose on some tropical seaside, did little to reassure me. But Husain Abu-Husain proceeded right away to tangle with the man and to try to cut him down to size: How can a man of his rank make so many spelling mistakes in his written affidavit, Abu-Husain asked? Would he care to comment about the sexual harassment case a woman soldier once brought against him? Would he commit to the principle of protecting human life? To this last one Colonel Pinky acquiesced begrudgingly after stressing his first allegiance to protecting the life of his soldiers. And was he still convinced of his conclusion after his rushed investigation of the case of the late Rachel Corrie only hours after his soldiers’ D9R Caterpillars had crushed her to death that their conduct was flawless? To this he responded in the positive stating that Rachel had died through her own carelessness and willful interference on the side of the terrorists who had sent her to disrupt the soldiers’ orderly carrying out of their duty of leveling an area. The presence of the home of a certain Dr. Khalil and another ‘yellow house’ repeatedly mentioned in the military investigations was considered immaterial not only by the witness but also by the judge who struck the line of questioning from the record.
In Colonel Pinky’s logic there seemed to be no place for doubt: things were either white or black. What he repeatedly asserted was that the whole area was a war zone and anyone present in it was as good as dead, “ben mavit — mortal” by definition. Rachel was on the side of the enemy and her death should have been a forgone conclusion. How could someone miss such simple logic? Pinky shook his head repeatedly in exasperation at the unbelievable stupidity of his doubters. And his soldiers were performing their duties in a war zone. That included the killing of enemy combatants or of their supporters and messengers, he seemed to imply. And yet his soldiers acted in a humane manner. They tried to give first aid to the accidentally injured woman. Pinky emphasized this ‘humane gesture’ that his soldiers extended to another victim whom they had shot dead as well. This last bit of logic made perfect sense to me: When you willfully shoot to kill someone, why would you want to extend first aid to him or her? Indeed this was beyond the call of duty.
When Abu-Husain pointed out a contradiction between Pinky’s written affidavit and other documents on record regarding an injury he claimed he had suffered, the judge stepped in to rule that as irrelevant. This protective intervention was to be repeated by the judge several times, usually in response to the objection of the defense lawyer raised with such animated movement of her brightly manicured pretty hands over her head out of synch with whatever she was saying. I figured the woman would be something to behold with her favorite witness on a dance floor; she seemed so twirly and sympathetic to his preposterous who-the-hell-is-this-Arab-questioning-my-judgment stance.
Twice, in his attempt to shield the witness from the aggression of his unjust doubters, the judge made pronouncements so damning of the IDF that I expected Pinky to get up and slug him in the mouth: When Abu-Husain brought up the case of a soldier under Pinky’s command who had killed another international activist, lied about the circumstances of the murder and his story was taken as the honest truth by Pinky, the judge did not allow that into the record because he thought it was irrelevant to Rachel’s case. Besides, the judge rationalized, soldiers lie just as others do including in his court. Then there was the issue of drug abuse in the unit the members of which were involved in Rachel’s demise. Again the judge threw that out explaining that drug abuse was widespread in all units of the IDF. I expected Pinky to maul him so hard that he would need to go back to R&R at some far off rehab facility. But the commander swallowed the insult quietly. After all, from the start he gave signs of a common understanding between him, the defense, and the judge, not the result of some collusion, God forbid, but of each doing his duty in repulsing the onslaught of so many goyim on “the most ethical army in the world.” But especially Pinky had an expression of disgust at being badgered by a team of Palestinian lawyers. It didn’t make sense to me: True Abu-Husain is of darker skin and that may have justified Pinky’s look of condescension in his own eyes. But Dakwar, the second prosecution lawyer, is as fair-skinned as they come, fairer than the judge himself. I figured it must be size that decides status this time around.
In Colonel Pinky’s clear-minded view, the last question that Abu-Husain lobbed at him must have looked like the nastiest of curveballs: Abu-Husain must have seemed to him to be intent on adding insult to injury. He, a former ranking colonel and currently the Deputy Head of the FIDF (Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces,) had been already dragged enough through the mud: He had to defend himself against the attacks of a scrawny (by comparison) dark-skinned (also relatively so) Palestinian (also relatively so since his Palestinianism had been compromised by an Israeli citizenship in Pinky’s black-and-white world,) reminiscent in his private thoughts, no doubt, of the standard IDF practice dummies. And now the dark-faced, kaffiyah-clad, hole-riddled scarecrow wanted him to apologize to the parents of that foreign pro-terrorist provocateur! These Ishmaelites, our leaders told us, were supposed to serve us as “Hewers of wood and drawers of water.” Look at them now, biting the hand that feeds them. How terribly insulting it must have felt to the colonel. Thanks God the judge interfered and promptly halted the assault on the defenseless soldier even before the defense lawyers objected. He angrily explained the inappropriateness of such a gesture before He Himself had a chance to issue His ruling.
In rural Galilee the older folks tell a story about a wild Bedouin’s first encounter with the law. He was dragged into town and kept overnight in a cell repeatedly threatened by his jailers with having to face the judge. After the affair was over he was heard explaining gleefully: “I was scared stiff by the prospect of tangling with the judge. But the judge turned out to be a man.”
After all, our judge turns out to be an Israeli man. I bet you my last Aloha shirt the Corries will not get the one dollar they are suing for.
Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh is a Palestinian doctor who has worked for over 35 years to bring medical care to Palestinians in Galilee, against a culture of anti-Arab discrimination. He is the author of the book A Doctor in Galilee: The Life and Struggle of a Palestinian in Israel
. This post originally appeared on his blog.
9 in 10 Egyptians, Lebanese and Jordanians say Obama has failed to meet their expectations of 2009 Cairo speech
Jul 14, 2011
Philip Weiss
The other day I mentioned the Arab American Institute‘s poll on public opinion in the Arab world. Here’s the poll,released yesterday. Based on polls in six countries, UAE, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco. Some results:
Despite initial optimism, most Arabs believe that the expectations President Obama
created in his 2009 Cairo speech have not been met.
The numbers: Agree/Disagree? He has “met expectations” of Cairo speech?
Disagree: Morocco 88% Egypt 90% Lebanon 99% Jordan 94% Saudi 77% UAE 41%
Substantial majorities of Arabs in almost every country view both the U.S. and Iran as not “contributing to peace and stability in the Arab World.” The U.S.’ contribution to the region is viewed less positively than Iran in every country except Saudi Arabia…
Overall, Arabs view the two greatest threats to the region’s peace and stability to be “the continuing occupation of Palestinian lands” and “U.S. interference in the Arab world.” Only in Saudi Arabia does the concern with “Iran’s interference in Arab affairs” rank as a top concern….
“Resolving the Palestinian issue” is, by far, seen as the most important issue for the U.S. to
What’s the most important issue for Obama to address in order to improve relations in the Arab world?
Resolve the Palestinian issue: Morocco 58% Egypt 73% Lebanon 33% Jordan 60% Saudi 14% UAE 27%
What’s a higher concern in any of these countries: Ending the Iraq war, for Lebanon, 34 percent. Stopping Iranian nukes for Saudi, 51 percent. And engaging the Muslim world, for UAE, 27%
Yahoo comments on boycott law suggest American backlash against Israel has begun
Jul 14, 2011
Matthew Taylor
For a long time, I’ve wondered if the American people would ever rise up against the pernicious and destructive pro-Israel lobby. Maybe the boycott law is causing that to happen? Check out the comments on the Yahoo News report, for instance:
Arab world goes democratic and Israel goes authoritarian. How ironic.
Perhaps 90% plus of the comments are critical of Israel. A gem:
I used to be an unquestioning supporter of Israel, until I read this.
And another:
US and Europe should make a law that makes it unlawful to send money to all these idiots [in the gov’t of Israel]… Why give money to Bigots.
Check out the outrage as people are waking up to how much Israel has used and abused its power to virtually control U.S. foreign policy in a manner that’s destructive to U.S. interests:
Thank you Israel
Thank you for taking billions of dollars in aid every year from our taxes, so that Jews in Israel can have things like free health care while we in the USA do not.
Thank you for erecting an apartheid wall and imposing Nazi style check points and curfews on Palestinians so that the whole Arab world can hate the United States for our supposed support of you.
Thank you for giving us Neocons in our government that always push relentlessly for policies that benefit Israel at the expense of the USA…
Thank you for giving us ZIONISM. that considers as essentially important only what is best for Israel and Jewish people above all other allegiances.
Thank you for bulldozing Palestinian homes, forcing the residents out at gunpoint, and stealing their land for Israeli settlements, all with the supposed backing of the USA, as that really helps our image in the world.
Thank you for giving us the Neocons that infested the Bush white house and formed the Project For The New American Century, who called for “A CATASTROPHIC AND CATALYZING EVENT LIKE A NEW PEARL HARBOR” TO HAPPEN ON AMERICAN SOIL so Americans would support middle east war.
But that’s not all.
Not only are Israel’s former supporters waking up, not only are Israel’s critics speaking up louder than ever, not only are American citizens furious at the horrific damage to the United States (including the September 11th attacks and the catastrophic invasion of Iraq) directly and indirectly caused by our blank check military support for Israel… Now Israel has fomented a new round of anti-Semitism! For example:
No wonder people wanted to gas the jews, look at how they behave
Congratulations, Israel. You have made the world less safe for Jews.
Congratulations, American Jewish supporters of Israel’s unending colonization of Palestinian land. You have made America less safe for Jews.
Israel’s defenders have the audacity to claim that criticism of Israel’s violations of human rights and international law is anti-Semitic. In fact, the opposite is true: support of such violations foments anti-Semitism and endangers Jews.
(H/T to Taxi for unearthing this link.)
Curtains for Zionism? Even Walter Russell Mead & Jeffrey Goldberg want no part of this
Jul 14, 2011
Philip Weiss
Netanyahu says that the boycott law reflects democracy in Israel. Tzipi Livni responds, “You are leading Israel into an abyss.”
Walter Russell Mead, long an Israel defender at Council on Foreign Relations, writes:
“Israel shoots self in foot. Again…. a bill of dubious constitutionality and even more dubious merit passed the Knesset…. it erodes the democratic value of the state.”
