BEGGING FOR FORGIVENESS WHILE CONTINUING TO SIN
August 25, 2013 at 09:26 (DesertPeace Editorial, Ethnic Cleansing, Hypocricy, Israel, Palestine)
EGYPT: WAR OF WORDS ….
August 21, 2013 at 07:24 (Corrupt Politics, Dictatorship, Egypt, Hypocricy, Israel)
White House spokesman says Turkish leader’s comments suggesting Israel is responsible for Egypt unrest are ‘offensive and wrong’; says reports that US is cutting military aid to Egypt ‘inaccurate’
News agencies
*
The United States condemned comments by Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accusing Israel of having a hand in the Egyptian military’s overthrow of president Mohamed Morsi, a White House spokesman said on Tuesday.
“We strongly condemn the statements that were made by Prime Minister Erdogan today. Suggesting that Israel is somehow responsible for recent events in Egypt is offensive, unsubstantiated, and wrong,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in a briefing.
In Israel, an official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office told AFP: “These comments by the Turkish prime minister are nonsense.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Erdogan told provincial leaders of his AK Party: “What do they say in Egypt? Democracy is not the ballot box. What is behind it? Israel. We have in our hands documentation.”
Also Tuesday, the White House said media reports that suggest the US cut off aid to Egypt are not accurate, adding that the Obama administration is still reviewing its options.
“That review has not concluded and … published reports to the contrary that assistance to Egypt has been cut off are not accurate,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in a briefing.
Earnest also said that Egypt’s detention of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie was not in line with the standard that the United States would hope to uphold in protecting basic human rights.
The White House will hold a Cabinet-level meeting to discuss cutting some of $1.5 billion in US aid to Egypt.
Earnest confirmed that a National Security Council meeting of top officials will take place Tuesday. Cabinet members such as Secretary of State John Kerry will participate.
Up to now, the administration has insisted that it has taken no final decision on halting aid to Egypt since the military’s July overthrow of Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government and an intensifying crackdown on Islamist opponents.
Both officials said Egypt aid would be the focus of the meeting. One official said a decision was likely on cutting some elements of US economic and military support.
Reuters, AFP and AP contributed to this report
CANADA PICKS AND CHOOSES WHICH ‘TERRORISTS’ TO SUPPORT
August 15, 2013 at 08:54 (Canada, Corrupt Politics, Hypocricy, Israel, Palestine)
Canada’s double standards on Middle East sink to new low
The extremism of Canada’s support for Israel just keeps growing.
The latest example is the Conservative government in Ottawa helping convince the European Union to list Hizballah’s military wing as a “terrorist” organization. After that decision was taken, Foreign Minister John Baird declared, “We are thrilled that the European Union unanimously has agreed to designate Hizballah as a terrorist organization. We’ve been pushing for this.”
The National Post detailed Canada’s behind-the-scenes effort to get the EU to list Hizballah as a “terrorist” organization. Despite opposition from the Lebanese government, a foreign ministry official told the paper that this was “a clear priority that was set out by the minister.”
Canadian diplomats held bilateral talks with various European countries and also pushed for Hizballah to be listed at numerous multilateral meetings. At both a recent United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime meeting and a UN conference on radicalization in Europe, Canadian officials pressed key EU officials to define Hizballah as a “terrorist” group (“Canada pushed EU to add Hezbollah to list of banned terrorist organizations, official says,” 24 July 2013).
Canadian law enforcement and security officials were also part of the lobbying effort. Reportedly, they’ve been feeding their European counterparts information about the supposed threat Hizballah poses to both Canada and Europe.
Jumped at opportunity
The Conservatives push to get the EU to list Hizballah was given a boost when six Israelis were killed in Bulgaria in July last year. Within hours of the bus bombing, Israel claimed Hizballah was responsible, yet more than a year later it’s still unclear exactly who committed this crime.
With a Canadian passport holder allegedly implicated in the bombing, Ottawa jumped at the opportunity to get involved in the investigation. Presumably, Canadian investigators shared information with their Bulgarian counterparts designed to steer them towards the conclusion that Hizballah was responsible.
In response to the EU listing its military wing as a terrorist group the Hizballah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said: “Why don’t you classify the state of Israel as a terror state? Why don’t you classify Israel’s military wing … as a terror organization if you recognize Israel is occupying Arab lands and refuses to implement international decisions for decades now? The entire world bares witness to the massacres perpetrated by Israel” (“Nasrallah to EU: Why not brand IDF as terror group?,” Ynet, 24 July).
Nasrallah raises an important point that Canadian foreign affairs professionals must be familiar with. It’s a simple fact that Israeli forces have killed far more civilians than the military wing of Hizballah.
The Israeli military and its allies in Lebanon have killed thousands of civilians. In fact, Hizballah was created in large part to fight the Israeli occupation of that country. Israel has conducted scores of targeted assassinations in many countries across Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Certainly, Canadian foreign affairs officials must remember Gerald Bull. This Canadian engineer and designer of the Iraqi “supergun” was, according to CBC journalist Linden MacIntyre, shot dead by Israel’s secret service Mossad outside his residence in Belgium in 1990 (“Murdered by the Mossad?”, CBC The Fifth Estate, 12 February 1991).
And what about members of the current Israeli government who support illegal settlers and the killing of dozens of Palestinian civilians?
Relishing hypocrisy
But apparently none of this “terrorism” bothers Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government. The Conservatives are either ignorant or relish their hypocrisy.
Though they are allowed to support the Israeli military, Canadians can go to jail for sending money to a group operating a school or medical clinic in Lebanon “directly or indirectly” associated with Hizballah, which comprises an important part of the Lebanese governmental and social service structure.
Dozens of Canadian companies sell to the Israeli army and many groups with charitable status promote the Israeli military. The Canadian Jewish News is full of advertisements for such groups: “Express your Zionism by serving as a civilian volunteer on an Israeli army supply base,” reads one ad. Another advertiser, the Libi Fund, runs educational projects for the Israeli military.
Established in 1971 the Association for the Soldiers of Israel in Canada also provides financial and moral support to the Israeli military. A June 2009 Canadian Jewish News ad promoting the group invited readers to “show your support for the brave youth of the IDF at our gala dinner.”
Prominent Toronto couple Heather Reisman and Gerry Schwartz, who own or control more than two thirds of Chapters/Indigo/Coles bookstores, created the Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers. Reisman and Schwartz provide up to $3 million per year for post-military scholarships to individuals without family in Israel who join the Israeli army. After completing their military service these non-Israeli “lone soldiers” gain access to this scholarship money.
For the Israeli high command (Heseg’s board has included a number of generals and a former head of Mossad) “lone soldiers” are of value beyond their military capacities. Foreigners volunteering to fight for Israel are a powerful symbol to reassure Israelis weary of Israel’s behavior. Schwartz and Reisman’s support for Heseg has spurred a campaign to boycott Chapters/Indigo/Coles, which controls 70 percent of Canada’s retail book trade.
The Harper government is plowing full steam ahead with its support for Israel. Double standards and morality be damned.
*Yves Engler’ is the author of The Ugly Canadian: Stephen Harper’s Foreign Policy andCanada and Israel: Building Apartheid.
Written FOR
AMERICAN JEWS TURN A BLIND EYE TO ISRAELI RACISM
August 13, 2013 at 08:18 (ADL Hatemongering, Hypocricy, Israel, Racism)
As a matter of fact, the ADL and the entire American Jewish establishment should suspend their campaigns against anti-Semitism indefinitely and take a look at what’s going on in Israel.
When the Jewish state is this riddled with racism, its advocates abroad should be a little less outraged over the offenses of gentiles. They should be a little more humble — and a lot less hypocritical.
*
Israel’s Everyday Racism — and How American Jews Turn a Blind Eye to It
Refocus Anti-Semitism Outrage on Our Own Dirty Laundry

By Larry Derfner
The Anti-Defamation League and the rest of the American Jewish establishment owe Jesse Jackson a big apology. They put the man through the wringer, they made him apologize in every possible forum for his “Hymie” and “Hymietown” remarks back in 1984. Yet look at the kinds of things Israeli leaders — senior government ministers, chief rabbis — get away with without ever having to apologize, without ever being punished in the slightest.
Just last week, Naftali Bennett, the fresh new face of right-wing Orthodox Judaism, said in a cabinet meeting how he didn’t like these releases of Palestinian prisoners. “If you catch terrorists, you simply have to kill them,” he was quoted in Yedioth Ahronoth as saying. The head of the National Security Council, Yaakov Amidror, told Bennett, “Listen, that’s not legal.” Bennett replied: “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that.”
The media, the left and the Arabs made a big deal out of it, nobody else. Bennett defended what he said, and so did countless talkbackers and Facebookers.
Two days later the newly-elected Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, David Lau, was seen on a video telling an audience of yeshiva boys that they shouldn’t watch European basketball games in public.
“What difference does it make,” Lau said, “if the kushim who get paid in Tel Aviv beat the kushim who get paid in Greece?” Kushim, especially when used in a dismissive context like Lau did, is a well-understood derogatory term for blacks.
Again, the media, the left, some Ethiopian Jews and presumably some African refugees were outraged. But Lau defended his words, blaming the media, saying “they made a big deal out of a joke.”
Who else defended his remarks about “kushim”? Bennett: “The media are pouncing on him for a joking, insignificant remark.”
So really — what was so bad about “Hymies” and “Hymietown”? Or the thousand other anti-Semitic or even just possibly anti-Semitic remarks that the ADL and other American Jewish organizations have “pounced on” since then? Israeli public figures say the same kind of garbage, the difference is that they never, ever pay a price for it, in fact they usually manage to play the victim and get away with it, and at worst will be obliged to offer some backhanded apology.
Likud lawmaker Miri Regev is doing fine after having called Sudanese refugees “a cancer on our body” to a crowd of hopped-up south Tel Avivians in May of last year, shortly before the crowd went on a window-smashing mini-pogrom against the Africans in the neighborhood.
Legendary basketball coach Pini Gershon’s career and public stature didn’t suffer at all after he explained his racial theory about blacks to a class of amused army officers in 2000.
“The mocha-colored guys are smarter, but the dark colored ones are just guys off the street,” Gershon said. “They’re dumb like slaves, they do whatever you tell them.”
Nor was there any blowback whatsoever after Bibi Netanyahu bragged in 2007 that the cuts he’d made to child subsidies had brought a “positive” result, which he identified as “the demographic effect on the non-Jewish public, where there was a dramatic drop in the birth rate.”
Imagine the scandal if an American political leader boasted publicly that his cuts to child subsidies had reduced the “non-Christian” birth rate. Imagine the ADL’s reaction. But in Israel, in 2007, from the mouth of a once-and-future prime minister — nothing.
These are just a few of the more appalling examples of the kind of racist remarks that Israeli politicians, rabbis and celebrities feel free to make. I haven’t even mentioned Avigdor Lieberman and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. As a rule the words are directed at Arabs, now and then against blacks: either Ethiopian Jews, African refugees or athletes.
I’ve lived roughly half my 61 years in the United States, the other half in Israel. There is absolutely no comparison between American tolerance for public displays of racism and Israeli tolerance for it.
I’ve stood in the middle of Israeli crowds chanting “Death to the Arabs.” I’ve sat in a Tel Aviv soccer stadium watching and listening to an entire section of fans erupt in monkey sounds – “Hoo, hoo, hoo!! Hoo, hoo, hoo!! – after a black player on the visiting team scored a goal.
A few liberals and a few do-gooders and a few journalists wring their hands. But the racists in the street, the synagogues, the Knesset and the government go on doing their thing.
Does this mean all Israelis, or even most of them, are racists? No. Does it mean Israeli society, by commission and omission, encourages racism? Oh, yes. To a degree that would be unthinkable in the United States.
And the leaders of the U.S. Jewish establishment, Israel’s most valued, devoted, determined friends, keep pouncing on every untoward or conceivably untoward remark about Jews or the Jewish state. Yes, the ADL will send out a press release about its “concern” over the “inappropriate” remarks made by some relatively minor Israeli figure.
But it never hits hard at the major figures. It said nothing last week about Bennett or Lau. The ADL goes after anti-Semitism with a fist, it goes after Israeli racism with a sigh.
As a matter of fact, the ADL and the entire American Jewish establishment should suspend their campaigns against anti-Semitism indefinitely and take a look at what’s going on in Israel.
When the Jewish state is this riddled with racism, its advocates abroad should be a little less outraged over the offenses of gentiles. They should be a little more humble — and a lot less hypocritical.
ROBERT DE NIRO ~~ NO LONGER THE ‘GOODFELLA’ WE THOUGHT HE WAS
June 19, 2013 at 09:08 (DesertPeace Exclusive, Hypocricy, Israel)
HYPOCRICY OR DEMOCRACY?
January 20, 2013 at 14:48 (Hypocricy, Israel, Palestine, Racism)
‘Judaization’ is racism
The term “Judaizing the Galilee” provides allegedly legitimate cover for every benighted racist position that sees the presence of Arabs in the Galilee or anywhere else as a national threat.
Upper Nazareth Mayor Shimon Gapso describes his job as a national mission. “Upper Nazareth was founded to make the Galilee Jewish,” he declares. “The city’s residents and I, as their leader, overwhelmingly support the principle that Upper Nazareth must fulfill this mission.”
As part of this “mission,” Gapso has decided to block the opening of an Arab school for around 1,900 Arab pupils, children in a community making up about 20 percent of the city’s population. These children must travel daily to the neighboring Arab city of Nazareth, where the schools are having problems absorbing them all.
Upper Nazareth is a mixed city, which – like Haifa, Acre, Lod and Tel Aviv – is obligated to open schools for its minority communities. This obligation, stemming from the principle of equal rights for all Israelis, means Arabs have the right to their own schools under the Education Ministry’s aegis, not only in Arab cities but also in Arab neighborhoods in mixed cities.
Gapso, who in November asked the Interior Ministry to declare that Arab Nazareth was “hostile to the State of Israel,” doesn’t seem to recognize his obligation to supply separate educational services to his city’s Arab residents. Worse, his opposition to a school for the city’s Arab citizens is a blatant attempt to “cleanse” the city of those citizens, who, he says, “undermine” the Upper Nazareth’s national mission: to Judaize the Galilee.
The term “Judaizing the Galilee” provides allegedly legitimate cover for every benighted racist position that sees the presence of Arabs in the Galilee or anywhere else as a national threat. These positions are apparently backed by some of our national leaders, who still haven’t bothered to condemn Gapso’s remarks.
One might expect Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar to immediately use his authority to order the opening of an Arab school in Upper Nazareth. But when Gapso makes remarks that Sa’ar apparently supports, and when the interior minister, the authority over the municipality, espouses racist views himself, Israelis who oppose racism and discrimination – Arabs and Jews alike – have no choice but to vote for parties that will fight both phenomena.
THINK TWICE BEFORE SUBSCRIBING TO HAARETZ
January 20, 2013 at 06:26 (Collaboration, Ethnic Cleansing, Hypocricy, Israel, Palestine, zionist Media)
Recently the paper put its English edition behind a paywall, requiring a subscription to read articles. But this link-up with the JNF is a new reason to make you think twice before handing over your money to Haaretz.
*
Subscription offer from liberal Israeli newspaper helps JNF, a “charity” implicated in ethnic cleansing
Israeli newspaper Haaretz is currently circulating this email. Subscribe to the paper’s digital edition during an upcoming Jewish holiday season and you will be helping the work of the Jewish National Fund, it promises.
The English edition of the liberal Zionist paper has a global reputation and is read and trusted by many Palestinian rights activists, who often look forward to the work of dissident journalists like Amira Hass and Gideon Levy.
Recently the paper put its English edition behind a paywall, requiring a subscription to read articles. But this link-up with the JNF is a new reason to make you think twice before handing over your money to Haaretz.
“Green” ad
The ad promises that for each new subscriber to Haaretz, the JNF will plant a tree in the Carmel forests (in the vicinity of Haifa) to help replace those that were burnt down in huge 2010 forest fires.
But as Max Blumenthal wrote for The Electronic Intifada at the time, many of these trees were planted on the ruins of destroyed Palestinian villages – deliberately so in order to cover up Israeli crimes.
After 1948, when Zionist militias drove out 750,000 Palestinians by force, the new state of Israel destroyed hundreds of their villages hoping to ensure the Palestinian refugees could not return. In many cases, the JNF planted trees on the ruins.
Palestinians and their supporters have protested against the JNF with a group called Stop the JNF making some headway in the UK, for example.
Charity?
Operating as a registered charity in many countries, the JNF is a long-standing Zionist institution with quasi-governmental status and authority over land in Israel – which it holds in trust for Jews only.
As well as a long history of planning for and implementing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, stretching back to even before the 1948 Nakba, it’s also linked to more contemporary expulsions.
In the Naqab, it is involved in projects to “Judaize” the southern desert – known as the Negev in Hebrew. Palestinian Bedouin communities are being compelled to move into American Indian style reservations dubbed “development towns.”
The “unrecognized” village of al-Araqib, for example, has reportedly been destroyed by Israel and rebuilt more than 40 times since 2010.
In October 2012, Budour Hassan reported for The Electronic Intifada that JNF representatives raided the 5,000-strong town of Bir Hadaj (which is ostensibly “recognized”) alongside the interior ministry, handing out demolition orders. When local youths protested, police invaded, firing tear gas, rubber bullets and some live ammunition.
But globally, the JNF promotes itself as a “ecological” charity, playing down its involvement in these abuses against Palestinians. Haaretz focuses on this greenwashing narrative.
With thanks to Jonathan Cook for drawing attention to this email.
Written FOR
THIS YEAR’S NOBEL ‘WAR’ PRIZE GOES TO …..
October 15, 2012 at 08:57 (Chutzpah, European Union, Hypocricy, Peace)
Nobel Peace Prize To European Union Is A Political Award
By Mairead Corrigan Maguire
Alfred Nobel was a visionary who believed in a demilitarized peaceful world. In his Will he left his Nobel peace prize to those who would work for ‘fraternity among nations’,’abolition or reduction of standing armies’, and ‘holding and promotion of peace congresses’.
In Nobel’s will the award for Peace was to go to Champions of peace, those working to replace militarism with international order based on law and the abolition of national military forces. Nobel’s vision and dream was to replace the power of militarism and war, with the power of law. I believe the Awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union, does not meet the criteria of Alfred Nobel vision and spirit, and his vision of a demilitarized peaceful world.
In many ways the European Union has done much in the past sixty years for Peace and reconciliation amongst nations, but it has sadly done little for the demilitarization of Europe. Whilst the EU imposes severe Austerity measures upon many EU countries it simultaneously supports the growing militarisation of Europe by its support for US/NATO (guilty of war crimes against Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., ) It continues to support the policies of USA Nuclear weapons, held in six EU States. It supports arms sales from European States (UK, Germany, etc.,) to countries all around the world. The EU instead of upholding human rights for countries such as Palestine, has rewarded Israel by giving them special trading status and huge grants (EU tax payers money) for its Military Research and weapons thus enabling it to continue it illegal policies of occupation and Apartheid of Palestine.
I cannot support this decision to give the peace prize to EU and appeal to the Swedish Foundation Authority to hold the Nobel Committee accountable for giving, yet again, a political award instead of supporting People taking courageous, and often dangerous stands to help move the human family away from military international Relations to one based on peaceful resolution of conflict.
I believe that the reform of the nobel peace Committee is now necessary. As is the case of all other nobel prize committees which are made-up of experts in their particular field, perhaps it is time too for the NPP Committee to be comprised of people experienced in the field of Peacemaking and International Law.
Mairead Maguire is a Northern Irish peace activist, and winner of 1976 Nobel Peace Prize. (www.peacepeople.com)
ROMNEY: TROLLING FOR THE ‘JEWISH VOTE’ IN ISRAEL
July 29, 2012 at 10:37 (Hypocricy, Israel, U.S. Election)
Arriving in Israel, Mitt Romney eyes Jewish votes ahead of U.S. elections
Romney to meet with Netanyahu, Barak, Lieberman, Peres, and Israeli opposition leaders in Jerusalem.

Romney’s campaign is based on a vigorous attack on Obama’s attitude concerning Israel, with an eye on Jewish voters in swing states, such as Florida.
Meanwhile these efforts have fallen rather flat: according to a recent Gallup poll, 68 percent of American Jews still support Obama, compared to 72-74 percent four years ago.
Still, Romney can probably count on the support of his host in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Aaron Miller, who served in the Clinton administration, wrote a few days ago in Foreign Policy, that when Netanyahu will blow out the candles on his birthday cake, two weeks before the elections, he will wish for a decisive Romney victory.
Obama and his campaign managers are doing their best to check Romney’s criticism, claiming that as opposed to the Republican candidate, the administration’s deeds, not words, strengthen the alliance with Israel.
During the weekend, Obama signed a bill to increase security cooperation with
Israel.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quick to publicly thank the president, but
Netanyahu kept his silence. Only in respond to Haaretz’s query, Netanyahu’s office said that “the prime minister thanks the U.S. administration and is expected to send a thank you note to the president.”
Netanyahu vehemently denies that he is interfering in U.S. politics, but as he himself is fond of saying: if it walks and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Netanyahu’s close associates, such as his political advisor Ron Dermer, are firm supporters of the Republicans. Some of Netanyahu’s strongest backers – Casino magnate, Sheldon Adelson for one – are among Romney’s campaign largest donors.
The U.S. media has reported several times that Adelson has pledged to donate no less than $100 million to Romney’s campaign to oust Obama. The New York Times reported that Adelson will visit Israel at the same time as Romney, and one can assume that the two will find time to meet.
Romney visit will last slightly longer than 24 hours, but he will be well received by Netanyahu, who will do his best to make the visit politically successful. The two will meet in the morning at the prime minister’s office, and briefly meet the press, before meeting again in the evening for dinner at the prime minister’s residence with their wives.
One small anecdote can reflect the importance Netanyahu attaches to the visit’s success. Until a week ago, Romney was planning to hold, in the very same evening a fundraising event at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. But then he was told that the event was due to begin before the end of the Tisha B’Av fast, commemorating the destruction of both temples.
Romney and his team found themselves in an embarrassing situation. At first they postponed the beginning of the dinner until after sunset, but that still wasn’t enough to quell the criticism. The prime minister’s office came to their rescue offering a solution – instead of a fundraising event, Romney and his wife will join the Netanyahus for an after-fast dinner. Netanyahu, by the way, has no intention of fasting, but his office said that in such a symbolic evening he could explain to Romney the dangers facing Israel. The fundraising event, incidentally, costing some $50,000 will still take place, but only on Monday morning.
BOB DYLAN; A YEAR WITHOUT AN ANSWER
June 27, 2012 at 12:19 (Boycott Israel, DesertPeace Editorial, Hypocricy, Israel, Palestine)
BOB DYLAN WILL YOU HEED THE CALL?
Dear Bob Dylan,
“Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.”
We are members of an Israeli group called BOYCOTT! Supporting the Palestinian BDS call from within (BfW). We support the Palestinian call for the boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS) of Israel (1) until Palestinians’ most basic human rights are respected:
1. Ending [Israel’s] 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.
You have been part of a civil rights movement. You have been able to raise your voice louder than others, you can do it again. We are asking you not to perform in Israel until it respects Palestinian human rights. A performance in Israel, today, is a vote of support for its policies of oppression, whether you intend for it to be that, or not (2). Choosing not to perform will effect over 3 and a half million lives, living under brutal occupation.
As we write this, Israel continues a practice of ethnic cleansing and it is systematically driving its own Palestinian citizens off their lands. Israel is keeping a population of millions under martial-law in the West Bank, and yet another threat of wholesale massacre is looming in Gaza, in the last few days. In the late of night of 21.3.11 the Israeli air force attacked Gaza, bombing the most populated area in the world from the sky. 8 children under the age of 17 lost their lives (3). This is not an out of the ordinary occurrence, or even a rare one. Over half the population of besieged Gaza are minors (under 18 years of age), over a million are registered refugees. They are trapped inside the biggest open-air prison in the world and are under a real and immediate threat of death, as we speak.
In 2005 over 170 (and growing) civil society Palestinian groups came together and signed the BDS call. BDS is a powerful and united civil initiative in the face of a brutal military occupation and apartheid. It’s a nonviolent alternative to a waning armed struggle and it has reaped many successes and instilled much hope, in the past 6 years. BDS is a long process in which those of us who live here are deeply invested in, knowing that there’s a personal price, which non of us could withstand alone. That is why we ask for support from the international community. Your celebrity status affords you a leading role. You may choose to block the halls, or heed the call.
Sincerely on behalf of BfW,
Noa Abend
Adi Dagan
Naama Farjoun
Shir Hever
Assaf Kintzer
Gal Lugassi
Naomi Lyth
Rela Mazali
Edo Medicks
Ofer Neiman
David Nir
Leehee Rothschild
Tal Shapira
Yana Ziferblat
*
But, fame and fortune won out in your mind as you ignored all appeals of reason by acivists who were at your side for decades.
*
Now you have chosen a new side with new supporters ….
*
*
So yes, we got our answers, you are a sellout and a whore! You made your bed, enjoy your new mates…
As for your ‘music’, truth is it makes me gag when I try to listen to it today.
Happy Anniversary!
ZIONIST HYPOCRICY: VOCIFEROUS ON SUDAN, BUT SILENT ON ISRAEL
March 18, 2012 at 15:18 (Associate Post, Hypocricy, Israel, Palestine)
However, when human rights breaches and even more scandalous policies in places such as Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories are deliberately ignored, a serious question-mark is drawn over the real motives behind such demonstrations.
I am one of those people who don’t trust most of the Zionist rabbis who adopt a blind attitude toward the Apartheid state of Israel.
by Khalid Amayreh
This week, Jewish leaders in Washington , D.C. , demonstrated outside the Sudanese embassy, protesting the al-Bashir regime’s excesses against rebel areas in southern Kurdufan.
The protestors accused the Sudanese government of provoking a humanitarian crisis and blocking humanitarian aid from reaching people in need.
One rabbi, wore a T-shirt saying :” Stop genocide in Darfur .”
There is nothing wrong in holding protests against government repression and human rights violation anywhere in the world.
However, when championing the cause of human rights is motivated by short-sighted political expedience, highly-selective, moral confusion and moral impurity blur the picture.
I am not suggesting or demanding that at a single demonstration one would have to protest all human rights violations on earth, although this would be a good thing to do.
However, when human rights breaches and even more scandalous policies in places such as Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories are deliberately ignored, a serious question-mark is drawn over the real motives behind such demonstrations.
I am one of those people who don’t trust most of the Zionist rabbis who adopt a blind attitude toward the Apartheid state of Israel.
The hypocrisy of these gurus of racism and mendacity becomes really stark when we see them refrain from voicing even a gesture of dissatisfaction with real atrocities, some of which are quite comparable to Nazi crimes against Jews during WWII, on no ground other than the fact that the villains happen to be Jews and the victims are non-Jews.
I would want to know how many times have these so-called rabbis taken part in protests against Israel’s Naz-like policies in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and Israel proper?
How many times have these important figures protested the demolition of Arab homes, the vandalism of Arab orchards, the torching of Arab fields, the open-ended detention of innocent Arabs without charge or trial, the desecration of Muslim and Christian holy places at the hands of government-backed Jewish thugs and terrorists as well as the recurrent murderous air-raids on helpless Gazans which kill, maim and incinerates thousands?
The five-year ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip have caused a virtual starvation throughout the coastal enclave, but most Jewish leaders, rabbis and otherwise, have remained silent, as if this was happening on another plant.
I know the answer too well. These rabbis’ consciences are alive only when Jewish lives and Jewish rights and interests are in question.
However, when Gentile lives, rights and interests are the issue, we see these rabbis succumb to apathy and disinterest.
In fact a good many of these people don’t content themselves with silence and apathy, they actually morph themselves into hysterical mouthpieces for the Israeli government and genocidal settlers by strongly defending every atrocity and every massacre perpetrated in cold blood by their brethren.
Didn’t holocaust survivor Eli Wiesel declare that ” I support Israel right or wrong” and “I really can’t bring myself to criticizing Israeli crimes?”
A few years ago, Israel launched a blitzkrieg against the nearly helpless and virtually unprotected, and thoroughly blockaded Gaza Strip, using state-of-the art of the American technology of death.
The infernal barbarian rampage, which lasted for more than three weeks, killed over a thousand innocent civilians, including more than 350 children, murdered knowingly and deliberately “in order to break the Palestinians’ will for resistance and freedom.”
As mentioned above, this nefarious aggression came on the heel of a hermetic blockade which put about two million people on the verge of starvation.
Unfortunately, not a single word of protest was uttered by people like Wiesel and his elk against the mini-genocide in Gaza. Far from that, the pseudo-moralist did every thing he could to defend Israel’s shameful act, and he did it in the name of the holocaust and its survivors!!!
Why do many Jews adopt such distinctively duplicitous, manifestly unethical stances and scandalously inconsistent attitudes when relating to crimes committed by Jews and crimes committed against Jews?
Do these rabbis and self-centered thinkers really believe their ancient myths that non-Jews are beasts of burden created by the Almighty so that they may serve Jews, as the spiritual mentor of Shas, Ovadia Yosef, said last year?
Do they think, as many within the Chabad cult, that the lives of non-Jews have no sanctity and can be expended without the slightest compunction? One rabbi from this particularly evil cult was quoted as saying that a Jew may murder a Gentile in order to extricate the victim’s organ if the Jew needed one?
I am not interested in vilifying and demonizing anyone, including Jews. I know well that there are many conscientious and humane Jews out there. But, unfortunately, the damage and ill-will caused by villainous Jews exceed by far any amount of good will generated by good Jews.
The Jews are an influential people in our world today. They control power nations and governments, including the only remaining super-power in the world, the United States .
Instead of gearing American policies toward embracing and supporting apartheid and oppression in Palestine (because the oppressors and practitioners of apartheid happen to be Jews), Jews can steer American policy toward promoting a moral world based on justice and morality, not on power politics.
We have experienced “power politics” since the beginning of time, and it proved utterly disastrous if not suicidal.
NEW YORK’S GAY COMMUNITY TARGETED BY ZIONISTS
March 5, 2012 at 09:25 (Activism, Associate Post, DesertPeace Exclusive, Human Rights, Hypocricy, International Solidarity, Israel, Oppression, Palestine, Photography, zionist harassment)
Gay Pride Event Coordinator Adir Steiner said, “Tel Aviv is hot right now because it’s unique. It’s in the Middle East where it’s not so easy to be gay and it’s like a paradise in an area where you would not obviously have found an open city like Tel Aviv. So people find it interesting.”
Saturday, March 3rd at 4 pm
208 West 13th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues
We hope you will join Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and the 15 other groups that have endorsed the call for action this Saturday…see list below.
On March 3rd we will gather at the LGBT Center from 4 to 6 pm to mark the one year anniversary of the Center’s banning of groups opposing Israeli apartheid. We will confront the Center’s censorship policy and its secret closed-door board of directors meetings.
It’s been a year since NY’s LGBT Community Center banned Siegebusters, the anti-occupation organizers, from using space at the Center. Since that time NYC Queers Against Israeli Apartheid has also been banned from the Center—and a “moratorium” has been imposed on ANY discussion of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (meaning “discussion” of support for Palestinian rights). The Center’s board promised, but never delivered, a policy revision clarifying their rental/access/programming guidelines.
On Saturday, March 3, as part of Israeli Apartheid Week, we will end the ban on Palestinian-related organizing at the Center, and re-institute the Center’s original access policy of full inclusion for all queers who organize for liberation. The “moratorium” is over!
The wealthy and powerful 1% should not be allowed to silence the voices of the 99%. Queers Against Israeli Apartheid will defy the ban on March 3 — Occupy the Center!
Demands
1. End the ban on Palestine solidarity organizing at the Center
2. Open the Center to all who respect its stated mission.
3. Open the Center’s board meetings and decision-making process to the community.
ENDORSING GROUPS
Queers for an Open LGBT Center (QFOLC)
alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society
Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel
Brooklyn for Peace
FIERCE
Jewish Voice for Peace-NY
Jews Say No!
International Action Center
International Socialist Organization
Metropolitan Community Church of New York
New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA)
Palestinian Queers for BDS
Siegebusters
Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Workers World Party
Young, Jewish and Proud*
And now from the event
Photos © by Bud Korotzer
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
The Speakers…
*
*
*
*
*
*
The Protest …
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
After the initial protests inside the centre, the activists moved outside in front of the building. To hugh cheers, two banners were dropped from the center’s windows.
*
*
*
*
KOSHER PORK?
November 25, 2011 at 13:12 (Corrupt Politics, Hypocricy, Israel)
Rabbinate presents: Pork-flavored foie gras
Chief Rabbi Metzger announces plan to import special goose liver which tastes just like forbidden meat |
We plan to approve the move and help it happen,” the rabbi told Yedioth Ahronoth. “It could serve as an original Jewish solution for consumers of non-kosher meat, who will be receiving a proper substitute. As for religious Jews, I believe they will be disgusted at first, but will eventually get used to it.”
Rabbi Metzger made the remarks in a conference presenting future hospital food. The conference was also attended by Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman and the winner of the first season of “Master Chef”, Ina Kravasky.
GADDAFI: AMERICA’S CONVENIENT TYRANT
October 21, 2011 at 12:14 (Associate Post, Corrupt Politics, Hypocricy, Libya, Torture)
Hypocrisy knows no limits
WE WERE SLAVES IN EGYPT … WE ROAMED THE DESERT FOR FORTY YEARS … NOW LET’S EAT!
October 11, 2011 at 11:07 (DesertPeace Editorial, Egypt, Gaza, Holidays, Hypocricy, Illegal Evictions, Israel)
Israel OKs import of lulavim from Gaza
After Egypt bans export of palm fronds ahead of Sukkot, government quickly approves import from Strip. Left-wing groups, foreign officials say potential deal proves Gaza blockade is political rather than security-related
*
*
Succot without the palm frond is like Christmas without the tree … perish the thought. But, thankfully the hypocrisy of zionism itself saved the day.
*
Some rambling thoughts that I wrote about Succot a few years ago can be read in the following post … THE ROOTS OF PREJUDICE AND HOW TO COMBAT IT
*
Now, LET’S EAT!
Happy Holiday!!