Arabs Hate jews and always have. Try being a Jew or a Christian living in the “MIDDLE EAST. They kill each other like cats and dogs. Honour killing their girls is a bit hit of the day. If Arabs was doing this in England there would be no problem of defense but when it happens to Jews everyone is Ok with that. Aparthied that is a Joke. When was the last time a Synangouge was built in Egypt or Saudi.

I hear far left taking about one state solution. Look artical. I see more likly one state Isreal commite gencide kill Plastines West Bank gaze strip all nambors not incould US pull cival war befor US agree. with as many 80 million right christion support USA

As Abdallah’s curse on me for what he imagines are my “Zionist” biases makes amply clear, there is enough hatred and distrust to go around. And I do not deny I share in it. But my sense of moral outrage comes from very different sources of culture and personal experience than his own.

While I am inclined to believe the examples he cites, from what he admits is “...the only example of democracy in the Middle East” are true, there is also the reality of an on-going state of war between the Arab world and the nation of Israel for 60 years.

I find it impossible to imagine a secure and moral solution other than the one that separated Greeks and Turks after WWI. The other alternatives involve either an Intifada that gives the world another holocaust or the internal collapse of most Moslem countries into civil war, because their process of religious obsession and primitive governance makes them incapable of change. Israel’s only choice is to hold out until the latter alternative unfolds.

Given the absolutist nature of the Intifada, and pathetic performances of most Moslem nations since independence after WW II, I can find no reason to like,trust or respect them.

Granted the USA has its own “Axis of Evil” to destroy, to kill off its own capitalist corruption, a task far more difficult than the frictions between Moslem and primarily secular societies in the West, it is probably for the best,the American Empire withdraws from Middle East affairs with the two exceptions of protec- tion of Israel and independence for a new nation of Kurdistan.

That would leave Abdallah and his associates free to try to create democratic process for them- selves, and, above all,for their women as well

Ion C. Laskaris,Burlington,Vt. + iclrevusa.com

Here are two stories to prove that Israel practices what is “Worse than Apartheid.”
+++++++++++++++++
Imagine yourself living in a given town of a country where you’re officially a citizen of that country; then you want to move and live in a different town of that country; then you have to submit to a “suitability test”; then the result of the test tells you that “you’re not fit to live in that town.”

Where is this likely to happen in the world?! You guessed it! Only in Israel… the only oasis of democracy in the Middle East, supported only by another greater so-called democracy where elections get stolen two cycles at a time by the power of money and corruption!!!!!!
==========================
A petition was issued earlier this week to the High Court of Justice by an Arab-Israeli couple seeking a temporary injunction which would allow them to live in the predominately Jewish town of Rakefet. The couple, residents of Sakhnin, have stated that local authorities in Rakefet and officials at the Israel Lands Authority kept them from moving into the town, by stating that according to a “suitability test,” they were “not fit to live in the town.”
========================================
This is another one!
Israel owned El Al refuses transport of Israeli Arab body. The deceased, Acre-born Lamis Jerrar, worked as a lecturer at Howard University in Washington D.C. and held dual Israeli and American citizenship. After she passed away, her family tried to bring her to burial in her hometown. El Al said it would not transport the body!

Read these stories at HAARETZ.com

This story coming from the land of Israel should be both entertaining to everyone and shocking to those who still believe that Israel is a bastion of so-called democracy. It was reported on February 12, 2007, in the Morning Edition of NPR, under the interesting title of “Jerusalem’s ‘Rosa Parks’ fights ‘Modesty Patrols.’ It is about a group of Israeli women of the liberal type who have filed a lawsuit in Israel’s high court against “Taliban-like” Jewish fundamentalists who order women to sit in the back of the bus and abstain from wearing “immodest” clothing on public bus lines. Today, there are more than 30 gender-segregated Haredi bus routes. The woman leading this liberation movement is writer Naomi Ragen, after being herself the victim of harassment by ultra-orthodox Jews, she told her story to Eric Westervelt on National Public Radio. Kindly go to their Website and read the full story.

This story is dedicated to the latest Zionist propagandist and Arab-Muslim hater by the name ION LASKARIS, hoping that you be consumed by your racist hatred till you drop dead!

Hedge’s “Worse Than Apartheid” appears to depend completely on Arab handout propaganda for his explosions of moral indignation. The accompanying photo of a crater with mixing blood and water could have been taken at a spot in Israel where a terrorist bomber blew up Jews with his or her suicide. In any case his reference to a “civil society” in Gaza being destroyed is an absurdity. There is no such society in that degenerate Arab world from the Atlantic Ocean to the border of Iran,and most other Moslem nations.

I,for one, will save my moral outrage for the enemies of the Jews and Israel who invite and encourage us non-Jews to join their barbaric new holocaust mission. 750 million Arabs blaming some 6-7 million Jews for all their woes, supported by Hedge-row “pseudo-progressive” types from our Western world all the way down the line,is a pathetic scene.

About the only thing this illegal president and administration have done right is to support Israel against her Moslem aggressors. The verbal tirades about “Zionist” sins and crimes are no more than cheap Arab curses against the only democracy in their degenerate world. Hedge’s kind of intellectual and spiritual garbage reminds me of the same sewer media 1920-1940 with the rise of the European Fascist tradition,now copied here. Our own Fascist/Republican “Axis of Evil” needs to be destroyed first. Then we can help Israel crush her vile enemies for good.
Ion Laskaris,Burlington,Vt.USA+iclrevusa.com

We need once and for all to re examine zionism and reject it by a popular consensus. Only when Zionism fails in the West, will the Palestinians have a chance to survive ( I’m not even talking about reclaiming their land ). Fate of Palestinians is unfortunately in the hands of a nation whose leaders are in bed with their hangman. The evangelicals have it all wrong. I think we need Christ to return to save the Palestinians and others who are on the Zionist hitlist. ( Like you and me ).

Chris Hedges bemoans the bleak situation in the Gaza strp. And, true to form, he blames Israel.  But, he writes nothing about the more than 800 Qassam rockets fired from Gaza at Israeli towns and villages, in the year since Israel left the Gaza strip (to the last inch).
Can Hedges imagine what would have happened if, immediately after Israel left the Gaza strip, all terror activity from there ceased. No rocket launching, no weapon smuggling, no efforts to bomb the border crossing points, no efforts to send suicide murderers into Israel. Then, all the crossing points would have remained open, thousands of Gazans would have been able to work in Israel, there would have been free merchandise exchange, it would have been possible to travel between the West Bank and Gaza. The international community financial help could have been invested and helped the local economy. Also, this would have made further Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank much easier. But the Palestinians chose to continue with their terror activity, firing rockets on a daily basis, crossing the border, killing two soldiers and abducting a third.
No sovereign country can tolerate such continuous threats to its citizens without responding accordingly. Israel is no exception.
In the last 10 days, a cease fire was announced in the Gaza strip, observed scrupulously by Israel. But more than 40 rockets have landed in Israel in those 10 days. Of course, Hedges does not even mention that.
And Lieberman proposes moving the border line between Israel and the future Palestinian state to the east, so that some Israeli Arab villages could be part of that state, if the villagers so want. No involuntary transfer, as Hedges writes. Lieberman’s views are opposed by the vast majority of Israelis.
And, contrary to Hedges’s assertion, that by 2020 the Jews will be only 40 to 46 percent of the overall population of Israel, the actual projected number is 70 to 75 percent.
By using terms like “worse than apartheid”, Hedges demonstrates his extreme anti-Israeli bias. And by not denouncing the Hamas government’s refusal to recognize Israel, stop terror and start negotiating, he harms the Palestinian people.

The following is a report by B’Tselem Human Rights Jewish group; the decent and conscientious Jews, with whom Palestinians can live in peace forever. This report shows that the current Zionist administration follows practices that are worse than apartheid; it is state-sponsored terrorism.
(Part 2 of 2)
==============================================
Prisoners and Detainees

As of November, Israel held 9,075 Palestinians in custody, including 345 minors. Of these, 738 (22 minors) were held in administrative detention, without trial and without knowing the charges against them.

B’Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.

Anyone surprised here? Can it be any worse? Yes it can, and no one can stop the occupation from doing any worse than this, not until the world wakes up and U.S. stops the unlimited support to war criminals and terrorists (aka Zionists).

660 Palestinian against 17 of which 141 Palestinian child and 1 Israeli minor! Of course it is a loss for all, but look at it, is there any justification for killing all these people? If the Palestinians are terrorist for killing 17 Israeli, then what do you call the Israelis who killed 660 Palestinian? Innocent, peace lovers? Is that what they are? And if Qassam rockets are so accurate and killed less than 2 Israelis a month (as an average), then if the Israeli Merkava, missiles, Jet fighters, etc… are not the most sophisticated military equipments in the world, then what are they other than a random killing machines used by hopeless terrorists called IDF? Of course they are the most accurate machines used by the worst racist people, aka Zionists.

Israel killed 141 Palestinian children in year 2006 alone, when the Palestinians killed 119 Israeli children since the beginning of Intifada (and I assume they mean 2nd Intifada), which started September, 2000. That means that Israel killed more Palestinian minors in one year than what Palestinians killed in SIX years. Again, this is not a justification to kill more, but the question is; who is the REAL TERRORIST? Is it the Palestinian who are fighting for their rights and land, or the Zionist occupier who is stealing more land and killing more innocents than any other terrorist in the history?

The answer is simple: Zionists and their supporters are the cancer of our time, and they should but put to an end.

Action alert: Write to your Congressmen, wish him/her a “Happy New Year” and ask him/her to stop supporting Israel so this massacre may stop!

Human Rights, Israel, Merkava, Palestine, Terrorism, War Crimes, Zionism
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The following is a report by B’Tselem Human Rights Jewish group; the decent and conscientious Jews, with whom Palestinians can live in peace forever. This report shows that the current Zionist administration follows practices that are worse than apartheid; it is state-sponsored terrorism.
========================================
B’Tselem 2006 annual report
Posted: 31 Dec 2006 08:27 AM CST

Just another eye opener for pro-Zionists and warmongers, hopefully they can learn something new by the end of this year:

Press Release
683 people killed in the conflict in 2006
28 Dec. 06

B’Tselem publishes its 2006 annual statistics. This past year, we witnessed a deterioration in the human rights situation in the Occupied Territories , particularly in the increase in civilians killed and the destruction of houses and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. At the same time, there was an improvement regarding violations of the right to life of Israeli civilians.

Casualties (figures in parenthesis indicate the total figure since the beginning of the intifada)

According to B’Tselem’s research, from January to December 27, 2006, Israeli security forces killed 660 (4005) Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and in Israel . This includes 141 (811) minors. At least 322 (1920) of those killed did not take part in the hostilities at the time they were killed. Another 22 (210) were targets of assassinations. In the Gaza Strip alone, since the capture of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, Israeli forces killed 405 Palestinians, including 88 minors. Of these, 205 did not participate in the fighting when killed.

Palestinians killed 17 (701) Israeli civilians in 2006, both in the West Bank and inside Israel . This includes 1 (119) minor. In addition, Palestinians killed 6 (316) members of the Israeli security forces.

House Demolitions

Israel demolished 292 houses military operations in the Occupied Territories , 279 of them in the Gaza Strip. These were home to 1,769 people. Some 80 of these demolitions were conducted after the home-owners received advance warning to the demolition. In addition, Israel demolished 42 homes in East Jerusalem that were built without a permit. These were home to about 80 people.

Checkpoints and restrictions on movement

Deep within the West Bank, Israel currently maintains 54 permanent checkpoints, staffed most of the time. 12 other checkpoints are within the city of Hebron . In addition, according to UN OCHA, there are on average some 160 flying checkpoints throughout the West Bank every week. In addition to the checkpoints, the Israeli military has erected hundreds of physical obstacles such as concrete blocks, dirt piles and trenches to restrict access to Palestinian communities. Palestinians have restricted access to some 41 roadways in the West Bank . Israelis have unlimited access to these roadways.

(part 1 of 2)

http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein12282006.html

December 28, 2006

Carter’s Real Sin is Cutting to the Heart of the Problem The Ludicrous Attacks on Jimmy Carter’s Book By NORMAN FINKELSTEIN

Finkelstein most always gets it right. Read the article.

Kindly link http://online.wsj.com
to read, in the Wall Street Journal, Ali Abunimah’s article, “A Palestinian view of Jimmy Carter’s book,” to learn that President Jimmy Carter was relatively mild with Israel when he limited his “Apartheid” description to the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. The one million Palestinians inside the 1948 border of Palestine are not much better off, except for the gimmick that they are allowed to vote just to justify collecting taxes from them.
================================================
President Carter has done what few American politicians have dared to do: speak frankly about the Israel-Palestine conflict. He has done this nation, and the cause of peace, an enormous service by focusing attention on what he calls “the abominable oppression and persecution in the occupied Palestinian territories, with a rigid system of required passes and strict segregation between Palestine’s citizens and Jewish settlers in the West Bank.”

The 39th president of the United States, the most successful Arab-Israeli peace negotiator to date, has braved a storm of criticism, including the insinuation from the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League that his arguments are anti-Semitic.

Mr. Carter has tried to mollify critics by suggesting that his is not a commentary on Israeli policy inside Israel’s own borders, as compared with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem—territories Israel occupied in 1967. He told NPR, “I know that Israel is a wonderful democracy with equal treatment of all citizens whether Arab or Jew.
And so I very carefully avoided talking about anything inside Israel.”

Given the pressure he has faced, it may be understandable that Mr. Carter says this, but he is wrong. In addition to nearly four million Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the occupied territories, another one million live inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders. These Palestinians are descendants of those who were not forced out or did not flee when Israel was created in 1948.

They have nominal Israeli citizenship, and unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa, they do vote for the country’s parliament. Yet this is where any sense of equality ends. In Israel’s history, no Arab-led party has ever been asked to join a coalition government. And, among scores of Jewish ministers, there has only ever been one Arab minister, of junior rank.

........ go tothe link to read the rest of the article!

Reply to comment #43790 by Lefty on 12/26 @ 12:30pm.

Hey Lefty...So you’re trying to take us through the 9/11 route. Hmmm...I see where you are coming from now & where you are trying to sidetrack this forum!

LET THE PEOPLE ON THIS FORUM WATCH & HEAR WHAT YOUR ZIONIST STATE OF ISRAEL HAS BEEN UP TO IN THESE UNITED STATES.

WATCH CARL CAMERON REPORT ON THE DETAILS...ONE WONDERS WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS REPORTER AFTER HIS REPORTS? HE IS NO WHERE TO BE SEEN ON THE MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIA.

IT MUST HAVE BEEN A CAREER SUICIDE AT FOX NEWS FOR CARL CAMERON.

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE VIDEO OF 9:56 MINUTES (PART 2) :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHK4GxUZ9aU&mode=re lated&search;=

Fadel,

As I suspected, an intellectual like you has no serious solution.  You would be well advised to resign yourself to the fact that Arabs will never dispossess the Jews of Israel (Zionists or otherwise) of their land.  Or, you can continue to waste your life away whining about fanatical Zionists on your pathetic path to certain failure.

Further, your infantile tactic of hiding behind the arrogant, hateful knee jerk responses of the a handful of hysterics who attacked me because I challenge their primative belief systems is also just what I would expect from an intellectual such as you.

Moreover, I have no idea what filthy comments you are referring to.  I have certainly made no comments that even approach the vulgar putrifaction that oozes from your filthy, terrorist’s mouth on this and other threads.

Finally, despite what you may wish to be true, I am neither a Zionist nor your cousin.  Now, feel free to eat sand with the rest of your real cousins, Fadel.

Hey Robert,

I take it by your mindless rant that you agree with Aryan Vahedi, to whom I was responding, THAT THE NEWS FILMs OF ARABS DANCING IN THE STREETS OF THE WEST BANK AND GAZA, AS WELL AS PATERSON NEW JERSEY, CELEBRATING THE ATTACKS ON 9/11/01, WERE IN FACT ISRAELIS POSING AS ARABS, AND, FURTHERMORE, THAT THE ENTIRE 9/11 ATTACKS WERE ACTUALLY WERE ACTUALLY PLANNED AND CARRIED OUT BY ISRAEL.

Is that what you really think, Robert?  If so, you are an IDIOT, a psychopath, or both.

To Lefty # 43610

1. I wish you had the courage to use your real name, so I could feel I am addressing a real human being, with blood and flesh, rather than a programmed robot.

2. I am writing and addressing you directly for the first and last time because you brought my name up several times, and because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your level of fanatic thinking does not merit the time and effort of an intellectual like my-self. Enough reasonable people have already commented on your irrationality and fanaticism; the last of which was Robert # 43728.

3. After all the filthy language you used in your comments, you address me saying: “Now, Professor, what is your solution for the Arabs in Ghaza and the West Bank?” My simple answer to this is that they should continue their legitimate and just struggle, by all means possible, till they liberate their lands from the foreign and evil occupation of colonial Zionism. Then they should forge an alliance with their “cousins” the decent Jews, who are legitimate dwellers of Palestine, to bring peace, stability and prosperity to the land. One democratic state, two demilitarized democratic states living side by side in peace, or even a confederation of two people with one future could be a formula for coexistence and lasting peace. You know that the Palestinians love Palestine so much and no force in the world will take that from them.

4. Having said this, I know that this might not solve the long-term problem of insecure fanatic Zionists like your-self. Knowing that fanatic Zionism is our Jewish cousins worst enemy, I am suggesting the following long-term solution; this solution is based on the concept that the Jews of the world should not only have one homeland for their ingathering, but at least five.

Since the historical wrongs against the Jews were most pronounced in the Spanish Inquisition, Spain should empty one of its provinces and offer it to the Jews as a compensation for the historical wrongs Spain did against Jews.

Then Germany should also vacate another part of its land and give it to the Jews to establish their exclusive Jewish state as a compensation for the wrongs Germany committed against the Jews during the Nazi era.

Then Britain, that was kind enough to offer the Zionist movement the Balfour Declaration, giving the Zionists the right to colonize a land that did not belong to them, thus initiating all the troubles that the area is facing, should set aside part of Britain’s land for Jews to establish another exclusive Jewish state.

Further more, since the United States loves Israel so much and continues to support its wrongs with treasure, misguided policies and fanatic settlers, she should be kind enough to offer part of its expansive land for an exclusively Jewish states. New York state is a good candidate since Jews are already there in large numbers.

The Jews in Palestine can have their demilitarized symbolic state, on the model of the Vatican, to serve the Jews spiritual ties to Palestine. This is the ideal and fair solution to all the historical Western injustices that the Palestinians were singled out to pay for it.

Finally, Lefty cousin, I pray that you will be cured from your Zionist fanaticism, so per chance you might see the light.

Shalom!

“LEFTY???”

Hey Lefty...!!! What is ailing you? I think that a lot of the people on this & other forums are aware that there is something very wrong with you & your warped fanatic zionist views.

Your head is twisted up so badly...everyone hopes that you are getting some competent “No Horseshit” help & treatment.

Which “Fanatic Zionist” school or psych ward are you a member of? You need to checkout your medication dose...I don’t think that you are getting the proper dosage.

Are you employed somewhere? If so, your co-workers need to be notified.

If you are not working, hope that your neighbors are aware of your psycho disorder.

Your “Fanatic Zionism” is your worst enemy. Are you being shackled by that IDF uniform? Hope that you haven’t shot and hurt any Palestinian women, children and un-armed civilians.

LEFTY… you can continue with all that Zionist crap on this and other forums. Your fanatic & twisted views will only help the cause for TRUTH & JUSTICE for Human Rights for all oppressed people and especially, the Palestinian people.

So continue with the distortions & twisted comments. You are not hurting anyone here!!!

Aryan Vahedi,

That is the most preposterous monumental pile of bullshit I’ve ever read.  Wait!  Perhaps it was only 75% bullshit.  The other 25% was horseshit. 

Fadel Abdallah,

Whatever right or claim to the land in or around Israel that Arabs may have had has been forfeited by 50 years of unabated terrorism and murder.  JMHO.  As a result, it appears that the Arabs will now be the inhabitants of the other side of a Chinese wall, of their own doing, for the foreseeable future.

Further, I feel fairly confident about the following:

1. Israel isn’t going to go away quietly.  The distruction of Israel would probably result in the mutually assured distruction of most of the middle east, if not also part of Europe and Africa, too. 

2. Israel isn’t going to give Jeruselem back to the Arabs. 

3. Israel isn’t going to allow the Arabs to return to the houses they abandoned in Israel. 

4. The nation of Israel is going to remain a refuge for persecuted Jews worldwide for the foreseeable future, and it isn’t going make any agreements that put the existence of Israel as a refuge for Jews in jeopardy.

Now, Professor, what is your solution for the Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank?

Personally, I think an atheism movement would be a good start.  Primative, tribalistic Islamist, fundimentalist (no different than Christianity, or biblical Judaism), terrorism will serve only to strengthen the Chinese wall segregating them from each other and the world.  I also don’t think that being split into two regions is a viable solution.  I don’t see that there is any kind of a land exchange deal that would: 1) maintain Israeli security, and 2) be acceptable to both the current inhabitants of any putative exchanged lands unless the Arabs were willing to abandond Gaza.

Dear Kellina: Comment #43363

Thank you very much for your thoughtful understanding and concurrence with my previous comment. You must be an open-minded individual and a person of reason.

If the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the issue of peace is of particular interest to you, I would like to continue an exchange of ideas and thoughts on the subject with you. We can do it on this forum, or, if you prefer, we can write to each other directly. If you opt for the second choice, you’re welcomed to write me at: fudfud45 at sbcglobal dot net

Fadel Abdallah is my real name and I am an American of Palestinian background. Fudfud is a nickname given to me by a dear friend during my college days. I am a college professor and author of several books and I live and work in the Chicago area.

Thank you again, best regards and I hope to hear from you again!

Spot on, Mr. Hedges—and Eleanore (#42732) and Don (#42759).

I take the rising hysteria about Carter’s book as a hopeful sign. Everyone knows it’s a huge bestseller. Everyone knows that Carter is not an anti-Semite by a long shot.

What everyone does not know is just how bad things in the OTs are, and your concise description will help break through the apparently willful ignorance of the so-called educated elite. Having married into an Italian-Catholic, not particularly religious, working-class family (coming from an upper-middle-class, suburban, Jewish family), I can tell you that, anecdotally, the less “educated” (read, “indoctrinated") are far from supportive of Israel’s mad rampage through the OTs and Lebanon. And, no, it’s not a matter of anti-Semitism. Which is to say, yeah, sure, there’s a faint Big-Bang-like background noise of anti-Semitism, culturally speaking, but it simply doesn’t hook up in any serious way with the vast majority of criticism of Israel.

However, one should not be surprised if anti-Semitic outbursts arise (see comment #42734; nicely bookended by talk of “Arab vermin” elsewhere) as Israel continues on its suicidal course, taking us along for the ride (at our—meaning our government’s—fully voluntary acquiescence, the reality of the Israel lobbies notwithstanding). People don’t react rationally, and the over-identification of “Jews” with “Israel,” itself a consciously disseminated product of the Israel lobbies and hasbarah (racist though it is, of course), could very well come home to roost in not particularly pleasant ways.

It’s interesting that more American Jews haven’t noticed this. Or, perhaps, they have, and that lies underneath the hysteria:

“Oh, shit; it’s going to happen again once people see what Israel’s been up to! Thus, we must keep people focussed on the Holocaust and ‘Islamo-fascism’...” and so forth.

If this insight is valid, that kind of fear seems rather overdone, though, like most self-destructive behaviors, it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Not to reduce this terrible situation by any means to American-Jewish self-interest; they’re not being bombed, shelled, and imprisoned in, let’s face it, the world’s largest concentration camp (not—yet?—a death camp in the Nazi sense), meaning, of course, Gaza. But since the behavior and opinion of so many American Jews is so illogical—even from the most self-interested standpoint—it has to be psychological. I wonder if my intution isn’t correct, at least partially: the fear is not only another Holocaust in Israel—it’s the US people are worried about as well.

As for non-Jewish, non-Christian-Right Americans who are equally blind to Israel’s awful trajectory since 1967, I can only speculate that it is due to a usually well-meant desire not to offend a group so clearly traumatized by genocide. No one wants to appear anti-Semitic—it’s a measure of the degree of acceptance Jews have won in America that this should be the case.

The ironies are so painful, I fear I’m probably more right than wrong. It’d be just like history to pull that kind of stunt, wouldn’t it?

Dear Fadel Abdallah,
I think you are right, in many respects, that this conflict is not really about religion. It’s true that people on one side hate those on the other, but they don’t seem to be arguing about the finer points of Bronze-Age philosophy.

I like your idea also that perhaps Americans are aligned with Israel out of misguided identification with America’s past genocide/ethnic cleansing of the American Indians.

But consider who benefits with this extended conflict? As others have pointed out, Israel might as well BE America, as we have armed them to the hilt. Perhaps that is the plan; Israel is our (and Britain’s) base in the Middle East from which to wage all-out warfare to suck up the remaining oil in the region.

So in the end, I agree that it’s not really about region, but there seem to be forces trying to take advantage of the fact that one set of religionists hates the other.

In reaction to Comment #43181 by Lefty

Did you know that those dancing “arabs” were actually israeli citizens. It is known there were Mossad agents, and they were extraditied without charge to Israel. They were arrested by NYC police and their van was found to have traces of explosive materials in them. Not only that they had a suspicious amount of cash and worked for a Mossad front moving compnay that was contracted to work in the WTC towers. This information has been heavily censored by U.S. media (just like their suppression of the aparthied in Israel). In reality you should ask yourself why they were there documenting the event with a video camera and celebrating its success. Here are links for news reports of the situation.

This site is slightly biased as it is a catholic interest site (and also the extreme interest that arises in this knowledge) but it contains links to the actually news reports in official AP newspapers and local news stations:

http://www.todayscatholicworld.com/mossad-agents-911.htm

Here is a video interview of them admitting their purpose was to document the events, this interview took place after they were extradited:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcON2XbFR3I&NR;Now all you have to do is get by your denial that Israel was behind 9/11 and current U.S. wars and read this in its entirety:

http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/viewtopic.php?t= 1388&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Get over the lies they sanction on the main stream media.

“So with these kind of weapons...Why would any single Israeli strap his/her body and indiscriminately kill Arab women and children?”

Israel is a nation with a national reserve of over 500,000 troops that can be instantly mobilized, their military strength is further compounded by the abundant amount of equipment and weapons imported from the US—-thus, making Israel one of the top ten military operations in the world.

When someone straps a bomb to their body, it is not necessary to be a rocket scientist to acknowledge, that this is act of rage and hopelessness.  Being incarcerated, behind a wall and relegated to poverty --creates the conditions which make suicide the only alternative, those who strap a bomb to their body, know that David’s slingshot is no match against a cluster bomb.

Wow when it is Muslims killing each other like cats and dogs who are you blaming now Israel.

To: #43188 by Jon B on 12/21 at 8:20 am

To: #42995 Kellina writes “We’ll never have peace in Israel as long as there are three different religions of Abraham.”
==============================================
Kellina and Jon B: You both got it wrong. The problem between Palestininans and Israelis is not all about religion, though religion seems to surface sometimes.

On the Palestinian side, it is about survival, dignity, human rights, justice and nationalistic aspirations.

On the Israeli side, it is also about misconceived security after what the Europeans did to them in Spain and Germany. They want to feel secure in a land they call their own; but since that land was inhabited by the Palestinian natives, the Zionist program had to disposses the natives, fight them and try to annihilate them; exactly as the early European Americans did to the natives of America. The story of colonizing America has a more recent parallel in colonizing Palestine by the Jews. It’s more about crude, ugly ideology of nationalism and materialism than about religion. And that also explains why political and official America has always been supporting Israel’s wrong; it makes them feel they are not alone in the evil perpetrated against the natives! In human affairs, even evil doers find consolation in like-minded company.

I have done my research. I have found that Israel would not be able to exist without support from the United States. Ever since 1948, the US has funneled countless amounts of money and political support for the state of Israel. Why? The United States continues to make Israel the largest recipient of foreign aid in the world as it builds a 28 foot high wall to imprison Palestinians in Gaza- why? If one third of the budget on the Iraq War was spent toward the formation of a Free Palestine - there would be the creation of a country and state for those who deserve it and it would lead to the decrease in world wide terrorism - after all is that not the focus of the war in Iraq? To stop the spread of terror with a War On Terror? The seemingly endless support by Democrats (especially Democrats who are heavily influenced by the Jewish lobby) and Republicans in United States Congress is an act of attrition. The edict that Palestine carries as a banner stating that Israel does not have a right to exist and vice versa, is political rhetoric and posturing - it’s just words. I believe these words would would fall away and become a non concern once the real effort to create a Free Plaestine was instigated. Actions speak louder than words and in the same breath it takes words to NEGOTIATE. There is dissent within Israel. The relocation of settlers in the West Bank has created a rift within Israel- who killed Rabin? It was not and Arab or Palestinian. The concept of not negotiating with terrorists is ignorant and non-productive for Israel and the United States. How many ex-leaders of Israel and perhaps current or past government members of Israel were “terrorists” in their “cause” for “independence” and “freedom?” How many Britsh did the Israeli’s kill in their quest for independence? Is there no blood on thier hands? Are not “terrorists” the leaders of a revolution in an uprising for a people seeking independence - like George Washington was to the creation of an independent country called the United States? And who did England end up negotiating with? The continued oppression and subjugation of Palestinians in Gaza is not only wrong but it is the root of wide spread terrorist activites inside Israel and across the Middle East and Europe and 9-11. The Iraq war and the increase of anti-American sentiment began to escalte and become obvious after 1967. But the United States ignored it in their quest for oil. The British and the French began to give Palestine away after World War I. The sympathetic feelings toward the Jews after Wold War II lead to the creation of a Jewish state and in the process the Palestinians became the oppressed and homless. The United States cannot keep referring to the Holocaust as a reason to funnel billions of dollars to Israel and to accept its oppression of the Palestinians. I believe Jew and Arab and Jew and Palestinian can live side by side and coexist withour war or terrorism - they are people who want homes and to live and function in peace, they have families to support and lives they need to carry out and live. Everyone has a right to live. The United States has become and ally of Israel. People are just people - the politcally motivated leaders and countries have lost sight of the need for people to live in a country of their own because of greed and power, fear of losing some resource or position in the world. Are not governments and leaders supposed to represent what the people need?  The world has seen its list of oppressed races, tribes, clans and nations, to rationalize this is no reason to continue the demise of the Palestinians and the support of Israel to do so.

#42995 Kellina writes “We’ll never have peace in Israel as long as there are three different religions of Abraham.”

Israel isn’t the only one. History shows that religions are the cause of human miseries, not the salvation. All of these delusional apes of stone age ought to be put together in an enclosed stadium where they can stone each other to death. In the name of their god, they had committed countless atrocities, bloodshed, genocide, intolerance, discrimination and worse, they are unmoved by 2000 years of civilization.

One more thing!  I remember vividly the news film coverage of Palestinians dancing in the streets celebrating the attacks on 9/11/01.  I was also informed that Palestinian immigrants were similarly celebrating in the streets of Patterson, New Jersey, on 9/11/01 in view of the smoldering twin towers.  They elected to power a well established terrorist group, Hamas, which has publicly taken credit for dozens of terrorist attacks, and which declaims, as a major tenet of its existence, the destruction of Israel.  They lob rockets into residential Israeli neighborhoods, and brainwash teenagers to willingly walk into crowded civilian pulblic places and blow themselves up, both for the sole purpose of murdering innocent civilians. 

Sorry, I don’t have any sympathy for the Palestinians whatsoever, none.

Click on this link, scroll down and click on the video.  After watching the video, explain to me again why Israel isn’t doing what it must do.

http://dark-sided.blogspot.com/2006/09/little-girl-is- true-muslim-for-hating.html

Reply to comment #42853 by Harold S Kramer on 12/19

(continuation of previous post/comment)

“Consider this-not one single Israeli strapped explosives to their body, and indiscriminately killed Arab women and children.”

In today’s world, Israel has been conducting the most vicious acts of “state terrorism” with indiscrimanate killings of the Palestinians & Lebanese people.

Israel’s “state terror” attacks has killed 10 times more innocent people than attacks by Palestinians & Lebanese on Israelis.

Israel can be called a country of murderers & thugs. In the past few years, Israel has indiscriminately killed thousands of palestinians (Christian & Moslem), women and children. Israel has committed war crimes, barbaric tortures, brutal oppression, countless targeted assassinations, and apartheid occupation of the Palestinians.

There are about 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails & prisons. Most of them have been brutally tortured for years. Some of the prisoners are 12 year old boys and women. Most of the Palestinians in Israeli prisons for years without any charges.

Israel has no respect for UN Resolutions, Geneva Conventions Articles, International Law and Palestinian / Arabs lives.

The Palestinian people want to free themselves from Israel’s brutal & apartheid racist occupation. Their land and resources are all going to Israel’s Jewish immigrants. All expenses paid for by our American taxpayers.

American aid to Israel is $3-5 billion per year. So far, more that $108 billion dollars of U.S. aid (1948-2006). No questions asked by our elected officials & by most of the American people.

Israel uses our American made weapons to conduct their campaign of “TERROR & KILLINGS” against the unarmed Palestinian population.

Just ask yourself...Who has America’s most sophisticated weapon arsenals? Is it Israel or the Palestinians?

Israel has the most sophiticated US fighter & bomber jets, tanks, helicopter gunships, missiles, armored personnel carriers, advanced bombs/technology,cluster bombs, submarines, destroyers, and let us not forget Israel’s...stockpiles of undeclared nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, with NO outside inspections of their facilities and factories for “WMD’S”.

So with these kind of weapons...Why would any single Israeli strap his/her body and indiscriminately kill Arab women and children?

Maybe the Palestinians need to have the same kind of weapons that Israel has to defend themselves, their women, children, honor and human dignity.

WHAT WOULD ISRAEL DO IF ALL AMERICAN AID & WEAPON SHIPMENTS STOP?

WHAT WOULD “AIPAC” AND ISRAEL DO IF ALL $MONEY$ CONTRIBUTIONS TO “AIPAC” AND OTHER ZIONIST ORGANIZATIONS WERE BANNED AND MADE NON-TAX DEDUCTABLE?

THE TRUTH IS ON “TRUTHDIG” AND NOT ON CNN, FOX NEWS, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, AND MANY OTHER MAINSTREAM NEWS MEDIAS, NEWS PAPERS...ETC.

Reply to comment #42853 by Harold S Kramer on 12/19

“Consider this - not one single Israeli strapped explosives to their body, and indiscriminately killed Arab women & children.”

Wow...Harold Kramer. I am just wondering what are you trying to spew here to the people of this forum/discussion?

For the TRUTH & record...it was the Jews who brought terror, indiscriminate murders and killings to Palestine.

The Irgun & Stern Terrorist Gang (1931-1948) led by Avraham Tehomi, Avaraham Stern & Menachem Begin. In 1943 Menachem Begin (prime minister of Israel 1977-’83) became head of the Israeli terrorist organization (Irgun Zvai Leumi) which was responsible for waging terror campaigns & attacks on British rule in Palestine & against Palestinian Arabs.

On July 22, 1946 the King David Hotel in Jerusalem was bombed by the Irgun terrorists commanded by Menachem Begin. The Irgun terrorists entered the King David Hotel dressed as Palestinian Arabs. The British headqurter’s office wing of King David Hotel was targeted, indiscriminately killing 91 people.

One of many Irgun & Stern Gang terror massacres & indiscriminate killings was on the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. On April 9, 1948 Irgun & Stern terrorists attacked the village of Deir Yassin with a population of about 750 residents. A body count of 254 innocent Palestinians brutally massacred. MORE THAN HALF WERE WOMEN & CHILDREN.
The above are only a few examples of the many terror attacks & killings by the Jewish Irgun & Stern Gang terrorists.

(continued in the next comment)

This was the worst, most biased article I’ve read since The Hamas Charter.

Get a damn clue.

“If you were an israeli surrounded by people whose sole goal was to kill you --- what would you do???”

They could move to Great Neck, New York.  But seriously Kellina is right when she says that English Colonialists created this mess, and now this mess is further compounded by American Imperialism.

Expansionism is the natural consequence of capitalism--a system that demands ever increasing resources in order to achieve larger profits, even if it will eventually cause its own demise.

And aren’t we lucky to have such an erudite commander-in-chief, who knows just how to save the day.

To address Cris Hedge’s ludicrous, subservient pro-Arab bias, and as a Greek/American atheist and humanist a small footnote to Kellina’s comment.

So the Hamas/Fatah factions are slaughtering one another, and the Jews, as usual, are solely to blame? The pretense that Arabs in this region have some god-given right to the land of Palestine is historical and hysterical drivel.
Does Hedges have any idea how much land was sold to Jews by rich Arab landowners, at fabulous prices, from 1880 to 1940? I’m confident he does not! Does he have any idea how many Jews were expelled from all the Arab lands they had lived in for hundreds of years, with complete confiscation of their lands,property and often ransom payments in order to escape?

We are talking about Arab vermin here,and the more they hog-butcher one another, the less time
they have to threaten Israel and its Jews, the only civilized nation in a barbarous and degenerate Moslem world. Hedges is nothing but a cheap call-girl peddling Arab propaganda. In the good old days of Nazi Germany, he would have fit right in with Goebbel’s crowd. Enough said!

On Kellina’s comment she may be interested to note the drive for oil fields under British control became crucial for them late in the 19th century when the conversion of the British fleet from coal-fired to oil-fired engines became both practical and urgent from a world grand strategy perspective. Massie’s “Dreadnaught” is a good introduction to that subject. “The Arab Mind” by
the distinguished scholar of Arab culture, Patai has great insights into the roots of Arab male psychic behaviors, (mostly self-defeating)as well

Ion C. Laskaris,Burlington,Vt.+ iclrevusa.com

it’s amazing how we all keep getting suckered into rehashing and reiterating the same repetitious rhetoric about a problem that’s never going away in our lifetimes. arab-israeli conflict blah blah blah.

maybe they should fight it out to the end.

I didn’t hear any complaints when Jordan expelled over 10,000 Palestinians from their homeland-JORDAN.  I didn’t read any mention of the Palestinian bombings that kill innocent people.  Your article is most unbalanced.  Shame on you for just issuing propaganda.

My first comment apparently did not make the grade. Sorry, I did not think it intemperate, only the truth as I dig it.

But Chris Hedges opinions have a lack of historical appreciation and therefore are rubbish, although I do not debate that he sees what he sees in current times. I also was there many years ago, a few years after after 1947 and later on after 1955 with the UN. I am neither a Jew nor an Arab, in fact, I grew up in an area where neither are visible.

The Jews were promised a homeland in the Balfour declaration. Lawrence, a noted anti-Jew, promised, on no authority, that the Hashemite leaders would cut the cake of Ottoman lands if they helped expell the Turks.  At that time there were no “Palestinians” but Jews and Arabs occupying the land held by the Ottomans. I believe the term ‘Palestine’ was a British adoption at the time of the Mandate.  The Arabs (Canaanites?) had been there since time immemorial, as had the Jews (also now known as Canaanites archeologically). The influx of Zionist Jews at the turn of the 20th century was not even looked at favourably by the resident Jews who had made their accommodation with their neighbour Arabs, and although few, had been in the same land since 1500BC - with minor residencies in Persia.

The so-called ‘Palestinians” (Arabs) fled the new Israel because Israel was now in a position to do what the Arabs had threatened to do to the Jews. A bloodbath. They refrained but only gave tit for tat, or is it an eye for an eye and an ear for an ear, as the Arabs later continued to committ the atrocities that had greeted the Zionists in the early 20th Century.  The Arabs ran scared, they were not evicted. Their neighbour Arab states did nothing to help their condition. Jordan alone allowed camps to be erected until they too evicted the Arab/Palestinians.

And why not should the Holocaust count, in addition to the countless pogroms instituted by so-called Christians? The Balfour Declaration was in recognition of two thousand years of persecution of Jews by ‘Christians’; the Holocaust was the horrible icing on the cake. 

As a non believer, I decry the terrors perepetrated in the name of one or another distorted religious views of truth. When are we moderns going to cast off the nonsense that religion cloaks everything?

It is sad that civilians are injured and killed - particularly women and children. But it should be obvious to anyone with any knowledge that the Arabs have used innocents as shields for a long time. Extremist, fundamentalist Muslims have no sense of anything wrong in this. If they are good Muslims they will go to paradise; if they are non-Muslim they are ipso facto the enemy anyway.

In the meantime, Mr. Hedges seems to have a palpable bias against the Israel nation and its attempts to survive. 

Read Sam Harris in respect to religion and its warping effect on our world. I am with him.

I am sympathetic with those posting who feel for the suffering of the Palestinian people.  It is one of the more attractive American traits is such sympathy for the downtrodden.  It explains in part the support for international Jewery during the Hitler era and the period shortly after the Holocaust.

I am not sympathetic to the unreasoned sympathy when it results in the uncritical criticism of those who appear to be bringing the suffering to the Palestinian people.  It is just not so simple.

President Carter has done many admirable things.  His recent book, however, is far less than balanced.

What follows are some of the criticisms of Alan Dershowitz. I believe they deserve being seriously considered.

“Nowhere in his book does he explain that Israel’s motivation for holding on to land it captured in a defensive war is the prevention of terrorism. Israel has tried, on several occasions, to exchange land for peace, and what it got instead was terrorism, rockets and kidnappings launched from the returned land.

“In fact, Palestinian-Arab terrorism is virtually missing from Mr. Carter’s entire historical account, which blames nearly everything on Israel. Incredibly, he asserts that the initial violence in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict occurred when “Jewish militants” attacked Arabs in 1939. The long history of Palestinian terrorism against Jews, which began in 1929, was motivated by religious bigotry. The Jews responded to this racist violence by establishing a defense force. There is no mention of the long history of Palestinian terrorism before the occupation, or of the Munich massacre and others inspired by Yasser Arafat.

“Mr. Carter emphasizes that “Christian and Muslim Arabs had continued to live in this same land since Roman times,” but he ignores the fact that Jews have lived in Hebron, Tzfat, Jerusalem, and other cities for even longer.
He claims that in 1967 Israel launched a preemptive attack against Jordan. The fact is that Jordan attacked Israel first, Israel tried desperately to persuade Jordan to remain out of the war, and Israel counterattacked after the Jordanian army surrounded Jerusalem, firing missiles into the centre of the city. Only then did Israel capture the West Bank.
Mr. Carter faults Israel for its “air strike that destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor” without mentioning that Iraq had threatened to attack Israel with nuclear weapons if Iraq built a bomb.
Mr. Carter even blames Israel for the “exodus of Christians from the Holy Land,” ignoring the Islamization of the area by Hamas and the comparable exodus of Christian Arabs from Lebanon as a result of the increasing influence of Hezbollah.

“He has little good to say about any Israelis—except those few who agree with him. But he apparently got along swimmingly with the very secular Syrian mass-murderer Hafez al-Assad. Mr. Carter and his wife Rosalynn also had a fine time with the equally secular Arafat, a man who has the blood of hundreds of Americans and Israelis on his hands: “Rosalynn and I met with Yasir Arafat in Gaza City, where he was staying with his wife, Suha, and their little daughter. The baby, dressed in a beautiful pink suit, came readily to sit on my lap, where I practiced the same wiles that had been successful with our children and grandchildren.”

I am not a Jew. But I am old enough and been there enough as UN after 1952 to know that people on this thread do not seem to know the history of the area. Hedges continues to say that the Palestinians were evicted from the new Israel. Nonsense! They fled because they feared that the Jews would inflict the same bloodbath that they, the Arabs, had promised the Jews. Not one Arab nation helped those fleeing but used them as tools for their own purposes. I am not debating that the conditions in Gaza are as Hedges decribed but they have reaped almost 60 years of whirlwind. All they have to do is stop their ceaseless violence and the Israelis will stop theirs.

Hedges antisemitism is palpable.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent
about things that matter.
- Rev. Dr.  Martin Luther King

The lack of real coverage by our Western Media on almost every other war front currently underway today compares quite easily to Hedge’s article above.  From the absence of real details about the illegal use of white phosphorous against the citizens of Fallujah and Beirut, to the consistent and oppressive tactics undertaken by the Bush administration, and his all too willing media, our world is - time and again - drastically misrepresented to us.  The people of Palestine and their war against the Israelis is a case in point, as the article so pointedly illustrates:
See http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14208.htm

For a graphical litany of US atrocities committed against Iraqis:
See http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&rls=GGLD,GGL D:2004-19,GGLD:en&sa=N&resnum=0&q=fallujah white phosphorus&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wi

“There might have been terrorists hiding in those houses, we could not afford to take risks in evacuating the civilians.” Perhaps in the near future we’ll hear that type of justification employed on a more Western Front. 

I choose to commingle these two warring nations with the intention of illustrating that intergovernmental complicity not only exists, but ensures the very persistence of such conflicts.  How many times has the US pulled the veto card when the rest of the UN were ready to simply censure Israel?  How many times has the US provided military and material support to Israel’s efforts to thwart Palestine’s labors toward prosperity?  Too often to go unnoticed, frankly. And we, as Americans, with our Starbucks in one hand, and our video cell phones in the other can’t seem to be bothered by such oddities as war and strife.  Let’s talk about American Idle, there’s a topic.  That puddle of blood in some alley in Palestine, yeah…the bastards probably go what they deserved.  Even the 3 year old kid. 

It might well be that the Bush team has assisted in the facilitation of today’s global war epidemic, but the elephant made it’s way into the living room long ago - at the moment Trinity detonatied on 16 July, 1945, out in the beautiful New Mexico desert.  The nuclear threat has ushered humanity into a new and diabolic age, where civilian deaths are delivered in mass, and conflict is allegedly ended on a very immediate plane.  Israel and US forces today attempt to quell any other nation that might be so bold as to develop it’s own competing military industrial complex.

The search for WMDs in Iraq has unleashed an ironic cache of it’s own, from depleted uranium munitions poisoning the Iraqi air and earth for decades to come, to the rampant use of cluster bombs on civilian targets (Israelis admitted as much in Beirut). Both squarely qualify as crimes against humanity.  It’s hard to take the war profiteers seriously when you hear them speak with such disconnection about how things are better in Iraq now.

If there is one lesson to take away from this story, it’s the striking realization that the Nazis of yesterday have morphed into modern day fashion models - ear prompted mannequins - reciting a litany of familiar, well marketed slogans and lies in print and on air for our consumption.  But other essential elements remain: the lust for blood, combined with the venom of hatred and paranoia; perhaps most importantly, it’s the deadly tenacity of the very American ideal of profiting as profoundly as possible, while annihilating the competition. And our inaction – our complacency as a nation of liberated thinkers – places us at the brink of succumbing to the dreadful disease of apathy, just as the German civilians did in the early 1940s.

http://baltimorechronicle.com/011305PaulLevy.shtml

Good article. Thank you. Also, here’s a thoughtful review by a West Bank resident of Jimmy Carter’s new book:

http://calitreview.com/Reviews/palestine_107.htm

Our blind support for Israel is what led to 9/11. We continue to create more groups who want to relatiate for our violence in the Middle
East. The creation of Israel on Palestinian land was one the most serious foreign policy mistakes of the 20th century and we are still paying the price. What did people expect when they ethnically cleansed Palestinians from their homes and villages? We should have in the WWII ear and NOW open our doors to all in Palestine who do not wish to live under a Palestinian majority as we allow all displaced Palestinians to return to their homes.

Israel would not exist without United States support. Since 1948 we have become an ally of Israel instead of the other way around. If half or even one third of the resources the United States has allocated for the Iraq War (or the amount of foreign aid we give Israel every year) were used to help create a Free Palestine - we would see a drop in worldwide terrorism and a country created and deservedly so. By now, the history of the world is full of oppressed, repressed and tortured people. This is not a reason to accept the continuation of this situation. A fence around Gaza and the continued subjugation and oppression of the Palestinians is not a way to create “peace’ in the Middle East. To accuse one or the other of being a terrorist and to not “negotiate” with terrorists is blind and ignorant. George Washington was a terrorist in the eyes of Britain - but who did England end up negotiating with? Who are the leaders (present and past) of Israel? Is there no blood on their hands? Were they not terrorists at one time in the fight for their “cause”? The argument that Palestine does not believe Israel has the right to exist or vice versa is rhetoric and political posturing that would eventually fall to the wayside with the building and creation of a Free Palestine - actions speak louder than words. I have done my research and read my history. Palestine was taken away from the Palestinians because of the motive to find a homeland and country for the dispossessd Jews after World War II - the French and the British mandated this and the US and UN accepted it. And ever since the United States has been the primary force behind forcing a square peg in a round hole. Since 1948, the US became the primary supporter of Israel (instead of Britain or France) - financially and politically. Why? And in the creation of Israel the Palestinians became the dispossessed. Israel is experiencing unrest in their own country because of relocation of settlers on the West Bank. Who killed Rabin? It was not an Arab or Palestinian. Without a Free Palestine - there will only be more corruption, tactics of genocide and apartheid and terrorism. The Democratic party benefits the most from Jewish lobbyists and sympathies. Both Israel and Palestine have a right to exist and I believe they can do so next to each other peaceably. As a person who lived in the Midle East for 20 years, I know this can happen but not without a revolution inside and behind the closed doors of Washington (Democrat or Republican) to redefine its agenda or to even come clean on its agenda - that would be a start.

Most of the pro-Israeli comments seem to come from the 90% bracket of ill-informed Americans who are perhaps too lazy to research the history and thus, only base their beliefs off of 10 second sound bites on Fox News channel. They believe that this all started in 1948 rather than in 1917 with The Balfour Declaration (see http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/561c6ee353d740fb85256 07d00581829/aeac80e740c782e4852561150071fdb0!OpenDocument). This is understandable, as most Americans have no understanding of their own history, much less Palestine’s.

P.S. In England, people speak of Blair as “Bush’s Poodle” but it is Bush who is Blair’s poodle. The US has behaved toward the Middle East exactly how Britain wanted. The Council on Foreign Relations is a thinly disguised British lobbying group, the American branch of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. (The CFR has a website as well as a journal, Foreign Affairs, which dictates US foreign policy.)

Hillary is a member of the CFR, as is Robert Gates. Obama? I’m not sure if he is a member, but his wife Michelle is on the board of directors of the Chicago branch of the CFR. No one can come to power in this country without the CFR’s blessing. It doesn’t matter if you Repub or Democrat. The same people retain the power.

Britain created modern-day Israel, and in fact had hopes for its creation soon after oil was discovered in the Middle East. The holocaust was a convenient excuse to bring about the nation of Israel. Britain facilitated Hitler’s rise to power (in hopes of containing both Russia and the USSR), too. Truthdidg that!

I don’t think that this ancient claim to land is valid. By this logic, one should give back all of the US to its indigenous peoples. It is supremely horrific what the US gov’t and settlers did to Native Americans. But turning over the Eastern Seaboard to their descendants doesn’t right the wrongs--it only causes more trouble to more innocent people. People who currently live there are not guilty of prior genocide; their banishment or death would not address previous wrongs.

All you people sound like babyish siblings whose arguments amoung to “b