Lefty writes:

“Let’s see, Israel is a tiny beacon of democracy and liberalism. “
---------------

No, it isn’t, Lefty.

Israel effectively rules over all of the non-Jewish Palestinians in the occupied territories, and these people can’t vote in Israeli elections.

If a major portion of the population you lord it over can’t vote in your elections, then you’re not a democracy.

Sorry this is so embarrassingly obvious. Sux to be you, we guess.

Remember the Iran/Contra Affair, judged a crime by Congress resulting in the American criminals involved getting it in the neck - Weinberger, MacFarlane and four other government officials?

That little deal, selling arms to Iran to fund the Contras, was not only brokered by the government of Israel, Israel supplied the arms - many of which the Iranians wouldn’t buy because they were too old and/or not in working condition. Israel, reimbursed by us with new weapons, came out smelling like a rose.

No Israeli government official got it in the neck. Isn’t it a crime to aid, abet let alone set up what is a criminal act?  Not when it involves the Israeli government apparently.

And for years when Israel bragged about how ‘their Hard Work and Industry had turned the barren desert Green’, they forgot to mention that their ‘Industry’ was the lobby, ‘AIPAC’; the ‘Hard Work’ was their neocon zionists threatening and bribing our wimp politicians; and the ‘Green’, was the many layers of $100 US Greenbacks coerced from middle and lower income american taxpayers that covered the desert floor.

Enough is too much, already. Cut the putzes loose, and let them learn to live underwater, when the arabs and muslims push them into the sea.

U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know

by Tom Malthaner

“This morning as I was walking down Shuhada Street in Hebron, I saw graffiti marking the newly painted storefronts and awnings. Although three months past schedule and 100 percent over budget, the renovation of Shuhada Street was finally completed this week. The project manager said the reason for the delay and cost overruns was the sabotage of the project by the Israeli settlers of the Beit Hadassah settlement complex in Hebron. They broke the street lights, stoned project workers, shot out the windows of bulldozers and other heavy equipment with pellet guns, broke paving stones before they were laid and now have defaced again the homes and shops of Palestinians with graffiti. The settlers did not want Shuhada St. opened to Palestinian traffic as was agreed to under Oslo 2. This renovation project is paid for by USAID funds and it makes me angry that my tax dollars have paid for improvements that have been destroyed by the settlers.

Most Americans are not aware how much of their tax revenue our government sends to Israel. For the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, the U.S. has given Israel $6.72 billion: $6.194 billion falls under Israel’s foreign aid allotment and $526 million comes from agencies such as the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Information Agency and the Pentagon. The $6.72 billion figure does not include loan guarantees and annual compound interest totalling $3.122 billion the U.S. pays on money borrowed to give to Israel. It does not include the cost to U.S. taxpayers of IRS tax exemptions that donors can claim when they donate money to Israeli charities. (Donors claim approximately $1 billion in Federal tax deductions annually. This ultimately costs other U.S. tax payers $280 million to $390 million.)

When grant, loans, interest and tax deductions are added together for the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, our special relationship with Israel cost U.S. taxpayers over $10 billion.

Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $83.205 billion. The interest costs borne by U.S. tax payers on behalf of Israel are $49.937 billion, thus making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen.

I am angry when I see Israeli settlers from Hebron destroy improvements made to Shuhada Street with my tax money. Also, it angers me that my government is giving over $10 billion to a country that is more prosperous than most of the other countries in the world and uses much of its money for strengthening its military and the oppression of the Palestinian people”

Hiding AIPAC’s Tracks

“In fact, the congressmembers know it when they list the contributions they receive on the campaign statements they have to prepare for the Federal Election Commission. But their constituents don’t know this when they read these statements. So just as no other special interest can put so much “hard money” into any candidate’s election campaign as can the Israel lobby, no other special interest has gone to such elaborate lengths to hide its tracks.

Although AIPAC, Washington’s most feared special-interest lobby, can hide how it uses both carrots and sticks to bribe or intimidate members of Congress, it can’t hide all of the results.

Anyone can ask one of their representatives in Congress for a chart prepared by the Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress, that shows Israel received $62.5 billion in foreign aid from fiscal year 1949 through fiscal year 1996. People in the national capital area also can visit the library of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Rosslyn, Virginia, and obtain the same information, plus charts showing how much foreign aid the U.S. has given other countries as well.

Visitors will learn that in precisely the same 1949-1996 time frame, the total of U.S. foreign aid to all of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean combined was $62,497,800,000--almost exactly the amount given to tiny Israel.

According to the Population Reference Bureau of Washington, DC, in mid-1995 the sub-Saharan countries had a combined population of 568 million. The $24,415,700,000 in foreign aid they had received by then amounted to $42.99 per sub-Saharan African.

Similarly, with a combined population of 486 million, all of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean together had received $38,254,400,000. This amounted to $79 per person.

The per capita U.S. foreign aid to Israel’s 5.8 million people during the same period was $10,775.48. This meant that for every dollar the U.S. spent on an African, it spent $250.65 on an Israeli, and for every dollar it spent on someone from the Western Hemisphere outside the United States, it spent $214 on an Israeli.”

A little perspective for Chris Hedges, the defender of islamist, fundamentalist, terrorists and suicide bombers, and the rest of the Truthdig BIFPAT!

http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1 050wmv&ak=null

- AND -

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/

What we didn’t do during the Israeli massacre of the Lebanese last year, is for me, the proverbial last straw….

I have no problem with Americans, but, I have a huge problem with the American government...I have no problem with the Jews, but, I have a huge...very huge...immense, gigantic problem with the Israeli government.

Any human who doesn’t recognize the travesty going on here is just lost.  Beyond hope, crazy, insane, deluded, delusional, or just plain mad!

Jimmy Carters book about Israeli Apartheid of Palestine is clear and coherent and more importantly, true.

Deny this and you take yourself beyond the pale of human decency. 

Continuing this rant…I personally am so disgusted and sick of all of the rhetoric and lack of action, I will never forgive the lack of common decency and humanity exhibited by my fellow countrymen.  You, I think, have cursed yourselves to the nether regions for your catastrophic failure as humans. 

To take nearly five years to make a decision regarding the present policy of this administration about the right thing to do is unforgivable.  Saddam Hussein on his worst/best day/year never killed as many Iraqis or any body else, as we have.

Denial, denial, denial is the worst of all possible human conditions and will ultimately lead to our very destruction! 

And the true criminals will go unpunished………..no god will help us.

Israel is the father of modern terrorism.  The tactics used by Islamic terroris were developed by Israel.  I admire Israel.  Pound for pound they are the most viscious Semetic tribe in the region.  Israel’s success in creating an agrenomic system has been accomplished by extending the UN set boundaries of Israel into Palstine just enough to grab every bit of water in the region.  Zionism is real. The fundamentalist have no intention of adhering to the borders declared at their creation.  The US and UK knew this when they created this mess in ‘49. The borders virtually assured an unending upheaval and instability in the region.

It is time Israel stand alone, and either return Palestinian lands and allow a Palestinian state that is not so fractured that it cannot succeed economically, or fight it’s own war of genocide.

If you support Israel’s interest over those of the US, please renounce your citizenship and head for the kibbutz ASAP.  Of course, if you’re not Jewish, as reconginzed by Jews in Israel, you won’t be welcomed. But what the heck. Go anyway.  They’ll gladly send you to palestine with the rest of the goyem.

June 23 / 24, 2007

American Media Misses the Boat
USA Today and the USS Liberty
By ALISON WEIR

“The one piece of this story that did make it into the mainstream media has also remained astonishingly buried: testimony that provided the final nail in the coffin of claims that the Israeli attack --which lasted two hours; consisted of rockets, napalm, and torpedoes; and killed 34 Americans total and injured over 170 --was somehow accidental.

This testimony, which was read at the Capitol Hill event, was by Captain Ward Boston, the chief counsel to the one US government investigation ever undertaken of this attack, the Naval Court of Inquiry. This quickie investigation, overseen by Admiral John S. McCain (the current Presidential contender’s father), who gave subordinates one week to conduct an investigation that normally would have been allotted a minimum of six months, found the attack to be a case of “mistaken identity.” The report, which focused on the performance of the crew and the adequacy of communications, and which excluded critical testimony from crew members, is the keystone in Israel partisans’ claims that the attack was accidental. All other US reviews of the attack that state it was accidental cite this investigation as their source.

For decades, Liberty crewmembers and authors such as James Ennes, Stephen Green, Paul Findley, John Borne, and James Bamford had provided substantial evidence that this conclusion was false. Numerous American officials of cabinet-level positions and the equivalent have stated publicly that they believed the attack to be intentional. Senior military, diplomatic and intelligence officials had long held that the magnitude and duration of the attack on the easily recognizable ship precluded any possibility that it was a mistake.

Captain Boston’s testimony was a dramatic confirmation that they were correct.
In his testimony, Boston stated that he had decided to end his 30-year silence and was going to expose the truth: the Court of Inquiry conclusions had been a sham. President Lyndon Johnson and his secretary of defense, Robert McNamara, had ordered the court to cover up the fact that all the evidence had indicated clearly that the attack had been intentional.

Somehow the major media missed this, even though AP, uncharacteristically, had an excellent news report on it. There was no report in USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times you name it, and they probably missed it. Despite the significance of this new evidence, only a handful of newspapers printed it, mostly small, regional ones; a Lexis search a few days later revealed nine.

This mainstream media blind spot has continued, and with it an American cover-up of astounding proportions.

June 8th, was the 40th anniversary of this attack. There were moving ceremonies in commemoration of the fallen at Arlington National Cemetery, the Naval Academy, and the Naval War Memorial in Washington DC. Survivors placed wreaths for their shipmates, sisters remembered their brothers; mothers wept yet again for their sons. Somehow CNN missed this; ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly news missed it. Despite the fact that the USS Liberty was the most decorated ship in American history; despite the fact that its commander received the Congressional Medal of Honor; despite the fact that a War Crimes Report on the unprovoked attack has been filed by the crew, and that members of the military elite are calling for a sustained, public investigation; despite the fact that a Naval rear admiral stated that the Liberty honorees had suffered “an unprecedented injustice at the hands of our very own Navy and government ;” the national media almost entirely ignored the Liberty, its crew, and its significance. The Washington Post, in whose backyard this all occurred, printed nary a word on any of it.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/weir06232007.html

Swedish human rights worker viciously attacked by Israeli settler

“WE KILLED JESUS, WE’LL KILL YOU TOO”

“A 19-year old Swedish human rights worker had her cheekbone broken by an Israeli settler in Hebron today. Tove Johansson from Stockholm walked through the Tel Rumeida checkpoint with a small group of human rights workers to accompany Palestinian schoolchildren to their homes. They were confronted by about 100 settlers in small groups, who started chanting in Hebrew “We killed Jesus, we’ll kill you too!”, a refrain the settlers had been repeating to internationals in Tel Rumeida all day.

After about thirty seconds of waiting, a small group of very aggressive settler men surrounded the international volunteers and began spitting at them, so much so that the internationals described it like “rain.” Then settler men from the back of the crowd began jumping up and spitting, while others kicked the volunteers from the back of the crowd and from the side. The soldiers who were standing just a few feet behind the internationals at the checkpoint just looked on as the internationals were being attacked.

One settler then hit Tove on the left side of her face with an empty bottle, breaking it on her face and leaving her with a broken cheekbone. She immediately fell to the ground and the group of settlers who were watching began to clap, cheer, and chant. The soldiers, who had only watched until this point, then came forward and motioned at the settlers, in a way which the internationals described as “ok… that’s enough guys….”

The settlers, however, were allowed to stay in the area and continued watching and clapping as internationals tried to stop the flow of blood from the woman’s face. Some settlers who were coming down the hill even tried to take photos of themselves next to her bleeding face, giving the camera a “thumbs-up” sign.

At this point, an international was taken into a police van and asked to identify who had attacked the group. The international did this, pointing out three settlers who the police took into their police vehicles. However, the settlers were all driven to different areas of the neighborhood and released nearly immediately. When one settler was released on Shuhada Street, the settler crowd that was still celebrating the woman’s injuries applauded and cheered.

A settler medic came to the scene about 15 minutes after the attack and immediately began interrogating the internationals who had been attacked, about why they were in Hebron. He refused to help the bleeding woman lying on the street in any way .

Five minutes after the settler medic arrived, the army medic arrived and began treating the injured woman. When she was later put on a stretcher, the crowd of settlers again clapped and cheered.

Police officers at the scene then immediately began threatening to arrest the remaining internationals if they did not immediately leave the area, though they had also just been attacked.

The injured woman was taken to Kiryat Arba settlement and then to Hadassah Ein Keren hospital in Jerusalem.

Internationals were later told by the police that the police had not even taken the names of the settlers who were identified as having attacked the internationals and that one of the main assailants had simply told the police that he was due at the airport in two hours to fly back to France.

Earlier in the day at least 5 Palestinians, including a 3-year old child, were injured by settlers, who rampaged through Tel Rumeida hurling stones and bottles at local residents. Palestinian schoolchildren on their way home were also attacked. The IDF, which was intensively deployed in the area, did not intervene to stop the settlers.”
------------------------------------------------
Take a look at these “PEACE LOVING” fanatic Israeli zealots & their aggression.

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11& ar=687

A little perspective for Chris Hedges, the defender of islamist, fundamentalist, terrorists and suicide bombers.

http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/

Hedges says:

“There is now volcanic anger and revulsion by Arabs at this blatant favoritism.”

Let’s see, Israel is a tiny beacon of democracy and liberalism surrounded on all sides by a sea of islamist, fundamentalist, terrorists and suicide bombers which has been at war with Israel for 60 years, which, nevertheless, has managed to turn a tiny piece of arid desert into a nation thriving economy on the cutting edge of science, technology, medicine, culture and art. 

On the other hand, the Arabs have been mired in the most grotesque example of primitive, repressive, conservatism on the planet - islamist fundamentalism - for 1300 years, resulting in a culture in which their children are systematically brainwashed in the business of hatred, bigotry, terrorism and suicide bombing, among numerous other wildly animalistic behaviors.

So, the question becomes, who to favor?  Tough choice . . . in the mind of a psychopathic, idiot like Chris Hedges.  But, I can understand why reasonable Americans did, and continue to, favor Israel over the Arabs.

This woman makes a compelling case.  Does anyone know if she’s been stoned to death by sub-human, islamist, fundamentalist, Arab, psychopaths?

http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1 050wmv&ak=null

PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO 2006 CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES:

Here is your chance to see what and how much $$$ contributions your US Senators, Congressmen, Congresswomen have received from PRO-ISRAEL PAC.

The list is fairly long with so many familiar names. The BIG $MONEY$ is going to the big names of our US elected representatives.

One does NOT have to wonder who “Occupies & Manipulates” our American Congress.

Here is the link with all the $$$ details:

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/May-June_2006/0605031.html

Anger and Tears at Israel’s Apartheid Wall, A Wound Slashing Palestine to the Bone

By Anne Gwynne

“This wall, built illegally upon Palestinian land without compensation, will be over 450 miles long, 26 feet in height above its base (six and a half feet below ground level) and nearly 500 feet wide. It has consumed more than 10 percent of Palestine’s most fertile and productive agricultural land; when the wall is completed the figure will reach a million dunums. For 91 percent of its length it does not follow the so-called Green Line, so it isolates villages and towns in a no-man’s-land between Israel and Palestine to which there is no entry and from which there is no exit. The formerly prosperous city of Qalqiliya is completely encircled by the wall, with one single entry and exit gate for 45,000 people controlled by a teenage Israeli key-holder.

Like the colonies, there is no aesthetic sense here, no respect for the land. The utilitarian ugliness of the huge sheets of unrelieved concrete cannot be equaled. The wall here, I am informed, will have tunnels which will allow Israeli incursions at any time; in addition, it will be festooned with tons of razor wire and have gun-emplacements every 325 yards. Two of these towers, now equipped with electronic weapons which shoot at movement, point into the primary school compound. On either side of the wall there is a wide swathe of “confiscated” land, completely denuded, so that imaginary Palestinians can easily be seen.

Behind the wall is a high sandy hill commanding the whole area, from which an Israeli tank fires shells into the city: numerous missiles have fallen around and in the school yard. Many children have left because of nervous breakdowns, and others are suffering from stress-related illnesses. They have terrified nightmares, and bed-wetting and sleep disorders are common. Between the school and the wall is about 325 yards of devastated moonscape which has been used as a construction base—the land which the Israelis have stolen on “their” side of the wall is, naturally, undamaged, with the Palestinian farmers’ crops being harvested as Israeli produce.

As one gazes across these beautiful hills clothed in diaphanous greens, this ugly monstrosity snakes across the landscape, a one-third-mile-wide wound which has slashed Palestine to the bone, standing stark and livid, bisecting the naturally unified landscape. It cuts a family off from its members, farmers from the land, neighbor from friend, and village from town. Significantly, Qalqiliya sits on one of the region’s three great aquifers, supplying 50 percent of occupied Palestine’s water. When complete, the wall will steal 89 percent of the available water supply as well as most of the country’s fertile land, condemning Palestinian farmers to a lifetime of poverty, with the land they have tilled for thousands of years within sight of their homes, but unreachable. It cannot be reiterated too many times that, while “security” is the pretext, the wall’s sinister purpose is to dislocate the people from the land and force them to leave: it is the culmination of the Zionist project which did not start in 2000, 1967 or 1948 , but was formulated in Europe 100 years ago and is now, as far as the Israelis are concerned, coming to fruition.

Our governments are not only allowing this to happen—they are paying the astronomical cost of this madness, billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayers’ money. Even knowing the statistics of the wall, to touch it, look along it, stand in its shadow where once there was sunshine, and photograph it—that really is something else. A 450-mile, $3.4 billion wall to prevent an occasional act of resistance? No, this wall is designed to make life here, already intolerable, even more so, in the belief that the remaining Palestinians will be forced through hunger and poverty to leave. The cold-blooded cruelty and calculation of it is sickening.”

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/November_2004/0411010.html

In Israel, there are public and active debates about the withdrawal of Israel from occupied lands, and the creation of a Palestinian state.  A MAJORITY OF ISRAELIS favor returning to the borders originally mandated by the UN.  But, Israel has a hard right, fundamentalist contingent that keep the money rolling in from the US.  And the religious right, and powerful media moguls, keep us from having that same debate in this country.
Dick Cheney has told congress he doesn’t have to comply with their request for his correspondence, that he isn’t part of the administrative branch.

He’s corret.  Dick Cheney is an employee of the Milirary Complex that President Eisenhower warned us about 45 years ago.  He has worked for them his entire carreer, only keeping offices in various gov’t buildingd, to keep closer tabs on how we deliver the flow of money.

Chris Hedges is on the money.  It is time that the Defense industry, the religious right, and the Likud party are removed from power in American Gov’t.  Demanding immediate Israeli compliance with UN resolutions to return land and get out of Palestine, would be our first step toward dealing with terror.  Everything up to this point has been about making money for TRW, Haliburiton, KRB and Raytheon.  And keeping the funds flowing to Israel.

Sen Leiberman should renounce his American Citizenship.  Many Americans support this war against Iraq only because of Israel.  Why else would 27% of Americans still think this war was a good idea?  Because they place the interest of Israel above the interest of this nation.

We’re back to that fundamentalist religious thing again.  If Israel doesn’t keep all of Jeruselem and rebuild the temple, Armeggedon can’t happen, and the xtian eod myth can’t happen to finally prove to the world that they AREN’T THE COMPLETE IDIOTS THAT WE SEE.

“...an aggressive and dangerous Israeli agenda that could launch a nightmarish regional war.”

Oh, really? It’s quite possible that the people on the ground in this region think this has already come to pass.

Also, perhaps the word ‘Israeli’ should be changed to ‘Zionist’?