A popular misconception is that Israel is a democracy like the US. It is not. The Soviet Union was a more democratic country. There, constituents did have a choice between candidates. All the Candidates were CPSU (Communists) but it was a representative choice none-the-less.

Israel is an Oligarchy. There are no constituencies or districts only party lists. Israelis vote for a party platform and the party is awarded Knesset seats proportional to the votes each party receives.  If one desires a Likud seat in the Knesset, for example, one has to blow Bibi Netanyahu (so to speak) to be high enough on the party list. Likud was formed, circa mid ‘70’s, as a union of 4 conservative factions 2 of which were known terrorist groups, Begin’s Irgun and Shamir’s Stern Gang.

Circa March 2002, Abraham Foxman of the ADL opined that criticisms of the Israel government, it’s policies or of Zionism were not, in themselves, anti-Semitic. The average life span of an Israeli government is about 18 months. All the major parties are highly infected with Zionism, a modern golden calf, more kindly described as an uber patriotism. The Israeli Right and Center makes Dick Chaney look like a Hippie at a Love-in. Leaders are assassinated or otherwise eliminated for moving to far towards a real and just peace arrangement. Most Zionist Likud is the biggest stumbling block of peace followed by political Hamas as a close second who wants its ass kissed now and again as well.

One of the strongest international legal cases against Israel is the 4th Geneva Conventions (1949) “an occupier may not forcibly deport protected persons, or deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into occupied territory (Art.49)”

Every US President since 1967 has been reminding Israel of this to no avail. Clinton, in his final instructions, after his Camp David failed, was an attempt to cap Israeli colonial activity. Bush’s 14 April letter cannot be construed as to green light more colonial expansion.

Beginning with the Beirut Declaration (2002), the Arab community has offered Israel full recognition and acceptance in exchange for a peace agreement based on Taba and/or the Geneva Accord.

The Zionists want a peace in which Palestine is a series of unconnected Cantons or Ghettos, autonomous in name only so as to defuse a demographic time bomb yet each totally dependant and surrounded by Israel. Can you say Warsaw, multiplied? IMHO, its Israeli lebensraum.

My “Relationship” With Tom Campbell

A Wrench in the Israeli Gears

By ALISON WEIR

March 5 - 7, 2010

“An outside observer might be forgiven for being confused about which nation these candidates are seeking to serve. Rather than competing over who is the most loyal Californian and patriotic American, these would-be Senators seem often to be competing over who is the most supportive of a foreign regime.

Odder still, the regime being fervently endorsed has a record of taking actions that are deeply contrary to principles most Americans hold dear, and on top of that, has a track record of undertaking activities that are extremely damaging to the US

, including:

  Spying on our government and industry and stealing American technology;

  Ignoring demands and pleas by virtually every U.S. president over the past few decades to end diverse illegal actions that have caused incalculable tragedy, destabilized the region and world, demonstrated ruthless cruelty against entire victim populations, and created escalating enmity toward the United States, whose lobby-promulgated assistance (at least $7 million per day) enables its actions.

Normally, one would expect candidates to denounce such a nation; at minimum, one would expect them to distance themselves from it. But not this one. This one is Israel, which, despite being one of the world’s smallest nations, can claim the most powerful and pervasive foreign lobby in the United States.

Even while the United States, and particularly California, is facing a financial crisis, no candidate dares, in all the cuts being proposed in American programs, to reduce the enormous aid we give annually to Israel. Furthermore, this money is given at the beginning of each year, which means, since we are operating at a deficit, that our government pays interest on money we no longer have, while Israel makes interest on it.

Such power, which is exerted within virtually every major institution in the US, and yet is invisible to a great many people, was not built overnight.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Click on link for the rest:

http://www.counterpunch.org/weir03052010.html

Two Humiliations - Can Obama Live With A Third?

By Alan Hart

“March 10, 2010 “Information Clearing House”—Amazing! While in Israel, an American vice president explicitly condemns an Israeli decision to build yet more homes, 1,600 apartments, in occupied Arab East Jerusalem. “I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem,” Joe Biden said. “It’s the kind of step that undermines the trust we need”. Yes, but…

They were only words. And they call to mind a comment made by Uri Avnery, the grandfather of the Israeli peace movement, in a piece he wrote for Tikkun on 23 September 2009, after President Obama’s call for a complete freeze had been rejected by Prime Minister Netanyahu.

“There’s no point in denying it,” Avnery wrote. “In the first round of the match between Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu, Obama was beaten…  In the words of the ancient proverb, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Netanyahu has tripped Obama on his first step. The President of the United States has stumbled.” And Netanyahu had won in a big way. “Not only did he survive, not only has he shown that he is no ‘sucker’ (a word he uses all the time), he has proven to his people - and to the public at large - that there is nothing to fear: Obama is nothing but a paper tiger. The settlements can go on expanding without hindrance. Any negotiations that start, if they start at all, can go on until the coming of the Messiah. Nothing will come out of them.”

Whether or not Netanyahu himself had advance knowledge of the decision to humiliate Biden is not the point. It is that Biden and so Obama were humiliated, the president for a second time. And that begs my headline question – Can he, Obama, live with a third humiliation?

If the history of previous American attempts to give life to a peace process is a good guide, Obama will have no choice but to live with a third humiliation, and no doubt others, at least for a while. An explanation of why is offered in the Epilogue of the forthcoming Volume 3 of the American edition of my book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. (The Epilogue is titled Is Peace Possible?) Explaining why Obama moved so quickly with his demand for a total settlement freeze, I put it this way:

He knew something that all American presidents know about when serious initiatives for peace in the Middle East can and cannot be taken. (I know what that something is because one of them told me a few months after events had denied him a second term in office). Any American president has only two windows of opportunity to break or try to break the Zionist lobby’s stranglehold on Congress on matters to do with Israel/Palestine.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Click on link for the rest:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24957.htm

Gerard provides the only intelligent post here that I’ve read.  It’s factual and accurate rather than a re-hashing of propaganda, myth and stereotypes.

And he asks an important question: Why is the current Israeli leadership, well, insane?  Ahmedinejad should be LAUGHED at, not bombed by Israel.  That would be the absolute STUPIDEST thing they could do.  But the Israeli leadership isn’t alone in being incompetent assholes…we had the very same here in the USA from 2001 through 2009.  Iran’s leadership isn’t much smarter either.

So why are they insane?  They are religious fanatics and EVERY nation run by religious fanatics suffers, gets into stupid wars, and should get rid of them!

Every president since Ikenhower has given the Jews
the green light to take whatever they desire in the
middle east.  The U.S. has supported their terrorism
since 1948.  It has cost the U.S. taxpayer hundreds
of billions of dollars in economic & military aid to
pursue this misadventure, and the only way to bring
solution to this dilemma is to cut off the money
supply, that responsibility rests with the U.S.
Congress.  The only way We citizens can do anything
about this problem is to take to the streets as we
did during the Vietnam war, I know it took a very
long time to get the Congress’s attention, but in the
end what brought that aggression to a halt was that
the Congress worried about being reelected, finally
cut off the money supply.  If the Jews & Gentiles of
this country are really serious about preserving the
Jewish state of Israel,  then they should also be in
favor of the American Indian reclaiming much of these
United States,  after all they were here first, and
just maybe GOD gave them this land just like he gave
title to Palestine to the Jews.  If that were true
then they should have every bit as much claim to
these U.S. states,  as the Jews have to the
Palestinian land in the middle east.  The great white
fathers in Washington, suggest that the Jews in the
middle east are our great allies, then where were
their troops when we invaded North Korea, Vietnam,
Granada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The more I
become aware of what goes on in the middle east, the
more I must go along with Mel Gibson when he said
that the Jews in Israel are to blame for all of the
Wars in the middle east.

One has to admire Pfaff’s fortitude in continuing the hope against hope that
anything close to justice for the Palestinians can be achieved through
negotiation.

It seems clear at this stage that the future of the Palestinians will go one of two
ways. Either the Palestinians will finally succumb to slow motion genocide as
Israeli extremists intend, or the American people will reach enlightenment on
this issue and demand that our gov’t cease and desist its pragmatic, immoral
support of the Eretz colonial enterprise.

Neither of those options have anything to do with negotiations. The latter will
happen quickly once/if the public makes the cost of Israeli support hurt more
than the pro Zionist lobby blackmail our leaders currently live with.

Some American politicians still operate under the old wisdom that Israel is our
attack dog in the middle of all those oil fields. This “strategic” alliance meant
that Israel had to given some slack.

But in fact things have radically changed. Now we have bases all over the middle
east, not the least of which are those in Iraq. We don’t need Israel’s “help” in the
region anymore. Especially since its constant fear of ‘existential’ threat makes it
a dangerous attack dog indeed. It looks like they might soon “help” us into
another conflict if we’re not careful.

Just lately, it’s become obvious who’s being lead by the leash in this
arrangement. Israel’s increasing arrogance and belligerence, not only toward the
US but even toward its own citizens when they oppose Zionist goals, should
frighten us all.

With friends like Israel, who needs enemies?

There is no shred of evidence that pal’ns have not descended from nabateans, arameans [the latter arriving in canaan ca 4k yrs ago from arabia]jebusites, amonites, moabites, edomites, hebrews, amorites,hittites, hivvites, et al]

If we must err, let’s please err on side of the victims, which is pal’ns who have lived in canaan for at least 8k yrs.

All of these peoples were semitic; lingua franca beeing aramaic; it being an arabic dialect.

It does seem to me that the inhabitants of expalestine are being used. US/nato, seems, can’t afford peace inexpalestine, syria, afpak, iraq, iran, and other ‘stans.

With peace in much or all of asia, US doesn’t get a chance to deploy nuclear missiles on chinese borders.
For only deployment of missilies on bodres with china can make chinese blink first as USSR had to do.

Gorbachov did not abandon socialism because he had been against it. He, i assume, was afraid of surprise nuclear attack by US under the usual rationalization. And who cld blame him for that; maybe he saved the world for a few yrs?  tnx

Electricity increased costs and possible shortages face many countries including Iran and the US.

The US apparently only produces 7% of the uranium it consumes Byron King of the Daily Reckoning reported recently.

World energy availability, IMO, and past US actions makes Iran matters very serious.

Mossadegh removal and possible US involvement in starting the Iraq/Iran war are two examples.

IMO, no amount of going back over history can justify Israel’s intransigence in coming to a fair agreement with the Palestinians and taking the grip of military might off their throats. Many Jews as well as non-Jews all over the world recognize this disproportionate domination, and Israel is losing international prestige every day it persists. Why Israel does not relent indicates an internal political and moral weakness rather than strength.  It belies common sense and is a source of great danger for everyone in the entire area not only because it is reactionary but because it gives a certain amount of justification to the radical elements in Palestinian politics. A more creative solution is long overdue and would release the entire area from its traumatic entrapment in the cycle of revenge and counter-revenge.