With the help of G-d, Dear Honorable President of the United States of America,Mr. Barack H. Obama, My name is Avraham,I am a Jewish resident in Palestine,I am Georgian citizen too,I ask from you do not be deceived by the Zionists,The Zionists want to conceal their war crimes against Palestinian people around Palestine, but they will be not succeeding.There was Genocide on Gaza between end of December 2008 to January 2009!!Do not fear from the Zionists and the massive pressure of the Zionist lobby.Show solidarity with the Palestinian people whom persecuted and oppressed and subjugated by the Israeli regime more than 60 years. I am a Jew,And I am against "ISRAEL" because I am a Jew.The state of "Israel" has no right to be called in the Holy Name of the Jewish people- "ISRAEL", the Zionists stolen the name of the Jewish people which means spirituality and subservience and worship G-d, who commanded us his holy law, the Holy Torah, and the Zionists, the state of Israel, desecrating the laws of G-d, and rebelling against his holy laws, against Judaism.Judaism is spirituality, religion. Zionism is nationality and racism which total opposing the principles of Judaism, and, Zionists are opposing Judaism by the exist of their illegitimate Zionist state.The Israeli-Zionists leaders, before more than 70 years ago since the Zionism established, they deceived the majority of the religious Jewish people by the falsify and distortion of the Jewish law and brainwashed them by Zionist propaganda, the Zionists forced themselves on the whole Jewish people in the world by lies and inciting against Judaism and against the Jewish belief of redemption by G-d, and called to move to Palestine by falsify claims, when in truth, actually, Jews are in exile everywhere, and are forbidden to have own state and any kind of regime and even forbidden to have a political movement like the Zionist movement, and we are forbidden to oppress and subjugate other people and nations like the Palestinian people, we must live under all nations in the world by peace and subservience, not like Zionists done.The Zionists does not represent the Jewish law and Judaism, and they have no right to speak in the name of the Jewish people and represent us, they are false Jews, they do not stopping to desecrate the Jewish law and they making crimes against whom are refusing to recognize their "legitimacy” like Palestinians and anti-Zionist Jews.Authentic Jews not Zionists, condemn and reject the atrocities and the provocations of the Zionists against humanity, authentic Jews have no part in the crimes of Zionists, and have no part with religious Zionists whom joined to the secular Zionists. Judaism is a religion! Zionism is a racism and Anti-Judaism!Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism!Judaism forbids the existence of state of Israel! The State of “ISRAEL" based on racism, robbery, and on bloodshed of Jews and Arabs and other Non-Jews.The state of "Israel" based on ethnic cleansing, and stealing the land of Palestine until today.The only "achievements" that the Zionists and Zionist state brought and still bringing upon Jews are danger, tragedies, wars, destruction, suffering, deaths, killings, and Anti-Semitism everywhere.The Zionists became the blessed land of Palestine- the land of peace, harmony and holiness, the Holy Land, to a cursed place, to land of war zones and battle zones, with Blood and tear Rivers of Jews and Arabs more than 60 years. Zionism is completely opposing the principles of Judaism, and these criminals whom made genocide against Palestinians more than 60 years, especially on January 2009, on the war on Gaza ,on defenseless Palestinian people , these Zionists criminals are really do not represent the authentic Jewish people.The Zionists, by the cover of "defense" and "saving" will not succeed to hide and justify their crimes against the humanity.The exist of the Zionist State and the fake and false "defense" and "saving" of Jews by Zionists and its terrorist army the "IDF", is not, but a destruction and heavy danger for Jews everywhere.After the tragedy of the Jewish people in Europe, the holocaust, if the world thinks to make a favor for Jews by giving to rule over Palestine and over nation in Palestine, on the back of defenseless nation in Palestine, the Palestinian people, the world make a mistake.This is not a favor, not for Jews and not for Arabs and other Non-Jews,This is a mistake, this is an injustice!After the holocaust, by giving to Jews to reside in the countries of the world with no persecutions, but only in peace, compassion, security and harmony, to live the Jewish lives, in Europe, America, Asia and Australia and Africa, this is a really favor.Favor for the whole world and favor for the Jewish people!Make justice, and support the weak and defenseless Palestinian people, and stop to call the Zionist state in the Holy Name of the Jewish people, "ISRAEL", and act to dismantle the Zionists state, and restore in the holy land a Palestinian state, which there, Jews and Non-Jews will live together in peace and friendship and harmony, like it was in the holy land, in Palestine, before the establishment of Zionism and the Zionist movement. Mr. PresidentToday, when you see that most of the religious orthodox Jews whom are supporting the Zionist state, voting in the Zionist elections, co-operating with the Zionist government inside, and with Zionist authorities, and even are recruiting in the Zionist army, its because most of them today born into the reality of the Zionism and the Zionist state, that they falsely think that Judaism and Zionism are same, but it is wrong and tragic mistake.It is because, unfortunately, that the most of the early rabbinical orthodox leaders of Jewish communities in the era when Zionism established since 1896, and their successors until today influenced by the Zionist propaganda.Part of them supported Zionism by unintentionally and erroneously.Naivety, they thought that there is some physically and spiritually benefit by Zionism and by joining Zionists, but later they understood that they made mistake by their decision to support Zionism, when they saw the large dangerous of Zionism for Jews. And most of them whom joined to Zionists by willful wrongdoer and deliberately, they justified the forbidden joining to the Zionist movements, by distortion of the Holy Jewish teachings which prohibits political human efforts to redeem the Jewish people, like Zionism, for granting permission to Zionism according to malicious false explanation of the Jewish law, by willful wrongdoer, self-concept corruption, by non-believing in the redemption by G-d, by revulsion and break the waiting for the time of heavenly redemption when most of Jews sitting in exile, and bribed by Zionist allowances and promises, for supporting the forbidden human political efforts to try save the Jews and for taking part in Zionist budgets and government.By these chains of events and processes they did not save, but they damaged and still damaging and endangering Jews spiritually and physically, because of their Anti-Jewish views and dangerous insane Zionist vision, which are stranger to Judaism and to the principles of the Jewish belief.And all their actions failed, and the Jews until today very suffer by the terrible existence of Zionist movement and Zionist state in generally. The Palestinian people and the Jews are both victims of the Zionist state, and the cause of the Zionist-Arab conflict is hidden in fact of the existence of the illegitimate Zionist state, and only making historic justice for Palestinian people and Palestinian refugees whom expelled by Zionist forces, and give them to rule over the holy land around all parts of Palestine by dismantlement of the Zionist state, this is the real solution to solve the tragic injustice and the bloodshed in the Middle-East. May G-d bless you!Yours TrulyAvraham Ben-Yosef,Email: avibey@gmail.com
With the help of G-d,
Dear Honorable President of the United States of America,
Mr. Barack H. Obama,
My name is Avraham,I am a Jewish resident in Palestine,
I am Georgian citizen too,
I ask from you do not be deceived by the Zionists,The Zionists want to conceal their war crimes against Palestinian people around Palestine, but they will be not succeeding.There was Genocide on Gaza between end of December 2008 to January 2009!!
Do not fear from the Zionists and the massive pressure of the Zionist lobby.Show solidarity with the Palestinian people whom persecuted and oppressed and subjugated by the Israeli regime more than 60 years.
I am a Jew,
And I am against "ISRAEL" because I am a Jew.The state of "Israel" has no right to be called in the Holy Name of the Jewish people- "ISRAEL", the Zionists stolen the name of the Jewish people which means spirituality and subservience and worship G-d, who commanded us his holy law, the Holy Torah, and the Zionists, the state of Israel, desecrating the laws of G-d, and rebelling against his holy laws, against Judaism.Judaism is spirituality, religion.
Zionism is nationality and racism which total opposing the principles of Judaism, and, Zionists are opposing Judaism by the exist of their illegitimate Zionist state.
The Israeli-Zionists leaders, before more than 70 years ago since the Zionism established, they deceived the majority of the religious Jewish people by the falsify and distortion of the Jewish law and brainwashed them by Zionist propaganda, the Zionists forced themselves on the whole Jewish people in the world by lies and inciting against Judaism and against the Jewish belief of redemption by G-d, and called to move to Palestine by falsify claims, when in truth, actually, Jews are in exile everywhere, and are forbidden to have own state and any kind of regime and even forbidden to have a political movement like the Zionist movement, and we are forbidden to oppress and subjugate other people and nations like the Palestinian people, we must live under all nations in the world by peace and subservience, not like Zionists done.
The Zionists does not represent the Jewish law and Judaism, and they have no right to speak in the name of the Jewish people and represent us, they are false Jews, they do not stopping to desecrate the Jewish law and they making crimes against whom are refusing to recognize their "legitimacy” like Palestinians and anti-Zionist Jews.
Authentic Jews not Zionists, condemn and reject the atrocities and the provocations of the Zionists against humanity, authentic Jews have no part in the crimes of Zionists, and have no part with religious Zionists whom joined to the secular Zionists. Judaism is a religion!
Zionism is a racism and Anti-Judaism!
Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism!
Judaism forbids the existence of state of Israel!
The State of “ISRAEL" based on racism, robbery, and on bloodshed of Jews and Arabs and other Non-Jews.
The state of "Israel" based on ethnic cleansing, and stealing the land of Palestine until today.
The only "achievements" that the Zionists and Zionist state brought and still bringing upon Jews are danger, tragedies, wars, destruction, suffering, deaths, killings, and Anti-Semitism everywhere.
The Zionists became the blessed land of Palestine- the land of peace, harmony and holiness, the Holy Land, to a cursed place, to land of war zones and battle zones, with Blood and tear Rivers of Jews and Arabs more than 60 years.
Zionism is completely opposing the principles of Judaism, and these criminals whom made genocide against Palestinians more than 60 years, especially on January 2009, on the war on Gaza ,on defenseless Palestinian people , these Zionists criminals are really do not represent the authentic Jewish people.
The Zionists, by the cover of "defense" and "saving" will not succeed to hide and justify their crimes against the humanity.
The exist of the Zionist State and the fake and false "defense" and "saving" of Jews by Zionists and its terrorist army the "IDF", is not, but a destruction and heavy danger for Jews everywhere.
After the tragedy of the Jewish people in Europe, the holocaust, if the world thinks to make a favor for Jews by giving to rule over Palestine and over nation in Palestine, on the back of defenseless nation in Palestine, the Palestinian people, the world make a mistake.
This is not a favor, not for Jews and not for Arabs and other Non-Jews,
This is a mistake, this is an injustice!
After the holocaust, by giving to Jews to reside in the countries of the world with no persecutions, but only in peace, compassion, security and harmony, to live the Jewish lives, in Europe, America, Asia and Australia and Africa, this is a really favor.
Favor for the whole world and favor for the Jewish people!
Make justice, and support the weak and defenseless Palestinian people, and stop to call the Zionist state in the Holy Name of the Jewish people, "ISRAEL", and act to dismantle the Zionists state, and restore in the holy land a Palestinian state, which there, Jews and Non-Jews will live together in peace and friendship and harmony, like it was in the holy land, in Palestine, before the establishment of Zionism and the Zionist movement.
Mr. President
Today, when you see that most of the religious orthodox Jews whom are supporting the Zionist state, voting in the Zionist elections, co-operating with the Zionist government inside, and with Zionist authorities, and even are recruiting in the Zionist army, its because most of them today born into the reality of the Zionism and the Zionist state, that they falsely think that Judaism and Zionism are same, but it is wrong and tragic mistake.
It is because, unfortunately, that the most of the early rabbinical orthodox leaders of Jewish communities in the era when Zionism established since 1896, and their successors until today influenced by the Zionist propaganda.
Part of them supported Zionism by unintentionally and erroneously.
Naivety, they thought that there is some physically and spiritually benefit by Zionism and by joining Zionists, but later they understood that they made mistake by their decision to support Zionism, when they saw the large dangerous of Zionism for Jews.
And most of them whom joined to Zionists by willful wrongdoer and deliberately, they justified the forbidden joining to the Zionist movements, by distortion of the Holy Jewish teachings which prohibits political human efforts to redeem the Jewish people, like Zionism, for granting permission to Zionism according to malicious false explanation of the Jewish law, by willful wrongdoer, self-concept corruption, by non-believing in the redemption by G-d, by revulsion and break the waiting for the time of heavenly redemption when most of Jews sitting in exile, and bribed by Zionist allowances and promises, for supporting the forbidden human political efforts to try save the Jews and for taking part in Zionist budgets and government.
By these chains of events and processes they did not save, but they damaged and still damaging and endangering Jews spiritually and physically, because of their Anti-Jewish views and dangerous insane Zionist vision, which are stranger to Judaism and to the principles of the Jewish belief.
And all their actions failed, and the Jews until today very suffer by the terrible existence of Zionist movement and Zionist state in generally.
The Palestinian people and the Jews are both victims of the Zionist state, and the cause of the Zionist-Arab conflict is hidden in fact of the existence of the illegitimate Zionist state, and only making historic justice for Palestinian people and Palestinian refugees whom expelled by Zionist forces, and give them to rule over the holy land around all parts of Palestine by dismantlement of the Zionist state, this is the real solution to solve the tragic injustice and the bloodshed in the Middle-East.
May G-d bless you!
Yours Truly
Avraham Ben-Yosef,
Email: avibey@gmail.com
By Padmini Arhant
The United States foreign policy in the twentieth and twenty first century viewed by allies and adversaries differently depending upon the U.S. engagement viz. modus operandi in the conflicts of the affected regions.
Throughout the twentieth century, the United States direct and indirect dominant role brought peace and chaos to the world order, ominously the Cuban crisis and the infamous Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos war combined with constant interventions in the Korean Peninsula, the Americas, the Middle East, Africa as well as South and South East Asia...
Remaining article @http://www.padminiarhant.com
Thank you.
Padmini Arhant
For me it's coming down to what we are preserving- or attempting to preserve- I think the bad far outweighs the good here- and I believe that if Obama sidesteps this it will be his downfall.
President Obama will forever be linked to the Bush Torture Coverup and our great victory over the establishment will be torn down.
"It's a trap are you blind?" (Hamish) ~Braveheart
Thanks Mr. President! This IS change I can believe it and my voting for you has been worth it in every way. . .
by Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, a Philosophical Advisor to The President.London, England - June 5, 2009. There should be no doubt about it, the Historic speech made in Cairo, Egypt by President Barack H. Obama and delivered with great confidence to the Islamic Nations and peoples of the World, and to Arab Muslims in particular, had a lot more nuance and purpose in it than one would first sense by only listening to its words! Every breath between every thought uttered by President Obama held in it an air of deep wisdom whose purpose is greater than the sum of the words contained in his speech. The tone and the facial expressions of President Obama were like the invaluable markers used in the Hebrew Alef-Bet to denote specific sounds, vowels and consonants, without which it would be impossible to be even relatively sure what the author meant to write or the speaker really meant to say! Mind you, I will not go into a detailed analysis of what exactly was meant by every gesture, expression, intonation, word, sentence, etc., for that could really take up a lot more time and space than is needed to make my point in this article. Suffice it to say, President Barack H. Obama's speech held in it both great promise and a stern warning, as well as what might be considered a coded sub-message! The great promise was one of almost infinite hope and faith in the principle that has been President Obama's legacy thus far: that almost every Human Being in the world, every child of the Great Spirit of H'SH'M, including the vast majority of Muslims, Jews and Christians, desire exactly the same basic things in this Life, World and from each neighbor and stranger! In effect, that almost all of us really do understand that there is a need, and thus a compelling possibility, for true compromise and tolerance based on the principle that without such we will never see an end to all the senseless extreme fear, irrational hatred, dehumanizing injustice, barbaric brutality, insensible threats and horrific violence that has plagued the world for millennia and might continue to plague us till we either come to our best senses or end up, unfortunately sooner than later, causing a world conflagration and final man-made disaster that will wipe out virtually everyone and every ounce of beautiful art, artistic design and imaginative creation we humans have ever produced! And also included in that great promise was an understanding that H'SH'M (G-D All-Loving) would not want us to murder one another in the name of any system of belief, faith or dogma, and that the true essence of what binds all the major religions and Spiritual Philosophies of the world must be the commonality of the Law of Love of H'SH'M; "Do Unto Others As They Truly Want To Be Done Unto and Do Nothing Unto Anyone That They Do Not Really Want To Have Done Unto Them!" True, President Obama inadvertently used the old and inaccurate version of what he really meant to say (he used the "Do unto others as you would want unto thyself!") as someone who I know cherishes the best of True Free-Masonic Ideals (mind you; not to be confused with the current mish-mash abusing the good name of Freemasonry!), as one who has studied the wisdom and compassion of Saladin (Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb), a wisdom that gave rise to The Knights Templar and eventually to the Freemasonry that helped bring about such great individuals as His Majesty King Charles The Second (King Charles II of England), Baruch Spinoza and Sir Isaac Newton (forgive me for not mentioning the Islamic and Jewish scholars of Islam's Golden Scientific Age, whom we should trouble ourselves to learn more about) who were very much part of The Rennaisance and The Age of Enlightenment, without which we would probably have gone into extinction by now!
In essence, President Barack H. Obama was actually invoking the memory of the Clash of Civilizations known mostly as The Crusades, which could easily have caused the collapse of all civilization in the World, had it continued and spread its megalomania elsewhere! And therein lies also President Obama's warning! For his predecessor, probably not fully aware of it, had almost served the full interests of those who almost succeeded in igniting another Worldwide Clash of Civilizations that would have caused a permanent and irrevocable divide, leading to all manner of megalomania and violence, between one side and the Islamic World, which numbers over 1.3 to 1.5 Billion people...over one-fifth of the World's total population at present!!! Anyone in their right mind can clearly see what that would have meant! No religion on Earth, no dogma or ideology, Spiritual or otherwise, can manage to dominate the world by force or even by gradual efforts at full conversion! Like it or not, we're going to have to accept that H'SH'M is above traditional religion, and that the True Way to Live by G-D's Golden Law of Love is to be found in our own individual, special, self-realized connection to H'SH'M!We must be steadfast in our resolve to support President Obama and his efforts, through his Administration and as CEO of The United States of America, to bring about the Peaceful World Order he and most people in the World desire, need and should already have had ages ago!
Aboriginal Jews, Native Jews, their natural rights in their historic homeland VS Arab immigrants ("Palestinians")
Their fight against the bigotry by Arabism & Islamism who won't "accept'" them
Contents
Israel - Rightful Historic Homeland of Aboriginal Jews
Canadian MP and former justice minister Irwin Cotler: For Israel, rooted in the Jewish people, as an Abrahamic people, is a prototypical First Nation or aboriginal people, just as the Jewish religion is a prototypical aboriginal religion, the first of the Abrahamic religions.
In a WORD, the Jewish people is the only people that still inhabits the same land, embraces the same religion, studies the same Torah, hearkens to the same prophets, speaks the same aboriginal language - Hebrew - and bears the same aboriginal name, Israel, as it did 3,500 years ago.
Israel, then, is the aboriginal homeland of the Jewish people across space and time. It is not just a homeland for the Jewish people, a place of refuge, asylum and protection. It is the homeland of the Jewish people, wherever and whenever it may be; and its birth certificate originates in its inception as a First Nation, and not simply, however important, in its United Nations international birth certificate.
The State of Israel, then, as a political and juridical entity, overlaps with the "aboriginal Jewish homeland"; it is, in international legal terms, a successor state to the biblical, or aboriginal, Jewish kingdoms. [1]
Historical Roots
Jews
Aboriginal Rights to Israel, Aboriginal Native Jews to Israel "Palestine"
There is an enormous body of archaeological and historical evidence demonstrating that the Jewish People -- like the Greek People or the Han Chinese People -- is among the oldest of the world's Peoples. Thus, it is well known that the Jewish People has more than 3,500 years of continuous history, with a subjective-objective national identity that, in each century, has kept a link to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. For example, the Jewish Bible, the Christian Gospels and the Koran all specifically testify to the connection between the Jewish People and its historic homeland. Like other Peoples, the Jewish People has a right to self-determination. Though the self-determination of the Arab People is expressed via twenty-one Arab countries, Israel is the sole expression of the self-determination of the Jewish People, which of all extant Peoples, has the strongest claim to be considered aboriginal to the territory west of the Jordan River.
Thus, the Jewish People is aboriginal to Israel in the same way that, in Canada, certain First Nations are deemed aboriginal to their ancestral lands. And, it is noteworthy that the Supreme Court of Canada has decided that, where aboriginals maintain their historical connection with the land, aboriginal title can survive both sovereignty changes and influx of new populations resulting from foreign conquest.Yet, (bigotry by) Arabs, Muslims have denied that the Jews are a People within the context of the modern political and legal doctrine of the self-determination of Peoples. Keeping in mind that the Middle East has always had a significant Jewish population, including some Jews who, in each century, continued to live west of the Jordan River. Today, many of the sons and daughters of these Middle Eastern Jews are citizens of Israel, where they have been joined by Jews from many other countries. When In October 1917, the British Cabinet adopted, as a declared war aim, the creation of an entirely new country called "Palestine" to serve as "a national home for the Jewish People," it was done to help realize the Jewish People�s self-determination on its ancestral lands... so was the announcment to the world of Jewish-National-Home Palestine in the November 1917 Balfour Declaration. As the international decision to establish "a national home for the Jewish People" was the sole rationale for the 1922 creation of Jewish-National-Home Palestine which, under the aegis of the League of Nations. While deep into the 20th century, Arab leaders themselves failed to recognize the right to self-determination of a distinct Palestinian Arab People. For example, as principal Arab leader at the 1919-1920 Paris Peace Conference, Prince Feisal specifically accepted the plan to create Palestine as �a national home for the Jewish People� and his father, the Hashemite King of the Hedjaz (later part of Saudi Arabia) was party to the 1920 Sevres Treaty that explicitly stipulated that the newly-created Palestine would be "a national home for the Jewish People." [2]
One has described a "remarkable synergy" between the Australian aboriginals and the Jews: "The Jewish community is an ancient and oppressed people, as the Aborigines are; we were the indigenous people of the land of Israel who were kicked out of our land 2000 years ago." [3]
Jews - Ancient Indigenous Natives in the area
There's extensive research on The Dhimmi: (Indigenous) Jews & Christians Under Islam [4], 850,000 Jews had to flee Arab Muslim lands where they had lived for centuries - often longer than the Arabs who now claim to be its indigenous national people. [5]
JIMENA stands for: 'Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa', it is a human rights organization seeking to educate and advocate for the plight of Jewish refugees from the Middle East. Prior to 1948, approximately 850,000 Jews lived in Muslim countries of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf. Today, 99 percent of these ancient Jewish communities no longer exist due to Arab and Islamic government actions that directly led to their displacement. [6]
Jews are a multi-racial, multi-ethnic people. For about 50 years, the majority of the Jewish population of Israel has been Mizrahim - Jews indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa. Moreover, this community of Jews has lived in the Middle East and North Africa since time immemorial. Until the mid-twentieth century, in the 4,000-year history of the Jewish people, Mizrahim never left the region. (When Arab Muslims conquered the Middle East and North Africa, Jews were one of the few indigenous peoples that resisted conversion to Islam), [7]
Arab immigrants and their lies about being "natives"
The Arabs in the Holy Land - Aliens, not Natives! [8], The True Identity of the So-called Palestinians. The current myth is that these Arabs were long established in "Palestine", until the Jews came and "displaced" them. The fact is, that recent Arab immigration into the Land of Israel displaced the Jews. That the massive increase in Arab population was very recent is attested by the ruling of the United Nations: That any Arab who had lived in the Holy Land for two years and then left in 1948 qualifies as a "Palestinian refugee". Palestinians are the newest of all the peoples on the face of the Earth, and began to exist in a single day by a kind of supernatural phenomenon that is unique in the whole history of mankind, as it is witnessed by Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist that acknowledged the lie he was fighting for and the truth he was fighting against: "Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?" "We did not particularly mind Jordanian rule. The teaching of the destruction of Israel was a definite part of the curriculum, but we considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Palestinians - they removed the star from the Jordanian flag and all at once we had a Palestinian flag". "When I finally realized the lies and myths I was taught, it is my duty as a righteous person to speak out". [9], in fact, the myth of the Palestinian People serves as the justification for Arab occupation of the Land of Israel. [10]
An explanatory film came out to 'dispel Arab propaganda', on the tactics disguising the Arab immigrants as "indigenous native Palestinian" [11]
Even Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas Admits Palestinian Arabs Are Not Indigenous. From a speech given to the PLO [12]
A writer in: 'The Myth Of The Palestinian People,' Only one question never seems to be addressed: Who are the Palestinians? Who are these people who claim the Holy Land as their own? What is their history? Where did they come from? How did they arrive in the country they call Palestine? Not only pre-state Arabs lied about being indigenous. Even today, many prominent so-called Palestinians, it turns out, are foreign born. Edward Said, an Ivy League Professor of Literature and a major Palestinian propagandist, long claimed to have been raised in Jerusalem. However, in an article in the September 1999 issue of Commentary Magazine Justus Reid Weiner revealed that Said actually grew up in Cairo, Egypt, a fact which Said himself was later forced to admit. But why bother with Said? PLO chief Yasir Arafat himself, self declared 'leader of the Palestinian people', has always claimed to have been born and raised in 'Palestine'. In fact, according to his official biographer Richard Hart, as well as the BBC, Arafat was born in Cairo on August 24, 1929 and that's where he grew up. [13]
A writer in "The Real Palestinian Refugees": Jews have lived in Israel/Palestine for 4000 years and those Jewish families who have constantly lived in the country since Biblical times, the mustarabim, are the indigenous Palestinians. (There has never been a 2000 year absence).
The first Arabs came to the country in the 7th century in the wake of their conquering armies after the death of Mohammed. They've been immigrating, and emigrating, ever since, bringing with them their civil wars (in which Jews were severely persecuted by both sides) and their screwed-up environmental concepts that turned forest into desert. Other groups of peoples also immigrated to Israel/Palestine during this time, especially the Druze. (Today, if you call a Druze an Arab, you've just insulted him. This was told to me by a Druze.) Perhaps the earliest Zionist pioneers did have to fight Arab marauders and make the desert bloom, but they did not come to an empty land. Maybe it was sparsely populated, but it was not empty of Jews.
In 1920/1. The first Palestinian refugees were Jews. In the aftermath of WWI, after the Arab riots.
In 1922, in a continuing policy of appeasing the Arabs, 75% of Palestine was taken away from the Jews and the Emirate of Transjordan was created, later to become Jordan. First the British, then the Arabs, banned the entry of Jews from the area - a policy that continued until very recently. [14]
Desolated "Palestine" in the late 1800
The Land of Israel, according to dozens of visitors to the land, was, until the beginning of the last century, practically empty. Alphonse de Lamartine visited the land in 1835. [15]
On a visit to the Ottoman-controlled Holy Land in 1860, Mark Twain described it as "the prince of desolation." "The hills are barren� the valleys unsightly deserts� peopled by swarms of beggars struck with ghastly sores and malformations� Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes� only the music of angels could charm its shrubs and flowers again into life."
Other writers and artists visiting the Holy Land (chiefly from Britain and Germany) � as well as geographers, archeologists, and cartographers � were equally stunned by its utter desolation.
It was only toward the end of the 18th century, when a growing stream of Jewish immigrants rehabilitated the land � draining swamps, reclaiming deserts, and controlling the diseases (chiefly malaria) � that a decimated Arab population began increasing. The resuscitation of the land by the Jews and the economic opportunity they created brought an influx of Arab immigrants from dirt-poor neighboring Arab states to swell the number of Arabs in Palestine, so that by the turn of the century there were about 250,000 Arab Muslims and 150,00 Jews living there. 100,000 Christians and others was common colonial practice: divide and rule. In India, it enabled the British to subdue the subcontinent with few troops by pitting hostile segments of the indigenous population against each other. They employed this strategy in Palestine too. British officials, many of them avowed anti-Semites, fanned Arab resentment over broken British promises to make the Arabian chieftain, Faisal, king of Damascus and Syria, and redirected it against Jewish aspirations in Palestine. Their naming the mandate over the Holy Land "Palestine," rather than the land of Israel, was a deliberate effort to obliterate the Jewish connection to the land by calling it by its Roman name. [16]
In the early 19th century, Palestine was a backward, neglected province of the Ottoman Empire. Travelers to Palestine from the Western world left records of what they saw there. The theme throughout their reports is dismal: The land was empty, neglected, abandoned, desolate, fallen into ruins.
In Jerusalem, all reports and journals of travelers, pilgrims and government representatives during these years, repeatedly record the poverty, filth and neglect and the desolate nature of the countryside. Early photographs show lepers in rags and dilapidated buildings. Jerusalem was surrounded by marauding bands of Bedouin Arabs and had to close her gates at nightfall and reopen them at first light, a practice that was similar in Biblical times.
Some quotes from the writings of these visitors before modern times:
Nothing there [Jerusalem] to be seen but a little of the old walls which is yet remaining and all the rest is grass, moss and weeds. [English pilgrim in 1590]
The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is of a body of population. [British consul in 1857]
There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent [valley of Jezreel] -- not for 30 miles in either direction... One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings. ... For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee ... Nazareth is forlorn ... Jericho lies a moldering ruin ... Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation... untenanted by any living creature... A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds ... a silent, mournful expanse ... a desolation ... We never saw a human being on the whole route ... Hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil had almost deserted the country ... Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery Palestine must be the prince. The hills barren and dull, the valleys unsightly deserts [inhabited by] swarms of beggars with ghastly sores and malformations. Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes ... desolate and unlovely ... [Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, 1867] [17]
Israel - result of a national Liberation of the aboriginal Jews
Israel can be seen as the result of the national liberation movement of the region's aboriginal Jews. Liberation of the aboriginal Jews (and anyone else lucky enough to find refuge within Israel's borders) from the twin fascisms of pan-Arabism and Islamism which have oppressed and even eliminated so many of the region�s aboriginal ethnic groups. Israel's aboriginal Jews were not unique in accepting outside help (and even immigration) in their liberation struggle, so were Lebanon's Maronites; Egypt's Copts, Iraq and Turkey's Kurds, and Iran's Zoroastrians. [18], as a commentator said: It is immoral to ethnically cleanse Judea of its aboriginal Jews. as It is immoral to ethnically cleanse Australia of its Australian aborigines, It is immoral to ethnically cleanse Judea of its Jewish aborigines (Jews = originally from Judea). [19]
One major difference between the Jews' return to the Land of Israel and the restitution of the title that indigenous groups have to their traditional lands in Australia and Canada is that the latter occurred within the political framework of states that have established legislative and judicial institutions and law enforcement agencies. These institutions draft the principles that define the relationships among all of their subjects, and they settle any disputes which might arise. In contrast, the Jews' return to Palestine occurred in an international context in which such legislative, judicial, and law enforcement institutions were in their embryonic stages. [20]
www.padminiarhant.com
The past week - April 20 -24, 2009, Geneva, Switzerland hosted ‘The Durban II conference’ on racism. The preceding event in 2001 held in Durban, South Africa marred by racial overtones and negative attacks against the state of Israel evidently led the United States and Western allies to boycott the recent U.N meeting.
It was a United Nations gathering to address the persisting contemporary discriminatory practices often transforming into persecution, oppression and even genocide in some parts of the world. According to the White House and media reports, the reason behind United States and allies’ absence at the symposium was the blue print content notably against Israel by the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, the United Nations’ assurance to eliminate any anti-Israeli inflammatory remarks from the Iranian President’s speech failed in convincing the United States, Israel and others to attend the world forum.
Meanwhile, predictably the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad’s rhetorical speech caused spectacle prompting other European diplomats to briefly abandon the summit. To the United Nations’ credit, the subsequent address by the Iranian President modified to reflect reality on the tragic holocaust previously denied by the political figure.
Whenever a consortium organized to deal with sensitive humanitarian issue of great magnitude, the stage is set for fireworks and doesn’t require more than a spark to ignite the flame into blazing fire. All those refuting the one nation’s contentious repetitive conduct, regrettably ignored the wide spectrum of humanitarian crises around the world. The objection against a particular nation’s demeanor effectively dismissed the urgency for unanimous solutions to global problems affecting humanity. Further, such action conspicuously displayed hierarchy prevalent in the humanitarian priorities.
Every continent has nations with dark legacy and embarrassing episodes of human rights violation. In the new millennium, the global community challenged to empathize with those currently enduring incessant suffering due to lack of freedom, inequality, injustice including intolerance.
The Geneva conference was a great platform for the nations that boycotted the meeting exclusively the United States and Israel to express serious commitment in resolving the age-old Middle East conflict between Israel and Palestine. Any glimpse of hope in the two states solutions approved by vast majority of population on both sides with a free Palestine comprising West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem alongside the democratic Israel unequivocally accepted as a sovereign state in the entire region would have instantaneously gained credibility in the large presence of the United Nations.
Needlessly, as holocaust victims Israel was better qualified to condemn any crime against humanity and set an example by leading the world in the establishment of peace and democracy with its neighbor Palestine. Israel had a unique opportunity in Geneva to demonstrate solemn pledge and action to aid those, relevantly the Palestinians deserving similar liberty granted to Israel predominantly with the support and solidarity among the nations around the world. Israel’s unprecedented humanitarian gesture would have made it incumbent on the Arab nations at the conference to forge alliance in promoting regional unity and peace.
If the world would not have heeded to the humanitarian call for an Independent Israel, it could have resulted in the devastating annihilation of a specific human race. Likewise, South Africa proudly declaring results from a democratic election today would have succumbed to oppressive apartheid without the international community’s involvement in the freedom of that nation.
There is immense misery and extreme hardships in various parts of the world. People in these regions generally exposed to despair, depression and death at infancy consider themselves fortunate if they live beyond the short life expectancy because of poverty, disease, war and deprivation of basic human rights.
Geneva conference reached a broad based consensus against racial and gender discrimination, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia other than human rights abuses across the globe. An international assembly by governments from most parts of the world had the moment and venue to review pertinent matter concerning different nations and people. Unfortunately, the U.N committee presumably under intense pressure from nations prioritizing political agenda in their allegiance to a single ally, did not layout the importance of relieving humanity from the perpetual violence through war, invasion and occupation reminiscent of the twentieth century’s imperialism and colonialism .
Is there deficiency in related topics involving the remaining population on the planet seeking entitlement to the international representation, rescue and relief from burgeoning crimes against innocent civilians?
Only if rationality and utilitarianism prevailed over popular political dogma of individualism, the desirable goals for fairness and justice are attainable in human affairs.
Is the struggle for peace and independence by the population in Palestine, Burma, Tibet, and North Korea any less significant than the international feud between Israel and Iran?
What about the status quo of civil wars contributing to genocides in Rwanda, Darfur, Congo and other parts of Africa?
Should the world ignore the escalating ethnic cleansing in Sri Lanka as an internal matter rather than an international moral issue?
Where was the denunciation of the pervasive Taliban abuse of women in Afghanistan now dangerously spreading to the Northwestern regions of Pakistan?
Why did the summit not extensively focus on the various abuses in Latin, Central and South America and China, notwithstanding the denial of equal status to women in the Middle East and other Islamic nations?
On the generic concept of racism, xenophobia - typically the fear of the unknown, homophobia - the overt hate crimes against gay and trans-gender community and other horrific incidents in human trafficking, child pornography and numerous offenses were excluded during the five-day long international meeting.
Apparently, the interpretation of ‘tolerance’ in the crimes against humanity is subject to the relationship among existing and emerging economic and political powers in the global society.
The protocol on protests, boycott and co-operation alike varies depending on the nations along with political and economic repercussions arising from such action.
For example, the Iranian President’s controversial stance against Israel held responsible for the Western nations’ boycott of the latest Geneva conference on racism while implying the other attendees’ motive questionable.
Nevertheless, the human rights activists’ plea to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics to draw attention towards the plight of the Tibetan population persecuted by the hour and suppression of the democracy movement in the People’s Republic of China rejected by the participating nations prominently those who recently boycotted the Geneva conference.
It is widespread knowledge that the emerging economic power China being the treasury and Exchequer for the world economy, a nuclear nation possessing veto power routinely exercised against common benefit in the U.N. Security Council decisions, privileged with supreme diplomatic immunity in all things inhumane.
In the recent G-20 summit, call for globalization over protectionism dominated the theme for global economic revival. Synonymously, in the environmental matter and international security collective effort embraced as a successful strategy. Henceforth, collaborative action regarded imminent to resolve international crises.
Ironically, abstaining from leadership at the summit to formulate policies in the restoration of human rights, freedom and civil liberties, the fundamental requirements for peace, progress and prosperity, creates a vacuum rather than serving the real purpose.
History is testimony to the rise and fall of civilizations that fair well when guided by wisdom, compassion and courage for universal good.
Adolf Hitler / Nazis hated Arabs as an inferior “race”, yet praised Islam in its ‘war like’ TOTALITARIAN ideology He saw them as a great disposable tool to be used against the Jews, the mufti fell for it.
SPLCenter.org: The Swastika and the Crescent, Although he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped“), Hitler understood that he and the Mufti shared the same rivals, British and the Jews… http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=242
ESSAY - May 2002 By Martin A. Lee …Ahmed Huber: Neo-Nazi, Islamic convert… The roots of the Muslim Brotherhood and, in many ways, the Nazi-Muslim axis go back to the organisation’s formation in Egypt in 1928. Marking the start of modern political “Islamic fundamentalism,” the Brotherhood from the outset envisioned a time when an Islamic state would prevail in Egypt and other Arab countries.
The growth of the Muslim Brotherhood coincided with the rise of fascist movements in Europe - a parallel noted by Muhammad Sa’id al-’Ashmawy, former chief justice of Egypt’s High Criminal Court, who decried “the perversion of Islam” and “the fascistic ideology” that infuses the world view of the Brothers. Youssef Nada, current board chairman of Al Taqwa, had joined the armed branch of the Muslim Brotherhood as a young man in Egypt during World War II. Nada and several of his cohorts in the Sunni Muslim fraternity were recruited by German military intelligence. Hassan al-Banna, the Egyptian schoolteacher who founded the Muslim Brotherhood, also collaborated with spies of the Third Reich. Advocating a pan-Islamic insurgency in British-controlled Palestine, the Brotherhood proclaimed their support for the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, in the late 1930s.
The Grand Mufti, the preeminent religious figure among Palestinian Muslims, was the most notable Arab leader to seek an alliance with Nazi Germany. Although he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped”), Hitler understood that he and the Mufti shared the same rivals - the British, the Jews and the Communists. They met in Berlin, where the Mufti lived in exile during the war. The Mufti agreed to help organise a special Muslim division of the Waffen SS. Powerful radio transmitters were put at the Mufti’s disposal so that his pro-Axis propaganda could be heard throughout the Arab world. http://www.aijac.org.au/review/2002/275/essay275.html
War aims in the second world war: the war aims of the major belligerents … - by Victor Rothwell - History - 2005 - 244 pages (Page 41) However, the Nazis were clear in their minds that the Arabs were racially inferior, and there would, therefore, be no pleasure to be had from helping them in anything except for the extermination of Jews in their region. http://books.google.com/books?id=XfgLbSc94MEC&pg=PA41
Islam, Nazism, and Totalitarianism
During an interview conducted in the late 1930s (published in 1939), Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychiatry, was asked “…had he any views on what was likely to be the next step in religious development?” Jung replied, in reference to the Nazi fervor that had gripped Germany We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Muhammad. The emotion in Germany is Islamic; warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with wild god. That can be the historic future. Albert Speer, who was Hitler’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, wrote a contrite memoir of his World War II experiences while serving a 20-year prison sentence imposed by the Nuremberg tribunal.
Speer’s narrative includes this discussion, which captures Hitler’s racist views of Arabs on the one hand, and his effusive praise for Islam on the other:
Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of distinguished Arabs. When the Mohammedans attempted to penetrate beyond France into Central Europe during the eighth century, his visitors had told him, they had been driven back at the Battle of Tours. Had the Arabs won this battle, the world would be Mohammedan today. For theirs was a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament. Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire. Hitler usually concluded this historical speculation by remarking, “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?” http://www.andrewbostom.org/content/view/61/55/
The roots of Arab Anti-Semitism - By David Greenberg - Slate Magazine Oct 31, 2001 … As he notes, anti-Semitism in Arab countries (and non-Arab Islamic states such as Iran) …. East—they were eager to make common cause with Hitler, despite Nazi belief that they, like the Jews, were inferior to Aryans. … http://www.slate.com/id/2057949/
The third Reich & the Palestine question - Francis R. Nicosia - 2000 - History - 319 pages (Page 85) Most Arabs never realized that the Nazis would consider them racially inferior as well and that Germany had no intention of undermining British authority in … http://books.google.com/books?id=xh4m-OMrhJUC&pg=PA85
The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj … Chuck Morse - 2003 - History - 188 pages (page 53) … as Hitler was known to have described the Arabs as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped,” to a lower race … http://books.google.com/books?id=HGkthBwbNg8C&pg=PA53
Despite Hitler’s personal antipathy towards Arabs, who he once described as lacquered half apes who ought to be whipped, he nevertheless was prepared to … http://www.thecst.org.uk/docs/An%20unholy%20alliance%201801%20original.doc
The Beast Reawakens: Fascism’s Resurgence from Hitler’s Spymasters …Martin A. Lee - 1999 - Political Science - 560 pages (page 122) Even though he loathed Arabs (he once described them as “lacquered half-apes who ought to be whipped”), Hitler was nonetheless the idol of the paramilitary … http://books.google.com/books?id=SX4B7pNG3W8C&pg=PA122
In General, Christians, Baha’i, Kurds, Jews, Azeris, Baluchis, Ahwazi Arabs
The 2500 year old Jewish community, which numbered over 80,000 thirty years ago at the time of the Khoemeni Revolution which overthrew the Shah, has dwindled to about 20,000. Those remaining Jews live restricted personal and religious lives, always under suspicion of being traitors for pro “Zionist” activities.Despite the official distinction between “Jews,” “Zionists,” and “Israel,” the most common accusation the Jews encounter is that of maintaining contacts with Zionists. The Jewish community does enjoy a measure of religious freedom but is faced with constant suspicion of cooperating with the Zionist state and with “imperialistic America” — both such activities are punishable by death. Jews who apply for a passport to travel abroad must do so in a special bureau and are immediately put under surveillance. The government does not generally allow all members of a family to travel abroad at the same time to prevent Jewish emigration. Again, the Jews live under the status of dhimmi, with the restrictions im posed on religious minorities. Jewish leaders fear government reprisals if they draw attention to official mistreatment of their community.
Iran’s official government-controlled media often issues anti-Semitic propaganda. A prime example is the government’s publishing of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious Czarist forgery, in 1994 and 1999.2 Jews also suffer varying degrees of officially sanctioned discrimination, particularly in the areas of employment, education, and public accommodations.The Islamization of the country has brought about strict control over Jewish educational institutions. Before the revolution, there were some 20 Jewish schools functioning throughout the country. In recent years, most of these have been closed down. In the remaining schools, Jewish principals have been replaced by Muslims. In Teheran there are still three schools in which Jewish pupils constitute a majority. The curriculum is Islamic, and Persian is forbidden as the language of instruction for Jewish studies. Special Hebrew lessons are conducted on Fridays by the Orthodox Otzar ha-Torah organization, which is responsible for Jewish religious education. Saturday is no longer officially recognized as the Jewish sabbath, and Jewish pupils are compelled to attend school on that day. There are three synagogues in Teheran, but since 1994, there has been no rabbi in Iran, and the bet din does not function.At least 13 Jews have been executed in Iran since the Islamic revolution 30 years ago, most of them for either religious reasons or their connection to Israel. For example, in May 1998, Jewish businessman Ruhollah Kakhodah-Zadeh was hanged in prison without a public charge or legal proceeding, apparently for assisting Jews to emigrate.Other religious groups are persecuted too. This week Iran admitted that seven Bahai leaders arrested and detained more than eight months ago would be charged with spying for Israel. The Bahai faith, which began in the 19th century in what is now Iran, claims their founder, Baha’a'llah, is the last Moslem prophet, not Mohammed. Bahai’s international headquarters are located in Haifa, Israel where Bahais, along with Moslems and Christians of various backgrounds, plus other religions in addition to Jews can practice freely.This is not true in Iran.Bahais claim 300,000 followers in Iran, but there are no independent statistics on the denomination’s size in the country. The Islamic republic allows Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, who are regarded as members of monotheistic religions, to hold religious gatherings. Bahais are forbidden to hold such meetings, and those who make their faith public are banned from studying at universities serving in the army and working in government offices. The Iranian prosecutors claim“All evidence points to the fact that the Bahai organization is in direct contact with the foreign enemies of Iran,” Dorri-Najafabadi wrote in the letter, (snip) “The ghastly Bahai organization is illegal on all levels, their dependence on Israel has been documented, their antagonism with Islam and the Islamic System is obvious, their danger for national security is proven and any replacement organization must also be dealt with according to the law,”This charge is part of the latest prosecution against Iranian Bahais. The Bahai International Community, which represents members of the faith worldwide, says hundreds of followers have been jailed and some executed in the years since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/02/again_religious_persecution_in.html
Religious minorities in Iran: Information from Answers.com http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521770734
Iran Minority Newshttp://iranminoritynews.org/
Middle East Minorities Unite! by Joseph … Iran ’s Islamic republic has created serious problems for the large communities of non-Persian minorities, including the Azeri’s and the Baluchis and is … http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24209
Q&A: Iran’s Waning Human Rights - New York Times, Iran is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which affords legal rights to minorities and minors. Persecution of religious minorities …http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/world/slot1_081006.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
A couple of months ago (February 2nd to be precise), I authored a posting entitled, “John Yoo A Tough Decision to Defend for the President” regarding the redemption of America’s justice system in wake of all the miscarriages of justice which occurred during the Bush Administration and in particular those pertaining to John Yoo. Yoo was Bush’s lead legal adviser authoring legal memos concerning the treatment, incarceration and trial (hearings) proceedings of Iraqi and Afghan detainees.
Following up on my past posting I’ve learned others share equally in my interest of Mr. Yoo’s all encompassing ability of embarrassing our country in the eyes of the international community. In an article posted within Hoffington Post, Mr. Martin Garbus, a Trial lawyer, authored an article entitled: “The Times May Be Changing” where he states some of the following excerpts:
Now six years after Iraq started, nearly one hundred days into the new presidency, more and more information is coming out about the involvement of the Bush people in Iraq-related criminal acts. The legal memos and the statements of tortured detainees are only the beginning of what will soon be a flood of information. The legal machinery is starting to build, case by case, a rejection of Bush’s legal theories. Today’s decision from Federal Judge John Bates of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia that those detained in Afghanistan will have access to American courts builds on the recent cases that allow Guantanamo detainees access to the federal court. Judge Bates rejected both the Bush administration’s view and the recently articulated view of President Barack Obama that habeas corpus is not available to imprisoned non-Afghans who are arrested beyond Afghanistan. We are seeing a pattern in the Washington federal courts. The judges are not shying away from tacking tough issues. The concept that a man sitting in Baghram has a right he can enforce in an American court seemed impossible a few years ago. The constant rat-a-tat of the media, with pictures of the tortured prisoners clearly influences judges along with the rest of the population. Judges respond also when the president too set a higher standard. Attorney General Eric Holder is the one who must start the criminal process against Cheney, Gonzales, Yoo and the others. He does not shy away from difficult choices, given backing that lets him know he is not alone. He can, and has, taken positions that are ahead of Obama.
Now six years after Iraq started, nearly one hundred days into the new presidency, more and more information is coming out about the involvement of the Bush people in Iraq-related criminal acts. The legal memos and the statements of tortured detainees are only the beginning of what will soon be a flood of information.
The legal machinery is starting to build, case by case, a rejection of Bush’s legal theories. Today’s decision from Federal Judge John Bates of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia that those detained in Afghanistan will have access to American courts builds on the recent cases that allow Guantanamo detainees access to the federal court. Judge Bates rejected both the Bush administration’s view and the recently articulated view of President Barack Obama that habeas corpus is not available to imprisoned non-Afghans who are arrested beyond Afghanistan.
We are seeing a pattern in the Washington federal courts. The judges are not shying away from tacking tough issues. The concept that a man sitting in Baghram has a right he can enforce in an American court seemed impossible a few years ago. The constant rat-a-tat of the media, with pictures of the tortured prisoners clearly influences judges along with the rest of the population. Judges respond also when the president too set a higher standard.
Attorney General Eric Holder is the one who must start the criminal process against Cheney, Gonzales, Yoo and the others. He does not shy away from difficult choices, given backing that lets him know he is not alone. He can, and has, taken positions that are ahead of Obama.
Attorney General Holder’s decision today is easier than it was yesterday, and as more and more stories of brutalized prisoners come out, it will get even easier, especially with our President’s recent executive order of allowing wider windows to be opened to the public through the “Freedom of Information Act.
Judge Bates, and the judges before him, including the Supreme Court, have rejected the rationale of Bush’s Attorney General and supporting lawyers that gave the President “unitary powers.”
The public should let Eric Holder and the president know they support criminal prosecution of the Bush people. This may be accomplished by contacting the Department of Justice here.
Additional postings regarding this topic and others may be found here:
What is bias in the middle east conflict? [March, 2009]
Arabs’ racist killing (specifically) Jews *, is accepted “freedom fighting’'.
Israelis worried of Arab terror *, branded as “racists”.
*
War crimes, crimes against humanity by Palestinian Arab leadership - regime in Gaza * * * of using Arab civilians, making sure their kids die, for the “greater good (Jihadi-fascism’s goodness) of making Israel look bad…” * * * * * * *, using hospitals *, schools, UN medical vehicles * *, even aid material sent by humanitarian Israel * for murder, targeting at Israeli civilians, - shoved aside, ignored *.
Israel’s humane army’s extreme measures not to hit civilians (including 250,000 warning phone calls to Arab residents to evacuate a particular area designated to be included in an op., knowing full well terrorists can cease the opportunity and flea, as well as risking young soldiers’ lives in going door to door) * * * * aiming only at Hamas terrorists is denounced of “random shooting” and “war crimes”.
[Arab led pressure forcing Israel to conduct] Uprooting Jews from their homes and their ancestors’, AKA Transfer * * AKA Arab Palestinian Apartheid * is “good for peace”.
Transfer of Arabs (who don’t have more than 2 or 3 generations of history in Judea / Israel / Palestine * * * *) is “apartheid, fascist and racist” * (AKA Avigdor Lieberman).
While Hamas or even “Moderate” Fatah refuses to recognize Israel *, international aid is flowing their way.
UN is “busy” condemning Israel * * on whatever is being told (forced) by the global Arab Muslim oil lobby.
Anti-Zionism is hate
By Judea Pearl March 22, 2009
In January, four longtime Israel bashers were invited to the University of California, Los Angeles, to analyze the human rights conditions in Gaza, and used the stage to attack the legitimacy of Zionism and its vision of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.
They criminalized Israel’s existence, distorted its motives and maligned its character, its birth, even its conception. At one point, the excited audience reportedly chanted “Zionism is Nazism” and worse.
Jewish leaders condemned this hate-fest as a dangerous invitation to anti-Semitic hysteria. The organizers, some of them Jewish, took refuge in “academic freedom” and the argument that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.
I fully support this mantra, not because it exonerates anti-Zionists from charges of anti-Semitism but because the distinction helps us focus attention on the discriminatory, immoral and more dangerous character of anti-Zionism.
Anti-Zionism rejects the very notion that Jews are a nation - a collective bonded by a common history - and, accordingly, denies Jews the right to self-determination in their historical birthplace. It seeks the dismantling of the Jewish nation-state: Israel.
Anti-Zionism earns its discriminatory character by denying the Jewish people what it grants to other historically bonded collectives (e.g., French, Spanish, Palestinians): namely, the right to nationhood, self-determination and legitimate coexistence with other indigenous claimants.
Anti-Semitism rejects Jews as equal members of the human race; anti-Zionism rejects Israel as an equal member in the family of nations.
Are Jews a nation? Some philosophers would argue Jews are a nation first and religion second. Indeed, the narrative of Exodus and the vision of the impending journey to the land of Canaan were etched in the minds of the Jewish people before they received the Torah at Mount Sinai. But philosophy aside, the unshaken conviction in their eventual repatriation to the birthplace of their history has been the engine behind Jewish endurance and hopes throughout their turbulent journey that started with the Roman expulsion in A.D. 70.
More important, shared history, not religion, is today the primary uniting force behind the secular, multiethnic society of Israel. The majority of its members do not practice religious laws and do not believe in divine supervision or the afterlife. The same applies to American Jewry, which is likewise largely secular. Identification with a common historical ethos, culminating in the re-establishment of the state of Israel, is the central bond of Jewish collectivity in America.
There are, of course, Jews who are non-Zionists and even anti-Zionists. There are also Jews who find it difficult to defend their identity against the growing viciousness of anti-Israel propaganda.
But these are marginal minorities at best; the vital tissues of Jewish identity today feed on Jewish history and its natural derivatives - the state of Israel, its struggle for survival, its cultural and scientific achievements and its relentless drive for peace.
Given this understanding of Jewish nationhood, anti-Zionism is in many ways more dangerous than anti-Semitism.
First, anti-Zionism targets the most vulnerable part of the Jewish people, namely, the Jewish population of Israel, whose physical safety and personal dignity depend crucially on maintaining Israel’s sovereignty. Put bluntly, the anti-Zionist plan to do away with Israel condemns 5.5 million human beings, mostly refugees or children of refugees, to eternal defenselessness in a region where genocidal designs are not uncommon.
Second, modern society has developed antibodies against anti-Semitism but not against anti-Zionism. Today, anti-Semitic stereotypes evoke revulsion in most people of conscience, while anti-Zionist rhetoric has become a mark of academic sophistication and social acceptance in certain extreme yet vocal circles of U.S. academia and media elite. Anti-Zionism disguises itself in the cloak of political debate, exempt from sensitivities and rules of civility that govern inter-religious discourse, to attack the most cherished symbol of Jewish identity.
Finally, anti-Zionist rhetoric is a stab in the back to the Israeli peace camp, which overwhelmingly stands for a two-state solution. It also gives credence to enemies of coexistence who claim that the eventual elimination of Israel is the hidden agenda of every Palestinian.
It is anti-Zionism, then, not anti-Semitism, that poses a more dangerous threat to lives, historical justice and the prospects of peace in the Middle East.
Judea Pearl is a professor at UCLA and the president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. This article originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.israel22mar22,0,72685.story
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Terrorists - justifier Rashid Khalidi has a "new" book - yet he's the same old "average Arab racist"
Rashid Khalidi (on c-span 2, books) (Author: 'Sowing Crisis') wants us to believe that Islamic republic of Iran is "not" linked to the terror organizations: Hamas, Hezbollah and that these groups have "legitimate" concerns.
Desperate as he is to act as if he's on a 'research' row and making a show of someone who's really "looking at the region from a broader angle", he did talk at first quite smoothly, dancing around and mentioning "other" problems we the USA have (supposedly) created in the region, like Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran (no, he didn't mention Carter's role in indirectly overthrowing the Shah, that led to the current Islamofascistic totalitarianism), you almost thought that Rashid might really be an academic, in the real sense of the word.
But as an average Arab Muslim "academic" he can never escape his burning Arab-racism against the Jews, though polishing his way to the maximum, he had to come to his essential venomous point, all in all, his punch line is really, the same old hateful cliche theme, "It's all Israel's fault", especially towards the end, when he was asked some questions, you could see how he was "lit" as if by a switch that turns on the Arab "moderates" hatred flames - they can never seem to resist, and fall into it each and every time.To his credit, most Arab propagandists are less patient... you don't have to wait even that long to see their outbursts.It was a small room, filled by either Arabs, or the gullible, one Arab "American" journalist is even a brazen open Jihadists-Hamas-Hezbollah supporter, none has asked about his propaganda statement that Iran fears Israel's nukes - as a "reason" for why they might be pursuing nuclear weapons, no one has asked the obvious: Did (democratic) Israel ever threaten to wipe out (oppressive) Iran like the Islamic fascist genocidal Republic did? or did Israel ever attack Iran like Iran attacked Israel via Hezbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad?
Never mind his Pro-Jihad statement defending Hamas, Hezbollah, portraying them as "political" movements with "concerns", and no one was refuting him - pointing to the true nature of these Jihadists that openly declare their real goal - to erase Israel.If you were to turn in towards the end, all you could hear is repeated word "occupation", more than a few times... (as you know), all crimes under the sun are all washed by this excuse, used by the children of Arab immigrants, (that have invaded the land of Israel - "Palestine," since the 1800's), and is being heard by him, as by any Arab "journalist" like a spiral.
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Related:Khalidi's New Book and Old Story http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2009/03/khalidis-new-book-and-old-story.html
Solomonia Archive: Columbia Watch: Rashid Khalidi On the other hand, this is Rashid Khalidi, and he does represent Columbia ... .http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/009032.shtml
Rashid Khalidi's Appointment at Columbia University...http://www.danielpipes.org/1234/rashid-khalidis-appointment-at-columbia-university
Jan 20, 2009 ... Hamas's Academic Cheerleaders [incl. Hamid Dabashi, Rashid Khalidi, Fawaz Gerges, Joseph Massad, Muqtedar Khan, Mark LeVine, et al.http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6708
Camera-Ready Victims [incl. Rashid Khalidi]: Hamas practices human sacrifice; the world shrugs. - Campus Watch.http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6622
by Rabbi Arthur Waskow 01-29-2009
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/01/29/beyond-gaza-an-abrahamic-peace/
Beyond anguish, what can we say about the massive death and destruction in Gaza and the traumatic fear of falling rockets in Israel? How do we shape not just the temporary palliative of “cease-fire,” but a true alternative? Not just in pretty theory, but in political practicality?
The Obama administration could start by insisting that the Israeli and Egyptian governments open the borders of Gaza to shipments of food and medicine and fuel, while improving the prevention of importing weapons. At the same time, it could refuse to supply Israel with white phosphorus and other weapons that the Israeli government illegally used against the civilian population of Gaza.
But such changes –- only the beginning –- will not happen without public demand for change from a new political alliance inside the U.S. and a new nonviolent campaign by Palestinians, Israelis, and Europeans.First of all, Palestinians could change reality on the ground by mounting vigorous, assertive, nonviolent resistance to the blockade/embargo. In the weeks just before the invasion of Gaza, small boatloads of people were bringing food and medical supplies to Gaza, ignoring or violating the Israeli blockade. After the invasion began, two more such boats were forced to turn back by the Israeli Navy.
These “ship-ins” were building support in much of the world, pointing out the injustice and violence of the blockade. Instead of canceling the cease-fire and firing rockets once again, Hamas could have turned those boats into a multitude. They might have built an enormous popular pressure in Europe and the U.S. for an end to the blockade and negotiations between Israel, the various powers, and Hamas.
Even now, with or without support from Hamas, European doctors, academics, clergy, political leaders, and peace activists could sponsor a flotilla of “ship-ins.” And Palestinians who live in Israel and in the allegedly “annexed” East Jerusalem could start blockading Israeli roads in a strictly nonviolent way –- not even stone-throwing. They could and would be joined by some Israelis.
Such an effort to challenge in a new way the assumptions behind Israeli power could galvanize a new response from the world at large –- even from the United States. But even if such a nonviolent campaign does not emerge, there are the beginnings of a more conventional approach to peacemaking.
Any effort to heal the wounds of the Middle East must include the Palestinian-Israeli relationship but cannot stop there. For years, the Arab League, led by Saudi Arabia, has proposed a regional peace settlement that would bring peace to Israel in exchange for the recognition of a new and viable Palestinian state. The Israeli government, with support from the U.S. government, has ignored the proposal. But for many Israelis, this would actually be the fulfillment of the dream of a secure and peaceful life.
Can an Israeli government now say, “We are ready to join in these negotiations”? We are ready to deal with a new Palestinian government of national unity that includes Hamas, which obviously has considerable strength among the Palestinian community. For us the deal must include only very small symbolic numbers of Palestinian refugees returning to Israel itself, and control of the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Perhaps now, after the Gaza invasion, any Israeli government can do this and say that they have not rewarded terrorism, are not negotiating from weakness, have shown they can be bloody. But would they want to? That would require a deep rethinking because it would mean a serious commitment to ending the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as the blockade of Gaza. Settlers and other opponents of doing this, though fewer in numbers than those who will support it, will be much more intense in their opposition. So the government is likely to be paralyzed, refusing to do what is necessary for peace, resorting to old slogans and the institutional and cultural power of the military to justify paralysis.
So the necessary counterweight for this domestic paralysis will have to come from outside -– that is, the United States. Appointing George Mitchell, the weaver of the Irish peace settlement, as peace envoy to the Middle East is an excellent start. But it will mean little unless the U.S. adopts a whole new policy toward the region.
The alternative policy for the U.S. government would be to use the disaster of Gaza to insist on a regional Middle East peace conference; to insist that even a Netanyahu government of Israel and even a Hamas leadership of Gaza or Palestine take part and accept a decent peace; to connect the end of the U.S. occupation of Iraq with serious diplomacy with Iran and a political settlement of the Afghan agony; and to move swiftly off the fossil fuel addiction that drives a planetary disaster and drives American policy into corruption or conquest in the Middle Eastern oil pools.
Only the biggest response can meet the need. Half-measures, the normal response of governments facing complex conflict, will not work.
And what might make such a break with automatic U.S. policy possible? The presidency of an unusual person chanting “change” is not enough. There are only two clusters of power in the U.S. with enough passion about the Middle East to matter. One is Big Oil. The other is the ethnic and religious passion of American Christians, Jews, and Muslims. If sizeable parts of these groups could work together for such a policy, it might be possible.
For many Jews and Muslims, that is even harder now than it was a month ago. But for others, the shock of so much blood has already brought about unexpected alliances -– and could make it possible.
At the grassroots in some American communities, some Jews have joined with some Muslims in local demonstrations calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. The peace-oriented American Jewish organizations might be willing to take their previous positions one step further. They might be able to work with American Arabs, Muslims, Christians, and others to press the new administration toward a grand peace.
The building blocks for such a coalition now exist. Can they be mortared together? A roused Muslim-American community, not yet well organized for political action but speedily getting more so; the beginnings of an independent base in the Jewish community (Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, J Street, Americans for Peace Now, The Shalom Center, the Israel Policy Forum, Tikkun, Jewish Voice for Peace) that could draw strength from the majority of real live American Jews – who support such a result but whose politics are unvoiced by the big American Jewish organizations; mainstream Protestant groups that are raring to go and will be effective if they can focus on changing U.S. policy instead of parading their own personal purity as in the divestment campaigns, and if they have Jewish allies so as not to be accused (or accuse themselves) of anti-Semitism; a vague Roman Catholic support for the same result, which might be stimulated into action; black community support, pro-peace and ready to affirm Palestinian self-determination, but so far not focused on this issue because there are other urgencies and they feel the need for Jewish allies to address those urgencies; and non-religiously or ethnically identified progressives, if they can get over their habit of treating the word “Zionist” as a curse word and start clearly condemning terrorist attacks on civilians by the underdogs, as well as military attacks, occupation, and blockade by the uber-dogs.
The effort to shape such a Grand Abrahamic Alliance should begin now.
Rabbi Arthur Waskow is director of The Shalom Center, which voices a new prophetic agenda in Jewish, multireligious, and American life. He is co-author of The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims, as well as the author of many books on Jewish thought and practice and U.S. public policy.
Stephen Zunes wrote this article as part of A Just Foreign Policy, the Summer 2008 issue of YES! Magazine. Link: http://www.yesmagazine.org/other/pop_print_article.asp?ID=2683
Peace between Israelis and Palestinians is possible悠sraeli security and Palestinian rights are not mutually exclusive, but rather each is impossible without the other.
The Palestinian Authority and virtually all the Arab states are now on record expressing their willingness to recognize Israel and to provide security guarantees in return for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands conquered in the June 1967 war. This would leave the Palestinians with just 22 percent of historic Palestine. Nonetheless, the U.S.-backed Israeli position is that the Palestinians should be allowed an independent 都tate・on even less territory and only in a series of non-contiguous cantons surrounded by Israel and with the Israeli government controlling the air space, water resources, and the movement of people and goods.
Unlike some earlier periods in Israel痴 past, the country痴 survival is no longer at stake. The Israeli military is far more powerful than any combination of Arab armies. Despite the threat of periodic shelling and suicide bombings from Islamic extremists, most Israelis are relatively secure within their country痴 internationally recognized borders. Where Israeli soldiers and civilians are most vulnerable is in the occupied Palestinian territories. In these areas, illegal Israeli settlements and roads 650;eserved for Jews only幼reate an apartheid-like situation, and make it extremely difficult for Israeli forces to defend against a population angry at the occupiers who have confiscated what is often their best land. Israel would be far more secure defending a clearly defined and internationally recognized border than an archipelago of illegal outposts within Palestinian territory.
It is the ongoing Israeli occupation and colonization of the West Bank, along with the siege of the Gaza Strip, which creates the hopelessness and desperation that breed extremist violence. Only when the occupation ends will the threat from Palestinian terrorism finally have a realistic chance of being controlled.
U.S. policy in this troubled region has become increasingly controversial, but it should not be criticized as being too 菟ro-Israel.・U.S.-backed Israeli policies are not only jeopardizing the human rights of their Arab victims, they are hurting Israel痴 legitimate interests as well.
撤eace・proposals that allow Israel to annex large swathes of occupied Palestinian territory様ike those the Clinton administration pushed at Camp David in 2000 and the Bush administration has been supporting subsequently幼annot provide rights or security to either side. A truly pro-Israel policy would maintain the U.S. commitment to the security and well-being of the Jewish state, but would insist that Israel end its occupation, withdraw from its illegal settlements, and allow for the emergence of a viable, contiguous, independent Palestinian state.
This may require that the United States apply pressure 768;uch as withholding military and economic aid擁f the Israeli government continues to violate its obligations under international humanitarian law. Such aid does not help Israel much anyway. Indeed, most of the more than $2 billion in annual 杜ilitary assistance・to Israel amounts to a credit line to American arms manufacturers and actually ends up costing Israelis two to three times that amount for personnel, training, and spare parts. The additional $2 billion in U.S. economic aid is little more than the interest Israel is required to pay American banks from loans for previous arms purchases.
Many of those in Washington who call themselves supporters of Israel are supporting Israel痴 hawks who are making the country more dependent upon the United States. This increases Israel痴 vulnerability by preventing it from recognizing its natural alliance with the world痴 Afro-Asian majority. Within Israel, there is a solid progressive minority that supports the necessary compromises for peace and a similar-sized militaristic minority that does not. Most Israelis are in the middle and, as Israeli scholar and peace activist Galia Golan describes it, 典hey will lean left when Israel is feeling pressure from the United States but lean right in situations like today when there is no U.S. pressure.・
The combination of Israeli technology, Palestinian entrepreneurship and industriousness, and Arabian oil wealth could result in an economic, political, and social transformation of the Middle East. This would be highly beneficial to the region痴 inhabitants, but not necessarily to powerful U.S. interests who benefit from the current policy of divide-and-rule. An Israel at peace with its neighbors would be far less likely to be willing to serve as a reliable ally in support of U.S. hegemonic designs in this critical region.
If the United States really wants to be a friend of Israel, the U.S. government must apply some 鍍ough love.・This would entail unconditional support for Israel痴 right to exist in peace and security, but with an insistence that Israel uphold its international obligations and withdraw its settlers and troops from the occupied territories. Only then can the violence end and peace become a reality. And only then will the United States be a true friend of Israel.
Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, where he chairs the Middle East Studies program. He is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage, 2003) and a member of the advisory board of the Tikkun Community. www.stephenzunes.org
At least one case of "Moderate" Arab Muslims' bigotry - defeated [Arabism's racism]
Bret Stephens on http://www.foxnews.com/journal/"hits & misses", The Fining of UAE over denial of visa to Israeli tennis player is a "defeat for bigotry"
WTA fines Dubai Open organisers after Israeli Shahar Peer denied visa - Feb 20, 2009 The Women's Tennis Association has fined the Dubai Open organisers $US300,000 ($A465,000) after the United Arab Emirates refused to grant a visa to Israeli ...
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,25086276-23209,00.html
Under-fire UAE likely to give Israel's Andy Ram a visaIsraeli doubles specialist Andy Ram is likely to be granted a visa by the United Arab Emirates to play in the Dubai Championships next week, which could prevent a major crisis for tennis..."To discriminate as the UAE did against one player in this way smacks of bigotry and racism," the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations said in a statement. "This must be declared unacceptable by the WTA and all international sporting associations. As we learned in the past, failure to condemn such actions and take corrective measures, proves destructive to international sporting competition."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/atptour/4692024/Under-fire-UAE-likely-to-give-Israels-Andy-Ram-a-visa.html
Sponsors pull out of Dubai Open after UAE deny visa to IsraeliRACISM ROW: The Wall Street Journal Europe and the Tennis Channel have revoked their sponsorship of the WTA Dubai Open because the UAE denied a visa to Israeli player Shahar Peer.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,25072951-5005401,00.html
Tennis: Racism Rears Its Ugly Head Shahar Peer is an Israeli tennis player. The United Arab Emirates barred her from participating in the Barclays Dubai tournament
http://ballhype.com/story/tennis_racism_rears_its_ugly_head/
United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has no diplomatic links with Israel, denied her an entry visa into the country. "To discriminate as the UAE did against one player in this way smacks of bigotry and racism,"
http://www.javno.com/en-sports/jewish-leaders-call-on-wta-to-sanction-dubai-event_235390
Will Obama’s stimulus plan work……… NO
You don’t need to be great economist to figure it out. First look into why US went into this recession. Is it just irresponsible sub-prime lending by financial institution??? …….NO. That is just one of the superficial reasons which brought recession. The main reason is overall US foreign policies. For the US economy to sustain and grow, it has to do business with ALL over the world. The stimulus plan will create only short term growth. For long term sustained growth, it has to sell its products & services all over the world. To sell all over the world it has to make friends & allies. Thanks to US foreign polices over the years and mainly during George “W” Bush tenure, it has made more adversaries than allies. Even the last biggest recession in 1970’s came thanks to US foreign policy of unilaterally supporting Israel by air lifting more than 25,000 tons of military equipment for its war against its neighboring countries, which made them turn against US and block sale of oil to US. This time, its direct war with Iraq which cost it more than 600 billion and counting. Why did US did attack on Iraq when Atomic energy agencies had given it clean chit that it doesn’t have any nuclear war heads or WMD? (Till not a single was found). Effortless answer is to get rid of tyrant Saddam Hussein………..NO It was to demolish a country that was challenging the existence of Israel. US fought on behalf of Israel and itself into recession for second time. Zionist lobbies in US capitol is making US take those decision which just benefitting Israel become a more and more diabolic & regional terror, by which it not just making 57 Muslim countries adversary of US but also many other countries are becoming its foe. What is US getting in return from Israel …….. nothing except recessions & enemies. Till the time US does not close this hole in the economy, till will never grow to true potential and long term sustained growth.
In-depth Study: How much is US Tax payers are funding Israel????
Generous as it is, what Israelis actually got in U.S. aid is considerably less than what it has cost U.S. taxpayers to provide it. The principal difference is that so long as the U.S. runs an annual budget deficit, every dollar of aid the U.S. gives Israel has to be raised through U.S. government borrowing.
In an article in The Washington Report for December 1991/January 1992, Frank Collins estimated the costs of this interest, based upon prevailing interest rates for every year since 1949. I have updated this by applying a very conservative 5 percent interest rate for subsequent years, and confined the amount upon which the interest is calculated to grants, not loans or loan guarantees.
On this basis the $84.8 billion in grants, loans and commodities Israel has received from the U.S. since 1949 cost the U.S. an additional $49,936,880,000 in interest.
There are many other costs of Israel to U.S. taxpayers, such as most or all of the $45.6 billion in U.S. foreign aid to Egypt since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979 (compared to $4.2 billion in U.S. aid to Egypt for the preceding 26 years). U.S. foreign aid to Egypt, which is pegged at two-thirds of U.S. foreign aid to Israel, averages $2.2 billion per year.
There also have been immense political and military costs to the U.S. for its consistent support of Israel during Israel's half-century of disputes with the Palestinians and all of its Arab neighbors. In addition, there have been the approximately $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees and perhaps $20 billion in tax-exempt contributions made to Israel by American Jews in the nearly half-century since Israel was created.
Even excluding all of these extra costs, America's $84.8 billion in aid to Israel from fiscal years 1949 through 1998, and the interest the U.S. paid to borrow this money, has cost U.S. taxpayers $134.8 billion, not adjusted for inflation. Or, put another way, the nearly $14,630 every one of 5.8 million Israelis received from the U.S. government by Oct. 31, 1997 has cost American taxpayers $23,240 per Israeli.
The only members of Congress who even suspect the full total of U.S. funds received by Israel each year are the privileged few committee members who actually mark it up. And almost all members of the concerned committees are Jewish, have taken huge campaign donations orchestrated by Israel's Washington, DC lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or both. These congressional committee members are paid to act, not talk. So they do and they don't.
The same applies to the president, the secretary of state, and the foreign aid administrator. They all submit a budget that includes aid for Israel, which Congress approves, or increases, but never cuts. But no one in the executive branch mentions that of the few remaining U.S. aid recipients worldwide, all of the others are developing nations which either make their military bases available to the U.S., are key members of international alliances in which the U.S. participates, or have suffered some crippling blow of nature to their abilities to feed their people such as earthquakes, floods or droughts.
Benefits to Israel of U.S. AidSince 1949 (As of November 1, 1997)Foreign Aid Grants and Loans$74,157,600,000Other U.S. Aid (12.2% of Foreign Aid)$9,047,227,200Interest to Israel from Advanced Payments$1,650,000,000Grand Total$84,854,827,200Total Benefits per Israeli$14,630
Cost to U.S. Taxpayers of U.S.Aid to IsraelGrand Total$84,854,827,200Interest Costs Borne by U.S.$49,936,680,000Total Cost to U.S. Taxpayers$134,791,507,200Total Taxpayer Cost per Israeli$23,240
Since 1992, the U.S. has offered Israel an additional $2 billion annually in loan guarantees. Congressional researchers have disclosed that between 1974 and 1989, $16.4 billion in U.S. military loans were converted to grants and that this was the understanding from the beginning. Indeed, all past U.S. loans to Israel have eventually been forgiven by Congress, which has undoubtedly helped Israel's often-touted claim that they have never defaulted on a U.S. government loan. U.S. policy since 1984 has been that economic assistance to Israel must equal or exceed Israel's annual debt repayment to the United States. Unlike other countries, which receive aid in quarterly installments, aid to Israel since 1982 has been given in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year, leaving the U.S. government to borrow from future revenues. Israel even lends some of this money back through U.S. treasury bills and collects the additional interest.
In addition, there is the more than $1.5 billion in private U.S. funds that go to Israel annually in the form of $1 billion in private tax-deductible donations and $500 million in Israeli bonds. The ability of Americans to make what amounts to tax-deductible contributions to a foreign government, made possible through a number of Jewish charities, does not exist with any other country. Nor do these figures include short- and long-term commercial loans from U.S. banks, which have been as high as $1 billion annually in recent years.
Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world's population and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes. Indeed, Israel's GNP is higher than the combined GNP of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. With a per capita income of about $14,000, Israel ranks as the sixteenth wealthiest country in the world; Israelis enjoy a higher per capita income than oil-rich Saudi Arabia and are only slightly less well-off than most Western European countries.
AID does not term economic aid to Israel as development assistance, but instead uses the term "economic support funding."
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.)
Israel, whose troubles arise solely from its unwillingness to give back land it seized in the 1967 war in return for peace with its neighbors, does not fit those criteria. In fact, Israel's 1995 per capita gross domestic product was $15,800. That put it below Britain at $19,500 and Italy at $18,700 and just above Ireland at $15,400 and Spain at $14,300.
All four of those European countries have contributed a very large share of immigrants to the U.S., yet none has organized an ethnic group to lobby for U.S. foreign aid. Instead, all four send funds and volunteers to do economic development and emergency relief work in other less fortunate parts of the world.
The lobby that Israel and its supporters have built in the United States to make all this aid happen, and to ban discussion of it from the national dialogue, goes far beyond AIPAC, with its $15 million budget, its 150 employees, and its five or six registered lobbyists who manage to visit every member of Congress individually once or twice a year.
AIPAC, in turn, can draw upon the resources of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, a roof group set up solely to coordinate the efforts of some 52 national Jewish organizations on behalf of Israel.
Among them are Hadassah, the Zionist women's organization, which organizes a steady stream of American Jewish visitors to Israel; the American Jewish Congress, which mobilizes support for Israel among members of the traditionally left-of-center Jewish mainstream; and the American Jewish Committee, which plays the same role within the growing middle-of-the-road and right-of-center Jewish community. The American Jewish Committee also publishes Commentary, one of the Israel lobby's principal national publications.
Perhaps the most controversial of these groups is B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Its original highly commendable purpose was to protect the civil rights of American Jews. Over the past generation, however, the ADL has regressed into a conspiratorial and, with a $45 million budget, extremely well-funded hate group.
More recently, FBI raids on ADL's Los Angeles and San Francisco offices revealed that an ADL operative had purchased files stolen from the San Francisco police department that a court had ordered destroyed because they violated the civil rights of the individuals on whom they had been compiled. ADL, it was shown, had added the illegally prepared and obtained material to its own secret files, compiled by planting informants among Arab-American, African-American, anti-Apartheid and peace and justice groups.
The ADL infiltrators took notes of the names and remarks of speakers and members of audiences at programs organized by such groups. ADL agents even recorded the license plates of persons attending such programs and then suborned corrupt motor vehicles department employees or renegade police officers to identify the owners.
Although one of the principal offenders fled the United States to escape prosecution, no significant penalties were assessed. ADL's Northern California office was ordered to comply with requests by persons upon whom dossiers had been prepared to see their own files, but no one went to jail and as yet no one has paid fines.
Not surprisingly, a defecting employee revealed in an article he published in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs that AIPAC, too, has such "enemies" files. They are compiled for use by pro-Israel journalists like Steven Emerson and other so-called "terrorism experts," and also by professional, academic or journalistic rivals of the persons described for use in black-listing, defaming, or denouncing them. What is never revealed is that AIPAC's "opposition research" department, under the supervision of Michael Lewis, son of famed Princeton University Orientalist Bernard Lewis, is the source of this defamatory material.
But this is not AIPAC's most controversial activity. In the 1970s, when Congress put a cap on the amount its members could earn from speakers' fees and book royalties over and above their salaries, it halted AIPAC's most effective ways of paying off members for voting according to AIPAC recommendations. Members of AIPAC's national board of directors solved the problem by returning to their home states and creating political action committees (PACs).
Most special interests have PACs, as do many major corporations, labor unions, trade associations and public-interest groups. But the pro-Israel groups went wild. To date some 126 pro-Israel PACs have been registered, and no fewer than 50 have been active in every national election over the past generation.
An individual voter can give up to $2,000 to a candidate in an election cycle, and a PAC can give a candidate up to $10,000. However, a single special interest with 50 PACs can give a candidate who is facing a tough opponent, and who has voted according to its recommendations, up to half a million dollars. That's enough to buy all the television time needed to get elected in most parts of the country.
Even candidates who don't need this kind of money certainly don't want it to become available to a rival from their own party in a primary election, or to an opponent from the opposing party in a general election. As a result, all but a handful of the 535 members of the Senate and House vote as AIPAC instructs when it comes to aid to Israel, or other aspects of U.S. Middle East policy.
There is something else very special about AIPAC's network of political action committees. Nearly all have deceptive names. Who could possibly know that the Delaware Valley Good Government Association in Philadelphia, San Franciscans for Good Government in California, Cactus PAC in Arizona, Beaver PAC in Wisconsin, and even Icepac in New York are really pro-Israel PACs under deep cover?
In fact, the congress members 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.
These comparisons already seem shocking, but they are far from the whole truth. Using reports compiled by Clyde Mark of the Congressional Research Service and other sources, freelance writer Frank Collins tallied for The Washington Report all of the extra items for Israel buried in the budgets of the Pentagon and other federal agencies in fiscal year 1993.Washington Report news editor Shawn Twing did the same thing for fiscal years 1996 and 1997.
They uncovered $1.271 billion in extras in FY 1993, $355.3 million in FY 1996 and $525.8 million in FY 1997. These represent an average increase of 12.2 percent over the officially recorded foreign aid totals for the same fiscal years, and they probably are not complete. It's reasonable to assume, therefore, that a similar 12.2 percent hidden increase has prevailed over all of the years Israel has received aid.
As of Oct. 31, 1997 Israel will have received $3.05 billion in U.S. foreign aid for fiscal year 1997 and $3.08 billion in foreign aid for fiscal year 1998. Adding the 1997 and 1998 totals to those of previous years since 1949 yields a total of $74,157,600,000 in foreign aid grants and loans. Assuming that the actual totals from other budgets average 12.2 percent of that amount, that brings the grand total to $83,204,827,200.
But that's not quite all. Receiving its annual foreign aid appropriation during the first month of the fiscal year, instead of in quarterly installments as do other recipients, is just another special privilege Congress has voted for Israel. It enables Israel to invest the money in U.S. Treasury notes. That means that the U.S., which has to borrow the money it gives to Israel, pays interest on the money it has granted to Israel in advance, while at the same time Israel is collecting interest on the money. That interest to Israel from advance payments adds another $1.650 billion to the total, making it $84,854,827,200.That's the number you should write down for total aid to Israel. And that's $14,346 each for each man, woman and child in Israel.
It's worth noting that that figure does not include U.S. government loan guarantees to Israel, of which Israel has drawn $9.8 billion to date. They greatly reduce the interest rate the Israeli government pays on commercial loans, and they place additional burdens on U.S. taxpayers, especially if the Israeli government should default on any of them. But since neither the savings to Israel nor the costs to U.S. taxpayers can be accurately quantified, they are excluded from consideration here.
Further, friends of Israel never tire of saying that Israel has never defaulted on repayment of a U.S. government loan. It would be equally accurate to say Israel has never been required to repay a U.S. government loan. The truth of the matter is complex, and designed to be so by those who seek to conceal it from the U.S. taxpayer.
Most U.S. loans to Israel are forgiven, and many were made with the explicit understanding that they would be forgiven before Israel was required to repay them. By disguising as loans what in fact were grants, cooperating members of Congress exempted Israel from the U.S. oversight that would have accompanied grants. On other loans, Israel was expected to pay the interest and eventually to begin repaying the principal. But the so-called Cranston Amendment, which has been attached by Congress to every foreign aid appropriation since 1983, provides that economic aid to Israel will never dip below the amount Israel is required to pay on its outstanding loans. In short, whether U.S. aid is extended as grants or loans to Israel, it never returns to the Treasury.
Israel enjoys other privileges. While most countries receiving U.S. military aid funds are expected to use them for U.S. arms, ammunition and training, Israel can spend part of these funds on weapons made by Israeli manufacturers. Also, when it spends its U.S. military aid money on U.S. products, Israel frequently requires the U.S. vendor to buy components or materials from Israeli manufacturers. Thus, though Israeli politicians say that their own manufacturers and exporters are making them progressively less dependent upon U.S. aid, in fact those Israeli manufacturers and exporters are heavily subsidized by U.S. aid.
Although it's beyond the parameters of this study, it's worth mentioning that Israel also receives foreign aid from some other countries. After the United States, the principal donor of both economic and military aid to Israel is Germany.
By far the largest component of German aid has been in the form of restitution payments to victims of Nazi atrocities. But there also has been extensive German military assistance to Israel during and since the Gulf war, and a variety of German educational and research grants go to Israeli institutions. The total of German assistance in all of these categories to the Israeli government, Israeli individuals and Israeli private institutions has been some $31 billion or $5,345 per capita, bringing the per capita total of U.S. and German assistance combined to almost $20,000 per Israeli. Since very little public money is spent on the more than 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are Muslim or Christian, the actual per capita benefits received by Israel's Jewish citizens would be considerably higher.
