WILL ISRAEL COMMIT ACTS OF PIRACY AGAIN?

Scores of human rights activists are putting their lives on the line as they seek to sail two ships from Cyprus to Gaza. Israel has threatened them with military attack.

That is piracy, often condemned as such when committed by other actors such as off the coast of Somalia.

However Israel's blockade of Gaza by land, sea and air is regarded as an exception to the rule at least by
a majority of American Zionists.

Of course a number of Israeli activists are involved as are some American Jews. They are putting their lives on the line for peace, justice and an end to the blockade of Gaza.

Iran, Israel and the United States Have a HIstory of Secretive Collaboration

As the United States under the leader of its idiot President and puppetmaster
Dicke Cheney appears to be bent on another act of military aggression, open war against Iran.

Remember the good ole days when Reagan and the Ayatollah Khomeini could work together to give arms to the contras in Nicaragua so they could mount a campaign of terrorism against the Sandinista regime then in power? Of course it was all hush hush. I think it tells you something about the Iranian regime that they may have provided these weapons knowing that they were going to these terrorist instruments of United States imperialism, the butcher contras, the terrorist contras.

Yes,the Iranian revolutions tend to have practical goals and yet it is motivated by religious nonsense. So I guess they didn't give a damn about the Sandinistas.
People should be grilling the Iranian revolutionaries about this. What do they say about this collaboration with empire and the betrayal of others fighting that same empire simply to achieve national independence in Nicaragua.

What did they give Iran, missiles to fight Iraq. And who started the war against Iran? Saddam Hussein under the tutelage and with the support of the United states of America. Freedom lovers to the end, eh? So the United States sought to benefit from both sides in this war it instigated! There is not simply blood upon the hands of the imperialist, their hands are nothing but blood. Someone, please say that better, and better and better.

Stop entertaining yourself, stop intoxicating yourself with ideas of slavery and submission. Look at what is happening in the real world. End the siege of your mind! Break out! Think out!

History is now, history is now! Everything from the past is now! The consequences of these imperialist invasions, interventions, occupations and conquests are now. They are real. History is liberating. Don't believe the ahistorical lies of the empire or those who imagine that the empire is necessary and inevitable. They are slaves of the system. They have not yet overthown the bourgeois ideas, the capitalist ideas, the ideas of serving the master, racism, sexism, all the crap that
weighs us down with the unnecessary tradition which is basically reactionary crap, at least a majority of it. So you have to work on overthowing that in your own mind before you can proceed with any rationality.

AS GAZANS STRUGGLE FOR LIFE PBS AIRS TALES OF JEWISH PERSECUTION

I just have to say that once again, as the Palestinians are horribly persecuted, tortured and abused by Israel, we see almost none of that in our so-called news and now a series is it on PBS about the persecution of Jews.

I actually like the program about Vilnus (sp?) and its role as a sort of de facto Yiddish capital but my critique is not of the programs per se but the focus of PBS as real people in the real world today
face dire problems while the Vilnus stuff happened more than six decades ago. Of course it does open the door to comparing the resistance of the Vilnus Jews and that of the Palestinians today.

It looked, sort of like a mini-Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising is a monument to the human will for liberty and liberation. Too bad we as humans have to be so pushed to such extremities to rebel for liberty, justice and liberation.

Let us take this occasion to remember that it was European Christianity that tried to destroy the Jews, not anyone in Palestine!

Israeli Hypocrisy About Right of Return Exposes Their Lack of Moral Backbone

A year or two ago an old college friend of mine died. He was Palestinian. He died in his fifties and I don't believe he was ever able to return to Palestine. Like most Palestinians he wanted a free Palestine. It didn't matter. He lived his life and died a homeless person. Just one of millions of Palestinians, you know the folks that every Zionist used to insist didn't even exist.

It was a period when the Palestinians struggled to be recognized with an armed struggle because decades of peaceful means of gaining their rights had failed. A pro Israeli lobby and U. S. Imperialism dismissed this struggle of the Palestinians as nothing but terrorism for many more decades, even until today.

Of course millions of affluent and privileged Jews travel to and from Israel without restriction. The overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews have no historic roots in Palestine during the last few centuries. Of course, some Zionists claim that God gave them this land millenia ago. So a religious myth justifies (in the minds of the true believer) a Jewish right of return while American weapons and money have guaranteed to the settlers "rights" that are denied the aboriginal population.

Palestinians are not allowed to live in most of Palestine and their lives are made a living hell if they live in the occupied territories. American protection and sponsorship of Israeli crimes makes this so easy. Israel retains the "right" to wipe out and expel the native Palestinians in order to deny the real natives of Palestine a right of return.

Where are rights for the Palestinians? Where is their "right of return"? Most indigenous Palestinians have historic roots in Palestine that go back centuries. The European invaders of the Jewish faith proclaim their "right to return" to the land they seized from the Palestinians only a few decades ago. The Rabbis and Israeli politicians all too often do not believe that Palestinians should have the same rights they reserve for Jews, the right to return to their homeland. Different rights for different folks based upon their race and bloodline, sounds like apartheid to me!

In short, we are supposed to believe that Jews from the Bronx or Europe have a right to return to Israel despite a lack of political, cultural or historical continuity in that area for thousands of years!

I don't have a right to steal your house because I have no house. The Israelis say Palestine is their house, because god told them so thousands of years ago, but everyone knows it is a stolen house. It is just using a little knowledge about the ancient past to justify modern day thievery.
After all their were many different Jewish states, not just an Israel. Prophetic arguments justifying the oppression of the Palestinians are simply expressions of personal or group prejudice masked as faith. This is not unique to the Jews.

Maybe the Israelis will get to keep the house they stole but can't they at least let the original owners come live there too? The Rabbis and rank and file Jews are not being confronted with these questions. They don't want to think about it, but we all might benefit if they did.

The European invaders summarized their colonization of Palestine as "a land without a people for a people without a land." Palestinians have had to wage a tireless struggle even to be recognized by the world community. The United States and Israel alone ignore Palestinians to this day.

Of course the Palestinians deserve our support and worldwide coordinated events could focus on the demand that Palestinians be guaranteed their human rights by their occupiers, the Israelis. The dates of these educational events and rallies could correspond to historic dates in the Palestinian struggle as well as historic events during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

In a sense Gaza is a new Warsaw Ghetto. In fact, those who compare todays Zionist tyranny with that of the white supremacists in South Africa should also consider examining possible similarities between Israeli policies directed against the Palestinians and Nazi policies directed at the Jews, Gypsies, gays, etc..

Didn't the Nazis wall off the Ghetto? Isn't Israel walling off the West Bank and Gaza? Were not the Jews a captive population in the Ghetto? Are not the Palestinians a captive population in places like Gaza and bantustan-like patches of Palestinian territory on the West Bank?

Wasn't electricity and just about all goods and commerce into and out of the Warsaw Ghetto stopped by the Nazis? Isn't that what is happening in Gaza today? A handful of the Warsaw Ghetto prisoners fought the Nazis. Today a handful of Palestinians fight the Israelis. Didn't the glorious rebels of the Warsaw Ghetto seek revenge and justice at the point of a gun even though their struggle was a short one? Today the Israeli and American leaders tend to label similar efforts by the Palestinian prisoners of Gaza as despicable "terrorism".

Of course it may be objected that while the Nazis created the Ghetto to exterminate Jews that the Israelis have not created Palestinian ghettos to exterminate Palestinians, just to exterminate Palestine. I agree that this is an important difference, but it may not be as significant as we would like to believe. If Israel ever uses its vast arsenal of nuclear destruction millions could be killed within an hour's time. Peace with and justice for the Palestinians seems like a much more practical idea and a better moral choice. You don't have to be a special religious teacher to see that.

Real progressives, real liberationists, real leftists, real liberals and real revolutionaries must stand with the oppressed and dispossessed regardless of their imperfections. Many Jews, of course, will agree with most if not all of what I am saying here. Certainly oppressors are more imperfect and more guilty of wrong conduct than the oppressed. This is particularly obvious as more than a million Palestinians desperately try to survive the Israeli strangulation of Gaza.

Whatever the liberation struggle, when it comes to personal and group sacrifice it is better to die for the people than to live for the oppressor and the oppressor classes, oppressor castes, oppressive groups and exploitative individuals.

I call this hierarchy of oppressions explooitation :).

When the oppressed struggle to be free who are we to do anything but do our best to stand with their just demands such as the Palestinian right to return. Of course the human rights of the Palestinians and of all of us must be struggled for wherever they are not guaranteed. The struggle for human rights in Palestine is a just struggle, no? Oui!

TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!

Remember all the press President Reagan got when he said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall referring to the t Berlin Wall way back in the eighties? Well, I guess the people tore that wall
down, not Gorbachev. The same thing is happening to the wall meant to imprison the Palestinean
people. In this case, Israel seeks to implement crimes against humanity using the justification that
only collective punishment can bring them the end to Palestinean armed resistance. As always there is a silly arguement but the genocide is obvious, the right to rebel clear. I have simply put
this little article from Al Jazeera with Norman Finkelstein saying something of the same thing.

NEWS MIDDLE EAST There are no main images. Interview: Tear down the walls By Saeed Taji Al-Farouky Jewish academic says Palestinians must tear down separation wall Norman Finkelstein is one of Israel's fiercest academic critics and a vocal supporter of the Palestinians. He is urging the Palestinians to break down the "segregation" wall built across the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The son of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein was an assistant professor of Political Science at Chicago's De Paul University for six years until he was denied tenure there in June 2007. Known for his critical investigations of other scholarly works on Israel - notably his ongoing feud with Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor and Israel supporter - he has published six books on the occupation and the issue of Palestine. Finkelstein's works have earned him both praise and condemnation. Finkelstein is working on his seventh book - A Farewell to Israel: The Coming Break-up of American Zionism - postulating that American Jewish support for Israel is beginning to wane. Currently on an international speaking tour of Venezuela, The Netherlands, Turkey, Lebanon, Japan, the UK, Canada and the US, Finkelstein spoke with Al Jazeera about the siege on Gaza and what options Palestinians there faced. Al Jazeera: Has there been much controversy so far on your speaking tour? Finkelstein: There are some die-hards occasionally in the US but that has pretty much ended. Israel's case [for occupation] has collapsed, it's not just weak, it has collapsed. You could see in the audience [at Manchester University] there was a row of hostile people who were anxious to hear me finally come to the end, but when I was done they had no objections because you can't argue the case any more. I think people know too much. So where does that leave the Palestinians? The suggestion has to be, as I said earlier, God helps those who help themselves. The Palestinians have to find a way to act on their own, and I think what happened in late January [the destruction of part of the wall separating Gaza from Egypt] is a good sign. That is exactly what they should be doing in the West Bank. One million Palestinians armed with picks and hammers should go to that wall and say "The International Court of Justice (ICJ) said this wall has to be dismantled. We are implementing the ICJ decision. We are knocking down the wall." Does that mean you encourage violence? What happened in Gaza last month was not violence. I advocate what international law allows - that people under occupation can resist occupation using means which are legal under that law. This includes violence so long as you are targeting combatants and not civilians. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote in their book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy in 2007 that Israel has a huge amount of influence over Washington policy. Does the Israel lobby control Washington, or is it the other way around? I don't really agree with Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer. On broad regional issues, such as Iran, Iraq and so forth, America is calling the shots because they are fundamental American interests. These are tough people – Donald Rumsfeld, the former secretary of defense and Dick Cheny, the vice-president - and no Israel lobby is going to tell them what to do. But when it is Israeli issues like the occupation and settlements, in that regard I think it is the lobby. George Bush, the US president, has called Iran and North Korea "rogue states". Do you consider Israel a "rogue state"? It is more than a rogue state. It is a lunatic state. The only country in the world where the population overwhelmingly supports an attack on Iran is Israel - 78 per cent want to attack Iran. The state has gone berserk. The whole world is yearning for peace, and Israel is constantly yearning for war. You have been called an extremist, a neo-Nazi, an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier. What I have to say is not particularly radical. I have said pretty much what the whole international community has said for the past 30 years. When people actually hear what I say, it's not particularly extreme. One of the most serious claims against you mentions your invitation to Tehran's Review of the Holocaust conference in December 2006. I said I would appear under three conditions. Number one, you have to provide me with a list of who the invitees are because I want to be able to judge if this is a serious conference or if it is a circus. Number two, you have to give me serious time to present my point if view, and number three, you have to let me speak at the universities to the students. They rejected all three conditions so I rejected the invitation. What about the claim that you testified as an expert witness for Hamas in a 2006 US court trial? In Chicago, there was a person who was indicted on some lunatic terrorism charge and I was called in as an expert witness on what Hamas' record was in Gaza. That's all I was called in for. I would certainly support them of course, what's wrong with Hamas? They're the elected government of Palestine. Who cares what they are considered, the people elected them. Are you deliberately trying to provoke a reaction with your views? No, I have no desire to provoke, I want to win this cause [for Palestine]. I think we can really win it; that's one of the reasons I'm on this tour. I think public opinion about Israel is now in freefall. I think it is going to be even worse now because nobody is going to defend Israel when the Palestinians blow up the wall. Source: Al Jazeera Related: Election power of the Israel lobby (30 Dec 2007) Hamas unfazed by Israeli power cuts (09 Feb 2008) Gaza Diary: Not a life for children (07 Feb 2008) Israel launches deadly Gaza raids (07 Feb 2008) A harsh light on America's Israel lobby (13 Apr 2006) Tools: Email article Print article Send your feedback Top news Beirut on alert over rallies US imposes new sanctions on Syria US senate backs waterboarding ban Iraq parliament approves key budget Bush signs off on stimulus plan MIDDLE EAST news Beirut on alert over rallies US imposes new sanctions on Syria Iraq parliament approves key budget Kidnapped interpreter freed in Iraq Israeli generals oppose checkpoints

One State Solutions Makes More Sense than Bantustanization of Palestine and the Creation of Reservationlike Miniregimes

So the answer is to drop the two-state solution as a failure, a failure that Israel has insured up to this point and a so-called solution that leaves Palestine divided and possibly under the leadership of diverse Palestinian bantustan governments, at least two now, one in Gaza and another on the West Bank.

But if there is no additional Palestinian statelet or reservation then Olmert is worried we could have a single secular regime capable of containing diverse nationalities under one secular government. Perhaps that is a good thing and of course may help us move away from superstition and extremist beliefs of all kinds.

As Olmert has said, "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished." Of course some sort of peaceful form of coexistence between Palestinians and the settlers should be possible. Certainly it is in everyone's long term interests.

And once Israel gives up resisting the right of return this will lay the basis for real peace. Perhaps realizing that Israel will soon be a Palestinian majority nation anyway a real rapprochement may be possible and the return of refugees would be seen in a different, less threatening light.

Instead of supporting the perpetuation of a religious state, Israel, we should be escorting Israel/Palestine into a future where liberty and liberation are available to all parties precisely because petty nationalsms and religious extremism are overcome.

Olmert warns of 'end of Israel'

Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said failure to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians would spell the end of the State of Israel.

He warned of a "South African-style struggle" which Israel would lose if a Palestinian state was not established.

Mr Olmert was returning from the Annapolis conference in the US where he and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas pledged to launch formal peace talks.

The two leaders set a goal of reaching a peace deal with US support in 2008.

If the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then the State of Israel is finished Ehud Olmert

US President George W Bush called Annapolis, the first substantive Arab-Israeli peace talks in seven years, a "hopeful beginning" for Mid-East peace.

Mr Olmert said it was not the first time he had articulated his fears about the demographic threat to Israel as a Jewish state from a faster growing Palestinian population.

He made similar comments in 2003 when justifying the failed strategy of unilateral withdrawals from Israeli-occupied land which holds large Palestinian populations.

"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished," Mr Olmert is quoted saying in Haaretz newspaper.

New monitor

After the ceremonies at Annapolis and the White House, the US appointed former Nato commander Gen James Jones as its new Middle East envoy.

KEY ISSUES

Among his tasks will be to monitor how the Israelis and Palestinians live up to the security commitments made under the relaunched international peace plan known as the roadmap, which forms the basis for the negotiations.

"Building security in the Middle East is the surest path to making peace in the Middle East," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said of his appointment.

"Gen Jones is the best individual to lead our efforts in this essential endeavour."

Mr Bush promised to use American power "to help you as you come up with the necessary decisions to lay out a Palestinian state that will live side-by-side in peace with Israel".

According to the agreement, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders will meet every other week and teams of negotiators led by a joint steering committee will meet on 12 December.

HAVE YOUR SAY Ignoring Hamas and the Iranian regime could increase their popularity in the Arab world Shahram, Isfahan

Last year's Palestinian parliamentary election winner Hamas - which does not recognise Israel and has been shunned by the US and Israel as a terrorist organisation - immediately rejected Annapolis as a "failure".

There have been angry protests in the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, and the West Bank since the summit.

Expectations had been low as representatives of more than 40 countries and international agencies gathered in Annapolis ahead of Tuesday's conference.

But in a joint statement concluded with only minutes to spare before the conference formally opened, the two sides agreed to launch negotiations for a treaty "resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception".

Both sides have said those "core issues" will include the thorny so-called "final-status issues" - the future of Jerusalem, borders, water, refugees and settlements - which have scuppered previous attempts at a peace deal.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7118937.stm

Published: 2007/11/29 14:54:17 GMT

© BBC MMVII

One State or Two?

With Israel continuing to be the de facto ruler of every square millimeter of Palestine the two state solution seems to be a traditional demand that may have no basis in political reality. Walls or not Israel controls Palestinean territory and has genuine sovereignty in those areas. It has not really relinquished any territory to the Palestineans, period. There is one state, we don't like it, wish there were two but there is one.

So why the rush to a Palestinean State? Was it a deal by Bush with Tony Blair? Is it a realization that with a divided leadership in divided territories the Palestineans will have a state, better have a state, so the Palestineans aren't all integrated into Israel, outnumber Jews and make a Jewish state impossible.

Maybe Abbas can be one of those bantustan leaders that Israel can finally work with! History suggests otherwise. Arafat really scraped before the Israelis and they murdered him for it.
They never lived up to their deals and yes they eat their own prime ministers who try to make peace. Even Abbas will probably end up in the Israeli cross hairs! It is difficult to believe that he will get a viable state.

Meanwhile Israeli crimes against the Palestineans in Gaza defy the imagination.