Massacre in Gaza: Israeli strikes kill more than 200

martin dufresne wrote:

It is very convenient to put hate quotes around the words "Jewish lobby" - as if to deny its existence - when it is in fact operating at full spin to detract news media from reporting realistically on the horror.

 

The accurate term is "Zionist lobby."  Many Jews are either anti-Zionist or opposed to the course Israel has taken, vis-a-vis the Palestinians, the last 40 years.

I'm not sure I understand your point, but the term Israeli lobby is fine.

josh wrote:

martin dufresne wrote:

It is very convenient to put hate quotes around the words "Jewish lobby" - as if to deny its existence - when it is in fact operating at full spin to detract news media from reporting realistically on the horror.

 

The accurate term is "Zionist lobby."  Many Jews are either anti-Zionist or opposed to the course Israel has taken, vis-a-vis the Palestinians, the last 40 years.

As well, among the most influential elements of the Zionist lobby are evangelical Christians who are far more important and numerous in American politics (and elections) than the subsection of Jews who vote primarily based on what candidates say about Israel.

"The path to sovereignty and nationhood can be accomplished by walking in the steps of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. King, not Syed Qutb and Osama Bin Laden."

How cheap is Palestinian blood? So cheap Zionist politicians readily spill it hoping for nothing more than a bump in the polls:

Quote:

Whether Livni can defeat the right-wing leader at the polls may depend
on whether Israel achieves its objective without incurring heavy
Israeli civilian or military casualties, analysts said.

Both
Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak are gambling with their political
careers by launching this attack on Hamas, they said.

This is what Zionist supremacy looks like.

"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. The bullshitter is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."

Harry G. Frankfurt

On our local news at eight am..Global didn't even mention it..they mentioned India, they mentioned a few other places ..no mention..very bizarre..the Globe allowed no comments either.

One wonders!

nonest factum wrote:

"The path to sovereignty and nationhood can be accomplished by walking in the steps of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. King, not Syed Qutb and Osama Bin Laden."

How stupid. The late Dr. Rantisi, one of the founder of Hamas, and Sheik Ahmed Yassin's second lieutenant, and immediate successor, started his political carreer organizing Palestinian tax strikes because he thought is was absurd that Palestinians should pay for their own occupation. It was not effective, and he joined Hamas. In fact, the great majority of Palestinian protest is non-violent, this is why you never hear about it.

If all Palestinians were violent in their opposition to the occupation, the streets of Israel would run with blood. There are after all more that 3 million of them.

But rather than convince you of that, I will pull out this excelent Israeli piece about the "Ghandi Riddle", and Israeli repression of peaceful Palestinian protest to the occupation.

Quote:

"Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?" is a quite popular question, especially abroad. You won't often hear it asked (with the inevitable self-righteous shrug) here in Israel: after all, the Israeli culture itself worships violence, with the semantic field of "war" being the richest in the modern Hebrew language, with militarism as the state religion, and with popular wisdom expressed in rules of thumb such as "where force won't do, try more force."

But Americans love the Gandhi riddle. While their governments give Israel gigantic military aid, private Americans with the best intentions – and Britons such as actor Ben Kingsley – translate the film Gandhi into Arabic and screen it all over the occupied territories as an example for the Palestinians to follow.

The intentions of "the Gandhi Project" must be noble. And though international law and conventions unambiguously acknowledge the right of occupied peoples to use violence against their oppressors – just like guerrilla fighters did under Nazi occupation – the question whether violence or nonviolence serves their cause better is for the Palestinians to decide. There are, of course, several convincing arguments in favor of abandoning the violent resistance, most notably the huge benefits that Israel draws from portraying the Palestinians as "terrorists" to legitimate the use of its overwhelming military superiority against them.

[SNIP]

We've now got a clear confirmation of what Palestinian and Israeli peace activists have been saying all along: the Israeli army would not tolerate a Gandhi-style resistance. Someone up there in the occupation echelons must have studied Ben Kingsley's film long before "the Gandhi Project" got started and reached the conclusion that nonviolent resistance is not in Israel's interest. To thwart this threat, Israel employs soldiers whose task is to turn a peaceful demonstration into a violent one, by infiltrating it undercover and throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. During the demonstration, the army uses these stones as a pretext to break the demonstration by force, using tear gas, salt, or rubber-coated bullets and live ammunition. In the aftermath, this stone-throwing – pictured by army photographers who surely don't miss the stones thrown by their own comrades – enters the world media as propaganda, depicting the peaceful demonstrators as dangerous stone-throwers.

Ran HaCohen -- Letter from Israel

 If you like later, I will show you some film footage of Israel soldiers breaking up an peaceful protest with rubber bullets and tear gas, and shooting protestors in the head with rubber bullets at less than fifty yard range, causing permanent brain damage to (not to mention almost killing)  an Israeli Jew who sympathizes with the Palestinian cause.

But then again, you actually argued tenaciously for 20 or so posts that Michelle Palmer was going to do hard time in Dubai for fucking on the beach, so probably no amount of discussion or evidence will undermine your prejudices.

Unionist wrote:

josh wrote:

I'm not sure I understand your point, but the term Israeli lobby is fine.

My point wasn't made clearly. I condemn the "Jewish lobby" terminology, and I agree with you on that.

I wanted to point to the danger of using "Israel lobby". From the Wikipedia entry about Walt and Mearsheimer's book:

Quote:

The authors state that the "core of the Lobby" is "American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel's interests." They note that "not all Jewish-Americans are part of the Lobby," and that "Jewish-Americans also differ on specific Israeli policies."

It gives me the shivers.

That quote is so selective it could have come from MEMRI, and it's a distortion of what Walt and Meirsheimer wrote.  Not only do they bend over backwards to point out that they don't believe the Israel Lobby is a conspiracy of rich Jews who run everything, they spend a lot of ink on the Christian end-time zealots who are part of the lobby.

Anyway, back to the thread topic:

 Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about

"Sources in the defense establishment said Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for the operation over six months ago, even as Israel was beginning to negotiate a ceasefire agreement with Hamas. According to the sources, Barak maintained that although the lull would allow Hamas to prepare for a showdown with Israel, the Israeli army needed time to prepare, as well."

So much for Hamas' homemade rocket attacks being the provocation for this crime against humanity.

remind wrote:

New Democrat statement on the situation in the Middle East

Mon 29 Dec 2008

Canada's New Democrats condemn the unacceptable escalation of violence in the Middle East causing death and injury to so many civilians in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

It is a tragedy that hundreds of civilians have again become the victims of violence in this conflict. The continuing airstrikes by Israel on civilians in the Gaza strip and the ongoing rocket attacks on Israeli civilians are serving to compound the existing civilian disaster and further harm chances for a negotiated peace.

We call on the Government of Canada to immediately call for an end to the aerial bombing of Gaza, the blockade of aid to civilians and the indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel. Indeed, the government must urge both sides to agree to end the current hostilities immediately, reinstate the ceasefire and return to the peace process.

The Government of Canada should also work to ensure that medical and food aid is provided to the civilians of Gaza through U.N. agencies.

New Democrats believe that Canada must pursue a balanced approach to the Middle East crisis, in keeping with Canadians' deep desire for peace in the Middle East and are ready to work with the new administration in the U.S. towards a lasting peace in the region. This goal cannot be achieved while citizens in such large numbers are being killed and endangered.

http://www.ndp.ca/press/new-democrat-statement-on-situation-in-middle-east

Total garbage.

Hey, be nice, it only took around 48 hours to release that statement. A lot of hard work went into it.

and here the earlier telegraph article, re British Gas,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643848/Gaza-doesn't-need-aid-it-has-a-andpound2bn-gas-field.html

likely you folks can find lots of better relevant pieces

and the Ashkelon link from this,

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/2008122994140674153.html

and earlier reports of the role of Ashkelon as an energy hub, can't find them now, much of my old email wiped out, sorry for all the dots

The NDP is ducking the issue, because they either are genuinely afraid of Zionist reaction (no small consideration -- even a mild rebuke of Israel elicits a sophisticated and long lasting campaign of vilification and defamation), are too craven to care about Gaza, or actually have individuals within the party pushing the Israeli hardline.

Harper's  bloodthirstiness is to be expected, but anyone with even the slightest sense of remorse or pity is in a tough position, not that that provides any excuses.

[{quote]

"Israel is acting in clear self-defense in response to heinous rocket
attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza," Hoyer said in a statement issued
by his office this afternoon. "As a sovereign nation, Israel has an
unequivocal right to take action to ensure the security and safety of
her citizens. Indiscriminate attacks by Hamas are a serious detriment
to the peace process in the region.[/quote]

From Barack O'Bush's party where the audacity of hope has been replaced by the mendacity of empire.

Here you go Nofactum:

Nice footage of some Gandhi's being beaten and gassed. The best part of it is when the IDF boys shoot a tear gas canister into the front door of the ambulance, driving out the injured and their attendants.

Saffa

More Gandhi's being beaten, shot at with rubber bullets and gassed. This one features a nice scene of an arrested person being manhandled by 8 or 10 IOF guys in full combat gear. Not good enough for one of our IOF heros, who takes the opportunity to put the boot in.

What you wont see on your boob-tube

Your heros shooting an unarmed protestor, no where near any soldiers, with live amunition.

Bilin

Similar incident

Why don't you see this shit on the boob tube? Because it's for boobs, like you.

you got it

Every cold blooded killer has a rationalization.

Let's examine the raitionalization of the apologists of cold blooded murder. Because Palestinians lunch rockets blindly into sparsely populated areas of Israel, Israel has a justification to commit mass murder of Palestinians. Basically, hundreds of eyes for an eye. Understood.

But Israel has herded 1.5 million Palestinians into a sealed ghetto, not unlike Warsaw, where they are starved, brutalized, and denied even the most basic human needs. So applying the Israeli rationalization for mass murder, Palestinians are justified in harvesting the eyes of Israelis for generations to come. But wait! Why are Palestinians ghettoized, dehumanized, and brutalized before being subject to Israel's rationalization for mass murder? Becasue the elected a government, democratically, as was demaned by Israel and her patron, the state brutalizing Iraq, the US. Racists of a feather ...

The worst part of this is why it is taking place. It has nothing to do with rockets. It is because Lvini knows she must parade about in Palestinian blood to have any hope of defeating the monster Bibi. A monster with a baby's nickname.

Imagine, in Israel, it takes being a monster to defeat a monster for the right to oppress and dehumanize a human population. So much to be proud of.

I hope Palestinians are more humane and forgiving than their racist oppressors. The blacks of South Africa where.