Tag: Zionism
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Is Israel on the road to “self-destruction”?
One very well informed and courageous Israeli who thinks the answer is “Yes” is Merav Michaeli, a radio and television presenter who also writes for Ha’aretz. She is completely without fear when it comes to telling it like it is. On 2 January this year, for example, she wrote: “The Israeli government doesn’t want peace. There’s nothing new in that. It has been the proven way since the establishment of the state.”The headline over her latest article is Israel’s never-ending Holocaust. One of her main points is that Israel has never confronted the trauma of the Nazi holocaust and has “turned it into a placard in the service of the national trauma, to reinforce the constant existential fear and the aggressiveness that comes with it.”
Because what she wrote is so important, and in my view ought to be read by all peoples of all faiths everywhere who want to understand why the Zionist state is what it is, I am going to quote her at some length.
She wrote:
The Holocaust is the primary way Israel defines itself. And that definition is narrow and ailing in the extreme, because the Holocaust is remembered only in a very specific way, as are its lessons. It has long been used to justify the existence and the necessity of the state, and has been mentioned in the same breath as proof that the state is under a never-ending existential threat.
The Holocaust is the sole prism through which our leadership, followed by society at large, examines every situation. This prism distorts reality and leads inexorably to a forgone conclusion… that all our lives are simply one long Shoah (experience of persecution and extermination – my amplification not Merav’s).
The ‘Hitlers’ are always there: Just a week ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said for the nth time that there is no shortage of those who want to exterminate us completely. In other words, there is no lack of reasons to continue to reinforce the fear of the Holocaust – which, according to his father, historian Benzion Netanyahu, has never ended.
So it is that we don’t have any rivals, adversaries or even enemies. Only Hitlers. This is how the Holocaust is taught in school, this how it is that Israeli students are taken to visit death camps – and how it came to be that, as Ha’aretz reported on Friday, just 2 percent of Israeli youth feel committed to democratic principles after studying the Holocaust… That’s the way it is with traumas. Because of our human limitations, a trauma that is not dealt with makes us constantly see yet another trauma approaching – even when whatever is coming has no connection to the previous trauma and may even be a good thing. Trauma leads to belligerence and a strong tendency to wreak havoc on one’s surroundings, but first and foremost on oneself.
What we consider rational is actually a frightened, defensive, aggressive pattern. Our current leaders have made Israeli Judaism just a post-traumatic syndrome, while they lead us to self-destruction.
I imagine that most if not all Arabs and other Muslims everywhere would welcome the prospect of Israel self-destructing, but in my Gentile view it is not actually a prospect to be welcomed. Why not?
If there comes a time when it seemed to them that the Zionist state’s self-destruction was imminent, Israel’s leaders would respond in the same way as they would if their state was in danger of being defeated on the battlefield. As readers of my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews know, that response was put into words by Golda Meir in the course of one of my BBC Panorama interviews with her when she was prime minister. In a doomsday situation, she said, Israel “would be prepared to take the region down with it.”
The question arising is something like this. Is there any power on Planet Earth that could assist Israeli Jews to save themselves from themselves – perhaps I should say save themselves from their deluded leaders?
The more I think about this question, the more I am convinced that there is only one power that could do it – the Jews of the world. But that must be the subject of another post and I will welcome thoughts from others before I write it.
www.alanhart.net, January 30, 2012
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Uproar after Jewish American newspaper publisher suggests Israel assassinate Barack Obama
Op-ed in Atlanta Jewish Times says the slaying of the president may be an effective way to thwart Iran’s nuclear program.
By Chemi Shalev
NEW YORK – The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Andrew Adler, has suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu consider ordering a Mossad hit team to assassinate U.S. President Barack Obama so that his successor will defend Israel against Iran.
Adler, who has since apologized for his article, listed three options for Israel to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons in an article published in his newspaper last Friday. The first is to launch a pre-emptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, the second is to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and the third is to “give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”
U.S. President Barack Obama taking the stage to speak at the 71st General Assembly of the Union for Reform Judaism. Photo by: Reuters Adler goes on to write: “Yes, you read “three correctly.” Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If have thought of this Tom-Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?”
Adler apologized yesterday for the article, saying “I very much regret it; I wish I hadn’t made reference to it at all,” Adler told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. And in an interview with Gawker.com, Adler denied that he was advocating an assassination of Obama.
The op-ed in Atlanta Jewish Times. The American Jewish Committee in Atlanta last night issued a harsh condemnation of Adler’s article, saying that his proposals are “shocking beyond belief.”
“While we acknowledge Mr. Adler’s apology, we are flabbergasted that he could ever say such a thing in the first place. How could he even conceive of such a twisted idea?” said Dov Wilker, director of AJC Atlanta. “Mr. Adler surely owes immediate apologies to President Obama, as well as to the State of Israel and his readership, the Atlanta Jewish community.”
Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, also blasted Adler on Friday, saying “There is absolutely no excuse, no justification, no rationalization for this kind of rhetoric. It doesn’t even belong in fiction. These are irresponsible and extremist words. It is outrageous and beyond the pale. An apology cannot possibly repair the damage. Irresponsible rhetoric metastasizes into more dangerous rhetoric. The ideas expressed in Mr. Adler’s column reflect some of the extremist rhetoric that unfortunately exists — even in some segments of our community — that maliciously labels President Obama as an ‘enemy of the Jewish people.’ Mr. Adler’s lack of judgment as a publisher, editor and columnist raises serious questions as to whether he’s fit to run a newspaper.”www.haaretz.com, 21.01.12 -
French Legislators oppose Armenian genocide bill
The Associated Press
PARIS — A Senate panel says it would be unconstitutional for France to make it illegal to deny that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago constituted genocide.
Relations between France and Turkey have soured since the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, passed such a bill last month and sent it to the Senate.
The Senate’s Commission of Laws voted Wednesday that such a law, if passed, would violate constitutional protections, notably freedom of speech. The vote was 23 Senators for and 9 against, with 8 abstentions.
The panel vote — a nonbinding recommendation — was the first legislative setback for the controversial bill. The measure goes to the full Senate for debate on Monday.
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Warmongering Hague: Attack still option for Iran
British Foreign Secretary William Hague UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has said that all options are on the table regarding Iran’s nuclear program in order to put more pressure on the country.
“We have never ruled anything out. We have not ruled out any option, or supporting any option. We believe all options should be on the table, that is part of the pressure on Iran,” Hague told Sky News on Sunday.
Britain and other Western states have stepped up sanctions over Iran following the release of a nuclear report by the International Atomic Energy Agency in November.
The British official also admitted that imposing sanctions could not curb Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.
“Sanctions policies do not always succeed,” Hague said. “But this is the best means we have of increasing the pressure.”
The last IAEA report accused Iran of conducting activities related to developing nuclear weapons before 2003, adding that these activities “may still be ongoing.”
Iran, however, dismissed the allegation as “unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure mostly by the US.”
Western governments also threaten Tehran with a military strike over the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program.
The threats come despite that fact that Iran has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA.
www.presstv.ir, 16 January 2012
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9/11 Truth could be the answer to the Israel/Palestine conflict
by Joshua Blakeney
I appeared on this week’s edition of the Press TV show Remember Palestine. I used the platform that Press TV graciously provided me with to argue that those of us who want to bring an end to the Israel-Palestine conflict ought to capitalize on the evidence of Israeli involvement in 9/11 rather than neglect the subject because it is deemed by some to be “controversial”.
I think most would agree that without the U.S. government altering its stance vis-à-vis Israel that there is little hope for justice in Palestine. The only conceivable way of the U.S. undertaking a volte-face vis-à-vis Israel is if a sufficient proportion of the citizens of the U.S. become conscious of
a) the extent to which Israel and its affluent supporters are distorting U.S. Middle East policy as well as
b) the extent to which such pro-Israel forces lack any respect for the U.S. taxpayer.
Arabs and Muslims have been dehumanized and stigmatized in the Western media Unfortunately, Arabs and Muslims have been dehumanized by opportunist journalists and careerist academicians who have jumped on the anti-Islam, pro-Israel bandwagon, post 9/11, which has resulted in a preponderance of U.S. citizens lacking any empathy with the beleaguered Palestinians and the other benighted inhabitants of the region.
I argued on Remember Palestine that the abundant evidence linking Israel to 9/11 provides the pro-Palestinian movement with a unique opportunity to foster such empathy among the U.S. body politic. Those in the pro-Palestinian movement, I argue, must stop shying away from the evidence linking Israel to 9/11 and must actively educate the people of the U.S. and other nations that nearly 3000 U.S. citizens were slain on 9/11 with the complicity of the Israeli government.
I suspect that many U.S. citizens would be unmoved if you informed them that 3000 or even 3 million Arabs and Muslims had been killed by Israel. Indeed Dr. Gideon Polya has deduced that the (largely Israeli concocted) 9/11 wars have resulted in the deaths of as many as 2.3 million Iraqis and 4.5 million Afghans and, yet, the anti-Islamic 9/11 wars continue unabated. The most recent phase of the 9/11 wars includes an illegal incursion into Libya and increased meddling in Syria. The main goal from the perspective of the Israeli government has been to foment sectarianism and civil war in the Middle East so those who dwell in the Middle East are fighting each other rather than the Israeli hegemon.
I am of the view that the pro-Palestinian movement ought to emphasize the fact that 3000 mostly Caucasian and non-Muslim U.S. citizens were killed on 9/11 with the complicity of the Israeli government. It’s not that U.S. or caucasian blood should be deemed more valuable than Palestinian or Arab blood. The Western media have created an intellectual environment where, in the eyes of many U.S. citizens, Palestinian and Arab blood isvalueless. Thus, those of us who are serious about promoting peace in the region ought to emphasize crimes of the Israeli government that will have the most efficacy in mobilizing support for the Palestinians.
It is likely that if enough U.S. citizens became aware of the Israeli involvement in 9/11 that they would begin to voice criticism of the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship.” Thus, this is the tack I am taking in most of my media appearances. I encourage others to do so.
Noam Chomsky, a self-proclaimed Zionist, perplexed many when, unburdened by evidence, he affirmed the official story of 9/11 within months of the terrorist atrocities I very much hope that those academicians who focus on the Israel-Palestine conflict such as Norman Finkelstein, Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, Noam Chomsky, Ali Abunimah, Ilan Pappé and others will likewise acknowledge the evidence implicating Israel in 9/11 as this evidence could be decisive in ending the Israel-Palestine impasse. [For more on Chomsky’s 9/11 denialism, which was presaged by his dismissal of conspiracy in the death of JFK, see: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/12/18/the-assassination-of-cpl-pat-tillman-usa/]
Such scholars have since 9/11 presupposed the veracity of the official story of 9/11 and in doing so have based much of their scholarship on a false-premise, namely that bin-Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible for 9/11, when this theory, which is a conspiracy theory, has been debunked by numerous credible scholars including David Ray Griffin who has written ten books addressing very specific claims made by adherents to the official story of 9/11 demonstrating them to be inconsistent with the available evidence and in many cases even with the laws of physics and of aerodynamics. Indeed many ears should have pricked up when, in the immediate hours following 9/11, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was blamed and footage of Palestinians dancing, albeit from 1993, was projected to the U.S. public.
I think history will not absolve those in the so called “pro-Palestinian” movement who have helped to suppress evidence implicating Israel in 9/11. Imagine if the Afrikaners, during the 1980s, out of desperation had killed 3000 Americans and blamed this act of terrorism on the ANC so as to make it’s enemies (in this case black africans) the perceived enemy of the American people thus justifying the continuance of the U.S.-South African “special relationship”. Would the anti-apartheid movement not have been feckless, indeed insane, if they had failed capitalized on this blunder of the pro-apartheid forces?
It does a disservice to the Palestinians and non-Palestinian victims of Israeli foreign policy to try to divorce the Palestine Question from the broader manifestations of the locus of power which James Petras has referred to as the “Zionist Power Configuration” (ZPC). This ZPC operates at both a global and local level as was indicated on 9/11. As Naomi Klein accurately wrote in the Guardian “[the] Likudisation of the world [is] the real legacy of 9/11.”
For those of us living in Western countries, especially in North America, the most efficient way for us to engender empathy with the Palestinians in the eyes of uninformed Westerners, especially U.S. citizens, is for us to illuminate Israel’s involvement in the massacre of U.S. citizens on 9/11. A failure to capitalize on Israel’s most egregious crimes and blunders is tantamount to complicity in the oppression of the Palestinians and the other victims of Israeli foreign policy.
www.veteranstoday.com, January 1st, 2012