by Philip Weiss on October 17, 2011 11

Lillian Rosengarten

Lillian Rosengarten is a New York activist and poet, who was on the Jewish boat to Gaza that was stopped by the Israeli navy in Jan. 2010. Last week she returned from a successful trip to Gaza, entering and leaving at the Egyptian border. Rosengarten was born in Germany; her family left after the Nazis came to power. A Q-and-A.

How did you go to Gaza?

I had an invitation from a German group. I went with eight others. Three of them had been passengers on the Mavi Marmara. And of course I had been on the Jewish boat to Gaza. I was the only Jew in our delegation.

How long were you in Gaza?

Four and half days.

Were you surprised by what you saw?

No. I know the situation in Gaza. I didn’t go there with any illusions. But what I was surprised about was the beauty of the people and how happy they were to see our delegation, because they see so few people from the international community. It’s difficult to get in. And as miserable as the situation is– the emphasis on construction, on rebuilding, on hope, the feeling that this land belongs to them, and they are staying there, is incredible. The tradition of Islam is fascinating to me. I was ignorant about so much, but I learned from the people I spoke with directly. Over here we get such myths and lies. It seems through fear, the religion and culture are distorted in terrible ways to demonize Islam.

Did they know you were Jewish?

I always identified myself as Jewish. I never pretended to be someone I am not. The people are just like us. They want to live in freedom and dignity and they have suffered enormously.

I was always greeted with such love. Such open hearts. Young people congregated around me as we gave peace signs, saying Viva Palestina. No one seemed to care that I was Jewish. They cared that I was among them and wanted their freedom.

The women in Gaza are just phenomenally strong. Many are college graduates but there is a lack of jobs and opportunities. There is also a class system, and many families became prosperous in the nineties when import and export was possible. The families are close knit and there is strong male bonding with the male children. Fathers are very much in the picture. Following Islamic values gives the family hope and structure. It is striking the similarities I observed between Islamic families and the religious Jewish tradition.

Where was your hotel?

On the beach. It looked out on to the Mediterranean and every evening at dusk one can see on the horizon rows of fishing boat lights not daring to go beyond the three miles allocated by the Israeli navy who are on the alert constantly. Fishermen run the risk of being shot at, sprayed with water hoses or having their boats taken if they venture out of the 3 mile zone. The water is heavily polluted with sewage as the treatment plants have been bombed. Wealthier families have their own filter system to supply them with usable water.

Once the fishing boats are taken by force to Ashdod, these poor fishermen must buy them back (with help from Palestinian NGO’s). Upon return, I saw the boats were wrecked, smashed and without engines. It’s horrible.

Some people will read this and say, You were being used by extremists.?

I don’t know what that means. This is completely false, completely distorted. The only terrorists I was afraid of were the Israelis. They have their eyes on everyone, and you don’t know when the bombs or missiles are coming, morning, noon and night. You go to the tunnels and you realize, you could be bombed standing there. And everything in Gaza comes from the tunnels. There are hundreds of tunnels, miles and miles. Recently Israelis flooded some them. The danger of death is near and yet the people are resilient as hell and thank god for the tunnels. Because otherwise there would be starvation.

We went to the border in the north, what is called the buffer zone. A weathered farmer had his house bombed five times. He has no more citrus plants, they’ve been destroyed. A grandfather and his grandson had been recently blown up by a missile for walking too close to the border.

No! I an not being used by anyone. There is so much misinformation. Hamas is protecting and helping its people, it has never been recognized by Israel, and the split between Hamas and Fatah is a way to prevent a much-needed Palestinian unity. People are misinformed. They are fed lies. The ardent supporters of Israel do not know what is going on. They want to believe in the good of Israel. They are told Muslims want to take over and destroy Israel. Jews are taught to hate Muslims.

I believe fear and denial propel Jews to incorporate the Israeli lies. Tragically, for many people who identify themselves as Jewish, to witness the crimes of the Israeli government would be too unbearable, too painful to believe. And I have to believe if they really knew, they would rise up.

Do you come away from this trip with a fresh commitment?

It has morally clarified my position, where I stand as a human being and a Jew. I am clear that I, as a human being who comes out of a German Jewish refugee experience, as a person who admires the history of the Jewish people and traditions, must at the same time stand up and say NO! Not in my name can the brutal government of Israel do what it’s doing. It is my feeling that Jews in America who are supportive the Israeli governments’s actions are frightened. Here in the US and in Israel, Muslims are demonized. Therefore, people are afraid. They rest their argument on this whole idea that Muslims want to throw Israel into the sea.

Listen, if someone were taking your land and moving into your house and growing stuff on your land while making you a refugee, you might have negative feelings. But they know that’s not the way to resolve anything. I believe Israel operates out of fear. The security system operates out of that fear.

Do you have a clearer understanding of the situation?

Yes. Because I have spoken to Hamas, to the NGOs, to Palestinians, I’ve spoken to Fatah, to a Fatah minister who happened to be in Gaza. I’ve spoken to many many people. They are not demons. The people I feared in Gaza were the Israelis. They scare me because they are so violent, using collective destruction and with this racist overtones. It’s some kind of genocide. Netanyahu’s government do not want to acknowledge that Palestinians exist.

Are there good parts of Israeli society?

Of course. When I originally saw the moshavs and the kibbutzes, early on before I really knew anything, I was amazed, I loved what I saw. I loved it and was so proud and happy to say, here’s a place where Jews will not be discriminated against. Then I learned from my uncle that the kibbutzes were built on Palestinian land. I didn’t know early on. Americans go to Israel and they don’t see anything.

Are you going to speak to Jews about what you saw?

Yes but I do not want to push what I see and know down anyone’s throat. I’m not going to give information unless there’s interest and I am asked. I do not want to have to deal with someone screaming anti-Semite. It’s not helpful. But with my writing and poetry, I can convey everything from my heart, from the core of my being.

I used to think, after the Jewish boat, that I could speak at synagogues and so forth. People do not want to hear. I don’t think it’s useful to antagonize people who are not open. I want to speak to people in an open way where I’m not pushing any agenda. Wherever there’s a window of opportunity, I’ll take it. I’ve had to learn this.

How does this compare to work you did during the Vietnam war or the feminist movement?

I was part of a university then, it was collective marches to Washington, teach-ins and and so forth. My intention was there but a did not have a strong voice. I was not a leader. Now I have found my voice for I have no choice.

It feels more lonely?

Yes. I feel I’m taking a very unpopular position in a country where Jews and many other people do not want to hear and also call me a traitor. I evolved in the Vietnam war and the feminism movement where I admired the strong protest voices of others. But here I can feel the crimes against humanity and the importance of Palestinian self determination. I am driven in combination from my own background as well as the struggle to put a voice, yes also a Jewish voice to the suffering of Palestinians through the actions of the Israeli government.

By your background, you mean that your family escaped the Holocaust in Germany?

Yes. I see this, the Israel Palestinian question as the final chapter of the Holocaust. Either this will be resolved, or there will be a catastrophe. It will hurt Jews, it will hurt Palestinians– both.

What about the peace process?

There can not be a peace process. History has shown it has failed. From my view, the Netanyahu government does not want it. They are not willing to give land to the Palestinians. Settlers have become an integral part of the police force, brutal and vicious. Perhaps one day through the UN– but I don’t see any possibility of brokering again with the US supporting Israel so completely.

Did you believe in the peace process?

I think perhaps I was naïve with Clinton, and with Camp David and after Oslo. I believed in peace and desperately wanted it. I think the settlement building is meant to disrupt any peace process. There is no give and take. There is no looking at the other side. There is no empathy towards a common humanity. And when the government of Israel announces refugees can not come back, I say this is crazy. What do you mean, no return?

There is so much fear– the existential fear of extinction by the Palestinians, by Islam. This fear is something the Israelis have to examine. The Palestinians want freedom, they want the right to live in dignity and in peace.

Did you feel any threat to your safety from Palestinians?

Never, never, never. My daughter said, Aren’t you afraid, I’m afraid when you are there with Hamas, you can be hurt. I told her I am more afraid of the Israelis with their missiles and their bombs. The Palestinians were so welcoming.

Compare this to the way the Israelis treated our Jewish boat. A navy came to stop us. Nine Israeli warships stopped a little catamaran with harmonicas.

What about your rights as a refugee from Germany?

We lost family property. Everything. We didn’t get our property back. There was some restitution. But I can relate to the Palestinian refugees.

You didn’t get a right of return, though–

That’s completely not understanding the situation. When a foreign agent comes and takes your land and takes your trees and your life, and forces you into a foreign land without anything, and takes away your identity, this is a very traumatic experience. It’s not comparable from my point of view. Here are people living on their land, here are foreign people saying this is my land, get the hell out. Many became homeless, many ended up in refugee camps. There are many in Gaza, 60 years later, and they have no right to return. What’s fair about that? Why should they resettle? Whose land is this?

I’ve heard American Jews call the right of return Israel’s nightmare.

What is the nightmare? How? Is it one of those fear things about being annihilated? I don’t know what the problem is. I think Palestinians must come back and they will then live in peace, both of them together in separate areas. They have to find some way to live side by side. They used to be friends, collaborators in work.

The dehumanization of the other must stop. I’m really afraid of what will happen if there isn’t a peace initiative. A just peace initiative. I’m scared for both sides.

Source: Mondoweiss

Assemblyman David I. Weprin, center, is a Democrat running against Bob Turner for the House seat Anthony D. Weiner gave up.

by Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Part 1

The 27 July 2011 New York Times has a front page article about the upcoming September 13 special election for New York City’s Ninth Congressional District seat. The article opens a window on the political use of Israel as a campaign touchstone. The Ninth District, the most heavily Jewish District in the nation, is the one recently vacated by Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner who was, of course, a loyal supporter of Israel. Alas, he was also a man with a strong libido and no discretion. He was forced to step down after electronically sharing obscene pictures of himself with at least six women. The Democratic and Republican candidates who seek to fill this seat are not known for gross indiscretion in their private lives (though who knows what skeletons lurk in which closets), yet in their public pursuit of this Congressional seat they seem to be drawn, as by an irresistible political force, to follow Weiner’s lead and do obeisance at the alter of Zionism. Is this yet another form of folly?

Both candidates, Democratic Assemblyman David I. Weprin and his Republican opponent, Bob Turner (a retired cable television executive) are involved in a process of “one-upmanship on who is more pro-Israel.” One would think that Turner would have no chance in such a competition seeing as how Weprin is an “Orthodox Jew who keeps a kosher home, observes the Sabbath, and has been to Israel at least eight times.” Nonetheless, he is playing this game with some serious support.

Bob Turner makes his debut as a Republican candidate for the NY9 seat. (photo credit: azi paybarah / observer)

“On Monday [July 25], former Mayor Edward Koch, [a Jew and] a Democrat, endorsed the Republican candidate”on the basis that a Democrat, even one who is a strong supporter of Israel, can not be strong enough as long as President Obama holds the White House. Koch argues that only the election of a strong Republican supporter of Israel will “rebuke” the president for saying “that Israel’s pre-1967 border should be the basis for a peace agreement.” Former Mayor Koch, apparently not just physically but also mentally 87 years old, seems not to care that a Republican candidate may end up supporting domestic positions that can ruin the United States. He is obsessed with a single issue, Israel.

You would think that this obsession with Israel and its 1967 borders is pretty crazy in an election for someone to represent the interests of parts New York City that have names like Queens, Kew Gardens, Flatbush and Sheepshead Bay. And aren’t there numerous other issues, vital to the health of the nation, such as the federal budget and deficit, the fate of Medicare and Social Security, etc. that ought to hold voters’ attention? So who cares about some foreign country approximately 6,000 miles away? Well, according to Cynthia Zalisky, the executive director of the Queens Jewish Community Council, it is not only Ed Koch who is obsessed. She tells us that “how the candidates feel about Israel and the president’s concept of the pre-1967 borders is going to resonate in this district.” Donald Schwartz, an Orthodox Jewish activist from Kew Gardens agrees. He says that the Democratic candidate is not a sufficiently “fierce advocate” for Israel and his election would allow the President Obama to “take the Jewish vote for granted.”

Former Mayor Edward Koch -- NYC

All of this should raise eyebrows. Just how many Jewish voters are we talking about? And, how do we know that most care about what the Zionist activists care about? Why should it always be assumed that the Jewish vote turns on the question of Israel? The New York Times article answers the first of the these questions. The Jewish voters in the ninth district are numerous. Almost half of the population is Jewish, many of them observant, and a significant number of them, 30 to 35%, regularly turn out to vote. Thus, as political consultant Jerry Skurnik puts it, “you can’t get wiped out in the Jewish vote and expect to win a district like this.” Ok. But why assume most of those 30 to 35% of Jewish voters prioritize Israel when they vote, or are dissatisfied with President Obama on the issue of Israeli borders? You know, Mr. Weprin did endorse same sex marriage and that has upset some of the Orthodox community. Yet the New York Times really has its focus on the question of loyalty to Israel and takes it for granted that those Zionist activists who shout loudest know what the silent majority is thinking. On the other hand, maybe the Ninth is somehow special. Maybe Israeli settlements do top social security. It is depressing to think so, but it is possible.

Part II

Just for argument sake, let’s go with the notion that the Ninth District is indeed special. So lets say that the candidates do have to cater to specifically Jewish opinion to win this district, and that enough Jewish votes turn on the issue of Israel’s 1967 borders that candidates have to play the Zionist card to win. What should those who oppose kowtowing to Zionist influence (and there are organizations of anti-Zionist Jews out there) do about this? Here are three possible approaches:

1. Find a way to increase the non-Jewish voter turnout. The political party that can do this can probably destroy the formula set forth above by Jerry Skurnik.

2. Find a way to get as many of the Jewish voters as possible to shed the single issue picture painted of them by the Zionists. There is probably an undercurrent of resentment about this one dimensional representation. Someone should tap into it. To this end, we proceed to #3.

3. Find a way to form a Jewish, but non-Zionist, political cadre to compete for Jewish voter support within the Democratic Party in the Ninth District and others like it. Give the Democratic Jewish voters a democratic choice.

Number one is the least volatile of these efforts. The consequences of pushing numbers 2 and 3 really depend on just how deep the Zionist “Jewish activists” are entrenched. Depending on that question, one of two things could happen. If the Israeli obsession is in fact only skin deep, that is only an issue for a relatively small, albeit vocal, minority of Jewish voters, it should be overcome pretty easily by insisting on the greater importance of domestic concerns. Those issues, closer to home, will then come to the fore as candidate touchstones and Israel will recede to the lower end of the list of important factors. If, however, a notable percentage of the Ninth District’s Jewish voters are obsessed with Israel, then concerted efforts as described in 2 and 3 could result in blood in the streets.

Part III

Either way, something really should be done to challenge the prevailing assumption that Israel is the touchstone political issue for American Jewish voters. Whatever might be the case in the Ninth District, this level of concern for Israel is probably not true of Jews nationally. On a national level most U.S. Jews vote Democratic and probably do so regardless of the candidates position on Israel. In fact, my bet is that both political parties don’t really scramble for Jewish votes which, except for rare places like the Ninth District, are minuscule. What they scramble for is Jewish lobby money. And the Jewish lobby is not only obsessed with Israel, for all intents and purposes it functions as unregistered agent of that country. So to get the money you have to do your obeisance at the alter of Zionism.

This situation is potentially more dangerous then most American Jews realize. The Zionist hold over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has already cost the country dearly. It was at least part of the reason we were attacked on 9/11 and why we subsequently invaded Iraq. The Israel connection has alienated America from the entire Muslim world and helped encourage domestic racism in the form of Islamophobia. What happens if this orientation continues and results in more wars, more terrorist attacks and greater debilitation of the domestic budget? At some point the American public, looking for reasons for these disasters, may well focus on lobby influence and the prioritizing of the interests of a foreign land 6000 miles away. At that point it will not be just AIPAC that will pay the price. The Zionist insistence that all Jews support Israel, as untrue as it is, will have stereotyped American Jewry and anti-Semitism will quickly become a serious issue.

Therefore, it is in the best interests of the American Jewish community to shed the image of the single issue voter, to consciously begin to hold those Zionist activists at arms length, and to join with those groups, such as Jewish Voices for Peace, that reject any demand that they do obeisance at the alter of Zionism. Quite frankly, the leaders of Israel are fanatics, the true believers of the American Zionist lobbies are fanatics, and Ed Koch is a fanatic. Most American Jews are not fanatics and it is time they let the rest of the country know it.

ldavidson@wcupa.edu
www.tothepointanalyses.com
www.twitter.com/pointanalyses
Lawrence Davidson
Department of History
West Chester University
West Chester, Pa 19383
USA

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DR. LAWRENCE DAVIDSON is professor of Middle East history at West Chester University in West Chester, PA, and the author of America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood (University of Florida Press, 2001), Islamic Fundamentalism (Greenwood Press, 2003), and Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing American National Interest (University of Kentuck Press, 2009).

Who is Rupert Murdoch? A Word Or Two on What Isn’t Being Said

By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor, Veterans Today

Today the British papers not owned by Rupert Murdoch “rumored” that he might be jailed.  Americans, even Brits, have little or no idea  what is at risk here.  There is simply no one who can report it when the individual who, not only controls the world’s largest news organization turns out to be, well, what?

Who is Rupert Murdoch?

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has played a significant role in the elections of three U.S. presidents, as well as some of the events that have happened during their administrations including the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the economic meltdown,  Gordon Duff, senior editor and writer for Veterans Today told Press TV.

What he is not is an Australian “right wing” billionaire.  Murdoch, though born in Australia is an Israeli citizen and Jewish.  Why is this important?

Murdoch is now admitted to have controlled the political systems in Britain and America for two decades.  He has had the power to choose national leaders, make policy, pass laws at will.  Where did the power come from?

We now know it came from spying, blackmail, bribery and propaganda.

What is his agenda?  Ah, there’s the rub.

Was it about selling newspapers using scandals or spying in the name of Israel to push Britain and the United States into wars for Israel?  There is a simple answer.

Murdoch’s primary motivation isn’t even that he is “for Israel.”  Murdoch is, perhaps, the most influential Israeli, more powerful than Netanyahu.  The problem with that is that his beliefs are what we call “ultra-nationalist.”

This makes him a threat.  Ultra-nationalists are known to support wars, plan terrorist acts, manipulate populations into strife and racism, foster fear and panic, even financial ruin.

What are we describing here?

If you aren’t totally brain dead, you realize I am describing Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

Murdoch owns Fox News and so much else you may not have a time to look at the list.  If he doesn’t own it he doesn’t want it.

Fox is a network and Murdoch, owning so many newspapers across America and being a foreigner shouldn’t be able to control such a thing.  How did he do it?

Reagan “appointed” Murdoch an American citizen.  Murdoch promised to have Fox News support Republicans and say whatever was needed, no matter how false, how stupid or, as we  have seen now for decades, how genuinely evil.

What he really did, however, was use Fox as a base to allow Israel to run spy operations.

These went two ways:

1.  Israel got lots of military technology and secrets they could sell to America’s enemies for money.  This is good “Murdoch” business sense, as we all see now.

2.  Murdoch helped Israel gain control of congress.  They literally run the United States.  The tools?  As in Britain, bribery and blackmail, police, military and congress.

No surprises for anyone.

Murdoch has, in fact, engineered the last 20 plus years of American history, picking politicians, throwing elections, establishing policies.  Were the decisions his own?

I don’t think so.  I think Murdoch represents a group, mostly financial, making up the Rothschild family, the Federal Reserve Banks and organized crime.

There is an Israeli or Jewish aspect to some of this but not in the sense of being “pro” or “anti” Semitic.  The Murdoch empire, married to the “lily white” “no Jews allowed” Republican Party simply put their own very powerful spin on the good old “New World Order,” pushing it into drug running, arms and human trafficking, manipulated international currencies and debt on a massive scale, ran America and the European Union into economic collapse, worked with oil companies to set up price fixing schemes…

This is what Murdoch and his friends have done, all the while pointing their fingers at Osama bin Laden and the evil “liberals.”

They divided Britain, starting at first as “conservatives” and then changed to “liberals.”  What they did in Britain is undermine legal government, destroy the nation and the public’s trust in the government, Blair, Cameron, it doesn’t matter, Murdoch chose both and ran and runs both like hand puppets as he did with Bush and his friends.

The ideas are simple.  Bilk the countries out of every last cent, use a portion to bribe or blackmail politicians, buy police and get even more money.

Then you lie to the people, give them enemies to hate, arrange wars for them to fight and stand back and watch them destroy themselves.

Are there people really this evil?

Yes there are, Murdoch, the gang at his companies, the gang at Fox News, the folks in the US called “neocons,” the Israeli lobby in the US, the ADL, AIPAC and the Likudist faction in Israel run by Netanyahu.

These folks hate the United States.

A similar group hate Britain.  Australia has their own, he runs that place entirely, right into the ground.  He also runs Germany, Canada, he runs much of what was once the “free world.”

Am I describing Satan?

Pretty much.

His strongest advocates, those who have stood with his thieves and liars against all that is decent, all that is good, all that is right is the Evangelical and “Zionist” communities in the United States.  They were and are the “fertile ground” for his message of hate and deceit.

Who does Murdoch claim to hate?

Muslims for sure, they are all bad.  Everything he touches in his hundreds of publications and TV shows or the phony news his gang of cutthroats create, hate of Muslims is always on top.  This pleases his Israeli friends.  If things keep going as they are, he may need to hide out there and Israel will always protect him, maybe plow down a few Palestinian homes to give him a grand estate.  After all, Muslims are an easy target, living in petty dictatorships run by thieves who we have now learned have always run to Washington and Tel Aviv for orders.

Take out a second.  Think the word “Palestinian.”  Do you also think “terrorist?”  Do you see a child being killed by an Israeli helicopter or innocent people killed by a TV villain, almost invariably played by Jewish actors, perhaps a sick “inside joke” of Murdoch’s.

Even the “revolutionary types” did the same.  The Islamic people of the world have been played, exploited and crushed since 1919.  History will show it carefully planned and financed by a certain European banking family, one that 6 years earlier had established an illegal banking system in the US.

Learn about the real Balfour Declaration and how it was gotten through blackmail, learn who wrote it and to whom it was sent.

The story reads exactly like the things that are coming out in Britain day after day.

Murdoch tells his followers to hate “smart people.”  There has to be fear of the educated, the “elites.”  You can’t have rampant racism and blind ignorance until you destroy public trust in the natural leaders, until you destroy real culture and replace it with mechanized music, scandal mongering, dirty sex and endless conspiracies.

Murdoch is the real king of conspiracy theories.

Look at the endless list of wild accusations that came from Fox alone.  Then look at the others, the accusations, the wild and insane things that were written into history but likely planned by Murdoch.

9/11 probably had Murdoch’s hand in it as did the London bombings on 7/7.

There could be no great conspiracy without control of the news.

Now we find the news itself controlled the governments and may well have written the scripts to the wars, the rigged elections, the acts of terror and the misdirection that sent America into a decade of cruel and useless bloodletting after terror groups that never existed in the first place.

Now, today, as our British cousins are reeling in the revelations that their government for decades has not been their own, a diseased hybrid of crazy old man, Israeli spies and the paid stooges that the people thought were serving them….

And it goes on in America, full blast, Murdoch and his creatures, planning the future of America.

One of his creatures is Boehner.

Another is Palin.

Then there is Gingrich.

There was the entire Bush administration.

But, to get to the dark heart of evil, first you look at Fox News.

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Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran.  A 100% disabled vet.  He has been a featured commentator on TV and radio including Al Jazeera and his articles have been carried by news services around the world. He has been a UN Diplomat, defense contractor and is a widely published expert on military and defense issues.  Duff is Senior Editor at one of  the most widely read Veterans Online publications Veterans Today

Neoconservatism and American Foreign Policy: A Critical Analysis

by Stephen Sniegoski / Intifada Palestine

What these books still conceal, however, is the fact that the neocons are motivated by their Jewish ethnicity and the interests of the state of Israel. Instead the neocons are made to appear as an ideological group loyal solely to what they believe is good for the US. Consequently, this approach, despite allowing for some elements of truth, distorts the overall picture in a serious way

A number of books have come out recently dealing with the neoconservatives, which have been published by mainstream presses. It is significant that these works acknowledge some obvious truths that were denied and even largely taboo some time ago.

They admit, for example, that neoconservatives not only exist (something that was denied a few years ago, most especially by the neocons themselves), but that they have been influential in shaping American policy in the Middle East, a view that continues to be rejected even by many critics of American foreign policy—e.g., Noam Chomsky and his acolytes, who see American foreign policy shaped only by all-powerful corporate interests. What these books still conceal, however, is the fact that the neocons are motivated by their Jewish ethnicity and the interests of the state of Israel. Instead the neocons are made to appear as an ideological group loyal solely to what they believe is good for the US. Consequently, this approach, despite allowing for some elements of truth, distorts the overall picture in a serious way.

Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), by Justin Vaïsse, which I have reviewed last August, reflects this partial truth approach. The current essay will focus on another recent work of this genre, Neoconservatism and American Foreign Policy: A Critical Analysis (New York: Routledge, 2011), authored by Danny Cooper, who is a lecturer at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. [A subsequent review will be of Neoconservatism and the New American Century by Maria Ryan (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010)]

THE TRANSPARENT CABAL

Of the recent books on this subject, Cooper’s is one of the more revealing in that it actually acknowledges the authors who have presented these taboo views and quotes them—allowing them to speak for themselves. And I must express my delight that Cooper even refers to The Transparent Cabal. It is this segment to which I will devote most of my attention in this essay. I do this largely because I have not been able to get hold of Cooper’s book but have had to read it on Google Books where only a small section of it is available. The book’s cost, exceeding one-hundred dollars from Amazon, is beyond my limited means, and the work is not available in the public and university libraries to which I have access. While I could only look at a small portion of the book, however, the part that I could see does seem to present the work’s fundamental thesis.

In discussing claims of the neocons’ ties to Israel, Cooper writes that “Mearsheimer and Walt were not the only scholars to discuss the influence of Israel on neoconservative thinking. Stephen Sniegoski’s The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel (2008) is the most detailed and exhaustive attempt to link neoconservatives with the policies of Israel’s Likud Party.” After this favorable introduction, he then implies that my “loyalties” to the Palestinians are “taken to dangerous and irresponsible extremes,” asserting that “[o]ne does not have to be a ‘Likudnik’ to find Sniegoski’s unqualified reference to the ‘Palestinian resistance’ to be morally offensive . . . ” (p. 32) Presumably, I should have qualified this non-committal reference with some disparaging remarks about the Palestinians, since I was not expressing anything positive about them in referring to their “resistance.” Criminals, for example, are said to resist arrest. Perhaps Cooper believes that nothing has been done to the Palestinians that calls for any resistance and that they are instead engaging in aggressive violence. No matter what his specific intent, Cooper’s comment would seem to indicate a pro-Israel bias.

Cooper does acknowledge that the neocons are “strong defenders of the Jewish state” and that some authored the “Clean Break” report (p. 32) , though he fails to elucidate the full significance of this work. The “Clean Break” report, which was presented to incoming Prime Minister Netanyahu in 1996, advocated that Israel undertake a war policy to reconfigure the Middle East for the sole purpose of enhancing its own security. Moreover, the neocon authors of the report emphasized the need to justify these belligerent moves in terms of American ideals in order, as I stated in The Transparent Cabal “[t]o prevent the debilitating American criticism of Israeli policy that took place during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.” (TC, p. 92). And the success of Israel’s belligerent activities would have the effect of freeing it from United States pressure. As pointed out in The Transparent Cabal : “It was highly noteworthy that Americans would advise the Israeli government how to induce the United States to support Israeli interests and how to avoid having to follow the policies of the United States government.” (TC, p. 93) Since the actual policy prescription of “Clean Break” was broadly similar to what the neoconservatives would later advocate for the United States during the Bush II administration, the neocons, in this latter case, were actually having the United States pursue policies that had originally been developed to advance Israeli interests. As reiterated throughout The Transparent Cabal, the neocons look at U.S. Middle East policy through the “lens of Israel interest.” (TC, pp. 4, 5, 7, 193, 211, 365, 366). To state otherwise is to ignore Occam’s razor.

When acknowledging the neocons’ obvious link to Israel, Cooper simultaneously downplays its role in shaping their views on Middle East policy. “The affection neoconservatives have for the state of Israel cannot be dismissed,” Cooper avers. “The authors who demonstrate the degree to which many neoconservatives identify with the Jewish state make a number of thoughtful arguments. Yet what they truly reveal about the neoconservative approach to American foreign policy is a little unclear. Even authors such as Sniegoski who aim to ‘expose’ the connections between segments of the hard right in Israel and neoconservatives often acknowledge the limitations of their studies.” (p. 32)

To support his contention that I acknowledge limitations in my study, Cooper then quotes me: “To state that neoconservatives viewed American foreign policy in the Middle East through the lens of Israeli interest – and that this was the basis of the neocon Middle East war agenda is not to say that their support for Israel has been the be-all and end-all of their foreign policy ideas.” (p. 32)

Cooper leaves out my ending “which encompass the entire world” (TC, p. 7), which served to underscore what I meant. I also elaborate on this issue on the same page in my book where I write: “Lest any reader misinterpret this work, it is necessary to further explain what the book is not. Since it is not an analysis of neoconservatism per se it does not claim that neoconservatism is simply a cover for the support of Israel. Undoubtedly, the overall neoconservative viewpoint does not revolve solely around the security needs of Israel, and the same is true even of the neocons’ positions on foreign policy and national-security policy.” (TC, p. 7)

As is apparent, I explain the limits, or scope, of my subject—it is about the neocon position on the Middle East (and how they influenced US Middle East policy); it is not about neoconservative foreign policy in general. That my subject does not encompass a broader subject does not mean that I acknowledge any “limitations” in my study. All historical works (works on anything for that matter, even for those physicists who claim to have a “theory of everything”) deal with particular subjects—as opposed to everything—but to admit “limitations,” the word used by Cooper, would seem to imply that there are weaknesses in dealing with the particular subject matter of the work.

Cooper, however, makes the claim that my “admission [of ‘limitations’] raises immediate questions. If neoconservative support for Israel is not the ‘be-all and end-all of their foreign policy ideas,’ then to what extent are studies such as Sniegoski’s truly capable of illuminating the neoconservative approach to foreign policy? Is it not possible that some of these other ideas that go unexamined in The Transparent Cabal may even strongly conflict with the those of the Israeli right?”

Cooper’s logic escapes me here unless his purpose is to place me in a no-win position. Obviously, if I had stated that support for Israel (or any other factor) explained the neocons’ entire foreign policy thinking, I could be faulted for that, too. The idea that one factor might explain part of a group’s or individual’s world view, but not the totality of that world view, would seem perfectly appropriate.

For Cooper to imply that my claim that the neocons’ Middle East policy position revolves around their concern for Israel is invalidated by my unwillingness to apply that same motive to their policies elsewhere—for instance, the neocons’ China policy–makes no sense. My arguments are based on inductive reasoning. I have provided extensive empirical evidence to prove the case regarding the Middle East (inductive reasoning can only lead to tentative proofs); but I have made no in-depth study of the neocons’‘ China policy so I cannot draw a comparable conclusion.

He then implies, or at least, seems to imply, that the allegation that the Israeli government backed the war on Iraq was false, citing the view of one international relations expert (Russell Walter Mead), who held that “the Israeli defense establishment was deeply skeptical of neoconservative hopes for a democratic renaissance in the Middle East following the removal of Saddam Hussein (2007).” From that he asks rhetorically: “Is it not possible, in other words, that there is something distinctly American about neoconservatism?” (p. 33)

Here Cooper describes an alleged neocon position never expressed by me, or strictly speaking, anyone one else, as far as I know. Since no one claims that the there was ever democracy in the Middle East, no one could expect a “renaissance,” which, of course, means rebirth. And it is probably true that there is no evidence that the Israeli defense establishment, or anyone else with expertise on the Middle East, actually believed that the elimination of Saddam Hussein would create democracy in Iraq. And in The Transparent Cabal, I questioned the idea that the neocons themselves actually believed that their policies would lead to democracy, as democracy is conventionally understood. But whatever their beliefs on the eventual social systems in the Middle East, the policies they prescribed dovetailed with those of the Israeli Likudniks, which were designed solely for the enhancement of the national interest of the state of Israel. And, as documented in The Transparent Cabal, the Sharon government did promote the war on Iraq. (TC, pp. 169-72)

Moreover, contrary to Cooper’s insinuation, I never denied that there was “something distinctly American about neoconservatism,” since, as I explained in the book, neoconservatism in general was not my topic. There could very well be “something distinctly American about neoconservatism” while, simultaneously, their view on Middle East policy was shaped by their identification with Israel security interests. The two beliefs are not mutually exclusive.

In an effort to counter the claim of neocon loyalty to Israel, Cooper holds that the neocons are “just as steadfast in their support for Taiwan as they are in their support for Israel.” (p. 33) This is based on an article by William Kristol and Robert Kagan stating that the US should defend Taiwan from China. Viewing this as the overall position of the neocons, Cooper attributes neocon support for Israel and Taiwan to their belief that the two countries are “endangered liberal democracies living in hostile regions.” (p. 33) Cooper next cites a general statement by Irving Kristol, that “Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from non-democratic forces, external or internal (2003).” These statements allegedly provide sufficient evidence to prove that the neocons are “driven more by feelings of ideological solidarity than ethnic identification.” (p. 33-34)

There are a number of problems with this notion of neocon support for Taiwan and other democratic nations being comparable to their support for Israel. A simple statement of support for Taiwan if threatened with attack, or in Irving Kristol’s case, a claim that the US “if possible” would “feel obliged” to defend democratic countries is obviously not equivalent to launching aggressive wars to weaken or eliminate Israel’s enemies. Furthermore, the connection of the neocons to other democratic foreign countries is not in anyway equal to the deep personal loyalty and intimate connection the neocons have with the state of Israel, which is illustrated throughout The Transparent Cabal.

Neocons present Israel as a model democracy but this is hardly the case, as liberal democracy is generally defined today. Rather, Israel is a Jewish supremacist ethno-state that favors Jews over Palestinians, going to the extent of dispossessing them of their land on the West Bank for Jewish settlements. Instead of supporting measures by Jewish leftists and liberals to allow more rights for the Palestinians in order to move Israel in the direction of a typical liberal democracy, the neocons support the Likudnik (explicitly Jewish supremacist) hard-line anti-Palestinian position, which is anything but pro-liberal democracy. Their goal is to maintain Israel as an ethnically-Jewish state instead of creating a modern liberal democracy with equal rights for all people. That the neocons see this Jewish ethno-state as a model democracy would illustrate their ethnic bias, since they find no fault with the type of ethnic discrimination that Jews have historically railed against when applied against them in gentile countries.

It would seem that the predominantly Jewish composition of the core membership of neoconservatism, the latter’s close connection to and championing of Israel, and the fact that the neocons advocated that the US take militant positions against the enemies of Israel would, taken together, provide strong prima facie evidence that Jewish ethnicity shaped the neocons Middle East policy. As pointed out in The Transparent Cabal, the Jewish orientation of neoconservatism has been acknowledged by some close students of the movement, including those who happen to be Jewish. For example, Gal Beckerman wrote in the Jewish weekly newspaper Forward in January 2006: “[I]t is a fact that as a political philosophy, neoconservatism was born among the children of Jewish immigrants and is now largely the intellectual domain of those immigrants’ grandchildren.” In fact, Beckerman went so far as to maintain that “[i]f there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it.” (TC, p. 26) Murray Friedman wrote a favorable book about the neocons entitled The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy, which stresses the significance of their Jewish ethnicity. In it he shows that the neocons explicitly mentioned their group loyalty: “A central element in [neocon godfather Norman] Podhoretz’s evolving views, which would soon become his and many of the neocons’ governing principle was the question, “Is It Good for the Jews,” the title of a February 1972 Commentary piece.” [quoted in TC, p. 27; Friedman, p. 147]

In the much reviewed The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State (University of Chicago Press, 1993), noted political scientist (Johns Hopkins University) Benjamin Ginsberg writes: “One major factor that drew them [future Jewish neocons] inexorably to the right was their attachment to Israel and their growing frustration during the 1960s with a Democratic party that was becoming increasingly opposed to American military preparedness and increasingly enamored of Third World causes [e.g., Palestinian rights]. In the Reaganite right’s hard-line anti-communism, commitment to American military strength, and willingness to intervene politically and militarily in the affairs of other nations to promote democratic values (and American interests), neocons found a political movement that would guarantee Israel’s security.” (T.C., p. 26; Ginsberg, Fatal Embrace, p. 231)

The aforementioned illustrations of the neocons’ Jewish ethnicity shaping their policy positions represent cases where this issue was broached in the mainstream. However, the mainstream media has left out this ethnic reference when dealing with recent U.S. Middle East policy. For to include such a reference would imply that Jews are influential and exhibit “dual loyalty”– ideas that are taboo in the United States mainstream. It was these taboos that caused the whole idea of the neocons being the leading element for the war on Iraq to be blacked-out in mainstream presentations of the subject, a situation that recent works are only willing to change by discussing the role of the neoconservatives in a sanitized fashion, with the taboos expurgated or explained away.

However, there is nothing unusual in concluding that neocons would be motivated by ethnic loyalty to Israel. Historians and other commentators on American foreign policy have readily attributed ethnic loyalty as a fundamental factor in shaping the views of other groups – German-, Greek-, Polish-.Irish-, and Cuban-Americans. There is no reason to think that this interpretation would not also apply to the predominantly Jewish neoconservatives, especially since there is so much evidence of their close ties to the Jewish state.

That recent mainstream works on the neocons do everything possible to skirt their obviously ethnically-motivated concern for Israel represents not only a misinterpretation of a historical event, but has serious, negative ramifications for the understanding of ongoing U.S. Middle East policy. For neocons constitute only a more extreme element of the overall Israel lobby, which influences U.S. Middle East policy under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Without the willingness to recognize this major force behind America’s belligerent policy in the Middle East, it will not only be impossible to extricate the United States from the current Middle East morass, but there will be a strong possibility that the US will be involved in future wars in the region.

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_{Dr. Stephen Sniegoski earned his Ph.D doctorate in American history,with a focus on American foreign policy, at the University of Maryland. His focus on the neoconservative involvement in American foreign policy antedates September 11,and his first major work on the subject, “The War on Iraq: Conceived in Israel” was published February 10, 2003, more than a month before the American attack. He is the author of “The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel”. Read more articles by Stephen J. Sniegoski. The Transparent Cabal}

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Related Video

By::DIANA JOHNSTONE/Counterpunch

“I consider that every Jew in the diaspora, wherever he is, and thus this holds true for France, should contribute to helping Israel”…….Strauss-Kahn

In a flood of carefully designed public opinion polls, editorials, and books bordering on idolatry, the French communications industry had already settled next year’s presidential election. The loser would be Nicolas Sarkozy, sagging in the polls. The winner would be Dominique Strauss-Kahn, ever on the rise. True, the French Socialist Party had not yet chosen its candidate, and Strauss-Kahn had not yet announced his candidacy, but the party nomination and the election itself were little more than formalities. Known by his initials, like the International Monetary Fund he currently heads, DSK was the clear choice of the economic powers behind the throne, and was being vigorously sold to the public as “the most competent” candidate.

Since DSK has the luck to face a New York jury, and not the judges at the International Criminal Court, commentators are all stressing that he is, of course, innocent until proven guilty. Well, yes. But the scandal has already blown the upcoming presidential election campaign out of the water.

The French Socialist Party has been largely speechless at seeing its supposedly unbeatable candidate shoot himself in the foot before the race even starts. Conspiracy theories proliferate. Was this all a plot by Sarkozy?

But Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a minor candidate who is trying to resuscitate the tradition of social Gaullism, says that, contrary to many observers, he thinks the elimination of DSK is a stroke of luck for the left: “Dominique Strauss-Kahn was a false good candidate for the left and I think that the right would be mistaken to rejoice. I’ve always thought that there was a sort of phony Strauss-Kahn fad and that he was perhaps the best adversary Nicolas Sarkozy could have…”

Indeed, only a few days before the hotel room scandal broke, DSK was under fire for being photographed getting into a luxurious Porsche – not his own, as it happens, but ironically belonging to his public relations (“communication” these days) advisor. But this was only a reminder that the potential Socialist candidate is anything but a man of the people. Strauss-Kahn’s luxurious life style is no secret, his hunger for wealth and power every bit equal to that of Sarkozy, and his womanizing reputation has spiced up Paris dinner party conversation for years. Moreover, he has been credited with a style of womanizing that is not so much the Latin lover stereotype as “a chimpanzee in heat”, according to a young journalist who has publicly recounted how she had to fight him off tooth and nail.

But the real scandal for the Socialist Party is the one it does not even begin to recognize: that it was pinning its electoral hopes on a leading champion of global capitalism, the president of the IMF. Whatever the outcome of the New York proceedings, the bursting DSK bubble marks the total degeneration of the Socialist Party in France, for reasons that have nothing to do with his sex life.

Thirty years ago, the wily François Mitterrand led Socialist Party politicians to an election victory they are still celebrating. Initially allied with the French Communist Party, the better to subjugate and destroy it, Mitterrand’s Socialists started out in a blaze of reforms, ending the death penalty, nationalizing enterprises and lowering the retirement age, only to turn around a couple of years later and abandon socialist economic policies as impossible to pursue in the free market context of the European Community (now the European Union). The Mitterrand era in reality buried socialism, or even social democracy, but the Socialist Party went on calling itself “the left”. This no longer referred to economic policies favoring the working class but above all to moral issues such as anti-racism and all sorts of vague good intentions.

The Socialists were no longer socialist, without being anything else.

With Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the mere absence of socialism evolved into something much more vigorous: unabashed promotion of global capitalism. After becoming Minister of the Economy, Finances and Industry in 1997, he totally reversed the early Mitterrand direction, carrying out a wave of major privatizations, turning over French telecommunications, steel, aerospace and other key industries to the whims of international finance capital. This was to be expected from the vice president of the high level “Cercle de l’Industrie”, which he joined in 1994 at the invitation of Raymond Lévy, then head of the Renault auto manufacturer. In this charmed circle, dedicated to promoting the interests of industry in the European institutions, DSK hung out with the same crowd of top French capitalists whose company so delights Nicolas Sarkozy. Indeed, it is only fair to suggest that Sarkozy chose DSK to head the IMF not only, as is constantly repeated, to keep his rival out of France, but also because the two see precisely eye to eye when it comes to international financial policy.

Consistently, DSK opposed the last Socialist Party reform intended to favor the workers, namely the reduction of the work week to 36 hours adopted in 2002. Having written his doctoral thesis in economics on “human resources”, he has argued in favor of both a longer work week and raising the age of retirement, “now that we live a hundred years”.

In the wake of the Porsche flap, it is a sign of the degeneration of political life that commentators were writing that DSK needed to change. The fact that he was clearly an eager champion of multinational financial capital posing as a socialist was not the problem; the problem was that it showed. He needed to do something to make himself seem more concerned with ordinary people. Well, nobody imagined how rapidly that could be done.

There is another way in which DSK would have been a vulnerable candidate for the Socialists. The PS has often been the party of choice for voters from immigrant communities, but this has been complicated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. All mainstream French politicians are pro-Israel, but DSK went farther than most, writing: “I consider that every Jew in the diaspora, wherever he is, and thus this holds true for France, should contribute to helping Israel. Moreover that is why it is important for Jews to assume political responsibilities. Not everyone in the Jewish community thinks so, but I believe it is necessary. […] To sum it up, in my functions and in my daily life, through all my actions, I do what I can to contribute my modest stone to the construction of the land of Israel” (from the review Passages, number 35, 2007.) This sort of stuff no doubt aroused the enthusiasm of the large Jewish community in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles that elected him mayor. But it is strange for a presidential candidate to declare that concern for a foreign country is the primary motivation of his political career.

In his comments, Nicolas Dupont-Aignan was the first public person in France to express concern for the victim. “If the facts are proven, it is very grave, all the more in that nobody speaks of the victim. If it had happened in France, I am not sure that the police would have dared to arrest DSK.” Dupont-Aignan deplored the fact that France “will go on having that image of a culture of impunity for important personalities. … The United States”, he concluded, “has a lot of faults but in such sex cases they have much less of the culture of impunity which prevails in our country.”

Many French will see the prosecution of DSK as symptomatic of American puritanism. Certainly, this scandal will draw attention to the cultural differences between the two countries, including what it is that causes a major scandal. Back in the summer of 2004, a huge uproar occurred in France when a young woman claimed to be the victim of a group of young blacks who attacked her on a suburban commuter train because they thought she was Jewish. Even the President of the Republic joined the chorus of protests against the “anti-Semitic attack”. It turned out that the young woman had invented the whole story to attract the sympathy of her family.

As the truth came out, Dominique Strauss-Kahn commented that if the incident “turns out later not to have happened as alleged, in any case there have been 20 others that did take place before.”

This was symptomatic of a “left” that abandoned the working class, while marketing itself as uniquely concerned with moral issues such as promoting feminism and combating racism and anti-Semitism. It would be fittingly ironic for this pretense to be exploded by the revolt of an abused African housekeeper.

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Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions. She can be reached at diana.josto@yahoo.fr

Dr. Mohamed Khodr

The Herculean Accomplishment of a Small band of Zionist Thieves, Genocidal Liars, and Barons who Stole a Nation, Palestine, and Occupied another, the United States, is nothing short of a historical miracle.

Beloved people of Gaza

Beloved people of Gaza

Treasured people of Palestine

Teachers of courage and dignity

Archetype of humanity

While we sat pondering like fools utterly helpless

Talking much and doing less

Going round and round in circles

Thinking how to help

What to offer you to relieve some of your pain

–Nahida: Her site is http://poetryforpalestine.spaces.live.com/

“Modern Age is the Jewish Age, and the Twentieth Century, in particular, is the Jewish Century,”

– Professor Uri Slezkine (University of California, Berkeley), Jewish, in ‘The Jewish Century.”.

UPDATE ON the Petition to establish a “No Fly Zone over Gaza”

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?p181p194&1

3,687

The Number of Honorable Men and Women from around the world who have signed this Petition as of May 15, 2011—the 63^rd Anniversary of the NAKBA and the founding of Israel, a nation of “war criminals”.

This number is small compared to the tens of thousands, if not greater, of Jews who sign petitions supportive and protective of Israel even as it commits repeated genocides in Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza.

Gaza is enduring a Second NAKBA for the last 4 years with a total strangling siege by Israel from the air, land, and sea, not even allowing food and medicines to save the lives of 1.5 million people living in what Jews know as “Concentration Camps.”

We all recognize that despite the efforts of these courageous signers this number is simply insufficient to present to the U.N.

We can do better. We must do better to make a difference. Don’t stop spreading the word, don’t stop signing.

We must never give up on the life of a single Gazan child. People can change destiny. History is made by people. Please don’t stop spreading this petition to all you know. There is nothing more worthy of our humanity than to save the lives of people, especially the innocent children of Gaza. Israel with total impunity can and will launch another genocidal attack on Gaza as long as America protects and supports it and as long as we are silent.

In reality the Palestinians have suffered two “Nakbas” or Catastrophes. The first Nakba, 1947-1948, is their physical expulsion from their homeland, but the second Nakba has been more tragic, deadly, painful, and enduring, and that is due to Israel’s and its American minions, especially in the majority owned Jewish media, in diabolically preventing and erasing from history the historical truth from reaching the American people on how Israel was founded based on the holocaust and ethnic cleansing it committed against the Palestinians, the lands native people.

The victims of the Holocaust have been the Jews, the Palestinians, historical truth, and the occupation of America.

The persecuted became the deadly persecutors.

My beloved Children of Gaza, of Palestine, forgive this thoughtless and heartless world that has abandoned you for 63 years to the butchers of Zion. I beg you to forgive me for I too have failed you for all I’ve ever offered you are words and more words that have never fed a hungry child or stopped an Israeli American bullet from piercing your heart. I’ve not delivered you medicines, nor clothes to warm you in the dead of winter, nor helped in rebuilding your demolished home, nor provided you clean water or baby formula for your infant sister, nor built a sewage system to remove the Settler’s sewage plaguing your streets and playgrounds. You live in darkness without electricity with unemployed fathers.

You depend on the charity of the world which has failed to answer the cries of hungry infants, and when the courageous few ride Flotillas to bring you food and hope, Israel attacks the ships killing the innocent with absolution from the U.S. Congress for the murders.

My last meager effort was to write a Petition to be presented to the United Nations Secretary General and the members of the Security Council urging them to establish a “No Fly Zone” over Gaza to prevent another aerial genocide of you and your families.

I submitted it to over 110 organizations, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim organizations from Washington D.C., to Europe, Palestine, Africa and Australia who are allegedly politically active, involved in civil and human rights, and boycott initiatives.

I also submitted it to over 100 websites asking them to please post the petition on their website and encourage their members and contacts to sign the petition. Only a handful of websites did.

Tragically, although not unexpected, almost all the Palestinian organizations and websites, many led by prominent and well known personalities in and out of Palestine, ignored this simple act to prevent the opening of another grave for a Gaza child I’m sorry I can’t explain to you this incredulous phenomenon by your own people.

I will not shame them by writing their names and their websites but that is between them, God, and their feigned allegiance to Palestine which has brought them fame, fortune, media exposure, published books, and on occasions, photo ops in the White House and Congress where their inferiority complex shows on their faces and mannerisms. They did not even have the courtesy to respond to my emails.

I honor those who did sign and am grateful to them for their noble courage and compassion to the Palestinian suffering at the hands of Israel, a nation with powerful tentacles in western capitals able to poison opponents and demand subservience from the White House and the perennial doormat we call Congress (The Little Knesset).

Perhaps the Arabs, Muslims, and Palestinians deem petitions to be a frivolous act, a non-sensical effort that will go nowhere, something beneath their arrogant consideration. Perhaps it’s their view that they know best how to tackle the Palestinian cause despite their decades of failure of saving or feeding even one Palestinian child, or the placement of one brick in an illegal settlement, or the demolition of one home, or ending the four year siege of Gaza. Is it fear of reprisal by Israel’s Mossad, FBI, CIA, or Gulf and Saudi funders who demand they not cross red lines?

Not one single Arab or Muslim government has supported Palestinian resistance, or the Gaza Flotillas to aid desperate Gazans, or launched a campaign to free Gaza. Even Syria’s government that claims its solidarity with the Palestinian resistance ensures Israel’s security by keeping its borders with it quiet and peaceful for decades.

Today, as Palestinians relive the Nakba in the occupied territories, a relatively small number of Arabs in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon are protesting against Israel and its occupation of Palestine, despite the fact that potentially a billion Muslims can join such a protest against their government’s complicity and America’s unshakable commitment to Israel.

It’s been Turkey and Iran who’ve taken courageous public stands against U.S. foreign policy and Israel. How Un-Islamic that Muslims fear America and Israel more than they fear God.

But my children of Palestine and Gaza trust in God and ignore the world, a world that is blind, deaf, and mute that chooses to ignore your cries for freedom. Hold strong to your bond with God, keep your faith and pray for your deliverance, but be patient and trust in Him, for He is always with the Oppressed and hates the Oppressors.

Never forget that your resistance to Israel is sanctioned by God and International Law. No man, woman, or child, should live under the military boot of a foreign occupier. No nation or person has the right to subjugate others and deny them their freedom.

The Arabs and Muslims themselves have abandoned their Muslim duty to fight with other Muslims against oppression and have lost the moral compass of the Qur’an ignoring God’s admonition that it is their duty to come to the aid of their fellow man.,

“And what is wrong with you that you fight not in the Cause of Allah, and on behalf of those who are weak, ill treated and oppressed among men, women, and children, whose cry is: “Our Lord! Rescue us from this town (to freedom) whose people are oppressors; and raise for us, out of Thy Grace, a protector, and raise for us, out of They Grace, one who will bring us victory.” [Quran 4:75:]

Our Beloved Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) on him said that Allah (swt) said:

“O My servants, I have forbidden oppression for Myself and have made it forbidden amongst you, so do not oppress one another.”

Today, May 15, the western compliciters, enablers and supporters of the founding of the Apartheid Exclusivist State of Israel, formerly Palestine, are congratulating and celebrating the birth of Israel, a terrorist state

How ironic that just two days ago Obama’s Middle East envoy, Senator George Mitchell resigned exasperated and frustrated at every turn by Israel, our “special ally” as it refused every Peace proposal this administration dared to offer.

Mitchell is simply the latest of dozens of MidEast envoys who’ve surrendered their positions given Israel’s powerful grip on the U.S. Government beginning in 1949 with Truman’s envoy to a MidEast Peace Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, Ambassador Mark Etheridge.

This American pandering to Israel and injustice against the Palestinians shall too pass as an evil in history.

As Thomas Jefferson said:

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

My beloved Palestine, Israel is on the wrong side of divine order, destiny, and human history and in the end like all Oppressors and Empires it too shall perish, but only if we as a human race inform ourselves on the issue, enlighten others, and unite in one single voice: “Free Palestine/

MUST SEE VIDEOS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw1YoU98krA&feature=related

A Moving, Haunting, Heart Breaking Look at the NAKBA, Photos of the Ethnic Cleansing and Dispossession of Palestinians from their Land.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8TTFirNs8k&feature=related

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO ON GAZA’S CHILDREN narrating the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead. These are whom we’re trying to protect. Can you honestly watch this video without a tear in your heart and eye?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z38eFhhtEYo&feature=related

The Suffering of Gaza’s Children under Israel, the Only Democracy in the Middle East, a nation that shares America’s values of invasions, genocide, theft of resources, and assassinations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXB0ZFGVM-s&feature=related

Short Beautiful Song: “Forever Palestine”

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Mohamed Khodr is an American Muslim born in the Middle East. He is political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

On Jewish Identity  -  by Richarid Falk

Source: Intifada-Palestine.com

January 20, 2011

By Anthony Lawson

Anthony Lawson

Although the motives of the writer may be sincere, there are a few points that I feel must be made about certain passages which tend to be defensive, rather than accurate, as to some of the things that are taught to Jews, or, at the very least, what the results of what is taught appears to lead to.

Quote:

“I have felt uncomfortable since childhood with biblical claims, often repeated in contemporary social settings, that Jews are ‘the chosen people’ of God even if this is understood benevolently and temporally as a special destiny associated with doing justice rather than as a matter of societal achievement via wealth and professional success.”

With the best will in the world, there do not appear to be many recorded instances of ‘the chosen people’ being benevolent to those who are not chosen, and, unless certain passages of the Torah, the Old Testament and the Talmud have been very badly translated, or certain rabbis currently teaching in Israel and elsewhere are way off track, then those who are not Jewish are still regarded as no better than cattle, as the current plight of the Palestinians attests to.

Of course it will be argued that this kind of thinking is limited to a very few extremists, who take the scriptures rather too literally, but the continual killing of Palestinians, and the destruction of Palestinian property as well as Operation Cast Lead and the attack on the Mavi Marmara give the lie to those kinds of excuses, so the best that could be said of this passage is that it is muddled thinking, in the extreme.  Perhaps it is how Mr Falk would like things to be, rather than how they appear to be to all but the most biased observers.

I also take issue with this statement:

Quote:

“And, of course, the historical climax of inverted exclusivity was the Holocaust, a process in which Jews (along with the Roma and others) were chosen for extermination.”

If we are going to talk about exclusivity, the current narrative of the Holocaust is steeped in it, so much so that it is, exclusively, the one-and-only historical subject which is likely to get one charged and sent to prison, should one calmly, and without malice attempt to question a particular facet of the official story, even though that facet may have already been proven to be false, and if the place where you do it has the requisite laws in place.

Under various guises, such as incitement to racial hatred, commonly known as hate crimes, questioning any details about the Holocaust is banned from being openly discussed in many nations, including Israel, Australia, Germany, Austria, Belgium, France, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, and Canada has extradited at least one person to Germany for such an ‘offence’, Ernst Zündel

In that particularly iniquitous case, the defence lawyer for Mr. Zündel, Sylvia Stolz, was subsequently prosecuted and imprisoned for three-and-a-half years, then disbarred from practicing her profession for a further five years, for the ‘crime’ of attempting to give her client the best defence she could.

Sorry, Mr. Falk, but this is totally unacceptable, unconscionable, iniquitous, indescribable, unreasonable, unacceptable, and any other un- or in- word that may spring to mind, and it is, unquestionably, the product of Zionist and Jewish thinking.  Further: very few liberal or compassionate Jews, who don’t like what is going on in Israel, are prepared to stick their heads above the parapet and let their voices be heard in protest.  On a recent PressTV programme, passionate pro-Palestinian activist Ken O’Keefe had this to say:

‘All the Jewish people of this world, I want to ask you: Does Israel represent you?  Is Israel synonymous with Judaism?  Because if Israel is synonymous with Judaism, then you, as a  people, are a threat to every… every ounce of decency that exists.  I would like to think, and I sure hope that Judaism is not synonymous with the Israeli state, but it is now a responsibility, as it was for the decent Germans of pre-World War Two Nazi Germany.  Just like the so-called decent Germans who did not speak out and do what they needed to do to prevent the rise of Hitler, it is now on you, the Jewish people of the world to speak up.  Now!  And condemn all of these acts of racism, of mass-murder that the Israeli state, that purports to represent you, to speak out now.  You have a special burden.’

One more quote from Richard Falk’s article:

“…what is most appropriate in our historical circumstances is an ecumenical and inclusive spiritual identity, and associated ethical and political commitments.”

Sadly, the article is shot through with this kind of self-indulgent language, which I can only describe as ‘waffle’, and, although Richard Falk may be sincere about trying to bring both sides together, as the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, he must realise that the truth must be the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  Because, in many cases, a suppressed truth can cause far more damage than a blatant lie.

Until the basic human right to openly discuss all of the events that led to the formation of Israel—a nation which seems determined to kill or displace as many Palestinians as it possibly can—is restored, then the plight of those people will never be resolved.  And remember:  the Palestinian people were not responsible for the death of a single Jew in Europe, before or during WW II, yet it was somehow engineered by Zionists that the Jewish ‘survivors’  would be allowed to take over a land that had already been settled for many hundreds of years by other human beings who had homes, villages, cities, livestock, orchards, agricultural land, parks, schools, churches, mosques and dreams and aspirations much like those of people in any other society in the Middle East.

The only way that this situation will ever be resolved is for Israel to be prevented from  treating the Palestinians as Goyim = cattle—in reality: stateless persons—with virtually no rights in the face of the bulldozers, and under the jackboots that the Israeli Defence Forces seems to have inherited from the worst Nazis of wartime Germany.  Which is not to say that all Germans, during that period, were Nazis, nor that all Jews or Israelis are extremists, today.

With respect, the plight of the Palestinian people will never be helped by writing inward-looking articles like ‘On Jewish Identity’.  Next time, Mr. Falk try:  ‘On Human Identity’.

SEE RELATED ARTICLE – IN INTIFADA-PALESTINE.COM

RICHARD FALK: ON JEWISH IDENTITY

See Videos of Anthony Lawson

Gaza in Plain Language — YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFK5TNcmEmg&feature=email

BBC Bias:  The Gaza Freedom Flotilla
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afBr10f38TI

Friends of Israel — Enemies Inside the Gates

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UntixeRiEK8

Anthony Lawson (known professionally as Tony Lawson) is a retired international-prize-winning commercials director, cameraman, ad agency creative director and voice over. He used to be known for shooting humorous commercials, but doesn’t find much to laugh about, with the way the world is going, these days.

By Alan Hart

On the face of it the package of “incentives” Secretary of State Clinton offered Prime Minister Netanyahu to persuade him to buy and sell to his coalition government a one-time-only freeze of 90 days on settlement construction in the occupied West Bank could be summed up with one “c” word – criminal.

Criminal because by excluding occupied Arab East Jerusalem from the desired freeze, the Obama administration is not only going back on its own previous demands which were in accord with international law and various UN Security Council resolutions. It is effectively endorsing Israel’s illegal settlement activities there. Simply stated the U.S. is now openly complicit in Israel’s defiance of international law.

It doesn’t matter that Netanyahu may have said to Hillary Clinton in their seven or eight-hour conversation something like: “There’s no point in you asking for a freeze in Jerusalem. I couldn’t deliver it even if I wanted to, and I don’t.” What any Israeli prime minister can or cannot deliver because of the pathological mindset of most Israelis is not the point. It is that if peace is to have a last chance, the Zionist (not Jewish) state must be obliged to comply with international law (not to mention a host of UN Security Council resolutions).

In my analysis there are three possible readings of the Obama-Clinton game plan.

One is that terrified of offending the Zionist lobby too much, they are desperate and hoping that if they can develop a little momentum, something positive might happen.

Another is that Obama believes that, with the assistance of the Arab regimes, he will be able to bribe and bully Abbas and his quisling Palestinian Authority into accepting crumbs from Zionism’s table if negotiations can be re-started. (If the PA agrees to re-start talks with Israel while it goes on colonizing Arab East Jerusalem, Obama will imagine that he has a chance of earning his Nobel peace prize. He would, of course, be wrong – I really mean deluded – to think that).

It is interesting to note that there are Israeli leaders who believe that a way must be found to “force” the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. One who has said so openly is Defense Minister Ehud Barak. He said on Army Radio that Israel has two options. “Either we reach understandings with the Americans to find a way to force the Palestinians to sit around the negotiating table, or the Palestinians and the Arab world will reach understanding with the Americans and it will be us eating frogs.” (Whatever that means).

A third possibility – my speculation here will convince many that I have taken leave of my senses  – is that Obama might have an ace up his sleeve.

Via Secretary of State Clinton, Obama told Netanyahu that if he put in place a 90-day moratorium on construction on the West Bank, he (Obama) will guarantee to continue the American presidential tradition of vetoing UN Security Council resolutions which are not to Israel’s liking. That would mean, among other things, blocking any Palestinian attempt to obtain international recognition of statehood on the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and preventing Israel from being called to account for war crimes.

Probably Hillary Clinton did not say so to Netanyahu, but one possible implication of the American incentives package is that if Netanyahu fails to deliver a 90-day moratorium, or does and is still only playing games, the U.S. will NOT block a Palestinian attempt to obtain international recognition of statehood, and will NOT obstruct efforts to call and hold Israel to account for war crimes.

As regular readers of my contributions to informed and honest debate know, I do not believe Obama entered the White House programmed to do Zionism’s bidding. I think, as I have written, that he was naïve and inexperienced.

The question for the coming days is whether Obama has the will and courage to play his ace card if Netanyahu continues to humiliate him and demonstrate, with or without a 90-day moratorium, that he and virtually all of his leadership colleagues are not interested in peace on terms the vast majority of Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could just about accept.

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East.
His Latest book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, is a three-volume epic in its American edition.  He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor.

End The Occupation.org

Settlers in the West Bank are on a rampage. There have been 35 incidents of settler vandalism against Palestinians during the 2010 olive harvest season.

The settlers, with control over the Israeli government, are emboldened, especially now that their ability to block progress in peace negotiations has stood unchallenged.  The inability of anyone in the world to stop them – incuding the Obama Administration – is now painfully apparent.

We have pledged to stand up against this aggression the only way we know how – through nonviolence, and by standing in solidarity with Palestinian farmers.

Israeli army using Caterpillar D9 bulldozer to clear Palestinian trees

Join us in pledging to replant olive trees destroyed.

Last weekend four Israeli human rights organizations sent a letter to the Israeli army decrying the escalation of settler vandalism.  It demanded that the army take steps to guarantee full protection from damage to Palestinian property, particularly olive trees.  We’re not holding our breath.

What can we do to show solidarity with Palestinian farmers, and help them resist these assailants who seek nothing less than ethnic cleansing? Here are my suggestions:

• Stop the U.S. government and U.S. corporations from providing direct and indirect support to settlers.  Join our latest petition drive, in partnership with the Rachel Corrie Foundation, which demands that the US government stop supplying Caterpillar bulldozers to the Israeli military.
  

  View B’Tselem’s vandalism report, including this video.

• Raise awareness in your community about the “Stop the Wall” Campaign (below) and stand up and be heard during “Israeli Aparthied Week.”
• Replant olive trees in Palestine by joining Trees for Life.  A gift of $25 covers the cost of planting a tree and supports our work here in the United States. Especially for the upcoming holidays, please consider this gift for a loved one.

We hope you find this edition of Occupation End Notes informative, and welcome your feedback.

In solidarity,

Rob Mosrie, Executive Director

Caterpillar D9 deliveries halted, momentarily

Today our National Advocacy Director, Josh Ruebner, hand-delivered to the State Department an open letter signed by more than 150 organizations, and a petition signed by more than 11,000 individuals, calling on the Obama Administration to make the suspension permanent.

Learn more…

Source: End the Occupation

By Cameron Hunt

No-State Alternative has a realistic plan of implementation. (Courtesy Palestine Chronicle)

Anyone that has studied the various ‘Alternatives’ to the US-managed ‘peace process’ that were put forward to the Arab League by Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, on 8 October 2010, has likely been able to piece together four different Alternatives that were proposed, and their likely chronology:

(1) The PA will ask the US to unilaterally recognize the ‘State of Palestine’;

(2) The Arab League will petition United Nations Member States to recognize a Palestinian State, via a new UN resolution calling for such recognition from all UN Members;

(3) The Arab League will take action at the UN to have the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPTs) placed under direct UN custody;

(4) Finally, the PA will be dissolved – following the resignation of Abbas – and the oPTs will consequently fall back under full Israeli sovereignty. At that point in time, it is hoped that Israel will be regarded as an apartheid state, and that a global movement for ‘one-man, one-vote’ shall then presumably commence to bring about full Palestinian civil rights.

The Arab League has given the US one month to force a new settlement freeze/slowdown upon Israel – the apparent logic being that if Israel concedes a partial 8-week settlement freeze applying only to the West Bank, it might also be willing to hand back East Jerusalem and to facilitate the Palestinian ‘Right of Return’ (both of which are Palestinian demands for any final status agreement) – after which time the League is set to discuss and finally select from Abbas’ four Alternatives to the US-orchestrated process.

It seems appropriate to give some consideration to each of Abbas’ four proposed Alternatives at this moment. The starting point in any such consideration must be the Palestinian National Council ‘Declaration of Independence’, of 15 November 1988. In this Declaration, the PNC called for: “An endeavour to place the occupied Palestinian territories, including Arab Jerusalem, under United Nations supervision for a limited period, in order to protect our people and to provide an atmosphere conducive to … the attainment of a comprehensive political settlement”. The ultimate purpose of such UN supervision was to have been “to enable the Palestinian State to exercise its effective authority over those territories”; a ‘Palestinian State’ the PNC had just declared.

When considering Alternative #1 mooted by Abbas, it should probably be remembered that the US voted against UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution A/RES/43/177, of 15 December 1988, which “Acknowledges the proclamation of the State of Palestine by the Palestine National Council on 15 November 1988”, and “Affirms the need to enable the Palestinian people to exercise their sovereignty over their territory occupied since 1967” – the US and Israel were in fact the only two UN Members to vote against this UNGA resolution. Likewise, according to the US legal expert that advised upon the PNC Declaration, Francis Boyle, some months after that November 1988 Declaration, “the PLO ratified the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 on behalf of the state of Palestine … [and] transmitted its instrument of ratification to the government of Switzerland, which is the official depository for the Geneva Conventions. Yet, because of massive overt pressure mounted by the United States government, the Swiss government did not formally accept the PLO’s instrument of ratification.” So, not only did the US government not support the Palestinian declaration of statehood of 1988, it aggressively sabotaged it.

It is a little known fact that within five years of the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence, more than 114 states had recognized the newly declared Palestinian State; no more than 93 states having had diplomatic relations with Israel at that time. Apparently, there is no need to spend any more time analysing Abbas’ Alternative #2. It seems that who recognizes your state is far more important than the number that recognize it, and US recognition of a Palestinian State without Israel’s blessing is nothing but a pipe-dream.

It can be seen from the text of the 1988 ‘Declaration of Independence’ that the Palestinian representatives have in fact already called for: “An endeavour to place the occupied Palestinian territories [oPTs], including Arab Jerusalem, under United Nations supervision”. Therefore, if the US and Israel won’t support Alternative #3, history tells us that there is no point even discussing it. Which UN Member is willing to airlift its soldiers into the oPTs in order to implement a UNGA resolution placing those territories under UN authority, without the full co-operation of Israel and the US? Israel-US aside, is Hamas likely to accept the imposition of UN administration upon the Gaza strip, owing to a PA decree announced from the occupied West Bank?

Now for Alternative #4: Abbas resigns, the PA is dissolved, and the Palestinian Territories fall under immediate and complete Israeli sovereignty (it should be remembered that Gaza is still occupied by Israel, under the terms of international law). It seems clear from media reports that Abbas has already informed US negotiators that he will resign if the current round of US-staged ‘peace talks’ fail; something that is assured if a new Israeli West Bank settlement building slowdown is not announced within the coming weeks. Given that the dissolution of the PA that is to follow has been threatened for many years now, this threat also seems entirely credible; particularly within the current context. At that moment, it is hoped that ‘the Palestinian problem’ would become a global problem. Recent moves in South Africa to endorse an academic boycott of Israel suggest that this might not be an entirely naïve Alternative, if left with no others. However, the main question that ought to be asked is how long would the ensuing global campaign for ‘one-man, one-vote’ take to bring about full Palestinian civil rights within historic Palestine? 10 years? 20? Why not longer? What is to stop Israel from a ‘unilateral withdrawal’ from all of those (arid/Arab) sections of the West Bank that it does not wish to call home? Likewise, this approach ignores the fact that Israel is very much in control of the demographic equation within historic Palestine; unlike the situation that had existed in apartheid South Africa. Should Israel make a special effort to bring in/grant citizenship (and voting rights) to an unprecedented number of (Jewish) migrants, when would the Palestinians actually achieve their rights under a ‘one-man, one-vote’ approach; something that is clearly intended to play into the favour of Palestinian demographics over the coming decades, though need not?

Fortunately for those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, there is an Alternative #5 that was not suggested to the Arab League: the ‘No-State Alternative’. Under this solution, historic Palestine would be internationalized in its entirety – meaning no ‘State of Palestine’, and no longer any ‘State of Israel’ – and the UN would become immediately responsible for the administration of the newly internationalized territory. Unlike the other four ‘Alternatives’ just discussed, Alternative #5 comes with a simple and realistic implementation plan:

(1) The Arab League pushes forcefully for the UN General Assembly to revoke UNGA resolution 181 – the ‘partition resolution’ – which provided the legal (and moral) basis for the establishment of the State of Israel, through the partition of historic Palestine – a revocation that the US (or any of the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council) could not veto.

It is widely agreed by legal experts that UNGA resolution 181 is fundamental to the State of Israel’s continued legitimacy under international law.

(2) The UNGA revokes operative paragraph 1 of its resolution 273, which decided that “Israel is a peace-loving State”; UN membership only being available to “peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the … Charter”.

The UN Charter declares that membership of the UN is open to “peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations”. It is the UNGA (not the UNSC) that is tasked with making this “judgment”; membership in the UN being “effected by a decision of the General Assembly”. Operative paragraph 1 of UNGA resolution 273 formally decided that “Israel is a peace-loving State which accepts the obligations contained in the Charter and is able and willing to carry out those obligations”; paragraph 2 going on “to admit Israel to membership in the United Nations”. The UNGA should revoke operative paragraph 1 of its resolution 273 immediately, and should ask the International Court of Justice for an Advisory Opinion on the legal consequences for Israel’s ongoing participation in the UN.

(3) The UNGA adopts a new resolution authorizing and calling for wide ranging (excluding cultural) sanctions against Israel, pouring life into the already vibrant BDS/sanctions movement initiated by the Palestinians in 2005.

For anyone wishing to argue that the UNGA does not have the power to authorize sanctions, that only the UN Security Council (UNSC) can, those people need only study UNGA resolution A/RES/ES-8/2, of 14 September 1981, which both called for and authorized “all States, in view of the threat to international peace and security posed by South Africa, to impose against that country comprehensive mandatory sanctions” – the US had blocked a similar resolution by the UNSC at the time with its (fictitious) ‘veto power’, in support of an ally the international community could no longer tolerate. This UNGA resolution was fundamental to the sanctions campaign that brought about the end of apartheid in Africa – as well as the subsequent dismantlement of the only nuclear weapons arsenal on that Continent (weapons Israel had helped the regime to build).

(4) The Arab League pressures the European Union to cancel the ‘EU-Israel Association Agreement’, which according to Article 2 of that same Agreement, is “based on respect for human rights and democratic principles”.

It should not be forgotten that the European Union is Israel’s largest trading partner, absorbing over 25 percent of Israel’s exports and supplying it with more than 40 percent of its imports; all upon the basis of preferential trading privileges, owing to the aforementioned Agreement. Additionally, some comfort should be taken in the knowledge that in April 2002, the European Parliament – after condemning an Israeli military escalation in the Palestinian Territories that it said “violates international and humanitarian law” – voted to suspend the Association Agreement, but that this move was blocked at the time by Britain, Germany and the Netherlands (those three members demonstrating neither “respect for human rights”, nor “respect for … democratic principles”).

(5) The Arab League challenges the legality of US aid to Israel, in US courts, and under US law.

It can be easily argued that US aid to Israel violates the US Constitution, as it appears to violate the First Amendment. The US Supreme Court decided in its majority opinion delivered in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), that: “The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: … Neither [a state nor the Federal Government] can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another… No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion.” What if that Institution were called the ‘Jewish and democratic state’ of Israel? What if the form that Institution adopted “to teach or practice religion” was labelled the ‘nation-state of the Jewish people’?

(6) The UNGA votes on and adopts a ‘unification resolution’, calling on the UN Trusteeship Council (which was slated for abolition in 2005, despite its anti-colonization mandate) to draw up a ‘Trusteeship Agreement’ for the new ‘UN Trust Territory of the Levant’, encompassing the entirety of historic Palestine.

I outlined the details of this ‘Trust Territory of the Levant’ in my earlier Article, Two-State Chimera, No-State Solution, of 24 May 2007.

Instead of immediately ruling out Alternative #5 – despite the absence of any other feasible alternatives – those wishing to advance Palestinian rights might instead ask themselves the following (abridged) questions of Abbas’ Alternatives #3 and #4 (Alternatives #1 and #2 having already been discounted), which entail either UN or Israeli administration of the occupied Palestinian West Bank:

(1) How would the UN prevent the ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements onto Palestinian lands? The UN has kept a register of the dispossession of Palestinian lands and homes since 1948. How has that helped the Palestinian people?

We needn’t spend any time discussing what Israel would do to stop the expansion of Israeli settlements onto Palestinian lands.

(2) Would the more than 5 million Palestinian refugees see their ‘Right of Return’ fulfilled in the next 10-20 years in the case of a UN-administered West Bank? Will the UN smuggle those refugees in from Jordan, through the Israeli-controlled Jordan Valley? Will it fly them in through Israeli-controlled airspace?

Again, we needn’t bother discussing the fulfilment of the Palestinian Right of Return under an Israeli-administered West Bank.

(3) How would either outcome advance the civil rights of Palestinians living within the State of Israel; so-called ‘Arab-Israelis’? Would they not continue to be discriminated against by a ‘Jewish and [paradoxically] democratic State’?

(4) Will Israel immediately release the thousands of Palestinian prisoners it is holding indefinitely, and without trial, if it suddenly found itself again in control of the West Bank? What if the UN administration in the West Bank politely asked Israel to release them?

(5) Israel already chokes UN deliveries to the Gaza Strip (and attacks UN storage facilities there with illegal weapons-of-war). What if Israel someday also decides to put a UN-administered West Bank “on a diet”? Likewise, will the UN be able to prevent Israel from imposing whatever duties on Palestinian goods that it feels necessary to ‘protect its domestic economy’, if Israel controls the borders of the West Bank?

(6) Would Israel end all torture of Palestinian prisoners if it again reigned-supreme in the West Bank? If the UN ruled the West Bank, would it forcefully arrest any Israelis that it suspected of the torture of Palestinian civilians, thereby bringing such torture to an end?

(7) Would the UN administration in the West Bank immediately begin dismantling the ‘Separation Barrier’ that the UN’s principal court has declared illegal? Would it forcefully engage any agents of the occupation involved in the barrier’s further expansion/encroachment?

(8) How would West Bank access to religious sites in Jerusalem (and in other Israeli-controlled areas such as Hebron and Bethlehem) be facilitated by either outcome?

(9) How would either the UN or Israeli administration of the West Bank facilitate the reunification of the Palestinian nation – of Gaza and the West Bank – a precursor to the fulfilment of the Palestinian ‘Right to National Self-Determination’?

Of the five Alternatives available to the Palestinian leadership, only the No-State Alternative can bring about the fulfilment of all Palestinian rights; whilst also sparing the Israelis their own. Only the No-State Alternative has a realistic plan of implementation. Only the No-State Alternative can be implemented without regard for the objections of either the US, or the erstwhile ‘State of Israel’.

AUTHOR BIO:

Cameron Hunt is the author of ‘Pax UNita’: A novel solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He lives in Australia, and has written extensively on a ‘No-State Solution’ to the conflict since 2005.