Hasbara (There is no state solution for Palastine)
underclassrising.net | 03.06.2010 21:03 | Palestine | Repression | Terror War | Sheffield | World
This has become abundantly clear yet again when the Israeli military boarded a flotilla of aid ships to Gaza in international waters (and even possibly in Turkish waters). Unarmed people bringing aid to the hard proven people of Gaza were killed and mistreated in ways that is hard to grasp for most people. And western media presents the event exactly like Israel wants, distracting from what the case is truly about.
This isn’t about Israel’s «right to defend itself».
It isn’t a matter of two equal parties making war.
It isn’t about Al Qaeda.
It isn’t about a few thugs, pirates and brutal murderers stubbing their toes or being stabbed by kitchen knives.
This is about those countless thugs, pirates and brutal murderers serving the tyranny of Israel being given a free reign by an indifferent world society, about them being allowed to execute, deliberately unarmed and defenseless people. It’s about double standards, about state terrorism and bowing before tyranny, making each and every one of us ashamed of being human. It’s yet another clear-cut case of Israeli aggression, of war crimes, state terrorism and genocide. No, Israel isn’t being singled out. We, all of us reacting with contempt and rage simply hold them to the same standards as everybody else.
It is about perceived respected liberals like Ray Beckerman, being eager tools and proponents of Zionist hasbara (propaganda). People like Ray here are just as guilty as the Israeli police, military and government. They could just as well have pulled the trigger themselves and have blood, lots of blood and ruined lives on their hands. I refuse to link to his lies (he calls his blog Fairness), but they aren’t hard to find. They are basically a rehash of the Israeli press releases and military briefings. Why am I singling out Beckerman? Because he’s the typical sick and sly Israel supporter, and because everything else he’s doing is put into question with his callous support of callous acts.
It’s about cowards like Barack Obama, parroting the same old party line about «being a friend of Israel». No, being a friend of Israel is not okay. How can it be? It’s exactly like standing beside a murderer, torturer or rapist and hailing them on.
There is no need for an international investigation. We know what happened, no matter how much Israel is faking images. The facts are not in dispute, not among fairly sane people. To any one with humanity it’s irrelevant whether or not activists on board the ship fought back against the boarding and piracy or not. It’s good that they did, of course, but Israel’s guilt is just as big anyway. Of course it is! It isn’t even about the piracy in international waters, not truly, it would have been just as bad if it had happened smack in Gaza City.
And it does, all the time.
Let’s not forget: what the unarmed and basically defenseless people on board those ships experienced was no more than the people of Gaza suffer through every day of their lives.
And Palestinians in Israel and on the West bank are hounded and killed all the time, treated like dirt under the Israeli’s shoes, in an Apartheid state, a system that clearly is one of the worst currently in existence.
People have written about Israel’s naked aggression for years, decades even and now and then, after yet another brutal, callous act like this one expressed hope of a breakthrough, that the world at large will draw a blood-red line in the sand and say no more.
It didn’t happen after the massacres in Sabra and Shatilla, not Qana, not Jenin or after Qana again, or after the massacring of hundreds of children in Gaza last year, and we doubt it will happen now. We all must ask our selfs all the time, how far Israel will be allowed to go before the world and humanity at large will tell itself that it no longer has a choice and must put a stop to its totally unacceptable and beyond horrible acts.
This is what should happen, for starters:
Israel should be totally isolated, being treated to an economic, academic, military, cultural and political boycott until they pull back to the borders before the war in 1967 and all their settlements in occupied territories are abandoned.
Then the pressure should start in earnest.
You don’t speak with insane people, but dictate terms.
Israel is the bad guy, the villain, the horror of our times and should be treated in kind.
Britain’s unions commit to a mass boycott movement of Israeli goods.
In a landmark decision, Britain’s trade unions have voted overwhelmingly to commit to build a mass boycott movement, disinvestment and sanctions on Israel for a negotiated settlement based on justice for Palestinians.
The motion was passed at the 2009 TUC Annual Congress in Liverpool today (17 September), by unions representing 6.5 million workers across the UK.
Hugh Lanning, chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: ‘This motion is the culmination of a wave of motions passed at union conferences this year, following outrage at Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, and reflects the massive growth in support for Palestinian rights. We will be working with the TUC to develop a mass campaign to boycott Israeli goods, especially agricultural products that have been produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank.’
The motion additionally called for the TUC General Council to put pressure on the British government to end all arms trading with Israel and support moves to suspend the EU-Israel trade agreement. Unions are also encouraged to disinvest from companies which profit from Israel’s illegal 42-year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
The motion was tabled by the Fire Brigades Union. The biggest unions in the UK, including Unite, the public sector union, and UNISON, which represents health service workers, voted in favour of the motion. The motion also condemned the Israeli trade union Histadrut’s statement supporting Israel’s war on Gaza, which killed 1,450 Palestinians in three weeks, and called for a review of the TUC’s relationship with Histadrut.
Britain’s trade unions join those of South Africa and Ireland in voting to use a mass boycott campaign as a tool to bring Israel into line with international law, and pressure it to comply with UN resolutions that encourage justice and equality for the Palestinian people.
Israel's inhumanity in Palestine exposed yet again
A report from Amnesty International about the «war» in Gaza at the start of the 2009 supports earlier reports of war crimes and genocide It leaves no doubt about Israel’s beyond brutal acts against the Palestinian people.
1. More than 3000 homes were completely destroyed, and more than 11 000 damaged.
2. 215 factories and private businesses were partly or totally destroyed.
3. 15 hospitals and 43 health stations were damaged or destroyed.
4. 28 public buildings and 60 police stations were damaged or destroyed.
5. 30 mosques were destroyed and 10 damaged.
6. 10 schools were destroyed and 168 damaged. 3 universities were destroyed while 14 were damaged.
7. 53 UN-buildings were damaged.
The numbers speak for themselves, both in intent and fact. People have claimed that israel wasn’t only waging war against Hamas, but wanted to destroy, to kill of an entire generation of Palestinian mothers. 1400 Palestinians died as a result of attacks. At least 850 were civilians. 300 were children, some of them, not more than three months old. Most of the killed children were girls. This seems like a more than correct statement of fact.
The report states categorically that these weren’t accidental by-products of warfare, but deliberate escalation of an ongoing campaign.
Israel and its crimes are exposed yet again. A few individuals speak about a total international boycott of israel, but western state leaders are still yellow beyond words in their approach to this criminal nation.
Definition of genocide.
Genocide according to Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), Article 2
...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article 3
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d ) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
It has been stated repeatedly for years that supporters of israel and its oppressive, murderous policies have blood on their hands. But it’s really worse than that. They’re supporting a government or series of governments that can easily be compared with the worst throughout history, like Nazi-Germany, Pol Pot, South Africa during apartheid and so on. It doesn’t change much that the majority of the population belonging to the ruling class has basic rights («democracy» and stuff). In many ways it makes it worse.
Yet another massacre by Israeli forces in 2006, and after yet another leader showed himself to be no better than all of his predecessors. There have been numerous such occasions, both before and after. And every time the supporters of tyranny is riling up to defend the indefensible. They put the terrorist stamp on Hamas, insisting that they should discontinue their resistance, their very justified war against the brutal Israeli occupation. The tiny mosquito bites used by the Israelis to justify Israels’ undeniably horrible acts. Whatever Hamas is doing and what they are dwarfs in comparison with Israel and the Israeli supporters. The evidence, the illustrations we see every day of the occupant’s policy are or should be obvious to all.
Yes, these people should indeed be held accountable. Their attitude or lack of it is quite simply completely unacceptable. Again and again we are forced to ask the same, inevitable question: What’s wrong with people?
To say that Israel has a right to defend itself is like saying that laundry is dirty. It’s meaningless, especially since they are not doing that. What they are doing is slow, painful genocide, and that is to put it all in the right perspective. The fact that it is a slow, thorough process doesn’t it make it less genocide. Hamas isn’t the issue here. Israel is. Both in terms of «quality» and quantity we see that it’s Israel and their supporters’ misanthropic view of mankind that is victorious here.
To speak about «dialogue» and «neutrality» in this context is totally meaningless and inappropriate. Those doing that or claim to be that, is siding with Israel.
There has been a discussion about various kinds of boycotts lately. And even though underclassring have been reluctantly not in favor of a total boycott without exceptions HOWEVER we can understand why some people as disgusted with Israels actions do support them. Boycotts, generally speaking don’t work, because they tend to be incomplete. But in Israel’s case, if all its old friends in the west desert them it will probably be very effective. And one thing such an act will do, no matter what, is to send a message, a clear and not to be misunderstood message to Israel and their accomplices: STOP! And that is by far preferable to the disgusting endless inaction dominating the world’s Middle East politics for more than sixty, no, make that more than hundred years.
Israel should be totally isolated from the international community, politically, militarily, economically and culturally, with no exceptions, until they stop. We can't stop them today, but we can certainly stop them from eventually erasing the Palestinian people. Yes, we can. First of all. The «Jews», as they define themselves, as others also define them, unfortunately so, as an ethnically homogenous group (they’re not and that shouldn’t matter anyway), have reason to be paranoid, reason to be distrustful about the motives of the world.
The question is how long the rest of us should put up with it, should allow our collective, bad conscience let the Isreali government get away with anything.
Any horrible act, any atrocity, at least in intention, if not yet in scope, easily comparable to what the Nazis (and the world’s silence then) did to «them».
They favor the collective punishment method, like the nazis did. When their enemies send one rocket into Israel, they return a thousand, a reign of bombs and destruction. When one single soldier is killed (god forbid) they kill thousands of men, women and even children on the other «side». When a few soldiers are kidnapped, or rather taken prisoners of war, they start yet another war, yet another campaign of terror on occupied territories and neighboring countries. The Middle East has become their playground, their sandbox, where they can turn over everything repeatedly, where they can do practically anything with impunity, without anyone doing anything about it.
This isn’t a war. This is a one-sided, single-minded massacre of perceived enemies.
«The eggs turn to lice», a united states general has been quoted as saying during the genocide of the american natives, and this is obviously how the Israeli government and the forces behind it view Palestinian children. They show that by their action almost daily. Even many conservative politicians, including the former Norwegian prime minister Kåre Willoch, have grown to realize and advocate the obvious truth: that israel is the occupying force in Palestine. He visited the refugee camps Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon in the eighties, and saw for himself the results of israeli occupation and general policy.
So Palestine is occupied, as defined by international law, and as such, the Palestinian people have the right and even the duty to defend themselves and do everything in their power to fight the occupier, like any occupied land and people have done throughout recorded history. But it is an uneven struggle. It often is. But in this case the term «David and Goliath» is truer than it ever was. The way things are today any Palestinian resistance can never be any more than a gnat swatted by the Israeli giant swatter. Only true international pressure can sway the fourth greatest military power on the planet. Only full and complete adherence to the countless (useless) UN resolutions is acceptable.
Israel must be threatened by both economic sanctions and military blockade. Though it would be more than sufficient if the united states, their major benefactor, would withhold their aid, both economic and political. Then the horrible military machine of the Apartheid state would crumble and fade, as it should. And: Israel is, even more so than other states, an artificial construct, and should never have existed in the first place.
So, this is anti-semitic, you say? This, telling it as it is, is persecution of the Jews?
No, it’s an attack at the Israeli government and state, and the forces behind it, which appalling actions have long since ceased having any legitimacy, one they never really had in the first place. And also on a way of thinking that should have been obsolete long ago, before it ever appeared. It’s certainly anti-zionistic, in the sense that we question, we reject, like any sane person should do, the tenets of Zionism. No doubt we will certainly be attacked for this, by the well-oiled propaganda machine of Israel and friends, as everyone pointing out the obvious about these things, is.
A land given them by God?
Please! Such insane rhetoric should never been allowed at all, and certainly not anymore. Do the «jews» have any legitimate claim on Palestine? Does any «ethnic group», on any land? Did their ancestors live in the land of Palestine thousands of years ago? Perhaps. Perhaps not. So what? European ancestors lived in Africa long ago. Does that give them the right to return there and act as the Master Race?
Come to think of it. Everyone’s ancestors have lived practically everywhere at one point or another…
You get the picture. You should.
We nither like Hamas, the current Palestinian administration (or what’s left of it these days). In fact we dislike them with a vengeance, since we can’t stand religious zealots. But that (our opinion) is totally incidental in this particular manner, of course. And they come off as the very incarnation of reason compared to their Isreali counterparts. When Hamas is evoking their right, under international law, to defend themselves and the people electing them from an occupying force, they are not doing anything extreme, really. It is laughable (chokingly laughable) when the international community condemns them for being aggressive, when they do nothing that not any oppressed population living under a terror regime has done and would have done during similar circumstances.
We used to laugh (a lot) about the claims about «the Jews ruling the world» conspiracy theory. We still don’t believe it, but we are not laughing any more. For that, the Jews (or their elected and military representatives) get away with way too much for comfort. The new Israeli prime minister has shown himself to be no better than all his predecessors, Which isn’t strange, of course, since this isn’t a matter about persons, but about inclination, about preference, about Power, about yet more insanity incarnated.
Israel is the sole aggressor these days. They weren’t always, but are now. And they should be stopped. It has gone too far and gone on way too long. It should have ended yesterday.
There is a small (tiny), dwindling peace movement in Israel, but they are as useless as all the nice words spoken by various international, seemingly well-meaning «mediators».
Eighty-six percent of the Israelis, according to a survey in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, support the new invasion of Lebanon. The German Nazis never had that kind of popular support.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) aims to raise public awareness about the occupation of Palestine and the struggle of the Palestinian people. PSC seek to bring pressure on both the British and Israeli government to bring their policies in line with international law. PSC is an independent, non-governmental and non-party political organisation with members from communities across the UK. Join PSC today!
Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Box BM PSA
London
WC1N 3XX
Tel: 020 7700 6192
Fax: 020 7609 7779
Email: info@palestinecampaign.org
Web: www.palestinecampaign.org
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