islamozionism: Israel's Sacred Terrorism

islamozionism: Israel's Sacred Terrorism

Vote 1: militant Zionism

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Israel E News

Vote 1: militant Zionism

Filed under Israeli politics, Opinion Editorials, Anti-Zionist Jews, Israeli Palestinian relations, Knesset members, Palestinian politics, Disputed territories, Israeli elections -

on Wednesday, August 13, 2008

By: Loewenstein, Antony

My latest New Matilda column is about the political realities in Israel and Palestine:

Antony Loewenstein looks behind the pre-election rhetoric in Israel and says the lack of a real difference between the front-runners means deeper trouble ahead for both Israel and Palestine

Israel is currently in political limbo. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s leadership of the Jewish state is nearly over due to his refusal to nominate for the upcoming Kadima primaries and rivals are positioning themselves for the poisoned chalice. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, former Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ehud Barak and former leader Benyamin Netanyahu are all possible candidates.

None of them talks about ending the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.

Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, puts his finger on what is missing from so much of the Western commentary chronically more interested in the personalities than the policies. Levy says the unwillingness of any of the candidates to make any real move towards a peace means there is really no choice for Israel’s voters, but constant demonisation of Netanyahu falsely implies that the others are moderates:

“That is the choice. That is the arsenal of candidates seeking to succeed Olmert. None speak in the name of any ideology whatsoever. A past prime minister who failed at his post and brought about the second intifada (Barak); a former chief of staff and defence minister, a cruel military man, who fanned the flames and knows only how to sow destruction and death (Mofaz); a mild-mannered foreign minister who has not advanced peace in any way (Livni); and Netanyahu - the person everyone loves to hate [ - no worse] than his fellow candidates, but immeasurably more persecuted. The media embraces Livni, accepts Mofaz as legitimate, sometimes supports Barak, but is terrified only by Netanyahu. Why?”

Meanwhile, settler violence towards Palestinians is on the increase in the West Bank, the IDF rarely intervenes and the world Jewish Diaspora remains relatively silent.

Veteran Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell, in a powerful recent essay in Haaretz, articulates what is at stake in the current political charade playing out in the Jewish state. He virtually pleads for the world to wake up and pay attention to what Israel has constructed in the occupied territories and pressure them to stop immediately. Despite his fears that the colonial enterprise will end the dream of a “democratic Jewish state” (arguably already an impossibility when one racial group discriminates against another) his words are powerful:

“…What was essential and therefore justified in the pre-state days is now assuming an ugly and violent form of colonial occupation: the authoritarian regime in the territories, the creation of two legal systems, the placing of the army and police at the service of the settlement movement, the robbing of Palestinian lands. These all symbolize not the fulfilment of Zionism but rather its burial. It is there, between Hebron and Yitzhar, that the settlements are burying the democratic Jewish state.

“…If society does not find the emotional strength to remove the noose of the settlements, nothing but a sad memory will remain of the Jewish state as it still exists.”

Alas, nobody is talking about seriously changing the power dynamic in the Middle East - and most in the region don’t expect a President Barack Obama to shift his country’s bias away from Israel’s occupation - or even attempt to halt the continued growth of settlements. Colonisation is now an essential part of Israel, and will destroy it, in my opinion.

Senior Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia said on Sunday that the Palestinians may soon demand a bi-national state if Israel continues to reject proposed borders. The days of the Jewish state are numbered.

A recent Australian commentator argued that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was subtly re-defining the country’s relationship with Israel to be more “even-handed” in the Middle East. However, actions speak louder than words, and maintaining an outright ban on dealing with Hamas and remaining virtually silent over Israel’s settlement project suggests a business-as-usual mentality.

One issue that has received rudimentary coverage in the Western media is the ongoing civil strife in Gaza and the West Bank. Although there has been some detail on the clan rivalries involved, there has been little discussion about the outside forces that are contributing to the instability. The elevation of Hamas in June 2007 to control of Gaza undoubtedly shifted the power dynamic in the Strip, and many established families quickly discovered the limits to their influence, but what of the US-backed Fatah forces that desperately crave dominance over Hamas?

The role of Washington has been virtually ignored in the current impasse, even after this detailed Vanity Fair essay in April that proved the Bush administration was involved in the instability, having attempted a failed coup in 2007 against Hamas by supporting Fatah forces and triggering a civil war between the rival groups. The aim was to install Fatah and wrestle power from the democratically-elected Hamas.

As recently as March, the Washington Post was reporting that these US-backed forces, being trained in Jordan, are “mired in delays, a shortage of resources, and differences between Israelis and the Americans over what military capabilities those forces should have once deployed in the territories.”

In other words, Fatah, under President Mahmoud Abbas, was willingly collaborating with Washington to provide military forces to essentially manage the occupation and suppress an opposing political party. The result, as we’ve seen over the last weeks, is a resurgent Hamas and brutal tactics from both sides (something rightly chastised by Human Rights Watch in a recent report).

But here’s the catch. Although much of the West stands by and cheers from the sidelines, pleased that the Palestinians are fighting amongst themselves, this thinking is seriously deluded. As pointed out by Daniel Levy - a former liberal Israeli peace negotiator whose blog is essential reading - Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas is threatened by the ongoing violence (something many Israeli politicians welcome, such is their desire to re-invade Gaza and attempt to destroy the Islamist group root and branch):

“…Perhaps most worrying of all is that as Palestinians lose hope in the peace process, and look despairingly at both the Fatah and Hamas leaderships, there is a danger of extremist Al Qaeda-style alternatives emerging. Such activity may already be taking place today, as politics breaks down into clan structures and groups like the Army of Islam appear. Hamas is not Al Qaeda, but the alternative to it might be.”

Palestinian lawlessness in Gaza and Israeli settler chaos in the West Bank is a toxic mix, and the Jewish state is fanning the former and ignoring the latter. The Palestinians are not blameless in this process, of course, with many rival groups positioning themselves for the spoils of (limited) power. But it’s vital to never forget the fact that Gaza remains an occupied prison, surrounded by Israel on all sides (something to be highlighted by the “Free Gaza” boat campaign this week).

More worrying still, the voices within Israel that shun any peace initiatives with the Palestinians are growing. Witness writer and playwright Naomi Ragen, soon to visit Australia, who told the Fairfax press last weekend that she opposed withdrawal from any occupied territory and supported killing all “terrorists”. Ragen, who slammed me as a “liar” and a “typical self-hating, ignorant Jew”, is symptomatic of modern, perverted Zionism. To them the Arabs are unpeople.

Jewish American professor Marc Ellis told the ABC in 2001 that contemporary Judaism was being increasingly defined through the barrel of the gun. “If we want helicopter gunships to define us as a people, say it”, he said, “but don’t pretend that helicopter gunships are not defining us.”

The Israel/Palestine conflict will never be resolved without a serious re-configuring of the Jewish mentality. Militant Zionism has become the default position.

We are barely past the starting line.

The opinions and views articulated by the author do not necessarily reflect those of Israel e News.

A prison is not a penal colony

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Ha'aretz

A prison is not a penal colony

By Haaretz Editorial

July 31 2008

Tags: report, Prison, Israel

The Public Defender's report on the situation of prisoners in 2007 reveals serious failures in Israel's prisons. The editors of the report do note that the Israel Prison Service opened its doors without reservations to the inspector, related seriously to findings and criticism, and that at the time of the editing of the report, some of the distortions had been corrected. Nevertheless, the findings are cause for concern.

Most disturbing of all is the violence by prison guards and their commanders toward prisoners and detainees, especially when it comes to minors.

The report, which examined 11 prisons and jails, reveals inter alia that at the Ofek Prison, where all of the prisoners are minors, there are disproportionate and collective punishments including, for example, shackling all four limbs to a bed. Considered a means of restraining suicidal minors that requires a doctor's authorization, this is used at Ofek as a means of punishment. This is an outrageous, inhumane method that exacerbates despair and suicidal tendencies among the prisoners.

The Prison Service claims that the problems at Ofek, considered one of the most advanced facilities (the writers of the report confirm the classrooms, leisure time activities and physical facilities have improved), stem from poor management, and in a discussion in the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee they promised that the management would be replaced in the near future. If this is the case, there is no reason to wait, and it must be ensured that the new management changes the approach.

At other facilities, where physical conditions are also sometimes disgraceful - intolerable crowding, filth and negligible exposure to fresh air - cases of violence and harsh abuse were found. At all of the facilities there were beatings, delays in meetings with family members and lawyers and, worst of all, excessive punishment. It appears that the Prison Service has forgotten that prisons are not penal colonies ,and putting a person behind lock and key does not mean total and perpetual distancing from society. The period of imprisonment is supposed to be a designated period of punishment, but at the same time it must afford an opportunity for rehabilitation and provide new tools that will enable normative functioning. The Public Defender's report that sweeping punishment thwarts rehabilitation.

What is true of adult prisoners is even truer of minors. And, indeed, the report points to the need to staff the facilities for minors with superior and very skilled personnel. This, however, is not enough, as the report also reveals a serious dearth of manpower, social workers and treatment plans.

All of these are equally deleterious to the chances of rehabilitation, and moreover, transform the prisoners into recidivists who become a heavy burden on society and the economy. The harsh report does, however, have a bright spot, and this is the very fact of its existence. The flaws and injustices are grave, but there is no doubt that the oversight, and to an equal extent the exposure, that has been carried out by the Public Defender since 1999 contribute to the rectification of the norms that have engendered these flaws and injustices.

Help olim join the Jewish people

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Israel E News

Help olim join the Jewish people

Filed under Judaism, Jewish diaspora, IDF/Military, Opinion Editorials, Aliya, Russian Jewish, Israeli minorities, Israeli society, Russia - Friday, August 01, 2008 By: Avital, Colette

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Colette Avital is an Israeli Knesset Member on behalf of the Labor Party, which she has represented since 1999. Born in Bucharest, Romania, she immigrated to Israel with her family in 1950.

While still a student, she began working in Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a secretary. Over the years, she rose through the ranks at the Ministry and in 2007, she was a candidate in the Israeli presidential election

She currently chairs the Immigration, Absorption, and Diaspora Committee. Avital also currently serves as the International Secretary of the Israeli Labour Party.

Some 300-350 thousand non-Jewish immigrants live in Israel today, mostly people who emigrated from the former Soviet Union under the Law of Return. They are all Israeli citizens; most of them well integrated in Israeli society. Many serve in combat units in the IDF. Under Israeli law and the famous Status Quo arrangement, the Orthodox establishment monopolizes the conversion process in Israel.

Non-Jewish immigrants can die for the country, but cannot marry a Jewish citizen in Israel.

Two months ago an urgent meeting took place in the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee of the Knesset. Its chairman, MK Menachem Ben-Sasson, convened the meeting following a preposterous case that took place in the Rabbinical Court of Ashdod. At the end of a simple divorce case, the court retroactively revoked the wife's conversion - which took place 15 years earlier - declaring her marriage null and void and her children gentiles. The decision not only cancelled the woman's conversion, but also discredited some 15,000 conversions preformed by Rabbi Haim Druckman, former head of the State Conversion Authority.

This meeting at the Knesset, as many before in the Immigration Committee, brought to light the catastrophic state of Israel's conversion authorities, where infighting and bickering between the omnipotent rabbinical courts and the powerless State Conversion Authority are the norm. Exposed too was the precarious situation of non-Jewish Israelis who seek to convert and face draconian measures.

Slowly but surely a sub-society is being formed in Israel: a society of citizens with Jewish ancestry who serve in the army and pay taxes, but are prevented from living as citizens with full rights integrating in Israel. Currently only 2,000 people convert every year: only 30% of the soldiers and 55% of the civilians who begin the process end up being converted. Clearly, this is a drop in the ocean. In fact, there are more non-Jewish children born to these families in Israel every year than there are converts.

Five years ago Prime Minister Ariel Sharon attempted to address this problem by establishing the State Conversion Authority in the Prime Minister's Office. Unfortunately, the new body was ineffective in substantially increasing the number of converts to Judaism. This is mainly due to the unwelcoming attitude of the rabbinical courts towards converts, as well as the rigid and protracted conversion process. A survey conducted by the Ministry of immigrant absorption found that 76% of non-Jewish immigrants said that the greatest deterrent to beginning the conversion process was the uncertainty that they will eventually be recognized as Jews. Most respondents commented that an easier and more welcoming process would encourage them to convert.

Recently, a committee headed by Erez Halfon, Director General of the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, completed its work and compiled a plan to reform the conversion services in Israel. The Halfon Committee recommended the establishment of a Conversion Bureau in the Prime Minister's office, which would co-ordinate the various branches of the conversion process: special conversion courts, the various educational institutions and the information policy.

However, the recommendations of the Halfon Committee were watered down by the Prime Minister's Office. The only palpable change seems to be the transferring of budgets from the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption to the Prime Minister's Office, and the addition of some 10 Rabbis to the conversion courts. Even the idea to recruit dozens of volunteer Rabbis to expedite the conversions was knocked down. The solutions offered by the Prime Minister's office are too little too late.

We must not forget that decisions taken in Israel with regards to the conversion process have a profound effect on converts and Jews in the Diaspora. Many non-Jews are reluctant to convert in rabbinical courts which may eventually not be recognized by Israel, and many courts are reluctant to carry out conversions at all. This situation has, of course, an adverse effect on the view of many Jewish communities towards Israel, communities that often contain many converts.

Failure to solve this issue immediately means a long-term disaster for the Jewish State. The damage caused to our social cohesion and the absorption of immigrants is immense.

What is required today is a paradigm shift in thinking towards the entire issue of conversions in Israel. The monopoly in conversions given to the Orthodox should not be unconditional - it can only continue if the treatment of those wishing to convert is radically changed. Conversions must be facilitated both by a more welcoming rabbinical system and by the removal of bureaucratic barriers.

Let us not forget- the people in question have already decided to join the Jewish nation by immigrating to Israel. Their claim - as simple and honest as that of our matriarch Ruth, who declared "Your People is my people and your God- my God" - should be taken seriously.



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Why aren`t evangelicals denouncing Pastor John Hagee?

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Israel e News

Why aren`t evangelicals denouncing Pastor John Hagee?

Filed under: Israeli politics, Middle East, Anti-Semitism, Christian Zionism, Islamophobia, USA foreign policy, Missionising, Disputed territories, News, Religious extremism, US elections, Christian Fundamentalism, Zionism, Jerusalem On: Friday, July 18, 2008 -

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Republican presidential nominee John McCain once sought the endorsement of Texas mega-church pastor John Hagee (left, with McCain). But once McCain got it he was forced to reject it. Why? Because Hagee has denounced Catholicism as "The Great Whore," called for the destruction of Islam, demonizes homosexuals, thinks global warming is a hoax and constantly insists the U.S. should attack Iran because it will help usher in the Second Coming.

Hagee's also a fervent supporter of the State of Israel against its Muslim neighbours. But he doesn't bother to tell Jews that Christians of his ilk expect all Jews to convert to Christianity. If they don't, such end-times Christians believe Jews will suffer eternal damnation when Jesus returns in the Last Judgment.

Hagee's people recently had his sermons removed form You Tube for alleged copyright reasons, after millions of people signed on to watch him say God sent Hitler to frighten European Jews into moving to Israel. Hagee is also reported to have said that the AntiChrist will be German, gay, a "blasphemer" and "partly-Jewish."

The silence from fellow evangelicals about Hagee's militant declarations are perplexing, given that mainstream Muslims are often criticized for not denouncing their extremist brothers and sisters in the faith.

Here's a piece I wrote about how some Jews are growing increasingly nervous about Christian Zionists support for the state of Israel:

Jews and Christians have rarely enjoyed a comfortable relationship. After a history of Christian persecution that contributed to the Holocaust, however, Jews began meeting with shamed Roman Catholics and mainline Protestants, who eventually agreed not to target Jews for conversion.

Evangelical Christians did not typically take part in the interfaith dialogues, or come to the same conclusion. As a result, many Jews have been offended by evangelicals who still believe Jews can go to heaven only if they recognize their "mistake" in not recognizing Jesus as their Messiah.

In politics, as well, there has often been tension between Jews and evangelicals. In the U.S., Jews strongly support the Democrats while white evangelicals firmly back the Republican party. That trend holds in Canada, where polls show evangelicals lean toward the Conservatives and Jews typically vote Liberal or New Democrat.

But there is one overriding issue that opinion polls show is increasingly bringing together many evangelical Christians and Jews in an uneasy alliance: The state of Israel. Many evangelicals, like influential Texas mega-church pastor John Hagee, now call themselves "Christian Zionists." They're supporting Israel against its Middle Eastern foes mainly because of the way they interpret biblical prophecy about the Apocalypse.

These evangelicals cite Genesis 12:3, which recounts God's promise to bless Israel's friends and curse its enemies. Based on their reading of the Book of Revelation, such evangelicals also worry Jesus will not return to Earth to bring in Judgment Day unless the holy land is governed by Jews.

A recent poll by the respected Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 63 per cent of white American evangelicals believe current conflicts involving the state of Israel "fulfil Biblical prophecy about the Second Coming."

American evangelicals, who constitute 26 per cent of the population, gave President George W. Bush 40 per cent of his votes in the last election. The Pew Forum poll found evangelicals are more than twice as likely as secular Americans to sympathize with Israel more than the Palestinians.

The complex and awkward subject of Christian Zionism -- which causes division within both Judaism and evangelicalism -- was highlighted last year by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, which represents 2.5 million conservative Protestants. The Canadian umbrella organization widelydistributed an article in which Christian Zionist Jim Hutchens accused a group of moderate U.S. evangelicals of "appalling ignorance" for supporting Bush's two-state peace proposal of separate nations for Palestinians and Israelis.

The EFC at the same time sent out a related article that offered evangelicals pointers on how to respectfully befriend Jews in hopes of converting them to Jesus Christ. In publishing the articles, however, the EFC says it doesn't necessarily endorse such views.

The issue of conversion is the most combustible ingredient in the political mix that is bringing together evangelicals and Jews.

The controversy relates to the Rapture, or evangelical beliefs about who will be saved on Judgment Day, which grow out of the apocalyptic Book of Revelation. Shaped in part by the phenomenal publishing success of the the Left Behind series, theological thrillers about the end of the world, polls show more U.S. evangelicals than ever believe the reconstitution of the state of Israel in 1948 after nearly 2,000 years signalled the start of a series of events presaging the Apocalypse.

Others signs include the war in Iraq, the oil crisis and the Iranian conflict. Many evangelicals (unlike Roman Catholics or mainline Protestants) believe the more Israel is threatened, the closer is the fulfilment of biblical prophecies about the end times.

For Jews, therefore, the big worry behind Rapture theology is that evangelicals believe they have a special duty to convert Jews to usher in the longed-for Judgment Day. On Judgment Day, many evangelicals believe, all those who have not become Christian, including Jews, will be condemned to eternal damnation.

The Left Behind series includes graphic scenes of unconverted Jews dying in a terrible conflagration. Given this, many Jews have conflicting feelings about embracing evangelical as allies. The national director of the U.S. Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, warned against it: "Make no mistake," Foxman said. "We are facing an emerging Christian right leadership that intends to 'Christianize' all aspects of American life."

In Canada, the most high-profile champion of Christian Zionism is Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College in Ontario, head of the Defend Marriage Coalition and leader of Ottawa's new Institute for Canadian Values. Even though McVety is a Conservative party supporter, no political polling exists that I'm aware of about whether Canada's evangelicals, who make up almost 10 per cent of the population, agree with his views about the state of Israel or Judgment Day.

Canadian evangelicals, as a group, tend to be more moderate than their American cousins. But the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada's recent messages to adherents make clear the future of the state of Israel remains a live and sensitive issue for conservative Protestants north of the border.

Douglas Todd - Vancouver Sun

Suspicion: Former IDF Intel chief exposed billionaire Egyptian Mossad agent Marwan

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Israel E News


Suspicion: Former IDF Intel chief exposed billionaire Egyptian Mossad agent Marwan

Filed under: Israeli politics, Middle East, Business, IDF/Military, Mossad/Israeli intelligence, News, Intelligence (foreign), Law and courts, Scandals

On: Friday, July 18, 2008

By: Israel e News

Israeli investigators looking into suspicions that Eli Zeira, head of IDF intelligence during Yom Kippur War, revealed identity of Egyptian who warned Israel of coming Egyptian army attack

Ashraf Marwan

Israel Police and Shin Bet investigators are looking into suspicions that former IDF Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. (res.) Eli Zeira exposed Mossad agent Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian billionaire who warned Israel prior to the onset of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973.

Zeira, who was head of IDF intelligence during the war, is suspected of severe offences related to State security.

Since the 1990s, Israeli intelligence officials, including Zeira himself, have claimed that Marwan was a double agent who disclosed vital information on the Egyptian forces but also said they would launch an attack in the evening, when they actually attacked on the morning of October 6.

Marwan, the controversial son-in-law of Egypt's late President Gamal Abdel Nasser, died in June 2007 of a ruptured aorta caused when he fell from a window of his flat on the fifth floor of Carlton House Terrace in London. Some said Israel assassinated Marwan, while others claimed he was depressed and committed suicide.
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'Degree in chemical engineering'

In September 2002, the London-based Israeli historian Ahron Bregman published a book that included allegations that Marwan was Israeli's "master spy" in Cairo. In a subsequent interview with Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, Bregman again named Marwan as Israel's disputed source.

Despite these allegations being made public, Marwan seemed to avoid any retaliation from Egypt. On October 6, 2004, two year after being named as a spy, Israeli intelligence officers observed Marwan being greeted warmly by current Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak; the only possible explanation, asserts Bregman, was that Marwan had been a double agent

According to the Israeli media reports, Marwan first walked into the Israeli Embassy in London in 1969 and volunteered to give information but was turned down. He later was allegedly recruited by the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad.

Born to a father who was a military officer in Nasser's presidential guard, Marwan joined the army himself after he completed a degree in chemical engineering. He later worked as an assistant to Nasser and after Nasser's death in 1970, he became a political and security adviser to Anwar Sadat.

In the 1970s, Marwan worked as head of Egypt's huge government-owned military industry complex before he retired and moved to Britain 25 years ago to work in business.

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Ynet


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Einstein: Belief in God 'childish,' Jews not chosen people

Einstein: Belief in God 'childish,' Jews not chosen people

In letter written by father of relativity, he reveals his belief that Jewish people 'have no different quality for me than all other people'

05-14-2008
AFP

Albert Einstein described belief in God as "childish superstition" and said Jews were not the chosen people, in a letter to be sold in London this week, an auctioneer said Tuesday.

The father of relativity, whose previously known views on religion have been more ambivalent and fuelled much discussion, made the comments in response to a philosopher in 1954.

As a Jew himself, Einstein said he had a great affinity with Jewish people but said they "have no different quality for me than all other people".

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish.

"No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this," he wrote in the letter written on January 3, 1954 to the philosopher Eric Gutkind, cited by The Guardian newspaper.

The German-language letter is being sold Thursday by Bloomsbury Auctions in Mayfair after being in a private collection for more than 50 years, said the auction house's managing director Rupert Powell.

In it, the renowned scientist, who declined an invitation to become Israel's second president, rejected the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people.

"For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions," he said.

"And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people."

And he added: "As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

Previously the great scientist's comments on religion - such as "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" -- have been the subject of much debate, used notably to back up arguments in favour of faith.

Powell said the letter being sold this week gave a clear reflection of Einstein's real thoughts on the subject. "He's fairly unequivocal as to what he's saying. There's no beating about the bush," he added.

"We Created Terror Among the Arabs": The Deir Yassin Massacre

"We Created Terror Among the Arabs": The Deir Yassin Massacre

Counterpunch
William James Martin

Tue, 13 May 2008

On April 9, 1948, members of the underground Jewish terrorist group, the Irgun, or IZL, led by Menachem Begin, who was to become the Israeli prime minister in 1977, entered the peaceful Arab village of Deir Yassin, massacred 250 men, women, children and the elderly, and stuffed many of the bodies down wells. There were also reports of rapes and mutilations. The Irgun was joined by the Jewish terrorist group, the Stern Gang, led by Yitzhak Shamir, who subsequently succeeded Begin as prime minister of Israel in the early '80s, and also by the Haganah, the militia under the control of David Ben Gurian. The Irgun, the Stern Gang and the Haganah later joined to form the Israeli Defense Force. Their tactics have not changed.

The massacre at Deir Yassin was widely publicized by the terrorists and the numerous heaped corpses displayed to the media. In Jaffe, which was at the time 98 percent Arab, as well as in other Arab communities, speaker trucks drove through the streets warning the population to flee and threatening another Deir Yassin. Begin said at the time, "We created terror among the Arabs and all the villages around. In one blow, we changed the strategic situation."

From about 1938 on to the founding of Israel, Begin was the leader of the Irgun. That group regularly assassinated English soldiers in Palestine and frequently hung their booby-trapped bodies in public places. Under Begin, the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, killing 97 British civil servants. The Stern Gang, under Shamir, also assassinated the U.N. representative to Palestine, Count Bernadotte, in 1948.

But Deir Yassin was not the only massacre by the Israeli Defence Force. That army, under Moshe Dayan, took the unarmed and undefended village of al-Dawazyma, located in the Hebron hills, massacred 80 to 100 of its residents, and threw their bodies into pits. "The children were killed by breaking their heads with sticks ... The remaining Arabs were then sealed in houses, as the village was systematically razed ..." (Nur Masalha, The Historical Roots of the Palestinian Refugee Question).

We read further. According to Yitzhak Rabin's biography:

We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Alon repeated his question: "What is to be done with the population?" BG waved his hand in a gesture, which said: Drive them out! ... I agreed that it was essential to drive the inhabitants out.

Continuing the narrative, Ben-Gurion University historian Benny Morris writes in "Operation Dani and the Palestinian Exodus from Lydda and Ramle in 1948", Middle East Journal, 40

At 13.30 hours on 12 July [1948]... Lieutenant-Colonel Yitzhak Rabin, operation Dani head Operation, issued the following order: '1. The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age. They should be directed to Beit Nabala,... Implement Immediately.' A similar order was issued at the same time to the Kiryati Brigade concerning the inhabitants of the neighboring town of Ramle, occupied by Kiryati troops that morning... On 12 and 13 July, the Yaftah brigades carried out their orders, expelling the 50-60,000 remaining inhabitants of and refugees camped in and around the two towns....

About noon on 13 July, Operation Dani HQ informed IDF General Staff/Operations: 'Lydda police fort has been captured. [The troops] are busy expelling the inhabitants.... Lydda's inhabitants were forced to walk eastward to the Arab legion lines; many of Ramle's inhabitants were ferried in trucks or buses. Clogging the roads... the tens of thousands of refugees marched, gradually shedding their worldly goods along the way. It was a hot summer day. The Arab chroniclers, such as Sheikh Muhammed Nimr al Khatib, claimed that hundreds of children died in the march, from dehydration and disease. One Israeli witness described the spoor: the refugee column 'to begin with [jettisoned] utensils and furniture and, in the end, bodies of men, women, and children.

There were many other such villages with Arabic names that have almost been expunged from memory--but not quite. These facts have always been known to some historians, however they have been consistently denied by the official Israeli histories, as, indeed, Israel has never taken any responsibility for the exodus of Palestinians from the land of the present state of Israel.

Within the last 10 to 20 years, however, there has been an exponential increase in historical studies of the origins of the state of Israel which have coincided with the release by Israel of many, but not all, of the historical and military archives. Ben-Gurion University historian Benny Morris, as well as others, have systematically mined these documents and found numerous instances of massacres, and, by the way, not one shred of evidence for the frequently repeated official Israeli lie that the Palestinians fled Palestine because the surrounding Arab states told them to.

In fact, according to UN estimates, which some say are conservative, 750,000 Palestinians fled the site of the present Jewish state in 1948. Those refugees and their descendents now number about 4.5 million and constitute the largest and longest standing refugee population in the world. Many live in squalid refugee camps distributed in the surrounding Arab states or in the West Bank or Gaza, many retain the titles to their land, recognized by the British before 1948 or the Ottomans before that , and many retain the keys to their front doors of their former homes in what is now Israel, whether or not those doors still exists.

The '67 War generated a second wave of about 300,000 refugees from the West Bank and Gaza who were either expelled through direct or psychological methods or fled the Israel aerial attacks on the territories which included the extensive use of napalm.

The reader is invited to read the Hagana's Plan D , which has been available in English since the 1960s and was a military strategy of 1948 that entailed the evacuation of the Palestinian population from the areas of a future Jewish state.

Those who invoke the suicide bombings against mostly Israeli civilians to infer the righteousness of the Israeli cause live in a twilight of psychic denial of an otherwise unambiguous historical record: the state of Israel was founded on terrorism and ethnic cleansing.

The suicide bombings inside Israel, the first of which only occurred in 1994, after 25 years of occupation, is only a side show. That is a symptom and long way from the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

There will never be a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until Israel takes responsibility, under U.N. Resolution 194, calling for reparation of the Palestinian refugees, and recognizes the immense suffering it caused at that time. We need also to recognize the US is giving unqualified moral support to a state that is based on racial purity and one that is intrinsically expansionist.

William James Martin is a visiting Instructor of Mathematics at the University of Central Florida, Orlando. He can be reached at: martinw@email.unc.edu

Comment:

It is interesting to notice that Israeli historian Benny Morris - quoted in the article above as one of the sources revealing crimes against Palestinians - will not condemn Zionism in spite of his findings. The following fragment of an interview speaks volumes:

When ethnic cleansing is justified

Benny Morris, for decades you have been researching the dark side of Zionism. You are an expert on the atrocities of 1948. In the end, do you in effect justify all this? Are you an advocate of the transfer of 1948?

There is no justification for acts of rape. There is no justification for acts of massacre. Those are war crimes. But in certain conditions, expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands.

We are talking about the killing of thousands of people, the destruction of an entire society.

A society that aims to kill you forces you to destroy it. When the choice is between destroying or being destroyed, it's better to destroy.

There is something chilling about the quiet way in which you say that.

If you expected me to burst into tears, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I will not do that.

So when the commanders of Operation Dani are standing there and observing the long and terrible column of the 50,000 people expelled from Lod walking eastward, you stand there with them? You justify them?

I definitely understand them. I understand their motives. I don't think they felt any pangs of conscience, and in their place I wouldn't have felt pangs of conscience. Without that act, they would not have won the war and the state would not have come into being.

You do not condemn them morally?

No.

They perpetrated ethnic cleansing.

There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing.

And that was the situation in 1948?

That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.

The term "to cleanse" is terrible.

I know it doesn't sound nice but that's the term they used at the time. I adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am immersed.

What you are saying is hard to listen to and hard to digest. You sound hard-hearted.

I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment the Yishuv [pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine] was attacked by the Palestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war.

Remember another thing: the Arab people gained a large slice of the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great virtues, but because it conquered and murdered and forced those it conquered to convert during many generations. But in the end the Arabs have 22 states. The Jewish people did not have even one state. There was no reason in the world why it should not have one state. Therefore, from my point of view, the need to establish this state in this place overcame the injustice that was done to the Palestinians by uprooting them.

And morally speaking, you have no problem with that deed?

That is correct. Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history.

And in our case it effectively justifies a population transfer.

That's what emerges.

And you take that in stride? War crimes? Massacres? The burning fields and the devastated villages of the Nakba?

You have to put things in proportion. These are small war crimes. All told, if we take all the massacres and all the executions of 1948, we come to about 800 who were killed. In comparison to the massacres that were perpetrated in Bosnia, that's peanuts. In comparison to the massacres the Russians perpetrated against the Germans at Stalingrad, that's chicken feed. When you take into account that there was a bloody civil war here and that we lost an entire 1 percent of the population, you find that we behaved very well.

That is Benny Morris. For him, the goal of establishing a "Jewish state" justified any atrocities against the Palestinians.

For the Nazis, the ideal of the greatness of the "Fatherland" and the "Germanic Race" justified the extermination of Jews and others. They probably also thought that it was 'unfortunate' for those others, but that they had no choice.

It seems that for some people learning the facts is not enough to develop real empathy and conscience.

Reader Comments

Zionist Terrorism Pays!

By Righthand

Two Israeli Prime Ministers were terrorist that LED different terrorist gangs back in 1948. The present IDF comprises the 3 Zionist terrorist gangs; Stern Gang, Irgun, and Haganah. In addition to massacring countless Arab females, children and civilian males, they killed 97 British civil servants. The British rewarded terrorism by giving in and running. Zionist terrorism pays. Today any voice for peace on the Arab side is assassinated. Back then it was the United Nations representative, Count Bernadotte that they assassinated. the UN rewarded them by creating the terror state of Israel, at war with its neighbours since. Zionist terrorism pays. In 1967 Israeli war plains and navel deliberately attempted to sink the lightly armed intelligence USS Liberty killing 34 and wounding 174 USA personal. By a miracle it stayed afloat. The US rewarded the Zionist by totally resupplying them when Sadat was beating them. Zionist terrorism pays. What lesson is there for the Arabs aside from no justice from the West. Terrorism pays, certainly if you are a Zionist. Added: Sun, 18 May 2008 01:33 EDT

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Sderot: Sacrifice a Few Immigrants for The Cause?

Notes From the Levant

Over the 40 years since 1967, (2/3 of the State of Israel's entire history) I've changed from being a wide-eyed innocent sympathiser and great admirer of Israel to considering, now, that state as perhaps the world's most evil and ruthless narrow interest group, using the mostly benign and beneficial views and activities of world Jewry as a cover for a wholly bogus enterprise that no decent person could tolerate from anyone else.

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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Sderot - Sacrifice a Few Immigrants for The Cause?

Let's get these deadly Palestinian rocket attacks into perspective.

Israel has a policy of establishing front-line, development towns where brave, courageousIsraeli colonists can confront the ' Arab Peril'. Sderot is one such.

It was set up as a front-line town, and it gets attacked, as it was planned to be. That's why Sderot's population is half recent Russian immigrant, and half Sephardi (Moroccan and Persian Jews). Not a brave Ashkenazi or Sabra in sight.

The Gaza Strip (not worth calling it anything more than a strip) is nothing more now than a refugee concentration camp where about half the Palestinians expelled from 'Israel' in 1948 ended up, in places like Jabalyah, Khan Yunis and Rafah refugee camps. There are 1.5 million people confined to 300sq km.

They are not allowed to leave Gaza, even for emergency medical care, or if they do, to return.

At least two generations of refugee peasant farmers, kicked off their land, have ended up in Gaza, with nothing much to do, no education, no jobs, and damned little hope.

But Sderot is useful as a subject for schmaltzy Israeli propaganda:
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The Israeli pull out from the Gaza Strip has intensified the feeling of vulnerability in Sderot, a development town just 2 miles from the Palestinian controlled area.
Kasaam missiles continue to rain down on the town and its environs. The Israel Defense Forces created an early warning system that detects the incoming missiles.

The piercing siren often adds to the anxiety and trauma of the citizens.
NATAL's community outreach unit, through a generous grant from the Jewish Agency and the Joint Distribution Committee, is training emergency teams and educational, health and mental health professionals throughout the town.
The training helps the helpers identify their clients who are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The outreach unit trainers teach the Sderot professionals how to build resilience among the population by exercises that help bolster the emotional and psychological resources that help in times of crisis. The trainers also assist the helpers in dealing with secondary traumatization that can develop from overexposure to traumatized clients. [Poor dears]
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Hilary Benn, son of old Wedgie, said this of the situations of Beit Hanoun and Sderot:
Victims of the failure of politics By Hilary Benn
Two conversations will remain with me as a result of my visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. One was with the mayor of Sderot, who told me how his town had seen 3,500 rocket attacks and 16 deaths in the last six years. The other, after a short journey to Gaza, was in Beit Hanun, where I met the family that tragically lost 19 members when a shell came through the roof of their home. A mother showed me where her 8-year-old son died as he slept. A father showed me photographs of his two daughters who also had been killed.

Sderot and Beit Hanun are terrible examples of the grim front line of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Two communities, both of which have suffered terribly, have been deeply affected, and are yearning for an end to the cycle of hopelessness.
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Hilary Benn, nice man as he may be, was entirely wrong - this was not a 'failure of politics' but a deliberate Israeli policy.

Just consider the position of the two towns - they are just 2km apart, separated by (you can see it here for yourself) the most effective people-killing wall/zone since the Berlin/East Germany one.

Take in a few details:

The undeveloped Arab town of Beit Hanoun to the left, with its tiny peasant fields around.

Beit Hanoun (Arabic: بيت حانون) is a city on the north-east edge of the Gaza Strip with a population of 35,000. It is administered by the Palestinian Authority. It is located by the Hanoun stream, just 6 kilometers (4 mi) away from the Israeli town of Sderot. As opposed to nearby Gaza City, its population is almost entirely of Bedouin descent. More than 5,000 of its residents are part of the "Zaneen" tribe.
The area is notorious in being the source of the launching of many Qassam rockets attacks by Palestinian militants against Israel, over the security fence.

This town is also notable for the Beit Hanoun November 2006 incident where 19 Palestinians were killed by IDF shelling. According to Israeli authorities it was in response for its use as a base from which Palestinian militant groups have fired Qassam rockets into the northern Negev towns like Sderot, as well as the former Gush Katif settlements.

In December 2006, the UN appointed a fact-finding commission led by Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu to investigate the attack. However, Tutu and the other members were not granted permission to travel by Israel and the investigation was cancelled.

The Palestinian Authority alleges that prior to the November 2006 incident, at least 140 Palestinians were killed by Israeli Forces in Beit Hanoun from September 2000 to November 2006.

The New Town of Sderot, paid for by contributions by (mostly) American Jews or the US Government.

The first inhabitants of Sderot arrived in 1951 to what was then known as the Gevim-Dorot transit camp. Most of these residents were Kurdish and Persian refugees who lived in tents and shacks before building permanent structures almost four years later in 1954. In the 1961 census, the percentage of North African immigrants, mostly from Morocco, was 87% in the town, whilst another 11% of the residents were immigrants from Kurdistan. In the 1950s, the city continued to absorb a large number of immigrants from Morocco and Romania, and was declared a local council in 1958.

In the 1990s Sderot again absorbed a large immigrant population from the former USSR, and doubled its population in this decade. In 1996 it was declared a city. According to CBS, in 2001 there were 9,500 males and 9,700 females (about half the population of its Palestinian twin, Beit Hanoun) Sderot lies a kilometer from the Gaza Strip. Since the beginning of the al-Aqsa Intifada in October 2000, the city has been frequently attacked by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants using homemade rockets known as "Qassam rockets". Although they are very inaccurate, these attacks have resulted in a number of deaths and injuries as well as significant damage to homes and property, psychological distress among the residents, and a net emigration from the city. The Israeli government has installed a "Red Dawn" alarm system in an attempt to alert Israelis to possible shellings, though there are doubts concerning its effectiveness. Thousands of Qassam rockets have been launched from the Gaza Strip since Israel's disengagement from Gaza in September 2005.

How would you feel if a bunch of Russian immigrants were dumped in a brand-new town just a mile across an uncrossable border within your own homeland, and given huge subsidies as 'Jewish' immigrants, while you were left to rot in a prison?

But the score is pretty even - 16 victims in Sderot, over 6 years, versus 19 in Beit Hanoun, with just one shell, beside the 140 Palestinians killed in Beit Hanoun over those same 6 years.

An eye for an eye? Now the Israelis are besieging the entire 1.5 million population of the Gaza Strip, with the compliance of the EU, Britain, the US (all the usual suspects).

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Realism from Riyadh

Realism from Riyadh

Leaked notes provide rare insight into Saudi Arabia's trenchant but pragmatic approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, writes Ian Black

• Ian Black
  
• Saturday May 10 2008

Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal.


Prince Saud al-Faisal has been the discreet voice of Saudi Arabian diplomacy for more than 30 years, and he spoke with unchallenged authority at the recent meeting of the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers, giving what turned out to be a bleak assessment of the current negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The situation was "dire", he told the assembled dignitaries, including Condoleezza Rice, Tony Blair and Ban Ki-moon. "Many dangers loom. It seems we have reached a stage that I can only describe as a morass."

Such pessimism is not big news, though Saud's gloomy remarks were made, characteristically, behind closed doors at London's Lancaster House. It is certainly hard to find anyone who harbours much hope that there is a way out of the current impasse.

With Israel celebrating its 60th independence day, divided Palestinians marking their 1948 "nakba" or catastrophe and George Bush heading for what looks like yet another content-free visit to the region, prospects for the peace talks launched at Annapolis last November range from poor to non-existent.

The conservative, oil-rich kingdom is not a frontline state in the Arab conflict with Israel and it has no territorial quarrel with it. It is Washington's closest ally in the Arab world and drew up the groundbreaking Arab League initiative, which states unequivocally that peace with Israel is a "strategic choice" and which was reaffirmed at last year's Riyadh summit. The Saudis lead the camp of pro-western Sunni Arab states alarmed by the outcome of the war in Iraq and Iran's newly assertive role in the region. Two of its closest allies, Egypt and Jordan, already have peace treaties with the Jewish state. The Saudis brokered the agreement between the Palestinian Authority and the Islamists of Hamas, which collapsed in acrimony under US-Israeli pressure, prompting the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. On a previous visit to London, Saud told journalists that the Israel-Palestinian conflict was a "border dispute", a remarkably low-key description.

Doubts notwithstanding, the Saudis have quietly supported the search for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Saud went to Annapolis on a promise that the Maryland summit would be more than just another photo-opportunity. David Milliband, Britain's foreign secretary, flew to Riyadh earlier this month to ensure that the prince would also attend the London Quartet meeting, which was held on a glorious early summer day at one of the British government's most splendid official residences.

Diplomats say that Saud's remarks, obtained by the Guardian, were motivated in part by irritation at Washington's insistence that its wealthy Arab allies were not providing sufficient financial support for the Palestinian Authority, as Rice complained.

Reproduced here, they provide rare insight into how this key Arab country perceives the conflict with Israel, the complexity of Middle East peace-making — and some thoughts on the way out.

The Saudi view is that the dispute could be resolved in a straightforward way on the basis of existing UN resolutions (and the principle of the inadmissibility of acquiring land by force), but that "many unrelated and superfluous elements" have been injected into the search for a solution. There were three inter-related reasons for this, Saud said:

"The apparent insistence of Israel on carving a state exclusively for the Jewish people on a land that has been inhabited by the Palestinians. This inevitably led to the expulsion of the bulk of the original inhabitants and threatened the rest of the Palestinians with the same fate. Conflict was bound to happen, as a result of which the Palestinians were denied their rights and continue to suffer brutalising and demeaning abuse under a state of denial and deprivation.

"The continued exercise by Israel of the policy that is based on the need to achieve absolute security for the Jewish state ... Absolute security for one country in a dispute of this nature means absolute insecurity for the other country.

"Widespread anti-Semitism in the west, and the ensuing holocaust perpetrated on the Jews, which justifiably generated great sympathy in the west and the rest of the world, resulted unfortunately in the state of Israel being given a license to use any policy it chooses even though it leads to perpetuating injustice on the Palestinian people while Israel continues to be perceived as a peace-loving state despite its warlike policies and practices. Furthermore, the Israeli-Palestinian problem became part and parcel of internal domestic issues in Europe and the United States, which aggravated the complication further and justified any action taken by Israel, no matter how illegal or outrageous. These perceptions replaced rational objectivity by emotional subjectivity."

Saud was not seeking "recrimination," he insisted, but he urged the Quartet to find a way out of the deadlock. An "honest and serious" approach could remove most of the "current complexity," he suggested.

"The security of Israel can best be served by the establishment of a viable Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel, which would make the Palestinian state a responsible and accountable member of the world community."

The prince also attacked "continued efforts to divide the Palestinians rather than work assiduously towards uniting them behind the peace process". He refrained from directly accusing the US and EU of backing Israel in its attempt to isolate Hamas, but made it clear that Palestinian unity was a prerequisite for peace.

"We sincerely believe that there is an absolute need to effect change in the approach of the Quartet and introduce a shift in its focus. The focus should not be on stipulating conditions that cannot be fulfilled, but rather on creative suggestions that would help move things forward."

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Claims Conference denies pressuring Bielski on survivor disbursement

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Claims Conference denies pressuring Bielski on survivor disbursement

Apr 17, 2008

By HAVIV RETTIG

The Claims Conference is withholding funds for Jewish Agency programs until agency head Ze'ev Bielski recants his assertion that the conference is failing to distribute money to Holocaust survivors, according to leaks to the media on Thursday.

For several years, joint efforts by Israeli survivors' organizations, Bielski and Pensioners Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan have tried to change the way Holocaust-era restitution funds held by the Claims Conference are distributed.

The conference is composed of two-dozen organizations, including many Israeli and survivor groups, but Israeli groups want a larger number of Israeli representatives on the board in order to funnel more funds to survivors here.

In the context of this fight, the instigators of the effort have said that the conference possesses some $1 billion which it is refusing to disburse to the deserving and ageing survivors. However, this claim, published last year in a report commissioned by Eitan and the Jewish Agency, is inaccurate.

"After we checked into it comprehensively, I can say the Claims Conference does not have a billion dollars sitting somewhere that they aren't distributing," said Jewish Agency Treasurer Hagai Merom. "They have a three-year plan for disbursing the remaining funds in a planned way."

Documentation of the Claims Conference shows that funds are mostly spoken for by heirs as they complete the restitution process and by an assessment of future needs.

According to the conference, funding has been frozen on three Jewish Agency educational projects - some 20% of the conference's funds go to education projects rather than survivors' welfare - whose value is $378,000.

Now, press leaks are trying to link the freezing of these projects - out of several million dollars in allocations given to the agency from the conference - to "a demand by the conference that Bielski apologize."

The Jewish Agency itself did not deny the contents of the leak, saying Bielski "would continue to act for survivors' welfare and transparency in organizations dealing with them," and "does not have any contact with the Claims Conference regarding his opinions or statements."

Conference officials completely denied the allegations, and sources familiar with the conference's operations said it was unclear why Bielski, who is also vice president of the conference, would support the assertion in the first place.

Published in Europe, the claims have reportedly hurt ongoing negotiation efforts for more aid to survivors.

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