Anti-Semitic?

Since "Anti-Semitic"  has become the reflex, de-rigeur, debate-clinching accusation leveled at any and all criticism of Zionist Israel,  it would be useful to try and define just what "Semitism" really is so that we can be sure to avoid being "anti-semitic".

• If "semitism" is stealing your neighbor's land, destroying his house and imprisoning and torturing his family, then yes, I am anti-semitic.
• If "semitism" is committing terrible acts of violence and framing someone else for them, then yes, I am anti-semitic. 
• If "semitism" is compromising the US government through blackmail and other threats, then yes, I am anti-semitic. 
• If "semitism" is imprisoning millions of impoverished and brutalized people, cutting off all basic necessities for life, then yes, I am antisemitic.
• If "semitism" is taking billions in aid from the USA and then murdering Americans with impunity, then yes, I am anti-semitic.
• If "semitism" is ignoring all UN Resolutions critical of you and then using the same UN to raise trumped-up charges against an INNOCENT nation, then yes, I am anti-semitic.
• If "semitism" is coercing the US government and fooling the American people into attacking an INNOCENT nation, costing millions of innocent lives, including American soldiers, then yes, I am anti-semitic.
• If "semitism" is attacking unarmed humanitarian ships in INTERNATIONAL waters, murdering at least nine people, including an American, shot FOUR times in the head, then yes, I am anti-semitic.
• If "semitism" is thinking that you are a master and superior race that has to answer to NO one, then yes, I am anti-semitic.
• If "semitism" is taking American tax dollars and then spitting in America's face, then yes, I am anti-semitic.
• If "semitism" is suppressing any and all discussion of high crimes against humanity then yes, I am anti-semitic.
• If "semitism" is constant lying and deception to achieve a goal that is illegal and immoral then yes, I am anti-semitic.
• If "semitism" is arming yourself to the teeth, threatening other nations with attack  AND attacking other nations because they are supposedly armed to the teeth and threatening you, then yes, I am anti-semitic.
• If "semitism" is staging 911 with the help of traitorous Americans in high positions of power, murdering over 3,000 innocent Americans so that the USA will attack your "enemies" blamed for doing 911 (and in the process blackmailing those same officials who helped you pull of 911!) then yes, I am anti-semitic.
• If "semitism" is calling anyone critical of you or revealing of your actions "anti-semitic" then yes. I am anti-semitic.

Of course, these are not the real definitions of semitism, but "semitism" has become the cloak to shield vast crimes against humanity!

One thing is crystal clear to me: It is those who use this accusation in defense of the indefensible  that are ones who drag  GENUINE semitism though the mud!

They are the real Anti-Semites!

Hat tip to WRH - comments

Strip Zionist Israel of its UN Membership

We, the undersigned citizens of the world, call on the United Nations General Assembly to rescind Israel's membership in the UN, as a step toward ending Zionist apartheid.

Israel's attack on a humanitarian aid fleet on Monday May 31, 2010, its murder of 9  human rights activists in international waters and wounding 50 others demonstrate that Israel rejects the structural tenets of our shared humanity, manifested in a global moral consensus and international law.

Countless UN resolutions call on Israel to respect international law. It abides by none of them. It should therefore lose its place among the global family of nations.

Israel has been violating international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention in its building of settlements, displacement of the indigenous population of Palestine, invasion of surrounding countries, killing and ethnically cleansing civilians systematically through the use of massacres. Israel has never been held accountable for the massacres of Deir Yassin, Qibya, Sabra and Shatilla, Qana, Gaza, and Jenin, for murdering Rachel Corrie, nor, as of today, for its massacre on the flotilla of international peace activists hoping to break Israel’s siege on the Palestinian people. As of 2007, Gaza has been turned into an open air prison housing 1.5 million people. Since 1948, Palestinians who carry Israeli citizenship do not enjoy equal protection or rights under Israeli law for not being classified as “Jewish Nationals.” Palestinian survivors of ethnic cleansing are denied the right to return.

We, the citizens of the world, call upon you to shape the 21st century with a new ethic, already enshrined in the United Nations. We call upon you to end Zionist apartheid and racial injustice by stripping Israel of its UN membership.

Sign it here

Israeli 'self-defence'

Furkan Dogan was a US citizen. Aged just 19 and a student of social sciences in Keyseri, Turkey, he was aboard the MV Mavi Marmara en-route to Gaza when it was stormed by IDF special forces in the pre-dawn of  31 May 2010.

He was shot with 4 bullets to the head and 1 to the chest,  at close range with a 9mm pistol.

But he was probably a Muslim - and of course the heroic IDF (the most moral army in the world we are assured) just had to defend themselves, so I guess that'll be OK then.

He was buried on 3 June 2010. RIP

And may his killers rot in Hell.

The Cairo Declaration

The 'Gaza Freedom March' has been largely ignored by the Western MSM - No surprises there then.

The march organisers are doing their best to draw attention to the continuing barbaric behaviour of Zionist Israel towards Gaza and the Palestinian population in general.

About 1,400 marchers are currently in Cairo, having been prevented by the Egyptian Authorities from crossing into Gaza. It seems that the Egyptians, having proved themselves useless at fighting Zionist Israel, have decided it would be more profitable for them to do it's dirty work instead. With it's actions against the marchers and the construction of yet another wall (underground this time - see pic above) Egypt has become something of a Zionist poodle - a bit like the UK relationship with the US really. As a perceptive commentator said recently (can't recall where) "With its surrounding Arab countries as 'enemies', Israel has little need of friends" - ouch!

My guess is that all this seriously rankles with the average Egyptian. Their Western supported (not to say dictated to) government is sowing the wind. I wonder if it is ready for the whirlwind?

Anyway, the march has just issued 'The Cairo Declaration' as follows:

End Israeli Apartheid
Cairo Declaration
January 1, 2010

We, international delegates meeting in Cairo during the Gaza Freedom March 2009 in collective response to an initiative from the South African delegation, state:

In view of:

• Israel`s ongoing collective punishment of Palestinians through the illegal occupation and siege of Gaza;
• the illegal occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the continued construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall and settlements;
• the new Wall under construction by Egypt and the US which will tighten even further the siege of Gaza;
• the contempt for Palestinian democracy shown by Israel, the US, Canada, the EU and others after the Palestinian elections of 2006;
• the war crimes committed by Israel during the invasion of Gaza one year ago;
• the continuing discrimination and repression faced by Palestinians within Israel;
• and the continuing exile of millions of Palestinian refugees;
• all of which oppressive acts are based ultimately on the Zionist ideology which underpins Israel;
• in the knowledge that our own governments have given Israel direct economic, financial, military and diplomatic support and allowed it to behave with impunity;
• and mindful of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (2007)
  

We reaffirm our commitment to:

• Palestinian Self-Determination
• Ending the Occupation
• Equal Rights for All within historic Palestine
• The full Right of Return for Palestinian refugees

We therefore reaffirm our commitment to the United Palestinian call of July 2005 for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to compel Israel to comply with international law.

To that end, we call for and wish to help initiate a global mass, democratic anti-apartheid movement to work in full consultation with Palestinian civil society to implement the Palestinian call for BDS.

Mindful of the many strong similarities between apartheid Israel and the former apartheid regime in South Africa, we propose:

1. An international speaking tour in the first 6 months of 2010 by Palestinian and South African trade unionists and civil society activists, to be joined by trade unionists and activists committed to this programme within the countries toured, to take mass education on BDS directly to the trade union membership and wider public internationally;
2. Participation in the Israeli Apartheid Week in March 2010;
3. A systematic unified approach to the boycott of Israeli products, involving consumers, workers and their unions in the retail, warehousing, and transportation sectors;
4. Developing the Academic, Cultural and Sports boycott;
5. Campaigns to encourage divestment of trade union and other pension funds from companies directly implicated in the Occupation and/or the Israeli military industries;
6. Legal actions targeting the external recruitment of soldiers to serve in the Israeli military, and the prosecution of Israeli government war criminals; coordination of Citizen`s Arrest Bureaux to identify, campaign and seek to prosecute Israeli war criminals; support for the Goldstone Report and the implementation of its recommendations;
7. Campaigns against charitable status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

We appeal to organisations and individuals committed to this declaration to sign it and work with us to make it a reality.

Please e-mail us at cairodec@gmail.com

Accompanying my signature and support:

You have my support 100%

I find the complicity of the Western World (and most especially the Arab World) surreal - unbelievable - almost like living a dream.

The sheer in-your-face Orwellian inversion of language in almost everything connected with the Israel/Palestine situation when it figures at all in the public utterances of the Western Political Establishment is quite simply breath-taking. How CAN any of them actually believe what they are saying? - I ask somewhat rhetorically. Answer? - THEY DON'T. The High Offices of State in the West require that those appointed or aspiring to them sacrifice any and all principles and considerations of common humanity to the absolute imperative of promoting the OFFICIAL NARRATIVE OF EVENTS (unless there is a 'humanitarian intervention' on the cards of course, in which case their hearts bleed).

That narrative in summary is of a misunderstood alliance of superior democratic, freedom-loving nations valiantly striving to do good in the world.

To describe it as 'Orwellian' does not do justice to its sheer bloody absurdity - and to maintain the Orwellian fiction, we are lied to systematically and kept in a constant state of fearful compliance by the phoney 'war on terror' - War on Terror? - WAR ON TERROR !! - I ask you - Just who the hell do people think have caused more GENUINE terror and death in civilian populations throughout the world than the US/ISRAELI/UK military this past decade?

And to cap it all, the man responsible for more terror, death, bombing and general mayhem than any other individual on the planet for the year in question, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize! - and what's more actually accepted it with a toe-curlingly embarrassing justification for perpetual 'just' war.


You really couldn't make this stuff up could you? In a rational world any attempt to do so - as a work of fiction say - would simple be laughed at as absurd. But WE are required to live and believe it!

In my dotage I have learned to be thoroughly ashamed of having to hold a 'British' passport. - and when I see puppets like the fresh-faced boy Milliband earnestly trying to patronise me - let alone that reptile Blair - I could be physically sick.

Sorry about the rant. It is cathartic - Not to mention TRUE.

The very best wishes to you and your efforts.

Operation Cast Lead one year on

For those interested in the reality, systematically hidden and obfuscated by the 'Official Narrative', of major events and the motives driving them,  'Lenin's Tomb' is well worth monitoring. It is run by Richard Seymour whose recent book 'The Liberal Defence of Murder' is an impressive forensic dissection of the pathologies that are manipulated by 'The System' to secure cheer-leading support from otherwise sensible, well meaning people for the West's multiple latter-day imperial wars on those who decline to see things our way.

Richard is something of an activist himself, apparently believing in the possibility of systemic change for the better through political action - and all power to him for that. I, on the other hand, am a crotchety old grand-dad who has finally come to accept that any such meaningful change is - and will continue to be - fought tooth and nail, with all the means at its disposal (which are mind-bogglingly vast) by our present deeply corrupt, self-serving system. The net effect being that meaningful change will only come about through events of a nature even more cataclysmic than say the French or Russian Revolutions were in their day. Which in turn is to say through massive hardship and the destruction of much of what we pompously imagine to be our oh-so-civilised, 'advanced', and superior way-of-life.

Reading the Runes I think I divine the stirrings of just such a cataclysm in the making. It manifests in the 'whistling past the graveyard' posturing of just about every Establishment Spokesman and his dog, in face of the relentless convergence of population growth, environmental degradation and peak oil/energy (in fact peak just-about-everything - especially debt). I'm less sure that the real powers behind the throne are 'whistling past the graveyard' though. Rather, they are quietly, deceptively but systematically preparing for the cataclysm they know to be immanent. For example: there are some pretty self-evident Police-States in the making; Nato/US/Israel now account for 75% of the world's military expenditure (it's called 'defence' dontcha know?); The US garrisons the entire planet with over 1,000 non-domestic military bases and a military command for every corner of the globe (not to mention space and their shiny new 'Cyber-warfare' command) - 'the enemy' is everywhere you see, and they just gotta seek him out. (They simply HAVE to have enemies and if they seem a bit thin on the ground, why then, they'll just coach, arm and manufacture a few, easy-peasy); The 'Military/Industrial-Wall Street Complex' calls all the shots whilst its budgets remain sacrosanct and the general population suffers a  relentlessly grinding decline in its wealth, job/financial security and everything that defines its 'non-negotiable way of life'. The Super-rich get super-richer; Joe Average struggles to stagnate at best; whilst prospects for the vast underclass of globalised humanity ever participating in what the West takes for granted have vanished like the mirage they always were. Meanwhile, the systematic persecution of 'Untermenschen' such as the Palestinians (a grimly appropriate term in this context)  hardly registers on the delicate but purblind consciences of Western Politicians  at all. IOW, if you covet a political career, then there are things; really important things; things vital to the very survival of humanity in fact - that simply cannot be discussed outside an absurd orthodoxy that is rigidly enforced. The Emperor is indeed naked.

AND --- WE - the sheeple are seriously enjoined to believe that all this is part-and-parcel of a 'War on Terror' with a benign, well-intentioned but misunderstood Western Alliance  selflessly seeking to do good in the world !!!!

Jesus H Christ! - talk about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy to a 5 year old ! - and STILL we lap it up. What the Hell is wrong with us?

Anyway, back to Lenin's Tomb and the subject of this post.

Operation Cast Lead was launched on 27 December 2008 on the spurious pretext of preventing Hamas rocket fire into southern Israel. It followed months of pledges by senior Israeli ministers to level parts of Gaza, and inflict a "Holocaust" on the territory. It followed Israel's most explicit violation of a ceasefire agreement on November 4th, when it launched a series of raids on Gaza. It followed the intensitification of a blockade that left 9 out of 10 Gazans living below the poverty line, with some families forced to live on grass to survive. Mary Robinson, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and fairly conventional supporter of a two-state settlement, described how the blockade was affecting Gaza: "their whole civilisation has been destroyed, I'm not exaggerating ... It's almost unbelievable that the world doesn't care while this is happening." There is a great deal more to be said about context but, suffice to say, the aggression was merely the latest phase in a war on the civilian population of Gaza, a sustained punishment beating it was enduring for resistance: specifically, for having maintained its elected government despite a successful Israeli-backed Fatah putsch in the West Bank in the summer of 2007, which one would infer had been planned since Hamas' electoral victory in early 2006. That this punishment is continuing - of which, more later - is reason in itself to revisit the last year's blitzkrieg.

The brutality of Operation Cast Lead shocked some of Israel's most devoted supporters, and divided the pro-Israel camp. Even as it was happening, some of the most shocking accounts of IDF conduct were emerging. These included sealing off a neighbourhood, bombing and shelling it, blocking medical and humanitarian entry, and knowingly leaving children to slowly die next to their already deceased relatives. They included the targeting of hospitals and ambulances, and the repeated targeting of schools. UN casualty statistics reflected a particularly onerous burden on the civilian population - 42% of those killed, they said, were women and children. Some news reports falsely suggested that this meant that 'only' 42% of those killed were civilians, which involved the racist supposition that Palestinian males over 16 no longer count as civilians with the full protection of humanitarian norms and laws. As it happens, the re-definition of the category of 'civilian' was integral to Israeli doctrine during the war, and it was essential to their military plans. The 'Dahiya Doctrine', the parameters of which informed Israeli operations in Gaza, involved precisely this shift, as General Gadi Eisenkot explained:

"What happened in the Dahiya quarter in Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired upon. We will apply disproportionate force upon it and cause great damage and destruction there," he said. "From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases."

“This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved”. [Emphasis added]

Such genocidal logic, congruent with the promises of a 'Holocaust', was consistently expressed in Israel's methods and targeting, not to mention the uplifting sentiments expressed by IDF soldiers while defacing Palestinian homes. Since the end of Operation Cast Lead, we have had numerous reports into Israel's conduct of the operation, though less attention has been paid to the supposed rationale behind the attacks. The Goldstone Report [pdf] has documented in forensic detail an astonishing level of premeditated and sadistic violence toward civilians. It documented deliberate attacks on hospitals, mosques, and perhaps most chillingly the assault on the al-Samouni area resulting in the calculated massacre of the al-Samouni family. Focusing on 36 specific incidents of such aggression, with detailed consideration of evidence in each case, it concluded that the war had either in whole or in part been against the "people of Gaza as a whole". This was quite remarkable for such a report, produced by a UN team led by a "Zionist" who "loves Israel". It also concluded that "the operations were in furtherance of an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience and for its apparent support for Hamas". As a consequence of such conclusions, the report demanded that Israel should pay reparations to the Palestinians affected by its actions, noting that its internal structures left few avenues open for Palestinians to sue for reparations themselves. It also encouraged the UN to refer the report to the ICC, and called on the ICC to act on legal appeals from the "Government of Palestine". Predictably, the report was subject to a barrage of ignorant rubbish, suggesting that it was the result of a mission biased against Israel (forgetting that its remit actually included studying alleged war crimes by armed Palestinian groups), and that its findings were based "largely on interviews with Hamas" (utter garbage). Numerous rebuttal websites have been set up, including a rather slick one by CAMERA, with the aim of blowing smoke over the findings. But all of this is so much acting out by an increasingly bellicose and shrill minority.

One point that the Goldstone report also emphasised was that the punishment of the Palestinian population was continuing in the form of a blockade, which it considered to be "collective punishment". On Sunday, a new report [pdf] by numerous NGOs including Amnesty, Christian Aid, CAFOD, Oxfam, Trocaire and Medical Aid for the Palestinians looks at the impact of the blockade. Its main conclusions are shared by the International Committee of the Red Cross. It finds that all attempts to regenerate Gazan society and economy since Operation Cast Lead have been frustrated by the ongoing blockade. Most of the $4bn of international donor money has not been spent, not for lack of determination, but because the conditions of the blockade make it impossible to carry out the necessary reconstruction:

"the civilian population and the United Nations and aid agencies that aim to help them are prohibited from importing materials like cement or glass for reconstruction in all but a handful of cases".

The inability to reconstruct damaged homes has left tens of thousands displaced, some living in tents.

"And this is to say nothing of the backlog of need from those homes severely damaged in previous military actions, those new houses left half-built due to lack of materials and existing properties condemned as unhygienic or unsafe to live in that cannot be replaced."

Not only are homes not being rebuilt, but power stations necessary to maintain production, keep hospitals and public services functioning, and maintain sanitary water, remain destroyed. Israel regularly refuses to allow generators into Gaza. And industries are going idle. 120,000 jobs in the private sector were lost because of the blockade. Even before Operation Cast Lead, "98% of industrial operations in Gaza were idle because of the blockade". Because of the destruction to power stations, sewage systems and water piping, 8,000 people lack any access to piped water at all, and the remainder of the population has to suffer sporadic supplies when the power cuts out as it regularly does: water shortages and power cuts are particularly liable to take place during winter. The shortage of clean water is causing a shocking rise in diarrhoea, which is behind 12% of young deaths.

The blockade has reduced the categories of goods entering Gaza from approximately 4,000 to about 35, and those items that are theoretically allowed in (some medicines, basic foods and humanitarian supplies) are subject to arbitrarily shifting restrictions. The blockade had also severely restricted agricultural production, and Operation Cast Lead destroyed 17% of cultivated land in Gaza. Israel's imposition of a depopulated 'buffer zone' "inside of the walls and fences surrounding Gaza" has resulted in between "a quarter and a third of Gaza's agricultural land" being subsumed into the 'buffer zone'. The combined effect of Cast Lead and the ongoing blockade has been to put 46% of Gazan agricultural land out of production.

While southern Israel "blossoms", Gaza is constantly regressing in its ability to reproduce itself as a society and economy. Earlier this year, a leaked UN report said that the ongoing blockade was resulting in a process of "de-development", with "increased aid dependency" among the population - already, 75% of Gazans depend on food aid to survive. The report by Amnesty et al concludes, with language that is becoming all too familiar, that the blockade amounts to "collective punishment". It is worse than collective punishment, and that tag will simply not do any more. Baruch Kimmerling has characterised Israel's war on the Palestinians as 'politicide': an attempt to wholly destroy the fabric of any potential Palestinian state. But, as Martin Shaw has written, the proliferation of -cides with respect to the crimes of war - femicide, democide, infanticide, etc - really adverts to the genocidal logic that they are all too often embedded in. The logic of Israeli policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians is dictated by its twin drives to maintain control of Gaza and the West Bank with the long term aim of incorporating both as official Israeli territories, and its determination to remain a 'Jewish state' with a substantial Jewish majority. Either the Israeli state must give up one of these goals (and no one is applying sufficient pressure to make it do so), or it must find a way of disposing of the Palestinian population. Ethnic cleansing is one such means. Imposing conditions such as are intended to make life and its reproduction almost impossible, and unbearable, is another. The war on the population of Gaza is an attempt to break Palestinian resistance by means of destroying, in part, the aforementioned population.

Yad Va Shame on You!

"Holocaust studies is an emerging pseudo intellectual, academic trend. It basically allows rabid Zionists to elevate their discussions on ‘what is really wrong with the goyim’ into a university qualification."

Another typically 'on-the-button' observation from the Jewish jazz musician Gilad Azmon in his latest piece on 'Dissident Voice' subtitled: "Debunking Antisemitism Studies and Yehuda Bauer in Particular". The piece continues:

Anti-Semitism Studies has the potential to be a valuable field of research if it could, for example, elaborate and scrutinize Jewish culture and history in an attempt to grasp what it is that evokes anti Jewish feeling. It could try to establish if there is a Jewish ideological, political or cultural pattern that may be amended. In fact, early Zionists¹ tried to dwell on the subject. They tried to diagnose the ‘cause’ of Anti-Semitsm so that they might learn why it invariably and repeatedly matured into host cultures regarding Jews as a parasitic force. Early Zionists insisted that Aliya would bring about a new productive, ethical and civilized new Jew.

However, contemporary Anti-Semitism scholars have a very different agenda in mind. They build their research on the axiom that Jews are categorically innocent. They then try to understand why the Goyim behave immorally and even murderously. But here is a clear embarrassing catch: considering humanity is comprised of Goyim, Anti-Semitism scholars who attempt to grasp ‘what is wrong with the Goyim’ actually ask ‘what is wrong with humanity?’ This is in fact a legitimate question, unless we leave one conspicuous group out.

As things stand, in the new Judeo-centric ‘academic’ field namely ‘Anti-Semitism studies,’ a Zionist is there to review the Goy as a pathological case. This is slightly odd to say the least. It is even peculiar that such departments exist in Yale and at a London University. However, since academic institutes thrive on corporate donations and other funding sources, we can no longer expect the academic world to lead intellectual discourse or even commit itself to any form of ethical integrity.

Telling stuff eh? and the whole piece really is worth the read time - as is pretty well all the output from Mr Azmon.

The reality of Apartheid Israel

I spent ages trying to come up with a suitable introduction to his clip but concluded I could not do it justice. It speaks for itself. It should be required viewing for our smug Zionist promoting political classes - and anyone else that does not/cannot see the moral bankruptcy of Racist, Apartheid Israel.

An Illustrated Prayer for the IDF

Mark Twain's 'War Prayer' was considered too controversial by his family and was therefore not published until after his death in 1910. The posthumous direction to publish included the following observation: "I have told the truth ... and only dead men can tell the truth in this world." It is a scathing indictment of war - especially the sanctimonious, patriotic variety - in the form of a short story and though over 100 years old it's ending, in the form of a prayer, might have been written especially for today's euphemistically named "Israeli Defence Force":

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle – be Thou near them! With them – in spirit – we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe.

O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells.

Help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead.

Help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain.

Help us to lay waste their humble homes with hurricanes of fire.

Help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst,

 sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it

– for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

All photographs are of the 22 day Israeli invasion of Gaza Decamber 2008 - January 2009.
Hat-Tip to "What Really Happened"

UN Human Rights Council adopts Goldstone Report

Good news - but a serious developing problem for Zionist Israel.

From Al Jazeera:

The UN human rights council has endorsed the Goldstone Report on Israel's war on Gaza, which accused the military of using disproportionate force as well as laying charges of war crimes on Israeli occupation forces and Hamas.

The council's resolution adopting the report was passed in Geneva by 25 votes to six with 11 countries abstaining. 

The Goldstone report calls on Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, to monitor whether Israel and Hamas conduct credible investigations into the conflict which took place last winter.

Should the two sides fail to do so, it calls on the UN Security Council to refer the allegations to the International Criminal Court.

The Palestinian Authority had initially agreed to defer a vote on the UN-sanctioned report but later backtracked under heavy criticism.

Mike Hanna, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Geneva, said the vote was a "very strong victory" for the supporters of the resolution but that the large number of abstentions was also "very significant"

Update 1:

Following the failure of faux-outrage to forestall UN adoption of the report, the mood seems have turned to a sort of whining self-pity.

This from Debka file who are a pretty reliable facilitator for whatever messages the Israeli government wants disseminating:

The UN body administered one of the most damaging blows Israel diplomacy has suffered in recent years, condemning Israel for alleged war crimes in its 22-day Gaza operation last January - but also for work in East Jerusalem such as archaeological excavations.

The damage was compounded by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's personal involvement in spearheading the campaign to have the report buried. Its endorsement has instead buried the stalled peace process between Israel and Palestinian Authority.

Snip...

Netanyahu failed even to persuade French president Nicolas Sarkozy - described by President Shimon Peres as "a great friend of Israel," and the British prime minister George Brown, with whom he had a heated telephone conversation Thursday night - to vote against the HRC motion.
That neither was prepared to oppose Israel's condemnation for war crimes means that Jerusalem cannot count on their support for curbing Iran's drive for a nuclear weapon.

Snip....

The hammer-blow from Geneva came at a bad time for Israel: Turkey has turned on the Jewish state tooth and claw. Israel finds itself up against the entire Arab world, even Egypt and Jordan, with whom it has signed peace treaties. It now finds itself abandoned by presumed friends Britain and France as well.

When Israel sees itself as friendless we need to pay close attention.  Maybe another outrageous terrorist attack is called for.

That might do the trick eh?

Israel and Moral Clarity

This article in today's 'Jerusalem Post', by a brave, honest Israeli citizen, is eloquent, 'on-the-button' testimony to the fact that not all Israelis are apartheid-promoting Zio-Fascists - just an overwhelming majority. It needs no further comment.

Virtually all of Israel is now speaking in one voice against the Goldstone report, against any attempt to blame us over the war in Gaza. We've honed our message to a sharp point and, inspired by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's performance at the UN, we're delivering it with just the right tone of outrage:

How dare anyone deny us the right to self-defense! How dare anyone deny us the right to fight back against terrorism!

Very nice. Puts everyone else on the defensive. The right to self-defense is up there with motherhood and apple pie - who's going to come out against it, especially for us, for Israel, for the Jews, for the people of the Holocaust? The right to self-defense - perfect.

But I'd like to ask: "Do the Palestinians also have the right to self-defense?"

We probably wouldn't admit it out loud, but in our heads we would say - again, in one voice - "No!" This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We're entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense. They, however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism.

That's the way it's always been, that's the way it was in Operation Cast Lead. AND THERE are no limits on our right to self-defense. There is no such thing as "disproportionate." We can blockade Gaza, we can answer Kassams with F-16s and Apaches, we can take 100 eyes for an eye. We can deliberately destroy thousands of Gazan homes, the Gazan parliament, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, courthouses, the only Gazan flour plant, the main poultry farm, a sewage treatment plant, water wells and God knows what else.

Deliberately.

After all, we're acting in self-defense. By definition.

And what right do the Palestinians have to defend themselves against this?

None.

Why? Because we're better than them. Because we're a democracy and they're a bunch of Islamo-fascists. Because ours is a culture of life and theirs is a culture of death. Because they're out to destroy us and all we are saying is give peace a chance.

One look at the ruins of Gaza ought to make that plain enough.

Here is our idea of the "laws of war": When Israeli bulldozers rolled across the border into Gazan villages and flattened house after house so Hamas wouldn't have them for cover after the IDF pulled out, that was self-defense. But if a Palestinian boy who'd lived in one of those houses threw a stone at one of the bulldozers, that was terrorism.

The Goldstones of the world call this hypocrisy, a double standard.

How dare they!

Around here, we call it moral clarity.

Israel, Iran, NWO recap

If at first you don't succeed, lie, lie again!

[Or if you're Irish and you have the temerity to produce the 'wrong' result in a referendum - Vote, vote again - until you get it right.]

Here is a recap of what Israel and the NWO Establishment are trying to make you forget.

1. Last Spring, Rose Gottemoeller, an assistant secretary of state and Washington's chief nuclear arms negotiator, asked Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
   Israel refused.
   
2. Last Spring, after more than 20 previous attempts blocked by the US/UK NWO block, The United Nations finally passed a resolution calling on Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to submit to inspections.
   Israel refused.
   
3. Last Spring, after numerous previous attempts blocked by the US/UK NWO Block, The IAEA finally officially asked Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to submit to inspections.
   Israel refused.
   
4. Iran's formal notification to the IAEA of the a backup processing facility underscores that Iran is playing by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - which Iran has signed.
   
5. Iran allows IAEA inspections of all its facilities.
   
6. Contrary to face-saving claims, it appears that the US and Israel were both caught off guard by Iran's announcement of its second processing facility. The US and Israel now seem to be playing catch up, casting doubt on the veracity of Israel's claims to "know" that Iran is a nuclear threat.
   
7. The IAEA and all 16 United States Intelligence Agencies are unanimous in agreement that Iran is not building and does not possess nuclear weapons.
   
8. In 1986, Mordachai Vanunu blew the whistle and provided photographs showing Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons factory underneath the reactor at Dimona.
   
9. Israel made the same accusations against Iraq that it is making against Iran, leading up to Israel's bombing of the power station at Osirik. Following the invasion of 2003, international experts examined the ruins of the power station at Osirik and found no evidence of a clandestine weapons factory in the rubble.
   
10. The United Nations has just released the Goldstone Report (Commentary here), a scathing report which accuses Israel of 37 specific war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza earlier this year. Israel has denounced the report as "Anti-Semitic (even though Judge Goldstone is himself Jewish), and the United States will block the report from being referred to the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague, thereby making the US Government an accessory after-the-fact.

President Obama stated "... Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow", but hushhhh, not a word about Israel, Pakistan or India, all of which ARE breaking those rules. Whereas Iran, having reported the facility to the IAEA over 180 days before commissioning, has NOT broken them.

So ask yourself this: WHY the deafening silence about Israel's serial defiance of 'The Rules'?

WHY these constant in-your-face double standards and downright falsehoods?

Hat-tip to 'What Really Happened'

Letter from Hamas to Obama

By Medea Benjamin

The Hamas government in Gaza reached out to President Obama on the occasion of his visit to the Middle East, announcing that Hamas was willing to talk to all parties "on the basis of mutual respect and without preconditions." I carried the letter out from Gaza -- it represents a significant development and an effort by Hamas to present a new face to the Western world. While Osama bin Laden used the occasion of President Obama's visit to deliver a scathing attack, Hamas reached out to a feminist U.S. peace group to deliver a letter to Obama urging dialogue, mutual respect and adherence to international law.

In the letter, Hamas urged Obama to visit "our ground Zero" in Gaza and bring about a "paradigm shift" in the Israel-Palestine conflict based on enlightened world opinion and international law.

This is a people who have just been subjected to a vicious attack that left over 1,300 dead and thousands wounded, and there is not a word here about armed resistance or Zionism. They are reaching out and actively seeking a resolution to the conflict based on the findings of the world's leading international legal bodies and human rights organizations from the United Nations and the International Court of Justice to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. This is a major breakthrough and the U.S. government should take advantage to begin a dialogue with Hamas.

The letter was signed by Ahmed Yusef, Deputy Foreign Minister and hand-delivered to Benjamin, who was in Gaza headed a 66-person delegation representing 10 nations. Benjamin and representatives of CODEPINK are delivering the letter to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo today, June 4, during Obama's visit to Egypt.

The text of the letter follows:

His Excellency President Barack Obama,
President of the United States of America. June 3rd 2009
Dear Mr. President,

We welcome your visit to the Arab world and your administration's initiative to bridge differences with the Arab-Muslim world.

One long-standing source of tension between the United States and this part of the world has been the failure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

It is therefore unfortunate that you will not visit Gaza during your trip to the Middle East and that neither your Secretary of State nor George Mitchell have come to hear our point of view.

We have received numerous visits recently from people of widely varied backgrounds: U.S. Congressional representatives, European parliamentarians, the U.N.-appointed Goldstone commission, and grassroots delegations such as those organized by the U.S. peace group CODEPINK.

It is essential for you to visit Gaza. We have recently passed through a brutal 22-day Israeli attack. Amnesty International observed that the death and destruction Gaza suffered during the invasion could not have happened without U.S.-supplied weapons and U.S.-taxpayers' money.

Human Rights Watch has documented that the white phosphorus Israel dropped on a school, hospital, United Nations warehouse and civilian neighborhoods in Gaza was manufactured in the United States. Human Rights Watch concluded that Israel's use of this white phosphorus was a war crime.

Shouldn't you see first-hand how Israel used your arms and spent your money?

Before becoming president you were a distinguished professor of law. The U.S. government has also said that it wants to foster the rule of law in the Arab-Muslim world.

The International Court of Justice stated in July 2004 that the whole of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem are occupied Palestinian territories designated for Palestinian self-determination, and that the Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal.

Not one of the 15 judges sitting on the highest judicial body in the world dissented from these principles.

The main human rights organizations in the world, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have issued position papers supporting the right of the Palestinian refugees to return and compensation.

Each year in the United Nations General Assembly nearly every country in the world has supported these principles for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. Every year the Arab League puts forth a peace proposal based on these principles for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Leading human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch have also stated that Israel's siege of Gaza is a form of collective punishment and therefore illegal under international law.

We in the Hamas Government are committed to pursuing a just resolution to the conflict not in contradiction with the international community and enlightened opinion as expressed in the International Court of Justice, the United Nations General Assembly, and leading human rights organizations. We are prepared to engage all parties on the basis of mutual respect and without preconditions.

However, our constituency needs to see a comprehensive paradigm shift that not only commences with lifting the siege on Gaza and halts all settlement building and expansion but develops into a policy of evenhandedness based on the very international law and norms we are prodded into adhering to.

Again, we welcome you to Gaza which would allow you to see firsthand our ground zero. Furthermore, it would enhance the US position; enabling you to speak with new credibility and authority in dealing with all the parties.

Very Truly Yours,
Dr. Ahmed Yousef
Deputy of the Foreign Affairs Ministry
Former Senior Political Advisor
to Prime Minister Ismael Hanniya

UN Secretary General: "I will ask the General Assembly ... to Strip Israel of its Membership"

**** Update ****

It looks like the following is a send-up - mores the pity. There is even a pdf of the "statement" in realistic UN official-looking format here . So, as of right now, my opinion of Ban Ki-Moon remains un-revised
----------------------------------
This not insignificant event occurred on Monday of this week and yet to date I have seen no mention of anywhere in the MSM. There is a view that the US has already given up on the UN and is grooming NATO to effectively supplant it. In my opinion this lends credence to that view.

Ban Ki-Moon risks becoming persona-non-grata in New York/Washington and, although I have hitherto considered him a spineless place man it looks like I may have to revise that opinion. The very best of luck to him is all I can say.

United Nations General Assembly,
New York, NY
11 May 2009

Mr. President
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

With each passing year, we come closer to our past. Every year brings with it momentous anniversaries of events that shaped our world. For example, we have recently marked the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and of the United Nations itself. These two events, inextricably linked, form the basis of what we have come to know as the modern era, the post-war era.

For me, as Secretary–General, looking back on where the UN started and where it is now has a special importance, for I am now charged with guiding the world body through unknown and uncertain territory. “Terrorism” has long since replaced “arms control” and “détente” as the focus of international security, yet the term defies definition. One country’s terrorist is another country’s revolutionary hero. Some insist that terrorists are opposed to democracy, but we have all seen democracies behave like terrorists.

In many ways, the world today does not seem to be very removed from the barbarity of world war. The invasion of Iraq has lasted longer than World War II, and more tons of bombs have been dropped on that poor country than all the bombs dropped in that great war. The International Declaration of Human Rights, so prized and venerated by men and women of honour everywhere, stands as an impotent relic of a forgotten time because conquest, cruelty, and arrogance are still with us and growing stronger.

For all of the good the UN has accomplished since its founding, and there have been successes, the sheer magnitude of human suffering and violations of international law that have occurred and are still occurring must also be taken into account.

Few people know that Israel is the only state to be given a conditional admission. Under General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted on the condition that it grant all Palestinians the right to return to their homes and receive compensation for lost or damaged property, according to General Assembly Resolution 194 paragraph 11. Suffice to say, Israel has never lived up to these terms, and never intended to.

For 60 years Israel has violated its terms of admission, and for 60 years the UN has done nothing about it. It has watched as Israel heaped misery upon misery on Palestine, and violated international law with impunity.

After “Operation Cast Lead,” no person, no country, no democracy can look at Israel without thinking of the inhuman slaughter and destruction committed by the axis powers in World War II, though one could have said the same about numerous past massacres. What atrocities might the world have been spared if the UN had refused to admit Israel 60 years ago?

Of course, the immediate post war world was a different time. The world had just witnessed the horrors of Hitler’s racist excesses, and collective Western guilt for the Holocaust dictated attitudes toward the idea of Jewish state. Even the UN could not withstand the moral pressure.

On Nov. 29, 1947, it passed General Assembly Resolution 181, “The Partition Plan,” to carve a Jewish state out of Arab Palestine. However, it was never ratified by the Security Council, and so does not exist in law, which means the UN played no role in the creation of Israel. Nevertheless, “The Partition Plan” was utterly illegal and a violation of the UN Charter, because the UN had no right or power to take land from one people and give it to another.

If it hopes to play a meaningful role in the 21st century, the UN must do more than simply promise to enact reforms. It must search deep within its soul to redress the fundamental violations of its founding principles, which have long since ceased to have any force. That recommitment must begin now, for it was 60 years ago today, May 11, 1949, that Israel became a member of the UN. The UN cannot hope to achieve any measure of peace or justice as long as it condones war crimes, which it does every day that Israel is allowed to flout its terms of admission.

The past cannot be undone, but the future can change. As its newly elected Secretary-General, I promise that the UN will no longer be a passive enabler of genocide. Therefore, I will ask the General Assembly to meet in special session at the earliest possible time to strip Israel of its membership.

Ordinarily, a motion to expel a member nation would have to come at the recommendation of the Security Council, but this is not an ordinary motion. Because Israel is in violation of its terms of admission, it is not a member in good standing, so the UN has every right to declare General Assembly Resolution 273 null and void. Since Israel’s membership depends on adherence to that resolution, its expulsion is automatic.

Essentially, the unavoidable, lamentable truth of the last six decades is that the UN has been a moral and political failure because it has refused to enforce its own rules and defend the Charter. Nothing the UN does can have any value as long as this illegitimate member occupies a place in the General Assembly. I want the UN to have value.

I count on your support.
Thank you very much.

The American Torture Memos

These memos really are sick, sick SICK!

I've been acutely aware of the whole, undeniable, gross mistreatment of prisoners thing for years now but reading those documents is still shocking - not surprising but truly shocking. I was forcefully reminded of the NAZI's penchant for legalistic documentation of their atrocities. The US really has lost the plot when it comes to any shred of a claim to 'the moral high ground' - but, like its protege Zionist Israel, appears oblivious to its wretchedness.

There was an interview with a young black 'CIA Spokesman' on Channel 4 TV News last night. The guy was maybe 30-35 years old, handsome, clean cut, a bit like a young Sidney Poitier in appearance. His brief was clearly one of damage limitation and his performance was surreal. As usual with our MSM, he was given an easy ride by Krishnan Guru-Murthy the interviewer but in the event it made no difference. He was like a smiling automaton. I lost count of the stock phrases: 'Terrorism is worlds biggest threat'; 'to keep Americans safe from terrorism'; 'to keep Americans free from the fear of terrorism', 'Terrorism', 'Terrorism', 'Terrorists', 'Terrorists', 'Americans this', 'Americans that' - like clockwork. Substitute 'Terrorist(ism)' with 'Witch(craft)' and the meaning would have been unchanged. Inevitably - and quite unprompted - he invoked 9/11 with the words 'we lost over 3,000 lives to terrorists on 9/11 and we want to make sure that does not happen again'. Had I been that interviewer I would have shot back something like "..... but you have lost over 300,000 lives on your roads since then - that's the equivalent of over 100 9/11's !! - with maybe a further million dead and over 3 million displaced lives ruined by your military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you not think it high time we found some sense of proportion here?"

But of course such a question is absolutely verboten and more than any interviewers job is worth - and the interviewer knows it too (not to mention that the interviewee was clearly incapable of understanding such a question). So we are fed pap: "Americans have the right" etc etc ad-infinitum and of course, as loyal poodles we in the UK must support and assist in the enforcement of those 'rights'.

Frankly I am sick, weary and tired of hearing about 'Americans' - 'My fellow Americans' hand-on-heart, misty-eyed stares into the middle-distance to the strains of the 'By the Dawn's early light' - It's enough to make any sane human being want to puke. Patriotic nationalism - particularly of the sickly sentimental goodies -v- baddies American variety has one hell of a lot to answer for.

Gaza is our Guernica

The following is by Joseph E Fasciani originally posted at 'Thomas Paine's Corner' and offered here without comment other than 'spot-on' :

“What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who has only eyes if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? Far, far from it: at the same time, he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly? No, painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.” Pablo Picasso

It is long past time for the world to acknowledge that the destruction of Gaza is the Guernica of our time. All our moral compasses will be set from this point, as to our attitude in this true holocaust. Not one of us is exempt; all will be weighed in the balance of our beliefs and actions.

“In 1937 Pablo Picasso painted Guernica, a mural, as the centerpiece for the Spanish Pavilion of the World’s Fair in Paris. It is a bitter irony that Guernica, the most lasting monument of the exposition, is the Twentieth century’s most enduring symbol of the horrors of war and the inhumane use of technology. It is a portent for the terrors of the next decade. The painting is based on the events of April 27, 1937, when the German air force, in support of the Fascist forces led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco, carried out a bombing raid on the Basque village of Guernica in northern Spain.

“At that time such a massive bombing campaign was unprecedented. The hamlet was pounded with high-explosive and incendiary bombs for over three hours. The non-combatant townspeople including women and children were indiscriminately cut-down as they fled their crumbling buildings. The town of Guernica burned for three days leaving sixteen hundred civilians killed or wounded in its smoldering remains.

“The Fascist planners of the bombing campaign knew that Guernica had no strategic value as a military target, but it was a cultural and religious center for Basque identity. The devastation was intended to terrorize the population and break the spirit of the Basque resistance. In effect it was intended to “shock and awe” the Basques into submission. The bombing of Guernica was a sensation in the world press. The Times of London called it the arch-symbol of Fascist barbarity.”

From a series devoted to Responses to War created by David Hart of the University of Adelaide.

That the above description could be applied to the present horrors in Gaza with virtually no differences is condemnation enough for Israel to stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Let us substitute Gaza for Guernica and Palestinian for Basque and see the eerie parallels:

“The Fascist planners of the bombing campaign knew that Gaza had no strategic value as a military target, but it was a cultural and religious centre for Palestinian identity. The devastation was intended to terrorize the population and break the spirit of the Palestinian resistance. In effect it was intended to “shock and awe” the Palestinians into submission.”

That this massacre is made by the same people who scream “Holocaust!” about themselves is of course the supreme irony, and –from a Christian point of view– the greatest self-incrimination and sin. Sin??? Well, there’s a word! Our idea of sin derives from the Greek word harmartia, which means to ‘miss the mark,’ something we cannot fault those precision Israeli bombers for. They locate and hit schools, hospitals, children’s shelters, and UN aid stations. Any and all humanitarian relief points are now suitable targets.

An Israeli friend of mine told me this was a common joke there twenty years ago:

“Why does Israel need expensive spy satellites?”

“So we can spot Palestinian kids picking up stones to throw at our tanks!”

For me, at nearly 66, it brings to mind all the black and white documentaries I watched as a child, often at rallies and memorials we attended with my father’s business partners, Sam Windstrauch and Sam Silberstein, two real Jews who had no interest in Zionism, nor did Albert Einstein, no matter how often he was asked to support “Israel Bond Drives”. Now the murderers are strangely transposed: the old black and white movies of the Nazis destroying Guernica or taking the Warsaw ghetto have morphed into full-colour TV journalists documenting Israel’s “Defense” Forces [IDF] taking Gaza, exactly as was done sixty years ago. The formerly abused become present abuser and use the same tactics: enclose the victims, cut off food, water, and fuel; bomb and shell one and all, set them fleeing in vain. Then move in and use all the newest weapons to maximize their deaths at minimal IDF losses. To date, it seems that goal is a kill ratio of 100:1 or better, if possible.

As we step into the Ninth Circle of Hell, please note that the IDF’s weapons and tanks are the best that money can buy and the USA supply, in fact, pays for with the billions of dollars of “foreign aid” it generously gives to Israel every year. If the US gave its own citizens as much as it gives to Israel, each man, woman, and child would receive more than US$ 33,000.00 a year. Let me know when you got your cheque, as I have yet to get mine.

“Is it an irresponsible overstatement to associate the treatment of Palestinians with this criminalized Nazi record of collective atrocity? [Holocaust] I think not.”

That is from a recent statement by Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and international law authority at Princeton University, 2009. He is a Jew. This much is certain: all these killers are true to their leaders, such as Bush 43, who told us that “I listened to the voices…and acted. I am the Decider.” Some leader! Some decisions!

Can anyone see Christ in anything that comes out from Bush 43, or from any Zionazi spokesperson? “For it is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but what proceeds from his mouth!” warned Joshua, 2000 years ago. Nothing’s changed. In the US of A and Canada, self-righteous “Christian” evangelicals aligned with ZioNazis defame Him for a fictitious “security” which cannot ever be, for there can never be peace without justice. In truth, they are not Christians. They, along with the ZioNazis, are the new murderous Pharisees of our era: if we have eyes that truly see, and unstopped ears to hear the screams of agony in Gaza, the Guernica of our time.

Zionist propaganda on Gaza

An article in today's Guardian by Uri Dromi headlined "Israel's use of force was justified" prompted a comment from me - along with about a thousand others identifying it as a text-book piece of Israeli propaganda by a man with close links to the Israeli Security Services (a fact that the Guardian saw fit not to mention). Comments were/are running about 10:1 in condemnation of the thrust of the piece and are well worth reading, along with the article itself, as a good illustration of just how polished and bare-faced the Zionist propaganda machine is. My comment was in the form of a series of somewhat rhetorical questions to Dromi. This is an expanded version of it:

I have some questions for Uri Dromi:

1. Which country is in breach of more UN resolutions than any other?
2. How many Israelis were killed by Hamas rockets in the 6 months leading to the breaking of the cease-fire? (Clue: it was less than 1)
3. Who broke the ceasefire on US presidential election day 4th November (a good day to bury bad news eh?) and how many people did they kill doing so?
4. Which is closest to the Palestinian/Israeli deaths ratio since the inception of the Israeli State - 2/1, 10/1, 100/1 ?
   
5. Who won the Internationally supervised Palestinian election in 2006 with close to 70% of the vote against their man rival with about 30% - IOW who are the legitimate DEMOCRATICALLY elected government of the Palestinian territories?
6. Whose Presidential term expired on 5th January but is still treated by both Israel and the West as the legitimate spokesman for Palestinians?
7. Which territory has been rigidly blockaded by land, sea and air ever since those elections and in spite of ceasefire undertakings?
8. How many miles of (a) Apartheid walls and (b) 'Jews-only' roads + Jewish settlements have been built in the Palestinian West Bank territory in the past 5 years - in further gross violation of UN resolutions?
9. If God had (allegedly) decreed that the British Isles were the 'Promised Land of XXXXX' and Uri Dromey and his family found themselves systematically dispossessed, exiled, imprisoned, ethnically-cleansed and generally treated as unwelcome inhabitants in their own homes etc etc., would he become 1. A collaborator. 2. A cowed and frightened individual keeping his head down to protect his family and hopefully avoid the attentions of the invaders, or c - An 'Insurgent', or 'Militant' - pick your own demonising euphemism?
10. Why is it A-OK for Israel to abrogate the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and posses nuclear weapons with the connivance of the West - at all - let alone when senior Israeli political and military figures such as Professor Martin van Creveld make statements like this this? :

"We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under."

The questions are of course largely rhetorical. On any reasonable analysis Zionist Israel is the most dangerous, repressive, racist and apartheid state on the planet. It is in fact a War Crime in progress.

The death of Ivan Cameron

Genuine sorrow is the only humane response to the news of the death of Ivan Cameron and, like the Prime Minister, I too offer sincere condolences to David and Samantha Cameron on their tragic loss.

But watching Gordon Brown's statement in the Commons yesterday I could not help but note that, in the strange, cocooned, self-righteous and self-absorbed moral universe we inhabit in this country, some children are more precious and some parents' 'unbearable sorrow' more worthy of empathy than others.

Brown said:

"Every child is precious and irreplaceable and the death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure."

Quite so; but where were his words of condolence about the preciousness of the 450 children so recently killed by the Israeli military in Gaza? Or the unbearable suffering of their parents? and all in the worthy cause of self-defence we are told - so that's alright then.

Frankly, the grossness of the double standards make me sick.

Irish civil society calls for boycott of Israel

The following letter was published in a full-page advertisement in The Irish Times on 31 January 2009:

The original ad, including signatures may be downloaded here. [PDF]

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza killed over 1,300 Palestinians, a third of them children. Thousands have been wounded. Many victims had been taking refuge in clearly marked UN facilities.

This assault came in the wake of years of economic blockade by Israel. This blockade, which is illegal under international humanitarian law, has destroyed the Gaza economy and condemned its population to poverty. According to a World Bank report last September, “98 percent of Gaza’s industrial operations are now inactive.”The most recent attack on Gaza is only the latest phase in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people and appropriation of their land.

Israel has never declared its borders. Instead, it has continuously expanded at the expense of the Palestinians. In 1948, it took over 78 percent of Palestine, an area much larger than that suggested for a Jewish state by the UN General Assembly in 1947. Contrary to international law, Israel expelled over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. These refugees and their descendants, who now number millions, are still dispersed throughout the region. They have the right, under international law, to return to their homes. This right has been underlined by the UN General Assembly many times, starting with Resolution 194 in 1948.

In 1967, Israel occupied the remaining 22 percent of Palestine: the West Bank and Gaza. Contrary to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel has built, and continues to build, settlements in these occupied territories. Today, nearly 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the illegal settlements in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and the number grows daily as Israel expands its settler program.

Israel has resisted pressure from the international community to abide by the human rights provisions of international law. It has refused to comply with UN Security Council demands to cease building settlements and remove those it has built (Resolutions 446, 452 and 465) and to reverse its illegal annexation of East Jerusalem (252, 267, 271, 298, 476 and 478). Since September 2000, over 5,000 Palestinians, almost 1,000 of them minors, have been killed by the Israeli military.

Eleven-thousand Palestinians, including hundreds of minors, languish in Israel jails. Hundreds are detained without trial. In addition, Israel is breaking international law by imprisoning them outside the occupied territories, thereby making it almost impossible for their families to visit them. Every year, hundreds of Palestinian homes are demolished. The Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza livesw imprisoned by walls, barriers and checkpoints that prevent or impede access to shops, schools, workplaces, hospitals and places of worship. They are subjected to restrictions of every kind and to daily ritual humiliation at the hands of occupation soldiers and checkpoint guards.

Invasion, occupation and plantation of their land is the reality that Palestinians have faced for decades and still face on a daily basis, as their country is reduced remorselessly. Unless, and until, this Israeli aggression is halted, and the democratic rights of the Palestinian people are vindicated, there will be no justice or peace in the Middle East. Israel’s 40-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza must be ended.

The occupation can end if political and economic pressure is placed on Israel by the international community. Recognizing this, the Palestinian people continually call on the international community to intervene.

We, the signatories, call for the following:

• The Irish Government to cease its purchase of Israeli military products and services and call publicly for an arms embargo against Israel.
• The Irish Government to demand publicly that Israel reverse its settlement construction, illegal occupation and annexation of land in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions and to use its influence in international fora to bring this about.
• The Irish Government to demand publicly that the Euro-Med Agreement under which Israel has privileged access to the EU market be suspended until Israel complies with international law.
• The Irish Government to veto any proposed upgrade in EU relations with Israel.
• The Irish people to boycott all Israeli goods and services until Israel abides by international law.

Source

Götterdämmerung

... Or, towards a disastrous conclusion of events.

Free verse By Vi Ransel.

Aimed squarely at the USA but, since the UK and America are practically joined-at-the-hip in both the Ango-American Imperial Project and our respective popular 'cultures', most honest UK readers will recognise it for what it is: A devastatingly accurate critique of our ignorant, vacuous, insular arrogance towards those who reject the 'Washington Consensus' of Western Nations.

The graphic hardly needs explanation: The Central figure is of course Sarah Palin (the airhead who very nearly came within a heart attack of the US Presidency - and who it seems may yet do so anyway) John (Bomb Bomb Iran) McCain, President (Change you can believe it) Barak Obama, and his VC, Stormin' drugs war warrior, Joe Biden.

The flag? - well I guess that's the point.

The little pieces
of shredded Palestinian children
fall as lightly on the conscience
of Europeans and Americans
as the dust from the crematoria
on the neat-as-a-pin flower boxes
brushed off daily by German hausfraus
living in the shadows of Dachau and Auschwitz.

These tiny human sacrifices
to nationalism and dominion
are as remote and dim as the cold light
from Alpha Centauri amid

an obscene frenzy of slopping at the trough
of narcotized consumerism designed to make us complicit
and to numb the vestigial morality of the most arrogant know-nothings
to grace the world’s stage since Caligula,

indoctrinated since infancy with entitlement and exceptionalism
via fables and demonization fed to us by our parents,
school’s daily boosters of pledges of allegiance
and the continuous, intra-ocular injection

by the corporate media
of its creation, the Great Satan
of TV advertising and Public Relations.

As we, the comfortable and gluttonous, wallow
in beer, NASCAR and any sport that involves balls,

and shop for a lifestyle while “living” like empty bags
waiting to be filled with whatever is dangled
in front of our faces,

as we, the ignorant and insulated, fixate
on whitening our teeth and erasing lines from our faces
in order to avoid looking into the mirror and being mocked
by a moldering portrait of Dorian Grey,

as we stick I-pods and cell phones into our ears
that make it impossible to hear anything about the deal

we’ve made with the devil, or had made in our names,
since we might have to re-think the claims that we’ve made

not to hear the crying of our brothers’ children dying
as they reap what we have sown,
exploding in red-dripping shards of flesh
and white, jagged splinters of bone,

coalescing in the fetid pool of the West’s
sophisticated and cynical indifference,
while we suck contentedly on the TV tit
and swallow the murderous poison
of its corporate ejaculate.

* * * * *

Wounded Knee and America’s Peculiar Institution
of kidnapping Africans and forcing them into slavery,
established a template for institutionalized brutality
whereby we broke every treaty that was signed in our names

as we settled and slaughtered our way across the continent
to establish an empire stolen by means of atrocities
committed with Manifest Destiny’s self-delegated authority
wrapped up in flag-waving dressed as democracy.

As Americans slaughtered and slaved their way into history
they embraced genocide as their moral duty and a mandate
in bearing the White Man’s Burden of civilizing the inveterate savages
who were already cluttering up the “American” landscape

when the looters and plunderers stepped off the boat
on to Plymouth Rock, and like Columbus before them
commenced spattering innocent brain matter, scalps, blood and bones
all over the undeveloped real estate and resources they coveted.

Meanwhile European Zionism,
living parasitically within Judaism,
went the Americans one better and used
the Jews’ suffering in order to hijack a religion,

putting the plight of Europe’s victims in service to their plans
for ruthless ethnic cleansing and acquisitive nationalism.
You need a plan in order for genocide to work,
otherwise mass murder is just an impromptu massacre.

Before 1900 major newspapers expressed
the interests of the imperialists who owned them.
Smaller efforts were local, community “bulletin boards”
or showcases for movement-oriented editorials.

And where there were no newspapers
there were only traumatized refugees’ stories,
often dismissed as lying or lunacy because
torture, mass murder and rape as a weapon
are not the methods of Western democracies.
(And if they were, it would be to confer the virtues
of freedom, representative government and the “free” market.)

As media outlets expanded from print to telegraph
to radio to TV and to cell phones,
communication had become so instantaneous, in fact,
that content had to be very carefully controlled
by the cabal of imperialist interests that owned them

by consolidating the outlets, especially in the US,
where people are weaned on vapid, contentless propaganda,
and engineered to be the most incredibly ignorant
dumb asses on the face of the planet.

Paradoxically in Israel, newspapers print the truth
about Zionists meting out Special Treatment 14f13,
mashing Gaza with spectacular impunity
for the cheap thrill of racial “superiority”
and establishing racially-pure Jewish communities.

The names of the perpetrators are interchangeable,
but all of them serve just one purpose,
grinding the poor into financial fertilizer
in service to the Masters of the New World Order

as they make War on Humanity both military and financial
in their campaign for land, power and resources.
And as the West has its smug, self-satisfied,
self-righteous fat face deservedly slapped
by the market’s invisible hand, it may serve,

with the internet, to awaken people to the fact
that the poor of the world
- THIS MEANS YOU!!! -
are all living on one giant Gaza-like reservation,
and the world’s billionaires are preparing to remove
all us “useless eaters” via some Nazi-like “re-location”

by means of multiple mass genocides,
not excluding a Nuclear Holocaust,
which will awaken the wrath of The Furies,
who punish unpunished atrocity.

And as Earth begins to self-destruct in defiance of her rape,
Alecto, Magaera and Tisiphone, will speak
for the voiceless dead who have been discarded,
and billionaires will secrete themselves
with the seeds of all the world’s plant species
locked in explosion-proof vaults, a mile below the ice under Svalbard.