2. Did you know that instead of sewing an insignia on clothing to distinguish race (like the Germans did to the Jews before WW2), Palestinian license plates in Israel are color coded to distinguish Jews from non-Jews?

3. Did you know that East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights are all considered by the entire world community, including the United States and the United Nations, to be occupied territory and NOT part of the State of Israel?

4. Did you know that Israel allots 85% of the water resources for Jews, and the remaining 15% is divided among all Palestinians in the territories? For example in Hebron, 85% of the water is set aside for about 400 Jewish settlers, while the remaining 15% is distributed among Hebron’s 120, 000 Palestinians?

5. Did you know that the United States awards Israel $5 billion in aid each year from American tax dollars?

6. Did you know that US aid to Israel ($1.8 billion annually in military aid alone) exceeds the aid the US grants to the entire African continent? This aid is used both to buy American weaponry and to buy arms made in Israel.

7. Did you know that Israel is awaiting an additional $4 billion worth of American military hardware, including new F-16s and Apache and Blackhawk helicopters. As Israel’s main ally and supporter internationally, the United States is committed to maintaining the Jewish state’s “qualitative edge” in weapons over its neighbours.

8. Did you know that the U.S. administration has notified Congress on numerous occasions that Israel has violated the rules on how US-supplied weapons are used? (In 1978, 1979 and 1982 during fighting in Lebanon, and once after Israel’s bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981.)

9. Did you know that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and bars international inspections from its sites?

10. Did you know that high-ranking military officers in the Israeli Defence Forces have admitted publicly that unarmed prisoners of war have been summarily executed by the Israeli forces?

11. Did you know that Israel blew up an American diplomatic facility in Egypt and attacked a US warship in international waters (the USS Liberty), killing 33 and wounding 177 American sailors and the US did nothing about it? (Imagine if an Islamic country like Iraq did this!)

12. Did you know that Israel stands in defiance of 69 United Nations Security Council Resolutions?

13. Did you know that Israel is explicitly dedicated to the policy of maintaining a distinct Jewish character?

14. Did you know that Israel’s current Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, was found by an Israeli court to be “personally and directly responsible” for the Sabra and Shatilla massacre in Lebanon where more than a thousand innocent Palestinian men, women, and children were axed to death or lined up and shot in cold blood?

15. Did you know that on May 20, 1990, a group of unarmed Palestinian labourers were lined up and murdered by an Israeli solider as they sat waiting for transportation back to Gaza? The terrified labourers who gathered in an area of southern Israel known as Rishon Lezion (known to Palestinians by its Arabic name Oyon Qara) handed their ID cards to the Israeli soldier. The soldiers ordered the distressed labourers to kneel down and face the ground and unexpectedly showered them with a barrage of bullets, killing seven and wounding many others. Needless to say, the soldier was not charged with any crime.

16. Did you know that until as recently as 1988, Israelis were permitted to run “Jews Only” job ads?

17. Did you know that the Israeli Foreign Ministry pays six US public relations firms to promote a “positive image” of Israel to the American public?

18. Did you know that Sharon’s coalition government includes a party–Molodet–which advocates ethnic cleansing by openly calling for the forced expulsion of all Palestinians from the occupied territories?

19. Did you know that recently-declassified documents indicate that David Ben-Gurion approved of the forced expulsion of Arabs from all Palestinian territory in 1948?

20. Did you know that the former chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, who is also a founder and spiritual leader of the religious Shas party (Israel’s third largest political party) openly advocates a ‘Final Solution’ to annihilate the Palestinians? Speaking at the widely broadcast sermon marking the last Passover, he declared of the Palestinians: “The Lord shall return their deeds on their own heads, waste their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and vanish them from this world. It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable.”

21. Did you know that Palestinian refugees make up the largest portion of the refugee population in the world?

22. Did you know that Palestinian Christians are considered the “living stones” of Christianity because they are the direct descendants of the disciples of Jesus Christ? And the Palestinian Christians stand united with their Muslim brethren in the struggle against the Israeli occupation.

23. Did you know that despite a ban on torture by Israel’s High Court of Justice, torture has continued unabated by Shin Bet interrogators on Palestinian prisoners?

24. Did you know that despite every Israeli attempt to disrupt Palestinian education, Palestinians have the highest ratio of PhDs per capita in the world?

25. Did you know that the right of self-determination is guaranteed to every human being under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [December, 1948], yet Palestinians were/are expected to negotiate for this right under the Oslo Accords?

26. Did you know that despite what is widely perpetuated and written in the history books that the Arabs attacked Israel in the 1967 war, it was Israel who attacked the Arab countries first, capturing Jerusalem and the West Bank, and called the attack a pre-emptive strike?

27. Did you know that, as an occupying power, Israel has a particular responsibility under the Geneva Conventions to protect Palestinian civilians?

28. Did you know that, despite Ariel Sharon’s public call for a unilateral ceasefire, Israeli soldiers have not stopped shooting, killing or bulldozing Palestinian homes? The most recent example of this is the murder of three innocent women who were shot by an Israeli tank as they sat in their tent!

29. Did you know that the Zionists have been trying to destroy Masjid al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock for the last 50 years by digging underground tunnels beneath the sites to weaken its foundation causing it to collapse?

30. Nelson Mandela called the Israeli government an apartheid regime, just like South Africa used to be.

=============

“Israel is an illegal creation of the United Kingdom!”

Britain illegally created the state of Israel.

Palestine was once a British colony, but the British promised to pass the Arab country to the Jews for their help in involving the U.S. join WWI and side with the British.

So the UK, who didn’t own the land, had given it to the Jews, who do not belong there.

Fostering Jewish immigration in the hope that it might ultimately lead to the creation of a Jewish majority and the establishment of a Jewish state with the consent or the acquiescence of the Arabs was one thing. It was quite another to contemplate, however remotely, the forcible conversion of Palestine into a Jewish State against the will of the Arabs.

Concerning DNA, I encourage you (and anyone who might claim to be a jew, i.e. descendant of Israel) to take a look at these links. Eye-opening to say the least.

http://www.arabisraelites.com/f0900.htm
http://www.arabisraelites.com/Nefertiti01.htm

This is one of the best commentaries I’ve read on issue recently, by the Malawian novelist and scholar Paul Tiyambe Zeleza. He brings to the issue an intimate knowledge of the violent and tumultuous aftermath of settler colonialism in Africa (Malawi used to be Nyasaland, federated with Rhodesia), and places Israel/Palestine/Lebanon in what I view as the properly broad geographical and historical context. He also makes interesting suggestions for possible long-term solutions to the conflict by analogy with post-apartheid South Africa. S.A. is, of course, a shaky touchstone for emulation, as South African whites still own 87% of South Africa’s land, and the equivalent would be Israeli settlers maintaining an absentee monopoly over the best water and land in the O.T. into perpetuity. But still, worth a read.

there’s an increasing (as far as I, from my goyishe perspective, can see) disconnect between the Diasporic Jewish culture and the militarised/paranoid/patriarchal State of Israel. Israeli culture and geopolitics contradict many of the cherished norms and values of Diasporic Jewry. there’s some kind of meme-war going on over whose values are more authentically “Jewish”, muddied and muddled of course by gender and race…

Tony Judt’s essays, particularly his recent Ha’aretz thinkpiece “The Country That Wouldn’t Grow Up” underscore this dissonance in global Jewish consciousness. Marc Ellis argues that “Constantinian Judaism” (Judaism as the State religion of a militarist nation-state) threatens the very essence of Jewish spiritual life and community.

Sharon’s repeated attempts to exaggerate the scale and importance of any antiSemitic incident in Europe — particularly France, which both the Likudniks and the US wingnuts join in demonising — are typical of the old-school wingnut Zionist programme of recruitment-through-fear (which led to its own absurdity/obscenity during the runup to the Holocaust, as mentioned on previous thread ‘The P Word’). But contrary to the Likud (and Millennialist) agenda, Jewish community life is undergoing a minor Renaissance in Berlin, and many Israelis feel that their future or their childrens’ future is more secure in Europe (or America) than in Israel.

In a desperate attempt to maintain immigration numbers, the wingnut faction in Israel has been doing transnational evangelism (something previously associated with the xtian church, not with Judaism) to recruit new settlers

The miracle of the creation of this community of new Jews has to be chalked up wholly and exclusively to the credit — or debit — of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel. Two months ago, at the order of the Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Israel Meir Lau, a delegation of rabbis traveled to Peru. During their two weeks in the country, they converted 90 people to Judaism, most of them of Indian origin.

“We found a small river between Trujillo and Cajamarca and everyone immersed in it. We took the people from Lima to be immersed in the ocean and then we also had to remarry them all in a Jewish ceremony according to the halakha [Jewish religious law],” says Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum, a judge in the conversion court and a member of the delegation.

The rabbis converted only those who said they were willing to immigrate to Israel immediately.
[…]
Theoretically, the new Jews had the option of joining the Jewish community in Peru, but that was ruled out.

“How can I put it without hurting anyone?” Birnbaum says. “The community in Lima consists of a certain socioeconomic class and did not want them because they are from a lower level. There was a kind of agreement that if they were converted, they would not join the Lima community, so there was no choice but to lay down the condition that they immigrate to Israel.”

In the grand tradition of “rice Christians” the rabbinate has now created “land Jews” — landless peasants and indios who converted to Judaism, basically, for the promise of a bit of land of their own. Dispossessed and deracinated by the Conquista, these victims of colonialism now (in one of history’s plentiful ironies) become agents of Israel’s colonial programme in Palestine. Note that the Jewish community in Lima did not want these “lower” people (read: non-Whites, poor, paisanos), but they were welcome as settlers to Israel.

The immediate cross reference in my mind is that of the export of “the criminal classes” of the British Empire to the frontier, where they served the imperial agenda by dispossessing indigenes and Enclosing land; and of the highly imperial contemporary American strategy of recruiting Hispanic immigrants for the armed forces with a promise of citizenship (even if posthumous). The use of the Gurkhas by the British in India also comes to mind; the imperial occupier often promised the loyal native grunts a land grant at the end of their service, but they would never have been welcome “back home” among Whites.

If Israelis of conscience are voting with their feet then this does indeed leave the hardcore behind; on the other hand, it also weakens the net of international support for Israel, the steady flow of donation and subsidy which enables Israel to defy public opinion, UN resolutions, and diplomatic wisdom in its dealings with surrounding states.

One of the curious things about the diaspora vs Israel divide is that in most cases where there is a community “in exile”, the exile community is more rightwing, revanchist, extremist, or delusional than those still in country; Miami Cubans are nutcases compared to even the most outspoken dissidents in Havana, for example, and the White Russian exile community in the teens and 20’s of the last century were notoriously batty and grandiose in their fantasies of returning to power. It is true to an extent that American Likudism is more repressive (debate is more stifled) than the homegrown variety, but in general the politics of diasporic Jewish communities tend to be more liberal than Israeli politics. It is a fragile generalisation because of the many contradictory elements: some of the most conservative and illiberal Orthodoxim in the US are actually anti-Zionist, believing that the foundation of a physical, territorial Eretz Yisroel is blasphemous.

Given the two trends (emigration from Israel by Jewish citizens uncomfortable with Israeli politics, and a higher birth rate for Arab citizens), Israeli Apartheid does indeed face a crisis. I will be interested to see, over time, how the “new Diaspora” (ex-Israelis living worldwide, in exile from their birth nation) shapes up as a political and artistic force.

Interesting. Has anyone connected this to disagreement with Israeli policy? Have any of these people commented on why they are leaving? Are Israelis of conscience voting with their feet? And if so, what does that leave behind?

^^^
CB: or Iraq, or Afghanistan

^^^

then what real power does the world’s “hyper-power” possess? America’s inability to influence any of the actors that are relevant to the current crisis is yet more evidence that America’s foreign policy is a form of global suicide.

Why Israel is Losing

By ASHRAF ISMA’IL

The world is witnessing what could be a critical turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel is now engaged in a war that could permanently undermine the efficacy of its much-vaunted military apparatus.

Ironically, there are several reasons for believing that Israel’s destruction of southern Lebanon and southern Beirut will weaken its bargaining position relative to its adversaries, and will strengthen its adversaries’ hands.

First, Israel has no clearly defined tactical or strategic objective, and so the Israeli offensive fails the first test of military logic: there is no way that Israel’s actions can improve its position relative to Hamas or Hizballah, much less Syria or Iran.

The logic of power politics also implies that a no-win situation for Israel is a definite loss, because Israel is the stronger party and thus has the most to lose. In an asymmetric war, the stronger party always has the most to lose, in terms of reputation and in terms of its ability to project its will through the instruments of force.

The lack of any clearly defined objective is a major miscalculation by Israel and its American patron.

Second, Israel cannot eliminate Hizballah, since Hizballah is a grassroots organization that represents a plurality of Lebanese society. Neither can Hamas be eliminated for the same reason. By targeting Hizballah however, Israel is strengthening Hizballah’s hand against its domestic rivals, such as the Maronite Christians, because any open Christian opposition makes them look like traitors and Israeli collaborators.

Consequently, while Hizballah will obviously pay a short-term tactical cost that is very high, in the long run, this conflict demonstrates that it is Hizballah, and not the Lebanese government, that has the most power in Lebanon.

The Shia represent an estimated 35-40 per cent of Lebanese society, while Lebanese Christians are thought to constitute no more than 25-30per cent of the entire population. Furthermore, the Shia community’s fertility rate is thought to be far higher than that of the other religious components within Lebanon.

Thus, the current confessional division of power in Lebanon, which grants Christians a political position that goes far beyond their minority status, is ultimately unsustainable, which means that the Maronite Christians will lose even more power, and the Shia and Hizballah will inevitably gain more power.

Third, Israel’s failure to achieve anything at all greatly enhances Syria’s influence over Lebanon and its bargaining position relative to the U.S. and Israel itself. No solution in Lebanon can exclude Syria, and so now the U.S. and Israelis need Syria’s approval, which certainly weakens both the U.S. and Israel.

And even Israel’s accusations against Iran, although largely baseless, greatly enhance Iran’s prestige in the region, and may bring about exactly what the Israelis are trying to prevent. While the Arab states look like traitors, Iran looks like a champion of the most celebrated of all Muslim causes.

Fourth, Bush’s impotence is a clear demonstration that America has lost a great deal of global power over the last three years. If Bush cannot control Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hizballah, or Israel, then what real power does the world’s “hyper-power” possess? America’s inability to influence any of the actors that are relevant to the current crisis is yet more evidence that America’s foreign policy is a form of global suicide.

Fifth, the age of great power warfare has been replaced by a world in which great powers must live and compete with non-state actors who possess considerable military capabilities. William Lind calls this transformation “4th generation warfare.”

Consequently, the age of Bismarckian warfare, or what William Lind refers to as “3rd generation warfare,” is effectively over. “Bismarckian warfare” is a term that describes large-scale wars fought by large-scale armies, which require national systems of military conscription, a significant population base, and enormous military budgets.

Bismarckian warfare seems to have become ineffective in the Arab-Israeli context, because Israel no longer poses the threat that it once did to the Arab regimes, and the Arab regimes much prefer Israel to the rising non-state actors growing within their own borders.

William Lind has also argued that non-state actors such as Hamas and Hizballah can checkmate the Israelis as long as these Muslim parties never formally assume power. If Muslim parties were to assume the power of states, then they would immediately become targets for traditional Bismarckian warfare. However, as long as Muslim movements retain theirnon-state identity, they are strategically unconquerable.

Sixth, we must more carefully study the reasons why Bismarckian warfare is no longer effective.

The global diffusion of the news outlets is obviously important for understanding why Bismarckian warfare has become so ineffective. For instance, Hizballah has its own media network, and can draw upon the global satellite network to get its message out, and can also use the global media to take advantage of Israel’s targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

Further, the competition between Arab and Muslim satellite channels is also important, because each station wants to demonstrate its sincerity by spreading news that is not only critical of Israel and the U.S., but ultimately undermines people’s trust in the Arab regimes and thereby lends legitimacy to non-state actors.

And although the American media largely supports Israel, the information about the Americans stranded in Lebanon limits Israel’s freedom of action, and makes Israel look like it cares nothing for the lives of American citizens.

At an even deeper level, the rate and density of global information transfer, and lack of any centralized control over the global distribution of information, is causing the fabric of space and time to contract, and so Israel’s crimes can much more quickly create a global backlash.

Time and space, as we experience them, are contracting because the global diffusion of technical and scientific knowledge is permitting events in one part of the world to increasingly influence events in other parts of the world, and events that once took years or even decades to unfold can now occur within mere months or weeks.

As a consequence, the disenfranchised peoples of the world are developing the ability to affect the lives of the more privileged members of humanity, which means that anything that Israel does to the Palestinians or Lebanese will have effects upon Israel that are more direct and more negative than ever before, and that further, these effects will occur in an accelerated time scale.

Thus, as it becomes self evident that Israeli military power is no longer as effective as it once was, this will surely accelerate the flow of Jewish settlers out of Israel. Information regarding emigration of Jews out of Israel is a closely guarded secret, but using Israeli government statistics, we can infer that immigration to Israel has rapidly declined over the last several years, and that Israel may even be experiencing a net outflow of Jewish migrants. According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of Jewish immigrants to Israel declined to 21,000 in 2004, which is a 15-year low. In 2005, the number of immigrants rose slightly to 23,000, which is still dramatically lower than the 60,000 that immigrated in 2000. Furthermore, Israel became a net exporter of its citizens in 2003, when9,000 more Israelis left the country than entered, and in the first two months of 2004, this figure rose to 13,000.

The global micro-diffusion of military technology is also critical, and so military innovation and its global diffusion will only strengthen grassroots rebellions and allow them to more effectively resist the instruments of Bismarckian control, as well as the depredations of the military hippopotami that are the ultimate guarantors of statism and statist regimes.

For all of these reasons, Israeli attempts to impose terms on Lebanon, or to redraw the political map of Lebanon, or even to impose a NATO force upon Southern Lebanon, are not militarily feasible nor politically achievable, and if attempted, will prove ultimately unsustainable.

As will soon be demonstrated by events on the ground, Israel will not be able to destroy or even disarm Hizballah. Neither will Hamas, Hizballah, Lebanon, or Syria permit Israel or America to dictate terms to them. Consequently, if Israel lingers too long in Southern Lebanon, its presence will be paid for at such a high cost, that it will be forced to withdraw in ignominy, as it has so many times in the past.

In the end however, Israel’s loss of power will make it even more dangerous, because the more threatened the Israelis feel, the more likely they will launch destructive wars against the Palestinians and Israel’s other adversaries.

Finally, the same can be said of the U.S., with respect to its loss of global power. Instead of becoming more careful with its use of force, the erosion of America’s global dominance will likely make the U.S. government more aggressive, as it attempts to re-assert its former position relative to its adversaries and competitors.

And it is precisely because America and Israel are losing influence over global events, that an American attack upon Iran in 2007 becomes more likely.

God help us all.

Ashraf Isma’il is an academic whose interests range from international relations, international economics and international finance, to global history and mathematical models of geo-strategy.

Readers might be interested to know “US Bombers to practise in NT” this week.The Age.com.au Monday 24th July,2006 informs the Australian public that the United States bombers will pound a test range in the Northern Territory this week, practising the pinpoint strikes they would use on targets such as nuclear weapons sites, missiles or terrorist bases.

The US bombers will fly non-stop from their base on Guam and back, and be refuelled in the air by American planes operting out of the RAAF base in Darwin.

Taking part in the demonstration of long-range air power will be B-l and B-2 stealth bomers and B52’s.

The aforementioned shows that unlike Iraq, the US does not have to bomb Australia into submission to steal our natural resources, and take over our way of life - both socially and economically and militarily.

Our neo-conservative leader while kissing Bush’s bottom and like the pimp he is; has already offered our country to Bush to rape as much as Bush likes

In addition, on the Uruknet site - there are calls from doctors in Lebanon asking does anybody know what sort of bombs Israel is using because they have not seen injuries of this sort before. I thought Stan this might be in your field.

Also I do not know if Americans are aware that your government has just pulled off a successful coup in East Timor.

They did not like Prime Minister Dr. Alkatari refusing
to go along with the world bank or wanting secular schools or free hot lunches for the children.

Now we have Washington’s man installed - Mr. Jose Horta
who wrote a huge article in our media as to why the
US should invade Iraq.

The breakaway rebel army leader who started off the coup just happens to have a wife that works in the US embassy in East Timor.

The US government, as we would say in Australia, are certainly little terrors aren’t they?

“One person’s terrorist is another one’s freedom fighter,”

23.JUL.06

By Diane Bukowski
The Michigan Citizen

DETROIT — As Israeli ground forces invaded Lebanon and the Gaza strip, up to 10,000 Arab-Americans marched through Dearborn, center of the largest Arab community in the western hemisphere, on July 18, to protest the previous days’ bombings of Lebanon and Palestine.

Many carried signs with photos of mutilated and scarred Lebanese children, asking the question “Are these terrorists?” They chanted “Hezbollah” and “Stop the Killings, Stop the War.” At least 230 Lebanese, most of them civilians, and 25 Israelis have died so far.

“One person’s terrorist is another one’s freedom fighter,” said Melanie Czekaj. “Hezbollah is our freedom fighter.” She waited in vain for the march to arrive at Dearborn’s city hall, but Dearborn police had blocked the march route and diverted it to Hemlock Park.

“They do this all the time,” she said. “They isolate us in our neighborhood and don’t want our voices to be heard where there are more Americans.”

She said family members who live in the south of Lebanon have told her that Israeli forces are using chemical warfare against the population there. Although these claims have not been substantiated, international human rights groups suspect that the Israeli army has used chemical weapons recently in the Gaza Strip.

Many marchers blasted U.S. President George Bush, saying Israel could not carry out its attacks without U.S. support and calling on Bush to support a cease-fire.

“It wouldn’t cost Bush anything to do a cease-fire, to spare human life, whether it’s Muslim, Christian or Jew,” said Nadia, who didn’t give a surname. “Israel has a green light from him. At least feel sorry for the children. We want nothing but our land and peace.”

“America is supplying the weapons to kill our people,” said teen-ager Hassan Hukr.

His young friend Mohammad Bittar, added, “Lebanon and Palestine are supposed to be free countries. That should be made clear to the members of the G-8.”

One marcher carried a sign declaring, “Bush, Stop this Sh-t,” a reference to Bush’s sidebar conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the recent G-8 summit in Russia. Not knowing a microphone was still on, he told Blair that Syria should get Hezbollah to “stop this sh-t.”

Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said, “Words cannot describe the pain, grief and anger we are trying to express today. The Israeli invasion is aimed at the destruction of the infrastructure of Lebanon. It’s a new genocide. They claim self-defense, but that does not condone the killing of innocent children and collective punishment. The victims of the Holocaust are committing a new holocaust.”

Many marchers said their support of Hezbollah is based on its role in ending the Israeli occupation of Lebanon six years ago. Hezbollah helped rebuild the country’s infrastructure and has continued to provide services to the Lebanese people as the country’s government revives.

Several of the marchers said that Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, which Israel used as an excuse to launch the war, was an effort to obtain the freedom of some of the 9,000 Arab prisoners held in Israeli jails. Many feel that the prisoners are being tortured.

Israeli government officials have threatened to attack Syria and Iran as well, claiming they support Hezbollah and Hamas, the party recently elected to power in Palestine. Bush has issued his own threats against Syria and Iran as well.

http://michigancitizen.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=1&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=3312&wpage=1&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1070&hn=michigancitizen&he=.com