Did the chaos surrounding the changes in a labor union compromise the security of the World Trade Center?
From Gus Bevona to Mike Fishman: Leadership changes circa 1999 in New York's World Trade Center Janitors' Union Local 32BJ. The highly unqualified-for-the-position Fishman was recently listed as one of New York's "Power Dozen" by New York Magazine.
The above flyer (full text here) was distributed during the 1996 NYC janitors' strike. In the flyer, union leader Gus Bevona warned tenants of buildings "owned by extremely wealthy real estate barons" of the owners' scheme to replace trusted workers with "strangers paid substantially less" who "will have the key to your office." The flyer states that the building owners were making false claims about the properties being "financially troubled" in order to replace higher paid union workers with non-union labor.
According to the above flyer (full text here), in 1996 the Port Authority of NY hired dicey non-union contractor Laro Maintenance Corp. to clean the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and let in poverty wage, non-union Summit Security to provide security services to the World Trade Center. As a result, long time union security guards at the WTC were told their services were no longer needed as of February 29, 1996. Bevona was ousted from 32BJ in February 1999, within a month of the end of contracts for over 30,000 maintenance, cleaning, security, and other workers in NYC office buildings, including the WTC. Soon other contractors with non-union labor at lower wages moved in to service the buildings.
For close to twenty years, from 1981 to 1999, Gus Bevona was the head of Local 32BJ, whose members included the cleaning and security staff at New York's World Trade Center.
During his tenure, Bevona operated in a way that self-help guru Dr. Wayne Dyer would describe as "quietly effective". He had a certain facility for quickly organizing city-wide strikes, and also for negotiating with apartment building owners who praised his negotiating skills. As a result, the janitors in the NY local became the highest paid in the country. In 1991, it was reported in a NY Times article that as the head of 3 union locals in the NY area, Bevona collected a combined salary of over 400K. At the time, 32BJ had over 70,000 members working in residential and commercial buildings in NYC.
Regarding his reputation, not much was known about the reclusive Bevona. "I've never heard a bad thing about Gus Bevona", said a vice-president of another union..."I've never heard a good thing about Gus Bevona. It's a total vacuum."
In spite of the fact that the workaholic Bevona got his salary from 3 different jobs, his pay aroused the ire of one Carlos Guzman, an Ecudaorian immigrant who worked as a porter at the WTC. The trigger for Guzman was a request by Bevona to the union for a 25% raise in his salary and a simultaneous increase in members' dues.
When all was said and done, amidst allegations of fraud, seemingly unsubstantiated mafia connections, a well-publicized posh penthouse owned by Bevona, and a liberal use of strong-arm tactics, Guzman agreed to drop a $2.4 million lawsuit on the condition that Gus Bevona resign.
Guzman spent years trying to oust Bevona. At some point, Guzman was represented by attorney Arthur Z. Schwartz, according to this 2009 blog post:
...a decade ago Schwartz was “making labor history.”
The 45-year-old labor lawyer was representing Carlos Guzman, an Ecuadorian porter employed at the World Trade Center. Guzman, with Schwartz’s help and guidance, has spent much of the 1990s trying to unseat the city’s most notorious labor chieftain, Gus Bevona, boss of the 52,000-member Service Employees International Union Local 32B-32J. [...]
But now, Schwartz, hardly a household name outside of labor circles, may accomplish what prosecutors, insurgents, and even Andrew Stern, president of the international union, have never been able to do: get Bevona out.
In 2009, attorney Schwartz became the mouthpiece and general counsel for the notorious ACORN, an organization which has been described as a front for a socialist agenda and voter fraud. One of the co-founders of ACORN, Wade Rathke, is also a member of the International Executive Board of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and a close associate of Andrew Stern, SEIU's president (1996-present).
Andrew Stern, who trained at the radical and SDS associated Midwest Academy, became the president of SEIU at its 1996 Chicago convention. This was after interim president Cordtz and his running mate Gus Bevona mysteriously (or not) decided not to run.
Prior to the convention, articles claiming allegations against Bevona had been circulated anonymously to union locals. In another attack, Stern cited the leadership at SEIU as being "stale, male, and pale" - code for aging, male, and white-gentile. Stern is aging, male and pale-Jewish, but that's another matter. Not exactly Mr. Clean himself, Stern at the time of his victory at SEIU had been tainted by the Ron Carey-Teamsters money laundering scandal.
In 1999, when Bevona was forced out as head of 32BJ, the union was placed into trusteeship by Stern for eighteen months, run by Stern's own hand-picked trustees. One of the trustees was Michael Fishman. Fishman ran the union during the trusteeship and then ran for president of local 32BJ.
Fishman was not a member of local 32BJ. Fishman was a former officer of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America who was hired by SEIU for staff duties. Fishman had never worked at any job performed by local 32BJ and was not entitled to run for president according to local 32BJ's constitution. So how was Fishman allowed to run? SEIU International President Stern amended 32BJ's bylaws to allow Fishman to run. Fishman won the election with only 18% of the approximate 55,000 members local.
The 3 year contract negotiated for union workers by Gus Bevona in 1996 ended almost the same month Bevona was forcibly retired in 1999. Less than a month after the Bevona ouster, dozens of union custodians, porters and repairmen were dismissed from Manhattan Mall (Avenue of the Americas and W 33rd Street). The previous contractor for the workers, International Service Systems, was replaced by a firm called Golden Mark. Union employees said they were ordered to clean out their lockers and, if they wished, to re-apply for their jobs at a Golden Mark office across the street.
''We were told that our services were no longer needed and that we had to get out of the building,'' said Michael Colon, 37, who has worked as a handyman at the mall for 10 years and under the union contract earned $17 an hour. Howard J. Rubenstein, the PR consultant who returned calls for Golden Mark's owner, Bobby Golden, said 29 of the union workers dismissed were rehired at lower wages, but he did not confirm the union's assertion that the workers were offered salaries of $6.25 per hour with no benefits. ''Golden Mark says they pay decent wages,'' Mr. Rubenstein said.
The Port Authority of NY, owners of the WTC, began using the non-union TUCS Cleaning Service as part of its janitorial crews. In June of 2001, TUCS workerswere being rallied by 32BJ, to demand better wages and benefits, and to press the city for a living wage law.
Was Bevona correct in his allegations that wealthy owners of Manhattan real estate were involved in a scheme to oust union labor? It certainly does look that way, considering what happened in the aftermath of Bevona's forced "retirement" - union labor replaced by cheaper non-union help that were relative strangers to the buildings.
Did this action pave the way for non-union contractors with illegal alien (Hispanic, Israeli and other) workers to gain access to buildings formerly under union contract? Would Dancing Israeli Dominik Suter's City Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning (a.k.a. City Carpet Upholstery Inc.) have been one of them? Were Suter's Urban Moving Systems trucks used to transport explosive materials to the WTC?
There has been much speculation on how the WTC imploded into its own footprint and how the buildings could have been rigged with explosives.
RDX is one explosive used in controlled demolitions, others being Semtex and C-4 (both composed partly of RDX). A small quantity of RDX was one of the components in the explosives prepared to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999/2000. RDX was the main component used for the 2006 Mumbai train bombings. It was also believed to be the explosive in the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings (source: Wikipedia).
Whatever explosives were used completely pulverized both towers and their contents. Firefighter Joe Cassaligi tells of finding part of a telephone keypad, the biggest identifiable piece of office equipment he was able to locate. Could this pulverization have been accomplished with nano thermite? With RDX? With a new hybrid?
Another theory centers around a nuclear bomb set below the towers. However, this theory falls short considering that the gold stored in the basement area of the WTC was left unharmed.
Israeli-run companies in the US that hire Israeli illegals have been mainly in a few areas: locksmiths, carpet cleaning, moving services, mall kiosks, and the occasional interior decor firm (i.e. Suter's Woodflooring Warehouse Corp.). Most of these are perfect covers for moving boxes of materials into and out of buildings, gaining entry to locked offices and nosing around a facility while engaging in carpet cleaning. Cleaners normally start their shifts at night, after office workers have left for the day. In addition, they hold a plethora of keys to various offices and entryways, and leave relatively late. Security guards also have keys and access.
The "Dancing Israelis", employees of Suter's Urban Moving Systems, were arrested by New Jersey police on September 11th, 2001, after they had been observed celebrating while taking pictures of the burning towers of the World Trade Center. The initial report states that they "were found carrying maps linking them to the blasts." At the same time, another white van was intercepted, loaded with explosives and headed to the George Washington bridge. Additional details on the two incidents is at this link.
A few hours before the suspicious May 1st, 2010 ("May Day") Times Square car bomb, "suicidal" Aaron Fetto, 20, was found walking in an underwater Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) subway tunnel that is a main line between Manhattan and Brooklyn. He dressed as a transit worker and was carrying a quart bottle of cyanide.
City Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning has a cleaning contract with New York's MTA as well as the Israeli and Iraqi consulates and other sensitive government connected agencies. Why is Suter, an ex-terror suspect, connected to a business in the US that employ Israeli illegals in sensitive areas?
In 2008, Suter registered a business in upstate NY called 24/7 Anyday LLC. This was simultaneously listed as a carpet cleaning company and a locksmith, in spite of the fact that the "office" was nothing more than a UPS mail drop. Could 24/7 Anyday be a smug reference to a future terror attack, akin to wife Ornit Suter's revenge rant?
Getting back to the unions, things got stinkier at the 32BJ local after the Stern-Fishman takeover. As early as 1999, union members were angry because they thought the new leadership would change the union's dictatorial ways.
In 2002, SEIU delegate Ismat Kukic was indicted, along with 40+ members of NY crime families, for attempting to bribe union officials to replace union workers with non-union workers in a Brooklyn housing complex.
The same year, Dominick Bentivegna, a 32BJ union staffer who helped oust Gus Bevona, became fed up with excessive spending and a lack of democracy. He marched into president Michael Fishman's office and declared he was running against the boss in Sept. 2003. Twenty minutes later, he was terminated. "It's not about democracy," Fishman said. "If you disagree with the program, you can't be working here."
As head of SEIU, Stern has put a muzzle on nursing home union members to keep them from reporting patient abuse; put a California local into trusteeship because they resisted Stern’s reorganization plans; has unionized workers with little say-so on the workers’ part, and in addition "settles cheap" on their behalf; announced a health care reform partnership with Wal-Mart without informing the UFCW, the union trying to organize the company; and has performed raids on other unions, earning him the nicknames of "pirate" and "Darth Vader". It is estimated that Stern blew upwards of $100 million of union members' dues on these decidedly undemocratic campaigns.
In addition, Stern saw fit to put $60 million toward the election of Barack Obama. Between Inauguration Day and July 31, 2009, Stern visited the White House 22 times, meeting with the President seven times.
Several SEIU pension plans are in critical status, meaning they have less than 65% of assets needed to fund financial obligations to future and current retirees. Because of this, Stern was militantly behind Obamacare, going so far as sending SEIU and ACORN goon squads to health care reform meetings. The SEIU recently claimed to "cut all ties to ACORN"after the ACORN 2009 undercover videos controversy. Stern is referred to as one of "the chief architects of healthcare reform" in Modern Healthcare magazine's ranking of the 100 Most Powerful People in Healthcare for 2009. In addition, SEIU has been "getting its Zionist on" by standing staunchly against Arizona's immigration reform bill.
Andy Stern's reign of error just recently came to a close as he resigned from SEIU in April of 2010. What's next? How about board member of a bio-warfare pharma company? SIGA Technologies, “a company specializing in the development of pharmaceutical agents to combat bio-warfare pathogens,” announced Monday that Andy Stern, “labor leader and prominent advocate for reform,” has joined their board of directors. Stern's new
“activist” partners at SIGA include the likes of Michael Bayer, CEO of the national security consulting firm Dumbarton Strategies and director of the big military contractor DynCorp.
And whatever became of Carlos Guzman, the little Ecuadorean porter who could? He campaigned to become head of 32BJ with running mate Bentivegna. Stern had other plans, and pushed Mike Fishman in. Guzman went back to his job as a porter. Union critics have since accused Stern and others of keeping the union head positions "stale, male, and pale" - albeit a bit less gentile.
International pressure has been mounting on Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza since the deadly raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Palestinian territory.
The UN has said 80 per cent of people there depend on food hand-outs.
But Israeli officials insist that there is no humanitarian crisis in the enclave.
UN aid workers inside Gaza, however, see a different reality.
Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston reports from Gaza, where it has been reported that about 14 per cent of children suffer from stunted growth due to malnutrition.
While the world bickers over the rights and wrongs of the Israeli blockade on Gaza, hundreds of thousands of children continue to bear the brunt of it.
Save the Children says 800,000 children are included among the population of 1.5 million in Gaza, a number supported by UNICEF. The CIA in fact records the median age of the entire population at just 17.5 years. 44% of the population it says is under 14.
Humanitarian agencies are being kept busy throughout Gaza in the wake of the blockade imposed by Israel in June 2007, which is now approaching its fourth year. The ghetto-type conditions in Gaza have been exacerbated by the three-week-long war that took place in late 2008 and early 2009, which according to UNICEF killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, of which 350 were children. Thirteen Israelis also died during the hostilities, including 3 civilians.
"Thousands of families are still living amid rubble and crumbling infrastructure due to the blockade that bars everything but limited supplies of essential humanitarian goods. Only 41 truckloads of construction materials (0.05 per cent of pre-blockade flows) have been permitted entry since the Gaza War," says UNICEF.
"Throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories almost 12,000 children under five years old still die from preventable causes each year, as do more than 1,800 children under 12 months old," UNICEF said in a statement on its Web site. "Two thirds of households are not connected to a sewage network, meaning water is discharged into the environment partially or totally untreated. The education system has suffered with learning outcomes plummeting for the past two years."
The United Nations has been critical of the blockade saying it violates articles 33 (prohibition on collective punishment) and 55 (duty to provide food and health care to the occupied population) of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Richard Falk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, says Gaza has been brought to the brink of collapse.
Education of Gazan kids was severely disrupted by the Gaza War. UNICEF says some 280 schools were damaged or destroyed, along with critical water and sanitation infrastructure and almost half of all health facilities.
A United Nations Development Program report published last month says three-quarters of the damage inflicted on Gaza during the war remains unrepaired and unreconstructed. The report says 82.50% of the education facilities damaged or destroyed during the conflict are yet to be repaired or reconstructed.
While Israel is usually singled-out as the country that has imposed the blockade on Gaza, Egypt also shares some responsibility. "Egypt shares responsibility for the collective punishment of Gaza's civilian population due to its own closure of Gaza's southern border," a Human Rights Watch report published last month says. "Except in limited circumstances, Egypt refuses to allow the passage of goods or people through the border crossing it controls at Rafah."
Human Rights Watch is one of a number of local and international humanitarian organizations at work in Gaza. Save the Children, an independent humanitarian aid organisation which is heavily involved, is also working in Israel, as are other organizations.
Save the Children, founded nearly ninety years ago, is more focused than others on children and is credited with assisting millions of children in need in more than 120 countries. The organization says it abhors terrorism of all kinds, including attacks on Israeli families. "Our work to assist children in Gaza in no way means we support terrorism," a statement on its Web site says.
"We believe we have an obligation to assist children in great need regardless of race, religion or politics. In the Middle East, where we have worked since 1953, we have sought to assist children throughout the region including children in Israel, where we still work," the Save the Children statement said.
Most of Gaza's factories have closed and its water is polluted as a result of Israel's siege policy, according to a new report being released today by the Israeli Human Rights group – B'tselem.
The siege policy has "led to economic collapse in Gaza," B'tselem noted in a 44-page report (PDF) that looked at Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem during the period from January 2009 to the end of April 2010.
Following is a summery of this report:
The prohibition on bringing in raw materials and exports into Gaza, which has been in place since Hamas's takeover of the Strip in June 2007, forced 95 percent of the factories and workshops in the area to close.
Before 2007, 4,000 types of goods were let into Gaza, compared with less than 150 that come in now. Among the restricted items are building materials such as iron and cement, which are needed to rebuild the 3,500 homes destroyed during last Israeli assault on Gaza – Operation Cast Lead.
The quantity of goods that comes through the crossings is less than one-quarter of what entered prior to the siege.
Before 2007, 70 trucks laden with export goods such as furniture, clothing and produce left Gaza daily for Israel. Now, only the export of strawberries and flowers to Europe is allowed in "certain instances". Goods are coming into Gaza through a system of tunnels set up under the border with Egypt, although the system is not enough to revive Gaza's economy.
Electricity is a problem in Gaza. 98% of the residents suffer from blackouts ranging from eight to ten hours a day, while the remaining 2% do not receive any electricity at all.
The power outages due to lack of fuel and spare parts have prevented the proper operation of wells and desalination plants.
At the end of 2009, studies showed that 93% percent of the Gaza Strip's water was polluted, with high quantities of chloride and nitrates.
"The water supply is defective and thousands of residents are not even connected to the water grid. Waste treatment has also been affected. Every day, some 100,000 cubic meters of untreated or partially untreated waste-water flow into the sea."
A lack of pesticides and spare parts for irrigation systems makes it hard for farmers. Those with land near the border with Israel can no longer farm because access is forbidden or restricted, and those who violate these orders risk being shot.
Fisherman cannot go out farther than three nautical miles, which limits the Strip's fish supply.
The number of Palestinian fatalities at the hands of the IOF dropped from 456 in 2008 to 83 from January 21, 2009, through the end of April 2010. These numbers do not include Palestinian deaths that occurred during Operation Cast Lead.
The report noted that Israel demolitions had continued in Area C of the West Bank, where from January 2009 to the end of April 2010, the occupation forces had destroyed 44 residential structures. The demolitions left 317 Palestinians homeless.
In 2009, the Jerusalem Municipality demolished 48 buildings in east Jerusalem. The demolitions left 247 Palestinians homeless.
The report notes that the IOF had not stop building settlements and no outposts been removed.
According to the report, very few IOF or police investigations into allegations of wrongdoing against Palestinians had actually lead to convictions. From the start of the second intifada in September 2000 to the end of April 2010, B'tselem reported 255 cases of violence to the military advocate-general's office. Only 11 indictments were filed, and one of those was canceled.
During that same period, B'tselem turned to the Justice Ministry's Police Investigation Department concerning 180 cases of violence, but only 12 indictments were filed.
Since September 2000, B'tselem has submitted 220 complaints to the Israel Police, demanding investigations of cases where Israelis harmed Palestinians or damaged their property. Only nine of these complaints resulted in indictments.
B'tselem executive director Jessica Montell said that the report was being released to mark "the 43rd anniversary" of the end of the Six Day War, which marked "the beginning" of Israel's occupation.
"The ongoing occupation both violates" Palestinian rights and "poses clear dangers for Israel's democracy," Montell said. "For this reason we as Israelis must demand accountability for actions taken in our name in the occupied territories and work to change in policies that infringe human rights."
6srael to give medal of valor to killer of six Turkish activists LONDON, (PIC)-- The British Times newspaper said Israel intends to give a medal of valor to its soldier who killed six civilians of the nine victims who were shot dead during the Israeli navy’s deadly attack on the Turkish Mavi Marmara cruise ship.
The newspaper expects that honoring the soldiers for killing Turks would augment the tension between Turkey and Israel.
It quoted Mustafa Akyol, a noted Turkish writer as saying that awarding the soldier is an insult and provocative act against Turkey.
The soldier, whose name was not revealed for security reasons, admitted that he killed six of the nine passengers who were aboard the Turkish aid ship, alleging that the Turkish passengers were the ones who started to attack the commandos and described them as terrorists. We Demand Our Property FREE GAZA MOVEMENT—(London, 17 June 2010) Passengers from the flotilla from several countries (listed below) are urging their governments to demand that Israel release the property illegally seized from the passengers in international waters on 31 May, in particular the many cameras, camcorders, mobile phones etc. that contain evidence of at least the beginning of the shooting of civilians by Israeli soldiers.
(This demand is for property only and is independent of the many legal briefs already being worked on due to the murder and wounding of the passengers.)
That evidence will be vital to any search for the truth concerning the events on all six boats and must be secured urgently if Israeli military personnel are ever to be held to account for the deaths of at least nine civilians and the gunshot wounds of at least 40 others who were aboard the Mavi Marmara ship.
Israel’s 31 May 2010 attack on the civilians on the Freedom Flotilla had terrible consequences, resulting in the death of (at least) nine civilians and the wounding of over 40. It was unprovoked, unwarranted, and illegal.
As recognized by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations (UN) and every government in the world, Israel remains the occupying power in Gaza. When Israeli military forces took control of the six ships in international waters on 31 May 2010, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 then applied to the civilians on board.
The early testimonies of those participating in the flotilla and the video evidence that activists managed to prevent being seized by the Israeli military, provides prima facie evidence of the commission of grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention (i.e. war crimes) by Israeli military personnel involved in the attack on the flotilla and in the detention of its passengers. That evidence suggests that the following crimes were – and/or continue to be – committed:
willful killing
inhuman treatment
willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health
unlawful deportation or transfer
unlawful confinement
taking of hostages
extensive appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly
theft by use of credit cards of some of the passengers by Israeli military personnel
Therefore, on behalf of the main organizers of the six-vessel Freedom Flotilla carrying approximately 700 human rights activists, journalists, members of parliament and other civilians and crew to Gaza, we calls on all governments to comply with their duties under article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and take the following action due to Israel’s theft of the property of those participating in the flotilla. We call on all governments to join us in urgently demanding that Israel:
immediately relinquishes control of all the property seized on 31 May 2010 during its illegal boarding of our ships.
releases the property that constitutes evidence and send all those items of property seized on the six boats on 31 May 2010, to the UN by June 30, 2010, including all cameras, mobile phones, laptops and recording devices which recorded the events aboard the six ships.
releases the remainder of the property (including clothes, credit cards and hard currency) to its rightful owners.
accounts for every stolen credit card or mobile or satellite telephone usage, which, if true, appears to have turned acts of illegal appropriation of property into straightforward pillage.
We also call on all governments to urgently demand from Israel that:
It will preserve all evidence in its possession in its original form (i.e. computer disks, hard-drives, SIM cards, memory cards, as well as any other physical evidence which could be considered relevant to any investigations) for handing over to the independent, impartial investigation ordered by the Security Council and/or UN Fact Finding Mission ordered by the Human Rights Council and in anticipation of the opening of criminal investigations.
It confirms that none of the film and photographic evidence seized on 31 May 2010 has in fact been destroyed and that it will not do so and to account for every single destroyed or disappeared item.
These crimes have focused international attention on the illegal blockade of Gaza, leading to a welcome international review of the policies of governments across the world towards the closure.
There is no natural disaster in Gaza. Therefore, Gaza does not need long-term humanitarian aid, but instead needs to be allowed to rebuild its economy and trade normally with the rest of the world. It cannot do this while the closure and naval blockade continue.
The detailed statement sent to several governments today can be accessed on the front page of our website for the next week and in survivor testimonies as well:
The countries where the full statement is being sent to governments are: Turkey, United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands, Jordan, Ireland, USA, France, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Holland
As nearly 700 “Free Gaza” flotilla survivors return to 20 nations, they bear witness to the same message—all five vessels, bringing aid to Gaza, were attacked by Israel. Preliminary shooting, including live rounds, came from Israeli attack boats and helicopters. All passengers were poorly, if not roughly, treated or assaulted. Are these the ravings of terrorist sympathizers, worthy of attack – as Israel and its PR rep, the ADL – as well as most evangelicals, contend?
The flotilla carried professionals, public officials and parliamentarians – including a member of Israel’s Knesset. Those contradicting Israel's story include a Brazilian filmmaker, a retired German parliamentarian and professor, two German parliamentarians, an acclaimed Swedish academic, an Irish Ulsterman with American citizenship, an Irish medical doctor, a retired Jewish-American math teacher, an American structural engineer, a best-selling Swedish novelist and an Israeli-born Swedish artist. The subsequent flotilla of ships included former United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Denis Halliday and Irish Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead McGuire. (Click here for testimonies.)
Incredibly, Christian/conservatives reject testimony from these credible witnesses and accuse them of crafting an elaborate and bizarre falsehood.
Such false testimony would not be successful for long. Their stories would quickly unravel as more honest members of the flotilla confirmed Israel’s account. Today, two weeks after the attack, the nearly 700 members of the flotilla speak with one voice. The British Guardian tells us, “The details of the wounds came as yet more survivors return to the UK and gave their account of the attacks.”
…Ismael Patel, the 47-year-old chairman of the Friends of aal Aqsa…claimed that as soon as the Israeli Defense Force helicopter appeared above the Mavi Marmara, ‘it started using…live ammunition,’ without any warning being issued. After the first victim fell the white flag was raised, he said, ‘But Israeli forces continued firing.’ Patel: ‘I think the Israeli soldiers were shooting to kill because most of the people who died were shot in the top part of their bodies.’ He called it, ‘the cold-blooded murder and killing of our colleagues. These deaths were avoidable…’ ("Gaza flotilla attack autopsies Reveal Intensity of Israel's Military Force," June 4)
Patel calculated that during the bloodiest part of the assault, Israeli commandos shot one person every minute. One man was fatally shot in the back of the head just 2 feet in front of him and another was shot once between the eyes. He added that as well as the fatally wounded, 48 others were suffering from gunshot wounds… ("Gaza Flotilla Activists Were Shot in Head at Close Range," June 4 th)
Alex Harrison, on the smaller Challenger I, said the Israelis attacked using "rubber bullets, sound bombs, and tasers against them…. We stood and tried to obstruct the armed, masked men and made no other defense and still they used violence." Harrison saw the Mavi Marmara stormed and said the "Israelis started firing before the troops landed on the boat… You must remember that these are unarmed civilians on their own boat in the middle of the Mediterranean. People picked up what they could to defend themselves against armed, masked commandos who were shooting." ("Gaza flotilla attack autopsies Reveal Intensity of Israel's Military Force," June 4)
Turkish Autopsies Reveal Israel's Violence
Citing the coroner’s report of the Turkish government, the Guardian suggests that Israeli commandos were hardly intent on non-violence. It relates that Furkan Dogan, the 19-year-old American-Turkish activist, was shot 5 times from a close range: in the right side of his nose, the back of his head, his back, and twice in his left leg. The oldest victim was 60-year old Ibrahim Bilgen, a Turkish politician, engineer and activist, who was married with 6 children. He was shot once in the right temple, once in the right side of his chest, once in his back and once in his hip. Cetin Topeuoglu, a 54-year-old former taekwondo champion who worked as a coach for the Turkish national team, was shot three times – once in the back of his head, once in his hip, and once in his belly.
Here is a summary of the other seven:
Alquyz: 4 gunshot wounds - back of head, side of face, back, leg.
Yaldiz: 4 gunshot wounds – chest, left leg, right leg twice.
Bengi: 6 gunshot wounds – chest, belly, right arm, right leg, left hand twice.
Topeuoglu: 3 gunshot wounds – back of head, left side, right belly.
Yildirim: 2 gunshot wounds – right shoulder, left back.
Kiliclar: 1 gunshot wound, middle of forehead.
Songur: 1 gunshot wound – front of neck.
Injuries to these nine Turks tell a different story than Israel’s. It was an orgy of excessive gunfire—yes, a massacre. Do you really think nine dead and 47 injured from gunshot wounds constituted a proportionate response to a group wielding rods, batons, kitchen knives and a sack of marbles?
If Israel had really intended non-violence, it could have snarled the ships’ propellers and rudders with no loss of life. Negotiations could have occurred in daylight to allow the orderly, nonviolent transfer of command. Instead, Israel chose to take over the ships in darkness in the most terrifying manner. It was a terrorist attack.
If Israel is so intent on sharing the whole truth, and has no need of a “biased” international investigation, why did it sabotage the flotilla passengers’ communication with the outside world before, during, and for days after the raid? Why did Israel seize their cameras, computers, and notebooks? Why does Israel insist that in its investigation IDF forces involved in the raid will not be questioned? Clearly, Israel wants no contrary voices as it propagandizes the world – including 70 million gullible evangelicals and their media who are eager (in fact, theologically duty-bound) to believe Israel.
Tea Party Leaders Believe Israel
For the past six months, e-alerts from the National Prayer Network have been educating over 500 Tea Party chapters in America. Yet after my article "Is Israel Exempt from International Law?" a torrent of protest came back. Readers shouted the same thing: “Pro-terrorist flotilla members are involved in an elaborate scam to make Israel look bad. Only Israel can be trusted!”
Most evangelicals will probably remain uninterested in more evidence from survivors in the weeks ahead. They are content to believe anything Israel says. This choice will doubtless show itself even more adaptive as Israel, which scripture portrays as Babylon the Great ascends to its prophesied rulership of the nations. (See, "'Babylon the Great' is Israel") Scripture predicts that Israel will be able to deceive the whole earth because the nations have capitulated to its lies. By prostituting their God-given birthright to speak only the whole truth, Israel-first evangelicals have also drunk the wine of Israel's spiritual whoredom. As a result, regarding matters Jewish, they have gone theologically and politically insane. It is clear that evangelicals’ support for Israel is so boundless and unquestioning that even as Israel ascends to world dominion they will be compelled to bless and promote the Great Harlot.
Christ foretold that someday believers will be drawn up to the synagogues of Satan in Jerusalem to be tried and convicted (Luke 21:12)—probably by ADL as "anti-Semitic" hate criminals. Evangelical response since the flotilla attack leads us to predict many will bless and believe in apostate Israel right to the bitter end— to the very moment when Israeli firing squads, like Israel’s commandos on the Marmara, put bullets between their eyes.
TAKE ACTION!
Call the United Nations at 1-212-963-5012 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-212-963-5012end_of_the_skype_highlighting and demand a full, unbiased international investigation of Israel's raid of the "Free Gaza" flotilla. (More contact information on freegaza.org)
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RAMALLAH, Jun 18, 2010 (IPS) - "I stopped counting after I had received 50 death threats. I told my secretary not to tell me about them any more," Arab-Israeli Knesset (parliament) member, Haneen Zoabi told IPS.
"As a result of the death threats I’ve been given personal body guards both within the Knesset and outside," adds Zoabi.
Zoabi, a member of the Arab-Israeli political party Balad, was on board the ‘Mavi Marmara’, part of the Free Gaza (FG) flotilla, when it was attacked by Israeli commandos in international waters as it tried to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza several weeks ago.
Following her arrest, interrogation and subsequent release Zoabi returned to a very hostile Knesset where she was subjected to a torrent of verbal abuse, including that of a racist and sexist nature. Some of the comments were so degrading and insulting that they were wiped from the Knesset record.
Another Knesset Member (MK) was prevented from assaulting Zoabi following the physical intervention of other MKs.
Zoabi has been labelled a "terrorist" and a "traitor" and the Knesset House majority has called for her parliamentary privileges to be withdrawn. The Israeli interior ministry has also called for her citizenship to be revoked.
"I intend to take the matter to court, if necessary, to fight to keep my parliamentary privileges and citizenship,’’ Zoabi told IPS.
Zoabi says that she and her fellow Arab-Israeli MKs have become the subjects of a witch hunt by a majority in the Knesset, but she has no regrets about joining the FG flotilla and would not hesitate to repeat her action.
"It’s hard working in such a hostile environment where every move I make and every word I utter is subject to intense scrutiny,’’ she says.
Zoabi recalls the horrifying ordeal the activists endured after the Israeli naval seals had boarded the ‘Mavi Marmara’ when nine activists were shot dead and dozens wounded.
Survivors have accused the commandos of deliberately shooting some of the activists in cold blood. Turkish autopsies revealed that several of the dead had multiple gunshot wounds to the head.
Zoabi did not witness any of the shootings or beatings of the activists but she questions the circumstances surrounding the deaths.
"The Israeli soldiers had taken command of the ‘Mavi Marmara’ within 20 minutes of boarding. Yet it was an hour-and-a-half before they told all the passengers that the situation was under control and ordered us all to go downstairs. I wonder what happened in that hour," says Zoabi.
"I was treated fairly carefully because they knew I was a member of the Knesset. They also kept me away from other passengers who were beaten and abused as they didn’t want me to be able to bear testimony to this,’’ Zoabi said. "They also deliberately withheld medical treatment from the seriously injured passengers during the first few hours.’’
"I went and held up a notice written in Hebrew to the window where the commandos were standing, calling for medical help. I also called out to them in English and told them there were critically injured passengers who needed urgent medical attention, but they ignored me. Two seriously injured passengers, who were bleeding, died after 40 mins,'' Zoabi told IPS.
"Minutes after the attack began, the wounded and the dead were being brought inside from the deck,’’ Lubna Marsawa, another activist, told Electronic Intifada (EI), the not-for-profit, independent online publication which covers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a Palestinian perspective.
‘’We were then held for several hours with four bodies and dozens of wounded, some in critical condition. Blood was pouring from the bodies of the victims. We wanted to help them, but we had no medical equipment. There was nothing we could do," Marsawa told EI.
Zoabi also accuses the Israeli authorities of trumping up charges against the passengers. "When they interrogated me in Ashdod port they accused me of attacking the soldiers, of threatening their lives and being in possession of knives. I just laughed in their faces, it was so ludicrous."
Zoabi was released quickly due to her parliamentary immunity and the Israeli police have not tried to charge her with attempted assault against the navy commandos.
She doubts whether the self-appointed Israeli investigation into the flotilla fiasco will be either credible or legitimate.
"They will not question any of the commandos involved or allow the survivors to testify. Furthermore, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has already reached a conclusion before the investigation even gets under way.
"He said the inquiry would prove that the commandos acted in self-defence and that Israel’s raid was in accordance with international law. What kind of legitimate inquiry is that?"
The feisty Knesset member now believes that the relationship between Israel’s Palestinian-Arab minority and the Israeli-Jewish majority has reached a point of crisis and that the two communities are on a collision course.
"The situation started deteriorating following the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada or uprising in 2000 when 13 Israeli-Arabs were shot dead by Israeli security forces during a protest against land expropriation," says Zoabi.
As Israel’s increasingly right-wing Knesset tries to pass more draconian legislation, much of it with racist overtones, against dissenters and what it labels "traitors", Israeli-Arabs are being placed in an untenable situation.
"They are forcing the Palestinian minority to choose between loyalty to Zionist values or being labelled "terrorists and traitors".
‘’This either or situation is not only undemocratic but will also backfire on Israel. Israeli-Arabs can’t be expected to follow the Zionist narrative or disassociate from their Palestinian roots," says Zoabi.
The horror of life in what was once our home fuels bitter feelings of injustice.
In the Arab world, 1967 is known as the year of the setback - al-Naksa. A year of lost hopes, dreams, land and freedom. It was also the year of my birth. My parents had been married for almost seven years and had three children with a fourth on the way - me.
They lived in a modest home with their extended families in the poor district of Toffah in Gaza. They had a garden where they grew chillies, tomatoes and herbs, and had lemon, sycamore and pomegranate trees as well as jasmine vines.
My father was a schoolteacher by day and a writer and poet by night. My mother carried on with her traditional tasks of caring for the children, cooking, sewing and cleaning.
Gaza had been under Egyptian occupation since the war of 1948, but in 1967 things were simmering like never before. There was great unrest in the refugee camps, as Palestinians who had been removed from their towns and villages in 1948 to pave the way for a Jewish state were still denied their right to return.
Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser was delivering fiery speeches promising the end of Israel, the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes, Arab unity and hope. My father and many other young men joined the Liberation Army - Jaysh al-Tahrir - that served under the Egyptian military.
Nasser did not deliver on his promise of liberation. The war of 1967 was lost and Israel expanded and occupied Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights of Syria. More Palestinians were made refugees by the war.
Two months after the war, and one week after I was born, Israeli soldiers began searching homes in Gaza looking for men who fought in the Liberation Army. Someone had told them about my father and they came looking for him.
He jumped the fence to a neighbour's garden and went into hiding. The soldiers left a clear message for him: stay and be put in jail forever or leave Gaza forever.
My father knew if he were to be jailed, our family and his extended family would starve as we all depended on his salary. He had no choice but to leave and find work elsewhere.
A part of him felt he was a coward for leaving, but another part of him was the one that fought for his family's survival. At the Jordan River bridge checkpoint, an Israeli soldier ordered him to sign a document saying that once he left, he would never be able to reside in Gaza again.
My father still remembers the blood running cold in his veins. He froze as the reality of the occupation began sinking into his heart like poison. At that moment, he understood the Israelis had no intention of complying with the UN resolution calling for them to withdraw from territories they occupied, including Gaza. At that moment, he understood that the occupation would last for a long time.
My father gave the soldier what he asked for and more. He placed his fingerprint in the square, he wrote his signature on the dotted line and he dropped a bitter tear on the cold document. Two weeks later, my mother packed all four of us, said her goodbyes, and she too turned her back on the only home she had ever known.
Forty-three years have passed since then. We lived in a refugee camp, moved into the Arabian Gulf and later migrated to Australia. My father's parents both died without him being able to be by their side.
The situation in Gaza has deteriorated with every passing year. As the population grew, gardens were replaced by more buildings. The occupation never ended; Israel's grip tightened with the years.
We are lucky to no longer be stateless refugees, but today there are still more than 4.5 million Palestinians living in UN refugee camps. They make up the largest refugee population in the world and their question is the longest standing at the UN. In Gaza, the 1948 refugees make up the majority of the population, and endure horrific lives in constant terror of Israeli missiles, sonic booms and drones.
More than half of Gaza's 1.5 million people are children living in one of the most densely populated cities in the world. They are walled in and besieged in what is now often referred to as the world's largest jail. Most Gazans live on less than $2 a day with deteriorating health and malnutrition, and up to 80 per cent depend on humanitarian aid to survive. The modest homes, like the one my parents lived in, with the herb garden and trees are no longer part of Gaza's landscape; in their place are ruined buildings, graffiti, rubble and bullet-riddled walls.
My parents have settled well in Australia with seven children and more than 20 grandchildren. We are proud to be a part of this country but we will never forget Gaza.
When we talk to our loved ones who are still trapped there, we see the results of 43 years of Israeli policies. We hear of houses destroyed, lives lost, fields burnt, trees uprooted, stunted growth in children and malnutrition in babies, and we feel that bitter poison of injustice that once ran in my father's veins as he crossed the Jordan River bridge and altered our lives forever.
Samah Sabawi is an Australian-Palestinian writer. She is co-author of Journey to Peace in Palestine and a former executive director of the National Council on Canada Arab Relations.
The Ahrar Center for Detainees Studies reported Thursday that detainee Mohammad Abdul-Salaam Abdeen, 37, from Al Toor Palestinian neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, died at the Al Ramla prison.
Abdul-Salaam Abdeen
The detainee was reportedly tortured by Israeli interrogators and died in his cell later on. He also suffered from bad health conditions and was prevented from receiving the needed medical attention.
His family said that his wife visited him last Monday, June 6, and that she noticed that he was in extreme pain and that his hands were shaking.
The family filed complaints to several human rights organization, including the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B’Tselem).
Abdeen was kidnapped by the army two years ago when his car had a collision with an Israeli vehicle; two Israeli policemen were in the vehicle and both were mildly wounded.
He was then moved to interrogation at the Asqalan (Ashkelon) Prison where he was interrogated and tortured for several weeks before he was moved to solidarity confinement at the Eshil Prison. He was then moved to Ramon prison then to Majeddo prison where he died on Thursday evening.
His family held Israel responsible for his death as when his wife visited him on June 6 his body was week and his arms and legs could barely function.
Abdeen is a father of five (three boys and two girls), he lived in Al Azraiyya (Bethany) Palestinian town in East Jerusalem before he moved to Ramallah due to the Annexation Wall. He owns a factory manufacturing plastic products in Ramallah.
His death rises the number of Palestinian detainees who died in Israeli prison since 1967 to 199; 70 of them died due to torture, 70 were shot during the course of their arrest or after their arrest, 52 died due to not receiving the needed medical treatment, 7 were shot and killed by officers while in prison.
Before Abdeen, detainee Raed Abu Hammad from Jerusalem, died at an Israeli prison due to torture and the lack of medical attention.
Five Palestinian families in the Jordan Valley, in the eastern part of the West Bank, received eviction orders from the Israeli military on Sunday, just days after Israeli settlers set up an illegal outpost on the families' land and took over a water well in the area. The eviction orders told the families to vacate their homes and land within ten days so that Israeli troops could occupy it.
Ruins of Palestinian town in Jordan Valley (photo from atlastours)
According to a local town councilmember from Atuf, Abdallah Bisharat, the eviction will render 50 people homeless and, given that the families receiving the notices are farming families dependent on their land for their livelihoods, the evictions will be “devastating” for the families in question.
Bisharat told the Palestinian news agency Ma'an News, “The lands the families are being evicted from have been inhabited by the farming and herding groups for many years, they are the pastoral lands from which hundreds of residents make their livings. The Israeli order to evacuate means a total destruction of the social fabric.”
The five Palestinian families who received eviction orders described the recent establishment of an Israeli settler outpost on their land as terrifying, as the settlers are armed, and have the full protection of the Israeli military. The Palestinian farmers are unprotected and vulnerable, although most retain titles to their land dating back to the Ottoman empire.
The settler outpost is considered illegal by the Israeli government, but the Israeli military has nonetheless been deployed to protect it, and have, over the last week, invaded the village on multiple occasions and broken into people's homes.
At the same time, the armed Israeli settlers who set up trailers on the Palestinian farmers' land last week took control of the area's only water well, and have prevented the local indigenous Palestinian population from accessing the water. According to Bisharat, when the villagers went to the nearby Israeli military base to tell them about the water takeover, “ We were told to get water from the other villages and collect it in tanks”.
The Jordan Valley, in the eastern West Bank, is an area listed for takeover by the Israeli state in Israeli government documents. The area is among the most fertile land in the West Bank, and Israeli government officials have been quoted as saying that this land should be taken over for the state of Israel – despite its discontiguity with the rest of what is now Israel.
Mordechai Elyahu, one of Israel’s most racist and fascist-minded rabbis, died Monday, at the age of 81, Israeli sources reported.
A former Chief Rabbi of Israel, Elyahu was a chief mentor for the Gush Emunim settler movement.
However, Elyahu was especially notorious for advocating ethnic cleansing and murdering non-combatants including children if the crimes are politically expedient for Israel.
In 2007, he urged the Israeli army to employ “Nazi methods” against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.
“If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand. And if they don’t stop after we kill 1000, then we must kill 10,000. If they don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop,” Shumel Elyhau, the rabbi’s son, quoted his father as saying.
He petitioned the Israeli government to carry out a series of carpet bombing of Palestinian population centers in the Gaza Strip, arguing that a ground invasion of the heavily populated enclave would endanger the lives of Israeli soldiers.
Widely viewed as one of the most knowledgeable Talmudic sages in Israel, Elyahu ruled that it was forbidden to risk the lives of Jews for fear of killing or injuring non-Jews whom he viewed as “of lesser value in comparison to Jews.”
Elyahu was closely affiliated with Merkaz H’arav, a Talmudic college in West Jerusalem, widely considered to be the theological nerve center of religious messianic Zionism.
The College teaches and promotes the teachings of Abraham Kook, the ideological godfather of religious Zionism.
According to Israeli writer Yair Sheleg, Kook taught that the “difference between the Jewish soul and the souls of all non-Jews, no matter what their rank and level of understanding, is bigger and deeper than the difference between the human soul and the animal soul.”
…then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.” (Deuteronomy 7:1-2)
"…do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them…as the Lord your God has commanded you…” (Deuteronomy 20:16)
I am here to announce as loud as I can, there is no need for any ‘International’, ‘impartial’ or ‘independent’ inquiry into the latest Israeli massacre on the high sea. Though the Israeli opposition to such an inquiry is there to suggest that the Israelis have much to hide, the truth of the matter is actually deeper. If you want to grasp what underlies the Israeli deadly barbarism all you have to do is open the Old Testament.
Though it is certain that there is no ethnic or racial continuum between the Biblical Israelites and the Khazarians who lead the Jewish state and its army, the similarities between the murderous enthusiasm described in Deuteronomy and the current string of Israeli lethal actions cannot be denied. Israel is a murderous society not because of any biological or racial lineage with its imaginary ‘forefathers’. Israel is deadly because it is driven by a fanatical tribal Jewish ideology and fueled by a psychotic merciless Biblical poisonous enthusiasm.
The Jewish State is beyond the law. It doesn’t follow any recognised universal value system either. In recent years Israel flattened Lebanon (2006) and left more than 3000 civilians dead, it managed to shell an UNRWA shelter with white phosphorus (2009) and left Gaza with 1500 fatalities most of them women, children and elders, earlier this year it assassinated in Dubai using forged foreign passports, last week we saw the Kosher navy slaughter peace activists in international waters.
The emerging forensic reports of the massacre suggests Israeli executions on board the Mavi Marmara, reading the accounts of the Turkish survivors, and following the Israeli spokesmen's justifications of their killing squads actions, leaves no room for doubt. The Israeli society has past the no return zone. In fact, it must have drifted away from humanity a long time ago. It may be also reasonable to argue by now, that the Zionist initial attempt to ‘erect a new civilized Jew’ should be realized as a total failure. In fact the Israeli Jew is the most brutal of them all, even more deadly than the fictional character depicted by Tarantino’s film Inglorious Bastards.
One way to explain the rapid moral deterioration of the Jewish State is to point out that Zionists have never really committed to ethics. They were quick to learn that rather than truly internalizing the meaning of humanism, a spin would serve their cause as effectively.
The entire Hasbara (propaganda) project is grounded on a dissemination of lies. For years the Hasbara project, which has been supported by Sayanim all along, was there to present Israel as a ‘Western’ and ‘democratic’ nation in a ‘sea of Arabs’. All that time the Jewish State was inflicting pain on its neighbours, murdering, starving and ethnically cleansing the indigenous people of the land.
Enough is enough, it is time to name and shame every Israeli and Zionist infiltrator within political circles, media and academia. This shouldn’t be complicated at all because until very recently those Sayanim and traitors within our midst were doing it all in the open.
From Aggression to Victimhood
However, the Israelis are not just an ordinary murderous collective. As much as they were enthusiastic to unleash hundreds of their most brutal military unit (Fleet 13) against unarmed peace activists, the Israelis also insist on regarding their commandos as a bunch of innocent victims. It was amusing to follow Israeli officials and representatives talking about their ‘lynched commandos’ who were ‘attacked’ as soon as they were dropped from helicopters. “What did the commandos expect pro-Palestinian activists to do once they boarded the ships – invite them aboard for a cup of tea with the captain on the bridge?” wondered the Guardian editorial just one day after the massacre.
The apparent shortage of an Israeli capacity to understand that they were the aggressors in a military raid that they themselves initiated, is symptomatic of the Jewish political incomprehension of the notion of history and of historical causality. From a Jewish perspective, history always starts where a Jewish suffering is detected. For the Israelis the event on the Mavi Marmara started only when the first kosher commando confronted resistance on the upper deck. In the Israeli press, the fact that Israeli commandos were actually the attackers was completely neglected. They in fact took part in a criminal military raid, they were dropped from Israeli military helicopters, they landed on a civilian ship carrying humanitarian aid in international waters. For the Israelis the Mavi Maramara massacre event was isolated from the conflict or any understanding of the conflict.
Within the discourse of Jewish politics and history there is no room for causality. There is no such a thing as a former and a latter. Within the Jewish tribal discourse every narrative starts to evolve when Jewish pain establishes itself. This obviously explains why Israelis and some Jews around the world can only think as far as ‘two state solution’ within the framework of 1967 borders. It also explains why for most Jews the history of the holocaust starts in the gas chambers or with the rise of the Nazis. I have hardly seen any Israelis or Jews attempt to understand the circumstances that led to the clear resentment of Europeans towards their Jewish neighbors in the 1920’s-40’s.
I am pretty convinced that Israel and the Jewish national project is not going to recover from this last high sea massacre. The reason is simple. In order to save itself of its doomed fate, Israel would need to look in the mirror. This is not going to happen. By the time Israel looks in the mirror it would become a self-hater. Israel won’t take the risk.
Instead of looking in the mirror the Jewish tribal agitator reverts to spin. The Hasbara man releases a clumsily produced video that can be easily dismissed.
In case some Westerners have failed to see it until now, it is not just the Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims who fall victims to the deadly Biblical practice. In fact Zionism doesn’t really distinguish between Goyim. From a Zionist perspective every Gentile is a potential enemy. This must explain why Israel possesses so many nuclear bombs.
As one may guess, an atomic bomb is not exactly something you use against your next door neighbor. Israel’s nuclear arsenal is not there to deter the Palestinians or the Syrians. The Israeli Bomb is there for us, the Brits, the Turks, the French, the Russians, the Chinese, in short the rest of humanity. Israel’s nuclear arsenal should be realized in reference to Masada, the first century kosher fortified bunker where a few Jewish extremists committed a suicidal act just not to surrender to the Romans.
The new Israelites have an Armageddon scenario in mind. Their philosophy is pretty simple, from Auschwitz they took the ‘never again’ (like a lamb to the slaughter). From Masada they deduced their survival motto, ‘if we are going down, this time we take everyone with us’. This is in fact the true Israeli interpretation of the story of Samson, the Biblical genocidal murderer who pulled down a Philistine shrine on himself together with some other 3000 children, women and elders.
I guess that with Israeli nuclear submarines stationed in the Gulf and last week's slaughter in the high seas the nations do not need any more warnings. In fact there is no way to get the Israeli nation ‘off the tree’. All that is left for world leaders to do, is to meet amongst themselves and decide together how to dismantle this morbid collective without turning our planet into dust
