israel's list of broken world records

By UPROOTED PALESTINIANS

Israel, a country the size of New Jersey can only claim to the following achievements:

• Israel was established upon the ruins of another nation that it destroyed; Palestine

• Israel hold the world record in the number of towns & villages it ethnically cleansed...500+

• Israel holds the world record in the number of refugees it deported...4 million +

• Israel holds the world record in the number of homes it demolished...60 thousand +

• Israel is the country with the highest record of UN condemnation...500+ times

• Israel is the country with the highest number of protective US Security council vetoes...100+ times

• Israel has killed more innocent civilians per capita than any other country...50 thousand+

• Israel has imprisoned more civilians per capita than any other country...250 thousand+

• Israel has rendered more innocent civilians handicapped per capita than any other country...50 thousand+

• Israel has injured more innocent civilians per capita than any other country...200 thousand+

• Israel has only two countries to defend its policies in the United Nations. These countries are America & Micronesia. The population for Micronesia as of June 2008 is only 108,000

• Israel is the only country on Earth that denies the right of return of refugees

• Israel is the only country on Earth that still occupies a whole other country & parts of two other countries

• Israel is the only country on Earth that publicly, steals the water of its neighbors

• Israel is the only country on Earth that has legalized home demolishing as a method of collective punishment

• Israel is the only country on Earth that uproots trees as a method of collective punishment

• Israel is the only country on Earth that deliberately targets civilian infrastructure and justifies it

• Israel is the only country on Earth that legalized assassination

• Israel stands unique in using human shields in military operations

• Amongst all countries, Israel is the only one that has legalized torture

• Israel is the only country on Earth that builds illegal settlements in occupied lands

• Israel is the only country on Earth that publicly jails activists without trial

• According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Israel has created the highest number of checkpoints

• According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Israel holds the world record in the number of curfew it has installed on the Palestinians

• Israel is the only country on Earth whose checkpoints deny women access to hospitals, they give birth alone and babies usually die

• Israel is exceptional in being the only country on Earth whose checkpoints denies patients access to hospitals, and they end up dying

• Israel is the only country on Earth whose checkpoints are where wedding parades come to an end

• Israel is the only country on Earth who check points schoolchildren, denies them access to school, and puts an end to their classes

• Israel is one of two countries that, against International Law, use cluster bombs and depleted uranium bombs. America is the other...what a surprise huh?

• Israel holds the world record in the number of soldiers refusing to serve in the army

• Israel despite being a rich country, receives the highest financial aid, more than the sum aid to all sub-Saharan Africa!

• Israel claims its enemies want to wipe it off the map, but it has indeed wiped a whole country called Palestine off the map!

• Israel is the country that has introduced nuclear weapons into the Middle East. But the only country in the Middle East that refuses to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty

• After East Germany, Israel is the only country that is building a segregation wall

• Second to South Africa, Israel is the only country to establish an apartheid regime

• Israeli engineers developed the worlds' first iron gates on roads

• Israeli engineers developed the worlds' first cities turned into jails with gates and opening hours

• Israeli engineers developed the worlds' first apartheid walls

• Israeli engineers developed the worlds' first electrified segregation fences

• Israeli engineers developed the worlds' first 'eyes specific' rubber bullets

• Israeli engineers developed the worlds' first abortion efficient, infant killing tear gas

• Israeli engineers developed the worlds' first humiliation guaranteed human cages

• Israel is the only country on Earth that has a political party that publicly advocates ethnic cleansing of native citizens (Palestinians)

• Israel is the only country on Earth that still has racist laws that discriminate against native citizens (Palestinians)

• Israel is the only country on Earth known to have a memorial dedicated to a terrorist where his followers gather and dance

• Israel is the only country on Earth that imprisons kids for political reasons

• Israel is the only country on Earth where you get a one month community service for intentionally, smashing the head of a child! How much more proof do people need to see that Israel is a terrorist nation?????!!!!!!!!!!

• Israel is the only country on Earth that does not hold its soldiers accountable for shooting peace activists in cold blood

• No other country on Earth has towns and cities allocated exclusively for one ethnic group

• The only country on Earth, where people live in homes stolen from living refugees is, Israel

• The only place on Earth where people cultivate fields stolen from living refugees is, Israel

• Israel has the highest number of towns built upon ethnically cleansed villages, whose former residents are living refugees

• Israel ranks amongst the top countries in lack of security

lsrael refuses to stop using internationally banned phosphorus bombs

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli government has refused to provide the United Nations assurance to discontinue its illegal usage of internationally banned white phosphorus bombs, which it used heavily in its latest war on the Gaza Strip, causing hundreds of Palestinian deaths, in addition to serious environmental damage.

Israel submitted an official report to the UN this week admitting its use of white phosphorus bombs in its war on Gaza after having previously denied such allegations, and assuring that it would use the bombs in a “restricted” manner, but refusing to assure complete discontinuation.

The report said: “The army has taken measures to minimize civilian injuries and damage to their property in future military conflicts, including restricting the use of white phosphorus bombs in populated areas.”

According to Hebrew mass media, the Israeli report was submitted in preparation for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s briefing of the Security Council on the results of the investigation which the UN had demanded from both Israel and the Hamas movement, following the Goldstone report, which documented Israel’s aggression against the Gaza Strip 17 months ago, which resulted in at least 1400 deaths and 5000 injuries on Palestinians, and total destruction of Gaza Strip’s infrastructure within 22 days.

For his part, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in a press statement on Wednesday that the report submitted by the Israeli government to the UN Secretary-General convicts Israel of using WP in the killing of Palestinian citizens, confirming that the conviction calls for concrete actions to prosecute Israeli leaders in international criminal courts.

He added: “The Arab League and the Palestinian Authority are obliged to stop all forms of negotiation and normalization of relations with the Zionist enemy, which will take continued (negotiations) as a cover-up for its crimes.”

He called on the international community to expedite the trial of Israeli leaders and war criminals, and to pressure Israel and harness its crimes, asking all human rights organizations to take action to expose Israel’s crimes and prosecute it in both national and international courts.

Barhoum noted that the report’s mention of future wars reveals Israel’s malicious intentions and its insistence on continually targeting the unarmed Palestinian people, especially in the absence of international justice and the presence of American bias towards Israel and its extremist government.

6srael threatens Lebanon with invasion

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has warned that Tel Aviv would strike directly at the Lebanese government, should violence breaks out the next time.

In an interview with the Washington Post published Monday, the minister said "if it happens that Hezbollah will shoot into Tel Aviv, we will not run after each…launcher of some rocket in all Lebanon. We'll see the government of Lebanon responsible."

"We will see it as legitimate to hit any target that belongs to the Lebanese state, not just to Hezbollah," said Barak.

Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement, however, has repeatedly dismissed the accusations that it fires rockets into Israel.

The movement says such allegations are part of Israeli propaganda which aims to justify another invasion.

The Israeli regime has launched two wars against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006. The second round of the all-out offensives killed about 1,200 Lebanese -- mostly civilians.

However, Tel Aviv on both occasions fell short of achieving any of its objectives and Hezbollah forced the Israeli military into retreating.

Tension between Lebanon and Israel has increased in recent months as Beirut arrested several people on suspicion of spying for Tel Aviv.

Dozens of people, including members of Lebanon's telecommunications personnel, have been arrested since last year on suspicion of collaborating with the Israeli spy agency, Mossad.

Source

lsrael Refusing to Release Captured Aid Ships

Demands Turkey Promise Not to Allow Future Aid Deliveries

By Jason Ditz, AntiWar, July 20, 2010

According to officials familiar with the incident, the Israeli government is continuing to hold three of the aid ships involved with June’s failed attempt to deliver humanitarian goods to the Gaza Strip.

Turkey’s government has reportedly been pressing for the return of the vessels, which Israel would be obliged to do under international law, so far however Israel’s Foreign Ministry has refused to do so and is demanding that the Turkish government sign a formal pledge that the ships will not be used in future attempts to deliver aid to the strip.

During the flotilla in question, Israeli troops attacked the Mavi Marmara, one of the aid ships, and killed nine aid workers on board. The ship contained medication, toys, and electric wheelchairs.

Though the two nations are long-standing allies, the attack has seriously strained relations between Turkey and Israel, and Turkey is unlikely to agree to abandon all future aid deliveries for the sake of a face-saving effort by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

No words to console Gaza child after mother is killed by lsraeli shelling

Vittorio Arrigoni writing from the occupied Gaza Strip, Live from Palestine, 26 July 2010


The Abu Said family are Bedouin whose isolated farm is located near Gaza's boundary with Israel in the vicinity of Johr al-Dik. For the last forty years, the family never had any major problems with their belligerent Israeli neighbors. Abu Said, the family patriarch, explained that after the first and second Palestinian intifadas and following the start of the siege on Gaza, the threat of being shot by Israeli soldiers forced him to stop cultivating plots of land closest to the border. Twenty years ago, the family could still plough their property near the border, while in recent times they've had to retreat 400 meters, with considerable losses to their harvest. Beautiful orchards brimming with fruit once prospered; now even the trees' roots are gone.

In spite of the farm's unfortunate location, none of the family members were killed or injured during Israel's 2008-09 winter invasion. However, this year, Israel's brutal policies and actions affected the family directly.

Around 8:45pm on 13 July, 2010, a few of the women of the family were enjoying the cool of the evening in the courtyard in front of their house. They heard a muffled shooting sound, followed soon after by another, and then by a loud buzzing noise, as if a swarm of insects was approaching at full speed. The facade of their home was reduced to Swiss cheese and the flesh of the women was attacked.

Without provocation, an Israeli tank fired two artillery shells at the family's home. Amira Jaber Abu Said, 30, was hit and wounded in the shoulder by a piece of shrapnel and by steel darts, called flechettes. Her sister-in-law, 26-year-old Sanaa Ahmed Abu Said, was wounded in the foot. Panicking, they took shelter inside their home and called an ambulance. Meanwhile, from the direction of the nearby military turret, an Israeli armor-plated vehicle was stationed underneath and a machine gun was still shooting toward the family and continued to do so for a solid ten minutes.

After being delayed for 15 minutes by Israeli troops, ambulances reached the family farm. However, the paramedics were forced to flee as soon as they arrived under threat of Israeli fire.

Ali Abu Said, a family member, said in an interview "After Amira and Saana were wounded, we continued to call for the Re Crescent ambulance. After 15 minutes the paramedics arrived in our area, but they told us they couldn't get to our house because the Israeli soldiers wouldn't given them permission. They threatened to shoot them if they had gotten near. They've had to go back to where they'd come from, in Deir al-Balah."

After an hour of apparent calm, Nema Abu Said, a 33-year-old mother of five, realized that her youngest child, Nader, was still asleep outside the family home. Nema rushed out to find Nader when another dull shot was heard and she was hit by a round of flechettes, and was killed on the spot. Her brother-in-law, Jaber Abu Said, 65, was wounded by flechettes in his right thigh.

The family continued to call in vain for ambulances. The Israeli military allowed a Red Crescent ambulance to enter the area two hours later and retrieve the dead woman and three injured family members.

Jaber Abu Said holds part of the shell that wounded him.

One of Nema's children stands outside the family's home.

Israel's winter invasion, dubbed "Operation Cast Lead," resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom were civilians, including more than 300 children. On 27 January, 2009, Amnesty International compiled a list of prohibited weapons that the Israeli forces used against the population of Gaza.

Flechettes are small metallic daggers with barbed points, four centimeters long with four small fins in the back. According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, flechettes are loaded into shells fired by tanks. When the shells explode in mid-air, 30 meters from the ground, they propel a swarm of 5,000 to 8,000 flechettes, covering a cone-shaped radius, 300 meters wide and 100 meters long ("Flechette shells: an illegal weapon").

Although flechette shells are considered an illegal weapon, Israel continues to use them. In 2002, the Israeli high court rejected a petition presented by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights to end use of the flechettes in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Flechettes were also used by Israel during is July 2006 invasion of Lebanon.

On 5 January 2009, in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, numerous flechette shells were fired onto a main street, killing two civilians. Wafa Nabil Abu Jarad, a 21-year-old mother expecting twins, and 16-year-old Islam Jaber Abd al-Dayem were both killed by the darts.

Similarly, on 16 April 2008, Fadel Shana, a cameraman for Reuters news agency and two children nearby were also killed by flechettes. Shana was filming in Johr al-Dik, a few hundred meters from the Abu Said family's farm, when he was hit by a tank shell.

In spite of the attack and Nema's death, the Abu Said family will remain on the farm. They will do this out of a sense of pride, a desire to live and die on their own property, and because they have nowhere else to go.

Jaber, a member of the Abu Said family and a survivor of the attack, explained: "No form of resistance activity has ever taken place anywhere near our farm, ever. No threat whatsoever to Israel and its soldiers exists. I really don't understand why they've done this to us."

Meanwhile, young Nader asks relatives and visitors about his mother. None of his relatives have yet found the right words to explain to this innocent child what happened to his mother. Do those words actually exist?

All images by Vittorio Arrigoni.

Vittorio Arrigoni has worked as a human rights activist for more than a decade. He lived in Gaza until September 2009. As an activist with the International Solidarity Movement and freelance journalist with the Italian newspaper Il Manifesto he has provided eyewitness accounts for the world to read and is author of the book Gaza: Stay Human.

This essay was translated from Italian by Daniela Filippin.

Oldest Palestinian woman in detention subjected to cruel interrogation rounds

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Fathiya Suwais, 57, has been subjected to cruel interrogation rounds and severe torture at the hands of Israeli investigators in Jalama detention center ever since her incarceration five days ago, the Ahrar center for prisoners' studies and human rights reported.

Fuad Al-Khafsh, the center's director, said in a press release on Saturday, that the Shabak investigators deprived the old woman from sleep and forced her to stand for long hours while blindfolded and handcuffed without any consideration for her age or health condition.

He said that Suwais, who was taken from her home in Tulkarem city on 19th July, was daily and violently interrogated, adding that the interrogators threatened to arrest her sisters and to keep her in custody if she did not confess to the charges leveled against her.

Khafsh said, "Israel is an unethical entity that does not respect human beings", referring to the detention of an old mother in a small cell and interrogating her over "trivial issues" while threatening her with detaining close relatives, which only point to the sadistic and inhuman nature of those who detain her.

He urged the international institutions and human rights groups to swiftly intervene to protect the detainee.

lsraeli Police Impunity - Office Gets 30 Months for Killing Arab Driver

By JONATHAN COOK, CounterPunch

Nazareth.

A decision by Israel’s Supreme Court to double a 15-month jail term for a policeman who shot dead an unarmed Palestinian driver suspected of stealing a car has provoked denunciations from police commanders and government officials.

Yitzhak Aharonovitch, the internal security minister, condemned the judges for “sending a terrible message to police officers”.

On the advice of police lawyers, the accused policeman, Shahar Mizrahi, had appealed his conviction last year in the expectation that the ruling would be overturned by the Supreme Court.

Mr Aharonovitch and Dudi Cohen, the police commissioner, said they would immediately seek a presidential pardon for Mizrahi. “I won’t merely support a pardon bid, I’ll lead it,” Mr Aharonovitch said.

But groups representing Israel’s large Palestinian Arab minority said the outrage at the doubling of the 15-month sentence for Mizrahi reflected the reality that the police force expected impunity when it used violence against Israel’s Palestinian citizens, who comprise a fifth of the population.

At Mizrahi’s original trial last year, the district court judge, Menachem Finkelstein, ruled that the policeman had acted “recklessly” during an operation to stop car thefts in the Jewish town of Pardes Hanna in 2006.

Despite his life never being in danger, Mizrahi had used the butt of his gun to smash the window of a car in which Mahmoud Ghanaim, 24, was seated and shot him in the head from close range. The court also noted that Mizrahi had changed his testimony several times during the investigations.

According to Mossawa, an advocacy group, 40 Palestinian citizens have been killed in suspicious circumstances by the security forces over the past decade. Mizrahi is the first policeman to be convicted in such a case.

As of yesterday, an online petition calling on the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, to pardon Mizrahi had attracted more than 5,000 signatures in a few days, and a Facebook page supporting the policeman had 1,300 fans.

Gideon Levy, a columnist with the liberal Haaretz newspaper, warned yesterday that those “siding with Mizrahi are eager to have a police force that kills -- but just Arabs, of course”.

Jafar Farah, the director of Mossawa, said: “The atmosphere of racism in Israel is being used to destroy the legal system from the inside, using the justification that Arabs are being killed.

“The reality today is that the police can kill an Arab citizen in any circumstances and know that there is almost no chance they will pay a price. The safeguards are being stripped away.”

Relations between Israel’s Palestinian minority and the police have been marked by profound distrust since late 2000, when police shot dead 13 protesters and wounded hundreds more during largely non-violent demonstrations in the Galilee at the start of the second intifada.

A subsequent state commission of inquiry found that the police had a long-standing policy of treating the country’s 1.3 million Palestinian citizens “as an enemy” and recommended that several officers be prosecuted for their role in the 13 deaths.

After a long delay, state prosecutors announced in 2008 that no one would be charged.

In several speeches since he took over as security minister last year, Mr Aharonovitch has promised measures to restore the minority’s faith in the police, including recruiting more police officers from the Palestinian population and fighting high rates of crime in Arab communities.

According to a police report submitted to the parliament earlier this year, only 382 of more than 21,000 police officers are Muslim – or less than two per cent.

At the appeal hearing last week, the Supreme Court increased Mizrahi’s jail sentence after ruling that Judge Finkelstein had not given enough weight to the victim’s life and the value of deterring similar police behaviour in the future. Under police regulations, Mizrahi was entitled only to shoot out the car’s tyres or fire at Ghanaim’s legs.

Immediately after the ruling, Mr Aharonovitch reported that he had called Mizrahi to tell him: “Your fight has become all of our fight.”

He was backed by several retired police commanders and a Likud MP, Danny Danon, who said he would submit a bill barring the indictment of police officers who open fire when they believe they are in danger.

In a sign of the mounting pressure from police groups on the Supreme Court, it issued a rare “clarification” statement of its judgment, pointing out that Ghanaim’s car was travelling too slowly to have ever put Mizrahi in any danger.

Mr Farah added that Mossawa’s investigations had revealed that, despite police claims, Ghanaim was the documented owner of the car he was driving.

The police, Mr Farah added, had supported Mizrahi throughout the case and had continued paying his police salary after his conviction.

The court’s decision to increase Mizrahi’s sentence came in the wake of strong suspicions that police officers executed a Palestinian driver in East Jerusalem last month, shooting him twice in the head from close range as he lay on the ground.

Moments earlier, Ziad Jilani, who was married with three children, had fled on foot after driving into a detail of police, injuring several officers, in the Wadi Joz neighbourhood. Witnesses said a stone had smashed his windscreen seconds before he swerved.

In one of the few other recent prosecutions of a policeman for killing a Palestinian citizen, Rubi Gai was acquitted last year of the manslaughter of Nadim Milham, who was shot in the back during a police search of his home for weapons. Witnesses testified that police had beaten Milham and that he was shot as he fled.

A survey published last month by Haifa University found that only one in five Palestinian citizens expressed faith in the police.

Mr Aharonovitch upset the Palestinian minority last year during an inspection of undercover narcotics agents in Tel Aviv. He was caught on camera telling one detective dressed as a drug addict he looked like “a real Araboosh”, a derogatory Hebrew term for Arabs.

The minister, who is a member of Avigdor Lieberman’s far-right party Yisrael Beiteinu, apologised but added that the comment was a “moment of banter”.

Mahash, the justice ministry’s police investigations unit, has been harshly criticised for the small proportion of complaints against the police it agrees to investigate. It rarely prosecutes officers.

The police have also refused to cooperate in imposing official sanctions on wayward officers, with critics saying that officers found to have acted negilgently or violently towards Palestinian citizens are often rewarded with promotion.

The state commission of inquiry into the killing by police of 13 Palestinian protesters in October 2000 recommended that several officers be dismissed from service or denied promotion. The recommendations were disregarded.

In one notorious case, the commission found that Benzi Sau, a northern Border Police commander, had acted with gross negligence in allowing snipers to shoot at stone-throwing demonstrators. Despite suggesting a ban on his promotion for four years, he rapidly rose through the ranks, becoming head of the Border Police in Jerusalem in 2001 and national head of the Border Police in 2004.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

Crimes By 6srael, Sanctions For Iran

By Kourosh Ziabari

The Iranian nation is not unfamiliar with the double standards of the superpowers anymore. The history of Iran's relations with the western and eastern superpowers is filled with deceitfulness, dishonesty and fraudulence. The recent U.S.-proposed, Russia-backed United Nations Security Council resolution against Iran over its nuclear program is simply one example out of hundreds of instances which demonstrate that the big powers have not ever been honest and sincere with Iran.

While the international community is witness to the flagrant, ceaseless and unrelenting felonies of the illegitimate regime of Israel in the occupied territories of Gaza and West Bank, United Nations Security Council blindly voted in favor of an unfair, unilateral and unjustifiable round of sanctions against the most pacifist and peace-lover country in the region simply because it wants to progress its civilian nuclear program domestically and without foreign intervention.

The new round of sanctions against Iran comes in the wake of Israel's continued blockade of the Gaza strip in violation of the UNSC resolution 1860 which demanded Tel Aviv last year to end the siege and allow the humanitarian aids to be transferred to the beleaguered enclave. More interestingly, the UNSC resolution against Iran was adopted while the international community was expecting a decisive and clear-cut reaction to Israel's assault on the convoy of humanitarian aid heading from Turkey towards the Gaza strip.

Israel's recent incursion into the sailboats of Freedom Flotilla which cost the lives of 20 peace activists and left 50 others wounded was a clear and untainted violation of Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 1988. Let's pose a simple question: what would happen if it was Iran that had attacked the Freedom Flotilla? Would the reaction of UNSC have been the same?

The exercise of double standards knows no nationality, race, time and place. Over the past four months, the White House recurrently attacked Iran over the incarceration of three American hikers who entered Iran illegally and are now awaiting trial by the judiciary over their lawbreaking. Did the same American officials say a single word in protest to the killing of Furkan Dogan, the 19-year-old American-Turkish high school boy whom the Israeli forces killed in what they called the "Operation Sea Breeze"? Did they protest when the IDF troops boarded on the Freedom Flotilla and arrested Edward Peck, the former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and Mauritania? Would they react similarly if Iran had arrested a former U.S. Ambassador?

Israel attacked the citizens of 37 countries in a vicious operation which extremely frightened the international community and once again showed the brutal and inhuman nature of the Zionist regime. Most of the European officials who condemned the attack for fear of the growing anger of public opinions did their best to use the most softened and equivocal language so as to avoid targeting Israeli officials directly. Nobody tried to hold Tel Aviv accountable for what was an evident and undeniable massacre of defenseless civilians who were trying to break an illegal imprisonment of more than 1.5 million people who are in dire need of foodstuff, medicines, fuel, gasoline, wheelchairs, renewed infrastructure and shelter. Over the past 40 years, Israel has demolished more than 9000 Palestinian homes and is now holding some 1.5 million people in an open-air jail which no international body has so far succeeded to unlock.

Israel autonomously violates international regulations, defies the calls of UN and human rights organizations and even disregards the calls of its own citizens who sympathize with the subjugated and anguished people of Palestine. UNSC ignores all of these crimes and felonies indifferently and adopts a resolution against Iran to punish the country for its civilian nuclear program, overlooking the 200 nuclear warheads which are accumulated in the arsenals of Israeli regime. That is something which even exceeds double standards. This is the inhumanity of UNSC.

Countercurrents.org

Haulicostupation

By Khalid Amayreh

Once again, Israel is resorting to psychological blackmail tactics by invoking "anti-Semitism and the holocaust" to enhance its ugly image in the eyes of the peoples of the world.

This week, the Israeli press reported that dozens of countries, mainly those orbiting the United States , which itself revolves in the Israeli orbit, agreed to cooperate in fighting "anti-Semitism" an "Holocaust denial." The effort is apparently part of the Israeli Foreign Ministry's effort to improve Israel 's image, badly tarnished following Israel 's Nazi-like onslaught on the Gaza Strip more than a year and a half ago.

Israel, a constantly nervous country that is taking a defensive posture against foreign criticisms of its manifestly barbarian crimes against defenseless Arab civilians, vociferously rejects any Nazi-comparisons, accusing critics of harboring anti-Semitism.

Even Jewish academics voicing such criticisms are hounded, vilified and even refused entry into Israel.

None the less, any honest comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany should vindicate the Nazi-comparisons.

The way Israel views and especially treats non-Jews, especially the Palestinian community, leaves no doubt as to the brutal ugliness and nefarious racism characterizing the Israeli mentality.

The heinous crushing by heavy bulldozers of peace activists, the deliberate murder of solidarity group members, the adamant refusal to prosecute and punish murderers and child killers whose victims didn't have "the proper holy blood," look very much as if borrowed from the catalogues of the Gestapo, SS and the Wehrmacht.

In truth, Israel is a bona fide Nazi state. However, both of its shamefulness and shamelessness are made to appear more benign and less malignant than they really are thanks to a huge machine of lies extending from Occupied Jerusalem to California that turns the black into white and the big lie into a "truth" glorified by thousands of pathologically twisted "tribesmen and women," indoctrinated in Jewish superiority over the rest of mankind.

Sometime, though, the huge hasbara machine proves inadequate or insufficient to do the job properly, mainly market the big lie and make it palatable and digestible as much as required. This in turn leads to many people discovering the truth about the gangsterly state as happened recently when the Judeo-Nazi entity rained death on innocent, helpless and defenseless civilians in Gaza whose main crime was their refusal to succumb to Jewish supremacy and refusal to settle for the status of slave vis-à-vis the chosen class, the chosen ubermenschen.

Now the most troublesome and most aggressive pariah country in the world is trying to give the impression that it is under threat that its victims are devising another holocaust against it.

The diabolic entity is also trying to sell the lie that Palestinians and their supporters hate Israel not because of its evil and Nazi-like practices, e.g. dropping 2-3 million cluster bomblets on southern Lebanon in 2006, but rather because they have deep-rooted hatred for Jews.

The truth, However, is that Israel is the main producer and generator of anti-Semitism since the Third Reich.

When millions of people around the world watch the phantasmagoric images of Israeli brutality on their TV screens, they are bound to hate everything Jewish, especially when Israel claims to act and behave in the name of the Jewish people and when it uses Jewish symbols, such as the Israeli flag.

Indeed, it was this very same flag, the Star of David, that Israeli criminality in Gaza and Southern Lebanon made it look like the swastika of Nazism. In any case, this description is not mine, it is rather the coinage of a member of the British Parliament who happened to be Jewish.

This shows that Israel can't behave and act like the Nazis behaved and acted and at the same time expect the peoples of the world to love Zionist Jews. Just as Muslims are paying the price for acts of terror committed in the name of Islam and in their own name, Jews, too, are bound to pay the price for Nazi-like acts perpetrated in their own name. I know that a decisive majority of Muslims view al Qaida atrocities as abhorrent whereas a decisive majority of Jews support Israel right or wrong for historical, psychological and religious reasons. None the less, everything has a price which even the innocent are bound to pay. This may not be fair, but it seems inevitable.

Unfortunately, Israel has tremendously cheapened and trivialized the issues of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust by lumping them with criticisms of Israeli criminality and with raising questions about the legitimacy of the Israeli entity.

Well, there are many Jews who don't accept Israel for religious, theological and moral reasons. And there are numerous non-Jews like this writer who reject Israel for moral and ethical reasons.

In the final analysis, a country that is based on mass murder, mass terror, ethnic cleansing and land theft has no legitimacy, no matter what the United Nations or the New York Times say. An act of rape will never ever be morphed into an honorable matrimony.

Needless to say, Israel 's occupation of Palestine was an act of rape from day-1, is an act of rape now , and will always be an act of rape. As such, Israel will have no legitimacy, neither today nor tomorrow, nor after a thousand years. This is not anti-Semitism, this is not holocaust denial, this is a mere acknowledgment of historical truth which the professional liars of Zionism are trying to obliterate, using all arts of mendacity and deception.

Hence, our response to Zionist trickery should take the form of separating Zionism from Jews. In the end, Israel is a nation-state while Jews are followers of a legitimate religion that enjoys historical and religious legitimacy. But Zionism is a poisoned political ideology and its brat child, Israel , is a stark expression of racism and criminality just as Nazism was a stark poisoned expression of German nationalism more than six decades ago.

We must clarify ourselves loudly that we are against Israel because Israel is evil and criminal, not because it is Jewish. This is not a propaganda message on our part, this is the truth, first because this is the right thing to do, and second, because fighting racism with racism is a lost cause.

As to the issue of the holocaust, it is immensely harmful to make it an issue in the context of our confrontation with Zionism. Israel and her supporters are trying hard to make the holocaust a perpetually relevant issue where it is not. I call this willful addiction holocaustabation. The holocaust took place in a distant land, perpetrated by Western Europeans, and Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims had nothing to do with it.

Hence, we must resist any attempt by Zionism to introduce this red herring into the conflict, and in case they insist on doing so, as they have been doing, we must counter their manifestly bankrupt arguments by pointing out that European Jews expelled from Europe due to the rampancy of German nationalism must find a solution for their problem in Europe itself, not in Palestine and the Middle East.

It is none of our business to be on the side of the holocaust deniers just as we must not allow ourselves to be duped by the Zionist holocaustabators. Our business is to fight, resist, and expose the Nazis of our time, namely evil Israel . For if we sided with the deniers, then we would be accused of anti-Semitism, and if we allowed ourselves to be duped or mesmerized by the Zionist liars, we would be demanded to pay at least part of the price for the attempted liquidation of European Jewry, a price we have already been forced to pay a thousand fold.

Alan Hart: "The Two-State Solution is Long Ago Dead"

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One wonders what religion the zionist wall-weepers are practicing then. ^

l_ has yet to respond to an official request to co-operate with the UN Human Rights Council's investigation into the deadly attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May. So far, lsrael has shunned any suggestion of an international probe into the incident. For a closer look into this and other sides of the Middle East conflict, RT talks to veteran British journalist Alan Hart, who's spent decades covering the Arab-lsraeli conflict.

McCain On The Iraq War: ‘We Already Won That One’

By Ben Armbruster

Earlier this month, law professor Marjorie Cohn and Iraq Veterans Against the War board chairman Geoff Millard attended a reception to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam and spoke with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). When Millard introduced himself to the Arizona senator, Cohn reports that McCain dismissed the relevance of Millard’s organization:

When Geoff introduced himself as chairman of the board of Iraq Veterans against the War, McCain retorted,
“You’re too late. We already won that one.”

McCain is now the second U.S. official to declare “mission accomplished” in a war that continues to ravage the people and land of Iraq.

From the run-up to the war through to his 2008 presidential campaign and up to now, McCain has regularly displayed a lack of understanding and shear incompetence about the war he fought so hard to start and continues to defend. Despite the misgivings of his “hero” Gen. David Petraeus, McCain has been quick to declare “victory” in Iraq or say the U.S is “succeeding” or “winning” the war. Just last March, McCain claimed there had not been “a single” American casualty in Iraq in the three months prior despite the fact that 12 U.S. servicemembers had died there and and least 93 wounded.

And in case McCain hasn’t checked, there’s still a war going on in Iraq. Last month, 216 Iraqi civilians died in attacks across the country. And just weeks prior to McCain’s most recent statement, two Americans were killed in an IED attack in Diyala, Iraq and just six days after his comment, 1st Lt. Michael Runyan was killed by an IED. One wonders whether the families of these U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians would consider the war there to be over.

But regardless of the level of violence in Iraq and even long after every last American servicemember withdraws, declaring the debacle that is President Bush’s war in Iraq can never be considered a “victory.” Juan Cole noted last month:

[I]t would be a huge mistake to see Iraq either as a success story or as stable. It is the scene of an ongoing civil war between Sunnis and Shiites that is killing roughly 300 civilians a month. It can’t form a government months after the March 7 elections. … The political vacuum has proved an opening for Sunni Arab insurgents, who have mounted effective bombing campaigns and more recently are targeting the banks.

“Let’s understand,” the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss has written, “there is no plausible scenario in which the decision to invade Iraq can or will ever be vindicated. In the best case, we will have simply averted disaster.”

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Women Prepare to Set Sail Past lsrael

By Mona Alami

BEIRUT, Jul 22, 2010 (IPS) - The 'Maryam', an all-female Lebanese aid ship, currently docked in the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli, is getting ready to set sail for Gaza in the next few days.
The ship, which aims to break Israel's siege on the Palestinian territory, will carry about 50 aid workers, including some U.S. nuns keen to deliver aid to the long-suffering women and children of Gaza.

"We were all drawn to the project...united by a feeling of stark injustice," says Samar Hajj, one of the organisers of the Maryam, which is named after the mother of Christ.

Israel's siege began in 2006 after Hamas militants won Palestinian legislative elections, then led a cross-border raid and kidnapped an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Its watertight blockade has been maintained with Egypt's help, since Hamas sought control of the territory in 2007. It has resulted in crippling shortages, making daily life difficult in Gaza.

On May 31, Israeli forces attacked Mavi Marmaris, a Turkish humanitarian aid vessel bringing aid to Gaza, killing nine Turkish activists on board. After the attack, which sparked a wave of global condemnation of Israel, Hajj gathered to protest against Israel in downtown Beirut with 11 other friends. "We were appalled at the violent images we saw on TV and wanted to take action."

The women later got in touch with Yasser Kashlak, a 36-year-old Syrian of Palestinian origin, who heads the Free Palestine Movement. Kashlak had contributed to the financing of other vessels that tried breaking the siege, including the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and the Naji al Ali.

"After the Mavi Marmaris incident, one of the women hailed Mary during our weekly meeting. Her exclamation came like a revelation, so we decided to call our ship Maryam (Mary in Arabic). The name was perfect for a vessel that comprised only women. Who could disparage the Virgin Mary, a recognised saint in most religions?" says Hajj.

The ship is slated to make a stopover in a friendly port before heading to Israel because of the palpable hostility between Lebanon and Israel. Last month, the Cypriot government banned any vessel headed to Gaza from its docks. But activists can still sail from a port in Turkish Cyprus.

"We have the option to sail from a number of friendly ports and are completely aware of our obligation to transit through a foreign port to avoid our trip being labeled an act of war," says Hajj.

Hajj estimates that she has received about 500 applications for the trip, but the Maryam will transport only about 50 women, half of who are Lebanese nationals, the rest being Arabs, Europeans and from the U.S. The organiser explains that carrying Palestinians on the ship is not an option because of the risk of arrests by Israelis.

"The ship will transport cancer medicine and other necessary items for women and children. We will not carry any weapons or terrorists, irrespective of what the Israeli army might say," says Hajj.

While they wait to set sail, the headquarters of the Maryam remains agog with activity as women from different backgrounds, political affiliations, nationalities and religious beliefs converse, argue and joke.

"All women travelling on the ship have taken on the name Maryam and are distinguishable by a number, like Maryam 1, Maryam 2, etc. We prefer to keep identities secret to avoid pressure from respective embassies," adds Hajj.

Myriam 1 is a middle aged Indian lawyer and the wife of an admiral. "I am a follower of the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi who fought against every form of oppression peacefully in the course of his life. He was also opposed to the occupation of Palestine," she says.

The lawyer explains that before deciding to join the Maryam, she studied the legal implications of the attack on the Free Gaza Flotilla, which she says was illegitimate.

"What the Mavi Marmaris attack highlighted was that two sets of rules were applied to humanity, depending on a people's colour, race and religion. But what people fail to realise is that suffering is by nature indivisible."

Sitting across from her was Maryam 2, a former biologist of Lebanese- Armenian descent. "I have been closely following the Palestinian issue and have been moved by the blatant injustice that is practiced against Palestinians by the Israelis," she says.

At the daily meetings, Maryam 2 bonded with other women from diverse backgrounds, particularly a Turkish journalist. Turkey and Armenia have been at odds since the Turkish massacre of Armenians in the early 19th century.

"The journalist, who barely speaks English told me I was a godsend when she discovered I could speak some Turkish. Here at the Maryam headquarters, nationality and religion dissolve behind the common resolve of breaking the siege of Gaza," she says.

The sail date for both aid ships from Beirut has yet to be announced. Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said the Naji Al-Ali is now docked at the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli and can set sail once it is cleared by port authorities. However, the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reported recently that the sail of the two ships has been postponed until further notice, particularly after Iran cancelled sending two aid ships to the area. The report was denied by Saer Ghandour, the organiser of the Naji Al-Ali sailing, who added that the ship's formalities were still in process.

Meanwhile, most Maryam passengers are impatient to set sail. "We will not fight Israelis with weapons, stones or knives, but with our free will," says Maryam 3, a single woman working in the Lebanese government. "And we will not surrender."

In Israel, the army chief, Gabi Ashkenazi, told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee on Jul. 6 that every effort should be made to ensure that no more flotillas set sail for Gaza.

"Now a Lebanese flotilla with women and parliament members is getting organised. Israel is trying to prevent its departure in open and covert ways."

International athletes might join Freedom Flotilla 2

PARIS, (PIC)-- The European campaign to lift the siege on Gaza revealed that it will soon make contacts with a number of well-known international athletes, particularly in Europe, to explore the possibility of their participation in Freedom Flotilla 2, which is scheduled to sail to the Gaza Strip by the end of September.

Rami Abdo, a member of the campaign, said in a statement from Paris on Wednesday: “After a number of athletes expressed interest in participating in Freedom Flotilla 2, the European campaign will make during the next few days a series of phone calls in France and Spain with a number of well-known athletes, such as the captain of the Spanish World Cup team, Iker Casillas, to explore the possibility of their involvement in the Freedom Flotilla to break the siege on Gaza.” He explained that the move is meant to bring the public’s attention towards the humanitarian mission and Palestinian cause.

Abdo said that communications will be done in secrecy, particularly concerning the names of the athletes expected to participate in the aid mission, because of anticipated pressure on the athletes and their clubs by Israel, especially since Israel has already pressured European countries to prohibit their citizens from involvement in the flotilla.

Some web sites quoted Casillas as saying that he would not attend World Cup championship celebrations in Madrid, expressing his sorrow for what is happening in Gaza.

“You find it impossible for people to participate and laugh after seeing what's happening in the Gaza Strip,” Casillas said, asserting that Spain’s World Cup championship celebration is only partial as long Gaza remains under siege.

Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal also condemned Israel’s 2008-2009 attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The campaign said that more than 35 news organizations have requested to participate in Freedom Flotilla 2, in an attempt to provide unprecedented news coverage to detect Israeli follies against international peace activists.

Freedom Flotilla 2 has been postponed till the end of September because of the extended base of participants, especially from European countries.

Rachel Corrie's Hometown Divests From israel

21 July, 2010
Palestinenote.com

Washington – A food co-op in the hometown of Rachel Corrie, the American activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer in 2003 and namesake of a Gaza aid ship earlier this year, has launched a divestment campaign against Israeli products, Haaretz reported Tuesday.

The Olympia, Washington Food Co-op board of directors met last week to make the final decision to endorse the boycott. "A couple of board members were concerned about what will be the financial effect on the organization, but it’s minimal," board member Rob Richards told Haaretz. "For me personally there is a moral imperative that goes beyond any financial concern. So we decided to adopt the boycott which went into effect the next day."

The boycott in Olympia, which is right now only enforced in two grocery stores, will likely have little direct effect on the divestment effort. But the board decision is symbolic, both as part of growing move in America and also because of what Olympia is: Rachel Corrie’s hometown. Last month, the student body at Evergreen State College in Olypmia, where Corrie studied, passed two declarations calling for the school "to divest from companies that profit from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine" and to ban Caterpillar equipment from campus. It was a Caterpillar bulldozer that killed Corrie as she tried to prevent it from demolishing a home in the Gaza Strip.

"The fact that it is the home town of Rachel Corrie’s parents and that it is represented by Rep Brian Baird (who has been to Gaza and is outspoken against Israel) makes this ripe for issues," said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi of The Israel Project, a pro-Israel organization, in the Haaretz report. "So does the fact that it does not have a very organized pro-Israel community. This went under the radar screen at a time when most groups were focused on Iran sanctions and other macro issues."

Richards defended the plurality behind the co-op decision. "There was very little feedback from the staff that was against the boycott, but it seemed as minority opinion," said Richards. "We have two members on the board from the Jewish community who were supportive of the boycott – it’s pretty progressive town. I know that’s not universal at the Jewish community."

The boycott will refuse any products coming from Israel, both those from within and beyond the Green Line. But exceptions will be made for any products that "improve the conditions of the Palestinians."

While the divestment movement is much stronger and more popular in Europe, it is beginning to gain steam in the US. Monday, Jewish Voice for Peace activists went to the New York headquarters of investment firm TIAA-CREF to deliver thousands of signatures demanding the firm divest from companies that "profit from the violation of international law through home demolitions, the destruction of life sustaining orchards, the construction of roads and transit that only Israelis can use, the killing of civilians by drones, and many other injustices." Companies on the activists’ list include Caterpillar, Elbit, and Motorola.

Much of the pressure for divestment has triumphed on college campuses. There has also been a counterforce called "Invest for Peace" that promotes not divestment but instead microfinance projects in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Both movements are growing in numbers.

israel Launches Campaign to Halt Lebanon Flotilla Bound for Gaza

Khudari: Int'l law does not allow israel to block Lebanon's aid ships

Hamas finds UN collaborating with lsrael

Hamas accuses the United Nations of collaborating with Israel over the world body's recent efforts to discourage aid convoys from sailing towards the Gaza Strip.

The UN on Friday warned seaborne relief missions against setting sail, urging them to instead travel by land. The UN's warning came as both routes to the strip remain under the strict control of the Israeli military's armed surveillance units.

"The UN call to international organizations to use the over-land road to Gaza instead of the sea is unacceptable and illegal," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zahri was quoted by AFP as saying on Saturday.

The position was similar to "collaboration with the Israeli occupier," he added.

After the democratically-elected government of Hamas came to power in the Gaza Strip in 2006, Israel blockaded the coastal sliver in June 2007, depriving 1.5 million Gazans of food, fuel and other life necessities.

"Most of the residents of the territory are still banned from leaving the territory and this is why this call is considered a contribution to the blockade," said Abu Zahri in reference to the UN warning.

The developments come after Israeli commandos attacked the Gaza-bound Turkish-flagged Freedom Flotilla relief mission, killing nine Turkish activists on May 31.

The UN ambassador to Tel Aviv, Gabriela Shalev, has informed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that Israel "reserves its right" to stymie two Lebanese aid ships, which aim to break the Gaza siege.

An organizer for one of the Lebanese vessels, Nagi el-Ali, however, said on Saturday that "preparations for the trip have progressed." Organizers and port officials also said another ship, the Mariam, has anchored at the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli.

The Hamas official also encouraged humanitarian groups to "continue to reach Gaza by sea until the blockade is really broken."

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HARDtalk with Haneen Zoabi - July 15, 2010

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Haneen Zoabi:
The largest threat to democracy is 6ionism
Max Blumenthal, The Electronic Intifada, 22 July 2010

Haneen Zoabi speaking in Tel Aviv, July 2010. (Oren Ziv/ActiveStills)

On 13 July, the Israeli Knesset voted by a large margin to strip the parliamentary privileges of Haneen Zoabi, a member of the Palestinian Israeli party Balad. The measure was a punishment for Zoabi's participation in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. As described in the Israeli daily Haaretz, during the raging debate, Member of Knesset (MK) Anasatassia Michaeli rushed toward Zoabi and handed her a mock Iranian passport with Zoabi's photo on it. "Ms. Zoabi, I take your loyalty to Iran seriously and I suggest you contact Ahmadinejad and ask him to give you an Iranian diplomatic passport that will assist you with all your diplomatic incitement tours, because your Israeli passport will be revoked this evening," said Michaeli, who is a member of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's explicitly anti-Arab Yisrael Beiteinu party ("Knesset revokes Arab MK Zuabi's privileges over Gaza flotilla," 13 July 2010).

The debate over revoking Zoabi's parliamentary privileges was nearly as rancorous as her appearance at the Knesset speaker's podium in the immediate wake of the Flotilla massacre. While Zoabi attempted to relate her experience on the Mavi Marmara, where she coaxed Israeli commandoes to stop shooting and beating passengers, Knesset members from a broad array of parties leapt from their chairs to shout her down. "Go to Gaza, traitor!" shouted MK Miri Regev of Likud. "One week in Gaza as a 38-year-old single woman and we'll see how they treat you!" barked Yohanan Plesner of the supposedly centrist Kadima party. Finally, Moshe Mutz Matalon of Yisrael Beiteinu lamented that the Israeli commandoes "left only nine floating voters" ("MK Regev tells Zoabi: Go to Gaza, traitor!," YNet, 2 June 2010).

I met Zoabi at her office in the bustling center of Lower Nazareth on 12 June. While preparing a spread of biscuits and chocolates for me, she told me that a reporter from Nablus who met her earlier in the day had been detained at a checkpoint and had her laptop seized. Zoabi was convinced that the Shin Bet (Israel's General Security Service) was monitoring her communications and movements as it does with many Balad Party leaders. Despite the tense climate and violent threats against her, she spoke without restraint about her experience on the Mavi Marmara, the predicament of Palestinian members of the Knesset, and what she considered the fascist direction of Israeli society.

Max Blumenthal: Were you surprised to be greeted with such hostility when you returned to the Knesset after the flotilla incident?

Hanin Zoabi: I was not so surprised. I expected to be called traitor, to be asked, "Where are your knives?" Or to be told, "You are the one who killed them!" But they shouted at me without any political argument and such shallowness. I thought, this couldn't be a parliament, these are just gangsters. If I gave them guns, they would shoot me. I said the soldiers on the flotilla treated me more respectfully than them. At least after the soldiers killed nine people they tried to ask me for help.

MB: What does the attack on you in Knesset say about Israeli democracy?

HZ: Israel has a general atmosphere of a fascist state that has no critical sense even of its image in the world. It used to be sensitive to its image of democracy. [Knesset Speaker Reuven] Rivlin wants a liberal state and wants others to believe Israel is a democracy. But listen to what they are saying in the Knesset: that we should only pay attention to what we want to; it's not important to pay attention to the goyim. We must believe we are the victim as if victimhood is an ideology.

MB: Are you concerned about threats to your physical safety?

HZ: This is a dangerous time and it is dangerous for Jamal [Zehalka] and others in Balad. I am worried but what worries me more is not the personal threats but the long term political effect of this campaign because it represents a delegitimization of our party and our political platform.

MB: What about the planned measure in the Knesset to strip you of parliamentary privileges?

HZ: The three parliamentary sanctions are nothing -- I mean nothing -- because I can still use my civic passport.

MB: When you were attacked in the Knesset, I was reminded of an incident in 1949, when the first Arab member of Knesset, Tawfiq Toubi, took to the floor to denounce Israeli army brutality against Palestinian villagers living under military rule. Jewish members of the Knesset went crazy just as they did against you, but Toubi was defended by one of Israel's most prominent cultural figures, the socialist poet Nathan Alterman. Did any prominent Israelis speak up in your defense, and if not, why not?

HZ: Hardly anyone spoke up for me. Jamal [Zehalka] said the Knesset is the worst we've ever had. The guards and the workers who've been around the Knesset for 30 years said it's never been this racist before. I think when you have a government led by the likes of [Foreign Minister] Avigdor Lieberman it means that the extremists are not the margins of the Knesset, they are the mainstream. Those who shouted at me were from Kadima, not from the extreme right. Even [the traditionally left-wing party] Meretz is becoming very center. And because of this it has lost power.

[Knesset Speaker] Rivlin was more afraid of hurting the image of the Knesset than of my rights being violated. There are no limits and the famous slogan of Lieberman is now the slogan of everyone: "Citizenship depends on loyalty." He of course means loyalty in a fascist sense. Even when [Interior Minister] Eli Yishai asked to revoke my citizenship there was only one article in the Israeli media saying that this was crazy. What kind of state is this? I read just one article about this!

[Yedioth Aharanot columnist] Amnon Levy was the only one who defended me. He said what's happening is so absurd, you should thank Haneen that she is serving in this Zionist Knesset. You should thank the Palestinians for participating in our game.

MB: Is the anti-Arab atmosphere inside Israel a new phenomenon or the acceleration of a process than began some time ago?

HZ: This is not a new process, and it didn't begin after the flotilla. It really began after the second intifada, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Israelis went to demonstrations not to rally about internal issues but to support the intifada. This was a clear message for Israelis that the state had failed to create the model of the new "Israeli Arab." This is what the state was trying to do, trying to create us an Israeli Arab, someone who was not 100 percent Israeli because we were not Jews but of course not 100 percent Arab either. We were told we could preserve our language and our culture but not our historical memory, our culture, or our identity except on an emotional, romantic level. Essentially we couldn't be Palestinian.

The second intifada was the turning point. It told Israel that it might control the schools, our history and the media but they couldn't stop us from asserting our identity. This led directly to the declaration of Yuval Diskin, the Shin Bet director, who said in 2007, we will fight against any political activity that doesn't recognize Israel as a Jewish state even if the activities are conducted openly and democratically. He clearly was referring to Balad when he said this. By the way, no Israeli paper was shocked by his statement.

MB: The founder of the Balad Party, Azmi Bishara, was forced into exile after being accused of spying for Hizballah. Ameer Makhoul, the Palestinian civil society leader in Israel, has been placed under administrative detention and is facing similar accusations. Omer Said and many other activists are under investigation by the Shin Bet. What is the government trying to accomplish by its crackdown?

HZ: They are trying to establish borders on our political identity and say that we cannot have relations with the broader Arab world. They want to redefine the margins of democracy to exclude any political program that calls for full equality. We are calling for equality without Zionism. This is what the Balad Party says. The fact is, to demand full civic and national equality is actually to demand the end of Zionism. So we don't hate Zionism. Zionism hates democracy.

If the state continues in the direction it is going it will actually change the rules of the game. Balad says there are clear margins of democracy. We believe in democratic values and the system and we will utilize these margins of democracy in order to suggest our vision of full equality. If Israel wants to delete these margins so my vision can no longer be legitimate in the Israeli scene I think a totally different game will develop between us and the state. In this way, the state is pushing us to a crisis. If they disqualify Balad then no Arab party would enter the Knesset and this would provoke a huge crisis. Arabs without a parliamentary role would result in a different kind of relationship between us and the state. This would be the end of democracy. But we know this is what a Jewish state will lead to -- the end of democracy is an inevitable outcome.

MB: How did your prominence after the flotilla impact the situation of Palestinians in Israel?

HZ: It is possible that the flotilla was the beginning of a new historical moment. Israel enjoys keeping us [Palestinians in Israel] out of the agenda of the world. They oppressed us behind the scenes just as they conducted the Nakba behind the scenes. They continued to limit our identity and the world didn't treat us as part of the Palestinian issue because it believed that Israel was a democracy and we were only part of it. The world only looked at the siege of Gaza. So what the Knesset did by attacking me was they showed the world who they really are. And if the world starts to pay attention, especially the part of the world that doesn't traditionally support the Palestinians and believes Israel should be a real democracy, I hope they see from the flotilla and its implications that Israel has a deep structural problem, not a problem of policies. The problem is not an extremist government. The problem is that the largest threat to Zionism is democracy. This is the issue.

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author working in Israel-Palestine. His articles and video documentaries have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Huffington Post, Salon.com, Al-Jazeera English and many other publications. He is a writing fellow for the Nation Institute. His book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party, is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller.

MK Haneen Zoubi: I Joined The Flotilla To Show lsrael Is Not A Democracy

9,000 activists and 35 media organizations to participate in Freedom Flotilla 2

BRUSSELS, (PIC)-- The European campaign to end the Siege on Gaza announced Monday that Freedom Flotilla 2 will be delayed until late September or early October due to expansion in participation from European countries.

The campaign noted that the fleet will have extensive media coverage at an unprecedented level, given the number of vessels and the 9,000 and counting international activists from around the world who have requested to participate in the mission.

More than thirty-five media organizations have requested to participate in the Freedom Flotilla 2, the Brussels-headquartered campaign said, asserting that it intends to have the largest possible number of media on board to detect any new follies Israel may commit against international peace activists.

In the same context, the campaign said: “Talks of allowing building materials [into Gaza] to be used by international organizations only, without meeting the people’s daily needs gives a clear indication that the unjust blockade is still imposed,” emphasizing that the decision to prevent Gaza citizens from benefiting from construction materials is what drives the campaign in establishing the Freedom Flotilla, to bring thousands of tons of building materials to end the suffering of thousands of families whose homes were destroyed by Israeli forces.

The European campaign to lift the siege on Gaza praised the call by EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton for pressuring Israel to open Gaza passageways and allow clearance to all of the people of Gaza’s needs.

“Ashton’s call during her visit to the Gaza Strip today, confirms that Zionist claims about easing the blockade do not meet the requirement, especially in relation to freedom of movement of a people under siege for the fourth consecutive year, through land, sea, and even air passageways,” said Rami Abdo, a member of the European campaign, in a press statement, underlining the necessity for a complete end to the blockade in order to provide the people of Gaza Strip with a decent life.

Palestinian Women Political Prisoners

Palestinian Women Prisoners: "aicvideo | July 18, 2010

Since 1967, approximately 700,000 Palestinians have been arrested and detained under Israeli military orders. This number accounts for close to 20 percent of the population in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Today, 7,000 Palestinians -- including over 300 children and 34 women -- remain in Israeli prisons. The AIC explored the stories of two Palestinian women, both former prisoners, and looked at how Israel uses imprisonment to stifle popular resistance against the occupation.

For more information, visit http://alternativenews.org/

The boycott lsrael movement

Real News Network’s senior editor Paul Jay interviews economist Shir Hever on the growing and increasingly effective boycott movement.

Shir Hever: Basically, it’s a movement that comes from people who support it not because they love Palestinians. It’s not because they feel a special affinity with the Palestinian people in particular — although that also exists of course — but mostly because these people feel that there is a connection between what happens in Palestine, what happens in the Middle East, and their own lives. Because… Israel is a kind of factory for repression and mechanisms of repression that are being sold to other countries in the world, and mechanisms that are used against Palestinians are often replicated and used against citizens of other countries by their governments because they have already been tested on Palestinians as kind of guinea pigs, if you want. And so the boycott movement is also a way for people to voice their dissatisfaction with their governments.

Why are their governments enabling Israel, allowing Israel, to continue to violate international law, to develop and create weapons of mass destruction illegally, to deny Palestinians citizenship and democracy and to incarcerate a million and a half people in the Gaza Strip in conditions of utter poverty where their only means of sustenance is aid from the international community? Why should the international community allow this?…

Paul Jay: So far, the boycott movement, what effect is it having on the Israeli economy?

Hever: The effect is hidden by the Israeli various bureaus of statistics and the manufacturers association for example. There was one survey for example that showed 21% of Israeli exporters reported on average 10% loss of income because of the boycott which was related specifically to the attack on Gaza in 2008-2009. But this report was censored. This report was removed from… was never published, was only leaked to the media once and it’s impossible to get it because the manufacturers association know if that information reaches people who support the boycott movement, that will empower them and give them more confidence to continue their efforts.

Via AlethoNews