Children from Kufr Qasem develop their own activities to educate one another about history, geography and their rights as part of Badil's Youth Education and Activation project, August 2009. Badil

This article is based on my personal experience as a teacher of Palestinian students in Israeli public schools and through my work as school inspector and history curriculum team coordinator for Arab schools from 1975 until 2004. During this period I was engaged in efforts at textbook reform, and on research about Israel's education system which I undertook for my doctoral dissertation.

¹

Background
 
Israel has a highly centralized public education system which is operated and controlled by the Ministry of Education. The only major exception is the ultra-orthodox Jewish education system which enjoys autonomy for ideological reasons.² The state education system operated by the Ministry is composed of two separate streams: the public secular stream, and public national religious stream.
 
Palestinian students make up one quarter of all students in the Israeli state education system.³ All public schools in Palestinian communities in Israel belong to the public secular stream; no public religious schools are available for Palestinians. Public education for Palestinians is administered by the Department for Arab Education, which is a special administrative entity within the Ministry of Education and under its direct control. The Department for Arab Education has no autonomous decision making authorities.
 
Up until 1987, the Department for Arab Education was headed by a Jewish-Israeli director who was appointed by the Ministry and involved in policy making to ensure control over the Palestinian population.⁴ Since then, Palestinians have been appointed to lead the Department but have been excluded from policy decision making as a result of parallel organizational reform which provided for the integration of Arab public schools into the Jewish public education system and its local authorities. Thus, while the Department for Arab Education continued to exist and came to be headed by a Palestinian employed by the Ministry, the heads of Arab Education have held no real power. The Department is only meant to oversee the education of Palestinians and answer to Jewish-Israelis who continue to be in charge.⁵
 
From the beginning, Israeli politicians saw in the state education system, an instrument to realize Zionist political objectives: the founding of a Jewish nation with a shared identity rooted in Zionist beliefs.⁶ Conversely, the educational system was used to ensure a complete lack of Arab and Palestinian identity among the Palestinian citizens of the state.⁷
 
In 1953, Israel passed the Public Education Law with the aim to centralize the education system. In this context, the goals of public education were defined and formalized for the first time. The first goal stated that the educational system seeks to raise youth on the values of Israeli culture, and love of the [Jewish] nation and people of Israel.⁸ This goal remained in place throughout subsequent amendments of the law. No positive goals have been formulated for the education of Palestinians based on the values of Arab, Muslim, and Christian culture and the Palestinian nation. Thus, the teaching of Palestine's history in Israeli schools, both Jewish and Arab, is based on the Zionist narrative which holds that Jews are one people that formed their identity in the land of Israel (Palestine) more than one thousand years ago, and returned to it to form that identity again.⁹
 
Of course Palestine was, and has remained, inhabited by its Arab-Palestinian population, who have marked it with its culture, landmarks, and language. But the Zionist narrative avoids facing this reality. This is expressed in Israeli educational texts and curricula through:

• the secularization of myths from the Torah, i.e. their transformation into facts: the myth of the promised land, for example, is turned into an actual land of the forefathers and the presentation of Israel as the historical homeland of the Jewish nation;
• promotion of a system of social beliefs, such as we are victims, we call for peace, our wars are defensive, our arms are pure, Palestinians hate us, they are the aggressors;¹⁰
• selectiveness in the choice of facts and explanations, ignoring contradictory arguments, especially facts connected to Arab-Palestinian history, or at best, presenting them as a narrative that is part of distorted history.

 
Main findings from research
 
In 1953, the Ministry of Education issued the first history curriculum for Jewish public and religious elementary schools.¹¹ This curriculum was translated into Arabic with some adjustments,¹² and Palestinian students were expected to learn the same narrative as their Jewish peers. Arab and Jewish teachers were subsequently charged with the task of preparing textbooks according to that curriculum. History at that time was taught in a complete chronological cycle, with ideas introduced in elementary school (fifth through eighth grade), revisited and expanded upon in High School (ninth through twelfth grade). In my research, I undertook, among others, to investigate how Zionist history has been presented to Palestinian students in history textbooks up until 1975.
 
Early history textbooks for Palestinian fifth graders,¹³ tell the history of Palestine from the perspective of the [Jewish] people of Israel based on the Torah. Exceptions are a few scattered paragraphs which state that the Canaanites colonized the mountains of Judea and the Negev, the Jebusites colonized the mountains of Jerusalem, and that Palestinians differ from Canaanites and are not Semites.¹⁴
 
As expected, the texts were strongly driven by the Torah: The Hebrews were begot from Abraham, who crossed the Euphrates and settled in an area which naturally splits into three parts, including the middle region, called Sharon, and the northern region, which is separated from the middle region by the Jezreel Valley.¹⁵ Canaanites that lived in that area are described as the primitive tribes.¹⁶
 
The textbook then mentions Jacob, calling him by his last name, Israel: Israel became the father of the Israelite tribes.¹⁷ It then describes the exile of the Israelites to Egypt, and their flight from Egypt, led by Moses: The exodus of the Israelites led by Moses was an important event in their history that remained in the nations mind with the passing of eras. It was a great event that placed them in history as a nation.¹⁸ When the book gets to Joshua Ben Nun, it points to his heroic feats and the sacrifice of his people, which secured victory for them against their enemies.¹⁹
 
The textbook follows the narrative from the Torah, era after era, until the destruction of the temple and the Babylonian capture. From there, the Jews return from captivity during the reign of Cyrus the Great. The book does not deviate from heroic descriptions of the Israelites, justifying all of their wars, and describing the indigenous population of Canaanites and others as enemies and primitive people while using contemporary Hebrew names for names of places and localities, and ignoring their original names.
 
This method is repeated with regard to the history of Palestine under Hellenic rule. The main thrust of the text here concerns the heroic deeds of the Maccabees and their wars, Judah Maccabee went forth with his brothers to secure the foundations of governance and protect the people from enemies, battling the Adamites, and Omarites and the inhabitants of the Galilee, as well as standing up to military campaigns of the Seleucids.²⁰
 
Sixth grade history textbooks do not differ in method or content. The history of Palestine under Roman rule is the history of Jews in Israel until the destruction of the temple in 70 BC. About seven hundred years of the indigenous Palestinians' history is absent from the pages of the book until the onset of the Arab-Islamic conquest. It briefly mentions the Arab conquest of Jerusalem under the heading The Conquest of Jerusalem, with one sentence in particular standing out: Omar [the second Muslim caliph] treated the Jews, who helped the Muslims, well, left them their property and pardoned them from paying taxes.²¹ The aim of this sentence is to provide assurance of a Jewish presence in the city at that time.
 
Although this book revolves around Arab-Islamic history and Islamic civilization until the fall of the Abbasid empire, it does not mention Palestine until the start of the crusades. It also remains silent about Arab initiatives in Palestine, such as the building of Ramla by Sulayman bin Abd al-Malek, and the construction of the Hisham Palace in Jericho. Casual mention is given (pp. 155-156) of the building of the Dome of the Rock, and then the Aqsa mosque, during the reign of Abd al-Malek ibn Marwan.
 
Returning to the history of Palestine, a history textbook for seventh graders called Yearning for Zion contains the following sentence: facing [the Christian oppression of Jews in Europe], their attachment to their beliefs grew and their desire to return to Zion, the land that the Romans forced them out of in the first century AD, deepened.²² Under the heading The Relationship Between Jews in Diaspora and the Land of Israel the book reviews at length stories of individuals or small groups of Jews that immigrated to Tiberias, Safad, and the villages of Galilee between the years 1141-1662. It describes their achievements in every field, portraying them as the ones who made the area blossom.
 
To sum up, the textbook omits the history of Palestine from 638 to 1791 except insofar as it pertains to Jews. The two main exceptions are the construction the walls of Jerusalem by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1542, to protect the city from Bedouin attacks (p. 186), and the mention of Napoleon's siege of Akka (p. 301).
 
The Zionist historical narrative is completed in the eighth grade history textbook²³ which presents the contemporary history of Palestine. The topic is divided into two units: The English in Israel (instead of the British Mandate in Palestine) and The Founding of the State of Israel. Thirty of sixty class periods that eighth graders must attend are devoted to this second chapter. In the spirit of the curriculum, the narrative in this book revolves around subheadings with suggestive meanings, such as The Continuous Yearning for Return and National Independence (pp. 178-182). This chapter, as well as the chapters that follow, address at length everything that has any connection to contemporary Jewish history from the perspective of the Zionist historical narrative, until the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Under the heading War of Independence (p. 222), the book states that the armies of the Arab countries entered the country in May of 1948 and fought against the Israeli forces . . . which were able to push back these armies until the four countries that have shared borders with Israel were forced . . . to sign a truce. As for Arab-Palestinian society, it is completely absent in the textbook. Moreover, not even one word is spent on the Palestinian refugees.
 
This trend repeats itself in the high school curriculum and textbooks, and which are all translated from Hebrew, with the only exception of the book The History of Arabs prepared by Salman Falah (a former education inspector) who writes that Omar Ibn al-Khatab divided greater Syria into the regions of Hims, Hama, Aleppo and Israel [sic].²⁴
 
Efforts at educational reform
 
In 1975, I began my work as school inspector and coordinator for the history team in the Arab schools and set out to change the situation. A first success came in 1976 when a new curriculum was issued for elementary and middle schools.²⁵ The new curriculum differed from its predecessor in the following ways: 

• The name Palestine was inserted into the curriculum for the first time, instead of the land of Israel. Places were named using their original Arabic names rather than the Hebraized names of the older curriculum;
• The emphasis on the Torah narrative was reduced, and the histories of other peoples, like the Canaanites, were highlighted. Emphasis on the Zionist narrative of the history of Palestine was reduced, and an Arab-Palestinian historical narrative was introduced for contrast. For instance, a new headline read: The beginning of Jewish colonization and the Arabs in Palestine²⁶ instead of the previous Yearning for Zion and the Return to Israel. In other words, the focus of the curriculum shifted from the Zionist historical narrative of Israel towards a history of Palestine.

 
Following the publication of the new curriculum, I also oversaw the preparation of a series of books that replaced the previous textbooks. A new book which most strongly related to Palestinian history was a history textbook for the sixth grade.²⁷ It said, for example, that The Torah states that the prophet Moses . . . (p. 26), and that Joshua Ben Nun resorted to subterfuge in his battle against the Canaanites (p. 28). This stylistic change, which makes mention of the Torah in reported language, improved the objectivity of the text, allowing for a critical approach towards the Torah-Zionist narrative. A seventh grade textbook surveying at length the history of Palestine under the rule of the crusaders, moreover, notes: The crusaders also built relationships with the Muslims in their everyday life by hiring Arab craftsmen, as well as being influenced by their Eastern style of dress and manners.²⁸
 
Part two of the history textbook for the eighth grade contains the heading Palestine in the Age of Political Organizations, and says: For forty years in the nineteenth century, the Ottomans tried to control the inhabitants of Palestine by recognizing local leadership.²⁹ In this way, the Arab-Palestinian narrative began to gain ground in textbooks, albeit in a limited fashion.
 
As for high school, I oversaw the preparation of a new curriculum in 1999, which was only approved by the Education Ministry after a two-year long battle. This curriculum included an entire unit called Modern Arab-Palestinian Society.³⁰ It covers the Palestinian presence on the land until 1948. In the unit on The War of 1948, we prepared a chapter titled The Origin of the Refugee Problem (Expulsion? Escape?).³¹ By the time I stopped working with the Ministry of Education in 2004, a version of the textbook that included this chapter had not yet been published. The Arab-Palestinian narrative did however appear in a general, brief form in the three sections of textbooks over which I oversaw preparation.³²One chapter ends with the sentence, many Palestinians whose cities and villages were occupied were forced to leave their homes and became refugees, because of the dangers of war and its destruction, and because of a number of massacres that were perpetrated against them, such as the Massacre of Deir Yassin in April 1948.
 
The ideological backlash
 
In April 2004, I left my post at the Ministry of Education, but I continued to follow the government's development of the curriculum. A new high school curriculum was issued in 2007³³, which was followed in 2008 by a new curriculum for elementary and middle school levels,³⁴ replacing both the 1976 and 1999 curricula. The new curriculum for elementary school completely erased modern Palestinian history. Also erased was the unit called The History of Arab-Palestinian Society in the Modern Era for high schoolers. Again, the Zionist historical narrative is imposed on Palestinian students in history textbooks which ignore the history and culture of the Palestinian people. Just as in the period before 1975, anything connected to the history of the Palestinian people has been erased in the revised curricula of 2007 and 2008.
 
Such orientation will leave a negative impact on students in the long term. First, the connection between the Palestinian-Arab students and their history, culture and identity is severed. This effect is reinforced by the lack of extra-curricular educational activities in Arab schools, such as the commemoration of important events, including the Nakba, massacres, and important political events. This in addition to the prohibition on commemorating national personalities and thinkers such as Ghassan Kanafani, Mahmoud Darwish and Edward Said. Such commemorations are now about to become explicitly banned by the Ministry of Education. Severing this connection means that the cultural wellsprings, which allow students to build their collective history and identity, are dried out. As a result, students are likely to slide towards alienation from their homeland, and opportunities for reflection on the Palestinian people's history and their ongoing Nakba, which are vital for students to form their world view, are missed.
 
The second impact of a Zionist historical narrative in curricula, including the use of Hebrew names and the Hebraization of Arabic names of places in textbooks, is to raise students on the idea that the country, Palestine, called Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), belongs to Jews. Palestinian students are inculcated with the idea that Jews are the original and oldest inhabitants of the land and the most attached to it. Raising Arab-Palestinian students on this idea, while not providing adequate cultural and historical knowledge to challenge it, encourages alienation from their homeland.
 
Feelings of alienation will later on undermine the capacity of students to tackle oppressive policies, especially in matters of land and social culture, and transform them into easy prey for the dominant Israeli political discourse which can be summarized as follows: this is the land of the Jewish people. We returned to our rightful historic homeland and built it up. You Arab-Palestinians are just passers-by, strangers to this land, and a source of annoyance to our presence. This is the discourse underlying Israeli political demands for the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.
 
Palestinian history teachers can do little to correct this negative trend. They are limited by the state curriculum and textbooks, and banned from deviating from these texts. They are also monitored by officials in the schools, and by the Ministry of Education. Ultimately, Palestinian students have no choice but to memorize history as it is presented in the textbooks, because they will take their final high school graduation exams (bagrut), in which the Ministry of Education prepares the questions and evaluates the students' answers.
 
Some would argue that history classes and textbooks are no longer central for students to get to know their history and build a collective memory and identity. New means of communication, as well as the role of television and computers, have become the vectors of that memory. Scholars, however, agree that school textbooks, and especially history textbooks, have remained central in building memory and fashioning identity.³⁵ This, because students, like others in society, absorb information from various sources in a haphazard and unsystematic manner, and usually in an individual setting. History classes on the other hand, meet day after day, year after year, and from an early age until maturity. School history education is delivered through systematic, didactic and pedagogical methods, and in a collective setting with peers. History classes and history textbooks therefore remain the central and strongest element in the fashioning of identity, and play a crucial role in building collective memory, or, as in our case, erasing it.
 
Endnotes
1 Barghouthi, Said: Ideology, Education and Multiculturalism: A Study of Jewish Education in Israel Submitted for PhD, The Faculty of Social and Environment Studies, The University of Liverpool, 2003
2 The Structure of the Education System in Israel (in Hebrew) www.ab-lifeschooling.com
3 The State of Arab Education at the start of the 2009/2010 school year, The Committee for the Monitoring of Arab Education (in Hebrew), a study without date.
4The establishment of separate Arab departments was a common practice in the early period of Israel's existence as a means of control over the Palestinian population in all aspects of daily life. Key positions in the Department for Arab Education were held by Jews, the majority of whom were intelligence officers. (See: Ian Lustick, Arabs in the Jewish State. Israel's Control of a National Minority; University of Texas Press, 1980; also: S. Mar'i, Arab Education in Israel, Syracuse University Press, 1978.)
5 Text of a Job Vacancy posting for Principal of the Administration for Arab Education, The Ministry of Education 20003, (in Hebrew).
6 Bin Eleizer, Uri, A Nation in Military Uniform and the War: Israeli in its Early Years, Zamaneem, 49 (Summer 1994) pg. 51, (in Hebrew.)
7 Al-Haj, Magid: Education, Empowerment and Control: The Case of the Arabs in Israel, State University of New York, 1995, pg. 128
8 Eideen, Shafeeh, The Goals of Education in Israel, Tel Aviv 1976, pg. 10 (in Hebrew.)
9 Prior, M, Zionism and the State of Israel. London, 1999 pg. 205-211
10 ibid., pg. 228
11 Curriculum for State and State Religious Elementary Schools, Ministry of Education and Culture, Jerusalem, 1953 (in Hebrew.)
12 Curriculum for State Arabic Elementary Schools, Ministry of Education and Culture (no date or place of publishing)
13 Hadad, Ezra, Daniel, Ilyas: The History of Fifth Grade in Elementary School, according to the new curricula, Taburski, Tel Aviv, 1957.
14 ibid., pg. 60
15 ibid., pg. 61
16 ibid., pg. 61
17 ibid., pg. 63
18 ibid., pg. 65
19 ibid., pg. 68
20 ibid., pg. 149
21 Ibrahim, Hayla and al-Thahur, Abd al-Karim: History for Sixth Grade in Elementary School According to the New School Curricula, Taburski, Tel Aviv 1963, pg. 117.
22 Abu Manneh, Butrus, History for Seventh Grade in Elementary School according to the New School Currricula, Taburski, Tel Aviv, 1964, pg. 205
23 Falah, Salman, History for Eighth Grade in Elementary School According the the New School Curricula, Dar al-Nahdha, Nazzereth, 1975.
24 Falah, Salman: History for Arabs in 10^th Grade, pg. 46
25 History for the Elementary and Middle Levels, Ministry of Education and Culture, The Center for Educational Curricula, 1^st Printing, Arshelem, Jerusalem, 1976.
26 ibid., pg. 36
27 Barghouthi, Said, Zubi Yousef, Frances Fayhim, The History of Peoples Civilizations around the Mediterranean, The Ministry of Education and Culture, Education Administration, Department of Educational Curiculla, Arshliam, Jerusalem, 2004, revised edition, pg. 285.
28 Barghouthi, Said, History Lessons for Seventh Grade, the Ministry of Education and Culture, Education Administration, Department of Educational Curricula, Urshalim al-Quds, 2004, revised edition, pg. 285
29Barghouthi, Said, Bashara Zahir, Zubi Yousef, Kabha Moustafa: History for Eight Grade, Part Two, according to the history curriculum for Arab schools, first printing, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, The education secretary, p. 158.
30 History Curriculum for High School in Arab Schools (10^th 12^th Grade), The Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, Education Administration, The Center for Educational Curricula, Experimental Printing, Jerusalem, 1999, pg. 28-33.
31 ibid., pg. 33
32 The first was called The Palestinian Question in the book Modern Middle Eastern History Barghouthi, Said and others, The Modern Middle East, Part Two according to the curriculum for teaching history at advanced levels in Arab Schools, Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, Education Administration, Department of Educational Curricula, and The University of Haifa, Department of Educational Curricula, 1998, pg. 276 319; the second The General History of the Arabs in Palestine in the book The Arab Citizens of Israel Al-haj majid (editor), Barghouthi Said (Education editor): The Arab Citizens in Israel, Chapters for High School Civics, The Ministry of Education and Culture, The University of Haifa and the Van Lear Institute in Jerusalem, 1992, pg 12 29; the second The General History of the Arabs in Palestine in the book The Arab Citizens of Israel; the third was called The Geographical, Political, and Historical Context of the Founding of Israel in the book Civics for High Schools. To Be Citizens in Israel, Civics Text for High Schools, Ministry of Education, The Education Secretary, The Center for Curriculum Planning and Development, 2008
33 Educational for the teaching of history for high school, Ministry of Education (tarbiyya wa t3leem) the secretary of Education, The Center for Curriculum Planning, Jerusalem, 2007
34 Educational Curriculum, History for Elementary and Middle School Levels in Arab Schools, The Ministry of Education (tarbiyya wa t3leem), The education secretary, The Center for Curriculum Planning and Development, 2008
35 W. Jacobmeyer, International Textbook Research, Goteborg, 1990, pg. 8-9

Source: http://www.badil.org/en/al-majdal/item/1265-palestinian-history-and-identity-in-israeli-schools in the issue of Al Majdal: http://www.badil.org/en/al-majdal/itemlist/category/158-nakba-education-on-the-path-of-return

Attempts at reform which have come in from the outside world and been imposed from the West over the past 200 years have remained as state and government projects, due to the unwillingness of the powerful elite to engage in democratic processes, which is, in turn, why these attempts at reform are not usually internalized by society as a whole. Those who set out with the goal of changing this situation first need to think carefully before taking steps. Unfortunately, what happens in Turkey is that we first take steps forward, and then start thinking. This could be seen as a bit of an Ottoman tradition, actually.

Of course, in making reforms, we will reap benefits from the West. But we also need to make some semantic interventions into our conceptual framework. The key concepts arising from Western or other cultural wealth of experiences naturally include world views, philosophies and background plans which are directly related to other nations' institutions and political structures. If we simply import these concepts without altering them, they cannot help us; these are concepts which need to be arranged according to our own physical, social and historical development. After all, the Quran itself changed some of the meanings in the language of the society to which it came. While Arabic words maintained the same form, their meaning underwent deep-rooted changes. Likewise, the philosopher Farabi borrowed some basic concepts from Greek metaphysics and philosophy, altering them, and even re-defining some entirely. Had Muslim scholars not done this, Greek philosophy would have remained an archaic resource, and would have been useless in the creation of modern knowledge.

It was in the 19th century that this opportunity presented itself to us. But the figures of the Tanzimat, the Meşrutiyet and the Republic eras of Turkey all formed their relations with the West on a symbolic level, not thinking to form relations on a conceptual level. It was Sultan Mahmut II who first formed these incorrect relations: borrowing jazz music, offering alcoholic drinks at official meetings, changing outfits, replacing the sarık with the fez, then later the fez with the hat, banning the headscarf, intervening in the wearing of beards by men, and so on. These were all models accepted in the 20th century which derived from Mahmut II.

I talked a bit above about the relations between the Abbasis and Greek philosophy, and how it was not on the level of “awe and symbols,” but rather on a smart and conceptual level. This was true also for their relations with Indian, Babylonian, Iranian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures. Note that Muslims did not translate Greek literature, mythology, tragedies and poetry into Arabic. They translated instead the philosophy and knowledge. Their goal in doing this was to benefit from the wealth of experience and knowledge of other cultures and civilizations, and to use their own religion and abilities to engage in their own semantic changes to all this. Looked at from this perspective, the modernization of Ottoman-Turk was unsuccessful; it cannot be an example to the Islamic world. What we need to take instead as an example is the above-mentioned Abbasi model.

We could use these Abbasi methods today to help us in finding solutions and providing new frameworks through which to interpret and understand our problems with democracy, civil society, and so on. Of course, this does not mean we will simply affect whichever changes grab us at the moment with these concepts. But at the same time, we ought not to simply import concepts from the West as they are, and should instead alter and shape them according to our own culture, history and society. When we grapple with the process of societal change, and deal with it according to this sort of framework, then we can use our own inner dynamics to change.

Todays Zaman (via TimeTurk)

source: http://en.timeturk.com/ali-bulac-what-we-get-from-the-west,-and-how-to-use-it–894-yazisi.html

Somewhere along the line this all changed. Whether it was because of industrialization, urbanization or adaptations in military strategy, one stark and indisputable fact remains: at the beginning of the twentieth century the ratio of civilian to military deaths in wars was one to eight and by the end of it inverted to eight to one.

Certainly, there were turning points that made us cringe at the destructive power of humanity. Dresden, Nagasaki, Auschwitz and others led us to the conclusion that in today’s wars civilians needed more protection from the world’s most destructive powers–states. The laws of war, specifically those designed to protect civilians, were codified as urban settings increasingly became the locales of industrialized destruction.

There is perhaps no theater of war in a more urban setting than the Gaza Strip. As one of the most densely populated spots on the planet, Gaza is precisely the type of place laws of war were meant to protect civilians. It becomes comical then to even consider the notion put forward by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recently. He boldly claimed that the laws of war should be amended so that operations like the one Israel carried out in Gaza this past winter that left over 1,400 dead, mostly civilians, could be legal.

In a war that could have been entirely avoided, Israel chose not only to attack but also to do so in a cowardly way that guaranteed tremendous civilian deaths and destruction to civilian infrastructure. The Israeli leadership, likely wary of upcoming elections and the Israeli electorates intolerance for casualties, decided to strike Gaza from a distance using disproportionate force and illegal weapons to keep their casualty rate down. On their way out of the Strip, the Israeli forces destroyed civilian factories and fields with the clear intention of levying collective punitive damages on the people of Gaza. It is precisely because political leaders in Israel consciously made this decision that they committed war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

The report conducted by Justice Richard Goldstone and his team documents, in gruesome detail, the results of Israel’s cost/benefit analysis. Because of this documentation, some have begun to demand that Israel conduct an independent internal investigation into the allegation levied by the esteemed jurist. But this will not be sufficient. Israel has proven it cannot be trusted to produce justice through its internal investigations.

When thousands of Palestinian refugees were massacred in the Sabra and Shatila camps, for example, an independent Israeli commission was formed to investigate. To their credit, they held their defense minister responsible and recommended that he never be permitted to hold a ministerial position again.

Being banned from the cabinet for playing a role in the murder of 3,000 civilians may seem like a slap on the wrist. Yet, what is even worse, is that the man responsible not only came back onto the political scene, but was elected prime minister! Consequently, Ariel Sharon went on to pursue the largest expansion of Israeli settlements in 20 years. When it comes to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Israel is simply not capable of introspection.

In 1961, an esteemed Jewish writer who had escaped Nazi Germany became embroiled in controversy for criticizing Israel’s decision to try the Nazi Adolph Eichmann. Hannah Arendt’s argument was not that Eichmann deserved mercy but rather his crimes were against humanity, offending all, and that he should be tried before an international tribunal. Disregarding this, the state of Israel tried and executed Adolph Eichmann. That same disregard for international justice exists to this day in the state of Israel. There is an air of arrogance and a determination among the leaders to never let others judge their actions, even other Jews like Richard Goldstone or Hannah Arendt.

The United States has also proven incapable of holding Israel accountable for international law. Instead of upholding the Goldstone report’s recommendations the White House has criticized it. The Congress has begun to tow the usual Likud line by considering a resolution (H. Res 867) slamming the Goldstone report as anti-Israel.

There must come a point when Israel realizes the immorality of its actions in Gaza. But we cannot sit around waiting for that to happen. It was humanity that was targeted in Gaza and it is humanity (all of us regardless to race, nation or creed) that must demand justice.

Yousef Munayyer is Executive Director of the Palestine Center. This policy brief may be used without permission but with proper attribution to the Center.

The views in this brief are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.

source: the author and  http://www.palestinecenterblog.org/

On the afternoon of November 3, 2009, the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of House Resolution 867 (H.Res.867), an AIPAC-backed bill that urges both President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to "oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the "Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict," referred to commonly as the "Goldstone Report." With this vote, the US Congress has not only enshrined its opposition to investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity found to be committed during last winter's Israeli massacre of over 1,400 Palestinians in the closed-off Gaza Strip, but has also affirmed its outrageous and unconscionable commitment to Israel's continuous unfettered aggression and singular unaccountability to international law, rules of military engagement, human rights and basic morality.

In their successful effort to (yet again) shield the State of Israel from any and all scrutiny or criticism over its illegal use of collective punishment and excessive force against an imprisoned, impoverished and defenseless civilian population, Congressional supporters of H.Res.867 sought to discredit the UN's 575-page report of meticulously-documented human rights violations. After visiting Gaza, conducting 188 individual interviews of victims and witnesses, studying more than 300 reports, submissions and other documentation including medical reports and forensic analysis of weapons and ammunition remnants collected in Gaza, amounting to more than 10,000 pages, and reviewing over 30 videos and 1,200 photographs, the Mission, led by South African Justice Richard Goldstone, concluded that "violations of international human rights and humanitarian law and possible war crimes and crimes against humanity" were committed by both parties (Israel and Hamas) during the Israeli assault on Gaza (A/HRC/12/48, p.423).

Goldstone's impeccable and unimpeachable credentials cannot be overstated. As a member of the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, Goldstone was responsible for uncovering and publicizing allegations of the extensive violence committed by Apartheid South African security forces, paving the way for subsequent investigations by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after South African democratization. He served as a judge for the Constitutional Court of South Africa, chairman of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and was a member of the International Panel of the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina (CEANA), tasked to identify and prosecute Nazi war criminals who had emigrated to Argentina. In 2004/5, he was a member of the Volker Committee investigation into the UN’s Iraq oil-for-food program.

The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that, according to a lecture Goldstone delivered in Jerusalem in 2000, he "believes bringing war criminals to justice stems from the lessons of the Holocaust," which he described as "the worst war crime in the world." In Goldstone's view, the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the lessons learned by the international community in the wake of their discovery have "shaped legal protocol on war" and "constituted the basis for the concept of universal jurisdiction."

Not only this, but in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, his own daughter Nicole (once a resident of Israel) even described Goldstone, who is Jewish, as "a Zionist" who "loves Israel." Goldstone currently serves as a trustee at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, the harrowing conclusions and reasonable recommendations of the UN commission were quickly denounced by many US officials (not to mention the pathetic 'who, me?' outrage and phony self-righteousness exhibited by their Israeli counterparts), most of whom had not even read the report in its entirety; their smug derision of the dispassionate facts presented in the report made perfectly clear their intention to cover-up Israeli war crimes and, in so doing, legitimize and endorse Israel's ongoing suppression, dehumanization, starvation, occupation and slaughter of the Palestinian people.

As it has in the past, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) and Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), rushed to Israel's defense. This is the same team that, almost two weeks into the Israeli bombardment, co-sponsored House Resolution 34, a Pelosi-led non-binding declaration that "recogniz[ed] Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza" and "reaffirm[ed] the United States strong support for Israel." H.Res.34 called upon the House of Representatives to express "vigorous support and unwavering commitment to the welfare, security and survival of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders, and [to recognize] its right to act in self-defense to protect its citizens against Hamas's unceasing aggression," in addition to claiming that Israel had "facilitated humanitarian aid to Gaza" during the assault. The resolution also called on "all nations" to "condemn Hamas for deliberately embedding its fighters, leaders and weapons in private homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and otherwise using Palestinian civilians as human shields, while simultaneously targeting Israeli civilians" and "to lay blame both for the breaking of the 'calm' and for subsequent civilian casualties in Gaza precisely where blame belongs, that is, on Hamas."

The resolution made no mention whatsoever to the crippling Israeli blockade, the devastating and ceaseless air and ground assaults by the Israeli military, or the fact that it was the IDF that had, in fact, broken the ceasefire in the first place. The resolution passed almost unanimously (390-5) on the very same day that the Palestinian death toll in Gaza reached 765, half of them children and women, with thousands more wounded, including hundreds in critical condition. As Congress affirmed its "vigorous support [of] and unwavering commitment" to Israel, municipal buildings, homes and mosques in Gaza were shelled relentlessly by the Israeli military using US weaponry. Five days earlier, the Israeli Air Force had launched an attack on a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya, killing over 40 people and wounding over 100 more.

Over seven months later, when the Goldstone Report was released, Representatives Berman and Ros-Lehtinen returned to the drafting table.

Howard Berman, the self-described liberal who voted for the invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003 as well as the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, was described in an article in the Jewish Daily Forward as a "staunch supporter of Israel" and "a cautious backer of the peace process" whose "interest in the Jewish state was one of the main reasons he first sought a seat on the [House Foreign Relations] committee." Berman, possibly in an effort to one-up Joe Biden, boasts that "Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist." Larry Weinberg, an AIPAC board member, confirms Berman's ethno-supremacist credentials saying, "I have known Congressman Berman for many years, and I am continually impressed by his personal commitment to strengthening the bond between the United States and Israel…He is not only a leader on our issues, but he is a friend to many in the pro-Israel community."

Berman is adamant about placing harsh sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, which he constantly mischaracterizes as a "nuclear weapons" program. He, along with his trusty sidekick Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has recently proposed HR 2194, the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act, which seeks to impose sanctions on companies that help Iran to import refined petroleum products or that help it to increase its domestic refinery capacity. In a September speech, Berman claimed that the United States "will be in a much stronger position to maximize our ability to obtain crippling sanctions because of our sincere effort to engage [Iran]." What an enticing proposal for Iran to engage! The speech also contained this brilliant nugget regarding the terrifying menace of a nuclear-armed Iran: "We’re not talking about a regime that has the same calculus – that same sense of restraint – as we do about the use of such a weapon." Perhaps the Congressman forgot that, in addition to being the biggest stockpiler of nuclear weapons on the planet in clear violation of its obligations to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States is also the only country in the history of the world to ever use nuclear weapons. And it used them on innocent civilians. Twice.

Ros-Lehtinen, meanwhile, is not only the most senior Republican woman in the US House, a hawkish Zionist, and a supporter of the Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq, the Military Commission Act, drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the military coup in Honduras. She is also against the funding of stem cell research, affirmative action (scoring a 31% favorability by the NAACP), and civil rights (scoring a dismal 14% by the ACLU) encourages continued sanctions against Cuba (the country of her birth), and has openly called for the assassination of Fidel Castro.

Additionally, as journalist Franklin Lamb points out, Ros-Lehtinen, along with Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, is a pillar of the “fake US Congressional Human Rights Caucus, founded in 1983 which in its quarter century of self congratulatory investigations of Human Rights abuses has yet to find a single human rights abuse by Israel, irrespective of any murders, slaughtering of innocents, home demolitions, political incarcerations, religious bigotry, illegal use of American weapons, illegal siege of Gaza and serial invasions of Lebanon, and the continuing theft of Syria’s Golan Heights. Over the past few years the CHRC has become an Iran-bashing forum for all manner of Zionist zealots and kooks spreading falsehoods and defamations against Islam and the Islamic Republic."

Once H.Res.867 was drawn up, it was rapidly co-sponsored by over 200 other representatives before hitting the House floor for a vote.

The resolution itself neither addresses nor disputes any of the Goldstone Report's actual findings or conclusions. Instead, via a series of deliberately misleading, factually inaccurate and unrelated "whereas" clauses, it seeks to delegitimize the entire Fact Finding Mission as a whole, oftentimes personally attacking its members in an effort to show anti-Israel tendencies or bias. What the resolution actually amounts to is a repetition of Israeli propaganda and Zionist apologia masquerading as a legal and moral defense of indefensible Israeli military aggression.

The wide support it received in Congress demonstrates that the United States House of Representatives is determined only to promote human rights and international law with regards to how it relates to the protection of Israeli Jews and, in equal measure, proves its unequivocal and unabashed disregard, if not outright contempt, for the rights and lives of Palestinians.

The text of H.Res.867 is rife with blatant inaccuracies, decontextualized mischaracterizations and a thorough lack of historical perspective. Many of these factual errors were addressed and corrected in a letter written by Judge Goldstone himself to both Berman and Ros-Lehtinen on October 29.

For instance, in one of its 33 "whereas" clauses, the resolution claims:

"…the mandate of the 'fact-finding mission' makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel's defensive measures."

This is a deliberate, decontextualized falsehood. The mandate called for the UN Mission "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after." (A/HRC/12/48, p.13)

Palestinian rocket attacks, in addition to Israeli military operations, were clearly included in this mandate. Additionally, had those who wrote and supported the House resolution actually read the contents of Goldstone Report rather than simply making things up, they would have been well aware that, in addition to Palestinian rocket attacks and their consequences being mentioned at length in the report's Introduction, there is also an entire 20-page chapter (XXIV, p.346-366) entitled "The Impact on Civilians of Rocket and Mortar Attacks by Palestinian Armed Groups on Southern Israel," which practically begins with the following statement: "Since April 2001, Palestinian armed groups have launched more than 8,000 rockets and mortars from Gaza into southern Israel."

After exhaustively documenting the impact of these rocket attacks, including Israeli fatalities, physical injuries, psychological trauma, mental health, damage to property, the impact on the right to education and on the economic and social life of affected communities (both Israeli and Palestinian within southern Israel), the Mission states that "There is no justification in international law for the launching of rockets and mortars that cannot be directed at specific military targets into areas where civilian populations are located" and concludes that because these rockets cannot be aimed at specific targets, "one of the primary purposes of these continued attacks is to spread terror," an act which it explicitly states is "prohibited under international humanitarian law." (A/HRC/12/48, p.365) It continues:

"…the launching of unguided rockets and mortars breaches the fundamental principle of distinction: an attack must distinguish between military and civilian targets. Where there is no intended military target and the rockets and mortars are launched into civilian areas, they constitute a deliberate attack against the civilian population…

…From the facts available, the Mission finds that the rocket and mortars attacks, launched by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, have caused terror in the affected communities of southern Israel and in Israel as a whole. Furthermore, it is the Mission’s view that the mortars and rockets are uncontrolled and uncontrollable, respectively. This indicates the commission of an indiscriminate attack on the civilian population of southern Israel, a war crime, and may amount to crimes against humanity. These attacks have caused loss of life and physical and mental injury to civilians and damage to private houses, religious buildings and property and have eroded the economic and cultural life of the affected communities." (A/HRC/12/48, p.366) (emphasis mine). 

The Goldstone Report is perfectly clear. The House Resolution is deliberately false. Furthermore, as Jeremy R. Hammond of Foreign Policy Journal deftly points out, the resolution "ignores the fact that even if Israel’s military operations were justifiable as 'defensive measures,' Israel would still be legally obligated to conduct its operations in accordance with international law, and to conduct investigations into alleged war crimes conducted by its own forces."

The resolution and its supporters repeatedly refer to the Goldstone Report as "one-sided," referencing comments made by both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice, who called its initial mandate "unbalanced, one sided and basically unacceptable." However, as Goldstone himself explains, "the House resolution fails to mention that notwithstanding my repeated personal pleas to the Government of Israel, Israel refused all cooperation with the Mission. Among other things, I requested the views of Israel with regard to the implementation of the mandate and details of any issues that the Government of Israel might wish us to investigate," continuing,

"This refusal meant that Israel did not offer any information or evidence it may have collected regarding actions by Hamas or other Palestinian groups in Gaza. Any omission of such information and evidence in the report is regrettable, but is the result of Israel’s decision not to cooperate with the Fact-Finding mission, not a decision by the mission to downplay or cast doubt on such information and evidence."

The Israeli government even denied the Mission entry to Israel in order to interview witnesses and tour affected communities such as Sderot [sic; the real name of the town is Najd] and Ashkelon [sic; the real name of the town is al-Majdal]. Israeli witnesses had to be flown to Geneva or Jordan to be interviewed. Other interviews were conducted over the phone and via the internet. "I believed that Israel would cooperate," Goldstone told Ha'aretz. "It turned to be a naïve expectation."

So what was Congressman Berman's response?

"Justice Goldstone is correct. The Government of Israel decided not to cooperate with the Mission, based on its biased mandate, as well as the UNHRC's long history of anti-Israel bias. I find that position, at the least, understandable."

Understandable or not, Berman's resolution omits Israel's refusal to cooperate, while at the same time claiming that Hamas, which did cooperate with the Mission and allowed its members full access to Gaza, was "able to significantly shape the findings of the investigation mission's report by selecting and prescreening some of the witnesses and intimidating others." In turn, Goldstone replied, "The allegation that Hamas was able to shape the findings of my report or that it pre-screened the witnesses is devoid of truth. I challenge anyone to produce evidence in support of it."

Berman's only "evidence" is his subsequent claim that "the commission conducted some of its proceedings through holding televised open hearings in Gaza. Given its total control of Gaza and its ability to intimidate, Hamas almost certainly would have been able to control the access and message of each witness attending a televised open hearing. What is beyond doubt is that witnesses were keenly aware that Hamas was monitoring the televised proceedings and likely to inflict reprisals for any unwelcome testimony." The only thing that seems "almost certainly" "beyond doubt" is Berman's ceaseless proclivity to make baseless assumptions about a place he's never been and an incredibly stalwart and resilient people he's never met.

It is doubtful that Berman would also conclude that past testimonies given by Israeli soldiers regarding the gross misconduct and war crimes committed in Gaza were also the result of militaristic intimidation, most likely agreeing with the aborted military probe that, unsurprisingly, found the allegations to be "based in hearsay" and "rumors," and declared an end to the probe. According to Congressman Berman, the only apparent trustworthy source on what happens in Gaza is the Israeli government. What a relief.

In reality, the Goldstone Report's findings are unequivocal and unambiguous. Among many other conclusions, it found that Israel's "repeated failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians appears to the Mission to have been the result of deliberate guidance issued to soldiers, as described by some of them, and not the result of occasional lapses" and that "the destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories and residential houses was the result of a deliberate and systematic policy by the Israeli armed forces. It was not carried out because those objects presented a military threat or opportunity, but to make the daily process of living, and dignified living, more difficult for the civilian population." (A/HRC/12/48, p.407)

The Mission found that Israeli operations, in many cases, constituted "an assault on the dignity of the people" and included not only "the use of human shields and unlawful detentions sometimes in unacceptable conditions, but also in the vandalizing of houses when occupied and the way in which people were treated when their houses were entered. The graffiti on the walls, the obscenities and often racist slogans, all constituted an overall image of humiliation and dehumanization of the Palestinian population." (A/HRC/12/48, p.407)

Because the Israeli government has consistently claimed that all phases of "Operation Cast Lead" were thoroughly and extensively planned, that legal opinions and advice were given throughout the planning stages and at certain operational levels during the campaign, and that, according to the Government of Israel, almost no mistakes made during the planning or operation itself, the Goldstone Report concludes that "what occurred in just over three weeks at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 was a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability." Furthermore, "Whatever violations of international humanitarian and human rights law may have been committed, the systematic and deliberate nature of the activities described in this report leave the Mission in no doubt that responsibility lies in the first place with those who designed, planned, ordered and oversaw the operations." (A/HRC/12/48, p.408)

Clearly, these revelations are far too damning for the US Congress, which funds the Israeli military apparatus to the tune of $3 billion each year and provides devastating weaponry with which to slaughter Palestinians by the hundreds, to bear and therefore must be buried. With this in mind, it is all too obvious that H.Res.867 is meant to be a distraction from the truth; it is a deliberate and disingenuous deflection of well-documented, substantiated, and widely corroborated evidence of Israeli war crimes that, in its reflexive self-righteousness, reveals itself to be no more than a study in double standards, moral relativism and selective outrage.

As such, the resolution and its uncreative backers in the House, resorted to obvious repetitions of hasbara in a well-coordinated effort to silence all criticism of Israeli actions, cover-up evidence of Israeli war crimes, and condone any and all military aggression, invasion, and occupation – no matter how illegal, inhumane, or truculent – committed by any so-called "democracy" in the name of "self-defense."

When the resolution made it to the floor of the House on Tuesday afternoon, Congress members from all over the country lined up to lend their vocal support to Reps. Berman and Ros-Lehtinen and the resolution. They all basically said the same thing: that the wicked, blood-lusting terrorists of Hamas used Palestinians as human shields and that a victimized, peace-loving, democratic Israel, via the findings of the Goldstone Report, is being unfairly condemned for merely acting out of self-defense.

Ros-Lehtinen, in her defense of H.Res.867, called the Goldstone Report a "575-page hatchet job" that "persecut[ed] Israel for defending herself," claiming that the Mission "disregarded evidence that Hamas and other such groups in Gaza used innocents as human shields and deliberately launched attacks from schools, from hospitals, from mosques." (Congressional Record H12234 11/3/09)

By the time these statements were made, Judge Goldstone had already addressed them thusly: "It is factually incorrect to state that the Report denied Israel the right of self-defense," he wrote in his letter to Berman. "The report examined how that right was implemented by the standards of international law."

The Report itself even addresses Israel's claim to self-defense. It concluded:

"While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.

In this respect, the operations were in furtherance of an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience and for its apparent support for Hamas, and possibly with the intent of forcing a change in such support. The Mission considers this position to be firmly based in fact, bearing in mind what it saw and heard on the ground, what it read in the accounts of soldiers who served in the campaign, and what it heard and read from current and former military officers and political leaders whom the Mission considers to be representative of the thinking that informed the policy and strategy of the military operations." (A/HRC/12/48, p.406)

In response to the unsubstantiated, albeit constantly repeated, claims that Hamas militants hide behind innocent civilians as a defensive strategy, Goldstone notes that the Mission found no conclusive "evidence that Hamas forced civilians to remain in their homes in order to act as human shields. Indeed, while the Government of Israel has alleged publicly that Hamas used Palestinian civilians as human shields, it has not identified any cases where it claims that civilians were doing so under threat of force by Hamas or any other party."

Nevertheless, because the issue of Hamas using civilians as "human shields" is so deeply ingrained in the Zionist propaganda talking points of both Israeli and American apologists for Israeli atrocities, any contradiction of this assumed justification for the willful murder of vast numbers of innocent Palestinians by the Israeli military is brushed aside as an absurd fabrication and distortion of reality. As such, despite relevant facts and evidence to the contrary, it is repeated again and again by Israeli and American officials, parroted by an uncritical media, and in entrenched in the psyche of the gullible public to become indisputable doctrine.

Desmond Travers, who was one of the four members of Goldstone's UN Mission, addressed the "human shield" allegation in a recent interview with Harper's Magazine. A retired Colonel of the Army of the Irish Defence Forces and the former Commandant of its Military College, Travers has also served in "command of troops with various UN and EU peace support missions." In response to a question regarding whether "Hamas deliberately inserted its fighters among civilians" and therefore was responsible for deliberately increasing the civilian death toll of the conflict, Travers said this:

"We found no evidence that Hamas used civilians as hostages. I had expected to find such evidence but did not. We also found no evidence that mosques were used to store munitions. Those charges reflect Western perceptions in some quarters that Islam is a violent religion. Gaza is densely populated and has a labyrinth of makeshift shanties and a system of tunnels and bunkers. If I were a Hamas operative the last place I’d store munitions would be in a mosque. It’s not secure, is very visible, and would probably be pre-targeted by Israeli surveillance. There are a many better places to store munitions. We investigated two destroyed mosques — one where worshippers were killed — and we found no evidence that either was used as anything but a place of worship."

As part of the House floor debate, Congressman Ron Klein (D-FL) claimed that the Goldstone Report "does nothing to advance peace and security in the Middle East" but rather "serves to reinforce the deep mistrust that pervades the region and excuses the actions of terrorist groups and their state sponsors." He did not discuss how identifying war crimes and human rights violations would be anathema to promoting peace and security.

"The Goldstone Report ignores the facts," Klein continued. "The terrorist threat surrounding Israel's defensive actions in Gaza require a decisive response, and any sovereign nation would have and should have done what Israel did," adding, "I would urge U.N. member states to devote time and thoughts to the realities of human rights around the world, not Israel." (CR H12233 11/3/09) Clearly, for Ron Klein, the 'realities of human rights around the world' and 'Israel' are mutually exclusive.

Eliot Engel (D-NY) claimed that the Goldstone Report is "part of an ongoing effort at the U.N. to single out Israel and to deny Israel the same rights accorded to other nations" and that it "equates Israel's long-delayed acts of self-defense [sic] with Hamas' 12,000 intentional, indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians since 2001." He closed his comments by urging Congress to "stand by" Israel. (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Eric Cantor (R-FL) claimed that "For years, without provocation, Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza launched thousands of deadly rockets at Israeli civilians. The attacks laid siege to entire swaths of Israelis. By last December, Israel said enough was enough." (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Steny Hoyer (D-MD) echoed Cantor's statements, saying,

"The Goldstone Report largely neglects the context within which Israel's action took place. Why is that context so vital, and why is the report so empty without it? Because for years — for years — Israel has been the target of asymmetrical warfare for terrorists who hide behind civilians and aim to kill civilians. For 8 years before Operation Cast Lead, Hamas, aided by Iran and others, launched deadly rockets and mortar fire into Israel, even after Israel dismantled its Gaza settlements, even after it withdrew its military. More than 6,000 rockets have fallen indiscriminately on southern Israel’s cities and towns. I can't imagine there is one of us in this Chamber that if Canada or Mexico rained down six missiles on our civilian population — not 6,000 on our population — that there would be a Member here who would not want decisive response to stop that assault." (CR H12238 11/3/09)

Dan Burton (R-IN) also chimed in with a short speech that sounded like it was written in a joint fit of Alzheimer's disease and Tourette's syndrome. In it, he declared that "Israel has been our friend forever," which is an odd thing to say considering that Burton was already ten years old by the time the colonial European Zionist founders of the State of Israel unilaterally declared its independence. Burton continued:

"Ariel Sharon tried to reach out in a peaceful way to give Gaza back to the Palestinians [sic]. And what happened? Hamas goes in there and starts launching missile after missile after missile at innocent people, blowing them up, trying to kill them. They want to destroy Israel, as does Iran [sic]…

…There shouldn’t be one vote, not one vote in this place against Israel.

And the people who are making these comments on the other side of the aisle really bother me, because Israel has been such a great friend of ours and they have been trying to reach peace over there forever [sic]. And, instead, they keep getting rocket attack after rocket attack, and then they are criticized for human rights problems because they defend themselves [sic].

If we launched missiles into Michigan, I guarantee you, Michigan would be really ticked off at us and would want to stop it and would do everything they could to stop it. We ought to support Israel." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

Against her better judgment, even Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) decided to lend her version of recent history to the Congressional Record:

"In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza to allow the Palestinians to begin building a state. They didn’t. Instead, Hamas used the Gaza to terrorize the Palestinian people and as a launch pad to rain missiles on Israeli cities, 8,000 rocket attacks in a 3-year period. In the fall of 2008, even more rockets fell on innocent Israelis and the situation became untenable…For those who suggest that Israel used disproportionate force, I say Israel used extraordinary restraint: missile after missile, injury after injury, death after death, and year after year." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

The issues raised by these Representatives are indicative of a staggering amount of misinformation that permeates the halls of Congress and beyond. Hoyer's suggestion that the Goldstone Report neglects to contextualize last winter's assault is a statement devoid of all fact, due either to the Congressman's intentional desire to obfuscate the truth or, perhaps more likely, his unfamiliarity with the Report's actual contents. Part One includes extensive historical background of Israel's policies toward Palestinians, including the devastating three-year blockade (A/HRC/12/48, p.82-85), and Palestinian resistance to ongoing oppression, subjugation, apartheid, and aggression in both Gaza and the West Bank (albeit beginning in 1967, thereby omitting the true context of a century of Zionist colonization in Palestine, the Nakba, and almost two decades of martial law for Arab citizens of Israel; chances are, however, this is not the missing information Steny Hoyer wishes to include). The Report clearly states the importance of context:

"The Mission is of the view that Israel's military operation in Gaza between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 and its impact cannot be understood or assessed in isolation from developments prior and subsequent to it. The operation fits into a continuum of policies aimed at pursuing Israel's political objectives with regard to Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole. Many such policies are based on or result in violations of international human rights and humanitarian law." (A/HRC/12/48, p.404)

Also included is the Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005. Whereas the Representatives speaking in favor of adopting H.Res.867 refer to the withdrawal as an Israeli move toward peace that was met by Palestinian violence, the Report provides a much more fact-based assessment of the Gaza narrative, revealing that under the disengagement plan, "the Israeli armed forces continued to maintain control over Gaza’s borders, coastline and airspace, and Israel reserved 'its inherent right of self-defence, both preventive and reactive, including where necessary the use of force, in respect of threats emanating from the Gaza Strip.'" (A/HRC/12/48, p.49)

Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, in an article written in the midst of the Gaza massacre early this year and published in the Guardian, elaborates on the implications of the Israeli withdrawal:

"To the world, Sharon presented the withdrawal from Gaza as a contribution to peace based on a two-state solution. But in the year after, another 12,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank, further reducing the scope for an independent Palestinian state. Land-grabbing and peace-making are simply incompatible. Israel had a choice and it chose land over peace.

The real purpose behind the move was to redraw unilaterally the borders of Greater Israel by incorporating the main settlement blocs on the West Bank to the state of Israel."

The Goldstone Report, both in its "Context" section (A/HRC/12/48, p.46-61) and Chapter IV (entitled "Applicable Law," p.71-81), discusses how the Israeli military occupation of Gaza did not end with the withdrawal, stating,

"Israel removed both settlements and military bases protecting the settlers from the Gaza Strip, redeploying on Gaza’s southern border and repositioning its forces to other areas just outside the Gaza Strip. In addition to controlling the borders, coastline and airspace, after the implementation of the disengagement plan, Israel continued to control Gaza's telecommunications, water, electricity and sewage networks, as well as the population registry, and the flow of people and goods into and out of the territory while the inhabitants of Gaza continued to rely on the Israeli currency." (A/HRC/12/48, p.49)

Shlaim is even more direct in his description of the aftermath of Israeli "disengagement":

"Gaza was converted overnight into an open-air prison. From this point on, the Israeli air force enjoyed unrestricted freedom to drop bombs, to make sonic booms by flying low and breaking the sound barrier, and to terrorise the hapless inhabitants of this prison."

The focus on the number of Palestinian rockets and mortars fired from Gaza into southern Israel (a statistic that ranges generally from 6,000 to 8,000) is oft-repeated and used, most recently by members of Congress, to demonstrate the "asymmetrical warfare for terrorists" in Gaza inflicted upon the innocent Israelis.

A quick look at the facts reveals a very different perspective of what "disproportionate" really means. The Goldstone Report states that, in the mere fourteen months from the September 2005 disengagement until November 2006, "the Israeli armed forces fired approximately 15,000 artillery shells and conducted more than 550 air strikes into the Gaza Strip. Israeli military attacks killed approximately 525 people in Gaza. Over the same period, at least 1,700 rockets and mortars were fired into Israel by Palestinian militants, injuring 41 Israelis." (A/HRC/12/48, p.51-52)

Such statistics show that for each homemade rocket we are told terrorizes and traumatizes the children of Sderot, there are at least nine Israeli shells on Gaza that bring death and destruction to Palestinian children who are already forced to live in constant horror and humiliation.

In all of 2007, five Israelis, none of whom were children, were killed in Israel in incidents involving Palestinian violence. The same year, over three hundred Palestinians in Gaza, 29 of which were children, were killed by Israeli violence (another 91, including 14 children, were killed by Israeli or settler violence in the West Bank). The following year, up through October 2008, a total of 30 Israelis, including 4 children, were killed by Palestinian violence. In contrast, in the first ten months of 2008, 389 Palestinians, including 69 children, were killed by Israel in Gaza alone, not to mention the 56 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Israel. Between December 27, 2008 and January 21, 2009, the Israeli air force, navy, and army murdered 926 Palestinian civilians, including 313 children, 116 women, 497 civilian men, and 255 non-combatant police officers, wounded over six thousand, and left tens of thousands homeless. 236 Palestinian combatants were also killed. Disproportionately, 10 of the 13 Israelis killed in those 26 days were Israeli soldiers, four of whom died by friendly fire.

The actual "asymmetry" of Israel's bombardment of Gaza is also evident when considering that, as Hamas and other Palestinian resistance groups fight with conventional weapons, homemade rockets, and thrown stones, the IDF employs tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, unmanned drones, howitzer artillery, as well as the illegal use of such destructive weaponry as white phosphorous, flechette missiles, dense inert metal explosive (DIME) munitions, and even depleted and non-depleted uranium. (A/HRC/12/48, p.194-199)

Although resolution advocates like Eric Cantor describe Palestinian rocket attacks as being initiated "without provocation," the truth reveals something completely different. It is clear from such New York Times, Reuters, Ha'aretz, Guardian, Yediot Ahronot, The Times (UK), BBC, and Amnesty International reports that Israel broke the ceasefire, leading to an escalation of events eventually culminating with Operation Cast Lead. It has even been conclusively proven that, with regard to who breaks ceasefires more often, the Israeli military or Palestinian militants, "a systematic pattern does exist: it is overwhelmingly Israel, not Palestine, that kills first following a lull. Indeed, it is virtually always Israel that kills first after a lull lasting more than a week."

Even the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a governmental think tank that, according to its own website, "serves shared staff to congressional committees and Members of Congress" and whose "experts assist at every stage of the legislative process" providing "Congress with the vital, analytical support it needs to address the most complex public policy issues facing the nation" found in a February report titled Israel and Hamas: Conflict in Gaza (2008-2009):

"For the first five months [of the Egyptian-mediated, six-month tahdiya beginning in June 2008], the cease-fire held relatively well. Some rockets were fired into Israel, but most were attributed to non-Hamas militant groups, and, progressively, Hamas appeared increasingly able and willing to suppress even these attacks. No Israeli deaths were reported…" (CRS R40101, 2/19/09)

This corroborates the reporting of New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner, who wrote on December 18, 2008 (over week before Israeli launched its ruthless assault) that, in its efforts to abide by the truce, "Hamas imposed its will [over other armed resistance groups] and even imprisoned some of those who were firing rockets."

In fact, the terms of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas included, not only the halting of rocket fire from Gaza, but also the Israeli agreement to lift its brutal economic blockade of Gaza, which had been in place before Hamas was even voted into power. The siege, nevertheless, continued unabated. Therefore, whereas Hamas upheld their obligations to the ceasefire, Israel did not. Hamas leaders even offered to extend the ceasefire beyond its December 19 expiration date. Israel ignored the proposal, opting instead to carpet bomb civilian neighborhoods and incinerate, mutilate, and dismember children with banned and experimental weaponry.

Essentially, the Congressional claims of relentless and unprovoked Palestinian aggression against a peaceful Israeli population are not only unfounded, they assume the exact opposite of the truth. The "What-if-Mexico or Michigan" analogies also fall short under even the most cursory scrutiny. All real evidence turns such suggestions into a preposterous joke at which no one is laughing.

At one point, during the Congressional debate over H. Res.867, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer's effort to place the blame for Israel's brutal blockade, deprivation, starvation, collective punishment and massacre of Palestinians in Gaza squarely on the democratically-elected leadership of Hamas took a tellingly racist turn. "Tragically, civilians in Gaza suffered and continue to suffer. They suffer in major part from the determination of their imposed leaders to pursue indiscriminate terror," he began.

"Is there anybody here who doubts that if those children living there for decade after decade after decade were European children or American children or Jewish children that they would still be there in those [refugee] camps? I say to you, not the case. Why are they there? Because the Arab community does not want to absorb them, and their leaders will not seek a meaningful peace. That is why they’re there." (CR H12238 11/3/09)

Why Hoyer believes that "the Arab community" would be responsible, let alone obligated, to "absorb" Palestinians is never explained. Palestinians in Gaza don't ask for absorption elsewhere; their home is Palestine, not Jordan, Lebanon or Egypt. They were expelled from what is now Israel and, under international law, are entitled – not to be "absorbed" by other countries – but to return to their homes.

Gary Ackerman (D-NY), who actually traveled to Israel with NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg and police commissioner Ray Kelly (on the Mayor's private jet) during the Gaza Massacre to show his support for the murder of hundreds of defenseless Palestinians by the Israel military, entered his remarks into the Congressional Record, calling the Goldstone Report "a pompous, tendentious, one-sided political diatribe" that, for all its "facts" and "context" contains "very little truth" and "very little wisdom." (CR H12244 11/3/09)

Ackerman makes clear his contempt for the authors of the Report by stating, "In the self-righteous fantasyland inhabited by Judge Goldstone and his colleagues, there's no such thing as terrorism; there's no such thing as Hamas (and if it does exist, it's certainly nothing to fear); there's no such thing as legitimate self-defense; and war is like a sporting event, rather than the most ghastly, destructive, chaotic phenomenon we human beings are capable of creating." Ackerman himself could benefit from a reality check in the form of testimony by a young Israeli reservist who, upon reflecting on his role as a remote operator of Predator drones conducting airstrikes on civilian centers and residential neighborhoods in Gaza, said the following:

"It feels like hunting season has begun…Sometimes it reminds me of a Play Station game. You hear cheers in the war room after you see on the screens that the missile hit a target, as if it were a soccer game."

Although Congressional opponents of H.Res.867 were few and far between, a number of courageous Congress members took up the mantle of human rights, international law and even American legislative process by voicing their dissent and urging their colleagues to side with morality and legality, rather than denial and impunity.

Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison led the opposition, stating that the resolution "should be opposed because it suppresses inquiry, inquiry that is the hallmark of democratic societies" (CR H12234 11/3/09) and asking, "Why are we going to pass a resolution without holding a single hearing? Why is the House voting for a resolution which condemns a report that few Members have fully read?" (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) addressed Palestinian rocket attack and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, remarking, "The urgency and the gravity of these harsh realities on both sides require that Congress act always with an eye toward peace and reconciliation." She concluded that supporting H.Res.867 "doesn’t lead us to securing Israeli peace and security nor Palestinian peaceful coexistence and for their citizens a life of respect." (CR H12235 11/3/09)

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) called the resolution "blatantly biased," stating that it "damages U.S. credibility" and "seeks to hide the ugliness of the Gaza war by covering up violent excesses committed against innocent civilians by both Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces," including the use of "American-made white phosphorous shells" in civilian areas and the needless killing of "hundreds of Palestinian women and children and elders." McCollum also noted that the resolution calls for double standards when evaluating war crimes. "There must be only one standard for respecting human rights," she said. "A single standard by which we must hold ourselves and our friends and our adversaries accountable. Establishing situational standards for respecting human rights is dishonest and only encourages actions that destroy human dignity and life." (CR H12239 11/3/09)

Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) called the resolution "a deliberate diversion" and challenged Congress "and the committees of jurisdiction to invest their time and resources into more constructive efforts that further the cause of peace." (CR H12236 11/3/09)

Rep. John Dingell (D-NY) rose to oppose the resolution by stating, simply, "This is a bad bill. It’s a bad resolution. It is unfair. It is unwise. It contributes nothing to peace. It establishes a bad precedent, and it sets up a set of circumstances where we indicate that we’re going to just arbitrarily reject a U.N. finding and a U.N. resolution and that we’re going to have that as a precedent. This is bad." Dingell spoke to the universality of international law:

"Neither Israel nor Hamas, nor any other country or other non-state political act is exempt from international human rights laws or free of consequence for violations of them. If nothing else, the Goldstone Report should serve as a document from which Israel and Hamas, and the rest of the international community can use to ensure that future human rights violations do not take place in civilian areas and that their militaries and fighters are actively working toward minimizing civilian casualties in the future." (CR H12237 11/3/09)

Two of the strongest opponents of the resolution were Brian Baird (D-WA) and Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). Baird, in a statement released the night before the vote, stated, "if our own country is truly to stand for human rights and the rule of law, and if facts matter, how can we do other than insist that legitimate questions and evidence are followed by further investigation and, if necessary and warranted, appropriate consequences?" The statement continued:

"H.Res. 867 is very serious business. If, as Goldstone asserts and the evidence I have seen supports, there were in fact gross violations of international law and human rights on all sides, we cannot in good conscience support H.Res. 867.

This is about much more than just another imposed political litmus test that we are all too often asked to perform. This is about whether we as individuals and this Congress as an institution find it acceptable to drop white phosphorous on civilian targets, to rocket civilian communities, to destroy hospitals and schools, to use civilians as human shields, to deliberately destroy non-military factories, industries and basic water, electrical and sanitation infrastructure. This is about whether it is acceptable to restrict the movement, opportunities and hopes of more than a million people every single day." 

On the floor of the House, Baird, who has visited Gaza and seen first-hand the affects of Israel's assault, made one last appeal to his colleagues. "Do not pass this resolution. Support this fine jurist," he said. "Give justice, true justice, a chance to be heard." (CR H12237 11/3/09)

Kucinich reprimanded fellow Congress members for their suppression of the truth in supporting H.Res.867, declaring, "Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist," continuing, "Behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian." The Ohio Representative stated that "if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read concerning events it has totally ignored about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution." He accused resolution supporters of "tacitly approv[ing] violations of international law and international human rights" and warned that "if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?" (
CR H12237-8 11/3/09)

Nevertheless, despite the noble objections of these representatives and the call of numerous human rights organizations to oppose the bill and support the Goldstone Report's findings and recommendations, Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass H.Res.867, thereby white-washing war crimes in a successful bid to allow Israel to unconditionally slaughter Palestinians with impunity.

Brooklyn Representative Yvette Clarke was one of only 36 members who voted against the legislation. The day after the vote, a statement appeared on her website, explaining her position. "Consideration of this resolution completely circumvented the legislative process, preventing an accurate and thorough vetting of the findings of the Goldstone Report," she wrote. "This highly unusual legislative maneuver, which denied members a single subcommittee hearing, raises questions regarding the claims in this resolution." She also stated that the "language stating that it should be U.S. policy to 'oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration…in multilateral fora' is excessively broad and inconsistent with our national commitment to human rights and the rule of law."

This national commitment to human rights and the rule of law was recently affirmed by Dr. Esther Brimmer, Assistant Secretary of the US Bureau of International Organization Affairs in her September 14, 2009 remarks to the High-Level Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, in which Brimmer declared that the United States was pleased to rejoin the community of nations on the United Nations Human Rights Council due to the Obama Administration's renewed efforts to advance "one of the most fundamental roles of the state: to protect and advance human rights." Brimmer continued,

"We can not pick and choose which of these rights we embrace nor select who among us are entitled to them. We are all endowed at birth with the right to live in dignity, to follow our consciences and speak our minds without fear, to choose those who govern us, to hold our leaders accountable, and to enjoy equal justice under the law. These rights extend to all, and the United States can not accept that any among us would be condemned to live without them."

During a press briefing two week later, Brimmer added that the United States "must do everything in our power to end the suffering of innocent Israeli and Palestinian civilians." Addressing the findings of the Goldstone Report, she said, "We encourage domestic investigations of credible allegations of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law."

The United States Congress, at the bidding of AIPAC and the Israeli government, did not heed this call, nor did they act as true representatives of their constituents. A Rasmussen poll from December 31, 2008, taken just days after Israel launched its devastating assault on Gaza when Israeli propaganda was at its height and revelations of war crimes were far from being exposed, found that Americans generally "are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip." While the American public at large slightly favored Israeli aggression (44-41%, with 15% undecided), Democratic voters overwhelmingly opposed the Israeli offensive – by a 24-point margin (31-55%). Despite such a majority of Democratic disapproval of Israeli military action at the time, a staggering 70% of Democratic Representatives (179 out of 255) voted in favor of H.Res.867 on Tuesday.

On January 2, 2009, Salon.com commentator Glenn Greenwald posed the following query:

"Is there any other significant issue in American political life, besides Israel, where (a) citizens split almost evenly in their views, yet (b) the leaders of both parties adopt identical lockstep positions which leave half of the citizenry with no real voice? More notably still, is there any other position, besides Israel, where (a) a party's voters overwhelmingly embrace one position (Israel should not have attacked Gaza) but (b) that party's leadership unanimously embraces the exact opposite position (Israel was absolutely right to attack Gaza and the U.S. must support Israel unequivocally)? Does that happen with any other issue?"

The answer is a resounding no because the US Congress adheres to the strict doctrine of "Israel Über Alles" at all times, no matter what the facts are.

The late Edward Said wrote, "The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial."

The Goldstone Report came to the same conclusion, echoing the voices of those struggling for the universal values of human rights, social justice, legal equality, and basic morality, when it stated:

"The international community as well as Israel and, to the extent determined by their authority and means, Palestinian authorities, have the responsibility to protect victims of violations and ensure that they do not continue to suffer the scourge of war or the oppression and humiliations of occupation or indiscriminate rocket attacks. People of Palestine have the right to freely determine their own political and economic system, including the right to resist forcible deprivation of their right to self-determination and the right to live, in peace and freedom, in their own State. The people of Israel have the right to live in peace and security. Both peoples are entitled to justice in accordance with international law." (A/HRC/12/48, p. 404)

With the passing of H.Res.867, two days after what would have been Edward Said's 74th birthday, Congress made perfectly clear that it not only seeks to deny and suppress the truth, but is itself, in the words of its own resolution, "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy."

Not only does the United States House of Representatives not accurately represent the views of the American people, let alone those of the rest of world, it is – unequivocally – no home to morality.

*****

Many estranged events happened in the last three months which added confusion to the already vague situation in Palestine, a matter which enforces people concerned about  the Palestinian issue to search for what is the optimal solution to these sticky situations, and to find the reasons why the Palestinians had failed to achieve their goals of reconciliation.

The overall ongoing situation in the Gaza Strip, including the delay of the Goldstone Report, and the failure of the reconciliation dialogue in Cairo, within the previous two months, have led to the vagueness of the speculation of the political situation and made the Palestinian political compromise between the two rivals closer to collapse. Furthermore, the most significant outcome of the bad political situation, within the previous three months, was the enhancing of the political and the security divide in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Firstly, the delay of the Goldstone Report has led to a heated controversy in the Palestinian arena, since the two rivals, Fateh and Hamas, spared no effort to gain semi-victory of the elections by inciting their partisans on their own information. The delay of the report has further widened and solidified the political breakdown and made the reach for the reconciliation closer to fantasy and craziness according to the Palestinian monitors and even for the general public.

Secondly, the call for the presidential and parliamentary elections in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, issued by the President, Mahmoud Abbas on 23 October 2009, has led to an additional splintering of the already political and strategic divide among "the factions to reconcile", where the first agreement signed in Mecca had no tangible actions on the ground after 4 months of holding it, the impending signing of the Egyptian document was projected to present the same dilemma due to the lack of looking up the hidden, creative ways of achieving the reconciliation.

Thirdly, The concern that rankles the people of Gaza is that the impending Palestinian elections should not enhance the fact of life in the Palestinian territories in general and Gaza's situation in particular— Elections may be another "bottleneck" of resolving the key issues of the Palestinian cause as the status quo now is different from the past four-years.

Accordingly, just before the failure of the dialogue in Cairo, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, declared the next presidential and parliamentary elections in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, saying that if the reconciliation efforts in Cairo succeeded, the elections might be in June of the next year as envisaged in the Egyptian document.

The dialogue doomed to fail; and the idea of the elections became a new resolution by the Palestinian president, who withdrew his candidacy for the next presidential election.

Now, the Hamas government in Gaza and the PA in the West Bank claimed legitimacy and their right to govern but, in my opinion, the truth has many other facets; Hamas considers itself the main governor of the Gaza Strip and has the credit of the Palestinian people to govern, while Fateh claimed that Hamas seized Gaza by force and thus got out of the Palestinian legitimacy.

If we look here on the term "legitimacy”; we can see it’s very relative and difficult to be absolute among the Palestinian factions who have different ideological and political backgrounds, thus: can Hamas, the Palestinian leading power, cooperate with the PA President to achieve the articles of the constitution; if Hamas agreed to resort to the President's declaration of the elections, can Israel and the U.S.A. respect the outcomes of the election? Is Abbas' move tactical or strategic?

In my opinion, the scenarios of the cynical elections in the Palestinian territories will just enhance the geo-political division between the larger West Bank (for the PA government, and the smaller Gaza Strip (for the Hamas government); boost the culturally different halves of the country; two states within the Palestinian state and proclaimed two-state solution with the Israeli Hawkish regime in Israel. The future of Gaza is frightening.

Elections had led to entrenching the already deep political dispute between the two biggest parties in Palestine, and then what was possible while Hamas was not in the government, now became more complicated due to Hamas’s understanding of the strategic depth of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as it is the spinoff of this organization. Any corruption, lack of governance in the small Palestinian enclave of Gaza, or a bad reputation of the performance of the movement may lead to an overwhelming defeat of these groups in Jordan and Egypt. Thus, Hamas decided to govern, whatever the obstacles and the challenges, and, it is a fact that they had been elected by the people and accordingly, they must adhere to their promise of "Change and Reform".

Hamas has not selected that slogan in its first election randomly, but because of the bad bureaucracy in the PA institutions, the lack of a Palestinian comprehensive national project, and even the absence of a comprehensive military leadership among the Palestinian factions; Hamas strived to change the deeply bureaucratic political system, repair what can be repaired, and then reform to the Best.

All of these aspirations of the Islamist movement have not been achieved because of the international community's strict measures against allowing them to govern and make relations with the international community. Hamas was ignored by the international community: the result was the Gazan people became prisoners, living in the widest open-air jail in the world.

This jail was transformed to a laboratory for the Israeli troops who tested the most destructive weapons on the people of Gaza without restraint of humanity.

If the world doesn't understand the fact of life in the Gaza Strip, and deal with the outcomes of the elections as it will be, the situation will go from bad to worse, and no one can halt the waves of extremism in the Middle East, or the waves of the frustration wrapped on the people of Gaza. Gazans need actions on the ground to make them alive as the people of the world; they can't comprehend a life with no tangible actions. 

Ayman Nijim is an interpreter and strategic researcher working for Pal Think for Strategic Studies, you can contact him via: ayman_trans@hotmail.com

By Jeff Gates *

In unconventional warfare, manipulated beliefs are used to displace inconvenient facts. When waging war by way of deception, false beliefs are an oft-deployed weapon.

Recall Iraqi weapons of mass destruction? Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda? Iraqi mobile biological weapons laboratories? Iraqi meetings in Prague with Al Qaeda? Iraqi purchases of yellowcake uranium from Niger?

All these claims were reported as true. All were later proven false or, worse, fabricated. Yet all were widely believed. Only the yellowcake uranium was conceded as bogus before the invasion of Iraq. As the U.S. crafted its response to the provocation of a mass murder on U.S. soil, those widely shared beliefs shaped a consensus to wage war on a nation that had no hand in it.

A similar deception-traceable to the same source-is now working to expand this war to Iran. Based on fast-emerging events, the next conflict could include Pakistan.

The modern battlefield has shifted. Ground warfare is now secondary. Likewise air strikes, combat troops, naval support and even covert operations. Those physical operations are all downstream of information operations. Manipulated beliefs come first. Psyops precede bombs and bullets. Hardware ranks a distant third.

First and foremost are the consensus shapers and thought manipulators who target perceptions and opinions until a critical mass of agreement is reached. Then comes war. Those skilled at such duplicity induced coalition troops to war in Iraq. Knowledge was their target. Manipulate thought and all else was downstream.

Unconventional warfare is waged "upstream" with the assistance of those with the means, motive and opportunity to massage consensus opinion. Where are modern-day battles fought? Not on the ground nor in the air nor on the seas.

The mindset is the primary theater of operations. The first battlefield is the public's shared field of consciousness. The death and destruction come later.

Deceit is not new to warfare. What's new is the reach of the technologies-including modern media technologies-that now enable deception on a global scale.

Military action remains subordinate to politics. Politics, in turn, are subordinate to those skilled at inducing consensus beliefs. Regardless whether command is civilian or military, decision-making is no better than the information on which decisions depend. That's why the Israel lobby has long targeted U.S. lawmakers as a strategic force-multiplier by the Israel lobby. [See: "How Israel Controls U.S." http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=124829&d=24&m=7&y=2009]

With lawmaking dependent on information, those skilled at the manipulation of knowledge can operate atop the chain of command. As a system of law reliant on informed choice, democracy can be dislodged in plain sight by those skilled at inducing a shared mindset-a consensus-by manipulating thought, belief and emotion.

Thus the strategic motivation for media dominance by the Masters of Deceit in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the U.K., Germany, India and other key nations that comprise the "coalition of the willing" induced to invade Iraq. Overlay media ownership with member states of this coalition and a common undisclosed bias becomes apparent.

When coordinated across four key areas, such "Information Operations" can displace informed decision-making with an undisclosed agenda. In retrospect, that systemic duplicity explains how the U.S. was deceived to lead this coalition to war in the Middle East. Here's a brief look at each area: geopolitical, strategic, operational and tactical.

Duplicity in Plain Sight

The geopolitical realm is where the "framing" of future conflicts often first emerges. The Clash of Civilizations appeared in 1993 as an article in Foreign Affairs. When this premise was published as a book in 1996, more than 100 non-governmental organizations were prepared to promote its thematic conflict-of-opposites.

That agreed-to consensus facilitated the seamless transition from the Cold War to a perpetual Global War on Terrorism. Thus the fate of the post-Cold War "peace dividend."

This widely shared mindset emerged just as A Clean Break appeared in print with its proposal for removing Saddam Hussein as part of a Colonial Zionist strategy for "securing the realm"-an expanded Greater Israel. Richard Perle, then a member of the U.S. Defense Policy Board, led the All-Ashkenazi team who prepared that 1996 report for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In 2001, Perle became chairman of the Pentagon's policy board. Strategically, that's a good example of working "upstream" to frame U.S national security issues around a preset agenda-for a foreign nation. Perle left the Board in February 2004 after 17 years of wielding insider influence. When your numbers are small but your ambitions large, what choice do you have but to wage war by way of deception?

Strategically, to evoke a new global war required a plausible Evil Doer linked to a credible provocation. The branding of the Taliban did not emerge in the "field" until March 2001 with their destruction of the ancient Buddhas at Bamiyan. Widely portrayed in mainstream media as a "cultural Holocaust," that high-profile deed put Afghanistan's previously obscure Taliban on a global Top-Ten list as certifiably evil.

The missing piece in marketing The Clash premise: the mass murder of September 11, 2001. Strongly provoked emotions, as with 9-11, facilitate the displacement of facts with what a targeted mindset can be induced to believe. That process was enhanced by the presence of a pre-staged Evil Doer and pre-staged intelligence that was flawed, false or outright fixed-but nevertheless widely reported as fact by mainstream media.

The capacity to succeed with such an operation is enhanced by the combined presence of: (a) evocation (images of religious extremism), (b) provocation (a mass murder), (c) association (a Doer of Evil), and (d) manipulation-as mainstream media parroted phony intelligence with virtually no investigative journalism.

This psyops campaign was facilitated by plausibly credible political leaders who dutifully read their lines from fear-evoking scripts written by this same insider network of agenda-shapers. That emotional manipulation included not only the "Axis of Evil" framing but also a widely broadcast WMD sound bite: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Mainstream media even reported as credible false accounts of "high-level links" between the secular Iraqi government and the religious fundamentalists of Al Qaeda. Yet anyone familiar with the region knew they despised each other. Truth was not the point. Nor facts. Informed consent was only an obstacle to overcome.

Deception on such a scale required a capacity to sustain a veneer of plausibility and credibility – i.e., believability. Thus the critical role played by mainstream media.

The Power of Association

When waging war on the public's shared mindset, the power of association is one of the most effective weapons. Thus the potent imagery of the peaceful Buddhas at Bamiyan when associated with destruction, violence and religious extremism.

Thus the ease with which evil doing Al Qaeda extremists were associated in the American mindset with the Taliban – and the evil of 9-11 with known Evil Doer Saddam Hussein even though the intelligence was proven false.

Thus too the associative impact of Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 2003 testimony before the U.N. Security Council. His credibility as a globally recognizable military leader (the Powell "brand") was deployed-as a weapon-to lend the appearance of truth to lies about Iraq's possession of mobile biological weapons.

Akin to showcasing the celebrity endorsement of a consumer product, this testimonial by a trusted military leader was broadcast worldwide in the lead-up to war. Powell was not the only "mark" in this operation. So were the U.N., the U.S. military and a global public. Both aggressor and aggrieved became casualties of this duplicitous "field-based" warfare. Meanwhile the source of this deception once again faded into the background.

Operationally, by the time the U.S. was induced to invade Iraq, 100-plus Israeli Mossad agents had been operating in Mosul for more than a decade. Soon after the invasion, several moderate clerics were murdered. Their elimination enhanced the capacity to provoke a conflict-of-opposites between long-warring Shias and Sunnis.

That conflict-within-a-conflict helped catalyze an insurgency that converted a clash into a quagmire. That result was mathematically model-able by an Israeli cadre of game theory war-planners. [See: "How Israel Wages Game Theory Warfare." http://intifada-palestine.com/2009/08/20/how-israel-wages-game-theory-warfare/ ]

As Information Operations proceed at the geopolitical, strategic and operational level, tactical deceit and misdirection provide essential support akin to reserve forces deployed on an as-needed basis. Serial provocations are required to sustain the serial conflicts essential to maintain the faux plausibility of the mega-theme: The Clash.

The recurring use of crises to catalyze and maintain instability should be of immediate concern to Islamabad. A long-standing Indo-Israel alliance may well be coordinating the frequency of violent incidents that continue to strain relationships between nuclear-armed Pakistan and its neighbor Iran.

Reflecting similar tactics, the most recent Israeli assault on Gaza was scheduled between Christmas 2008 and the January 2009 inauguration of a new U.S. commander-in-chief elected on a platform of hope and a promise of change. The timing of that murderous incursion minimized the capacity to criticize. President-elect Obama said nothing.

Meanwhile this serial agent provocateur set the stage with that assault for another delayed reaction from those brutalized by six decades of occupation. And from those in the broader Muslim community outraged at the U.S. for enabling this behavior.

When that reaction emerges-as it will-Tel Aviv will again assert the moral high ground as a perennial victim living in a hostile anti-Semitic neighborhood. By deploying U.S. weaponry, Israeli aggression will again make Americans appear guilty by association-endangering the U.S. while enhancing the plausibility of the narrative: The Clash of Civilizations.

The uncomfortable truth is that the U.S. is guilty-for continuing to condone this treachery-to its own detriment. Meanwhile the only change is in the presidency with no substantive change in U.S.-Israeli policies. And no hope for those most affected by this duplicity-including both the U.S. military and those it was induced to target.

As critics of Israeli policy in Gaza emerged in academia, the Anti-Defamation League and its international network mounted an intimidation campaign to silence a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. By advertising that campaign widely, the ADL silenced thoughtful academics worldwide. [See: "Treason in Plain Sight?" http://criminalstate.com/2009/07/treason-in-plain-sight/ and "Education: The Ultimate Battlefield" http://criminalstate.com/2009/08/education-–-the-ultimate-battlefield/]

By Way of Deception

To succeed, Information Operations require both deceit and denial of access to the facts required for informed consent. How else can anyone explain the enduring perception that Israel is a democracy? Even now, a majority of Americans believe that Israel is an ally despite more than six decades of nonstop deceit, spying, treachery and ongoing treason.

Any observer of recent events in Pakistan should be concerned at the duplicitous history of those who have an "existential" stake in sustaining The Clash storyline. With any semblance of stability, an investigation will confirm that the intelligence fixed to induce the U.S. to war originated with a transnational network of pro-Israeli operatives.

Democracy assumes that all of us collectively are smarter than any of us individually. Thus the need for an educated electorate informed by an unbiased media providing the facts required to reason together.

Thus too the strategic need to dominate mainstream media by those with an undisclosed bias who are skilled at waging war by way of deception. We now see portrayed in that opinion-shaping domain a world turned inside out where the victim is cast as aggressor and the predator as prey.

The facts in the recent Goldstone Report confirm a need to investigate dozens of Israeli war crimes in Gaza as well as crimes against humanity. Instead of following the facts wherever they lead-consistent with the rule of law-on November 3rd, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 334-36 in favor of a resolution describing the report as "irredeemably biased" and opposing any further consideration.

That resolution was proposed by Howard Berman, Ashkenazim chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, senior Republican on the panel and also Ashkenazim. Meanwhile Nita Lowey, the Ashkenazim chairwoman of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee warned, by implication, that her colleagues in the Congress would jeopardize funding for their projects if "further consideration" was given to the Goldstone Report.

The House vote came one day before the U.N. General Assembly discussed the report. A day later, on November 5th, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, a Muslim, killed 13 and wounded 42 preparing for deployment to Afghanistan. Within 24 hours, more than 250 media personnel appeared at Fort Hood, the nation's largest military base, to report on the event.

Many of them framed the event as confirming The Clash premise and even the on-base presence of "Islamo-fascism." Suggesting the act of a "home-grown terrorist," Jewish-Zionist Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, called for Congressional hearings into whether the U.S. military could have prevented it.

Interviewed in Palestine, the grandfather of U.S.-born and educated psychiatrist Nidal Hasan spoke of his grandson's love of the U.S. and said simply, "America made him what he is." While that comment hardly excuses this conduct, that poignant statement includes a point that Americans find difficult to contemplate. Yet we also found it uncomfortable to consider that the U.S.-Israeli relationship was a key motivation behind 9-11 and other attacks on Americans and American facilities.

The Goldstone Report called for an investigation of facts suggesting criminal conduct both by Israelis and Palestinians. Written by an eminent South African Jewish jurist, Richard Goldstone's daughter conceded that her father's findings would have been far harsher had he not been a Zionist.

Yet even the possibility that unfavorable facts could seep into the "field" required that the Israel lobby unleash its compliant Congressional forces in a litmus test of legislative loyalty-regardless of the facts. Or, indeed, because of the facts. It's difficult to imagine a vote more clearly indicative of how a pro-Israeli bias has corrupted the rule of law.

Other disturbing facts also posed a danger of gaining traction, including a November 5th report that the International Atomic Energy Agency found "nothing to be worried about" in Iran's recently revealed uranium enrichment site. That fact was preemptively displaced from the "field" the day before with reports of a well-timed Israeli boarding of a ship in international waters where weapons were found that were allegedly bound for Iran-supported Hezbollah.

When waging field-based warfare, timing is everything. That's particularly the case when, as here, a belief-manipulating adversary is faced with the greatest danger of its six decade life: facts that conflict with the narrative required to sustain The Clash storyline.

Best Story Wins

With consensus beliefs the upstream target, democracy becomes the downstream casualty. When manipulated beliefs displace facts, the rule of law degenerates into a faith-based parody of self-governance. To protect the informed consent essential to freedom requires that those waging war on the public's shared mindset become transparent so that those complicit can be made apparent.

How old is this form or warfare? Answer: How long has behavior been manipulated with beliefs? How long has faith been deployed to displace facts? The form of warfare is ancient; only the means are modern.

Upstream warfare and strategic deceit are only "unconventional" for the target. For Jewish extremists, such duplicity is business-as-usual.

This analysis describes how warfare is waged in plain sight in the Information Age. Without the complicity of mainstream media, this deceit could not have succeeded on such a scale.

In the Information Age, duplicity is how treason can be taken to scale-in plain view and, to date, with legal impunity-both in the U.S. and in the coalition member nations whose citizens were also targeted by those chronicled in this account.

The common source of this deceit remains little known either to the American public or the people in those nations the U.S. led to war. Here in the U.S., the tattered remnants of our system of informed consent are held hostage by this media-induced duplicity-and by legislators more inclined to protect their personal interests than the national interest.

There lies the strategic role for online media free of conspiracy theories that obscure the analytical clarity required to wage this battle with confidence. What's described here is warfare being waged on knowledge by an enemy within. Liberty faces no greater danger than those targeting its foundation of informed consent.

What has been made of the U.S. due to our "special relationship" with this extremist enclave is not the form of governance to which our civilian and military leaders swore their allegiance. With our civilian leadership compromised by the Israel lobby, to whom do U.S. military leaders owe their allegiance-to this latest in a series of corrupted presidencies or to the people whose freedom they took an oath to protect from all enemies, both foreign and domestic?

Despite appearances, it is not America that is at war in the Middle East but Americans loyal to this nation who were sent to war by a foreign government imbedded inside what remains of "our" government.

With trans-generational premeditation, Ashkenazim elites and extremists lured the U.S. into an entangled alliance in order to manipulate Americans to wage their expansionist wars and to secure their "realm." Only as the common source of this treason became transparent could those complicit now be held accountable.

For Americans to restore the fact-based rule of law requires sustained pressure from abroad. Our true allies will hold us accountable for what we allowed these extremists to do in our name. As the how of this treason becomes transparent, we Americans will see as our true enemies those who enabled this duplicity-to our long-term detriment. The best way to befriend us is to hold us true to the values we espouse.

* Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide; an adviser to policy-makers worldwide; former counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee; and author of numerous articles and books including his latest book Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War, Democracy at Risk and The Ownership Solution. See www.criminalstate.com

Top American intellectual sees no significant change of US foreign policy under Obama. 

As civilised people across the world breathed a sigh of relief to see the back of former US president George W. Bush, top American intellectual Noam Chomsky warned against assuming or expecting significant changes in the basis of Washington's foreign policy under President Barack Obama.

During two lectures organised by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, Chomsky cited numerous examples of the driving doctrines behind US foreign policy since the end of World War II.

"As Obama came into office, Condoleezza Rice predicted that he would follow the policies of Bush's second term, and that is pretty much what happened, apart from a different rhetorical style," said Chomsky.

"But it is wise to attend to deeds, not rhetoric. Deeds commonly tell a different story," he added.

"There is basically no significant change in the fundamental traditional conception that we if can control Middle East energy resources, then we can control the world," explained Chomsky.

Chomsky said that a leading doctrine of US foreign policy during the period of its global dominance is what he termed as "the Mafia principle."

"The Godfather does not tolerate 'successful defiance'. It is too dangerous. It must therefore be stamped out so that others understand that disobedience is not an option," said Chomsky.

Because the US sees "successful defiance" of Washington as a "virus" that will "spread contagion," he explained. 

Iran

The US had feared this "virus" of independent thought from Washington by Tehran and therefore acted to overthrow the Iranian parliamentary democracy in 1953.

"The goal in 1953 was to retain control of Iranian resources," said Chomsky.

However, "in 1979 the (Iranian) virus emerged again. The US at first sought to sponsor a military coup; when that failed, it turned to support Saddam Hussein's merciless invasion (of Iran)."

"The torture of Iran continued without a break and still does, with sanctions and other means," said Chomsky.

"The US continued, without a break, its torture of Iranians," he stressed. 

Nuclear attack

Chomsky mocked the idea presented by mainstream media that a future-nuclear-armed Iran may attack already-nuclear-armed Israel.

"The chance of Iran launching a missile attack, nuclear or not, is about at the level of an asteroid hitting the earth — unless, of course, the ruling clerics have a fanatic death wish and want to see Iran instantly incinerated along with them," said Chomsky, stressing that this is not the case.

Chomsky further explained that the presence of US anti-missile weapons in Israel are really meant for preparing a possible attack on Iran, and not for self-defence, as it is often presented.

"The systems are advertised as defense against an Iranian attack. But …the purpose of the US interception systems, if they ever work, is to prevent any retaliation to a US or Israeli attack on Iran — that is, to eliminate any Iranian deterrent," said Chomsky.

Iraq

Chomsky reminded the audience of America's backing of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during and even after Iraq's war with Iran.

"The Reaganite love affair with Saddam did not end after the (Iran-Iraq) war. In 1989, Iraqi nuclear engineers were invited to the United States, then under Gorge Bush I, to receive advanced weapons' training," said Chomsky.

This support continued while Saddam was committing atrocities against his own people, until he fell out of US favour when in 1990 he invaded Kuwait, an even closer alley of Washington.

"In 1990, Saddam defied, or more likely misunderstood orders, and he quickly shifted from favourite friend to the reincarnation of Hitler," Chomsky added.

Then the people of Iraq were subjected to "genocidal" US-backed sanctions.

Chomsky explained that although the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was launched under many false pretexts and lies, was a " major crime", many critics of the invasion – including Obama – viewed it as merely as "a mistake" or a "strategic blunder".

"It's probably what the German general staff was telling Hitler after Stalingrad," he said

"There's nothing principled about it. It wasn't a strategic blunder: it was a major crime," he added.

Chomsky credited the holding of elections in Iraq in 2005 to popular Iraqi demand, despite initial US objection.

The US military, he argued, could kill as many Iraqi insurgents as it wished, but it was more difficult to shoot at non-violent protesters in the streets out on the open, which meant Washington at times had to give in to public Iraqi pressure.

But despite being pressured to announce a withdrawal from Iraq, the US continues to seek a long term presence in the country.

The US mega-embassy in Baghdad is to be expanded under Obama, noted Chomsky.

Optimism

Chomsky stressed that public pressure in the 'West' can make a positive difference for people suffering from the aggression of 'Western' governments.

"There is a lot of comparison between opposition to the Iraq war with opposition to the Vietnam war, but people tend to forget that at first there was almost no opposition to the Vietnam war," said Chomsky.

"In the Iraq war, there were massive international protests before it officially stated… and it had an effect. The United Sates could not use the tactics used in Vietnam: there was no saturation bombing by B52s, so there was no chemical warfare – (the Iraq war was) horrible enough, but it could have been a lot worse," he said.

"And furthermore, the Bush administration had to back down on its war aims, step by step," he added.

"It had to allow elections, which it did not want to do: mainly a victory for non-Iraqi protests. They could kill insurgents; they couldn't deal hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. Their hands were tied by the domestic constraints. They finally had to abandon – officially at least – virtually all the war aims," said Chomsky.

"As late as November 2007, the US was still insisting that the 'Status of Forces Agreement' allow for an indefinite US military presence and privileged access to Iraq's resources by US investors – well they didn't get that on paper at least. They had to back down. OK, Iraq is a horror story but it could have been a lot worse," he said.

"So yes, protests can do something. When there is no protest and no attention, a power just goes wild, just like in Cambodia and northern Laos," he added. 

Turkey

Chomsky said that Turkey could become a "significant independent actor" in the region, if it chooses to.

"Turkey has to make some internal decisions: is it going to face west and try to get accepted by the European Union or is it going to face reality and recognise that Europeans are so racist that they are never going to allow it in?," said Chomsky.

The Europeans "keep raising the barrier on Turkish entry to the EU," he explained.

But Chomsky said Turkey did become an independent actor in March 2003 when it followed its public opinion and did not take part in the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Turkey took notice of the wishes of the overwhelming majority of its population, which opposed the invasion.

But 'New Europe' was led by Berlusconi of Italy and Aznar of Spain, who rejected the views of their populations – which strongly objected to the Iraq war – and preferred to follow Bush, noted Chomsky.

So, in that sense Turkey was more democratic than states that took part in the war, which in turn infuriated the US.

Today, Chomsky added, Turkey is also acting independently by refusing to take part in the US-Israeli military exercises. 

Fear factor

Chomsky explained that although 'Western' government use "the maxim of Thucydides" ('the strong do as they wish, and the weak suffer as they must'), their peoples are hurled via the "fear factor".

Via cooperate media and complicit intellectuals, the public is led to believe that all the crimes and atrocities committed by their governments is either "self defence" or "humanitarian intervention". 

NATO

Chomsky noted that Obama has escalated Bush's war in Afghanistan, using NATO.

NATO is also seen as reinforcing US control over energy supplies.

But the US also used NATO to keep Europe under control.

"From the earliest post-World War days, it was understood that Western Europe might choose to follow an independent course," said Chomsky, "NATO was partially intended to counter this serious threat," he added. 

Middle East oil

Chomsky explained that Middle East oil reserves were understood to be "a stupendous source of strategic power" and "one of the greatest material prizes in world history," the most "strategically important area in the world," in Eisenhower's words.

Control of Middle East oil would provide the United States with "substantial control of the world."

This meant that the US "must support harsh and brutal regimes and block democracy and development" in the Middle East. 

Somalia

Chomsky tackled the origins of the Somali piracy issue.

"Piracy is not nice, but where did it come from?"

Chomsky explained that one of the immediate reasons for piracy is European counties and others are simply "destroying Somalia's territorial waters by dumping toxic waste – probably nuclear waste – and also by overfishing."

"What happens to the fishermen in Somalia? They become pirates. And then we're all upset about the piracy, not about having created the situation," said Chomsky.

Chomsky went on to cite another example of harming Somalia.

"One of the great achievements of the war on terror, which was greatly hailed in the press when it was announced, was closing down an Islamic charity – Barakat – which was identified as supporting terrorists.

"A couple of months later… the (US) government quietly recognised that they were wrong, and the press may have had a couple of lines about it – but meanwhile, it was a major blow against Somalia. Somalia doesn't have much of an economy but a lot of it was supported by this charity: not just giving money but running banks and businesses, and so on.

"It was a significant part of the economy of Somalia…closing it down… was another contributing factor to the breaking down of a very weak society…and there are other examples." 

Darfur

Chomsky also touched on Sudan's Darfur region.

"There are terrible things going on in Darfur, but in comparison with the region they don't amount to a lot unfortunately – like what's going on in eastern Congo is incomparably worse than in Darfur.

"But Darfur is a very popular topic for Western humanists because you can blame it on an enemy – you have to distort a lot but you can blame it on 'Arabs', 'bad guys'," he explained.

"What about saving eastern Congo where maybe 20 times as many people have been killed? Well, that gets kind of tricky … for people who… are using minerals from eastern Congo that obtained by multinationals sponsoring militias which slaughter and kill and get the minerals," he said.

Or the fact that Rwanda is simply the worst of the many agents and it is a US alley, he added. 

Goldstone's Gaza report

Chomsky appeared to have agreed with Israel that the Goldstone report on the Gaza war was bias, only he saw it as biased in favour of Israel.

The Goldstone report had acknowledged Israel's right to self-defence, although it denounced the method this was conducted.

Chomsky stressed that the right to self-defence does not mean resorting to military force before "exhausting peaceful means", something Israel did not even contemplate doing.

In fact, Chomsky points out, it was Israel who broke the ceasefire with Hamas and refused to extend it, as continuing the siege of Gaza itself is an act of war.

As for the current stalled Mideast peace process, Chomsky said that despite adopting a tougher tone towards Israel than that of Bush, Obama made no real effort to pressure Israel to live up to its obligations.

In the absence of the threat of cutting US aid for Israel, there is no compelling reason why Tel Aviv should listen to Washington. 

What can be done?

Chomsky stressed that despite all the obstacles, public pressure can and does make a difference for the better, urging people to continue activism and spreading knowledge. 

"There is no reason to be pessimistic, just realistic."

Chomsky noted that public opinion in the US and Britain is increasingly becoming more aware of the crimes committed by Israel.

"Public opinion is shifting substantially."

And this is where a difference can be made, because Israel will not change its policies without pressure from the 'West'.

"There is a lot to do in Western countries…primarily in the US."

Chomsky also stressed the importance of taking legal action in 'Western' countries against companies breaking international law via illegitimate dealings with Israel, citing the possible involvement of British Gas in Israeli theft of natural gas off the coast of Gaza, as one example that should be investigated.

In conclusion of one of the lectures, Chomsky quoted Antonio Gramsci who famously called for "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will." 

Mamoon Alabbasi can be reached via: alabbasi@middle-east-online.com .

In Response to Jeff Gates' At What Cost the Israel Lobby?
Jeff Gates at www.criminalstate.com, on the issue of Israeli Nuclear weapons, after exploring JFK's (perceived) role, observes of the immediate pertinent question at hand:

'Special Standard for a Special Friend Due to its “special relationship” with the U.S., Tel Aviv remains a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. … What about Israel? What has their lobby been doing? … At what point will Americans say: Enough!' — Jeff Gates, At What Cost the Israel Lobby? October 12, 2009

This response to Mr. Gates' outstanding article contrarily examines two of its key highlights: 1) Israel's Nuclear Weapons program; and 2) Israel Lobby.

Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program
My view on the Israeli Nuclear Weapons program has always been principally based on Theodor Herzl's view of the Jewish mission in Palestine, that: 

We can be the vanguard of culture against barbarianism, as he endeavored to justify Der Judenstaat to imperial powers du jour, predicting: 

The antisemites WILL BECOME our most loyal friends, the antisemites nations will become our allies.

Every generation of Zionist statesmen and stateswomen since then, has emphasized that indispensable role of Zionistan as a frontier outpost of the West:

There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, they are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to different galaxy.

That was Moshe Katsav, Israel's President, in June 2001. And this is George W. Bush, as the erstwhile President of the United States, while representing the sole-superpower at Israel's 60th B-day bash in May 2008: 

Our two nations both faced great challenges when they were founded. And our two nations have both relied on the same principles to help us succeed. We built strong democracies to protect the freedoms given to us by an Almighty God. ( Celebrating Israel's 60th Birthday in the 60th year of the Nakba by Bible Burning in Zionistan ).

That century year old linkage of shared ethos and sharing of same principles manifests itself in the Israeli-American relationship. It is a lot more than AIPAC and JINSA. It has to do with who the oligarchs are, and what might be their overarching agenda with respect to the Zion that will light up all the world.

The visible politicians running governments are merely the 'errand boys' who implement only their great benefactors' agendas. While Theodor Herzl and the World Zionist Federation are credited with founding Israel, the fact that it was done with Rothschild money is rarely if ever mentioned. Even by the antagonists of Israel! Notice that the Balfour Declaration was issued to Lord (Lionel) Rothschild. Why to him? The world's financial powers control both nations, as well as those of the European continent.

So, fast forwarding past the palpably obvious Israel Lobby factor, to being that 'Ubermensch' vanguard of culture against barbarianism, the farthest outpost of Western culture and civilization, Zionistan is an integral part of the world superpower equation that is being ridden hard by its ideological-financial oligarchs. In both, its la mission civilisatrice agenda, as well as a proxy henchman on the Grand Chessboard when public opinion won't allow the greatest democracy on earth to play havoc with others itself (in idyllic times now past of course).

This is what I wrote in Chapter 2  of Prisoners of the Cave in 2003, and I remain un-persuaded, still, that this is an inaccurate perception of the reality of hegemony:

Excerpt:

While the number of ~200 is often quoted, even today, it is an old number. The current actual size of Israel's nuclear arsenal is likely to be in the thousands, comprising an assorted cocktail of Armageddon inflicting gifts of the Jews to modern civilization.

How Israel got its nuclear weapons is an interesting tale, not to be rehearsed here. As a key ally of America through the Cold War, it is very likely that some of Israel's warheads remained aimed at the Soviet Union, as much as Israel's own enemies in the region. The Soviets were likely made aware of this because that is why they could never belligerently threaten Israel on the side of their own Arab client-states during the 1973 Arab Israeli war and essentially stayed out of it, while America openly supported Israel. And that is also what likely emboldened Israel to preemptively take out the Iraqi Nuclear reactor nearing completion in 1981 that was being built with Russian assistance, with no retaliation from the Soviets. And this was going on even as Iraq was being supplied with conventional weapons of mass destruction by America and the West and goaded on to fight Iran's Islamic revolution to neutralize it - using the Iraqis as the front foot soldiers to take the brunt of the casualties, with a nuclear armed Israel as the backup armor. I am quite certain that had Iran's counter offensive prevailed over Iraq and taken over Baghdad, that Israel would have struck with a preemptive Nuclear strike on Iran - as the immediate interests of America and Israel merged on the borders of Iran (apart from the continued out flow of oil). Thus nuclear arming of Israel was a necessity for America seen in this light - as almost an extension of America in the Middle East. An idea that JINSA has diligently pursued, to build up Israel's defenses to have it prevail over all its neighbors by wielding its nuclear club.

End Excerpt

While it is stated by many, including Mr. Jeff Gates, that JFK was against nuclear arming Israel, his notorious letter to David Ben Gurion notwithstanding, it isn't entirely clear to me. JFK was just as beholden to Jewish money to get him elected ab initio, as every US president of recent memory. The 1951 picture below from Jeff's article, of a young JFK congressman in the home of the butcher of Palestine, David Ben Gurion, just three years into the founding of Israel on Palestinian blood and soil, screams louder than any words ever can. It appears kosher to fraternize with blood-drenched victorious founders of a nation, so long as they have kill[ed] in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Illustration by Khalil Bendib

His statement was a damning indictment of 344 of his colleagues. The following is the full text of it (my emphasis added).

Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt. Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist.
Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian.

The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes, including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the "Down is Up, Night is Day, Wrong is Right" resolution.

Because if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read, concerning events it has totally ignored, about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution.

How can we ever expect there to be peace in the Middle East if we tacitly approve of violations of international law and international human rights, if we look the other way, or if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?

How can we protect the people of Israel from existential threats if we hold no concern for the protection of the Palestinians, for their physical security, their right to land, their right to their own homes, their right to water, their right to sustenance, their right to freedom of movement, their right to the human security of jobs, education and health care?

We will have peace only when the plight of both Palestinians and Israelis is brought before this House and given equal consideration in recognition of that principle that all people on this planet have a right to survive and thrive, and it is our responsibility, our duty to see that no individual, no group, no people are barred from this humble human claim.

See and hear Kucinich delivering that statement on:
http://pulsemedia.org/2009/11/04/rep-dennis-kucinich-blasts-operation-cast-doubt/

The only slight quarrel I have with it is the possible implication that it's the first time Zionism's stooges in Congress have brought shame upon the institution. They've been doing that with knee-jerk and monotonous regularity since the creation of Greater Israel, by a war of aggression not self-defence, in 1967.

* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: The False Messiah (Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews). He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

The issue of continuing and expanding Jewish settlements came back to haunt the Palestinian leadership that negotiated Oslo and continued to negotiate with Israel for the last 16 years while Israeli continued to build and expand its settlements, not to mention building the Apartheid Wall.

Israeli officials are right to worry. Gazans too. Yet Americans should worry even more.

Israel's "legitimacy" will not last. Of course, that assumes its legitimacy was deserved. That issue also is now called into question in light of the consistency of Israeli behavior over the past six decades. The emerging issues are these:

When and how will the recognition of Israel's nation-state status be withdrawn? How will Tel Aviv behave in the interim?

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman may have tipped his Masada hand when he reportedly told Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan that Israel may use nuclear weapons against Gaza. The threat to Israel is not the 1.5 million Gazans who reside in the world's largest open-air prison.

The threat is the fast-growing global outrage at the abuse inflicted on Palestinians, commencing with the ethnic cleansing of 400-plus villages six decades ago.

Not since 1948 has this enclave of extremists mounted such a public relations offensive. Christian Zionist President Harry Truman trusted Jewish Zionist lobbyists when he solicited assurances that they would not become what they immediately became: a racist theocratic state with an expansionist agenda destined to create serial crises in the region.

The merciless global agenda pursued by Colonial Zionists is the single greatest threat to world peace, as confirmed yet again by Lieberman's warning. As the primary remaining ally of these Jewish nationalists, the risks to the U.S. increase with each passing day as Tel Aviv works behind the scenes to catalyze yet another conflict.

This entangled alliance was destined to provoke resentments that would eventually endanger their super power ally and foremost arms provider. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the mass murder of 9-11, conceded that the motivation for that attack was to focus "the American people…on the atrocities that America is committing by supporting Israel against the Palestinian people and America's self-serving foreign policy that corrupts Arab governments and leads to further exploitation of the Arab Muslim people."

The Joint Chiefs of Staff warned Truman 61 years ago that this militant enclave meant to establish Jewish military and economic hegemony over the entire Middle East. Familiar with the duplicity for which Israel has since become infamous, the Pentagon chiefs warned: "All stages of this program are equally sacred to the fanatical concepts of the Jewish leaders."

Nuclear-Armed Fanatics

With each passing year, Tel Aviv adds a new chapter to the agent provocateur handbook on How To Succeed as a Victim.

Israel's strategic success traces directly to its capacity to radicalize and enrage-as those residing in the Occupied Territories endure a third generation of deprivation, degradation and periodic starvation. Thus the in-depth planning that preceded Israel's brutal "defensive" assault on Gaza between Christmas 2008 and the inauguration of Barack Obama-who said nothing about the attack throughout its 28-day duration.

That silence continues even now after Richard Goldstone, a South African jurist, issued a report describing dozens of Israeli war crimes and evidence of crimes against humanity. In the lead-up to the report's release, a U.S. president gave Tel Aviv a rhetorical gift when, in a U.N. speech, the nation's first Black president used the code phrase "Jewish state" as an implied endorsement of the apartheid policies of this racist enclave. Even Truman did not go that far. But then his administration was not as thoroughly staffed with Zionists and pro-Israelis.

In addition to killing some 1400 Palestinians, one-third of them women and children, Israel destroyed the infrastructure of Gaza including farmlands, factories and schools as well as its water supply and sanitation works. The facts in the Goldstone Report were further confirmed by "Breaking the Silence"-the personal testimony by thirty members of the Israel Defense Forces who described a murderous policy meant to teach the people of Gaza a lesson for their support of Hamas-which came to power in 2006 elections that were universally appraised as free and fair.

As Israel's protector and apologist, the U.S. bears the brunt of the anger as Israeli extremism continues to enrage Muslims and radicalize the Islamic body politic. A systematic assassination campaign ensured that Tel Aviv had "no one to talk to" except known collaborators with the occupation authorities in Tel Aviv and their arms suppliers in Washington. Meanwhile, the steady expansion of Israeli settlements made a Palestinian state impossible-unless indigenous Arabs are happy to reside in an archipelago of isolated ghettos ringed by Israeli checkpoints.

To suggest that the U.S. is culpable only states the obvious. Yet Israeli extremism continues unabated even as Tel Aviv insists that its neighbors accept it as a "Jewish state" even before its borders are fixed and resolution of the occupied territories is known. After six decades of nonstop deceit, Arab states are understandably reluctant to further appease this "state." For Americans endangered by the behavior of Jewish fanatics, the lesson is uncomfortable but inescapable: we enabled this.

By our continued appeasement, Barack Obama is inviting another violent reaction to Israel's serial provocations. By failing to endorse the Goldstone Report, our commander-in-chief is putting U.S. forces at risk. By implying that Israel is above the law, he only emboldens Tel Aviv. By suggesting that Israeli conduct is consistent with the values of a "Jewish state," he endangers the broader Jewish community. That includes those moderate Jews who anticipated this extremist behavior when in May 1948 Truman overruled the strategic objections of Secretary of State George C. Marshall and enabled this fanaticism by extending nation-state recognition.

Small in numbers but large in ambition, this extremist enclave had no choice but to wage war by way of deception. The most insidious deceit was targeted, from within, at its purported ally to induce the U.S. military to lead an invasion of Iraq for its Greater Israel strategy. Absent an Israeli strategy able to sustain serial crises, a long-deceived public will awaken to the common source of the fixed intelligence that led us into the last war-and now seeks to induce the next.

As Americans awaken to how this duplicity proceeds in plain sight, they will see for themselves who and why. That knowledge is the threat that Tel Aviv most fears. As the facts become known, Israeli legitimacy will no longer be an issue. The only issue will be how best to dis-arm these extremists and how to hold accountable those lawmakers who enable this ongoing treason.

* Jeff Gates is a widely acclaimed author, attorney, investment banker, educator and consultant to government, corporate and union leaders worldwide; an adviser to policy-makers worldwide; former counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee; and author of numerous articles and books including his latest book Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War, Democracy at Risk and The Ownership Solution. See www.criminalstate.com

Gaza City – Song by Johnny Punish:

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVcHmdx7pkE

Activists stage a sit-in to protest former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit to Tulane University. (Abdul Aziz/Penta Press)

By Emily Ratner *

On 13 October, Tulane University, an elite university in the southern United States, hosted former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as a featured speaker. Forced from office due to corruption charges and under indictment in his own country, Olmert's speaking engagements at respected American universities should at the very least raise questions as to the propriety of such events. That he and members of his military and political cabinet have been accused of war crimes during the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and last winter's invasion of Gaza requires people of good conscience to raise their voices in dissent. In response to his visit, a coalition of students, teachers, activists and community members — Muslims, Jews, Christians, Palestinians and their allies — rallied in opposition and protest inside and outside the event. Despite much hostility, they also found a great deal of support and more momentum for their organizing efforts.

Although outnumbered, we were more powerful than the war criminal and his Mossad protectors and stronger than his security checkpoints and his electronically amplified lies. We strapped red tape to our bodies and stashed fake-bloodied clothes in our packs. Those of us who had the required documents, who had student IDs from New Orleans universities, passed through the checkpoints while our barred friends and allies gathered outside, armed with truths painted on poster board and voices amplified by our growing numbers. With less than two weeks' notice, we had formed a broad coalition that planned a multi-phased action to reclaim the same campus that is home to TIPAC (the Tulane-Israel Public Affairs Committee). In 2007, the university hosted conservative commentator Ann Coulter for "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" in 2007 and had invited Olmert for a brief respite from international and Israeli courts. As Tulane University constructed a safe-haven and solicited interviews and meetings on behalf of its delinquent guest, dozens of our neighbors began to organize. And scores more responded to the call for action.

Tulane has long been an unwelcoming environment to our broader community, as well as to Muslim and Arab students. Olmert's strategists and local friends chose the city's most Zionist and "secure" nonreligious institution for his visit, and many activists questioned the wisdom of challenging a hostile student body and a sometimes even more hostile private police force. Tulane voices have been almost entirely absent in a great many community dialogues and meetings about Palestine solidarity work, and the prospect of initiating a campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Tulane's campus has always seemed laughable. But New Orleans is a city where so many feel linked to the Palestinian struggle through shared themes like the experience of diaspora, the right of return and near-daily racist violence and oppression by police and military authorities. There is no space in our city where Israeli war criminals will not be challenged.

Tulane was as hostile an environment as we expected. Hundreds of Tulane students showed up to hear Olmert speak, and many laughed and applauded when he made jokes about the comments of overwhelmed Palestinians who threw up their hands in exasperation at his remarks (i.e., lies) and walked out of the building. Many of our own group were only kept silent by the red tape we'd hidden on our bodies and then used to cover our mouths when Olmert first walked onto the stage. Scrawled on the tape were words that enumerated some of Olmert's administration's crimes, such as "human shields," "illegal settlements," "white phosphorous" and "occupation."

We breathed deeply and sat through an onslaught of racist lies about our Palestinian friends and family, until Olmert began to talk about the mistake Israel had made in "withdrawing" from Gaza. Then, one by one, our jaws aching from biting down on our testimonials of what we have seen with our own eyes and what our families and friends continue to suffer, we rose from our seats throughout the auditorium, slowly made our way to the aisle, and walked out.

Olmert's audience became our own for a moment. They gasped and whispered as more than 20 individuals stood glaring at Olmert and his guards and then marched out of the auditorium. As we left, we heard the chants of our friends, and breathed freely for what felt like the first time in over an hour. The hostility inside was palpable, but we were embraced by our friends outside whose numbers had easily tripled since we'd last seen them. They'd been shouting for two hours now, competing with calls of "Heil Hitler" and "Palestinians are Nazis" from students passing by. A Muslim woman in a hijab (headscarf) was hit with plates of food thrown from an adjacent third floor balcony while campus police looked on.

Within 20 minutes we'd set up the next phase of our action: four persons dressed in bloodied clothes laid down on the ground in front of the auditorium, and we placed cardboard grave markers with the numbers of massacred Palestinians and Lebanese around them. As students began to flow out of the auditorium, we handed out fliers detailing Olmert's war crimes and tried to stop passersby from spitting on our friends on the ground. We were mostly successful, and prevented a student from urinating on one of the participants.

We were not at all surprised by the hostility we faced, but we were surprised by the positive responses of far more Tulane students than we expected. Members of Tulane Amnesty International, Tulane American Socialist Students United and individual undergraduate and graduate students were active in every phase. They were joined by students from the General Union of Palestine Students and Amnesty International of University of New Orleans and students from Loyola University. As a result of this action, the challenges we face in our local solidarity work seem more surmountable. Indeed, Olmert's visit marked the beginning of Tulane's Palestine solidarity movement.

* Emily Ratner is an organizer and mediamaker based in New Orleans. She is a member of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, and a graduate of Tulane University (class of 2007). In June, she joined a New Orleans delegation to Gaza. She can be reached at emily A T nolahumanrights D O T org.

Related Links:
Multimedia: Audio: Interviews with Olmert protesters in San Francisco (23 October 2009)
Opinion/Editorial: Why I disrupted Olmert (23 October 2009)

Source: Electronic Intifada

Cartoon Khalil Bendib

A nuclear armed Iran? No.

For the sake of discussion, let's assume that some in Iran's current leadership do want their country to possess nuclear weapons and that they do succeed in developing them. What then?

Is it conceivable that Iran would launch a first strike on Israel?

The answer has to be no. Absolutely not! An Iranian first strike would bring retaliation that would not end until Iran had been annihilated, wiped from the face of the earth. One needs only a sound mind to understand that no Iranian leadership will ever be stupid enough to provoke such an outcome.

Why then are Israel's military and political hawks (and their neo-con associates in America) so determined, apparently, to do whatever is necessary to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons? Is it because they are deluded, perhaps to the point of clinical madness? No. The real problem for Israel's leaders is that Iran's possession of a nuclear bomb or two or several would greatly restrict their freedom to impose Zionism's will on the region by brute force of all kinds.

In passing it's worth noting the latest comments of Mohammed El Baradie, the outgoing chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency. In an interview with the Austrian Die Presse published on 18 October, he said, "The threat of Iran's nuclear program is exaggerated." He added: "Bombing Iran is not the solution. An Israeli attack would turn the entire region into a fireball." (It might also bring about, I add, the complete collapse of the global economy).

Yehoshafat Harkabi

There are none. And that's not simply because the Zionist state is the military superpower of the region. There is not now, and there never has been, an Arab military threat to Israel's existence. As I document in detail in Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, the Arab regimes never had any intention of fighting Israel to liberate Palestine. And when Eygpt was taken out of the military equation – a process started by Henry Kissinger and completed by President Carter – the Arabs could not fight even if they wanted to.

So what is it, really, that most endangers Israel's future?

The answer was put into words by Yehoshafat Harkabi, the longest serving Israeli Director of Military Intelligence. In his seminal book, Israel's Fateful Hour, published in 1986, he wrote about the "pressing need for (Israeli) self-criticism". He went on (my emphasis added):

"Certainly Israel is not guilty of everything that has gone wrong in the occupied lands. But self-criticism is imperative in order to counter-balance the tendencies to self-righteousness and self-pity that stem from basic Jewish attitudes, from the historical experience of persecution, and from the ethos fostered by Menachem Begin. No factor endangers Israel's future more than self-righteousness, which blinds us to reality, prevents a complex understanding of the situation, and legitimizes extreme behavior."

If Harkabi was alive today, I imagine the self-righteousness on display in Israel's rubbishing and rejection of the Goldstone Report with its accusation of Israeli (and Hamas) war crimes would make him vomit.

Does anybody know of a cure for self-righteousness?

* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: The False Messiah (Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews). He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

By Alan Hart*

On Monday 12 October, Prime Minister Netanyahu opened the Knesset's winter session by blasting the Goldstone Report that accuses Israel of committing war crimes and vowing that he would never allow Israelis be tried for them. But that was not his main message. It was an appeal, delivered I thought with a measure of desperation, to the "Palestinian leadership", presumably the leadership of "President" Abbas and his Fatah cronies, leaders who are regarded by very many if not most Palestinians as American-and-Israeli stooges at best and traitors at worst.

Netanyahu again called on this leadership to agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, saying this was, and remains, the key to peace. And he went on and on and on about it.

"For 62 years the Palestinians have been saying ‘No' to the Jewish state. I am once again calling upon our Palestinian neighbors – say ‘Yes' to the Jewish state. Without recognition of the Israel as the state of the Jews we shall not be able to attain peace… Such recognition is a step which requires courage and the Palestinian leadership should tell its people the truth – that without this recognition there can be no peace… There is no alternative to Palestinian leaders showing courage by recognizing the Jewish state. This has been and remains the true key to peace."

As Ha'aretz noted in its report, Netanyahu's demand for Palestinian acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state is for him "a way on ensuring recognition of Israel's right to exist as opposed to merely recognizing Israel" (my emphasis). This, as Ha'aretz added, is the recognition which Netanyahu and many other Israelis see as the real core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the name of pragmatism, willingness to "merely to recognize" Israel – meaning to accept and live in peace with an Israel inside its pre-June '67 borders – has long been the formal Palestinian and all-Arab position. Why does it stop short of recognizing Israel's "right to exist", and why, really, does it matter so much to Zionism that Palestinians recognize this right?

The answer is in the following.

According to history as written by the winner, Zionism, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. This is propaganda nonsense.

In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.

Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a proposal – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.

The truth is that the General Assembly's partition proposal never went to the Security Council for consideration. Why not? Because the U.S. knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented by force given the extent of Arab and other Muslim opposition to it; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.

So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what the hell to do about Palestine – after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away, effectively surrendering to Zionist terrorism – was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion. The option favored and proposed by the U.S. was temporary UN Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what do that Israel unilaterally declared itself to be in existence – actually in defiance of the will of the organized international community, including the Truman administration.

The truth of the time was that the Zionist state, which came into being mainly as a consequence of pre-planned ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist UNLESS … Unless it was recognized and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved.

And that legitimacy was the only thing the Zionists could not and cannot take from the Palestinians by force.

No wonder Prime Minister Netanyahu is more than a little concerned on this account.

Israel's leaders have always known the truth summarized above.

It's time for the rest of the world to know it.

* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews: The False Messiah (Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews). He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

There is always something compelling about a "David and Goliath" confrontation. Most of us prefer winners to losers, and almost everyone feels a thrill when the underdog takes a stand and prevails.

This is the surprising situation now unfolding in the rising drama of the Goldstone Report on Gaza. Goliath — in this instance, Israel plus the US in its usual role of Bibi Netanyahu's "Uncle Tom" — assumed that broad threats and a predictable US veto on the UN Security Council would kill that report. And last week, that seemed likely to happen.

But David — in the form of Turkey's forthright Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan — isn't buying that at all. His courageous stance has a good chance of not only bringing the Goldstone Report dramatically into view so publicly that even the Jewish-dominated US mainstream media cannot ignore it, but also opening the political sewer that is Israel's oppression of the Palestinians for all the world — especially the American public — to see.

Genesis in Gaza

The genesis of this, of course, was Israel's brutal assault on Gaza in the weeks before Obama assumed office, and its subsequent condemnation not by the UN Security Council (its American puppet-patron prevented that), but in a report prepared by a UN Human Rights Council commission headed by a respected Jewish jurist from South Africa, Richard Goldstone.

Yet even before that report appeared, Erdogan had already clashed with Israel over its assault on Gaza, walking out from a debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres in January 2009. He has continued his criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza and against Palestinians since that time, excluding Israel from participating in a recent NATO exercise, and this week continuing his condemnation of Israel for using incendiaries against civilians and harming children during the Gaza onslaught.

Turkey's position is potentially critical here. As a long-standing member of NATO and a secular Moslem country having formal diplomatic relations with Israel, it cannot easily be dismissed by its critics as an anti-Semitic rogue. Erdogan's position on this issue is popular at home, and evidentally supported by the Turkish military. He also makes no bones about calling Israeli and US actions what they are, something so much of the world — and especially most Arab countries, whose leaders ought in their own self-interest to know better — take great pains to ignore, or even to facilitate.

On to the United Nations

It now appears that the Goldstone Report will be formally debated by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). This is certainly where the US prefers the matter to end, if it has to go anywhere within the UN, asserting that the report is "deeply flawed" because in practice it fails to totally exonerate Israel (it must be SO hard for US Ambassador Rice to look in the mirror without becoming ill after parroting such remarks, but perhaps she is used to it by now….). And that may happen.

But it need not do so. At this point, people in three critical UN positions all want the Gaza report (and implicitly, the Israeli-Palestinian Question) to be debated now. They are the Secretary-General of the UN, the President of the UN General Assembly, and the President of the UN Security Council. This is an unusual combination, and one not likely to reappear anytime soon, which makes the speedy execution of the report's recommendations all the more important.

Moreover, the flip-flop of the Palestinian Authority on this issue, first asking for the report to be deferred and then reversing itself in the face of mounting criticism from Palestinians and others, may work for the better. The uproar created a degree of general public awareness of the whole controversy, and brought many Palestinians from both Hamas and Fatah together more than I have seen in years.

Looking Beyond the US Veto

Like most bullies who suddenly see justice approaching, Israel's government alternates among bluster, truculence and threats, still expecting good old Uncle Sam — doting, very strong, and not very bright at all — to intercede at the first and last moments alike. And you can be sure that AIPAC and company will be doing their utmost to make that happen.

So the rest of the world should appreciate two facts. One is that the Israeli threat to forgo peace talks with the Palestinians is both irrelevant and worthless. It is irrelevant because the hapless Palestinian Authority with which Israel might be talking does not represent or speak for the large majority of the Palestinian people. It is worthless because peace to Israel means submission to its will: Israel will return no territories, evacuate no settlements, allow no Palestinian refugees to return, and negotiate nothing except the incidental details of its dominance.

The other is that there is no inherent reason for the Goldstone Report to die in the Human Rights Council, or even in the Security Council. Erdogan has indicated a willingness for Turkey, which holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council this month, to bring it before that body regardless of what transpires in the HRC. That would move it a step further, where after presumably acrimonious discussion, it would be vetoed by the US, perhaps with Britain and/or France joining it.

At that point, the President of the Security Council, in concert with the President of the General Assembly and the UN Secretary-General, should be encouraged to make every effort in their own spheres of responsibility to bring the debate before the General Assembly under the provisions of UNGA 377A (the "Uniting for Peace Resolution").
An artifact of the Cold War designed to circumvent Soviet vetoes, it is little known now but absolutely applicable to the smoldering situation in the Middle East. Its great virtues are that it gives the General Assembly the enforcement powers normally within the purview of the Security Council, and vetoes do not apply.

This is a unique opportunity. Anticipate it. Prepare for it. Make the most of it. Win.

*Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College. He can be contacted at docbrosk@comcast.net

As an early and enthusiastic Barack Obama supporter and a professor of international relations who teaches Middle East politics and American foreign policy, I have been often asked in class and in public forums, “What do you think Obama will do regarding Palestine?”

My answers came down to that there was likely to be a dramatic improvement in the tone of American-Arab relations and with the Muslim world in general, but only within the limits of a continuing stalemate in Palestine.

This prediction has turned out to be all too true, as welcome as better general relations are. I am more pessimistic now, nine months into the Obama administration. I would say now that even when or if the domestic agenda calms down, if some form of health care gets passed, the economy recovers and the withdrawal of troops in Iraq takes place as planned, there will be no substantive improvement in the plight of the Palestinians. Israel will continue its policy of changing the facts on the ground, each day making concessions on settlements, Jerusalem, the wall and a multitude of other anti-Palestinian activities all the more difficult.

I have two reasons for this view — one direct, one indirect. Although far from Palestine, the war in Afghanistan is now Obama’s war. This increasingly evident futile effort — to do what? — eliminate al-Qaeda? bring democracy to the country? secure Pakistan? The list grows with each headline. I realize the pledge to root out terrorist bases was largely a promise driven by the campaign. Democrats are eager to show they are as murderous as Republicans on any issue related to national security, especially during an election campaign. Obama, however, seems sincerely committed to his policy. “The right war, the right time. It is not a war of choice but of necessity.” So goes the rhetoric. What president ever says a war he supports is the wrong war fought at the wrong time and is not necessary? And of course the war in Afghanistan remains a politically cheap way to establish Obama’s national security credentials. How many Americans object to the killing of Muslims, so long as any connection, however tenuous, can be made with terrorism, however ill defined? Given the interconnectedness of political issues, Obama cannot afford to lose any domestic support. Muslims will thus continue to provide the pound of flesh demanded by the Shylocks of national security.

Foreign policy elite retains hold on Palestine issue

Although I more or less anticipated these dreary developments, I retained my hope for Obama’s Palestinian policy. Perhaps, I reasoned, by demonstrating “strength and resolve” in Afghanistan, he would buy some leeway in Palestine? Always a slender hope, this thread now seems severed. Despite the appointment of George Mitchell, the foreign policy elite which has dominated Palestinian issues for decades remains intact. Apart from some rhetorical flourishes, almost immediately recanted or “put into the context of our undying commitment to our greatest ally, Israel,” nothing has changed. Settlements expand, despite their manifest illegality and official condemnation by the UN, the US included sort of. The wall continues to lengthen, creating more misery for Palestinians. The military incursions continue at the slightest excuse, killing and maiming civilians, including women and children.

I realize that Obama is much more skeptical than Bush-Cheney of Israel’s ultranationalist religious right. But how much difference will this make since the only viable opposition is also a right-wing party with a Palestinian platform virtually indistinguishable from the current extremist government that has avowed anti-Palestinian racists, like Avigdor Lieberman, in the cabinet? Let me suggest why I believe the Obama administration is not committed to substantive change in America’s policy toward Israel, which is to say America’s virtual absorption of the Israeli point of view in Palestine and the entire Middle East. Again, we must make an inference, since it is foolish to go by US rhetoric in this region. For any positive change to take place in Palestine, if America is to be taken seriously as an “honest broker” in the region, still the official policy, despite being thoroughly discredited, I believe it is imperative for Obama to discuss the danger of Israeli nuclear weapons.

My principal reason for pessimism is that every time Obama or Hillary Clinton refer to the unacceptability of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, they refer to non-existent Iranian weapons and ignore hundreds of Israeli nuclear warheads. The American mantra reconfirmed by Obama-Clinton is “no nuclear weapons in the Middle East.” Who can disagree with this? Who wants nuclear weapons in the Middle East or anywhere else for that matter? The difficulty with the American mantra could not be more simple or compelling. It is false in its premises and false in the facts. Americans have accepted nuclear weapons in the Middle East, so long as they are Israeli. And Israel has had nuclear weapons for over 30 years, hundreds of war loads and missiles capable of reaching every capital in the region. Every time an American official intones the mantra that “nuclear weapons are unacceptable in the region,” the hypocrisy bell clangs. Therefore, my critical indicator of change in American policy regarding Palestine is this: Would Obama say that all nuclear weapons in the Middle East are unacceptable, including those of Israel? So far there has been a resounding silence, except for the hypocrisy bell. Clang! Clang!

Much more is at stake than political consistency and the credibility dependent upon it. There is a much greater problem entailed in the mantra than a flagrant double standard. The very stability of the region, one of the principal objectives of American foreign policy, is being held hostage to this absurd mantra. So long as Israeli nuclear weapons are ignored, there can be no nuclear stability in the region. As every nuclear strategist knows, it is inherently unstable for only one adversary to have nuclear weapons. Nuclear deterrence, that is, nuclear stability, requires mutually assured destruction (MAD). This doctrine holds that stability requires that each nuclear power has the ability to retaliate effectively after the most devastating attack possible. This is called “second strike capability.” To be effective, it must inflict unacceptable damage to the nation which struck first. This has been the logic of nuclear stability ever since the Soviet Union developed its ability to strike the US. Its only assumption is the belief in the sanity of those who hold the nuclear triggers. Like it or not, precarious or not, MAD has worked. There is no reason to believe its fundamental logic no longer applies. It has applied regionally as well, as the case of India and Pakistan demonstrates.

Of course, the assumption of sanity is properly called into question by religious and other fanatics. No one wants such true believers to have control of nuclear weapons. “Aha! Therefore, we have to stop the Iranians!” The problem with this corollary of the American mantra is that it ignores Israeli fanatics, who are more firmly in control of Israel and its nuclear weapons than Islamic fundamentalists are in control of Iran and its non-existent nuclear weapons. No one doubts that Israel would use nuclear weapons on the Arabs, whether or not they have been attacked with such weapons. Everyone fears that Israel, rather than be defeated, would resort to nuclear Armageddon. Indeed this is one of the principal reasons that America does all it can to avoid an Israeli defeat. To the degree this is true, American foreign policy is held hostage to the existence of the Israeli monopoly of nuclear weapons, a fortiori, when Israel is controlled by right-wing fanatics, as is the current case.

There are alternatives to giving in to the threat of Masada. One is of course the denial of the American mantra. This would recognize the logic of deterrence by allowing Iran to develop a second strike capability vis-à-vis Israel. Or America could provide the second strike force by guaranteeing the nuclear security of every country in the region. America has provided nuclear deterrence for Japan for 60 years. America has made it clear that a Soviet or Russian attack on Europe would be considered an attack on the US. One can only wonder, however, if this protection applies to Muslim Turkey. If so, it has been kept very quiet. Or, thirdly, nuclear stability can be obtained by disarming Israel. Each of these options requires American acknowledgment of the existence and danger of Israeli nuclear weapons.

Nuclear instability a risk

Failure to do so condemns the region to nuclear instability, because (1) it gives Israel a free hand and (2) it gives other powers in the region an overwhelming incentive to develop their own deterrent capability. The American mantra that “nuclear weapons are unacceptable in the Middle East” is thus far more than hypocritical. It undermines American interests in the region, chiefly oil. And it imperils the lives and property of hundreds of millions of people. As a political realist, neither of these factors would, by itself or in combination, condemn American policy, if there were a reason to run these tremendous risks. What is this reason? The survival of Israel? There are two things wrong with making Israeli survival the predominant objective of American Middle East policy. It assumes that 5 million Israeli Jews are more important than more than 200 million Arabs, to say nothing of Turks and Iranians. No one even makes this argument in public, except the religious zealots of the Chosen People. Moreover, leaving human life aside, it assumes that resourceless Israel is more important than energy-rich Arab lands. Can one imagine an American capitalist making such an argument? Or an American motorist? From the realist perspective, unless it can be reasonably argued that Israel helps America meet its strategic objectives in the Middle East, America’s unquestioned support of Israel is absurd. One need not even get to the question of morality, the murder and oppression of millions of Palestinians, to conclude that America’s alliance with Israel comes at much too high a price.

It is important to note that this conclusion does not even broach the difficult topics surrounding a viable Palestinian state. My point is that no serious discussion of these topics can be undertaken until American policy makers acknowledge the facts of Israel’s nuclear monopoly. For Israeli nuclear weapons have emboldened right-wing Israeli governments to further and deepen their oppression of the Palestinians. And Israeli nuclear weapons have intimidated American policy makers who do believe that a Palestinian state is not only just but necessary for good relations with the Arab world.

I am compelled to warn that the next time we hear Obama intone the mantra that “nuclear weapons in the Middle East are unacceptable,” we should hear more than the “clang! clang!” of hypocrisy. We should hear the bell sounding the knell of political rationality. And what will take its place, if not the irrational forces of hatred, bigotry, racism and fanaticism?

Reclaiming Significance: Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala declare the First Word War
WRITTEN BY MARY RIZZO 

There are some words that are used as emotional triggers and mental blinders. They serve the purpose of directing the mind to a specific direction where its critical faculties are set in temporary congealment so that the terminology itself remains vivid and indeed obtains an emotional response from the listener, but its connotations are modified either wholly or in part by whoever is propagating the message. There are many terms and short phrases that are part of our lexicon and which have been utilised for the purpose of influencing our opinions and thus, obtaining our “moral” backing of certain political or ideological goals, obviously, with an intent in mind, gaining our consensus either implicitly or explicitly, since consensus is required by the dictates of “democracy”.The use of linguistic instruments of persuasion is true especially in the most sophisticated fields of Psyops (psychological operations enacted by governments, particularly during wartime or crisis), but it is also utilised in basic journalistic communication and becomes part of the “public discourse”. Since language is the instrument we all use, its codification is essential so that there is no need to define all terms, facilitating the communication of ideas, but there are those whose task is to bend these terms into weapons and functional propaganda devices. Experience tells us that Israeli Hasbara (“Propaganda Plus”, a term that a psychologist friend of mine has coined), is organised at many levels in creating consensus that reiterates their own bias, which can be defined as “Israel first and foremost”, and they do it through the use of rhetoric and language.

This language is so thoroughly imbued in contemporary Western thought that Orwell’s Ministry of Truth seems to be nothing less than the prediction of what the Hasbara Ministry (and all of its more or less formal or official off-shoots around the world) does all in a day’s work. While watching the evening news, one barely raises an eyebrow anymore when becoming aware of acts committed against civilian populations living under military occupation – war crimes under any circumstances, reported as if they are legitimate and necessary acts when not even outright humanitarian deeds. These same atrocities are being bandied as steps towards peace and co-existence and the element of human suffering is wiped out or negated. Yet, when the victim of the suffering is a Westerner or “in the same Democratic camp”, the opposite mechanism is set off and we are to feel moral indignation.

We who are the clients of the Western Media are spoon-fed certain information that would be morally repugnant if the tables were turned and rather than being the perpetrators, we would be the victims. Those who compose and compile their reports give higher intrinsic value to the lives of those they feel are within their constituencies and they assemble the information to reinforce this bias and turn it into normative thought. When a Western Soldier falls he is treated as a hero, no matter where he was or what he was doing at the time, the same is true of Israelis who occupy lands “cleansed” of the non-Jewish population. Whenever the target of any violent action is shown, their moral stature is commensurate with how closely they fit into our own image of ourselves. When the victims reported number among the official “bad guys”, we almost are expected to feel relief and a surge of patriotism that tells us a message indicating that “good is indeed prevailing”. Likewise, we are expected to “root for” someone living in Sderot, treated as if their hardships, nervous cats and “defiance” are naturally our primary concern. During the war waged against Gaza, a group of teenagers complaining that they felt confined between their schools, homes and bomb shelters was given the same space and gravitas in the mainstream mass media as Palestinian parents mourning in grief at the destruction of their homes and the murder of their children by Israeli soldiers and weapons. It would be absurd in any context to make any kind of equivalence between these two levels of suffering, but we are expected to not blink an eye at this kind of reporting.

It is exactly the same as the way we are expected to accept Israeli justifications of their status as “the most moral army in the world” no matter what the photos filtering out of the inferno of Gaza were showing us. In the words of the Prime Minister of Israel immediately following some public outcry: “As a moral army without peer, the IDF took care to act in accordance with international law and did its utmost to prevent harming civilians who were not involved in the fighting, including their property, and to this end, inter alia, distributed very many flyers and also used the local media and the local telephone network in order to deliver timely general and detailed warnings to the civilian population. The IDF also acted to provide for the humanitarian needs of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip during the fighting.”

What is hidden in that press briefing, besides the value judgment about being a moral army without peer, is the wickedness of the content of these “humanitarian” flyers and the “use” of the local media and telephone network. The flyers warned people of the intent of destruction that would soon follow if the people (trapped as they were) did not simply “leave”. This demonstrated pre-meditated intent to cause harm and the warning of death and destruction of property belonging to civilians. Regarding the use of phones, in an article published in USA Today, it was reported that Palestinians received calls on both cellular phones and land lines, warning them that their home was about to be bombed. The calls could not be traced or blocked because they came from international carriers. The Israeli officials claimed this was a service towards Palestinians, (prior obviously to the real service rendered), yet, Maj. Jacob Dallal, the military spokesman interviewed, declined discussing just how the Israeli military obtains cell phone numbers in Gaza, which are not listed anywhere.

The “use” of local media was actually the IDF hacking into Al Aqsa TV as well as breaking into local radio stations including those of Hamas, the PFLP and the Islamic Jihad. According to accounts by Kamal Abu Nasser, during broadcasts on the Voice of Jerusalem, the IDF would break the signal on an hourly basis and broadcast messages blaming Hamas for all the problems in Gaza. This claim was backed by many Gazans who had become dependent upon the radio for a connection with the world, and instead were bombarded with propaganda by those dropping bombs over their heads.

The detailed warnings and humanitarian aid is also easily debunked. The IDF did not explain even to the doctors what type of weapons were being used and how to treat the very strange wounds that were typical of DIME and white phosphorus use. As everyone is by now aware, the Gaza Strip was under total blockade by land, sea and air, with any goods entering coming in through the tunnels, which the Israelis and Americans ran to quickly define as being used for “arms smuggling”, and not simply the only way to move goods of all sorts when all above-ground access was cut off by both Israel and Egypt, where the security forces responding to Fatah were also located. Reading any statement made by Israel always takes a great deal of effort. The truth is there, but it is the opposite of what is stated. Yet, these statements are taken at face value and even elevated to humanitarian status.

Do those who write them and disseminate them take us for blind, deaf and dumb? Or are we all of these things and more? Has our placement on the globe as privileged beings “outside the axis of evil” eliminated the possibility of seeing ourselves how others might see us, and make us exempt from being thoroughly disgusted at the importance we give ourselves and the disregard for others? Have we become the insensitive monsters we must look like or are we just indoctrinated and brainwashed enough to prohibit us from thinking critically?

Since the mass media can’t censor and prevent everything from coming to the surface, those who control it run for cover in furnishing the canonic interpretation of events that we are expected to accept as “fact” or even as “truth”. If we are still able to see, the goal of the Hasbara experts is to prevent us from thinking. This is why these fear triggers and catch phrases are so handy. They do the work for our brains. It is necessary for us to feel “informed” but not necessary for us (and actually detrimental to them) to elaborate and think. Once we have stopped thinking, we will remain silent in the face of the violence used to oppress the weak.

Totalitarian regimes have always depended on either ignorance or fear to help them carry out their work of establishing, consolidating and maintaining their dominion over those who otherwise would rebel against them. The same appears to be true in today’s “democracies”. Pressure is put on Islamic charities, groups that combat occupation are categorised as being terrorist movements and diplomatic relations are also dependent upon the blessing of whoever holds the purse strings. Conditions are set that prohibit openly supporting political movements and even governments that are critical of the Zionist state, as if this itself is the barometer of the validity of an entire nation in the global spectrum. In short, even democracies (again, quoting my psychologist friend, “demonocracies”) implement strong indoctrination to instil their hegemonic advantage politically, economically and even morally. They utilise the media, both as information and entertainment, to brainwash and form their model of a good citizen so that the society is fully supportive of whatever political plans their government will back. The effects filter down all the way to the bottom, even to our children, who are asked to a-critically salute “heroes of peace” armed to the teeth in Afghanistan and Iraq. It seems that Orwell had gotten it right after all.

Fighting the empty rhetoric, deconstructing the lies one by one and taking back the power of our critical thinking is something that is no longer a luxury, but an absolute necessity. To contribute to this ideal of consciousness-building, Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala are launching a series of essays that examine many of these terms and phrases, one at a time, in order to construct an alternative lexicon and to present a more accurate reading of the words that surround us at the moment primarily as propagandistic emotional triggers. We ask our contributors, members and affiliates to reflect upon and write about these issues, and we also invite our readers to contribute essays for publication, translation and dissemination.

Which terms interest us? There are actually very many to choose from, so the choice is left to the writers. By no means do we wish to limit the essays to one alone on each theme, as each author may wish to contribute his or her own point of view or argumentation to deal with a theme already touched upon. We hope that this international collaborative effort can contribute to a better understanding of world issues, and a greater awareness of how we play an active role, and not only can we reject the flawed definitions given to us, but we are able to fill these terms with content and understand them in their true dimensions. 

Please send your contributions to contact@palestinethinktank.com or tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es

The First Word War on Tlaxcala http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8839&lg=en

The First Word War

Israel’s ultimate secret weapon

WRITTEN BY AYMAN EL KAYMAN

Translated by Manuel Talens and edited by Machetera 

Every time that Shimon Peres, Tzipi Livni or Ehud Barak (not to mention the indescribable Olivier Rafkowicz, the Francophone spokesman the IDF) pronounce the word, one would say they are expectorating, spitting, insulting. They never say Hamas, but Khamas, substituting the Arab H for a rude “Kh”.

Hamas — an acronym of harakat al-muqâwama al-'islâmiya (حركة المقاومة الإسلامية), i.e. Islamic Resistance Movement — it’s spelled in Arabic with H, that is to say, with ح, but in Zionist lips such a ح transforms into خ.

The problem is that in modern Hebrew, Khamas means “robbery, plundering.”

For that reason, the subliminal message that comes out of the mouth of the mob State’s more insignificant spokesman every time he/she speaks of “Khamas” is, to begin with, negative, both for Hebrew and Arab speakers, since in Arabic the letter “khâ” means… shit. A mother tells her son: “Don’t touch that, it’s khâ.” For the same reason, for any Arab in the world the Egyptian Foreign Minister deserves the name he has, Abul Gheith (pronounced “khait”, literally the father of shit).

This deliberate phonetic selection by smart Israeli linguists is an absolute perversion, since the “Heth” (ח) — eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet — (equivalent to the Arabic خ), traditionally represents light and life. But how can one be surprised at what these leaders do if they are the same who chose Hannukah’s Sabbath — a celebration of light — to launch Operation Cast Lead on Gaza?

I wonder if press correspondents and Western media’s special envoys in Israel, who repeat like parrots the Israeli pronunciation of “Khamas”, are aware of the fact that they are serving as accomplices in the use of a secret linguistic mass destruction weapon.

International jurists should study with supreme urgency the notion of linguistic war crimes.

Ayman El Kayman, researcher at the ILEA (International Linguistic Energy Agency). 

Israel's ultimate secret weapon on Tlaxcala http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8852&lg=en

The First Word War is an initiative by Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala.

The authors who wish to participate in this First Word War can send their texts to: contact@palestinethinktank.com or to: tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es

 Manuel Talens and Machetera are members of Tlaxcala, the Translator’s Network for Linguistic Diversity. Talens is also a member of Rebelión and Machetera is editor of the blog http://machetera.wordpress.com/. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, translator and editor are cited.

The First Word War

Syntactic terrorism

WRITTEN BY SANTIAGO ALBA RICO

Translated by Manuel Talens and edited by Machetera 

(image by Abbe Nozal) “A Palestinian gunman shoots to kill in Jerusalem,” states the front page of the digital edition of El Mundo newspaper. Then my eyes reverse toward the heading’s introduction: “At least one person wounded.” Next, those people patient enough to read the body of the news will find out that the only dead victim of this action was in fact its executor. Let’s leave aside the term “gunman”, a cipher of unyielding violence so de-politicizing that it legitimizes any bad naming all by itself, so negatively flat that we refuse even to apply it to these lunatics who kill people at random in USAmerican schools and restaurants. Let’s also leave aside the fact that El Mundo hides the murdered Palestinians — as they keep growing in number, hour after hour — at the bottom of the page, in “Other News.”

But we’d better pay attention to the even subtler syntactic terrorism, to the structural distortion of sentences. Have we ever noticed that Palestinians are always the “subjects” — both active and passive — of all sentences? “A Palestinian gunman shoots to kill in Jerusalem,” “A Palestinian dies as consequence of an exchange of shots with the IDF.” Do we perceive the enormous distance separating “A Jewish settler shoots to death three Palestinians” and “Three Palestinians die at the hands of a Jewish settler?” The true “agent” of all problems in Palestine hides behind syntactic positions and, crouched down there, erases all the footprints of his/her responsibility.

Palestinians do kill (a negative decision, freely chosen). Palestinians do die (as if it was a law of nature). Palestinians always die indeed as a consequence of a missile shot from a helicopter, after an incursion of tanks in Nablus, after a shooting between Fatah and Israeli soldiers. But who kills them?

If I say that my grandmother died a few minutes after the beginning of bombing in Afghanistan, nobody in his/her right mind would establish such a relationship between both events as to blame USAmerican B-52s. However, syntactic terrorism juxtaposes two actions and links them by a causal and indissoluble relationship.

“Three Palestinian children die in hospital after an Israeli raid.” The reader has to make an effort to re-establish the true subject — both semantic and moral — of this sentence. Couldn’t they have died from measles? What if they fell from a wall? Every single day Palestine witnesses coincidences like my grandmother’s, with such frequency that it is surprising that the streets of Jerusalem are not crowded by parapsychology experts. “Seven Palestinian youths die natural deaths after an Israeli missile pulverizes their house.” “A Palestinian woman collapses, victim of a cardiac arrest, at the same time that a soldier shoots at her heart.”

There is nothing more paradoxical that journalists having finished taking refuge, without even being aware of it, in the philosophy of medieval Muslim Al-Ghazali (Iran, 1058 – Tus, Iran, 1111), who felt forced to deny all causal links in nature to defend the absolute freedom of God. No matter if Occupation and Intifada are coeval or consecutive, Israelis shoot and blow up children without any relationship whatsoever. God is free of doing what He wants and of tying two phenomena as He fancies. Israel only seems to be guilty because our conventional chronological scale states that shots always precede dead people. Wouldn’t it be enough that Palestinians died first and Israelis shot later for us to have the revelation — like journalists do — of the Occupant’s innocence? 

From Torres más altas
Numa Ediciones (Valencia 2003)
ISBN: 9788495831057 
Syntactic terrorism on Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8842&lg=en

The First Word War is an initiative by Palestine Think Tank and Tlaxcala. 

The authors who wish to participate in this First Word War can send their texts to: contact@palestinethinktank.com or to: tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es. 

Manuel Talens and Machetera are members of Tlaxcala, the Translator’s Network for Linguistic Diversity. Talens is also a member of Rebelión and Machetera is editor of the blog http://machetera.wordpress.com/. This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, translator and editor are cited.

Convocatoria internacional de ensayos contra la desinformación 

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras – Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala declaran la guerra contra la desinformación

WRITTEN BY MARY RIZZO

Traducción de Manuel Talens 

Hay vocablos que se utilizan para desencadenar emociones y ofuscar la mente. Han sido diseñados para embrutecer de forma transitoria las facultades críticas del intelecto, pues aunque permanecen fonéticamente vívidos y capaces de despertar una respuesta emocional en quienes los escuchan, sus connotaciones semánticas han sido parcial o totalmente modificadas por quien las propaga como emisor del mensaje. Nuestro léxico actual incluye muchas palabras y locuciones especialmente diseñadas para inspirar opiniones y obtener un apoyo “moral” a proyectos políticos o ideológicos específicos. Su objetivo último es la creación de consenso, el requisito indispensable de la “democracia”. 

El uso de herramientas lingüísticas de persuasión es uno de los aspectos más sofisticados de la denominada “guerra psicológica”, a saber, las operaciones de orden psíquico puestas en marcha por los gobiernos, particularmente en tiempos de guerra o de crisis [1]. Pero la guerra psicológica también forma parte de la comunicación periodística básica y del “discurso público”. Dado que todos utilizamos la herramienta del lenguaje, su codificación es esencial para que no sea necesario definir todos sus fonemas, lo cual facilita el intercambio de ideas. Sin embargo, hay individuos cuya única tarea consiste en convertir las palabras en armas e instrumentos funcionales de propaganda. Sabemos por experiencia que la Hasbará israelí está organizada de tal manera que crea consenso mediante la continua reiteración retórica de su indiscriminado y tendencioso apoyo a Israel [2]. 

Este lenguaje, artificialmente modificado, está imbuido de forma tan meticulosa en el pensamiento occidental contemporáneo que el orwelliano Ministerio de la Verdad se ha convertido en la predicción novelística de lo que en Israel hacen a diario el Ministerio de la Hasbará y todas sus ramificaciones más o menos oficiales distribuidas por el mundo. Cuando uno mira las noticias por la noche, ya prácticamente ni se extraña al enterarse de los actos cometidos contra poblaciones civiles que viven bajo ocupación militar: crímenes de guerra bajo cualquier circunstancia se comunican como si fuesen actos legítimos e indispensables o incluso realizados con fines humanitarios. Esas mismas atrocidades circulan camufladas como pasos imprescindibles para la paz y la coexistencia, mientras que el sufrimiento humano que provocan permanece oculto o desmentido. Sin embargo, cuando la víctima del sufrimiento es un occidental o pertenece “al mismo campo democrático”, se pone en marcha el mecanismo opuesto, que desencadena nuestra indignación moral. Somos la clientela sumisa de los medios occidentales, cuyas informaciones ya totalmente digeridas nos parecerían repugnantes si se cambiasen las tornas y, en vez de ser los verdugos, fuésemos las víctimas. 

Quienes escriben y compilan sus informes prestan más valor intrínseco a las vidas de los de su bando y ensamblan la información de manera que refuerce este sesgo tendencioso y lo convierta en pensamiento normativo. Cuando muere un soldado occidental se lo glorifica como héroe, sin que importe dónde estaba o lo que hacía en el momento de morir, y lo mismo sucede con los israelíes que ocupan territorios sometidos a la “limpieza étnica” de la población que no es judía. Cuando se nos explicita el objetivo de cualquier acción violenta, la estatura moral que se le otorga es proporcional a su cercanía con la imagen que tenemos de nosotros mismos. Si las víctimas pertenecen a los “malos”, casi se espera que sintamos alivio y una descarga de patriotismo con el mensaje implícito de que “el bien ha prevalecido”. A la par, se espera de nosotros que nos pongamos del lado de quienes viven en Sderot, que sintamos como si sus dificultades, su actitud “altiva” o el nerviosismo de sus gatos fuesen naturalmente nuestra principal preocupación. Durante el cerco de Gaza, los medios de masas concedieron el mismo espacio informativo y otorgaron la misma gravitas a un grupo de adolescentes que se quejaban de su confinamiento entre la escuela, el hogar y los refugios antibombas que a los padres palestinos desesperados ante la destrucción de sus hogares y el asesinato de sus hijos por parte de los soldados y las bombas israelíes. Una equivalencia entre sufrimientos tan desproporcionados como éstos sería absurda en cualquier contexto, pero lo que pretenden tales reportajes es que no parpadeemos al contemplarlos. 

De igual manera, se espera que aceptemos las justificaciones israelíes, según las cuales su ejército es “el más moral de todo el mundo”, y ello con independencia de las fotografías que se fueron filtrando desde el infierno de Gaza. El primer ministro de Israel trató de acallar las quejas internacionales con las siguientes palabras: “El ejército israelí, de una moralidad sin parangón alguno, se ha preocupado celosamente de actuar de acuerdo con el Derecho internacional y ha hecho todo lo posible para impedir cualquier daño a la población civil que no estuviese implicada en el combate, así como a sus propiedades. Con este fin, entre otras cosas lanzó desde el aire muchas hojas explicativas y utilizó los medios de comunicación y la red telefónica local [3] para advertir de antemano y con todo detalle a la población civil. El ejército israelí también se ha ocupado de cubrir las necesidades humanitarias de la población civil durante los combates en la Franja de Gaza.” [4]

Aparte del juicio de valor inherente a esa afirmación, según la cual el ejército israelí es de una moralidad sin parangón alguno, lo que oculta el comunicado de prensa es el contenido de las hojas explicativas “humanitarias” y el “uso” de los medios locales y de la red local de teléfonos. Las hojas advertían a la gente, que estaba en una ratonera y sin posibilidad de escapar, de la destrucción a la que se expondrían si no “se iban”. Esto demuestra la intención premeditada de causar daño y la advertencia de muerte y destrucción de propiedades civiles. Con respecto a las llamadas telefónicas, un artículo publicado en USA Today afirmó que los palestinos recibieron llamadas tanto a sus teléfonos celulares como a los fijos, en las que se les advertía que sus hogares iban a ser bombardeados. Era imposible rastrear o bloquear tales llamadas, porque provenían de compañías telefónicas internacionales. Según los funcionarios israelíes, fue este un servicio que prestaron a los palestinos (antes del auténtico “servicio”, es obvio), pero el comandante Jacob Dallal, portavoz del ejército, se negó a revelar cómo habían obtenido los números celulares de Gaza. 

El “uso” de los medios locales se debió a la efracción del ejército israelí en las imágenes de Al Aqsa TV, así como en la sintonía de las emisoras de radio, entre ellas las de Hamás, el FPLP y la Jihad Islámica. Según Kamal Abu Nasser, durante las retransmisiones de la Voice of Jerusalem, al ejército israelí interrumpía la señal a lo largo de una hora cada día para emitir mensajes en los que acusaba a Hamás de todos los problemas de Gaza. Estas afirmaciones fueron corroboradas por muchos gazanos que dependían de la radio como única conexión con el mundo exterior y que, a su pesar, se veían bombardeados con propaganda por los mismos que lanzaban bombas sobre sus cabezas. 

Las detalladas advertencias y la ayuda humanitaria también son fáciles de refutar. El ejército israelí ni siquiera comunicó a los médicos el tipo de armas que estaba utilizando ni cómo tratar las extrañas heridas que éstas producían, típicas de los explosivos de metal inerte denso y del fósforo blanco. Como todo el mundo sabe en la actualidad, la Franja de Gaza sufrió un bloqueo total por tierra mar y aire y únicamente permanecieron permeables los túneles subterráneos bajo la frontera del Sinaí. Tanto los israelíes como los usamericanos no tardaron en denunciar que estaban siendo utilizados para “introducir ilegalmente armas”, no como la única manera de que disponían los palestinos para recibir productos de todas clases cuando los accesos de la superficie fueron sellados por Israel y Egipto, donde estaban asimismo localizadas las fuerzas de seguridad que se enfrentaron a Fatá. La lectura de cualquier declaración de Israel exige siempre un gran esfuerzo. La verdad está en ellas, pero es lo opuesto a lo que dicen sus palabras. Y, sin embargo, tales declaraciones se aceptan sin rechistar e incluso alcanzan un estatus humanitario. 

¿Nos toman por ciegos, sordos y estúpidos quienes las escriben y difunden o es que somos todo eso y mucho más? ¿Acaso el hecho de vivir como seres privilegiados en este planeta, “fuera del eje del mal”, nos impide vernos tal como otros nos ven y nos exime de sentirnos asqueados ante la importancia que creemos tener y el desprecio que sentimos por los demás? ¿Nos hemos convertido en los monstruos insensibles que seguramente parecemos o sólo hemos sido adoctrinados y nos lavaron el cerebro hasta bloquear nuestras facultades críticas? 

Dado que los medios de masas no pueden censurar ni impedir que todo salga a la superficie, quienes los controlan se cubren las espaldas ofreciendo una interpretación políticamente correcta de acontecimientos, que nosotros hemos de aceptar como si fuesen “hechos reales” o incluso como la “verdad”. Si todavía somos capaces de ver, el objetivo de los expertos de la Hasbará es impedir que pensemos. Por eso, los mensajes que despiertan el miedo y las frases fabricadas a modo de eslóganes están siempre a mano. Hacen ese esfuerzo en lugar de nuestro cerebro. Necesitamos sentirnos “informados”, pero no necesitamos discurrir y pensar (de hecho, sería perjudicial para ellos). Y cuando hayamos cesado de pensar guardaremos silencio frente a la violencia utilizada para oprimir al débil.

Los regímenes totalitarios han dependido siempre de la ignorancia o el miedo para establecer, consolidar y mantener su dominio sobre quienes, de otra manera, se rebelarían contra ellos. Lo mismo parece ser verdad en las “democracias” actuales. Se presiona a organizaciones benéficas islámicas y se tacha de terrorismo a grupos que combaten la ocupación, mientras que las relaciones diplomáticas dependen del beneplácito de quienes controlan los hilos financieros. Se establecen condiciones que prohíben explícitamente el apoyo a movimientos políticos o a gobiernos que mantienen una postura crítica con respecto al Estado sionista, como si ése fuese el criterio que inhabilita a toda una nación en el espectro global. En pocas palabras, incluso las democracias (¿demonocracias?) practican un potente adoctrinamiento destinado a inculcar su ventaja desde los puntos de vista hegemónico, económico o incluso moral. Se utilizan los medios, tanto en su vertiente informativa como de entretenimiento, para lavar el cerebro y configurar un modelo de “buen ciudadano”, con el fin de que la sociedad apoye mayoritariamente cualquier plan político que el gobierno defienda. Los efectos se hacen sentir de arriba abajo en todos los estratos sociales, incluso en nuestros hijos, de quienes se espera que aclamen acríticamente a “héroes de la paz” armados hasta los dientes en Afganistán e Iraq. A fin de cuentas, parece ser que Orwell tenía razón.

La lucha contra la retórica vacía, la deconstrucción de las mentiras y la reconquista de nuestro pensamiento crítico han dejado de ser un lujo para convertirse en una absoluta necesidad. Con el objetivo de contribuir a esta toma de conciencia, Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala lanzan hoy una campaña de ensayos centrados en la deconstrucción analítica de muchos de esos términos y locuciones, con el fin de construir un léxico alternativo y ofrecer una lectura más cabal de las palabras que en estos momentos ejercen su asedio sobre nosotros como instrumentos emocionales de propaganda. Pedimos a nuestros autores asociados, miembros y afiliados que reflexionen y escriban sobre estos asuntos e invitamos también a nuestros lectores a que colaboren con ensayos originales para su publicación, su traducción y su difusión. 

¿Que palabras nos interesan? Hay muchas para escoger, así que dejamos la elección al criterio de los escritores. De ninguna manera deseamos limitar los ensayos a una sola palabra en cada tema, ya que podría ser que cada autor desease aportar su punto de vista o sus argumentos a temas ya discutidos. Esperamos que este esfuerzo de colaboración internacional pueda contribuir a una mejor comprensión de los asuntos mundiales y a una mayor conciencia de cómo podríamos representar un papel activo, no meramente rechazando las definiciones viciadas que pretenden imponernos, sino llenándolas de contenido y comprendiendo sus dimensiones de verdad. 

Notas

[1] Véase http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerra_psicol%C3%B3gica

[2] Véase http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbar%C3%A1

[3] Véase http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2009/IDF_warns_Gaza_population_7-Jan-2009.htm

[4] Véase http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Government/Communiques/2009/Humanitarian_aid_to_Gaza_following_6_month_calm.htm

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras en Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8844&lg=es

Los artículos relacionados con esta “guerra de las palabras” pueden enviarse a contact@palestinethinktank.com o a tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es. 

Mary Rizzo y Manuel Talens son miembros de Tlaxcala, la red de traductores por la diversidad lingüística. Talens pertenece asimismo al colectivo de Rebelión. Esta traducción se puede reproducir libremente a condición de respetar su integridad y mencionar a la autora, al traductor y la fuente.

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras - Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala declaran la guerra contra la desinformación

El arma secreta definitiva de Israel

AUTOR:  AYMAN EL KAYMAN

Traducido por Manuel Talens

Cada vez que Peres, Livni o Barak (sin olvidar al inenarrable Olivier Rafkowicz, encargado francófono de relaciones públicas del ejército israelí) pronuncian la palabra parece que expectoran, escupen un insulto. Jamás dicen “Hamás”, sino “Khamás”, pues sustituyen la H árabe por una “Kh”, equivalente a la J española.

Hamás, acrónimo de harakat al-muqâwama al-'islâmiya (حركة المقاومة الإسلامية) –Movimiento de la resistencia islámica– se escribe en árabe con H, es decir, con ح, pero en labios sionistas la ح se convierte en Kh, es decir, en خ.

El problema es que en hebreo moderno Khamás significa "robo, expolio".

Por eso, el mensaje subliminal que sale de los labios del menor portavoz del Estado canalla cada vez que habla de “Khamás” es, de entrada, negativo, y ello tanto para oídos hebreos como árabes, puesto que en árabe la letra “khâ” representa… la mierda. Una madre le dice a su hijo: "No toques eso, es khâ”. Por la misma razón, para cualquier árabe el ministro egipcio de Asuntos Exteriores se merece el nombre que tiene, puesto que se llama Abul Geith (pronunciado “jait”, literalmente el padre de la mierda).

Esta elección fonética deliberada de los grandes lingüistas israelíes es de una perversión absoluta, puesto que la “Jet” (ח), octava letra del alfabeto hebreo, equivalente a nuestra J (como la خ árabe), representa tradicionalmente la luz y la vida. Pero cómo extrañarse de lo que hacen unos dirigentes que escogieron el shabbat de la Hannuka –la Fiesta de las Luces– para iniciar su llamada operación “Plomo fundido” (que en realidad significa “Plomo lanzado”) sobre Gaza.

Me pregunto si los corresponsales y enviados especiales de los medios audiovisuales de Occidente en Israel, que repiten como papagayos la pronunciación israelí de “Khamás”, son conscientes de ser cómplices del uso de un arma lingüística secreta de destrucción masiva.

Los juristas internacionales deberían analizar con suma urgencia la noción de crimen de guerra lingüístico.

Ayman El Kayman, investigador de la AIEL (Agencia internacional de la energía lingüística).

¡Buena semana a todos!
¡Que la fuerza del espíritu sea con vosotros!
¡… y hasta el martes que viene! 

Fuente: La dernière arme secrète d'Israël

Artículo original publicado el 20 de enero de 2009

Sobre el autor  Manuel Talens es miembro de Rebelión y Tlaxcala, la red de traductores por la diversidad lingüística. Esta traducción se puede reproducir libremente a condición de respetar su integridad y mencionar al autor, al traductor, al revisor y la fuente.

El arma secreta definitiva de Israel en Tlaxcala http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=6883&lg=es

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras es una iniciativa de Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala.  

 

 

 

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras - Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala declaran la guerra contra la desinformación  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Terrorismo sintáctico
SANTIAGO ALBA RICO  

 

 

 

“Un pistolero palestino dispara a matar en Jerusalén”, titula la primera página de El Mundo digital de esta mañana. Después la vista recula hacia la entradilla montada sobre el encabezamiento: “Al menos una persona herida”; a continuación, los que tenemos la paciencia de leer el grueso de la noticia, nos enteramos de que la única víctima mortal de esta acción ha sido precisamente su ejecutor. Dejemos a un lado el término “pistolero”, cifra de la violencia irreductible, tan despolitizador que legitima en sí mismo cualquier respuesta, tan negativamente plano que se evita incluso para los locos indiscriminados que matan en los colegios y restaurantes de EEUU; no atendamos tampoco al hecho de que los palestinos asesinados El Mundo los contaba ayer -a medida que, hora tras hora, iba creciendo su número- a pie de página, en el bolsillo de atrás de “Otras Noticias”.

Más sutil aún, hay que prestar atención al terrorismo sintáctico, a la torsión o tortura de las frases en su estructura misma. ¿Hemos reparado alguna vez en que los palestinos son siempre los “sujetos”, activos o pasivos, de todas las oraciones? “Un pistolero palestino dispara a matar en Jerusalén”, “Un palestino muere como consecuencia de un intercambio de disparos con el ejército israelí”. ¿Percibimos toda la distancia que media entre decir “Un colono judío mata a tiros a tres palestinos” y  decir, en cambio, “Tres palestinos mueren a manos de un colono judío?”. El verdadero “agente” de todos los problemas en Palestina se retira a posiciones sintácticas retrasadas y, allí agazapado, borra todos los rastros de su responsabilidad. Los palestinos matan (decisión alboral, libre, irrumpiente, negativa); los palestinos mueren -como si fuera una ley de la naturaleza. Los palestinos, en efecto, siempre mueren a consecuencia de (el más volátil de los “causales”) un misil lanzado desde un helicóptero; a continuación de una incursión de tanques en Nablus; después de un tiroteo entre fuerzas de Al-Fatah y soldados israelíes. ¿Quien los ha matado?

Si yo digo que mi abuela murió pocos minutos después del comienzo de los bombardeos sobre Afganistán, a nadie se le ocurrirá establecer una relación hipotáctica entre los dos acontecimientos y echar la culpa a los B-52 norteamericanos. El terrorismo sintáctico yuxtapone dos acciones que están relacionadas, en cambio, por una indisoluble relación causal. “Tres niños palestinos mueren en el hospital después de una incursión israelí”: el lector tiene que hacer un esfuerzo para restablecer el verdadero sujeto, semántico y moral, de esta frase. Esos niños, ¿no habrán muerto de sarampión? ¿No se habrán caído de una tapia? En Palestina se dan todos los días coincidencias como las de mi abuela, con una frecuencia tal que sorprende que no haya más especialistas en parapsicología en las calles de Jerusalén. “Siete jóvenes palestinos mueren de muerte natural después de que un obús israelí pulverice su casa”. “Una mujer palestina se derrumba, víctima de un paro cardiaco, al mismo tiempo que un soldado le dispara al corazón”. Nada más paradójico que el que los periodistas hayan acabado refugiándose, sin saberlo, en la filosofía del viejo musulmán Algacel (o Al-Gazzali, muerto en 1111), el cual para defender la libertad absoluta de Dios se vio obligado a negar los encadenamientos causales; contemporáneas o sucesivas, la Ocupación y la Intifada, los disparos israelíes y los niños reventados no guardan entre sí ninguna relación. Dios es libre de hacer lo que le dé la gana y de ligar dos fenómenos como se le antoje; Israel sólo parece culpable porque, en nuestra escala cronológica convencional, los disparos preceden a los muertos. Pero, ¿no bastaría que los palestinos se murieran primero y que los israelíes dispararan después para que se nos revelase, como a los periodistas, toda la inocencia del Ocupante? 

De Torres más altas
Numa Ediciones (Valencia 2003)
ISBN: 9788495831057 

Terrorismo sintáctico en Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8843&lg=es

La primera guerra mundial de las palabras es una iniciativa de Palestine Think Tank y Tlaxcala

Los autores que deseen participar en esta “primera guerra mundial de las palabras” pueden enviar sus textos a contact@palestinethinktank.com o a tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es. 

Este artículo se puede reproducir libremente a condición de respetar su integridad y mencionar al autor y la fuente. 

La première guerre mondiale des mots :

Palestine Think Tank et Tlaxcala déclarent la guerre à la désinformation

par Mary Rizzo

Traduit par Fausto Giudice, Tlaxcala

 

Il y a des mots qui sont utilisés comme gâchettes émotionnelles et œillères mentales. Ils ont pour but d'orienter l'esprit dans une direction particulière où ses facultés critiques sont temporairement congelées, de sorte que la terminologie elle-même reste vivace et déclenche de fait une réaction émotionnelle de l'auditeur, mais que ses connotations soient modifiées en totalité ou en partie, par quiconque propage le message. Il existe de nombreux termes et phrases courtes qui font partie de notre lexique et qui ont été utilisée dans le but d'influencer nos opinions et, par conséquent, d’obtenir notre soutien «moral» à certains objectifs politiques ou idéologiques, avec une intention évidente : capter notre consensus, implicite ou explicite, car le consensus est un des commandements de la «démocratie». 

 

Les instruments linguistiques de persuasion sont utilisés en particulier dans les domaines les plus sophistiqués des Psyops (opérations psychologiques déclenchées par des gouvernements, en particulier en temps de guerre ou de crise), mais ils sont aussi utilisés dans la communication journalistique de base et deviennent partie intégrante du « discours public ». Puisque le langage est l'instrument que nous utilisons tous, sa codification est indispensable pour qu'il n'y ait pas lieu de définir tous les termes, en facilitant la communication des idées, mais il y a ceux dont la tâche est de tordre ces termes pour en faire des armes et des dispositifs fonctionnels de propagande. L'expérience nous apprend que la hasbara israélienne (la «propagande plus», un terme inventé par un ami psychologue), est organisée à plusieurs niveaux pour créer un consensus qui réitère un postulat exclusif, qui peut être défini comme « Israel über alles», et cela est réalisé par l'utilisation de la rhétorique et du langage.Les proclamations israéliennes sur les avertissements détaillés et l'aide humanitaire peuvent également être facilement déconstruites. L'armée israélienne n'a pas même expliqué aux médecins quel type d'armes avaient été utilisées et la façon de traiter les plaies très étrange qui étaient typiques de l’usage de DIME et de phosphore blanc. Comme tout le monde le sait maintenant, la bande de Gaza était sous blocus total par terre, mer et air, les seules marchandises y entrant le faisaient par les tunnels, que les Israéliens et les Américains se sont empressés de définir comme étant utilisés pour la "contrebande d'armes», et pas simplement le seul moyen de faire passer des marchandises de toutes sortes quand tous les accès en surface étaient coupés à la fois par Israël et l'Égypte, où des forces de sécurité dépendant du Fatah étaient également stationnées. La lecture de toute déclaration faite par Israël demande toujours beaucoup d'efforts. La vérité est là, mais c'est le contraire de ce qui est déclaré. Pourtant, ces déclarations sont prises au pied de la lettre et même élevées au rang de déclarations humanitaires. Ce langage imprègne est tellement la pensée occidentale contemporaine que le ministère de la Vérité Orwell semble être rien de moins que la prédiction de ce que le ministère de la Hasbara (et l'ensemble de ses filiales et annexes plus ou moins formelles ou officielles de par le monde) fait jour après jour. Quand on regarde le JT du soir, on hausse à peine un sourcil plus lorsqu'on enregistre des actes commis contre des populations civiles vivant sous occupation militaire – des crimes de guerre en tout cas, qui sont présentés comme des actes légitimes et nécessaires, ou même carrément comme des actes humanitaires. Ces mêmes atrocités sont colportées comme des étapes vers la paix et la coexistence et l'élément de la souffrance humaine est effacé ou nié. Mais quand la victime de la souffrance est un Occidental ou un ressortissant "du même camp démocratique ", c’est le mécanisme inverse qui est déclenché et nous sommes induits à ressentir une indignation morale. Nous, qui sommes les clients des médias occidentaux, sommes nourris à la cuillère de certaines informations qui seraient moralement répugnantes si les rôles étaient inversés et si, plutôt que d'être les auteurs, nous étions les victimes. Ceux qui composent et compilent leurs reportages accordent une plus grande valeur intrinsèque à la vie de ceux qu'ils estiment faire partie de leur public et ils rassemblent les informations qui renforcent ce préjugé pour produire une pensée normative. Quand un soldat occidental tombe, il est traité en héros, peu importe où il était ni ce qu'il faisait à ce moment-là, la même chose est vraie vaut pour les Israéliens qui occupent des terres «nettoyée» de leur population non-juive. Chaque fois que la cible d’une action violente est montrée, sa stature morale est directement proportionnelle à la façon dont elle correspond à notre propre image de nous-mêmes. Lorsque les victimes signalées font partie  des «méchants» officiels, nous sommes presque exhortés à ressentir un soulagement et une poussée  de patriotisme qui nous envoie un message indiquant que «ce sont bien les bons qui ont gagné». De même, nous sommes appelés à soutenir et défendre quelqu'un qui vit à Sderot, traité comme si ses difficultés, ses crises de nerf et sa crânerie étaient naturellement notre première préoccupation. Pendant la guerre menée contre Gaza, un groupe d'adolescents se plaignant de se sentir confinés entre leurs écoles, leurs domiciles et leurs abris ont reçu le même espace et la même importance dans les médias dominants que des parents palestiniens accablés de douleur face à la destruction de leurs maisons et l’assassinat de leurs enfants par des soldats et des armes israéliens. Il serait absurde dans quelque contexte que ce soit de faire une quelconque équivalence entre ces deux niveaux de souffrance, mais on attend de nous que nous ne bronchions pas face à ce genre de reportages.

 

 Il en va exactement de même avec les justifications israéliennes de leur statut d’ «armée la plus morale du monde», que nous étions censés accepter sans tenir compte de ce que nous montraient les photos qui ont filtré de l'enfer de Gaza. Pour reprendre les mots du Premier Ministre d'Israël immédiatement après quelques protestations publiques : «En tant qu’ armée morale sans égal, les FDI ont pris soin d'agir en conformité avec le droit international et fait tout leur possible pour éviter de porter atteinte aux civils qui n'étaient pas impliqués dans les combats, y compris à leurs biens et, à cette fin, entre autres, ont distribué beaucoup de tracts et aussi utilisé les médias locaux et le réseau téléphonique local afin de délivrer à temps des avertissements généraux et détaillés à la population civile. Les FDI ont également pris des mesures pour répondre aux besoins humanitaires de la population civile dans la bande de Gaza au cours des combats. "

 

Ce qui est caché dans ce communiqué de presse, outre le jugement de valeur sur le fait d’être une armée morale sans égal, est le caractère abject du contenu de ces tracts "humanitaires" et de "l'utilisation" des médias et du réseau téléphonique locaux. Les flyers avertissaient les habitants de l'intention de destruction qui allait bientôt suivre si les gens (pris au piège comme ils l’étaient) ne « partaient » pas tout simplement. Cela démontre une intention préméditée de causer des dégâts et c’était un avertissement de mort et de destruction de biens appartenant à des civils. En ce qui concerne l'utilisation des téléphones, dans un article paru dans USA Today, il a été signalé que les Palestiniens ont reçu des appels à la fois sur leurs téléphones portables et fixes, les avertissant que leur maison allait être bombardée. Les appels n'ont pas pu être retracés ou bloqués car ils venaient de fournisseurs internationaux. Les responsables israéliens ont prétendu que c'était un service rendu aux Palestiniens, (avant évidemment le vrai service rendu), et pourtant, le Commandant Jacob Dallal, le porte-parole militaire interrogé, a refusé de répondre à la question de savoir comment l'armée israélienne obtient les numéros de téléphones mobiles à Gaza.

 

Quant à "l'utilisation" des médias locaux, elle a consisté en un piratage d’Al Aqsa TV  par les FDI ainsi que l’irruption par la force dans les stations de radio locales, dont celles du Hamas, du FPLP et du Jihad islamique. Selon un récit de Kamal Abu Nasser, lors d'émissions sur La Voix de Jérusalem, les FDI interrompaient les émissions toutes les heures pour diffuser des messages rejetant la faute sur le Hamas pour tous les problèmes à Gaza. Cette affirmation a été confirmée par de nombreux habitants de Gaza qui était devenus dépendants de la radio pour rester connectés avec le monde, et au lieu de cela ont été bombardés de propagande par ceux-là mêmes qui larguaient des bombes sur leurs têtes.

 

Est-ce que ceux qui les rédigent et les diffusent croient que nous sommes aveugles, sourds et muets? Ou sommes-nous tout cela et plus encore? Est ce que notre positionnement sur le globe comme des êtres privilégiés "en dehors de l'axe du mal" a éliminé la possibilité de nous voir comme d'autres pourraient nous voir et nous exempte d'être dégoûtés de l'importance que nous nous donnons à nous-mêmes et du mépris pour les autres? Sommes-nous devenus les monstres insensibles dont nous avons l’air, ou sommes-nous simplement assez endoctrinés et soumis au lavage de cerveau pour nous interdire de penser de manière critique?  

 

 

 

Puisque les médias de masse ne peuvent pas censurer et empêcher tout de venir à la surface, ceux qui les contrôlent se mettent à couvert en fournissant l'interprétation canonique des événements que nous sommes appelés à accepter comme des «faits» ou même «la vérité». Si nous sommes encore en mesure de voir, l'objectif des experts en hasbara est de nous empêcher de réfléchir. C'est pourquoi ces déclencheurs de peur et ces phrases-choc sont si pratiques. Ils font le travail pour notre cerveau. Il nous est nécessaire de nous  sentir «informés» mais pas nécessaire de conceptualiser et de penser (ce qui serait à leur désavantage). Une fois que nous avons cessé de réfléchir, nous garderons le silence face à la violence utilisée pour opprimer les faibles.

Les régimes totalitaires ont toujours dépendu de l'ignorance ou de la peur pour les aider à effectuer leur travail d'établissement, de consolidation et de maintien de leur domination sur ceux qui autrement se révolteraient contre eux. La même chose semble être vraie dans les "démocraties" d'aujourd'hui. Des pressions s'exercent sur les organisations caritatives islamiques, les groupes qui combattent l'occupation sont classés comme mouvements terroristes et les relations diplomatiques sont également tributaires de la bénédiction de ceux qui tiennent les cordons de la bourse. Des conditions sont fixées, qui interdisent de soutenir ouvertement les mouvements politiques et même les gouvernements qui sont critiques envers l'État sioniste, comme si cela était le baromètre de la validité de toute une nation à l’échelle mondiale. Bref, même les démocraties (là encore, pour citer mon ami psychologue, les «démonocraties ») mettent en œuvre un endoctrinement fort pour instiller leur avantage hégémonique politiquement, économiquement et même moralement. Ils utilisent les médias, tant pour l'information que pour le divertissement, pour endoctriner et de former leur modèle d'un bon citoyen afin que la société soutienne pleinement les plans politiques du gouvernement, quels qu’ils soient. L’effet de ce lavage de cerveau se fait sentir à travers tout le spectre social, jusqu’à nos enfants, qui sont invités à saluer de manière acritique les « héros de la paix » armés jusqu'aux dents en Afghanistan et en Irak. Il semble bien qu’Orwell avait raison, en fin de compte.

 

Lutte contre la rhétorique vide, déconstruire les mensonges un à un et reprendre le pouvoir de notre pensée critique est une chose qui n'est plus un luxe mais une nécessité absolue. Pour contribuer à cet idéal de conscientisation, Palestine Think Tank et Tlaxcala lancent une série d'essais qui examinent beaucoup de ces termes et phrases, un et une à la fois, afin de construire un lexique de substitution et de présenter une lecture plus précise des mots qui nous entourent pour le moment principalement comme déclencheurs propagandiste d’émotions. Nous demandons à nos contributeurs, membres et associés de réfléchir et d’écrire sur ces questions, et nous invitons également nos lecteurs à contribuer par des textes pour publication, traduction et diffusion.

 

Quels termes nous intéressent-ils ? Il y en a en fait beaucoup parmi lesquels choisir, le choix est donc laissé aux auteurs. En aucun cas nous ne voulons limiter les essais à un seul sur chaque thème, car chaque auteur peut souhaiter contribuer avec son propre point de vue ou ses arguments pour affronter un thème déjà abordé. Nous espérons que cet effort de coopération internationale peut contribuer à une meilleure compréhension des problèmes mondiaux, et une plus grande conscience de la façon dont nous jouons un rôle actif, ne nous contentant pas seulement de rejeter les définitions erronées qui nous sont données, mais nous mettant en capacité de donner un contenu à ces termes et de les comprendre dans leur véritable dimension.

 

La première guerre mondiale des mots sur Tlaxcala: http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8841&lg=fr 

La Première guerre des mots est une initiative de Palestine Think Tank et Tlaxcala Les auteurs souhaitant y participer peuvent envoyer leurs contributions à contact@palestinethinktank.com et à  tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es.  

La Première guerre des mots
La dernière arme secrète d'Israël

AUTEUR: AYMAN EL KAYMAN

Peres, Livni, Olmert, Barak, sans oublier l’inénarrable Olivier Rafkowitz, chargé des relations publiques francophone de Tsahal : chaque fois qu’ils prononcent ce mot, ils ont l’air d’expectorer, de cracher un gros mot. Ils ne disent jamais « Hamas », mais « Khamas », remplaçant le « H » par un « kh », équivalent de la jota espagnole.

Hamas, acronyme de harakat al-muqâwama al-'islâmiya (حركة المقاومة الإسلامية) – mouvement de la résistance islamique – s’écrit avec un « h », ح en arabe, mais dans leur bouche, le ح devient خ .

Or, khamas, en hébreu moderne, veut dire « vol, spoliation»!

Ainsi donc, le message subliminal qui sort de la bouche du moindre porte-parole de l’État-voyou, chaque fois qu’il parle du « khamas », est d’emblée négatif, aussi bien pour les oreilles hébreues que pour les oreilles arabes, puisque, en arabe, la lettre « khâ » exprime la …merde. Une mère de famille dit à son enfant : « ne touche pas ça, c’est khâ ». Ainsi pour tout Arabe, le ministre égyptien des Affaires étrnagères mérite bien son nom puisqu’il s’appelle Abul Gheith (littéralement le père de la merde).

Ce choix délibéré de la part des Grands Linguistes Israéliens est d’autant plus pervers que le « Chet » (ח), la huitième lettre de l’alphabet hébreu, représente traditionnellement la lumière et la vie. Mais il ne faut s’étonner de rien de la part de chefs qui ont choisi le shabbat de la Hannoukah – la Fête des Lumières – pour déclencher leur opération « plomb jeté » (et non pas « plomb durci », comme on s’obstine à nous le répéter) sur Gaza.

La question que je me pose est celle-ci : les correspondants et envoyés spéciaux des médias audiovisuels occidentaux en Israël, qui reprennent presque tous cette prononciation israélienne de « khamas » sont-ils conscients qu’ils se font complices de l’utilisation d’une ALSDM (arme linguistique secrète de destruction massive) ?

Les juristes internationaux devraient de toute urgence se pencher sur la notion de crime de guerre linguistique.

Ayman El Kayman, enquêteur de l’AIEL (Agence internationale de l’énergie linguistique)

Bonne semaine, quand même !

Que la Force de l’esprit soit avec vous !

…et à mardi prochain !

Source : Coups de dent – Le blog de Ayman El Kayman

Article original publié le 20/1/2009

Sur l’auteur
Ayman El Kayman est un auteur associé de Tlaxcala , le réseau de traducteurs pour la diversité linguistique. Cet article est libre de reproduction, à condition d'en respecter l’intégrité et d’en mentionner l’auteur et la source.

La dernière arme secrète d'Israël sur Tlaxcala : http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=6882&lg=fr

La Première guerre mondiale des mots

Tuer, mourir : terrorisme syntaxique

Santiago Alba Rico

Traduit par Fausto Giudice, Tlaxcala 

"Un pistolero palestinien tire pour tuer à Jérusalem" : c’est le titre de Une de l’édition électronique de El Mundo de ce matin. Puis le regard se pose sur le surtitre : « Au moins une personne blessée ». Ceux d’entre nous qui ont le courage de lire l’info apprendront que la seule victime mortelle de cette action a été justement son exécutant. Laissons de côté le mot "pistolero", emblème de la violence irréductible, qui a un tel effet de dépolitisation tel qu’il légitime en soi tout type de riposte, si négativement plat qu’on évite de l’utiliser même pour les fous qui tuent de manière indiscriminée dans les lycées et restaurants aux USA.

Laissons aussi de côté le fait que les Palestiniens assassinés hier étaient comptés hier –au fur et à mesure que d’heure en heure, leur nombre allait croissant – dans le même El Mundo en bas de page sous la rubrique Autres infos.

Nous devons prêter attention à quelque chose d’encore plus subtil, le terrorisme syntaxique, la torsion des phrases dans leur structure même. Avons-nous jamais remarqué que les Palestiniens sont toujours les «sujets», actifs ou passifs de chaque phrase? " Un pistolero palestinien tire pour tuer à Jérusalem", "Un Palestinien meurt suite à un échange de tirs avec l'armée israélienne". Percevons-nous toute la distance qu’il ya entre dire «Un colon juif tire et tue trois Palestiniens», et dire : «Trois Palestiniens tués par un colon juif?". Le véritable «agent» de tous les problèmes en Palestine se retire sur des positions syntaxiques, et, accroupi là, supprimer toute trace de leur responsabilité. Les Palestiniens tuent (une décision libre, agressive, négative) ; les Palestiniens meurent, comme s'il s'agissait d'une loi de la nature. Les Palestiniens, en effet, meurent suite à (le plus volatile terme de causalité ») un missile lancé d’un hélicoptère, ou à une incursion de tanks à Naplouse, ou encore une fusillade entre forces du Fatah et soldats Israéliens. Qui les a tués?

Si je dis que ma grand-mère est morte quelques minutes après le début des bombardements sur l’Afghanistan, personne ne songera à établir une relation entre les deux événements et à blâmer les B-52 usaméricains. Le terrorisme syntaxique juxtapose deux actions qui sont liées, cependant, par une relation causale indissoluble. « Trois enfants palestiniens meurent à l'hôpital suite à un raid israélien »: le lecteur doit faire un effort pour rétablir le vrai sujet, sémantique et moral de cette phrase. Ces enfants, ne seraient-ils pas morts de la rougeole? Ne seraient-ils pas tombés d’un mur? En Palestine, il ya des coïncidences tous les jours comme celle de ma grand-mère, avec une fréquence  telle qu’il est surprenant qu’il n’y ait pas plus de spécialistes en parapsychologie dans les rues de Jérusalem. « Sept jeunes Palestiniens meurent d'une mort naturelle après qu’un obus israélien pulvérise leur maison. » « Une femme palestinienne s'effondre, victime d'un arrêt cardiaque, alors qu'un soldat lui tire au cœur. » Rien de plus paradoxal que de constater que les journalistes ont fini par se réfugier sans le savoir dans la philosophie d’ Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), qui pour défendre la liberté absolue de Dieu fut contraint de refuser les chaînes causales; contemporaines ou successives, l'occupation et l'intifada, les tirs israéliens et les enfants explosés n’ont aucune relation entre eux. Dieu est libre de faire ce qu'il veut, et de relier deux événements comme il lui plaît, Israël ne semble coupable que parce que, dans notre échelle chronologique classique, les tirs précèdent les morts. Mais ne suffirait-il pas que les Palestiniens meurent d’abord et que les Israéliens tirent ensuite pour que se révèle à nous, comme aux journalistes, toute l’innocence de l’occupant ?

Source : le livre Torres más altas, Numa Ediciones (Valencia 2003) – ISBN: 9788495831057 

La Première guerre des mots est une initiative de Palestine Think Tank et Tlaxcala. Les auteurs souhaitant y participer peuvent envoyer leurs contributions à contact@palestinethinktank.com et à tlaxcala@tlaxcala.es.   

Each political protest that attempts to open people’s eyes to the world of untruths which constantly inundates us, exposes the silent majority to more and more of the police state tactics that the ruling elite has gathered together, to use as it wages war against the American public by less than deadly means.  In addition to rubber bullets and flash grenades, the police state brought-out acoustic weapons to herd protestors at the recent G20 Summit in Pittsburgh:

Electromagnetic weapons were used by the Honduran military on Pres. Zelaya, who is holed-up in the Brazilian Embassy:

Pain rays have been used in Iraq (witnesses report that other more exotic lethal weapons were used there, some of which could allegedly melt human flesh, even large vehicles):

The weapons pictured above are just some of the known weapons at the tip of the iceberg of electromagnetic weaponry, ranging from the near-lethal, to those capable of causing mass death.   All of these weapons were developed by the military-industrial complex for crowd control.  This says nothing about the even more exotic weapons that have been kept hidden and the next class of electromagnetic weaponry, another level higher in magnitude, intended for use over broad areas, perhaps even hemispheric in reach.

The threat from such massive weaponry is so great that the EU has called for their regulation.  In October 2000, Congressman Denis J. Kucinich introduced in the House of Representatives a bill, calling for a ban of space based weapons.

In this bill, the definition of a weapons system included:

“any other unacknowledged or as yet undeveloped means inflicting death or injury on, or damaging or destroying, a person (or the biological life, bodily health, mental health, or physical and economic well-being of a person)… through the use of land-based, sea-based, or space-based systems using radiation, electromagnetic, psychotronic, sonic, laser, or other energies directed at individual persons or targeted populations for the purpose of information war, mood management, or mind control of such persons or populations“(15).

On a personal and more probable level, since, hopefully, most of us won’t be directly attacked by the police state:

There is the standard taser,

The long-range taser

The multi-shot taser.

And the really long-range taser.

My point in all of these examples is to highlight just how much research has actually gone into giving both the military and law enforcement a whole new range of weaponry, to create an entirely new class of violent tactics to use in enforcing crowd control and to persuade resisters to concede to the demands of authority.  This has empowered government to openly wage war against its own population without violating international law or being charged with war crimes.  Non-lethal weaponry allows the state to physically attack Americans without crossing the line to gunplay, thus side-stepping the Second Amendment and the issue of armed self-defense.

Government warfare against the population is structured much like regular warfare, meaning that enforcement operations are preceded by a period of softening-up the target, using psychological warfare tactics, fighting an informational war.  The softening-up process has been underway in America since WWII.   Just like in real warfare, the first line of offense is to find or plant sympathetic voices in the local media to serve as the primary instrument for the waging of this form of information warfare, where false ideas are introduced and truth about real intentions is discredited.

The government-controlled media pretends that there is no information war, as they work tirelessly to condition the people to accept the non-lethal warfare directed against us.  Movies, TV shows, books and every conceivable method of mass-communication is used to downplay the criminal use of techniques designed for warfare against the civilian population.

The militarization of American police forces and their adaptation to the new low-level warfare techniques is spoon-fed to us, mixed-in with the usual themes of “terrorism” and other fear factors, hoping to intimidate any potential resistance movement before it even begins—stifling the idea itself.  That’s the entire mission of the war against the people, in a nutshell, to stifle all unacceptable ideas within the mind itself, before trouble arises from them.

This is a war against all free minds, against all free thought.  All thought must be of the government-approved variety.  The idea is to replace all unacceptable thinking, acceptable falsehoods must replace reality-based thoughts.

By common consent, the entire “civilized” world operates on the American version of events. Countries that don’t accept the American version of events are ostracized.  Going against the flow, as determined by American interests, is a certain formula for losing valuable foreign aid and inviting heat of the more aggressive kind.  Individuals who refuse to accept the official version of events are branded as radicals and extremists.  Extremist nations and individuals find themselves facing the full wrath of the police state whenever they contradict the official line, as given each night by the controlled press.

The universal psyop goes much deeper than debilitating weapons and the informational war, extending into the populace on a deeply personal subterranean level.  The phenomenon called “mass-stalking” refers to psychological conditioning (brainwashing) aimed at specifically targeted individuals, even to entire families, using the time-tested methods.

The targets for this stalking are determined on the basis of intellectual testing and psychological profiling, which is conducted at all the elementary schools in the United States.  With the results obtained by these tests, the herding process of American children begins.  Much like the selective breeding process applied to animal husbandry, some of the human livestock will be separated for special care, while others will be separated from the herd and marked for disposal by the hired hands.

By comparing the results of these intelligence tests to standardized psychological tests, gifted individuals and those with psychological weaknesses are identified, in order to acquire test subjects for both reasons, to further development strategies or for more extensive manipulative techniques.  The results of this testing follow each of the test subjects throughout their juvenile and adult years.  The gifted are set on paths to develop their fullest potentials, while the others who are destined to be society’s outcasts, are set on pathways to lifetimes of pure hell.

The object of the mass-stalking is mass-experimentation in enforced behavior.  Using the most bizarre and effective methods devised by government scientists, unsuspecting individuals are involuntarily subjected to systematic torture, to either cause, or take advantage of split-personality disorders.  The purpose of this cruelty remains unclear—whether it is just another way to advance total state power, or simply a messy sadistic disposal system run by thugs who might otherwise work in slaughter houses, throwing live poultry against walls.

Beginning in their youth, these individual victims of these sadists are systematically subjected to the most disgusting forms of violent, sexual, chemical and electromagnetic torture, in order to destroy their young minds, by splitting and fragmenting them.  Many of these victims were abducted and tortured, others subjected to traumatic sexual and violent events, intended to force susceptible young minds into retreating within themselves, where they would split-off the personality associated with the unacceptable memory and submerge them and the memories associated with them.

The mass-stalking program grew out of the mkultra experiments and the mass-testing based experimentation previously done on American troops for WWII and Korea, intended to separate and develop potential leaders and those who were deemed to be “inadequate soldiers.” This mass-conditioning program was the prototype for the nationwide program which was to follow.

The secret programs carried-out in hospitals, universities and military bases, which relied upon the crude electro-shock methods of deprogramming, were the forerunners for later, more sophisticated, electromagnetic based memory erasure and stimulation.  Wireless transmission made the entire populace potential subjects for these tests.

These scientific programs for establishing government control over maverick free thinkers are very effective at preempting and suppressing potential resistance.  For those who are not so easily swayed by all this impressive technology or the cruelty of the government’s trained technicians, we know that FEMA camps await to be filled by someone.

Diehard resisters face formidable technical obstacles to their efforts to wake-up the sleeping sheeple and reach-out to those who have just given-up.  The task before us is to find ways to get past the personal defensive psychological barriers that have been erected to even listening to another opinion that contradicts their own.    This has been the primary problem that we have faced in raising an effective resistance.  We have not really had a chance to convince an open-minded audience that they believed in multiple lies.  How do you persuade people that their own belief system is based on pure deception?  How do you open people’s eyes and ears without first crossing pre-set boundaries of biases and preconceptions, inadvertently increasing their resistance to the truth?

The United States of America is a nation that has been heavily indoctrinated for over sixty years with false ideas about American benevolence in the world.  To convince an “average Joe” that this, the core of all his other beliefs, is false, is a monumental task in itself.  Yet, this is the central problem we face today, beyond the electronic/propaganda fence that has been erected to contain us.  If we could break through this one barrier, then there might not be a need for street confrontations.  All else might just fall in place.

Resistance begins and ends within the mind.  The police state knows this.  When they say euphemistically, that it is a war for “hearts and minds,” this is what they mean—a battle to kill-off ideas of resistance.  The Master State is attempting to preempt future resistance by anticipating who will be in the resistance, so that their rebellious minds might be swept clean of such unacceptable thinking, before trouble comes from it.

Resistance to the idea of the all-powerful state is all that prevents the rising-up of the global dictatorship.   Many plans are afoot now to bring this new order about.  Full implementation of the plan will bring-about a massive planetary kill-off, where multiple animal and plant species will disappear, along with a billion or more human beings.  Silence in the face of such inhuman plans is a deadly surrender of apocalyptic proportions.

peter.chamberlin@naharnet.com source: http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/

Nevertheless the question of Palestine is much more complicated than the question of settlements which composes only a portion of the question. But if we use this example as a barometer to measure the intention of Israel to integrate in the region the conclusion is more than obvious. Israel, like all racist and fascist states in history cannot live without oppressing and stealing the natives land and consequently cannot live without war. In the final analysis the essence of  the Palestinian question  is about displacing native Palestinians by a racist and murderous ideology to bring  people from all over the world nothing link them except they are Jews. But, the fact which the world still overlooks is that the absence of a comprehensive approach which considers all elements in the conflict it is difficult to see a sign of hope of a political settlement.

The question today is, what will the US be doing in light of the Israeli rejection of the American peace plans, will Obama realize at last that backing an apartheid state is absolutely against the interest of America which its image was greatly damaged in the whole world, or will Obama puts more pressures on Israel to comply with the peace plans?

Most Arab political circles fears that the USA which failed to put pressures on Israel to freeze settlement building for a year will press the Arab party to give more concessions to normalize the relation with the Jewish apartheid state. The meeting which took place in New York this week between Obama, Abbas and Netanyahu is considered a success to Netanyahu who could boast that he challenged Obama and rejected to comply with the American proposals.

Arab states say that they have given concrete proposals and the ball now is in the Israeli ground. The Beirut summit of 2002 which Israel ignored proposed a full diplomatic relation with the state of Israel for a full withdrawn from the west bank. For that reason Arab circles in the Middle East are concerned about the Obama demands from some Arab countries in the North Africa and the Gulf region to deliver some “normalization gestures” towards Israel which in return will continue building “only” 3000 units in the occupied Palestine. In the light of this Arab circles began to pose questions about the capability of the new administration to break with the previous American biased position.  A Palestinian politician whom I spoke with after the Obama speech at the UN wonders what Obama means by using the term halting the Palestinian agitation against Israel.  He asked: “Do Palestinians need somebody to agitate them against Israel when they see with their eyes how Israel makes their life hell on daily basis? Does Obama expect Palestinians to dance when Zionist Jews steal their land and humiliate them daily on 600 check points which most of them has no security significance for Israel but rather to humiliate Palestinians and to break their will of freedom?”

The historical speech of the Libyan leader at the UN has posed serious questions about the role of the UN towards several third world cases, Palestine is one of them. Most Arab observers consider that this speech was the clearest Arab protest towards the UN which failed to prevent more than 65 wars and failed to provide justice to Palestinians. We cannot see that the UN is for the whole world, Al Qaddafi said. Indeed the strong states do what they like and nobody question them while the UN is strong on the small states.  The Palestinian question is the sharpest example: Israel occupies, murders and steals Palestinian land  under the shadow of the American veto which consolidates the Qaddafi argument about the biased position of the UN. However the political view in the occupied Palestine has witnessed no change on the ground.

The apartheid state of Israel changes its propaganda tactics between time and time but the strategy remains the same. To steal as much as they could of Palestine and to reduce as much as they could of Palestinians by various forms of terror which is the preferable methods of the Zionist apartheid state. The reality on the ground is which speaks, and this reality demonstrates clearly that Jewish settlement increases creating facts on the ground which makes the establishment of a small Palestinian state impossible. Major Palestinian cities like Qalqilya  are surrounded by a wall from three directions leaving only one entrance to go into town in one of the  biggest prisons in modern history is a small  example of the huge destruction which Israel  caused  and is still causing to the Palestinian land and the Palestinian life.  If an earthquake or any natural catastrophe strikes the town hundreds of thousands of its population will find no place to escape to since the Zionist walls are surrounding the city from three directions. According to a source in the Palestinian civil defense whom I met recently several fires were not extinguished because the Palestinian fire fighting cars were stopped from half to one hour on the Israeli check points and the result is that the cars reached the place when the fire had already destroyed everything. The Jewish fascism is getting stronger with each day and the hopes of reaching a reasonable solution disappearing too. All this is contributing in creating an atmosphere of hopelessness and pessimism in the region and consolidating the view that the international community is unable or unwilling to make Israel respect the international law.

In the view of many Arab observers the failure of the American plan will push the region sooner or later towards a comprehensive war which would be the logical result of the aggressive Zionist policy. Are we heading towards the eighth Arab Israeli war, it is difficult to tell, but what is sure that the absence of a serious pressure on Israel is creating an atmosphere of despair and militancy which will sooner or later lead to the eighth Arab Israeli war which many observers predict it will be catastrophic.

 * Dr. Salim Nazzal is a Palestinian-Norwegian historian in the Middle East, who has written extensively on social and political issues in the region. – snazzal@ymail.com

SOURCE: http://www.amin.org/articles.php?t=ENews&id=3045