Racism, Alive and Well.

May 5, 2009.
by: admin1
Illustration , "Freedom of Speech" - by: Ben Heine

In the current economic times, how much does truth sell for?

In the recently concluded UN Forum on Racism, the world got a firsthand look at how racism operates. You are welcome to attend if you verbally denounce racism. If, however, you speak directly to current acts of racism, you face the barbed tongues of the media for divisive speech. If you speak of a people who have been dispossessed of their land, those who dispossessed them will walk out of the building. And, if you speak of the history of slavery and the possibility of reparations for the descendants of those people who were forcibly abducted from their homes, then, like the US, you needn't bother to even attend.

At the UN World Forum on Racism in Geneva, The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took advantage of another chance to flummox the feathers of Israel and called frequently for the dis-empowerment of that nation. But less focused on in his speech were a few other points. He spoke of the need to dissolve the veto power of the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, who at last tally, had quashed some 40 resolutions on the subject of Palestine by the veto of the United States. He spoke of the million souls killed in Iraq and the several million who have been forced out of their homes in that country.

He also gave voice to the deathly silence of genuine action from the UN Security Council beginning in December of 2008 to January 09, when the UN spoke sternly but did not act to stop the slaughter of an estimated 1100 civilians in the Gaza Strip. He called these acts by a name, racism.

Speaking of violence in today’s society is often equated with actual violence. The difference between the two is very real though. Consider, since the year 2000, there are around 6000 fewer Palestinian souls on the planet, and around 1000 fewer Israeli. Taking into account the fact that almost every aspect of Palestinian life is under curfew, that family members often begin decomposing before they can be taken across checkpoints to burial, that women often die in childbirth for the same reason and that upwards of 70% of the citizens lack clean drinking water, one can sense that there might be a perception of racism toward the Palestinians by the Israeli government. Israel has been given material support since its inception by the United States to perform acts of dispossession on a native population. In recent times, they have expanded the ’settlements’, tripling their inhabitants in a little over a decade and a half.

But as with America, the push for expansion of lands and displacement of native people has no term other than racism, and such crimes seep in to the consciousness of a country, as much as it wishes to shield itself from it.

That Ahmadinejad spoke so in public is of course anathema to systemic racism, which prefers not to have its name called out in the polls. To be fair to the conference attendees, Ahmadinejad’s statements were in some respects the least eloquent of the conference. The work to address the multiplicity of slave trades between Africa, the Middle East and India is laudable, as is the work to improve human rights and dignity for migrants and modern day slaves. The fact that defamation of religion has for the time being been labeled as a matter of freedom of speech is as well commendable. But Ahmadinejad’s speech still captures something that won’t sit still, even after it has left Durban in 2001 or Geneva in 2009, namely, a striving to create a world which is more just and more humane for the future, starting with an honest admission of the crimes of the past, the crimes of the present and what can be done to best help the future. A good start would be the demanding equity for the Palestinian people, many of whom currently live in isolated camps, are subject to random arrests and are forced further toward hopelessness by a policy that is by now at least two generations old.

Considering that the population that lives in Israeli Settlements in the West Bank has tripled in the last 18 years, with an estimated 40% of the settlements and ‘outposts’ existing extra-legally on Palestinian land, it would seem that now would be an opportune moment for reconciliation.

Also recently, was the Indigenous People’s Global Summit on Climate Change, which captured fewer headlines than Hugo Chavez’s timely gift of a book to Barack Obama. The present, Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano’s “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent”, puts forward the notion that if Latin America had been and was now fully reimbursed for all of the land and natural resources stolen from them, from the past up until the present day, they would be the keepers of the keys of the world economy, instead of its most frequent beggars. Indeed if the human species is to gain a footing that would walk it away from self-imposed annihilation and closer to sustainability, taking Native People’s perspective into account would seem to be a good start. The 400 indigenous people from 80 nations making up the Indigenous People’s Global Summit on Climate Change were in the end divided over whether to call for an immediate moratorium on all new oil and gas drilling on native lands in preference for alternative energy.

Though unresolved in the end, such a call is to date not even conceived of being mentioned in the wider populace of any country. They as well called for a stop to ‘false solutions like forest carbon offsets and other market based mechanisms that will benefit only those who are making money’ as Tom Goldtooth stated. With grain prices having doubled in the last 2 years, with ethanol consuming 25% of the US grain supply and with 18,000 children dying each day from starvation, we are fast approaching the day when it will be more profitable to put gas in a car than to feed people.

All of this, and Javed Iqbal, a Staten Island resident originally from Pakistan, was sentenced last week to six years in prison for airing an Arabic television channel and Dov Zakheiv, the rabbi who somehow lost 2.6 trillion dollars while working for the Pentagon from ‘01 to ‘04, is writing columns for ’shadowgovernment’ of foreignpolicy.com. Yes, Virginia, there is still racism in the world.

LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!

Thanks for all you do!
Live your values. Love your country.
And, remember: TOGETHER, We can make a DIFFERENCE!

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Banner Drop Over Cross Bronx Expressway Continues Wave of Jewish Solidarity.

by: JATO-NYC, nycjato@gmail.com http://jatonyc.org/
graphic by: Alane Golden c. 2008.

Banner Drop Over Cross Bronx Expressway Continues Wave of Jewish Solidarity

NYC Jews Call for an Immediate End to Israel’s Occupation of Palestine. A banner drop over New York City's entrance to the Cross Bronx Expressway, at 179th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan, carried out by members of Jews Against the Occupation / NYC, declared "Free Palestine."

This action by Jewish New Yorkers continued the wave of increasingly public Jewish solidarity with the Palestinians recently targeted by the Israeli government's attack on the Gaza Strip, which killed over 1,300 people. Four banners were hung from overpasses on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and a fifth near the U.S.S. Intrepid on the West Side Highway in January.

The banner, seen by thousands of commuters during morning rush hour on Wednesday February 11, 2009, expanded the public presence of the many who strongly disagree with the US government’s support for Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Hundreds of Jews have participated in demonstrations in New York City. An AIPAC fundraiser with Michael Bloomberg in attendance was blockaded for two hours on January 29th.

A 24-hour protest in front of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency has been called for Thursday, February 12. "We are standing up for justice," said Niuta Teitelboim, one of the JATO / NYC activists, "which is a Jewish tradition that many Jewish organizations seem to have abandoned. Too many vocally endorsed a war which involved a string of Israeli war crimes: the mass killings of children and families at UN schools designated as places of refuge; the targeting with bombs and artillery fire of hospitals and ambulances; and most recently the destruction of food and medical aid supplies in a UN facility."

"The occupation is being paid for with U.S. taxpayers' money. Israel could not maintain one of the world's largest militaries without a constant flow of cash from the U.S. treasury," elaborated Chloe Tribich, another JATO/NYC member involved in the action. "Even if foreclosures and unemployment weren't decimating our neighborhoods, surely there are better uses for $3 billion a year than helping the Israeli government commit war crimes."

"Today's action is one small contribution to the growing movement in solidarity with the 1.5 million Palestinians whose lives are being destroyed by the occupation," JATO-NYC member Ethan Heitner explained. "We know from our own history what being sealed behind barbed wire and checkpoints is like, and we know that 'Never Again' means not anyone, not anywhere - or it means nothing at all."

LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!

Thanks for all you do!
Live your values. Love your country.
And, remember: TOGETHER, We can make a DIFFERENCE!

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Russell Means: Breaking the Silence on Obama

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Russell Means: Breaking the Silence on Obama

By: Brenda Norrell, Censored News

Illustration/-Photograhy: A. Golden, eyewash design, c. 2008.

American Indian activist Russell Means said President Obama was selected by the colonial powers as president to improve the US image globally in the aftermath of George Bush. Further, Means said Obama’s appointments show that he is a Zionist controlled by Israel. Speaking on Red Town Radio today, Means said what is happening now to Palestinians is what happened to American Indians.

“Every policy the Palestinians are now enduring was practiced on the American Indian,” Means said on the Blog Talk Radio show, hosted by Brenda Golden, Muskoke Creek. “What the American Indian Movement says is that the American Indians are the Palestinians of the United States, and the Palestinians are the American Indians of the Middle East,” Means said. Further, he points out that the Zionists who control Israel now control the United States. “The power of the US in world politics diminishes every day.”

“Now they have found a house servant by the name of Obama.” Means said Obama was selected as a “man in charge to take the heat,” because of the “bad cop” image that Bush put forth in the world. “Now, all of a sudden, it is, ‘We’re so great. We elected a black man to be president.’”

Means added that Obama is a black man who was raised by his white grandmother and has appointed Zionists to key positions and that the US is headed for a new era of menial jobs. On Indian lands, Means reminds us, the only people who get ahead are those who sell out to the colonial system. Now, there is massive and sophisticated propaganda by the Zionists and the U.S. Both countries, he said, are liars. In the US, American Indians have been shut out of history, philosophy and the arts, in a “total blackout.” The United States does not want to be reminded of the smallpox blankets, theft, colonialism and mistreatment of the American Indian, he said.

Means said most Americans do not realize that the financial collapse of this country is only beginning: “Americans cannot continue the lifestyles of consumers when there is no production. Low income jobs and menial jobs are the only ones left.” “Health care in the US reveals how the policies used in experimentation on American Indians became US policies. The US health care system is now stringent and calloused, with constant refusals of treatment. This has always been the case with the Indian Health Service. Now it is the policy of the HMOs. Family ranchers and family farmers are now in the way of progress, the same way the American Indian was once viewed. Now, family farmers and family ranchers are being gutted, because they function on massive credit. They are trying to pay back debts, which is not possible with manipulated agriculture prices. The family farmer and family rancher are now going to be extinct.”

Means points out that the federal government has also taken over and polluted the educational system; “Americans don’t even know their own history. Along with this federal control, came the passage of English-only laws in many states. However, for Indigenous Peoples it is positive to know many languages. If you speak two languages, you are speaking with two brains. That is the way it is to us. That’s how we look at life. In the mid-Twentieth Century, US schools listened to the communities and local governing boards.”

“However, now the US educational policy has taken away local control and mandated federal guidelines. So now education has become a matter of money. Meanwhile, the real history is silenced. While the United States attempts to portray itself as a peace loving nation, the fact is the United States is at war every year. The United States breaks a host of international laws every year, which has been the pattern since 1946. American Indians were aware of what the US was doing, because the US had already broken all treaties with American Indians; treaties guaranteed by the US Constitution,” he said.

About the American revolution to throw off the British, Means pointed out how “his-story” has been manipulated; “There is a great deal of propaganda about why the US broke away from England. But the fact is that George Washington, the largest landowner, along with the slave owners, broke with England so that the original treaties of England with American Indians in the west would not have to be honored. The US broke with England, to invade the west and take the land. ”

The US was created to break international laws,” Means said, adding that it is obvious today that this is the pattern of the U.S. Means said the United States was initiated as an outlaw and renegade nation and that “today, its imperial policies mean that Israel is a surrogate of the US, receiving aid from the U.S. With the combined US and international aid, Israeli receives $12 billion a year for its “military and the settlers in the West Bank.”

Means said 80 percent of the people in the West Bank are paid to stay there. “It is America who pays them to stay there. But even in Israel, where there is a free press and not everyone agrees with Israel waging war on Palestine. He said 20 to 30 percent of the people in Israel are against the war on Palestine. Like the United States, Israel has been at war every year of its existence.”

Means often refers to Israel as the 51st state, of warmongers and imperialists. “America and Israel are based on lies, resulting in the massive deaths in Iraq. Now, the US and Israel are focused on Iran because its oil reserves.” Means said Indian lands have become “open air concentration camps.” “If you chose to stay on the reservation, you are guaranteed to be poor, unless you are part of the colonial apparatus set up by the Bureau of Indian Affairs,” he said.

“On Indian lands, everyone fights to be part of the tribal governments because that is where the money is. Everyone fights to be part of the colonial system. The only way you can be part of the colonial system is to obey. Those returning home to Indian lands cannot ‘rock the boat,’ demand their treaty rights or their rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.”

Means said the American Indian Movement made people aware that the US Constitution was based upon that of the Iroquois Six Nations. “However, the US Constitution only includes one-third of the Great Law of Peace. If all of the Great Law of Peace had been adopted, this country would be much different and much wealthier.” However, it was turned into a country of consumers. He said what you get with a country of consumers is greed. “What is going on in Palestine is going on in America. The United States is taking away the homes of the people.” Now in the United States, there is “communism from the left” and “right-wing socialism.” He said the problem with socialism is that it is bereft of consensus and spirituality.

Means, now 70, said he has experienced the US when it reached its zenith in the world in the 1950s, “At that time, America was a productive country. In the years that followed, the ruling elite sold out the unions, as the labor movement was razor thin close to taking over politics in America. The most watershed event was Brown vs. Board of Education, the US Supreme Court ruling which desegregated schools. The white male started losing his power. Then, in the social revolution that followed, white males lost control of their women and their women’s vote, and lost control of the work place. While civil rights was the chosen remedy of most social movements, American Indians remained dedicated to ‘sovereign rights,’ individual sovereign rights. We are the only ones that held on to the sovereign concept, he said. The other social movements were saying, “Please Mr. White Male let me be equal to you.”

Means said things will be different now, “Our grandmother the Mother Earth is tired of the human race. She is going to eliminate it and I champion her, Mother earth.” Means said matriarchy is what Indigenous people are all about. “We know that women are the givers of life and men are the takers of life. We have to follow the woman in order to gain balance.” He said in a matriarchal society, there is a balanced society, as each celebrates their strengths together. “True individual freedom has to be done by consensus, otherwise it is mob rule.” In the US, now there are fake elections. “The people are convinced they are actually electing a president. However, it is the Electoral College that actually selects the US President.”

The charade is now coming to a close, as the ‘Patriot Act’ means that Posse Comitatus is dead and buried. Means said everyone has the responsibility to be free. “You are free to be responsible. That is the essence of freedom.” He said everyone should know their rights. Otherwise, they are guaranteed slavery.

“Einstein said, ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome,’” “That’s America, that’s the Indian reservation. That’s pathetic and an injustice to human beings.” He said “human brains are doped up with all this ignorance and greed.”

VIEW THE VIDEO ABOUT OBAMA’S ‘NewSpeak’ PAST

LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!

Thanks for all you do!
Live your values. Love your country.
And, remember: TOGETHER, We can make a DIFFERENCE!

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Russell Means: "I Pray for My Realitves - Update #7"

FACTS ABOUT GENOCIDE IN AMERICA:

by: Russell Means

Genocidal Results of the Failed American Indian
Policies of the United States Government:

MORTALITY:

• Lakotah men have a life expectancy of less than 44 years, lowest of any country in the World (excluding AIDS) including Haiti.
• Lakotah death rate is the highest in the United States.
• The Lakotah infant mortality rate is 300% more than the U.S. Average.
• One out of every four Lakotah children born are fostered or adopted out to non-Indian homes.
• Diseases such as tuberculosis, polio, etc. are present. Cancer is now at epidemic proportions!
• Teenage suicide rate is 150% higher than the U.S national average for this group.

DISEASE:

• The Tuberculosis rate on Lakotah reservations is approx. 800% higher than the U.S national average.
• Cervical cancer is 500% higher than the U.S national average.
• The rate of diabetes is 800% higher than the U.S national average.
• Federal Commodity Food Program provides high sugar foods that kill Native people through diabetes and heart disease.

POVERTY:

• Median income is approximately $2,600 to $3,500 per year.
• 97% of our Lakotah people live below the poverty line.
• Many families cannot afford heating oil, wood or propane and many residents use ovens to heat their homes.

UNEMPLOYMENT:

• Unemployment rates on our reservations are 80% or higher.
• Government funding for job creation is lost through cronyism and corruption.

HOUSING:

• Elderly die each winter from hypothermia (freezing).
• 1/3 of the homes lack basic clean water and sewage while 40% lack electricity.
• 60% of Reservation families have no telephone.
• 60% of housing is infected with potentially fatal black molds.
• There is an estimated average of 17 people living in each family home (may only have two to three rooms). Some homes, built for 6 to 8 people, have up to 30 people living in them.

DRUGS AND ALCOHOL:

• More than half the Reservation’s adults battle addiction and disease.
• Alcoholism affects 9 in 10 families.
• Two known meth-amphetamine labs allowed to continue operation. Why?

INCARCERATION:

• Indian children incarceration rate 40% higher than whites.
• In South Dakota, 21 percent of state prisoners are American Indians, yet they only make up 2% of the population.
• Indians have the second largest state prison incarceration rate in the nation.
• Most Indians live on federal reservations. Less than 2% of Indians live where the state has jurisdiction!

THREATENED CULTURE:

• Only 14% of the Lakotah population can speak the Lakotah language.
• The language is not being shared inter-generationally. Today, the average age of a fluent Lakotah speaker is 65 years.
• Our Lakotah language is an Endangered Language, on the verge of extinction.
• Our Lakotah language is not allowed to be taught in the U.S. Government schools.

LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!

Thanks for all you do!
Live your values. Love your country.
And, remember: TOGETHER, We can make a DIFFERENCE!

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Former Israeli Air Force captain speaks out against Israel's attack on Gaza

LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!

Thanks for all you do!
Live your values. Love your country.
And, remember: TOGETHER, We can make a DIFFERENCE!

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Israel's fait accompli in Gaza

Israel's fait accompli in Gaza
By: Eric S. Margolis, Al Jazeera
UPDATED ON: Monday, January 05, 2009, 12:43 Mecca time, 09:43 GMT
Photo: flickr user jaffa48 / Bajis Abu Atwaan, "israeli War crimes"

There are two completely different versions of what is currently happening in Gaza.

In the Israeli and North American press version, Hamas - 'Islamic terrorists' backed by Iran - have in an unprovoked attack fired deadly rockets on innocent Israel with the intent of destroying the Jewish state. North American politicians and the media say Israel "has the right to defend itself".

True enough. No Israeli government can tolerate rockets hitting its towns, even though the casualty totals have been less than the car crash fatalities registered during a single holiday weekend on Israel's roads.

The firing of the feeble, home-made al-Qassam rockets by Palestinians is both useless and counter-productive.

It damages their image as an oppressed people and gives right-wing Israeli extremists a perfect reason to launch more attacks on the Arabs and refuse to discuss peace.

Israel's supporters insist it has the absolute right to drop hundreds of tonnes of bombs on 'Hamas targets' inside the 360sq km Gaza Strip to 'take out the terrorists'.

Civilians suffer, says Israel, because the cowardly Hamas hide among them.

Actually, it is more like shooting fish in a barrel.

Omitting facts

As usual, this cartoon-like version of events omits a great deal of nuance and background. While firing rockets at civilians is a crime so, too, is the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which is an egregious violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions. According to the UN, most of Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinian refugees subsist near the edge of hunger. Seventy per cent of Palestinian children in Gaza suffer from severe malnutrition and psychological trauma. Medical facilities are critically short of doctors, personnel, equipment, and drugs. Gaza has quite literally become a human garbage dump for all the Arabs that Israel does not want. Gaza is one of the world's most-densely populated places, a vast outdoor prison camp filled with desperate people. In the past, they threw stones at their Israeli occupiers; now they launch home-made rockets. Call it a prison riot, writ large.

Eyeing the elections

When the so-called truce between Tel Aviv and Hamas expired on December 19, Israeli politicians were in the throes of preparing for the February 10 national elections. Israeli politics are playing a key role in this crisis. Ehud Barak, the defence minister and leader of the Labour party, and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and leader of the Kadima party, are trying to prove themselves tougher than Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line Likud party - and one another. Israel's elections are only six weeks away, and Likud was leading until the air raids on Gaza began. Kadima and Labour are now up in the polls. The heavy attacks on Gaza are also designed to intimidate Israel's Arab neighbours, and make up for Israel's humiliating 2006 defeat in Lebanon, which still haunts the country's politicians and generals.

A fait accompli

When the air raids on Gaza began, Barak said: "We have totally changed the rules of the game." He was right. By blitzing Hamas-run Gaza, Barak presented the incoming US administration with a fait accompli, and neatly checkmated the newest player in the Middle East Great Game - Barack Obama, the US president-elect - before he could even take a seat at the table.

The Israeli offensive into Gaza now looks likely to short-circuit any plans Obama might have had to press Israel into withdrawing to its pre-1967 borders and sharing Jerusalem.

This has pleased Israel's supporters in North America who have been cheering the war in Gaza and have been backing away from their earlier tentative support for a land-for-peace deal.

Israel's successes in having Western media portray the Gaza offensive as an 'anti-terrorist operation' will also diminish hopes of peace talks any time soon.

Obama inherits this mess in a few weeks. During the elections, Obama bowed to the Israel lobby, offering a new US carte blanche to Israel and even accepting Israel's permanent monopoly of all of Jerusalem.

As he concludes forming his cabinet, his Middle East team looks like it may be top-heavy with friends of Israel's Labour party.

Obama keeps saying he must remain silent on policy issues until George Bush, the outgoing US president, leaves office, but his staff appear happy to avoid having to make statements about Gaza that would antagonise Israel's American supporters.

Obama will take office facing a Middle East up in arms over Gaza and the entire Muslim world blaming the US for the carnage in Gaza.

Unless he moves swiftly to distance himself from the policies of the Bush administration, he will soon find himself facing the same problems and anger as the Bush White House.

Photo: jaffa48 -"Ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Hebron"

Arab deal killed

Israel's Gaza offensive is also likely to torpedo the current Saudi-sponsored peace plan, which had been backed by all members of the Arab League.

The plan, now likely defunct, had called for Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders and share Jerusalem in exchange for full recognition and normalised relations with the Muslim world.

Arab governments will now be unable to sell the deal as they face a storm of criticism from their own people over their powerlessness to help the Palestinians of Gaza.

Egypt, in particular, is being widely accused of collaborating with Israel in further sealing off and isolating Gaza. It seems highly unlikely they will be able to advance a peace plan with Israel for now.

This is a bonus for right-wing Israelis, who have always been dead set against any withdrawal and strongly supported the attack on Gaza.

Other Israeli factions who were always lukewarm about the Saudi peace plan are now unlikely to reconsider it.

Israel's security establishment is committed to preventing the creation of a viable Palestinian state, and refuses to negotiate with Hamas. Unable to kill all of Hamas' men, Israel is slowly destroying Gaza's infrastructure around them, as it did to Yasser Arafat's PLO.

Israel's hardliners point to Gaza and claim that any Palestinian state on the West Bank would threaten their nation's security by firing rockets into Israel's heartland.

Mighty information machine

Israel is confident that its mighty information machine will allow it to weather the storm of worldwide outrage over its Biblical punishment of Gaza. Who remembers Israel's flattening of parts of the Palestinian city of Jenin, or the US destruction in Falluja, Iraq, or the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Beirut?

Though the torment of Gaza is seen across the horrified Muslim world as a modern version of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising by Jews against the Nazis during World War Two, Western governments still appear bent on taking no action.

Though Israel's use of American weapons against Gaza violates the US Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts, the docile US Congress will remain mute.

Israel's assault on Gaza was clearly timed for America's interregnum between administrations and the year-end holidays, a well-used Israeli tactic.

Hamas refuses to recognise Israel as long as Israel refuses to recognise Hamas and the rights of millions of homeless Palestinian refugees.

It calls for a non-religious state to be created in Palestine, meaning an end to Zionism. Ironically, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and late leader of Hamas, had spoken of a compromise with Tel Aviv shortly before he was assassinated by Israel in 2004.

An inherited mess

Israel's hopes that it can bomb Gazans into rejecting Hamas are as ill-conceived as its failed attempt in 2006 to blast Lebanon into rejecting Hezbollah.

The Fatah regime on the West Bank installed by the US and Israel after Yasser Arafat's suspicious death will be further discredited, leaving the militants of Hamas as the sole authentic voice of Palestinian nationalism.

Hamas, the militant but still democratically elected government of Gaza, is even less likely to compromise.

The Muslim world is in a rage. But so what? Stalin liked to say "the dogs bark, and the caravan moves on," and as long as the US gives Israel carte blanche, it can do just about anything it wants.

The tragedy of Palestine will thus continue to poison US relations with the Muslim world.

Those Americans who still do not understand why their nation was attacked on 9/11 need only look to Gaza, for which the US is now being blamed as much as Israel.

Unless Israel can make 5 to 7 million Palestinians disappear, it must find some way to co-exist with them. Israeli leaders on the centre and right continue to avoid facing this fact.

The brutal collective punishment inflicted on Gaza will likely strengthen Hamas and reverse any hopes of a Middle East peace in the coming years.

Eric S. Margolis is an author, syndicated foreign affairs columnist, broadcaster, and veteran war correspondent. His latest book is American Raj: America and the Muslim world.

LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!

Thanks for all you do!
Live your values. Love your country.
And, remember: TOGETHER, We can make a DIFFERENCE!

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.