Professor Chomsky tells us what every Israeli regime has been planning to do since its inception.
"Last month’s chaos may mark the beginning of the end of the Palestinian Authority. That might not be an altogether unfortunate development for Palestinians, given US-Israeli programmes of rendering it nothing more than a quisling regime to oversee these allies’ utter rejection of an independent state...
Meanwhile, Israel stepped up its programmes of annexation, dismemberment and imprisonment of the shrinking Palestinian cantons in the West Bank, always with US backing despite occasional minor complaints, accompanied by the wink of an eye and munificent funding...
The hypocrisy is stunning. Obviously, the United States and Israel do not recognise Palestine or renounce violence. Nor do they accept past agreements. While Israel formally accepted the Road Map, it attached 14 reservations that eviscerate it. To take just the first, Israel demanded that for the process to commence and continue, the Palestinians must ensure full quiet, education for peace, cessation of incitement, dismantling of Hamas and other organisations, and other conditions; and even if they were to satisfy this virtually impossible demand, the Israeli cabinet proclaimed that ‘the Roadmap will not state that Israel must cease violence and incitement against the Palestinians."
Monday, July 30, 2007
US occupation of Palestine?
With more aid like this, who needs to end an occupation?
"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that the US has agreed a 25 percent increase in its military and defence aid to Israel, to 30 billion US dollars in the next 10 years."
So much for being an honest broker.
"US President George W. Bush, whom Olmert last met in Washington on June 19, gave him assurances 'to keep the qualitative edge between us (Israel) and the other states (in the region),' the Israeli premier said."
And aiding more Sunnis to counter the Shiites.
"A senior US defence official said on Saturday that Washington is readying a major arms package for Saudi Arabia with an eye to countering the changing threat from Tehran, Israel's arch foe."
It really should be no mystery as to why so many in the Middle East (especially Palestinians) are exhausted with so-called US mediating. And it's hard to erase those "Made in USA" labels on those lovely weapons that hit them hard and make sound booms while they sleep.
"Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday that the US has agreed a 25 percent increase in its military and defence aid to Israel, to 30 billion US dollars in the next 10 years."
So much for being an honest broker.
"US President George W. Bush, whom Olmert last met in Washington on June 19, gave him assurances 'to keep the qualitative edge between us (Israel) and the other states (in the region),' the Israeli premier said."
And aiding more Sunnis to counter the Shiites.
"A senior US defence official said on Saturday that Washington is readying a major arms package for Saudi Arabia with an eye to countering the changing threat from Tehran, Israel's arch foe."
It really should be no mystery as to why so many in the Middle East (especially Palestinians) are exhausted with so-called US mediating. And it's hard to erase those "Made in USA" labels on those lovely weapons that hit them hard and make sound booms while they sleep.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Zionism perverted.
Not only has Israel been continually referred to as an Apartheid state as well as compared to Pretoria, and has only come upon further scrutiny thanks to a certain former President whom has been under the kosh of slanders since the landmark book (and all its flaws), but Zionism cannot even save Jews from themselves.
"Last week, in a series of three decisions that are separate but connected through a stench of racism and discrimination, Israel entered the dismal pantheon of non-democratic states. This past Wednesday, Israel decided to be like apartheid-era South Africa, and some will say even worse countries that no longer exist.
Let's start with obligations. In a democratic country that has mandatory military service, all citizens must serve with no exception from those who are unable to for health reasons or similar grounds.) A person should not be getting an exemption from service based on one's religion or race. And there, with a slight hand gesture, the Knesset decided to "extend" the legislation known as the Tal Law – which initially was meant to be valid for five transitory years only, in order to examine the possibility of integrating the strictly Orthodox into the IDF.
This was a blatantly anti-democratic arrangement and even those who drafted it reemphasized that it was merely a temporary agreement for five years only, yet around here the temporary becomes permanent, particularly when we're talking about discrimination and racism."
Quite possible that it is the symptom of a state that's going awry.
"History has amused us by bringing these decisions at the beginning of the month of Av. Anyone who will be studying the destruction of the Third Temple, that is, the collapse of the Zionist enterprise and of the State of Israel, would certainly emphasize the above-mentioned disastrous decisions"
(Article courtesy of tadamon!)
"Last week, in a series of three decisions that are separate but connected through a stench of racism and discrimination, Israel entered the dismal pantheon of non-democratic states. This past Wednesday, Israel decided to be like apartheid-era South Africa, and some will say even worse countries that no longer exist.
Let's start with obligations. In a democratic country that has mandatory military service, all citizens must serve with no exception from those who are unable to for health reasons or similar grounds.) A person should not be getting an exemption from service based on one's religion or race. And there, with a slight hand gesture, the Knesset decided to "extend" the legislation known as the Tal Law – which initially was meant to be valid for five transitory years only, in order to examine the possibility of integrating the strictly Orthodox into the IDF.
This was a blatantly anti-democratic arrangement and even those who drafted it reemphasized that it was merely a temporary agreement for five years only, yet around here the temporary becomes permanent, particularly when we're talking about discrimination and racism."
Quite possible that it is the symptom of a state that's going awry.
"History has amused us by bringing these decisions at the beginning of the month of Av. Anyone who will be studying the destruction of the Third Temple, that is, the collapse of the Zionist enterprise and of the State of Israel, would certainly emphasize the above-mentioned disastrous decisions"
(Article courtesy of tadamon!)
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Contra in Gaza
The always brilliant Kathleen Christison has written a brilliant analysis of the main strategist behind the fiasco(s) in nations neighbouring Israel.
"[Dov] Weisglass later exposed the thinking behind the scheme as it began to evolve a year later into Sharon's plan for so-called disengagement from Gaza. These peace plans, he said, speaking specifically of the disengagement plan, supply "the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians." They "freeze" the political process. "And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda." Weisglass boasted that this had occurred with "a [U.S.] presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress." He did not openly credit Abrams, but, as a State Department official once told an interviewer, Abrams is "very careful about not leaving fingerprints."
Abrams has repeated this act multiple times -- not only over the Roadmap and disengagement, but over the issue of Israeli settlement expansion and over Israel's construction of the apartheid wall (on which he has helped plan such minutiae as the placement of gates and some parts of the wall's route) -- each time making it appear that Israel is making concessions, or would do so if it had a decent Palestinian partner for peace, but quietly manipulating the situation so that in the end Israel is enabled to proceed with its plans more or less unimpeded. By thus cooperating with Israel to fine tune its occupation practices, Abrams has acted as a partner of Israel rather than as a U.S. policymaker and has given legitimacy to virtually every aspect of Israel's continuing occupation."
Mr Abrams has his marks all over Central America, even as recent as 2002 in (another) failed coup d'etat attempt on Hugo Chavez. It seems like whenever there needs to be a fix for the sake of democracy (Re: vote for the right guys or suffer the consequences[.doc]), they call in the "cleaner" to right what went wrong. He seems to be in his element now that he has the whole Middle East to play with, as Christison vividly points out:
"Shortly after September 11 and the start of the "war on terror," according to the New Yorker profile, he was so enthusiastic about the prospect of manipulating the Arab world that he exulted that "I feel young again! I love all these battles -- they're so familiar to me." He was back in the fray, as during the era of the Central American wars."
It evokes what a US representative stated to former UN Envoy Alvaro De Soto (who correctly condemned[.pdf] that the West is being a major hurdle during the "peace" process) during the hostilities in Gaza: "I like this violence... it means other Palestinians are resisting Hamas." You could be mistaken that Washington is just playing a game with Arabs as their little playthings to just mold into "moderates" or obliterate if they pose too much of a nuisance. We can just forget that people try to have a normal life in the occupied territories (and beyond). Or better yet, let's just forget that they are people at all.
"[Dov] Weisglass later exposed the thinking behind the scheme as it began to evolve a year later into Sharon's plan for so-called disengagement from Gaza. These peace plans, he said, speaking specifically of the disengagement plan, supply "the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians." They "freeze" the political process. "And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda." Weisglass boasted that this had occurred with "a [U.S.] presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress." He did not openly credit Abrams, but, as a State Department official once told an interviewer, Abrams is "very careful about not leaving fingerprints."
Abrams has repeated this act multiple times -- not only over the Roadmap and disengagement, but over the issue of Israeli settlement expansion and over Israel's construction of the apartheid wall (on which he has helped plan such minutiae as the placement of gates and some parts of the wall's route) -- each time making it appear that Israel is making concessions, or would do so if it had a decent Palestinian partner for peace, but quietly manipulating the situation so that in the end Israel is enabled to proceed with its plans more or less unimpeded. By thus cooperating with Israel to fine tune its occupation practices, Abrams has acted as a partner of Israel rather than as a U.S. policymaker and has given legitimacy to virtually every aspect of Israel's continuing occupation."
Mr Abrams has his marks all over Central America, even as recent as 2002 in (another) failed coup d'etat attempt on Hugo Chavez. It seems like whenever there needs to be a fix for the sake of democracy (Re: vote for the right guys or suffer the consequences[.doc]), they call in the "cleaner" to right what went wrong. He seems to be in his element now that he has the whole Middle East to play with, as Christison vividly points out:
"Shortly after September 11 and the start of the "war on terror," according to the New Yorker profile, he was so enthusiastic about the prospect of manipulating the Arab world that he exulted that "I feel young again! I love all these battles -- they're so familiar to me." He was back in the fray, as during the era of the Central American wars."
It evokes what a US representative stated to former UN Envoy Alvaro De Soto (who correctly condemned[.pdf] that the West is being a major hurdle during the "peace" process) during the hostilities in Gaza: "I like this violence... it means other Palestinians are resisting Hamas." You could be mistaken that Washington is just playing a game with Arabs as their little playthings to just mold into "moderates" or obliterate if they pose too much of a nuisance. We can just forget that people try to have a normal life in the occupied territories (and beyond). Or better yet, let's just forget that they are people at all.
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