In all discussions about the Middle
East by the U.S. mainstream media, there is an incessant bragging that Israel is the only “democracy” in the Middle
East. In fulfilling its propaganda function, it is not surprising that this media will praise a country as “democratic”
even though it has been occupying by force for several decades a whole country (Palestine) thereby denying millions of people
their right of self-determination. It also does not matter to this media that the country so praised as “democratic”
practices the worst form of apartheid that exists in the world today.
The assertion that Israel is unique in the Middle
East as a “democracy” is actually an understatement. Israel is unique in the world as a “democracy”.
It is the only country in the world that practices as “democracy” which would otherwise, objectively speaking,
be termed fascist totalitarianism. Consider some of these observations regarding Israel:
Uses its Army to bomb and
destroy radio and television stations (Reported on CNN, BBC etc., 01/19/2002), to curb freedom of expression
"Out of 213 violations involved shootings, shellings, bombings and missile attacks (against the PRESS), 204
were carried out by Israelis, four by Palestinians, and five by unknown perpetrators. Many Palestinian broadcasting stations
were effectively censored due to shutdown by order of authorities (Israeli and Palestinian) or because of (Israeli) missile
or bombing attacks. Journalists have been jailed for several months at a time by the Israelis without even being charged with
an offense. All Palestinian journalists have been denied Israeli press cards by Israel's Government Press Office and have
thus been severely obstructed in carrying out the duties of their profession. By the stroke of a pen, around 450 media professionals,
or the press corps of a whole nation, have therefore been disabled by a foreign military occupying power from reporting freely
on dramatic and momentous events in their own home country.", INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE REPORT
The United States, following Israel's lead as occupier
is doing the same in Iraq:
"Reuters has told the US government that American
forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiralling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching
the public. The detention and accidental shootings of journalists is limiting how journalists can operate, wrote David Schlesinger,
the Reuters global managing editor, in a letter to Senator John Warner, head of the armed services committee. The
Reuters news service chief referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed,
wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq". ....US forces admitted killing three Reuters journalists,
most recently soundman Waleed Khaled, who was shot by American soldiers on August 28 while on assignment in Baghdad. But the
military said the soldiers were justified in opening fire. Reuters believes a fourth journalist working for the agency, who
died in Ramadi last year, was killed by a US sniper."JULIA DAY OF THE GUARDIAN
Wanted to pick and choose who leads the Palestinians, being unhappy with its leadership under Arafat (CBS News)
Murdered the United Nation's Peace Mediator, Count Bernadott (in 1948), when it didn't agree with his diplomatic efforts,
never bringing the assassins to justice (even though Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel knew that the Stern Gang (an Al Qaeda-like Jewish organization was responsible). The mission
to assasinate Bernadotte was organized by Yitzhak Shamir, who later became Prime Minister of Israel
Had a Prime Minister (Menachim Begin) wanted for terrorism (by the British Government).
Begin's Irgun was another Al-Qaeda-like Jewish terrorist group.
Blows up civilian hotels (Jerusalem's King David Hotel- killing 91 and the Semiramis Hotel) in the "Oklahoma City" fashion, while
preaching these days that "terrorism" is "never" justified (Natanyahu,"the evangelist" talking on the Christian Broadcasting Network,
Nov.2002)
Uses F-16s, Attack Helicopters, tanks (over 300 in civilian camps ) and thousands of troops, to attack civilian towns and civilian vehicles. Uses live ammunition at stone-throwing Palestinian youth, and practices
assassinations in broad daylight in civilian marketplaces. Of all Palestinians killed during curfews by the IDF, over 80% have
been children according to B'TSELEM - The Israeli Center for Human Rights (Oct 16, 2002 Report).
"The Israeli security forces who carry out the extrajudicial executions offer no proof of guilt, no right of
defence," said Amnesty International. "The Israeli authorities are showing an utter disregard of the right
to life."
Image from the Qana Massacre by the Israeli "Defense" Forces April 18th, 1996 in Southern Lebanon Qana was
a civilian refugee camp
Is illegally occupying land by use of force, in clear violation of United Nation’s Resolutions, and continues to expand
illegal settlements while demolishing Palestinian homes.
Under
article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention Israel is prohibited from establishing settlements: "The Occupying Power shall not
transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies"
Under Articles 35 & 49 of the 4th Geneva
Convention it is forbidden to deport or "forcibly transfer," the local population, including such common Israeli practices
as revoking the Jerusalem residency of Palestinians or banning Palestinians from returning from work, study or travel abroad
Under
the Fourth Geneva Convention Occupying Powers are prohibited from destroying Palestinian property or employing collective
punishment. Article 53 reads: “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually
or collectively to private persons…is prohibited." Under this provision the practice of demolishing Palestinian houses
is banned, as is the wholesale destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure.
Since 1967, Israel has created a "Greater"
Jerusalem which controls the entire central portion of the West Bank and cuts economic heart out of Palestinian state. While
constructing 90,000 housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem, the municipality has intentionally created a shortage of 25,000
housing units for Palestinians. The goal is three-fold: (1) to maintain a 72%-28% majority of Jews over Arabs – a racist
policy that no Jews in the world would accept; (2) to confine the Palestinian population to small islands – the Arabs
make up a third of the Jerusalem population, but only have access to 7% of the urban land; and (3) to ultimately force them
out of the city
Source: THE ISRAELI COMMITTEE AGAINST HOUSE DEMOLITION
United Nation's Resolution 1998/32 (at the 45th plenary meeting, 29 July 1998) - Economic and social repercussions of the Israeli
occupation on the living conditions of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem,
and the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan - states categorically under point 5 (see link to 1998/32 above for
complete text):
Direct Quote "5. (The UN) Also reaffirms that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory,
including Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan, are illegal and an obstacle
to economic and social development."
The Holocaust Industry
Gathers sympathy for itself via the holocaust "industry" (even after reparations have been paid) but practices genocide and
apartheid on the Palestinians in a manner similar to South Africa and genocide like the Nazis (REUTERS report by Jeffery Heller 03/13/2002 & The Post, Dublin,
Ireland,14 April, 2002).
Actively creates "facts on the ground" causing derailment of any hope for peace and immense human suffering.
All this to fulfill Zionist aspirations of annexing the entire West Bank as Yertz Yisrael (the Land of Israel).
"..."Metropolitan Jerusalem," which I later
learned encompasses not just the city of Jerusalem, but 40 percent of the West Bank, including large Palestinian towns and
villages—Ramalla, El Bireh, Beit Sahour, Bethlehem and Beit Jalla, to name a few.
What one has to understand
about Jerusalem is that it is being transformed from a city into a larger region by the Israeli government. This has three
effects: It divides the northern part of the West Bank from the southern part; isolates Jerusalem's Palestinian population
from fellow Palestinians and; creates a corridor from Tel Aviv to Amman, Jordan. All of this ensures Israeli control over
any Palestinian state that might emerge from the "peace process."
Gonsalves, February 13, 2001 edition of the Cape Cod Times.
Has disregarded for over five decades, United Nation's Resolutions, including the Resolutions that condemned it for "breaking" the Resolutions
(# 517 and # 673), yet no "regime change" demands have been brought against it.(See, MEDIA MONITOR )
Cries loud and clear about individual cases of “suicide bombings” (caused by conditions of hopelessness and anomie
that it has directly caused in the camps) yet has killed, on average, 3 to 4 Palestinians for every Israeli that is killed
(before the current uprising, the ratio was much higher). (New York Times, 3/12/2002, Front Page Story).Summary Tables
Gets over $ 3 Billion dollars in aid from the U.S (60% of which is military), which is 1/3 (one part in three) of TOTAL U.S aid given on earth, yet
it comprises 1/1000 (one part in one thousand) of the world's population. At the same time Israel holds Palestinian
back-taxes, further impoverishing a people they have made homeless (see BBC)
Since 1973, Israel has cost the United
States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today's population, that is more than $5,700 per person. This is an estimate by
Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For decades, his analyses of the Middle East scene have made him a
frequent thorn in the side of the Israel lobby. For the first time in many years, Mr. Stauffer has tallied the total cost
to the US of its backing of Israel in its drawn-out, violent dispute with the Palestinians. So far, he figures, the bill adds
up to more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War. And now Israel wants more...( Christian Science Monitor, December 9, 2002
)
Attacked and almost sank a US Navy ship, the USS Liberty , killing 34 US Sailors, and wounding 171.
"Bamford writes that while the Israelis
were attacking the Liberty, an American spy plane overhead, a Navy EC-121, overheard and recorded Israeli conversations. The
results are devastating. The Israelis were unaware that anyone was listening, and their pilots talked openly about seeing
an American flag on the ship they were attacking."
After the Egyptian Revolution of 1954 when U.S. and Egyptian relations were improving, Israel started a "terror campaign"
aginst U.S. government officials and businesses in Egypt. The campaign was eventually broken and led to the resignation of
the Ben-Gurion government in 1961. This Israeli "terror campaign" against the U.S. is rememberd as the Lavon Affair.
Was caught spying on the US, remember Jonathan Pollard?
"One document Pollard is believed
to have slipped to the Israelis --thought to have landed in Soviet hands, albeit unintentionally-- was a huge compendium of
frequencies used by foreign military and intelligence services [which] cost the U.S. billions of dollars but Pollard rendered
. . . useless [and, by compromising it] may have cost informants their lives." (Time magazine, Dec. 13, 1993)
Link to Pollard
Even after Pollard, FOX NEWS reported on the Israeli White House spying during the Clinton era and the "spies" that were
detained after September 11th, who had prior knowledge of the event but did not inform the US authorities, showing complete
disregard for American lives (see Carl Cameron, Fox News 12/21/2001, Washington Post, 9/28/’01)
Labels anyone speaking out against its inhumane policies an Anti-Semite while actively pressuring our U.S media and capitalizing on the anti-Islam sentiment generated after
9-11.
GET THE FACTS FROM SOURCE DOCUMENTS
The problems between Arabs and Jews in
the Middle East is not a 2000 year old problem. It is not a religious problem. The golden years of Jewery were in 12th century
Andalusia under Muslim rule, at a time when Christians were persecuting them as "Christ killers". Anti-Semitism was a European-Christian
phenomena not related to Arabs and Muslims.
The problems between Arabs and Jews started when the Jewish minority in
historic Palestine wanted to bring in immigrants from all over the world to change the demography of the region (1917) and
to displace the indigeneous Arab residents.
1. CONFLICT NOT 2000 YEARS OLD 2. CONFLICT NOT BASED ON RELIGION 3. CONFLICT NOT INITIATED
BY THE ARABS 4. CONFLICT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH ANTI-SEMITISM.
The charge of anti-semitism
applied to the conflict is historically, geographically, religiously and ethnically misplaced.
SHLAIM INTERVIEW ON HISTORY
NORMAN FINKELSTEIN ON HISTORY
Holocaust Against the Palestinians
Michael Hoffman II, Moshe Lieberman
Compiled by two scholars with impeccable
credentials -- Michael Hoffman, a former reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press, and Moshe Lieberman, a
former Hebrew University researcher -- the authors combine their sleuthing skills and erudition to bring the reader an irrefutable
dossier of Israeli war crimes in Palestine, profusely illustrated with harrowing photos of the death and destruction which
the Zionist war machine has administered as collective punishment upon the entire Palestinian nation.
PLEASE USE THIS LINK TO WRITE THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
THE AXIS OF EVIL
Conservative Jews and Evangelical
Christians use "God" and his "promise" to justify the dispossession of the Arabs from Palestine. The famous promise that they
talk about is found in Genesis 17:8 of the Holy Bible.
And
I will give to you (Abraham) and to your seed after you, the land wherein you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan (Palestine)
for an everlasting possession and I will be their God (Genesis 17:8-The Holy Bible)
Note that the
promise is made to Abraham who was NOT a Jew. The words Jew, Judaism, and Israel postdate Abraham. Also, the
Arabs are the "seed" of Abraham through Ishmael, so the "promise" covers them as well, and not only the children of Isaac
(the Jews). Thirdly, the statement in the Bible promised Abraham ("YOU and your seed") the land, however when he died he did
not possess any part of it (Acts 7:3-5- The Bible). It did not fall into Jewish hands until Joshua.
As such this promise cannot be from God, according to the Torah’s own standards (of distinguishing truth from falsehood):
When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing FOLLOW NOT, NOR COME TO PASS, that is the thing the Lord
hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously (Deuteronomy 18:21-22- The Bible)
Supposedly, according to the Bible, the
Jews invaded Palestine under Joshua three thousand years ago (Joshua 12:24) conquering each little
divided village by force of arms, killing old men, women, children and animals- it was not given to them, it was forcibly
taken by them through conquest, using the same tactics that the modern Israeli state uses in terrorizing and displacing outgunned
Palestinians.
According to the Talmud, Judaism's holiest book, considered even holier than the Old Testament by its
own admission (Erubin 21b, Soncino edition), non-Jews are like dogs and pigs. Jews can rob, steal and kill non-Jews without being brought
to justice. Inspired by such indoctrination, Baruch Goldstein, an orthodox Jew from Brooklyn massacared 29 Palestinians as
they knelt in prayer at a mosque. Goldstein was a disciple of the Rabbi Kahane, who stated that his view of Arabs as "dogs"
was "from the Talmud" (CBS 60 minutes)
And they utterly destroyed all
that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword
(Joshua 6:21- The Bible)
SEPTEMBER 16, 1982 The Sabra & Shatila Massacre of Civilian Refugees Old men, women, and children
The Israeli Government's appointed
Kahane Commission (February 8, 1983) stated,
"We
have found, as has been detailed in this report, that the Minister of Defense (Ariel Sharon) bears personal responsibility."
SHARON: The WAR CRIMINAL Human Rights Watch
Forensic Assessment of IDF Atrocities at the Jenin Refugee Camp, April 2002 Physicians For Human Rights
Assessment of Ongoing Human Rights Crisis in the Occupied Territories Amnesty International
Beatings & Abuse of Palestinians B'TSELEM: Israeli Center for Human Rights
Rodinson,
a Jew, writes in his book, Israel and the Arabs:
But
for one thing, they (the Israelis) cannot be said to have a historic right to a piece of territory because some of their ancestors
supposedly inhabited it two thousand years ago…The Arabs of Palestine have the same rights over Palestine territory
as the French exercise in France, and the English in England. These rights have been violated without any provocation
on their part.
THE CAMP DAVID FACTS
Robert Malley, the US National Security
Council’s Middle East expert under Clinton and a member of the American team at Camp David, wrote an article for the
July 8, 2001 edition of the New York Times, in which he says:
“The Palestinians
were arguing for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967, borders, living alongside Israel. They accepted
the notion of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory to accommodate settlement blocs. They accepted the principle of Israeli
sovereignty over the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem—neighborhoods that were not part of Israel before the Six
Day War in 1967. And, while they insisted on recognition of the refugees’ right of return, they agreed that it should
be implemented in a manner that protected Israel’s demographic and security interests by limiting the number of returnees.
No other Arab party that has negotiated with Israel—not Anwar el-Sadat’s Egypt, not King Hussein’s Jordan,
let alone Hafez al-Assad’s Syria—ever came close to even considering such compromises.”
It is a FACT that the Palestinian Authority has accepted the existence of Israel, on over 78%
of historic Palestine as reflected in the Oslo Accords of 1993 and their own official charter. The UN partition plan of 1947
gave Israel 55% of the land at a time when Jewish population in historic Palestine was 30% of the whole, and Jews owned 7%
of the land, with most being recent immigrants from other countries. In 1922, the Jewish population in that general area was
11%, the rest were predominantly Arabs. Now they have over 78% and are occupying the rest and building Jewish settlements
on it.
Israel wants even more land by continued settlement
building and talk about Judea and Samaria as Yertz Israel (the Land of Israel). In the Camp David Accords, by denying complete
soverignity to the Palestinians, Barak rejected in principle the United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338, which had been accepted
as the basis for the Oslo Accords.
The blame does not lie with the Palestinians for the breakdown of the Camp David
meeting.
Avi Shlaim, Oxford Historian and author of The Iron Wall: Israel & the Arab World (1999), says in an interview
The Israelis would never concede to the Palestinians the status of victims, this they insist on keeping
for themselves. One example of this is the case of the 1948 refugees, which Benny Morris demonstrated was the result of Israeli
pressure and outright expulsions. And yet no Israeli leader would ever accept the moral responsibility, let alone the political
responsibility, for creating the refugee problem. They wouldn't even accept a share of the moral responsibility for this problem.
Ehud Barak at Camp David wasn't asked to accept the right of return for refugees. He was asked to accept that Israel bear
merely a part of the moral responsibility for this problem, which would then be tackled by the international community. And
he refused."
PERVERTED STANDARDS
CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST THEIR OWN
PEOPLE?
In a few years
if regime change in Russia "fits in" with the agenda of the corporate elite, maybe the argument that "they used chemical weapons
against their own people"- can be resurrected.
Apparently that outrage is lacking in the media's propaganda priorities
at the time that it has taken place. The propaganda about Iraq's use of chemical weapons, "against its own people", makes
clear that the media propaganda model operates without any temporal logic-events are resurrected a decade after they happen
when need be and ignored as unimportant at the time they occur.
Consider the millions that have died of cancer caused
by nuclear testing and radioactive/chemical dumping- according to many government and private studies- , even after the studies
made the effects of them clear, amounts to our US "regime(s)" using chemical and nuclear weapons against its own people,
in a permeditated fashion. Why don't we hear about that on the mass media?
M. Asadi
PUBLISHED BY THE KHALEEJ TIMES, 2 NOVEMBER 2002, UAE
Beslan, The Neo-conservatives
& the Media
William
Kristol, one of the "big guns" in the Neo-Conservative movement, Chairman of the Project for the New American Century and
editor of the Weekly Standard magazine, writes in the Financial Times (September 9, 2004): "...the forces of barbarism, holding
high the banner of jihad, have murdered innocents from Bali to Istanbul, from Jerusalem to Madrid, Falluja and beyond. Will
the forces of civilization be found wanting in the struggle against terror?"
To understand the above statement by
Kristol, as well as the reporting of the Baslan tragedy by the U.S. media, we need to understand the blueprint or model based
upon which such incidents are covered by specific interest groups or this media. At the heart of this model, which is almost
uniformly followed, lies the violation of the principle of objectivity. By objective we mean the uniform application of standards
regarding similar phenomena. Subjective on the other hand implies the arbitrary application of standards to phenomena. Similarly,
subjectivity also implies the association of deliberately vague concepts so that when one is mentioned, an automatic association
with the other is made-even though they are not connected- like the association between "barbarism" and "Jihad" in the Kristol
statement, or the association of the war on Iraq with "civilization", in the same statement. Arbitrary application of standards
reveals ulterior motive, what we term as the propaganda function of this media or various interest groups (like the neocons).
The
Neo-Conservative movement is recognized for its unconditional support of Israel. It has also been credited with pushing the
Iraq war agenda and passing sensitive U.S. intelligence to Israel (Washington Post, Sept 4 2004). Taking the Kristol statement
above, we can apply the objectivity test and dismantle the illusion of manipulative sincerity that he is trying to convey
to his readers. Application of objective standards would require that when children are killed there is clear condemnation,
regardless of who does the killing. Such condemnation is missing in Kristol’s articles and in U.S mainstream media reports
regarding Iraq and Palestine:
Regarding Iraq, over half a million children died in Iraq (hundreds of thousands more
than those killed in Baslan) directly caused by U.S sanctions (several hundred were killed by U.S bombs during the current
war), yet we did not see labels of "barbarism" being leveled by Kristol and his gang. Regarding Israel, when B’Tselem,
the Israeli Human Rights Organization, working in the Occupied Territories, said that out of the thousands of Palestinian
civilians killed by the Israeli Defense Forces, over 80 percent have been children, we didn’t see Kristol making statements
combining "barbarism" with "holding high the banner of Zionism", as he did with "Jihad".
Those who are in the business
of fooling people don’t seem to realize that in time a full circle is made, they end up making a fool of themselves.
Those who fooled the public on the Iraq war are now seeing the effects of the mess they created. They are also causing immense
human suffering in the process, "holding high the banner of civilization"- to use Kristol’s terminology.
Muhammed
Asadi
The above article was published by SELVES & OTHERS
Abnormal lives
NONE of the experts in the media panels of the United
States seem to realise that when suicide becomes a part of the daily life of a community, it is an abnormality that must have
a social context and cause. This 'opposition culture' can only be neutralised if what nourishes it is eradicated. Israel's
oppression and humiliation of the Palestinian people is legitimate reason for the would-be suicide bombers, in their mind,
to indulge in what they do - this is how an 'opposition culture' operates. No one has to inform these people, who are willing
to give up their lives, about what is going on. They see it all around them on the streets of the occupied territories everyday.
Tanks rolling into civilian cities and firing at will is not a 'normal' situation to live in. This is the anatomy of the problem,
yet we choose to ignore it. - M. Asadi.
The above letter was published in the Khaleej Times, UAE
The
Morality of Prejudice (April 18, 2004)
I was very disappointed to note regarding Elie Wiesel (who is presented by your program as a
"towering moral figure", winner of the Nobel Prize and the Congressional Medal of Honor) that people like him who have suffered
so much themselves become, in the drift of time, blind to the suffereing of others. I refer to his letter which was read on
air in your program, in which he mentions the mutual suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust and the Palestinians at the
current time.
What was conveniently forgotten by him in that letter from the 1970s was that the suffering of the Jews
during the Holocaust was not caused by Palestinians or "fanatics" whereas the suffering of the Palestinians and their dispossession
(see the work of Benny Morris, Israeli historian) from their ancestral land was directly caused by Israel and the Jewish elite.
His letter while a beautiful string of words is factually quite meaningless. While condemning the terrorism of the suicide
bombers, he similarly forgets that such reactions do not occur in a social vacuum. They occur within a social structure of
hopelessness and extreme oppression that Israel has constructed and maintains. Similarly, his idea about martyrdom morality
in Judaism and Christianity compared to what those he calls "fanatics" (his term for Muslims) is completley detached from
the view presented in the Old Testament. The morality of Moses during conflict (see Numbers 31:17-19) "in the name of the
Lord", makes the suicide bombers look like Sunday school kids. Wiesel further mentions that no government would deal with
"terrorists," conveniently forgetting that terrorism was used by the "founding fathers" of Israel to get their "homeland"(the
blowing up of the King David Hotel, the Semirimis Hotel, murdering the UN envoy, Count Bernadott, etc).
Before Mr.
Wiesel makes moral proclamations to humanity, may I suggest he try to break free of the immoral prejudice of always seeing
the Palestinians as the criminal culprits and Israel as the righteous victim.
M. Asadi Published at SOF site at:
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/reflection/2004/0415_wiesel_1.shtml
BILL MAHER'S
PROPAGANDA BOOK
On Bill
Maher's Picture-Book, "When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin-Laden"
Bill Maher:
Your comments on Islam
being forced on the people, as your quote on page 130 in large type-font (for the sake of sensationalism) is historically
misguided. Historians have, across the board, termed this "sword" claim as a "debunked hypothesis" (See Philip K. Hitti's,
A Short History of the Arabs 1973:59). An analysis of the adoption of Islamic names reveals that over a century and a half
after the "conquests", less than 10% of the population of those areas was Muslim. This suggests that the masses accepted Islam
much later and not as a result of the conquest (see Albert Hourani's, A History of the Arab Peoples (1991), page 46-47). Prominent
Western historians (like Edward Gibbon) have called this "sword" propaganda a myth. Why are you perpetuating
a myth that has been debunked by experts who scientifically analyze the evidence?
Your silence about "Holy Violence" in the Torah, and the explicit racism of the Old Testament that
has been translated into the present day apartheid regime of modern Israel, shows dishonesty and insincerity. Your claim that
U.S Foreign Policy cannot be criticized by today's Muslims because Muslims who lived 1400 years back allegedly had a "conquering
to convert" foreign policy is not only absurd, it reeks of the Israeli claim that since their ancestors allegedly inhabited
Palestine 2000 years back, they are justified today in stealing the entire area from its indigenous Arab population. Don't
resurrect the past to fulfill your present-day agenda!
Sincerely, M. Asadi
Copies of this letter were published
by Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com book reviews.
"(O Children of Israel)... if you repeat
(your crimes of the past), We shall repeat (the punishment of the past)..." (Koran 17:8)
ISRAEL IS IN A GUARANTEED
LONG-TERM "SUICIDE MODE". THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE STATUS-QUO, AND ARMED OPPRESSION, ARE ISRAEL'S GREATEST ENEMIES, LIVING IN
A FOOL'S PARADISE, WITH NO THOUGHT ABOUT THE FUTURE.
PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: IS IT POSSIBLE? (October,
2005)
The Israel/Palestine
problem is not complicated: we have an occupying power (Israel) and an occupied people (Palestinians), and a huge disparity
of power and control between the two, all within the context of International Law, and the UN which has already decided upon
the solution (see http://israel.rationalreality.com). If the occupying power desires peace, it can be readily achieved, given
its dominant position. So why has peace not become a reality in around half a century?
In the 1950s C. Wright Mills
wrote about the Military Metaphysic- the military definition of reality deeply espoused by the US elite. Why the Israel/Palestine
problem will not get resolved and has not been solved so far can be understood, in my opinion, in light of what Mills wrote:
"The expectation of war solves many problems of the "crackpot realists"; it also confronts them with many new problems. Yet
these, the problems of war, often seem easier (for them) to handle, (compared) to political policies that are distasteful
to many politicians...The terms of their long term solutions, under conditions of peace, are hard for the capitalist elite
to face." (Page, 87, Causes of World War III)
What is distasteful to the US and Israeli elite, is peace in the
Middle East, and the resulting effect that might have on regional development in the Arab world and US hegemony in a resource
rich Middle East. In their uneasy alliance with corporations, whose leadership positions they normally hold when they are
not posing as politicians, the Neo-Cons in the US (Israel's strong supporters) have found a dual fulfillment of purpose. The
terms of the "long term solution" to the "Palestinian problem" are what they do not want to face. If that can be avoided,
any "practical problems" that a new war or a new Intifadah might bring are easier for them to handle. In all such alliances
to further power and wealth, human suffering and misery become at best, background noise justified by moral symbols, unconnected
events (like the holocaust), media distractions, and stage management. The US and Israel together (and not only Israel), are
to blame for the lack of peace and development in the Arab world. I do not think that peace in the Middle East will
ever become a reality as long as US hegemony in the current world system continues to exist. Even if (in an imaginary scenario)
the Palestinians voluntarily leave the West Bank and Gaza and hand it over to Israel on a silver platter, Israel will invent
a new war in that region, in tune with the desires of the US elite. There will still be no peace.
Peace is possible
only if the current world system with its structure of power and manipulation is altered to one that places humanity and its
well being before wealth, resources and profits. Peace, working within the current system, dominated by the US power elite,
is impossible to achieve. History bears witness to the fact that regardless of the face or political label of the person in
power, or the terminology used for the various “peace plans”, there has been no peace in Palestine and no end
to the Israeli occupation.
.
M. Asadi Published by Selves & Others
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