My God, what a bizarre lot these Republican aspirants for the US presidency are!

Newt Gingrich grasping the hands of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, 1993

Is this the best a great and proud nation can produce? How frightening the thought that one of them may actually become the most powerful person in the world, with a finger on the biggest nuclear button!

But let's concentrate on the present front-runner (Republicans seem to change front-runners like a fastidious beau changes socks).

It's Newt Gingrich. Remember him? The Speaker of the House who had an extramarital affair with an intern while at the same time leading the campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton for having an affair with an intern.

But that's not the point. The point is that this intellectual giant - named after Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest scientist ever - has discovered a great historical truth.

The original Newton discovered the law of gravity. Newton Leroy Gingrich has discovered something no less earth-shaking: there is an "invented" people around, referring to the Palestinians...

From its very beginning, the Zionist movement has denied the existence of the Palestinian people. It's an article of faith.

The reason is obvious: if there exists a Palestinian people, then the country the Zionists were about to take over was not empty. Zionism would entail an injustice of historic proportions. Being very idealistic persons, the original Zionists found a way out of this moral dilemma: they simply denied its existence. The winning slogan was "A land without a people for a people without a land".

So, who were these curious human beings they met when they came to the country? Oh, ah, well, they were just people who happened to be there, but not "a" people. Passers-by, so to speak. Later, the story goes, after we had made the desert bloom and turned an arid and neglected land into a paradise, Arabs from all over the region flocked to the country, and now they have the temerity - indeed the chutzpah - to claim that they constitute a Palestinian nation!

For many years after the founding of the state of Israel, this was the official line. Golda Meir famously exclaimed: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people!" (To which I replied in the Knesset: "Mrs Prime Minister, perhaps you are right. Perhaps there really is no Palestinian people. But if millions of people mistakenly believe that they are a people, and behave like a people, then they are a people.")

A huge propaganda machine - both in Israel and abroad - was employed to "prove" that there was no Palestinian people. A lady called Joan Peters wrote a book (From Time Immemorial) proving that the riffraff calling themselves "Palestinians" had nothing to do with Palestine. They are nothing but interlopers and impostors. The book was immensely successful - until some experts took it apart and proved that the whole edifice of conclusive proofs was utter rubbish.

I myself have spent many hundreds of hours trying to convince Israeli and foreign audiences that there is a Palestinian people and that we have to make peace with them. Until one day the state of Israel recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole representative of the "Palestinian people", and the argument was laid to rest.

Until Newt came along and, like a latter-day Jesus, raised it from the dead.

Obviously, he is much too busy to read books. True, he was once a teacher of history, but for many years now he has been very busy speakering the Congress, making a fortune as an "adviser" of big corporations and now trying to become president.

Otherwise, he would probably have come across a brilliant historical book by Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, which asserts that all modern nations are invented.

Nationalism is a relatively recent historical phenomenon. When a community decides to become a nation, it has to reinvent itself. That means inventing a national past, reshuffling historical facts (and non-facts) in order to create a coherent picture of a nation existing since antiquity. Hermann the Cherusker, member of a Germanic tribe who betrayed his Roman employers, became a "national" hero. Religious refugees who landed in America and destroyed the native population became a "nation". Members of an ethnic-religious diaspora formed themselves into a "Jewish nation". Many others did more or less the same.

Indeed, Newt would profit from reading a book by a Tel Aviv University professor, Shlomo Sand, a kosher Jew, whose Hebrew title speaks for itself: When and How the Jewish People was Invented?

Newt Gingrich shaking hands with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, 1998

Parroting the straight Zionist propaganda line - by now discarded by most Zionists - Gingrich argues that there can be no Palestinian people because there never was a Palestinian state. The people in this country were just "Arabs" under Ottoman rule.

So what? I used to hear from French colonial masters that there is no Algerian people, because there never was an Algerian state, there was never even a united country called Algeria. Any takers for this theory now?

The name "Palestine" was mentioned by a Greek historian some 2,500 years ago. A "Duke of Palestine" is mentioned in the Talmud. When the Arabs conquered the country, they called it "Filastin", as they still do. The Arab national movement came into being all over the Arab world, including Palestine - at the same time as the Zionist movement - and strove for independence from the Ottoman Sultan.

For centuries, Palestine was considered a part of Greater Syria (the region known in Arabic as "al-Sham"). There was no formal distinction between Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians and Jordanians. But when, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the European powers divided the Arab world between them, a state called Palestine became a fact under the British Mandate, and the Arab Palestinian people established themselves as a separate nation with a national flag of their own. Many peoples in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America did the same, even without asking Gingrich for confirmation.

It would certainly be ironic if the members of the "invented" Palestinian nation were expected to ask for recognition from the members of the "invented" Jewish/Israeli nation, at the demand of a member of the "invented" American nation, a person who, by the way, is of mixed German, English, Scottish and Irish stock.

Years ago, there was short-lived controversy about Palestinian textbooks. It was argued that they were anti-Semitic and incited to murder. That was laid to rest when it became clear that all Palestinian schoolbooks were cleared by the Israeli occupation authorities, and most were inherited from the previous Jordanian regime. But Gingrich does not shrink from resurrecting this corpse, too.

All Palestinians - men, women and children - are terrorists, he asserts, and Palestinian pupils learn at school how to kill us poor and helpless Israelis. Ah, what would we do without such stout defenders as Newt? What a pity that this week a photo of him, shaking the hand of Yasser Arafat, was published.

And please don't show him the textbooks used in some of our schools, especially the religious ones!

Is it really a waste of time to write about such nonsense?

It may seem so, but one cannot ignore the fact that the dispenser of these inanities may be tomorrow's president of the United States of America. Given the economic situation, that is not as unlikely as it sounds.

As for now, Gingrich is doing immense damage to the national interests of the US. At this historic juncture, the masses at all the Tahrir Squares across the Arab world are wondering about America's attitude. Newt's answer contributes to a new and more profound anti-Americanism.

Alas, he is not the only extreme rightist seeking to embrace Israel. Israel has lately become the Mecca of all the world's racists. This week we were honoured by the visit of the husband of Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front. A pilgrimage to the Jewish state is now a must for any aspiring fascist.

One of our ancient sages coined the phrase: "Not for nothing does the starling go to the raven. It's because they are of the same kind".

Thanks. But sorry. They are not of my kind.

To quote another proverb: With friends like these, who needs enemies?

* Uri Avnery is an Israeli journalist, writer and peace activist. Author of 1948: A Soldier's Tale - The Bloody Road to Jerusalem.

By Stephen Lendman* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Rogue state lawlessness and contempt for humanity define both nations.

At home, America is plagued by police state laws, contempt for human and civil rights, out-of-control corruption, banker occupation, corporate control of Washington, record budget and national debt levels, as well as depression-sized unemployment, poverty, homelessness, hunger and despair.

Abroad, America wages permanent wars on humanity, killing millions for wealth, power, and unchallengeable global dominance at the expense of suffering billions.

The rancid stench of Washington's war on the world permeates everywhere, threatening human and environmental survival.

It's no better in Israel, a nation believing only Jews have rights, and increasingly less of them under neoliberalized harshness, favoring the few at the expense of most others.

Like America and other Western states, Israeli policies disproportionately favor the rich. Since at least the mid-1980s, they've caused extreme wealth disparities, unemployment, poverty, hunger, homelessness and gradual loss of social benefits, heading toward ending them entirely.

Israelis finally reacted, protesting for weeks about unaffordable housing, high food and energy prices, onerous taxes on working households, lack of free education and better healthcare benefits, weak labor rights, and a nation no longer fit to live in for Jews.

It never was for Arabs comprising one-fifth of the population. Yet they're treated more like fifth column threats than citizens with equal rights.

On September 3, Haaretz writer Ilan Lior headlined, "Hundreds of thousands of Israelis expected (Saturday night) at massive 'March of the Million' rallies," later saying in a follow-up article:

At 9:30PM, Tel Aviv's Kikar Hamedina plaza filled for the main event, preceded by a march from Habima Square via Marmorek, Ibn Gvirol and Jabotinsky streets.

Protest leaders and supporters addressed eager crowds. Featured entertainers heightened the popular spirit for change. Earlier, student union head Yuval Bdolah expected the rally's size to be unprecedented in Israeli history.

It didn't disappoint as around half a million Israelis massed in cities nationwide. Over 300,000 filled Kikar Hamedina. Protest leader Yonatan Levy said the atmosphere was like "a second Independence Day."

National Student Union Chairman Itzik Shmuli addressed the crowd, saying:

"Mr. Prime Minister, the new Israelis have a dream and it is simple: to weave the story of our lives into Israel. We expect you to let us live in this country. The new Israelis will not give up. They demand change. They demand change and will not stop until real solutions come."

Protest leader Daphni Leef added:

"My generation always felt as though we were alone in this world, but now we feel the solidarity. They try to dismiss us as stupid children, and as extreme leftists," but hundreds of thousands rallying for social justice prove otherwise.

Over 50,000 massed in Jerusalem's Paris Square, double the previous largest number. Actress Orna Banai addressed the crowd, saying:

"I am not amused that there are hungry children here, that we have a soldier rotting in captivity for five years, (and) that Israel is one of the poorest examples there (is for) human rights."

Others also spoke across the country for long denied social justice. Their common theme was keeping up enough pressure to succeed, and in Haifa to end discrimination against Arabs.

Shahin Nasser, Haifa's Arab Wadi Nisnas representative, addressed protesters, saying:

"Today we are changing the rules of the game. No more coexistence based on hummus and fava beans. What is happening here is true coexistence, when Arabs and Jews march together shoulder to shoulder calling for social justice and peace."

"We've had it. Bibi, go home. Steinitz (Israel's finance minister), go and don't come back. Atias (Israel's housing minister), goodbye and good riddance."

Rallying for social justice across Israel since mid-July so far shows no signs of ebbing. Succeeding, of course, depends on sustaining enough energy disruptively for change. Though never easy, it's the only way.

Approaching Zero Hour for Palestinian Statehood

Sovereign independence and full de jure UN membership is the only acceptable alternative for Palestine. However, dark Israeli and Washington forces aim to subvert it.

In February, Washington vetoed a Security Council resolution denouncing expanding Israeli settlements. In a White House statement, Obama "emphasized that a vote at the United Nations will never create an independent Palestinian state," even if the General Assembly grants it by a simple two-thirds majority.

Moreover, Congress near unanimously condemned Palestine's legitimate right to independence. In addition, it threatens to withhold support and perhaps impose sanctions if achieved.

In fact, political Washington contemptuously spurns universal rights, especially everywhere not under its control. As a result, whether democrat or despot, regime change threatens all independent leaders by one means or other, including naked aggression.

Ask Iraqis, Afghans, Haitians, and Libyans among others. They'll explain.

A previous article discussed The New York Times opposition to Palestinian statehood.

In fact, its longstanding policy staunchly supported Israel's occupation, belligerence, and right to reign terror on Palestinian civilians with impunity, in less than so many words.

On September 3, Steven Lee Myers and Mark Landler headlined, "US Appeals to Palestinians to Stall UN Vote on Statehood," saying:

"The Obama administration has initiated a last-ditch diplomatic campaign to avert a confrontation this month over" Palestinian statehood and full UN membership.

Once again it's playing the peace talks game even though past efforts for decades proved stillborn. Moreover, how can Palestinians negotiate without a willing partner, especially since its legitimate government is entirely shut out.

Both writers omitted these and other key facts, focusing instead on worrying whether "Obama would be put in the position of threatening (a) veto (or going along and) risk alienating Israel and its (US) political supporters...."

They also suggested support for Obama "trying to translate the broad principles (he) outlined in May into a concrete road map for talks that would succeed where past efforts have failed...."

In fact, as both writers know or should, equitable peace talks are impossible because Washington and Israel never tolerated them and don't now. Neither country negotiates. They demand. For Occupied Palestinians, it's stay that way, or else.

At the same time, past articles explained that Washington earlier provisionally recognized Palestine as an independent nation. According to UN Charter Article 80(1), it can't reverse its position by vetoing a Security Council (SC) resolution calling for Palestine's UN admission.

Doing so is illegal, subject to further SC action under the Charter's Chapter VI. Ultimately, the SC only recommends admissions. The General Assembly affirms them by a two-thirds majority. At this time, enough support exists to get it.

Moreover, if Washington does, in fact, play its veto card, the General Assembly can circumvent it under the 1950 Uniting for Peace Resolution.

Abbas Holds the Wild Card

Ultimately, long-time Israeli collaborationist Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas may prove the wild card. Ahead of petitioning the General Assembly, he's expected to explain his strategy, according to presidential aide Nabil Abu Rudaineh, saying:

"The president will define all the political moves which will be taken before submitting the UN bid, so as to make clear where the Palestinian cause is headed."

He'll "address the Palestinian people, telling them exactly why the (PA) will go to the UN, and what caused the current political situation after negotiations stopped, and after the international community failed to work out solutions to the question of Palestine, and to move the negotiation process forward based on clear foundations."

Abu Rudaineh added:

Palestinian leaders will petition the UN "as long as negotiations have not started, and Israel has not committed to clear references to start" them.

"We will go to the UN Security Council in coordination with all Arab countries. Going to the UN will be the only way to gain our rights and to maintain our gains."

Clearly, Abbas left himself wiggle room to avoid confronting Washington and Israel by backing down at the 11th hour, despite enough world support and international law on his side to succeed.

If so, millions of Palestinians will be betrayed by their own president, proving again his collaborationist ties to to Israel and Western interests for whatever personal benefits he's afforded.

Planned Settler West Bank/East Jerusalem Belligerence

According to International Middle East Media Center writer Saed Bannoura, Palestinians also face another threat.

On September 2, he headlined, "Settlers Plan Attacks Against Palestinians In September," saying:

Armed by Israel's military with tear gas, stun grenades and other weapons, "extremist right wing factions (are) preparing (to) respond to any popular Palestinian move" to petition the UN for statehood and full membership.

Already, settlers are heavily armed with automatic weapons and "unlimited amounts of ammunition." Using them and other weapons, they prepared a plan called "children against children, women and women" to attack unnamed West Bank and East Jerusalem populations.

Extremist MK Michael Ben-Ari heads the scheme along with militant settlers, apparently spoiling for a fight and using Palestinian statehood efforts as a pretext.

"The eight-page plan includes instructions regarding operations in Palestinian cities and villages in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. Its main slogan is 'let's transform September from a threat to a historic opportunity to change the rules of the game.' "

It adds:

"should the UN officially recognize a Palestinian independent state, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will take off to the streets, to celebrate, and they might approach the settlements."

"Unarmed Palestinian women and children will lead the processions heading to the settlements. This will push the Israeli soldiers to open fire at them, and this issue will lead to a full collapse in the security situation, and the Palestinians will resume their attacks against the settlements."

The plan calls for Israeli children to confront their Palestinian counterparts, Israeli women and men doing the same thing.

Palestinian settlers have a long history of attacking Palestinians with impunity, including acts of vandalism, desecrating mosques, and murder.

Their most extremist elements now see a chance to escalate violence to the next level, aided and abetted by Israel's military, operating under Operation Summer Seeds provisions.

A previous article explained.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

By Lawrence Davidson * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Part I - Stretching the Definition of Anti-Semitism
　
Can criticism of Israel, particularly a) criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people and b) criticism of the state ideology of Zionism that justifies that treatment, be labeled anti-Semitic? This is not a hypothetical query. An affirmative answer to this question is being advocated by influential Zionist lobbies in the United States. The question is of particular importance on the nation’s college and university campuses. In places like the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz, and also at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Zionist students are now threatening to sue these institutions for failing to prevent an "atmosphere of anti-Semitic bigotry" allegedly created by the presence of pro-Palestinian student groups and faculty.
　
One might ask if it isn’t a stretch to assert that protesting Israeli and Zionist behavior is the same as anti-Semitism? Common sense certainly tells us this is so. Unfortunately, we are not dealing with situations that are ruled by common sense. What we are facing here is the issue of ideologues bred to a specific perceptual paradigm and their insistence that others conform to it.
　
Here is an example: Take an American kid from a self-conscious Jewish home. This kid does not represent all American Jewish youth, but does typify say 20% of them. He or she is taught about the religion and also taught about recent history and the near annihilation of the Jews of Europe. He or she is sent to Hebrew school, and maybe a yeshiva school as well. Most of our hypothetical student’s friends will be Jewish and of similar background. Between home, friends and school the student might well find him or herself in something of a closed universe. Throughout this educational process Judaism and its fate in the modern world is connected with Israel and its survival. The Arabs, and particularly the Palestinians, are transformed into latter day Nazis. In addition, Israel’s state ideology of Zionism becomes assimilated into the credos of the religion. Soon our hypothetical student cannot tell the difference between the two. Then, having come of age, our student goes off to college or university. Now he or she is no longer in a closed world. The result can be culture shock and an uncomfortable feeling that the student is on a campus where vocal and assertive debate about Israel and its behavior sounds like an attack on the Jewish religion. Our student complains to the ZOA, Hillel, AIPAC, or some similar organization and we are off down a road toward censorship and/or litigation. Lawsuits are lodged (particularly if the ZOA is involved), donors swear that they will no longer support the institution, legislators bang on desks at the state capital, and boards of directors want to know what is going on and what the institution’s president is going to do about it?
　
Part II - Sweet Reason
　
There have been a number of efforts to try to use sweet reason to work out some of these problems before they get too explosive. For instance, in 2006 there was concern over the efforts of various pro-Palestinian campus groups to promote an academic boycott of Israel. Is this being anti-Semitic? Should campuses allow this to be advocated? After all those who espouse academic boycott have a good deal of evidence of criminal activities on the part of the Israeli Universities. At that time the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) sought to clarify the issues by arranging a roundtable discussion on academic boycott by those who stood pro and con. This sounded like a good idea. But no, the Zionist side did not like the list of discussants on the pro side and tried to censor the list. The AAUP resisted that move, so the Zionist side pressured the donors subsidizing the proposed roundtable to pull their support. The whole thing collapsed. It seemed the Zionists were not going to discuss the topic except on their own terms.
　
Just recently there has been similar attempt at sweet reason. A heated debate is now taking place over whether Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (which bars federal funds from institutions that discriminate) can be applied to schools that allow criticism of Israel which the Zionists claim is anti-Semitic. If so, those same Zionists, whose influence is strong in Congress, can use Title VI as a club to threaten colleges and universities with the loss of financial support unless they shut down the criticism. This, of course, equates to censorship and an attack on free speech.
　
Once more the AAUP, which opposes the use of Title VI in such situations, approached the American Zionists in an effort to find a compromise position. Professor Cary Nelson, head of the AAUP, managed to enter into negotiations with Kenneth Stern, the "anti-Semitism expert" of the American Jewish Committee (AJC). The two of them worked out a common position which, after consultation with others in each organization, was signed and released to the public. What did this document say? For our needs, here are its most important points:
　
1. Title VI is not an appropriate instrument to use when trying to "protect" Jewish students from "anti-Israel events, statements and speakers." To use Title VI this way amounts to censorship.
　
2. Question: How do we know what is going on at a college or university campus is anti-Semitism? Answer: "Six years ago the European monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) created a working definition of anti-Semitism....while clearly stating that criticism of Israel in the main is not anti-Semitic, [it] gives some examples of when anti-Semitism may come into play, such as holding Jews collectively responsible for the acts of the Israeli state, comparing Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, or denying to Jews the right of self-determination (such as by claiming that Zionism is racism). In recent years the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights have embraced this definition too. It is entirely proper for university administrators, scholars and students to reference the working definition in identifying definite or possible instances of anti-Semitism on campus."
3. Conclusion: Censorship should be avoided, Title VI should be avoided, but the "working definition" should be used to make judgments as to how best to "wrestle with ideas" while at the same time "combating bigotry."
　
This letter was signed by both Cary Nelson as President of the AAUP and Kenneth Stern as the Director of the anti-Semitism and extremism sub-division of the AJC. Released in early August 2011, it took only a few days before it was repudiated by the AJC. On 9 August David Harris, President of the American Jewish Committee, "apologized" for the joint declaration, said it was "ill advised" and blamed a breakdown in the AJC’s "system of checks and balances" for the slip up. Kenneth Stern is now on an unscheduled sabbatical and can not be reached for comment.
　
This is, of course, a replay of the 2006 situation and just goes to show that, it is the hard right ideologues who are in charge on the Zionist side. These people have a worldview that allows for no compromise. Censorship is exactly what they want and Title VI is as good a weapon to wield as any. What could Kenneth Stern possibly have been thinking? There is no room for sweet reason here.
　
Part III - The AAUP Makes a Mistake
　
This is not the end of the story. There is something wrong with the fact that the AAUP was so quick to endorse the EUMC working definition of anti-Semitism (a definition, by the way, that Kenneth Stern had a hand in writing). Consider these two statements from the above AAUP-AJC declaration each of which, according to the "working definition," can be seen as anti-Semitic: 1) "holding Jews collectively responsible for the acts of the Israeli state" and 2) "denying to Jews the right of self-determination (such as by claiming that Zionism is racism)." As we are about to see the first statement has hidden facets to it and the second defies historical reality.
　
Statement 1:

It is absolutely the case that the Jews should not be held collectively responsible for the actions of Israel. But it should be pointed out that it is just such collective responsibility that Zionists insist upon. Zionist ideology demands that Israel be recognized as representing world Jewry. Zionists expect that, in return, all Jews will identify with and actively support Israel–feel one with the "Jewish state." They classify those Jews who do not recognize their collective responsibility to Israel as somehow deficient or perhaps "self-hating" Jews. So let us get this straight, if holding Jews collectively responsible for the acts of Israel is anti-Semitic, what does that make the Zionists?
　
Statement 2:
　
a. That Jews have some sort of natural right to political self-determination is highly questionable. How about Protestants, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhists, ad infinitum? Just how far do we want to push this claim of political self-determination for religious faiths? Oh, but the Zionists insist that Jews are not just adherents to a particular faith–they are a "people." Well, for sure that is an opinion. It just doesn’t happen to be the opinion of millions of other Jews who see Judaism as a religion pure and simple. Of course, if the latter are vocal about this they run the risk of being labeled "self-hating."
　
b. And who, except of course the Zionists, says that Zionism is a desirable vehicle for the expression of this alleged right of self-determination? Let us face it. Israel and its Zionist ideology were born of the will of a small minority of Jews, almost exclusively from Central and Eastern Europe, most of whom were secularists, and almost all of whom carried within their heads the poisoned perceptions of European imperialist bigotry – an outlook which still characterizes the state they set up. That is why, in practice, Zionism has resulted in a prima facie racist environment in Israel. And now we are told that, according to the "working definition," pointing out the link between Zionism and racism is an act of anti-Semitism!
　
Given this close reading of parts of the "working definition," the AAUP really ought to rethink its apparent support of the document. It is a position that can only give impetus to the very censorship the AAUP dreads.
　
Part IV - Conclusion
　
One has come to expect twisted logic from the Zionists. Actually, one can expect this sort of thinking from any band of ideologues. Their blinkered vision, incapable of seeing around the corners of their prejudices, guarantees that most of what comes out of their mouths and their pens is sophistry.
　
However, what is one to do when folks you count on as rational and careful thinkers, like the leadership of the AAUP, get caught short this way? What is one to do when flawed reasoning and spurious assumptions start to be translated into criteria for government administrative decisions? What can you do when a fifth of the Congress decides to take a break and visit one of the most racist places on the planet and you risk being labeled an anti-Semite for decrying this fact? Well, you have a good laugh, have a good cry, and then go post your assessment of the situation on your website. Then you get a bit drunk. Finally, you repeat ten times "I will never to stay silent."

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

By Lawrence Davidson * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Israeli Jews Are Voting With Their Feet

If the historical goal of the state of Israel is to provide the world's Jews a secure national home, a place of refugee in a world of real or potential anti-Semitism, it seems to have failed. It has failed not because this writer says so, but because an increasing number of its own Jewish citizens say so. There have been studies originating both in Israel and abroad that show "as many as half of the Jews living in Israel will consider leaving ...if in the next few years the current political and social trends continue." This finding is in addition to the fact that yerida, or emigration out of Israel, has long been running at higher numbers than aliyah, or immigration into the country. "According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, as of 2005, 650,000 Israelis have left the country for over one year and not returned." The great majority of these were Jews. In addition, polls show that at least 60% and as high as 80% of remaining Israeli Jews "sympathize with those who leave the country."

Among those who stay, there is the conviction that the safe thing is to have a second passport issued by the United States or a European country. As the Haaretz reporter Gideon Levy puts it, "if our forefathers dreamt of an Israeli passport, there are those among us who are now dreaming of a foreign passport." At present the United States has issued over half a million passports to Israelis and a quarter million additional applications are pending. Germany runs second with 100,000 passports given to Israeli Jews and 7,000 new ones issued yearly. Why the scramble for foreign passports? Well, according to Levy, "the excuses are strange and diverse, but at the base of them all are unease and anxiety, both personal and national. The foreign passport has become an insurance policy against a rainy day. It turns out there are more and more Israelis who are thinking that day may eventually come."

There are two prevailing explanations for this phenomenon. The first is that it reflects the conviction that the safe haven that Zionism was suppose to create is not safe at all. This is the position taken by the University of Pennsylvania political scientist Ian Lustick. "The danger for the Jewish state is that, given the choice between convincing Middle Easterners that Israel can be a good neighbor and leaving the neighborhood, more and more Israelis are attracted to the latter....The logically extreme expression of escape is, of course, emigration." Lustick is supported by Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard University who suggests that "the Zionist ideal is losing hold within Israel itself" because the Israeli government "endlessly delays the [peace] process." The second explanation is that suggested by the editors of the Jerusalem Post who cite interviews with "hundreds of Israeli expats in North America." Their conclusion is that when Israelis go abroad and stay, it is due to economic, and not political or security reasons.

Actually, the explanation offered by the Jerusalem Post is suspect. If the desire to emigrate is motivated mainly by economics, the demand for second passports would not be necessary. Israelis travel freely in the United States and the economic interconnections between the two countries make it relatively easy for Israeli Jews to get "green cards" to stay and work. This is probably true in some other parts of the West as well, as long as you are not tagged as a war criminal. However, when you combine the growth in emigration with the desire for foreign passports you get a different sort of message. Planning to possibly emigrate on a foreign passport implies that there are a number of Israelis who foresee the demise of the state. In other words, they foresee a day when the Israeli passport will be worthless. Given the fact that emigration is something of an ideological sin for Zionists, it is no surprise that some of the emigrants tell pollsters their motivation is economic. It sounds better. But in the end it hardly matters, leaving for whatever reason is the equivalent of voting with your feet.

Not Without Its Costs

This trend is no doubt encouraging to the Palestinians and their supporters, but it is not without its costs. If we assume no change and project this development into the future, say twenty years or so, what will Jewish Israel look like?
First - The ratio of Jews to Israeli Arabs within the Green Line will certainly shrink. That is, the Arab population, which already has a higher birth rate than the Jewish one, will grow all the more rapidly, making up an increasing percentage of the population. Factor in the Occupied Territories and there will be more Palestinians than Jews. One can, of course, say that this is as it should be. The notion that Palestine must have a Jewish majority has always been a perverse one. Nonetheless, as a consequence of the changing demographics, it is almost certain that Palestinian-Jewish Israeli relations, which have never been good, will get rapidly and proportionately worse. Why so? The second point answers this question.

Second - Of the Jews who remain in Israel, an increasing percentage will be ideological fanatics. Take a look at the religiously motivated, armed and aggressive settlers on the West Bank and then imagine them, along with those in black hats and pa'ot (unshaven sideburns), as making up 60 or 70% of the Jewish population. That is a "Masada" majority who will be willing to "defend" their way of life in all of Palestine not due to patriotic propaganda, but out of real racial conviction and religious zeal.

Third - The other remaining Jews, the ones not necessarily fanatical, will be mostly docile. These are the ones who can not get the foreign passports, who have no relatives abroad to vouch for them, and not enough resources to bankroll a new start even if they could find another place to go. They will follow what orders they are given by their increasingly fanatical government for the sake of their jobs, their pensions, to put bread on the table, because their peers are doing so, etc.

Fourth - Ideological fanatics confronting their worse nightmare, in this case the "demographic holocaust,"are not going to be devotees of democracy and human rights. Israel's government will become more and more dictatorial. We can already see this in today's Israel where the Knesset, presently controlled by ideological parties, is in the process of passing anti-democratic laws. This is may be just the beginning. In a population shorn of its middle class, there will be no real political opposition and the right-wing parties will become ever more aggressive against what they regard as anti-Zionist elements within the Jewish population. Organizations such as B'tselem, Gush Shalom, Rabbis for Human Rights, the Committee Against Home Demolitions, and the like will be shut down. Supporters of these groups will become silent or go into exile, as will the small number of Israeli academics who now stand against government policy. If they do not, they will likely end up in jail.

Conclusion

This, of course, is just conjecture. However, it is reasonable conjecture. And so we really ought to think about this. In today's Israel you can still tell the difference between those Jewish Israelis who want a just and humane settlement with the Palestinians and those who do not. If things keep going as they are now there will come a time when it will be much harder to make that distinction. In other words, when the everyday man and women just looking for economic or physical safety, just looking for a better place to raise their kids, packs up and leaves, the "neutral zone" of everyday life vanishes with them. Society becomes a place where, as George Bush once put it, you're with us or against us. And, if to be with us means to be a racist, a supporter of the God chosen people and an active enemy of the inferior and doomed Amalekites, then that is how everyone still in residence will behave.

When and if that time comes, how are we on the outside, and especially those of us who are Jews, going to react to an Israel where those who seek a just peace are either silenced, imprisoned or exiled? What do you do with a society where everyone must support injustice or be themselves condemned as traitors or criminals? Under these circumstances how do you tell the difference between the innocent and the guilty?

This is not a potential scenario unique to Israel's situation. It has been played out before. The difference is that before the Jews were among the victims and not victimizers. This is what happens when any group gives itself over to a doctrine, be it racial, religious or political, which destroys all notions of common humanity. That is what the prevailing ideology of Israel has done. And, if history remains consistent, as Zionism "purifies" itself, gets rid of all those who would question it or compromise it, it must take its remaining adherents into the realm of unadorned horror. We should all be afraid of this. Very afraid.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

By Mohamed Khodr* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all."
-Tacitus, First Century Historian and Senator in the Roman Empire

• No, America, you are not the land of the free, home of the brave.

• You are not the greatest nation on earth.

• You are not the superpower you proclaim.

• You are not the beacon of freedom, equality, and liberty to all.

• You are not the Promised Land.

• You are not the democracy of the First Amendment where there is Freedom of Speech, of the Press, of Religion, of freedom to petition and assemble.

• Your President is not the leader of the free world.

• You do not have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Thus, what will history record of whom and what you are?

What you are in essence and action is a nation of ignorant cowards, SLAVES, to be exact, to the very nation you created and continue to pay for with your tax dollars, weapons, and the lives of your sons and daughters-Israel.

What you are is a nation of fools according to Israel, "detached from reality"; "delusional", and full of "illusions"; in other words a nation of mental defects who are unaware of who's the real boss of this nation and your supposedly elected government.

It's Israel, Stupid.

But your arrogance and conceit of greatness, of a democracy, of a representative government, a nation where the people freely choose their President and Congressional Representatives, a nation of "American Exceptionalism", blinds you to the reality that you neither control, own, nor create your own destiny.

Who does? It's the little nation from afar-Israel.

No candidate or politician can ever hope to be elected without the obligatory visit to Yad Vashem (Holocaust Memorial in Israel) while being forced to wear the mind numbing Yarmulke, and the obligatory pandering and shameful visit and speech to the true altar of "your" government-AIPAC. They've been Washington's real power and policy makers for decades.

As Early as 1957:

"I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy [in the Middle East] not approved by the Jews... terrific control the Jews have over the news media and the barrage the Jews have built up on congressmen ... I am very much concerned over the fact that the Jewish influence here is completely dominating the scene and making it almost impossible to get congress to do anything they don't approve of. The Israeli embassy is practically dictating to the congress through influential Jewish people in the country"

–Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in February, 1957 quoted on p.99 of "Fallen Pillars" by Donald Neff

You think you have freedom of speech? Then why are you and your government so cowardly intimidated and silent to even mention Israel, Jews, or Judaism, in political or personal debates or conversations? Your knees tremble when these issues come up and you lose your vocal cords while your heart rate and blood pressure rise and your visit to the restroom becomes imperative.

You think you have freedom of the press? You know, the press that's owned, controlled, and run by Jews. Why is there not one single American Jew, Christian, Muslim or person of any faith on television criticizing Israel? Why? They will lose their jobs a la Helen Thomas, Rick Sanchez, Octavia Nasr, and many, many others, not to mention the many politicians who lost their jobs for daring to speak out against Israel. Try to submit an op-ed to the major papers critical of our government's Israeli formulated foreign policy in the Middle East.

Do you wonder why Islam and Sharia Law, two unknown subjects to Americans, have become the hysteria du jour and who's behind it? It's to distract your short attention span away from the control, theft of money, weapons, spying, and wars you pay and die for Israel's security.

Who do you think wants to push Muslims and Christians into a World War III?

Do you honestly think your government represents you? Once they arrive in Congress your representatives are immediately welcomed by an army of AIPAC minions to brainwash them and let them know not to ever cross Israel and always vote for anything AIPAC sends. Most of the Legislative Staff in Congress is Jewish. Do you ever wonder why our Congress cuts meals to our children while sending billions to Israel with overwhelming bipartisan support? Look up the Congressional votes on resolutions supportive of Israel. It's a shocking embarrassment.

For Congressional Votes and Support of Israel visit: http://thomas.loc.gov/

Do you think you have freedom of religion? Who do you think is behind the push that you, yes you Christians, can't celebrate Christmas, not even mentioning it by name instead having to use "holiday"? Who's against school prayers, no displays of Nativity Scene, no courses on world religions, and no school prayers?

It's not the Muslims.

Many Israeli TV Shows mock and use blasphemous remarks against Jesus and the Virgin Mary, yet not ONE Single Christian church, seminary, university, media outlet, organization, or person has ever gone on TV or wrote an Op-ed to a paper condemning our "closes ally" for this filth.

Imagine if this was on Iranian TV?

See the Videos and judge for yourself, then ask yourself, why are you so cowardly not to respond to this visual and literal neo crucifixion of Christ?

From the Israeli Children TV show "Toffee VeHa-Gorillah" a Girl in Bikini makes fun with a monkey of how Jesus Christ, a Nazi, was Crucified and how all Christians are an Evil People.

Video link: http://sabbah.in/l6Hj8h

Israeli TV Show Blaspheme Jesus and Virgin Mary:

Video link: http://youtu.be/qtVpHUjwQSA

Monkey Christ:

Video link: http://youtu.be/-zUvFaW3WY0

Jews and Hasidic Gentiles-United to Save America (JAHG-USA)
http://www.noahide.com/yeshu.htm

"Jesus a false Prophet...with an evil agenda".

However, slam views Jesus, peace be upon him, as the true Messiah, born through a miracle from the Virgin Mary, peace be upon her, and performed miracles during his life

How can Israeli Jews feel such supremacy and the freedom to blaspheme Jesus, the Virgin Mary, peace be upon them both, and all Non-Jews?

Here's a Rabbinical explanation?

"Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,"

According to Rabbi Yosef, the lives of non-Jews in Israel are safeguarded by divinity, to prevent losses to Jews.

"In Israel, death has no dominion over them... With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one's donkey would die, they'd lose their money....This is his servant... That's why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew."

"Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat....That is why gentiles were created."

– Jerusalem Post; "Yosef: Gentiles exist only to serve Jews"; October 25, 2010

Only Israel can slap America's Presidents, Congress, and the American people over and over and over while they all keep turning the other cheek over and over.

What hold do these Zionists have on our government, our minds, souls, freedoms, and courage to speak and act that we in this alleged superpower are so intimidated, so afraid, so cowardly to even raise a whisper in public about the historical costs to our lives, wealth, worldwide credibility, and our very humanity, by a people we saved in Europe, a people whom we against all divine and human laws gifted a foreign land to them, a nation that wouldn't exist without our recognition, support, and protection, a nation that commits genocide in our name and with our tax dollars?

Supporting Israel means supporting genocides against innocent civilians, ethnic cleansing, an expansionist military policy that's based on stealing more land and expelling more people, destroying villages by the hundreds, demolishing tens of thousands of homes, imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people over decades without the rule of law, allowing torture as policy, shooting children in classrooms, stealing drinking and irrigating water for settler swimming pools, building illegal settlements on hilltops, allowing racist settlers free reign to kill, burn, beat, and terrorize families, destroying electrical and water plants, hospitals, schools, churches, mosques, ambulances, and littering lands with cluster bombs to kill and mutilate children.

It means never holding Israel accountable for violating hundreds of U.N. Resolutions due to our, yes you America, vetoes.

It means being subservient to a rogue, terrorist, racist, murderous state whom we have elevated and put on a pedestal for our idolatrous worship.

Here's the nation we support:

"It is the duty of the [Israeli] leadership to explain to the public a number of truths. One truth is that there is no Zionism, no settlement, and no Jewish state without evacuating Arabs, and without expropriating lands and their fencing off."
– Yesha'ayahu Ben-Porat, Yedi'ot Aharonot 07/14/1972

Such is our support of Israel against the hapless long suffering Palestinians who by the millions have lived for decades as refugees in squalor camps and impoverished lives because of Israel's founding, a founding America created. They are homeless and stateless and America is too cowardly and fearful of Israel and organized Jewry to even cast a symbolic vote to support a Palestinian state for the stateless.

Israel has made fools of us, our government, our religions, our beliefs, and everything Americans have come to value about themselves and their country.

America, your new Manifest Destiny, is to serve Israel and only Israel, so help you God.

And so continues the illegal occupations of America and Palestine.

* Mohamed Khodr is a political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE

By Mantiq al-Tayr * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Haim Saban

1. As an Irish-American, I ask myself, Which of the two is the greater Judas to his nation: the Irish prime minister, Brian Cowen, or the American president, Barack Obama?

The above quote is from Alexander Cockburn's latest post on Counterpunch.com. I have to say, also being of Irish descent, that I have often asked myself the very same question. There is no doubt at all what the Irish would say, this was made abundantly clear to me while I was in Ireland last summer. Cockburn however does seem to favor Obama in the contest.

My view though is that it really is the wrong question.

2. We're fucked.

3. That's right, we're fucked. Talk about being screwed blued and tattooed. As a loyal American, I feel that I must report some extremely suspicious behavior to the FBI guys who read (and who do seem to very much like) this blog. I mean, I'm just doing what it says on the Big Brother signs that are on our highways that say something like "If you see someone who looks like a Muslim please call 666-666-ARAB" or something like that. Or maybe it just says to call if you see something suspicious – but maybe especially if it is a Muslim. Something like that anyway. Anyway, FBI guys, some psycho-looking bitch is trying to get people to stalk me and no doubt lots of my friends and even your friends. Here's the proof. Please have her arrested immediately.


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

4. Anyway, back to traitors. This one is thanks to Mondoweiss who I think credits Jeff Blankfort. That's a pretty good isnad. But I digress.

Anway --

The Hollywood Jew this week brings up a pretty interesting one, one who has been featured in previous posts on this site about traitors, Haim Saban. This guy is apparently tireless. He's just come back to the east coast after raising nine million dollars for Palestinian victims of Israel's murderous rampage in December of 2008-January 2009.

What! Of course I was just kidding. Actually he raised 9 million dollars FOR THE FUCKING KILLERS. I am not making this up, he just raised 9 million dollars for the Israeli Defense (sic) Forces. Send one fucking worthless US dollar to some non-Zionist-approved Muslim charity and your ass is in jail, send millions to war criminals and you are a hero. Is this a fucked up country or what?

But it gets even better. (Note to Shas Party members, "even better" here means "even more fucked up.") You see, Saban actually was raising money for the western chapter of the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces. Yes, there really is such an organization and they have a real nice web site too. It was a great gala and I'll provide some quotes from The Hollywood Jew in a minute to show you that a good time was had by all. But first, let's learn a little bit about the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Yitzhak Gershon

It is headed by a retired Israeli General who lives in the US named Yitzhak Gershon. He pulls no punches when he links the American Jewish community to the IDF. Red highlights, as usual, are mine.

I have always been proud of being Israel's soldier, whether in Israel as part of the IDF, or in the United States as the National Director of Friends of the IDF. The bond between the community in America and the soldiers in Israel is extraordinary and powerful – it has changed the lives and created opportunities for thousands of IDF soldiers.

Turns out that the butt-kicking handed to the IDF by Hizballah led to Gershon's retirement.

Anyway, the web site informs us:

The Israeli government is responsible for training IDF soldiers and providing them with the necessary tools for their service. FIDF is committed to providing these soldiers with love, support, and care in an effort to ease the burden they carry on behalf of the Jewish community worldwide.

Their job is to look after Israel. Ours is to look after them.

In fact "Their job is to look after Israel. Ours is to look after them" is the motto of the Friends of the Israeli Defense forces. So this is an "American" organization that is solely devoted to the military of a foreign nation. And they do quite a lot for them. Among the many things they have done (the whole list is on this page)

• 4,913 soldiers enjoyed seminars, workshops, discussion groups, and field trips through the FIDF Identity and Purpose program.
• FIDF's Sunday Culture program funded the attendance of 1,246 soldiers at concerts, art exhibits, plays, dance performances, film screenings, and lectures.
• FIDF sponsored 37 SPIRIT weeks, enabling 19,014 combat soldiers to enjoy a vacation week at the R&R facilities in Ashkelon and Givat Olga.

You don't have to be a USS Liberty survivor to consider this to be giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Now, I know what you are thinking. "Mantiq, can I give money to the Friends of the Israeli Defense forces too? Can I get a tax deduction on top of that?

Yes, goys and girls, you can give money to Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, just like Haim Saban does, and since the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces is a 501 (c) (3), the American Taxpayers will finance it! Doesn't that just make you want to come all over Monica Lewisnky's dress? Here's a link to the form.

By the way, the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces have even got a deal where they can send you to Israel so you can cuddle up with the IDF care of the American taxpayer.

Anyway, the western chapter of the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces sure did have a good time last Friday night. What a great way to celebrate the Sabbath.

The Hollywood Jew tells us:

"The event, hosted for the fourth consecutive year by Saban and his wife, Cheryl, was a lesson in how to throw a party. There was the astonishing entertainment (Andrea Bocelli), the better-than-average food (smoked salmon salad), and syrupy videos of IDF soldiers designed to tug at the heartstrings. All of which proved that no one else in the Los Angeles Jewish community is quite as deft at enticing others to take up a cause than the Sabans."

Jason Alexander of Seinfeld was the emcee, must have been really cool. Saban contributed big bucks himself that night and tons of others pitched in, really a lovely evening:

"FIDF western regional director Miri Nash, dressed sharply in a black cocktail dress that accented her long blonde hair, began dashing around the room with a microphone in hand, tossing it off to anyone who wanted to pledge more for the pot. A 17-year-old named Dominic pledged $1,000; another family gave $18,000 on behalf of the Persian synagogue Nessah; yet another family promised $100,000; and on and on until the final major gifts-$500,000 from Guess jeans founder Paul Marciano and $1 million more from his brother, Maurice-concluded an exceptionally energizing and effective philanthropic ploy."

Go here to download the full text of the Goldstone Report.

5. Scott Horton of Antiwar.com is one of the better alternative radio interviewers out there. One of Horton's strengths is his ability to summarize complicated points in plain and often funny and satirical English. In honor of Scott's excellent work, from time to time here at Mantiq al-Tayr we will post a brief excerpt of Scott doing exactly this. Today's inaugural download, though we do disagree with the first half of the comment, is down right funny and very true – at least the second half anyway. Enjoy. (The excerpt is from his most recent interview with Phil Weiss.)

Scott on SOBs

Here's a link to antiwar.com and here's one to their donation page (yes donations are tax deductible) and here's the link to antiwar.com radio.

6. Okay RoHa and company, it's time for your Arabic lesson. The first time students of Arabic come across the formula recited in Arabic when the name of the Prophet Muhammad is mentioned they stumble over it repeatedly before getting it down. The formula means "May God bless him and grant him peace" and it has a certain charm due to its rhythm, alliteration and assonance. Here it is in Arabic script and transliterated. Note to Shas Party members, the first line below is the one in the Arabic script.

صلى الله عليه وسلم

Salla llahu "alayhi wasallam

Now, thanks to a UK based musical quartet called Shaam (basically meaning Syria), anyone can learn how to say this phrase perfectly. I don't think that this fine musical group intended to teach this when they performed the song below, but it sure is perfect for it.

Now the song is almost ten minutes long. It starts out slowly and there are two major transitions and I will give you the time hacks. If you don't have patience the song really picks up at 4:20 and is really gorgeous as they sing the Madad portion of the song. Then at 6:28 the song transitions and focuses on the Arabic phrase I discussed above. Also, the verses in the song from this point onward are in English and are then framed by the Arabic. The video is below. Here is another link to their site featuring photos of the group.

Listen to this song and sing along and even white boys with no rhythm will master it. Maybe a certain "Queen" should show this one to her husband.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmPZRTl9WCU

Beautiful job gentlemen, beautiful job.

* Mantiq al-Tayr is a blogger who is attempting to wake up other American citizens to the true dangers and challenges which face their country and is devoted to justice for the Palestinian people. Truth is his objective, satire is his tool. He also enjoys reading the Qur'an from time to time. See his website.

"Instead of asking why some groups or individuals in Israeli society are willing to take great risks to hold that society accountable for its actions, Israel prefers to blame the problem on treacherous, self-hating, anti-Semitic Jews, and to instill fear and hatred as the means for preventing Israelis from examining their consciences."

By Paul Larudee *, Sabbah Report: http://sabbah.biz

When unknown elements in Israel leaked the name, rank, identification number and other information about two hundred Israeli military personnel who reportedly participated in the 2008-09 invasion of Gaza, the effect was sudden and profound, according to sources in Israel.

Although the first site on which the leaked information appeared was taken down by the host, it has continued to circulate via email, and has appeared on a number of other sites. The Israeli military and other Israeli agencies are reportedly doing all they can to shut down every site on which it appears, and to prevent it from "going viral". At least one popular blog that links to the site has received a record number of death threats.

What is so special about the list? As several critics have pointed out, it doesn't even state the crimes that the listed individuals are alleged to have committed.

The root of the problem, according to the sources in Israel, is a poorly kept secret -- namely, that it is hard to serve in the Israeli military without committing war crimes, because such crimes are a matter of policy. What Israeli soldier has not ordered a Palestinian civilian to open the door to a building that might house armed militants or be booby-trapped? Who has not denied access to ambulances or otherwise prevented a Palestinian from getting to medical care, education or employment?

Some, of course, have gone much farther, and deliberately targeted unarmed civilians (as in the "buffer zones" along the border of the Gaza Strip), tortured detainees, and have either ordered or participated in massive death, injury and destruction at one time or another. These acts have all been heavily documented by numerous credible agencies, such as the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Amnesty International, the Goldstone Commission, Human Rights Watch, and B'tselem.

What has been missing in large measure is accountability. To be sure, isolated victories have been won, usually with great effort. Within Israel, token trials and punishment, such as the conviction of the shooter of British human rights volunteer Tom Hurndall, continue to provide a thin cloak of respectability to the Israeli justice system. Beyond Israel's control, however, senior Israeli officials have been forced to avoid travel to an increasing number of countries for fear of law-enforcement action. Nevertheless, ordinary Israelis had not yet been made to feel directly subject to such pressures.

The publication of the list of 200 changes everything. The list contains the names of a few high-ranking officers, but many of those named are in the lower ranks, all the way down to sergeant. The effect is to make ordinary Israelis concerned that they, too, may be subject to arrest abroad, and without the protection that well-connected higher officials might enjoy. They know what they have done, or been ordered to do, or have ordered others to do, and they suspect that they may be held accountable by foreign laws, over which their government has little control.

Many Israelis already fear that an anti-Semitic world is looking for an excuse to shut down the Zionist experiment. It is therefore not a great leap to believe that they could become pawns -- or scapegoats -- in the rising chorus of voices speaking out for Palestinian rights and against Israeli abuses.

Coupled with this is the Israeli addiction to vacationing abroad, which is a national obsession and almost a right, in the mind of many. The result is that suddenly, with the release of the list of 200, the prospect of being held accountable outside Israel is no longer an abstraction, to be dealt with at the level of diplomats, government policy and the news stories. It hits home.

This has serious consequences for Israeli society. It potentially increases the number of youths who will try to avoid the military, the rates of emigration and immigration, and other patterns of commitment to Israel and its military. Most of all, according to the sources, it may cause soldiers to begin to question policy and orders far more than in the past, because of the way it may affect them personally. The debate is already taking place around the question, "Can I be held responsible?"

The answer to that question could potentially determine whether it will be possible to mount a massive offensive against a population that has no effective military forces, as in Gaza, or where saturation bombing, cluster munitions and depleted uranium might be used, as in Lebanon. This is potentially a daunting prospect for Israeli military commanders, and some sources in Israel believe that the publication of the 200 has already had that effect.

More likely, however, it is premature to make such a call. It seems unlikely that Israel will succeed in putting the genie back in the bottle with regard to the list of 200. It is already leaping from one place to another in cyberspace, via website and email (although Israel seems to have been temporarily successful in banning it from Facebook). However, will it generate further research and release of information on the potential offences committed by the named individuals, and will it lead to further publication of such lists?

According to the sources in Israel, the military and perhaps other agencies have gone into high gear to track down the source of the leaks. This is a typical Israeli response to the problem. Instead of asking why some groups or individuals in Israeli society are willing to take great risks to hold that society accountable for its actions, Israel prefers to blame the problem on treacherous, self-hating, anti-Semitic Jews, and to instill fear and hatred as the means for preventing Israelis from examining their consciences.

* Paul Larudee is co-founder of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine movements and an organizer in the International Solidarity Movement.

By Khalid Amayreh * in occupied East Jerusalem | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

A major Jewish religious figure in Israel has likened non-Jews to donkeys and beasts of burden, saying the main reason for their very existence is to serve Jews.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual mentor of the religious fundamentalist party, Shas, which represents Middle Eastern Jews, reportedly said during a Sabbath homily earlier this week that "the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews."

Yosef is considered a major religious leader in Israel who enjoys the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of followers.

Shas is a chief coalition partner in the current Israeli government,

Yosef, also a former Chief Rabbi of Israel, was quoted by the right-wing newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, as saying that the basic function of a goy, a derogatory word for a gentile, was to serve Jews.

"Non-Jews were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world-only to serve the People of Israel," Yosef said in his weekly Saturday night sermon which was devoted to laws regarding actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on the Sabbath.

Yosef also reportedly said that the lives of non-Jews in Israel are preserved by God in order to prevent losses to Jews.

Yosef, widely considered a prominent Torah sage and authority on the interpretation of Talmud, a basic Jewish scripture, held a comparison between animals of burden and non-Jews.

"In Israel, death has no dominion over them...With gentiles, it will be like any person-They need to die, but God will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one's donkey would die, they'd lose their money."

"This is his servant...That's why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew."

Yosef further elucidated his ideas about the servitude of gentiles to Jews, asking "why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap; and we will sit like an effendi and eat."

"That is why gentiles were created."

The concept of gentiles being infra-human beings or quasi-animals is well-established in Orthodox Judaism.

For example, rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement, a supremacist but influential Jewish sect, teach openly that at the spiritual level, non-Jews have the status of animals.

Abraham Kook, the religious mentor of the settler movement, was quoted as saying that the difference between a Jew and a gentile was greater and deeper than the difference between humans and animals.

"The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews - all of them in all different levels - is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle."

Some of Kook's manifestly racist ideas are taught in the Talmudic college, Merkaz H'arav, in Jerusalem. The college is named after Kook.

In his book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, the late Israeli writer and intellectual Israel Shahak argued that whenever Orthodox rabbis use the word "human," they normally didn't refer to all humans, but only to Jews, since non-Jews are not considered humans according to Halacha of Jewish law.

A few years ago, a member of the Israeli Knesset, castigated Israeli soldiers for "treating human beings as if they were Arabs." The Knesset member, Aryeh Eldad, was commenting on the evacuation by the Israeli army of a settler outpost in the West Bank.

Faced with the negative effect of certain Biblical and Talmudic teachings on inter-religious relations, some Christian leaders in Europe have called on the Jewish religious establishment to reform the traditional Halacha perceptions of non-Jews.

However, while the Reform and Conservative sects of Judaism, have related positively to such calls, most Orthodox Jews have totally rejected the calls, arguing that the Bible is God's word which can't be altered under any circumstances.

The Bible says that non-Jews living under Jewish rule must serve as "water carriers and wood hewers" for the master race.

In Joshua (9:27), we read " That day, Joshua made the Gibeonites woodcutters and water carriers for the community and for the altar of the Lord at the Place the Lord would choose. And that is what they are to this days."

Elsewhere in the Bible, Israelites are strongly urged to treat "strangers living in your midst" humanely "because you yourselves were strangers in Egypt."

* Khalid Amayreh a journalist based in the Occupied Palestinian town of Dura. He obtained his MA in journalism from the University of Southern Illinois in 1983.

By Paul J. Balles * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

A few days ago, Robert Elman, President of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), published a letter praising David Harris, Executive Director of the AJC.

The AJC boasts that it has worked since 1906 to safeguard Jewish life and to protect the dignity of all people.

In that motto alone, the thinking reader must see a dichotomy, a contradiction that casts doubt on what the organization represents.

If the AJC has worked to "safeguard Jewish life", it cannot honestly claim to protect the dignity of all people in the same breath, under which lays its treatment of Palestinians.

David Harris, as executive director of the AJC, has been the organization's leading spokesman. In short, he has been their chief propagandist in America for Israel.

A closer look at Elman's letter reveals how Harris and the AJC have used their propaganda machine to brainwash America.

In praising Harris for his 20 years of service as AJC executive director, Elman says:

No single professional has epitomized AJC's values, vision, activism, humanitarianism and achievement more than David Harris. David has been hailed as one of the Jewish people's foremost advocates and most distinguished and eloquent spokesmen.

Elman adds: "Looking to the future, David will continue to advocate for the issues most important to the Jewish people..."

Cheap propaganda

Here are the mythical issues Elman attributes to Harris. Each has an element of propaganda in it:

• Supporting a democratic Israel in its quest for peace and security.

  Israel's claims to be democratic are belied by its treatment of the Israeli Arabs as lesser members of an apartheid state.

Its so-called "quest for peace and security" has been proven to be nothing more than sound-bites for peace and military hardware for security.

• Speaking out against Iran's mission to build nuclear weapons.

  This is an outright lie similar to the lie about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction aimed at Israel. There's not a shred of proof that Iran's nuclear development involves weapons.

• Building mutual respect between different religious and ethnic groups, leading to a more tolerant world.

  Instead of working toward mutual respect, Israel has done everything possible to breed animosity.

• Moving America towards energy independence - critical for both our national security and our environment.

  In other words, cut American dependence on foreign oil, thereby diminishing positive relationships with Arab oil-producing countries.

• Seeking a world in which all people are afforded human rights, human dignity and human freedom.

  Before anyone can believe this Goebbels-type rubbish, Israel will have to vastly upgrade its relationships with the Palestinians.

Three themes run through most Zionist propaganda:

1. Brainwash the public into believing that Arabs are devils and all Muslims are extremist bombers.

   Professor Jack Shaheen's in-depth studies of American films thoroughly establish how Arabs have been consistently vilified in that medium for a century.

2. Convince the public to believe it's a hate crime to criticize Israel, while propagating guilt for the holocaust.

   Criticism of Israel in America is a guaranteed route to castigation as anti-Semitic at best and unemployment, like Helen Thomas's, at worst.

3. Instil fear in Jews and their supporters that others are out to destroy Israel and Jews. "Israel is surrounded by enemies," writes Steven Rosen. If true, why?

This theme ignores Israel's peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. More importantly, it overlooks the fact that Israel thrives on keeping Syria and Lebanon as antagonists and Iran as a threat. The propaganda device maintains unrestrained American support.

AJC propaganda does more harm than good. Israel needs healthy criticism from Jews in America and around the world.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.

By Antoine Raffoul * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

1948 Lest We Forget has obtained a copy of the full Survey of Palestine (Including the map survey) for its records. The following outline extracts shed more light on the Zionist lies about Palestine being "a land without people...." We recommend that Survey to all our Supporters.

In December 1945 and January 1946, the British Mandate authorities carried out an extensive survey of Palestine , in support of the work of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. The results were published in the Survey of Palestine, which has been scanned and made available online by Palestine Remembered; all 1300 pages can be read here.

One of the subjects investigated in the Survey of Palestine is land use; specifically, which crops were Palestine's leading agricultural products at the end of the British Mandate, and whose farms were producing them.

So, according to the Survey of Palestine, who really made the barley fields of Beersheba bloom?

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestinian farmers produced approximately 210,000 tons of grain.

About 193,400 tons of that grain were cultivated on Palestinian farms; about 16,600 tons were cultivated on Jewish farms.

See the precise numbers, from a scan of the relevant page of the Survey of Palestine, below:

Click image to enlarge

Who made the melon patches of Jaffa bloom?

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestinian farmers produced approximately 143,000 tons of melons.

About 136,000 tons of those melons were cultivated on Palestinian farms; a little over 7,000 tons were cultivated on Jewish farms.

See the precise numbers, from a scan of the relevant page of the Survey of Palestine, below:

Click image to enlarge

Who made the tobacco fields of Safad bloom?

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestinian farmers produced approximately 1,683 tons of tobacco, on 28,169 dunams of land. Virtually all the land under tobacco cultivation was Palestinian.

Who made the vineyards of Hebron bloom?

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestines farmers produced approximately 40-50,000 tons of grapes, and between 3-4 million litres of wine. About 86% of the land that produced these products was owned and cultivated by Palestinians.

See a scan of the relevant page of the Survey of Palestine, below:

Click to enlarge

Who made the olive groves of Tulkarm bloom?

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestinian farmers produced approximately 79,000 tons of olives.

About 78,000 tons of those olives were cultivated on Palestinian farms; a little over 1,000 tons were cultivated on Jewish farms.

See the precise numbers, from a scan of the relevant page of the Survey of Palestine, below:

Click image to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Who made the banana groves of Tiberias bloom?

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestinian farmers produced approximately 8,000 tons of bananas.

About 60% of the land that produced these bananas was owned and cultivated by Palestinians.

See the relevant page of the Survey of Palestine, below:

Click to enlarge

Who made the vegetable fields of the coastal plain bloom?

The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestines farmers produced approximately 245,000 tons of vegetables.

About 189,000 tons of those vegetables were cultivated by Palestinian farmers; about 56,000 tons were cultivated by Jewish farmers.

See the precise numbers, from a scan of the relevant page of the Survey of Palestine, below:

Click to enlarge

So, on the eve of the partition resolution, in which the United Nations proposed to allocate 55 percent of the land to Jewish Palestine (including those parts that produced most of Palestine's leading crops, with the sole exception of the olive crop), and 45% to Arab Palestine, Palestinian Arabs were producing:

• 92% of Palestine grain
• 86% of its grapes
• 99% of its olives
• 77 % of its vegetables
• 95% of its melons
• more than 99% of its tobacco
• and 60% of its bananas.

Palestine's agricultural produce at that time had an annual value of approximately 21.8 million pounds sterling; 17.1 million of which was produced by Arab cultivation, and 4.7 million by Jewish cultivation. (as seen in below table).

Click to enlarge

So, who made the desert bloom? The Palestinians made the desert bloom.

Photos: All the photographs of Palestinian farmers cultivating their crops in Palestine under the British Mandate are from Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History Of The Palestinians 1876 - 1948, by Walid Khalidi.

* Antoine Raffoul is a Palestinian architect living and practising in London. He was born in Nazareth and was expelled with his family from Haifa in April 1948. He is the Founder and Co-ordinator of 1948: Lest.We.Forget. a campaign group for truth about Palestine. He can be reached at info@1948.org.uk.

By Lawrence Davidson * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Michael Oren

It is an odd title, for if there is one thing Israel is not, it is invisible. But the ambassador is arguing from a peculiar point of view. Essentially, he claims that the Palestinians have yet to officially acknowledge that Israel is a "Jewish state." For Oren it is the Jewish aspect of Israel that remains "invisible." As odd as this sounds, the ambassador's complaint echos a current theme across the political spectrum in Israel. At the same time that he put out his op-ed, Ari Shavit, the center right contributor to Haaretz, published a piece that made a similar argument but extended the failure of recognition accusation to Europe and beyond. It appeared on October 14 and is entitled "The Core of the Conflict."

All of this might appear as something of a mystery. Doesn't the entire world already know that Israel is a "Jewish state?" Oren, however, expresses profound insecurity over the issue. "The core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the refusal to recognize Jews as a people, indigenous to the region and endowed with right of self-government." Here Mr. Oren, who is certainly not "indigenous to the region," is practicing a bit of plagiarism by taking a long standing Palestinian argument and asserting it as an Israeli one. Thus, for 62 years the Palestinians have claimed that the core of the conflict is the refusal of Israel to recognize them as indigenous to the region and endowed with the right of self-government. At this point the mystery takes another twist. For Oren insists that this recognition of the Palestinians has already been pledged by Israel and now it is the Palestinians' turn to reciprocate. "Just as Isreal recognizes the existence of the Palestinian people with an inalienable right to self-determination in its homeland, so, too, must the Palestinians accede to the Jewish people's 3,000 year connection to our homeland and our right to sovereignty there." No doubt the first part of this sentence is a reference to the Oslo Accords, which the Israelis have spent at least the last ten years describing as a dead and buried. So are we to believe that the ambassador now takes this pledge seriously? Hardly. The assertion of recognition of Palestinian rights is but a weak red herring. The only way the Israelis recognize the existence of the Palestinian people is by evicting them daily so as to clear the way for their illegal colonization of conquered land. Finally, why should millions of Palestinian refugees buy into the ambassador's insistence that "Jewish right to statehood is a tenet of international law"? Every one of Israel's governments has made a profession of violating international laws such as those embodied in the Geneva Conventions. So, this claim is simply hypocritical . Why should anyone give credence to Israel's assertion that it be accorded rights it has systematically denied others?

So, what is going on here? Why, at this particular time, do we get an evidently improvised emphasis on Israel as a "Jewish state?" Perhaps we should see it as a negotiation tactic. If you can get the Palestinian Authority to buy into this recognition you automatically negate, at least in prospective treaty terms, the right of return. And indeed, the Israelis have come pretty close to pulling off this gambit. Thus, Mahmoud Abbas stated on October 17 that once the Palestinians have a state of their own in the lands occupied by Israel after 1967, they will "end all historic claims against Israel" within the 1967 borders. One would think that if the Israeli government is serious about the Jewish recognition issue they would take Abbas up on this offer and negotiate non-stop to close the not very large gap between the two positions. To date there has been no move in that direction. That certainly undermines the negotiating tactic argument and supports those who say the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state is not designed to shape negotiations, but to end them.

That last interpretation might have some truth to it, but I do not think it tells the whole story. There is still another way of interpreting the recognition theme that is presently being promoted. A suggestion of this alternative motivation comes in the Shavit piece mentioned above. Shavit offers "seven reasons why the demand to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people is a legitimate one." None of them are any more convincing than Oren's arguments, but one does stand out as revealing. Shavit claims that the recognition being demanded will cause a halt to the assault on the legitimacy of Israel. It will stop a process that has caused "Ehud Olmert's Israel" to be seen as less legitimate than "Yitzhak Shamir's Israel." Shavit describes this process as an "avalanche" implying that he sees the attack on legitimacy as getting worse as time goes by.

What this means is that the present emphasis on Israel as the Jewish state is aimed not only at complicating negotiations with the Palestinians, but also at undermining the growing boycott movement that seeks to isolate Israel and call into serious question the legitimacy of a state designed exclusively for one ethnic or religious group. The efforts of Oren, Shavit and others are testimony to the fact that the boycott movement is working, and the Israeli government knows it.

To tell the truth, Oren and Shavit have it wrong about Israel. It is not a Jewish state. Rather it is a Zionist state. For 93 years (counting from 1917 and the Balfour Declaration) the Zionists have sought to make the two synonymous. But they are not the same. Judaism is a religion that, at its best, demands tolerance and acceptance of the other. Zionism is a political ideology the ethnic exclusiveness of which leads, almost inevitably, to apartheid. More and more Jews are coming to understand this and that too is part of Shavit's feared avalanche. In the end it is the practice of Zionism, and not lack of recognition of its alleged Jewishness, that is causing Israel's legitimacy crisis. Demanding that the Palestinians, or indeed the whole world, call Israel the Jewish state cannot mask its real nature.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

By Stephen Lendman * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

In 1982, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs senior advisor Oded Yinon published a revealing document for regional conquest and dominance. Still relevant today, it's titled "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s, translated, edited, and retitled "The Zionist Plan for the Middle East" (read document below) by distinguished Professor Israel Shahak (1933 - 2001), longtime activist, analyst, and outspoken Israeli critic.

Its publisher, the Association of Arab-American University Graduates called it "the most explicit, detailed and unambiguous statement to date of the Zionist strategy in the Middle East....Its importance....lies not in its historical value but in the nightmare which it represents," what thereafter continued to unfold.

Its two essential premises include:

• to survive, Israel must dominate the region and become a world power, and
• succeeding requires dividing Arab nations into small states - Balkanizing them along ethnic and sectarian lines as Israeli satellites, controllable satraps, the idea modeled after the Ottoman Empire's Millet (or nation) system under which local authorities governed confessional communities with separate ethnic identities.

Israel's 1967 Golan seizure and 1978 and 1982 Lebanon invasions followed the plan, Yinon noting "far-reaching opportunities for the first time since 1967, (created by the) very stormy situation surround(ing) Israel," resurrected whenever Israel wishes. Its method involves preemptive belligerence against Palestinians and regional states, making them all eventual targets to be weakened, fragmented, divided, and reconfigured under Israeli control.

In 1982, it included dividing Iraq into Shi'ite, Sunni, and Kurdish areas, what, in fact, unfolded after 2003, Shahak noting that:

"The plan follows faithfully the geopolitical ideas current in Germany of 1890 - 1933, which were swallowed whole by Hitler and the Nazi movement, and determined their aims for East Europe." They were then implemented from 1939 - 1941, "and only (a global alliance) prevented their consolidation for a period of time."

Citing the "early stages of a new epoch," Yinon said "The existence, prosperity and steadfastness of (Israel) depend(s) upon its ability to adopt a new framework for its domestic and foreign affairs," based on securing its material needs through winnable resource wars and Arab world divisions.

"All the Arab States east of Israel are torn apart, broken up and riddled with inner conflicts even more than those of the Maghreb" (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania, and Western Sahara). All the Gulf states are "built upon a delicate house of sand in which there is only oil." Jordan is in reality Palestine, Amman the same as Nablus.

Other Muslim states are similar. Half of Iran's population is Persian speaking, the rest ethnically Turkish. Turkey is half Sunni Muslim, the rest Shi'ite Alawis and Sunni Kurds. Today, Afghanistan's divisions are clearer, including Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen, and others. Pakistan also is comprised of Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Seraikis, Muhajirs, Balochs and others.

From Morocco to India, Somalia to Turkey, stability is absent, "point(ing) to....a rapid degeneration in the entire region" to be exploited to Israel's advantage. Throughout the Middle East, depravation, including hunger and unemployment affect millions, potentially explosive problems only security forces can contain, giving Israel "far-reaching opportunities for the first time since 1967."

The Six Day War's strategic error was failing to give Jordan to the Palestinians, thereby "neutralizing" today's problem by removing them. "Today, we suddenly face immense opportunities for transforming the situation thoroughly and this we must do in the coming decade, otherwise we shall not survive as a state."

He recommended far-reaching foreign and domestic political and economic changes. He also called Israel's peace agreement with Egypt a mistake, said its economy depends on acquiring oil resources without which it could be destroyed, and named two ways to get them:

• directly by breaking the treaty; or
• regaining control of the Sinai indirectly, Egypt no military obstacle because of its internal conflicts.

In 1956, its myth as the Arab world's strong leader was revealed, reiterated in 1967. Its economy is also in crisis, making foreign help essential. Israel's strategic aim is to weaken it further by breaking it into distinct geographical regions. If accomplished, other countries may follow, including Libya and Sudan.

"The vision of a Christian Coptic State in Upper Egypt alongside a number of weak states with very localized power (and none centrally) is the key to a historical development which was only set back by the peace agreement but which seems inevitable in the long run."

Lebanon's division into five provinces is a precedent for the entire Arab world, including Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the Arabian peninsula. Syria will divide into a Shi'ite Alawi coastal state, an Aleppo area Sunni one, another in Damascus, and the Druzes will set up their own. This outcome will guarantee peace and security in the long run, "and that aim is already within our reach today."

Oil rich/internally torn Iraq is a "guaranteed" Israeli target, more important than Syria. In the short run, it's Israel's greatest threat. A war with Iran will tear it apart, lead to its downfall, and perhaps fragment Iran, separating its oil rich Arab speaking province from the rest of the country. Confrontations elsewhere will cause further dissolutions.

Because of internal and external pressure, the entire Arabian peninsula is vulnerable, especially Saudi Arabia. Jordan won't threaten in the long run after dissolution. "There is no chance that (it) will continue to exist in its present structure for a long time." Thus, Israel's policy should be transferring Jordanian power to Palestinians, hastened by Occupied Territory emigration, resulting in "Arabs to Jordan and the Jews to the areas west of the river. Genuine coexistence and peace will reign over the land only when Arabs understand that without Jewish rule between Jordan and the sea they will have neither existence nor security." Jordan is their only alternative, giving Israel more land cleansed of Arabs.

Otherwise,

"we shall cease to exist within any borders. Judea, Samaria (the West Bank and Jerusalem) and the Galilee are our sole guarantee for national existence....Rebalancing the country demographically, strategically and economically is the highest and most central aim today."

Changes transforming world Jewry make Israel the only existential option. "Our existence is certain." Nothing can "remove us (either) forcefully or by treachery (Sadat's method)."

Three important points are stressed:

First, Israel's military alone can't occupy more territory. The solution - rule by "Haddad forces" or "Village Associations," controllable local authorities, dissociated from their populations, Israeli garrisons strategically positioned between the mini states. Making it feasible depends on keeping Arabs divided.

Second, Yinon's plan was published to win over Israeli society, especially its elites able to influence others. Problems about Arabs awareness are minimal, given their divisions and inability to understand Israeli society.

Neither is America of concern, its pro-Israeli media assumes "good intentions" regardless of policy, and the Israeli Lobby does the rest. As a result, Israel operates freely "because the world wants to close its eyes."

In 1985, Israeli President and Labor Party leader Chaim Herzog echoed the views of hardline extremists like Sharon and Netanyahu:

"We are certainly not willing to make partners of the Palestinians in any way in a land that was holy to our people for thousands of years. There can be no partner with the Jews of this land," leaving resettlement (expulsion) the only option, a favored policy today, the same one revisionist leader Ze've Jabotinsky advocated, including in a 1939 letter, saying:

"There is no choice: The Arabs must make room for the Jews in Eretz Israel. It was possible to transfer the Baltic peoples, it is also possible to move the Palestinian Arabs." Most was accomplished in Israel's 1948 "War of Independence," again in the 1967 Six Day War. Thereafter it continued, supported and funded by Israel's Washington paymaster/partner in crime. As a result, Palestinians have been on their own resisting for over six decades, their courage and determination unreported in the West, but global support builds and offers hope.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

The Zionist Plan for the Middle East

Leader of Jewish settlers in the occupied East al-Quds (Jerusalem) neighborhood of Silwan has deliberately run over two Palestinian children and fled the scene. (see video below)

These stunning images show the incident happened during protests that followed the Friday Prayers.

The Israeli car driven by David Be'eri, the leader of hardline Elad organization trying to settle Jews in Silwan, charged a group of Palestinian kids, hitting one boy full on and throwing another off his feet.

The boys, Imran Mansur, 11, and Iyad Gheit, 10, both sustained severe injuries and were rushed to hospital. The incident was recorded by photographers and journalists present on the scene.

The disturbing footage also shows that one of the injured boys resisted efforts to get him into a car and to the hospital. Palestinian youngsters fear getting into strangers' cars because they have seen their friends taken away by Israeli troops on a regular basis.

Israeli intelligence and police have been accused of torturing confessions out of Palestinian children, subjecting them to sexual abuse and removing the organs of injured Palestinians.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2unZIzIwp0

(Press TV, Al Jazeera)

THE PHONY PRESS, SEX, SIN AND WAR

By Gordon Duff* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

President Ahmadinejad of Iran has asked for a UN investigation of 9/11. For this, he has been branded a "wingnut" and "evildoer" by the American press. However, the 9/11 Commission itself asked for a criminal investigation, saying it uncovered a conspiracy and was prevented from getting the truth. They were quickly silenced. 9 years later, top scientists from around the world, supported by engineers, architects, military and intelligence officials agree on one thing. What thing is that? We will never know. Reporting that "one thing" would be the last thing any member of the press would ever do. A day later, they would become unpaid bloggers and have their name on the "no fly" list. Do things like this happen? How long did CNN's Rick Sanchez last after pointing out that Jon Stewart's fanatic pro-Israel bias is a form of "bigotry?"

Let's take a second to look at Ahmadinejad. Nearly daily stories hit newspapers around the world, "Iran is 15 minutes from being a nuclear power." Ahmadinejad threatens to "wipe Israel off the map." "Ahmadinejad supports a new holocaust."

The press, of course, continually reviles Ahmadinejad as a terrorist and mass murderer. What he isn't, however, is a liar. Every time it comes down to checking on who is telling the truth, Ahmadinejad or the press, it turns out Ahmadinejad is telling the truth. How can this be possible?

Well, a couple of things come into play. First of all, the press purposefully distorts what is said. The press lies, lies consistently. There is no nuclear program in Iran, not a weapons program. There is no credible information that varies from this fact, yet the press continually takes a line here and a statement there, out of context, and tries to build a case for war. Why is the press doing this? The answer is simply, Israelis control the American press and want the United States to destroy Iran, not because it is a military threat. It is technically impossible for Iran to attack Israel, every military expert in the world knows that and all have said it.

That will never be reported either.

Why is Ahmadinejad reviled with such venom? The answer is simple. He is being made an example. Anyone who speaks up, disagrees with reality as defined by the media, not any government, mind you, but the media that tells those in every government what they can and can't say or think, risks destruction. There is a clear methodology here. Let's look at some issues the press doesn't like very much, starting with our favorite, the villain of all time, Mr. Adolf Hitler.

Hitler got his start, speaking up much like Ahmadinejad. After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles opened up Germany for abuse by financial criminals. However, it even started before that. Germany tried to quit the war in 1916 when it was winning. Britain and France refused, not on their own, but because the Rothschilds cut financial deals with them and promised to bring the United States into the war. 5 million more Europeans died along with nearly 200,000 Americans.

The Rothschilds got the Balfour Declaration, giving them a base to control Middle East oil, the Suez Canal and India, the things that the wars nearly a century later are being manipulated to bring about.

Communism took over Russia. Nearly every communist leader was Jewish and Zionist. Even today, every Russian "oligarch" is a Jew and Zionist. Hitler said that "communism' was the real Jewish religion. He believes he saved Germany from communism when he was elected chancellor. The country he took over had been economically destroyed through currency manipulation. A loaf of bread cost billions of Marks at one point. The currency was devalued by the Rothschilds supported by France and Britain, by force. Cash smuggled out of the country by the ton and reimbursed at full value, at gunpoint, stripping Germany clean, starvation, humiliation and, eventually, that nasty "right wing" government the world had so much trouble with, the Third Reich.

During the 1920s, when the French and British, really the Rothschilds, were destroying Germany, 80% of the property was foreclosed on and bought by, well, do we say it? Jews? Bought for pennies. This is the "billions" in property the Nazi's seized. Not a simple story when you get to hear all of it. An excuse, Auschwitz, Gaza, are there excuses for inhumanity?

This is all true. This is history. This will never be reported. Not only will this be kept secret but the fact that the Zionist groups that wanted Palestine settled by Jews supported Hitler and worked closely with him, not just in 1927 but as late as 1945. This is also historical fact, not conjecture.

So, lets go back to Ahmadinejad. Why would he have a "Holocaust Conference" in Tehran? Serious students of history that don't have to live off a university paycheck, telling the same myths and lies term after term all know what Ahmadinejad knows. They also know that there are some nasty secrets about the holocaust. The real reason, however, is to anger Israel. Why? Israel pretty much hates everyone, is arrogant, obnoxious and predatory.

Since Israel controls, not only the press but the world banking system, all major banks being "children" of the original Rothschilds banks, including and especially the Federal Reserve which controls the American economy, the idea that Israel may have "fictionalized" the holocaust in collusion with Josef Stalin of Russia, a mass murderer well beyond anything Hitler ever imagined, interested Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad never said there wasn't a holocaust. He simply asked for an honest and accurate historical assessment of the facts.

Israel went into a total panic. Israel was hiding a terrible secret about the holocaust. They still are. We don't know what it is, I won't even hazard a guess. We do know that millions were spent, tens of millions in bribe money to have laws passed suppressing any study of the holocaust. In 11 western nations, questioning the Israeli version, one that changes hourly it seems, is a crime.

So, what was Ahmadinejad's game? He was simply telling Israel that "he knew." Knew "what?" We don't know and may never find out but it is something horribly discrediting to Israel, so threatening that they would stage a nuclear attack to keep it secret. We all agree there were camps. We all agree the Nazis were bad. What could it be? It is something that Iran uses to blackmail Israel, that and the fact that China, a major military power, a massive nuclear power, quietly stands behind Iran. Nobody is supposed to know it. We all know it.

WHY SOME REALLY NEED TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT WWJD, WHAT JESUS WOULD REALLY DO...

Let's broaden things a bit. How do you tell if a Christian is a total phony or not? There is a standard question:

"Who was Mary Magdalene?"

If the answer you get uses the word "whore," you know you are dealing with someone whose religious education came from urban legends and comic books. If you are told she was an associate of Jesus cured of "demons" you have a student of the canon gospels. If you get a complex story of priest schools, a possible marriage of Jesus and Magdalene, Magdalene's own gospel, her sainthood and death in France, you may have a religious scholar on your hands.

Yet today, you can turn on your radio and hear dozens if not hundreds of radio stations, all blaring the same tune, "nuclear Armageddon...Obama the Muslim....Ground Zero Mosque.......family values....and how Magdalene was the "whore of Babylon."

The experts are all the same. Their name starts with Doctor." They have a degree in "Divinity Studies" from a college that can't be found on a satellite survey. What their 8 years of religious education and decades of bible study, some claim over 12 hours a day, they continue to harp on about Magdalene and her sins. Where did they get their ideas? From a Mel Gibson movie perhaps? Perhaps we could refer to the King James Version of the Bible as a reference:

Mt 27:56 Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children.
Mt 27:61 And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.
Mt 28:1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
Mr 15:40 There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;
Mr 15:47 And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.
Mr 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.
Mr 16:9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.
Lu 8:2 And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,
Lu 24:10 It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.
Joh 19:25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
Joh 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
Joh 20:18 Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.

This is every biblical reference to Mary Magdalene, quoting the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. What do we prove? Do we prove that the religious education of most Americans is based on Hollywood films? Dozens of films have depicted Mary Magdalene as a whore. Why would the film industry do this? Who runs the film industry? If I answer my own question, will I lose my job?

Christian Zionism: The Tragedy & The Turning, Part 1 from WHTT on Vimeo.

This week, dozens of stories of 9 year old brides in Yemen hit the papers. In fact, stories of the sexual abuses of Islam fill the papers in Western Europe and America. Sex sells papers and there is nothing that the same ethnic group that owns both Hollywood and America's newspapers loves more than sex and that's money. Are we being unfair, perhaps even bigoted? Yes, perhaps we might be with some exceptions. One of these is that the other group constantly attacked is Christians. Hardly a day goes by without the poor old German pope's photo next to a headline describing child rape.

Do we see those same headlines in the same papers as stories about Israeli organ theft rings? Oh, you mean you don't know that Israel has a huge industry tied to the theft and trade of human organs? Perhaps you might think this was an urban legend, you might think that, had you ever seen it reported.

Has anyone ever seen a news story about Jewish law and how it applies to pedophiles? Nothing? Curious. One of the few to speak up is Reverend Ted Pike. Here is some of what he has to say:

This year, top Israeli Rabbi Moti Elon was indicted by police for sex crimes against minors. "Far from being the rabbi of an obscure Hasidic sect, the charismatic Elon is a high-profile leader, educator and media personality, representing the more mainstream religious Zionists and former head of the renowned HaKotel (Western Wall) Yeshiva. He comes from a family of high achievers in law, politics and academia that has drawn comparisons with the Kennedy clan."

In 2006, Elon was restricted by an organization of rabbis in his contact with students, after confessing to sexual relationships with male students. Yet he continued to act as the president of a Talmudic academy in Jerusalem and did not fully honor the agreement. One Ha'aretz commentary says Elon "managed to turn himself into almost a kind of saint" –a fate certainly to be envied by American religious figures turned pedophiles.

Dr. Aviad Hacohen, dean of the Sha'arei Mishpat College, in 2007 reported that "95% of sexual offenses in Jerusalem were performed by the religious and haredi." "Several years ago, I began looking into the issue on a data-based level," said Hacohen. "It turned out that the law enforcement authorities, both the police and the prosecutor's office, were aware of the data but refused to expose it based on sectorial affiliation in order to avoid branding a certain group in the population..."

Since the following article was written in 2006, cases of Jewish leadership figures in Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism being involved in homosexuality or pedophilia scandals continue to mount not only in Israel, but in New York, where Ultra-Orthodox are strongest. The reason is simple: some of the very greatest rabbis who wrote the Talmud were pedophiles.

So, after a busy day reading the news, 9 year old brides in Yemen, women being stoned in Iran or the unending perfidies of the Catholic Church with its list of priest rape victims at 2 million and counting, reported much as though it were a sign counting "burgers sold" at a fast food restaurant, I find nothing in the "news" about such problems in the Jewish community, even though, as we read above, the scandals are real, pervasive and very noteworthy. I would think the arrest of Israel's top Rabbi for sex crimes would be reported.

It wasn't.

We are told daily, nearly hourly, the the Koran supports sex crimes and is unique among religious works for its "impurity." News networks in America actually encourage Koran burning, networks owned by Israeli's we admit, but American in some ways, at least some of the personnel are American citizens, still, at least. So, is there a problem in the Talmud that is being covered up, a problem that has driven the media to continually attack Islam while failing to look closer to home? Let's take a look:

R. Joseph said: Come and hear! A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by coition and if her deceased husband's brother cohabits with her, she becomes his. (Sanh. 55b)

A girl who is three years of age and one day may be betrothed by cohabitation. . . .(Yeb. 57b)

A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by coition, and if her deceased husband's brother cohabited with her she becomes his. (Sanh. 69a, 69b, also discussed in Yeb. 60b)

It was taught: R. Simeon b. Yohai stated: A proselyte who is under the age of three years and one day is permitted to marry a priest, for it is said, But all the women children that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves, and Phineas (who was priest, the footnote says) surely was with them. (Yeb. 60b)

[The Talmud says such three year and a day old girls are] . . . fit for cohabitation. . . But all women children, that have not known man by lying with him, it must be concluded that Scripture speaks of one who is fit for cohabitation. (Footnote to Yeb. 60b)

Where, in our news, do we read that a 9 year old girl would be considered an "old maid" in the Talmud? Have we proven bias and bigotry? When is the last time Jon Stewart talked about sex with three year olds? His audience would love hearing about it and I am sure he has some good "one liners" he could use. Can you see his smirk as he describes the physiological aspects alone? You are saying it would be in bad taste, something he would never do. Have you really seen his show?

Let's imagine Jon Stewart, "How about those rabbi's, can't you just picture it? A 3 year old? Like King Kong with a yamaka putting a move on Barbie."

How about Howard Stern? He has hour after hour attacking the sexual ills of Islam. Can you imagine how popular he will be when he starts pulling in callers screaming about the Talmud and sex with three year olds or the sex crimes of the rabbis, even higher by percentage than priests.

Imagine where Howard Stern would go with this. I'd rather not. "What did the rabbi say to the kindergartener?"

Is an Islamophobe a bigot? Is a Jew who rants about the sins of sex and Islam not only a bigot but a hypocrite as well? Am I going to be fired for saying this?

It isn't just that members of the press, our congress and 95% of our military are corrupt, moderate to severe, along with being functionally delusional. They believe everyone else is even dumber. When 300 billion goes missing in Iraq, they don't think we know who got it and that they all got a piece of the action? How could this much money disappear, news stories covering it, GAO accounting docs proving it but nobody notices that there are no hearings, no grand jury, no indictments.

The new rule in Washington, "if you steal it, you keep it."

Years ago, congress was attacked for passing the Patriot Acts, laws filled with unconstitutional provisions, some already overturned even by our Hitleresque Supreme Court. Here we sit, a new broom in the White House, freedoms restored, or are they? Government police from unspecified agencies whose powers and mandates are clearly outside the scope of any law, can arrest and detain anyone and do, not only disregarding color, race or ethnicity but guilt or innocence also. Anyone can be arrested, detained, shipped anywhere in the world, tortured, raped, murdered. It is done every day.

Ask the press. You say they don't care?

Remember when we learned that Stan McChrystal and Dick Cheney were running death squads under something called the JSOC? Now, years later, we find that our death squads are still out there, some official, some simply making it up as they go along. If you want to throw a hand grenade under a school bus, go ahead. If you want to open fire on civilians from your helicopter, simply mouth a few military sounding phrases, hit the button and sent a few hundred pounds of depleted uranium into a residential neighborhood.

Then again, you can fly into Pakistan and kill a few of their troops at a border checkpoint like was done last week, seemingly on a whim. Who needs Pakistan anyway? Isn't Peru still with us, part of the remains of the old Bush/Cheney coalition of the willing, the blackmailed, the bought and paid for?

Now no more gasoline for trucking the opium crop to the heroin processing facilities south of Kandahar or to the airfields in Balochistan for shipment to Western Europe or North America. As the press about this? Oh, you are saying they know, have written stories about this but were told they won't be "embedded" anymore unless they tone down the "self righteousness."

Remember the torture controversy? How about this one, did you know that 95% of the "terrorists" arrested during the Bush administration were found "innocent?" How about Pat Tillman, the former football player who joined the Army but became disenchanted with what he was seeing in Afghanistan. The press said nothing when he died a "war hero." Then he suddenly became a victim of an innocent and childish accident, not at all dissimilar to the accidents the Kennedy brothers suffered back in the 1960s.

The press is still buying the "accident' story even though the closely grouped head shots that killed Tillman were a "one in 10 billion" accident.

Before the Army is done, Tillman will have shot himself in the head 4 times and then, as usual, disposed of the weapon. You don't want to know how many accidents like this the Army has. You don't have to worry, you'll never find out about it anyway.

The press is still falling all over themselves for eventually figuring out that Tillman wasn't killed by the Taliban. All they had to do was read the coroners report, you know the one, it said "murder" on it.

What is the news? Anymore, we might as well get press releases sent directly to our I-Phones and cut out the jokers in the middle. Can you imagine, millions of Americans have Islam explained to them by a former Mossad public relations officer named Wolf Blitzer. (Jerusalem Press/CNN)

I wouldn't trust Blitzer doing a weather report, certainly not sports scores.

Remember a week ago, Benjamin Netanyahu, former furniture salesman now running Israel, the "American hating" extremist, demanded that we release spy Jonathan Pollard?

Remember that Congressman Barney Frank immediately ran to his side?

The press reports that Pollard was jailed for life because he "gave Israel information on PLO locations, information America failed to share."

Not one word of this is true. OK, one word, there is a person named Jonathan Pollard. Thus far, this is the only thing the press reported properly.

Pollard never gave anyone anything, he sold it. Nothing went TO Israel, Pollard and the State of Israel were spying FOR the Soviet Union AGAINST the United States.

The information was: (this has been confirmed)

• The identities of all CIA agents and the full NOC list, agents of "non official cover" (A movie was made about this, Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible)
• Full NATO defense plans in case of Soviet Attack
• Full information including strategic vulnerability assessments on what would be needed to defeat the United States in a nuclear war
• Design specifics on all American nuclear weapons and delivery systems
• America's military and diplomatic codes

This information was sold by Pollard to controllers in Israel who then sold it to the Soviet Union. We have learned that because of this information a couple of things happened:

• The Soviet Union came close to a nuclear "first strike" on the United States
• Over 100 CIA agents were executed after extensive torture
• Over 1500 "intelligence assets" were rounded up, tortured and interrogated, then killed behind the Iron Curtain
• America lost all ability to use intelligence to defend itself from the Soviet Union
• America's strategic capabilities were diminished by over 50%, with many ‘capabilities' totally unviable
• 15 years of weapons research was lost
• Several weapons systems were totally compromised including our stealth aircraft and nuclear submarines

However, when Barney Frank and his furniture salesman buddy, the one who continually brags about how stupid Americans are and how he can get them to do anything he wants, publicly demanded this monster, Pollard, be set free, the press was silent. The furniture salesman was right, about the press anyway, he can get them to do anything he wants.

Netanyahu wasn't serious about Pollard, he simply brings it up, from time to time, when he has a need to humiliate the United States, reminding them how naive and gullible they are as a people and how corrupt their military and government are.

There are no worries about the press. In fact, even though military and intelligence sources have leaked, for years, how serious the Pollard disaster really was for America, the press loves telling the same old Israeli yarn, the poor country of holocaust victims trying to protect themselves from uncaring America, their "bestest friend" and ally that they have to keep on a "short leash."

Can we think of something else the press has overlooked? Back in 2007, the American economy imploded. Prior to that, America ran up trillions of dollars of secret debt. We call it secret because no news ever reported it or its consequences. Debt is the clearest indicator of economic health. The levels of debt during the Bush years, a president who took office with a budget surplus, reached beyond epidemic proportions yet nothing was ever reported, not in such a way as to make the public aware the nation was going bankrupt.

In 2007, America hit full default, totally broke, dead, gone, bankrupt. Savings disappeared, retirement systems collapsed, markets plummeted and "blue chip" stocks became worthless. How did the news respond? They claimed that a small non-profit called ACORN, a group that worked registering voters, had caused the collapse. Proving this, we were told, a Republican party operative trained at an Israeli intelligence school, had "debunked" the entire crisis.

ACORN did it. According to America's right wing, fronting for the pan-Israeli banking cartel, a few dozen $30,000 dollar home loans managed to run up $3,000,000,000,000 in debt. Maybe it was extra fees or ‘handling charges?'

Then we learned that none of this happened and that trillions of dollars were stolen by a series of "banks" tied to the Rothschilds, run by Israeli Americans and long involved in massive criminal fraud in full collusion with the Bush administration, coordinating wars, defense fraud, bilking the economy and suspending constitutional rights, in a concerted effort, Bush, Cheney, Israel, the Rothschilds and their creature, the Federal Reserve System, permanently sinking America in a "Pearl Harbor" that made 9/11 tame in comparison.

So, where are these people, the "coalition of corruption," the "banksters" and the corrupt politicians? How many are in jail? Thousands? Bernie Madoff only?

What did the American press have to say? Anything? A story here, one there.

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

By Paul J. Balles* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

When Time Magazine carried an article on "Why Israel Doesn't Care about Peace", a whole coterie of American Zionist supporters reacted as if Time had become anti-Semitic.

For any writer to cast the slightest aspersion on Israel's claim to wish for peace is tantamount to alleging that there never was a Sermon on the Mount.

Author of the Time article, Karl Vick, writes, "Asked in a March poll to name the 'most urgent problem' facing Israel, just 8% of Israeli Jews cited the conflict with Palestinians, putting it fifth behind education, crime, national security and poverty."

Referring to the same poll, Vick adds, "Israeli Arabs placed peace first, but among Jews here, the issue that President Obama calls "critical for the world" just doesn't seem - critical."

Time's cover and story on life in Israel prompted more than 1,000 letters, mostly in protest. Several of those letters allege the usual canard that the article is anti-Semitic.

They berated Vick for lacking reliable support for his claim. However, they ignored a journalist with impeccable credentials who writes for the influential daily journal Ha'aretz.

"The good life in Israel is real, while all the rest is somehow blurred, says Ari Shavit who writes a regular column for Ha'aretz."

Here are some of the ludicrous, though typical, comments made by readers:

"So Time Magazine is really sucking up to their Arab bosses. Without those petro dollars, Time would have folded years ago. We Jews have a long memory & will get even in the future."

A typical anti-Arab writer says, "'Never Again' only applies to the Jews. Not the Goy vermin. How much are you getting paid to post here, Arab?"

The type of comment by those who believe that Israel can do no wrong goes like this:

"This story and the cover graphic are worthy of a supermarket tabloid. Time has lowered its standards by using provocative and misleading graphics on its cover, and stooped even further by publishing an article better suited to a blog than a news magazine."

If they find nothing else wrong, they complain about the timing, "This is disgusting! On one of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar Rosh Hashanah, I am greeted by an inexcusable cover story by Time magazine."

One commentator simply said, without support, "What an unfounded article !!!!"

If a publication doesn't say what you want it to say, cancel your subscription. You may have to explain how you happened to read the offending article. This one doesn't:

"Hurrah for all of those who were nauseated by this latest piece of crass and untrue journalism by Time Magazine. I cancelled my subscription long ago and can only recommend that, if you are interested in what is going on in the Middle East, Time is not the place to find out."

Here's the gold-medal winner. "Wow! What's next? An update to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?"

Calling "the article and its arguments wrong, inappropriate and offensive," Anti-Defamation League Director Abe Foxman repeated the age-old propaganda line about Israel's desire for peace:

"Ignored is the decades-long yearning of Israelis for peace and the tremendous efforts successive Israeli governments have made in pursuit of reconciliation."

Both the Israelis and the American Zionists have been lying and brainwashing others for so long they believe the propaganda themselves.

If there's any sincerity in the minds of those who say that Israel wants peace, they need to stop believing that Israel can do no wrong.

Israel needs to stop being a propaganda machine refusing to accept criticism and failing to indulge in self-criticism.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.