ARTISTRY OF ART SPIEGELMAN APPLIED TO THE HOLOCAUST & 9/11

SELF-PORTRAIT OF ART SPIEGELMAN FROM HIS AWARD WINNING BOOK " MAUS " (1991 ) ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST( SHOAH ) . BASED ON THE EXPERIENCES OF HIS FATHER WHO SURVIVED TO BECOME A WITNESS OF THE HORROR & MADNESS .
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PANEL FROM ART SPIEGELMAN'S " MAUS " IN WHICH THE JEWS ARE DEPICTED AS MICE & THE NAZIS AS CATS


"MAUS " BY ART SPIEGELMAN
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put more photos here


" IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS " BY ART SPIEGELMAN
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PANEL FROM " IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS " BY ART SPIEGELMAN . 9/11 & THE AFTERMATH . AMERICANS TERRORIZED INTO SUBMISSION TO THE AUTHORITARIAN BUSH REGIME .
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"WAITING FOR THE OTHER SHOE TO DROP " FROM ART SPIEGELMAN'S " IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS " DEALING WITH 9/11 & IT'S AFTERMATH.
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PANEL FROM " IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS " BY CARTOONIST / GRAPHIC NOVELIST ART SPIEGELMAN ( 2004 )
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Here’s a little bio of Art Spiegelman as it were:
from Pantheon Graphic Novels
www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/
graphicnovels/spiegelman.

"Art Spiegelman... to the comics world is a Michelangelo and a Medici both, an influential artist who is also an impresario and an enabler of others." (The New York Times Magazine). Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for his masterful Holocaust narrative Maus, which was followed by Maus II, he is one of the world's best-known graphic artists. "It would be almost impossible to overstate the influence of Maus among other artists" (The New York Times Magazine).

Born in Stockholm in 1948, Spiegelman rejected his parents' aspirations for him to become a dentist, and began to study cartooning in high school and drawing professionally at age 16. He went on to study art and philosophy at Harpur College before joining the underground comics movement. As creative consultant for Topps Candy from 1965-1987, Spiegelman designed Wacky Packages, Garbage Pail Kids and other novelty items, and taught history and aesthetics of comics at the School for Visual Arts in New York from 1979-1986. In 1980, Spiegelman founded RAW, the acclaimed avant-garde comics magazine, with his wife, Francoise Mouly. His work has since been published in many periodicals, including The New Yorker, where he was a staff artist and writer from 1993-2003.”

And further commenting on “ IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS ”;

“Spiegelman and his family bore witness to the attacks in their lower Manhattan neighborhood: his teenage daughter had started school directly below the towers days earlier, and they had lived in the area for years. But the horrors they survived that morning were only the beginning for Spiegelman, as his anguish was quickly displaced by fury at the U.S. government, which shamelessly co-opted the events for its own preconceived agenda.”

I just recently came across these two books by Art Spegelman & they are both worthy of more than just a glance or perusal since that's how most people seem to read these days.

Spiegelman’s book illustrates the horror of the 9/11 attack on the twin towers especially as it is told by an eye-witness living in a neighborhood adjacent to the towers. But like many people Spegelman expresses his anxiety, frustration & growing anger as the Bush regime & its lackeys used the event to push forward their own Neo-Conservative & the Radical Religious Right’s combined agenda under the guise of fighting terrorism .

Now the Bush regime could go after Saddam Hussein who had nothing to do with the attack & was in fact also hated by of Al Qeda.

Hussein also did not have “ Weapons of Mass Destruction ” but the Propaganda war that began within hours after the 9/11 attack has left many with the impression that Hussein did have WMD & was involved with the attack somehow or other. (For instance: some might argue maybe Al Qeda publicly claimed to hate Saddam but really was in cahoots with him in typical conspiracy type fashion. & other fantasies of the followers of Chancellor Bush. & what is disturbing is that there is no way to battle such propaganda as the true believers are convinced that Bush would never lie to them & that he has some “ secret knowledge” about what’s is actually going on .)

But it is like those Americans who believe that the 9/11 terrorists managed to sneak into the US by way of Canada ; though it is not true how does one convince those who have had a steady daily diet of this sort of propaganda .


And now it is getting worse as Chancellor Bush & his cadre of power-hungry fanatics throw around terms like “ Islamo-Fascism ”. So we are now or have been embarking on a new Christian Western Holy Crusade against the ungodly anti-American anti-western anti-democratic evil & Satanic Islamic forces who intend to crush the West & force Islam on the rest of the world.

This is the sort of rhetoric which leads to the death of reason & rational discourse. The Islamic World becomes thereby the Enemy who cannot be reasoned with & faced with such a fanatical enemy any in the West who dare question the policies & tactics of the Bush Regime are therefore enemies of Western Values & should be ignored or even silenced .

So far the silence at times is deafening as most of the Western Media especially in America & Britain & now in Canada have for various reasons decided to become the Voice & Chief Propagandists for Chancellor Bush . The Media acts or actually believes Bush can do no wrong.

As we know imprisoning people without due process & keeping them in jail for years while torturing them & sometimes killing a few prisoners so what we are told all those arrested were guilty of something even when it is discovered they are not guilty of anything.

So we throw out the Geneva Conventions & notions like “ ethical behaviour ”.
( note: according to The Bush Regime “ethical behaviour” is just a way for the liberal elite & other socialist & other anti-Americans to hamstring & undercut the ability & effectiveness of the American military to fight this war. I still believe a lot of the backing for the Iraq War & other wars to come in the Middle East or elsewhere is the unleashing of conservative resentment over how the liberal elite undermined the American war effort in Vietnam. Don’t bother the mainstream mind-set with historical facts about Vietnam for as President Reagan said “ facts are stupid things ”What matters are one’s perception or “ Gut Feelings “ even if they are racist according to some liberal namby-pamby unAmerican “ scum-Bag or a matter of a flawed view of reality seen through the Neoconservative Prism of Reality. I.e. if Jane Fonda had kept her mouth shut America would have won or if Seymour Hersh & other journalists hadn’t been so eager to use incidents like My Li to undermine the American People’s faith in their military or if the military had been allowed to use a few H Bombs on the Viet Cong then America could have triumphed in Vietnam

Naked Force will teach all those Muslims & Arabs & their liberal collaborators a lesson they will not soon forget. This seems to be the reasoning of the present regimes which are influenced by Neocons , The Radical Christian Right & all those closet racist who now get to spew their venom on CNN & other national networks.
Even massacres of innocent Iraqis whole families butchered & young girls raped just instances of the Good Old Boys ( American Soldiers) blowing off some steam just like the good old days in Vietnam or El Salvador or take your pick of unnecessary US interventions. But they did it before & there were no real consequences . In the same way Israeli troops & Police forces can do whatever they wish to Palestinians without any real consequences.

When we dehumanize those on the other side it becomes easier to commit outrageous & unjustified & cruel & inhumane acts against them. All arabs & Muslims according to this thinking are potential terrorists & so even a child killed by Americans is seen as a good thing since that dead child just becomes one less terrorist to worry about.

Anyway in Spiegelman’s “ MAUS “ we get the story of the rise of the Nazis & their descent into madness as they put into policy their plan to wipe out all the Jews in Germany & then in Europe. This evil as such did not arise out of thin air as it were. For ,at least, a thousand years Anti-Semitism was to a great extent fueled by Christian leaders whether Popes or Priests or Protestant leaders or Kings or Queens or Nobles or Knights & many European Intellectuals were often as rabidly anti-Semitic as any of the Popes . This is so if we just date it back to the first Crusade in 1097 when the people of Europe on their way to destroy the Muslims decided first to kill all the Jews they could before taking on the Muslims. So Hitler did not invent Anti-Semitism or the Pogrom IE. The wholesale slaughter of Jews nor was Hitler the first to pass laws to segregate the Jews from the Christian population or to restrict what jobs & professions they could have or where they could live or if they could marry a Christian & that they had no real rights since they were Non-Persons.

The irony is that within the Islamic world until recent times Jews were treated better & were more integrated into Islamic run countries than they were in Christian dominated countries.

In a large part of Spain for instance Jews Muslims & Christians lived side by side with little enmity or suspicion for several centuries until the Great Inquisition was sent to expel all Muslims & Jews or force them to convert to Christianity ( that Religion which professes to be about tolerance & love - well its rarely practiced such ideals )
And those who converted were later accused of being heretics & working somehow to extend Jewish influence into Europe- the same old Anti-Semitic claims which are even today believed in by various racist organizations.

Yet for whatever practical purposes Israel has aligned itself with the Neocons & the Radical Christian Right to obtain more land & power & in return they more aid from America & together they can fight their Holy War against the Islam without any distinction between the radical extremists Islamic minority & the more moderate majority of Islam .

Though the Radical Religious Right which has become more & more the mainstream of Christianity ; they would say that God & Jesus bring not Peace but a Sword & that all heretics & unbelievers must be ousted from all Christian countries but not the Jews since they have a secondary role to play in the Second Coming of Christ the Warrior King .And so here we are just a few short years away from Armageddon or , at least, US hegemony which will be even greater than the Roman Empire or even Hitler’s fantasies about the Third Reich.

So where was I- what is reprehensible is that the present radical right regime in Israel now uses anti-Semitism as a way to undermine the arguments of any who dare question their policies or tactics in relation to the Palestinian people or their invasion of Lebanon. The Holocaust was an unimaginable horror visited upon the Jewish people but has been said by others this does not give Israel a blank cheque to commit immoral acts such as the creation of an Apartheid System in Palestine & all the occupied territories or the imprisonment of ten thousand or so Palestinians or the on-going abuse & torture of thousands of prisoners whether they are Arabs or Muslims or Israeli Jews or secularists who are concerned about the basic human rights of Israel’s citizens or her neighbours. Heaven forbid that one should see those not like ourselves as human or even as our equals .

But it is not surprising since our whole society is based upon inequality the rich & the poor the in-group & out-group, winners & losers , its not how you play the game but whether you win or lose, or “ Snooze you lose ” - or as in New Orleans the Left Behind were just those too stupid or slow or physically unable to get out so Bush had his own little Final Solution-Lite or Glenn Beck called those Left Behind a bunch of “Scum-Bags” so much for Christian charity.

Anyway enough ranting so check out these books by Art Spiegelman and the following websites:


Art spiegelman MAUS
National Museum of American Jewish History
http://www.nmajh.org/index.htm
http://www.nmajh.org/exhibitions/maus/

also check out :
Lambiek.net: Art Spiegelman
lambiek.net/artists/s/spiegelman.htm

And on Israel's Policies & the War IN IRAQ & The Christian Religious Right & ISLAM here are few books which relate to these subjects :

Cramer, Richard Ben : HOW ISRAEL LOST (pub. 2004)
Finkelstein, Norman G.

Wheatcroft, Andrew. Infidels : THE conflict between Christendom and Islam, 638-2002 ,Pub. 2003

Woodward, Bob : Bush At War Simon & Schuster Pub. 2002

Roberts , Paul William: A WAR AGAINST TRUTH an intimate account of the invasion of Iraq, pub. 2004

Shadid , Anthony : Night Draws Near Iraqis in the shadow of America's war

Vidal, Gore : Dreaming War: Blood For Oil And The Cheney-Bush Junta
pub. 2002

Hersh, Seymour M. :CHAIN OF COMMAND: THE ROAD FROM 9/11 TO ABU GHRAIB, PUB. 2004

Carter, GRAYDON : WHAT WE’VE LOST: BUSH’S WAR ON DEMOCRACY & FREEDOM , PUB. 2004

MARTIN , WILLIAM - WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE: THE RISE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IN AMERICA ( COMPANION TO THE PBS SERIES)PUB. 1996

REED, RALPH -POLITICALLY INCORRECT: THE EMERGING FAITH FACTOR IN AMERICAN POLITICS; forward by WILLIAM BENNETT,pUB. 1994

FACKRE, GABRIEL : THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT & CHRISTIAN FAITH, PUB. 1982

MARTY, MARTIN E. & APPLEBY, R. SCOTT: THE GLORY AND THE POWER: THE FUNDAMENTALIST CHALLENGE TO THE MODERN WORLD ( COMPANION VOLUME TO THE PBS AND NPR TV SERIES) PUB. 1992

Catherwood, Christopher: CHRISTIANS , MUSLIMS , AND ISLAMIC RAGE pub. 2003

AVERILL, LLOYD J. :RELIGIOUS RIGHT, RELIGIOUS WRONG : A CRITIQUE OF THE FUNDAMENTALIST PHENOMENON, 1989

So GOOD NIGHT & GOOD LUCK
GORD.

SELF-PORTRAIT OF ART SPIEGLEMAN FROM HIS BOOK " MAUS " (1991 ) ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
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ISRAELI SETTLERS ATTACK ARAB CHILDREN & PEACE ACTIVISTS ON A REGULAR BASIS WITH IMPUNITY

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08/10/04 Heroism in the Holy Land: Chris Brown beaten for walking children to school.

Anyway here are a couple of articles which I came across on the net which are petinent to what is happenning now in the Middle East . These articles are about Peace Activists in Israel / Palestine who put their lives at risk to help protect innocent Palisinian / Arab children by walking them to school to protect them from fanatical Israeli Settlers who see nothing wrong with beating up children or even killing them & often seem to do so with impunity as the Israeli government & its allies turn a blind eye . I have to confess I did not know til recently how big of a problem this has become .

San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper
http://www.williambowles.info/isrl-pal/chris_brown.html
also see:IF AMERICANS KNEW
http://www.ifamericansknew.org
article by Alison Weir

San Franciscan Chris Brown was beaten by Israeli settlers with a bat and chains and his head smashed with a rock simply for walking Palestinian children to school.

There are a small number of people around the world who exhibit extraordinary courage. An even smaller number commit repeated acts of heroism. San Francisco resident Chris Brown is one of them.

On Wednesday morning, Brown, with his colleague Kim Lamberty, was on the other side of the world walking children to school. The children were like any other children - except for one thing. They were scared. Not that they would fail a test, not that their teacher would call on them with a difficult question, not that they would lose a schoolyard game. These children were scared that adults would physically try to attack them.

They were right.

Chris and Kim are volunteers with an organization called Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), which provides nonviolent intercession in areas of violence. They serve in the West Bank city of Hebron, where Palestinian civilians are frequently attacked and harassed by Israeli settlers. The presence of such international witnesses often reduces this violence.

The nation of Israel was created only a little over 50 years ago, and its purpose was to be a Jewish state. While people throughout the world were profoundly sympathetic to this goal, there was one major problem: two-thirds of the inhabitants were Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

As a result, Israel's creation entailed the forcible expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians. Many of these people ended up in the West Bank and Gaza.

In 1967, the situation worsened, when Israel expanded its borders in the Six-Day War, capturing the West Bank and Gaza. Immediately, the Israeli government began confiscating Palestinian land in these newly occupied areas to build Jewish-only settlements.

As might be expected, such actions are illegal - both because a government cannot just take other people's land, and also because the acquisition of territory by conquest has been deemed illegal by the international community. The United States cannot decide - simply because we have the military might - to kick Canadian farmers off rich farmland and give the farmers' land to Americans - and then say that this is American land for all eternity. Yet, this is what Israel is doing to Palestinians.

Many Israelis oppose these settlements, considering them illegal, immoral and bad for Israel. Many of those who go to live in them are economically disadvantaged Israelis simply availing themselves of subsidized homes.

A significant portion of these settlers, however, are a far different story, and these are the settlers that the villagers around Hebron, in particular, are facing. This group is made up of religious fanatics who believe that only Jews have the right to live in "Eretz Israel ". They move onto Palestinian land, they say openly, to 'redeem' it and to 'cleanse' it of Christians and Muslims. These settlers are notorious in Israel for their extremism, violence and deeply racist religious beliefs.

For Palestinians around Hebron, it is like living next to KKK members who can kill you with impunity. Murders of Palestinians are rarely prosecuted, and when they are, little results. For example, three years ago, when a settler was found guilty of killing an 14-year-old boy by breaking his neck, the punishment meted out was a fine and six months community service.

"It's just like South Africa," Chris Brown says, "only worse." South Africa, many point out, didn't use F-16s against its Bantustans.

Brown should know, having spent the first eight years of his life under South African apartheid, and then returning to fight apartheid as an adult, being imprisoned, largely in solitary confinement, for a year and a half.

Brown went to Palestine to oppose such a system and to reduce the violence costing so many lives - both Israeli and Palestinian. From the very beginning of the current uprising, Palestinians called for an international presence that would reduce the violence. While the U.S. government, at Israel's behest, blocked United Nations efforts to provide this, nonviolent activists from around the world, including Israel, have tried to fill this need.

The attack on Chris, Kim and the children is a case in point. While the BBC, Agence France Presse, Israeli newspapers and a wide variety of other international media reported this attack on American citizens immediately, the Associated Press, inexplicably, sent out no report on it for a day and a half - and this only after numerous people had called complaining.

A six-month study of the San Francisco Chronicle's coverage of children's deaths reveals a similar pattern of omission. Analysis of their headline stories found that the paper had reported prominently on Israeli children's deaths at a rate 30 times greater than Palestinian ones. While 150 percent of Israeli children's deaths had resulted in headline coverage - some deaths generated multiple stories - only 5 percent of Palestinian children's deaths received parallel coverage.

Asked whether he worries that next time he may be killed, he thinks it over and then replies:

"Yeah, probably one day they'll succeed, if I keep going on the path that I will go." He explains that he's not looking for martyrdom" and insists that he'll take as many precautions as possible while he's in Palestine, but finally concludes, "If I have to die to see this country free, I'll do it "

"I like to quote Archbishop Oscar Romero, " Chris says: "If I die, my spirit will rise up in the lives of the other people, and they'll keep going on."

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew,

And further see:
From International Solidarity Movement
http://www.palsolidarity.org
Israeli Army Causes Two Serious Head Injuries to Protestors in Bil�in
August 11th, 2006

and about Rachel Corrie see:

By Alison Weir
Counter Punch
April 3, 2003
IF AMERICANS KNEW
http://www.ifamericansknew.org

Peacekeepers Attacked while Accompanying Palestinian Children near Israeli Settlement By Sebi Brown Silver Chips: Correspondent
JERUSALEM: September 30, 2004

And:
from COMMONDREAMS.org
Published on Wednesday, September 29, 2004 by the Jerusalem Post (Israel)
American Aid Workers Attacked in Hebron
by Matthew Gutman

Oregon Peace Works
http://www.oregonpeaceworks.org

Amnesty International October 25, 2004
SEARCG FOR JUSTICE & EQUALITY IN ISRAEL & PALESTINE
ttp://www.searchforjustice.org/
Israel/Occupied Territories: Israeli settlers wage campaign of intimidation on Palestinians and internationals alike:

Israeli settlers in the Occupied Territories have stepped up attacks against Palestinians and are waging a campaign of intimidation against international and Israeli human rights activists. Their aim is to eliminate the presence of witnesses to their attacks, thereby depriving the local Palestinian population of this only form of limited protection.

Two US citizens, members of the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT), were assaulted on 29 September by masked Israeli settlers who beat them with clubs and chains as they accompanied Palestinian children to school near the Tuwani village, South of Hebron. Kim Lamberty sustained a broken arm and knee and bruising to her face, while Chris Brown was left with a punctured lung and multiple bruises. Members of the CPT and other Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have been escorting Palestinian children to school to protect them from attacks by Israeli settlers.

A group of hooded Israeli settlers attacked Amnesty International delegates and members of the CPT and the Operation Dove NGO on 9 October as they returned from accompanying Palestinian primary schoolchildren back to their home. The attackers first threw stones at the five internationals and then attacked three of them with wooden clubs. An Amnesty International delegate sustained multiple bruises on her back, arm and leg and the Operation Dove member collapsed and had to be taken to hospital by ambulance. On both occasions, the attackers came from the nearby Israeli settlement of Havat Ma'on and returned there after the attacks.


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Attacks on International Peace Workers
The Death of Tom Hurndall

Anyway I wonder how many beatings & killings of innocent Palestinians including children will need to happen before the International Community & Israel's Neo-Con supporters are finally shamed into taking action ?
The article quoted below is from the website : if american knew

"Tom Hurndall moments before joining the nonviolent demonstration where he was shot by an Israeli sniper.
Tom Hurndall was in a coma for nine months after being shot in the head by an Israeli sniper.
He died January 13, 2004.

It is with great sadness that If Americans Knew shares with you the news of the passing away of Tom Hurndall.

Tom, 22, died Tuesday night in a London hospital due to complications with pneumonia. He had spent the past nine months in a vegetative state after being shot in the head by an Israeli sniper on April 11, 2003, while trying to escort children to safety in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestine.

Tom was a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led effort to bring internationals to the Occupied Palestinian Territories to aid the civilian population in non-violent resistance to the occupation.

At a hearing on Monday, a soldier arrested last week in connection with the shooting of Tom Hurndall, has finally been indicted on six charges : Aggravated Assault; two counts of Obstruction of Justice; Incitement to False Testimony; False Testimony; and Improper Conduct. A second soldier has been detained and is expected to be indicted on charges of Obstructing Justice and False Testimony.

As we grieve the death of Tom, let us not forget the ongoing catastrophic situation in Palestine that he was working to end. In fact, since he was shot, 407 Palestinians have been murdered and 1,990 have been injured. As Tom�s mother, Jocelyn, wrote recently in the UK Guardian, �It seems that life is cheap in the occupied territories. Different value attached to life depends on whether the victim happens to be Israeli, international or Palestinian.� " http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/tomhurndall.html

AND FOR MORE ABOUT SIMILAR ATTACKS SEE:

Sunday, October 03, 2004
SOPHIA'S PEACEWORK BLOG
http://peacework.blogspot.com/archives/2004
More from the Team in Hebron
SCHOOL JOURNEY BLOCKED IN SOUTH HEBRON HILLS

Also see:
Washington Report on The Middle East
December 2004
http://www.washington-report.org


And from : FRANCISCANS INTERNATIONAL
Action Alert: Hebron/At-Tuwani
24 February 2005
http://www.franciscansinternational.org/news/article

HEBRON/AT-TUWANI. — "Help protect Christian Peacemaker Teams from extremist Israeli settler violence; urge Israeli and your authorities to halt settler attacks."

Background:

" On 16 February 2005, a pair of Israeli settlers attacked international peace team workers from Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and the Italian-based Operation Dove (OD), breaking the jaw of one Italian and sending him to the hospital with a concussion and memory loss.

The attack occurred near the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani and the Israeli settler outpost of Havat Ma'on, a location of repeated settler harassment. CPT and OD have turned over videotape of the settlers to the Israeli police and the US Consulate in Jerusalem.

Since the Ma'on settlement was established in 1982, settlers have confiscated more than 350 acres of At-Tuwani land. For years, settlers and Israeli soldiers have harassed the At-Tuwani Palestinian community with relative impunity.

In an effort to reduce this violence and harassment, CPT and OD have maintained a presence in the At-Tuwani region in the southern West Bank for over six months, accompanying Palestinian school children and farmers who experience repeated attacks from Israeli settlers.

Pattern of Settler Violence:

The 16 February attack is the latest in a pattern of attacks by extremist settlers on international peace-builders and local Palestinians. In September 2004, a group of masked settlers attacked and beat CPTers Kim Lamberty and Chris Brown with chains, breaking Lamberty's arm and puncturing Brown's lung.

In October 2004, masked settlers attacked a group of five internationals, including CPTers Diana Zimmerman and Dianne Janzen, and severely beat an OD member, nearly rupturing his kidney and injuring his wrist. In December 2004 and January 2005, settlers attacked Palestinian shepherds numerous times and repeatedly threatened violence against school children.

It is important to recognise that action by Palestinian extremists, Israel extremists and military forces jeopardise the possibility of peace."


AND OTHER EXAMPLES :

Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).
http://www.eappi.org/eappiweb.nsf/list/hebron.html
Settler attacks ecumenical accompanier in Hebron

" A member of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) was attacked by a woman settler in the Tel Rumeida district of Hebron on Friday, 23 June.

Whilst in the area of the Cordoba school, where Christian volunteers accompany children to school, Duduzile Masango, a South African ecumenical accompanier was attacked by an elderly settler woman, who pulled a towel tightly around her head.

It is not known if the woman intended to suffocate her, but the accompanier had difficulty breathing. Stones were also thrown at Masango and four other internationals who were with her. The incident left her shaken, although she did not need to receive medical treatment.

Although a soldier was standing next to the group of volunteers, he did not act to stop the attack. After the incident, members of the international solidarity movement and the Tel Rumeida project who had witnessed the incident filed a complaint with the police. However, Masango was told by the police that they did not believe her testimony.

Rifat Kassis, EAPPI international programme coordinator, stated: "This is just one in a long line of incidents targeting internationals in Hebron. The WCC continues to advocate that all settlers in Hebron be withdrawn and settler-occupied properties be returned to their Palestinian owners. A letter was sent to the Israeli ambassador in Switzerland in April, following similar incidents. It requested appropriate actions by the Israeli authorities and law enforcement agencies to stop this behaviour toward Palestinians and internationals. The WCC has so far received no response."

On 1 April, a Swiss lawyer was stoned by a young Israeli settler in the same Hebron district, and on 20 April still in Tel Rumeida, a German social worker and a Norwegian sociologist were attacked by some 15 young settlers. The Swiss lawyer needed seven stitches for a head wound as a result.

In both cases, the Christian volunteers were escorting Palestinian pupils of the Cordoba Girls School to protect them from harassment by settlers. The WCC presented a formal protest to the Israeli ambassador in Switzerland over these two incidents on 25 April.

and more from same website:

Volunteers from Operation Dove and CPT attacked by Israeli Settlers - One Hospitalized in Serious Condition

February 16th, 2005

Members of the Italian organization Operazione Colomba (Operation Dove) and the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) were attacked by Israeli settlers today near Hebron, with one volunteer still in the hospital in Beer Sheva in serious condition with head injuries.

The most seriously injured of the volunteers is from Operazione Colomba – a nonviolent peace corps of the Pope John XXIII Community. He was bloodied during the beating and is said to have lost consciousness. He is suffering from short-term memory loss and blurred vision.

At approximately 11 a.m., three volunteers from Operazione Colomba and two from CPT were attacked by a group of five Israeli settlers who came from the nearby
illegal settlement of Ma’on, which is situated near the West Bank city of Hebron. The volunteers were accompanying Palestinian shepherds who were grazing their sheep. One of the settlers fired some rounds from a rifle towards the volunteers. He was followed by other settlers who run up and heavily beat three of the volunteers.

The area of the Palestinian Occupied Territories where this occurred is not subject to any restriction from the Israeli military authority, which, under the Oslo Agreements, must administer it. For some time now, settlers in this area, referred to as the South Hebron Hills, have been preventing Palestinian shepherds from grazing their sheep. The Israeli military has done nothing to protect the right of the shepherds to use their fields. "

GOOD NIGHT & GOOD LUCK,
GORD.

IRAEL LOSES THE MORAL HIGH-GROUND BY MAINTAINING AN APARTHEID SYSTEM TO KEEP ARABS IN THEIR " PLACE " : THE STORY IN PICTURES

AMERICAN SOLDIERS DRAG BODY OF SUSPECTED VIETCONG BEHIND VEHICLE : RESPECT FOR & THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN LIFE : AMERICAN STYLE ---- SO WHO ARE THE BARBARIANS ???
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TOM HURNDALLL KILLED BY ISRAELIS FOR COMMITTING THE EVIL ACT OF WALKING PALESTINIAN CHILDREN TO SCHOOL PASSING THROUGH GAUNTLET OF ANGRY & DANGEROUS ISRAELI SETTLERS WHO ATTACK & KILL ARAB CHILDREN & THEIR WOULD-BE PROTECTORS WITH IMPUNITY !!! THESE INCIDENTS THE ISRAELI & WESTERN PRESS CHOOSE TO IGNORE . THE DEATH OF AN ISRAELI CHILD IS TO BE MOURNED THE DEATH OF AN ARAB CHILD IS A REASON TO REJOICE : JUST ONE LESS TERRORIST !!!
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KKK LYNCHING IN USA - JUSTICE AMERICAN STYLE FROM END OF THE CIVIL WAR TIL THE 1950s OR THE 1960s 1970s 1980s to THE PRESENT DAY BOMBINGS OF ABORTION CLINICS,MURDERING DOCTORS WHO PERFORMED ABORTIONS & STILL KILLING AFRICAN AMERICANS WHO STEP OUT OF LINE & NOW THEY CAN GO WITH THEIR WHITE SUPREMACIST MILITIAS TO TAKE POT SHOTS AT MEXICANS TRYING TO CROSS THE BORDER- AND STILL THOSE WHO COMMIT SUCH ACTS ARE RARELY BROUGHT TO JUSTICE OR IF TRIED GET OFF WITH A LITE SENTENCE- AS IN " JUSTICE -LITE"
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SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENT IN SOUTH AFRICA APARTHEID ERA
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WARSAW GHETTO 1940 : JEWS FORCED TO BUILD THE WALL
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KAHANISTS & OTHER ANTI-ARAB & ANTI-ISLAMIC GROUPS PROTESTING TO HAVE ALL ARABS EXPELLED FROM THE HOLY LAND & DEMANDING THE CREATION OF A PURE JEWISH STATE GOVERNED BY A THEOCRACY ACCORDING TO THE LAWS OF MOSES & HIS COVENANT WITH GOD & THE ISRAELITES & THE RE-ESTABLISHING OF THE ORIGINAL BORDERS OF ISRAEL AS COMMANDED BY GOD
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ISRAELI SETTLER EXTREMISTS ASSAULT MUSLIM-ARAB WOMAN & OTHER INNOCENT ARABS VOWING TO EXPEL OR KILL ALL ARABS IN ISRAEL & THE WEST BANK GOLAN HEIGHTS & OTHER AREAS ILLEGALLY OCCUPIED BY ISRAELI SETTLERS WHO ARE PROTECTED BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY BY ISRAELI ARMED FORCES!!!
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KAHANISTS EXTREMISTS MARCHING IN NEW YORK CITY 1982 VOWING TO CLEANSE ISRAEL OF ALL ARABS
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KAHANIST SETTLERS GROUP MARCHING THROUGH ARAB VILLAGES TO INTIMIDATE THE ARAB PEOPLE-- AT NIGHT SETTLERS SHOOT AT ARAB HOUSES, SET FIRE TO HOMES, STEAL LIVE-STOCK & KILL INNOCENT ARABS AS PART OF THEIR VIGILANTE JUSTICE ALA KKK STYLE MASKS & ALL
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KAHANISTS IN PROTEST MARCH & ADVERTISIBG THEIR WEBSITE ???
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Anyway with the on-going conflict between Israel & HIZBOLLAH & Lebanon the Israelis have created a no-win situation for themselves . To act with such a massive force & massive bombing campaign over what was just another in a long series of border skirmishes seems a bit of over-kill & is leading to a shift in world opinion in regargs to Israel's notion of self-defence. This is not to say that some of the actions of Hizbollah were anymore justified than those of Israel. But Israel is a world Power & not some back-water poverty stricken nation.

And as I have argued the Israeli Government should be judged in the same way as any other country. They could have withdrawn from the settlement areas & started to treat the Palestinian people in a more just & dignified manner . Knowing that honor plays a big role in Arab societies the Israeli forces seem to go out of their way to dishonor & publicly shame Arab Palestinians to bring them disgrace & thereby to dehumanize the Arabs whenever they can.

The chief ally of Israel , the Americans have also operated in a similar way in Iraq & elsewhere in the Middle East as historically the Americans have done in their dealing with the people of other nations such as El Salvador , Chile & Vietnam etc.

But the Americans have also acted in ways which leads one to conclude that they are unable to see other peoples as their equals who deserve to be treated fairly & justly .

One of the problems with dealing with the State of Israel & its actions is that many countries & people take Israel's side no matter what they do because Israel is seen as a country beseiged on all sides. This is true to some extent but Israel can now defend itself for the most part. Israel should be judged in the same way as any other country to determine if their rationale is that they are under attack or if they themselves have become the Agressor or if they are implementing illegal or immoral tactics.

Both Hizbollah & Israeli forces ought to be investigated to determine if they have committed egregious breaches of International Law & if they have committed War Crimes .

This will probably never happen since the Bush Regime & Tony Blair & their other allies will interfer with such a process since this might open up a can of worms & the investigation of the actions of American & British Forces & their contracted out Mercenary Militias & Death Squads in Iraq besides their use of torture & renditions i.e. kidnappings & " disappearances " etc.

That's all for now,
GORD.

APARTHEID : ISRAELI STYLE : ISRAEL'S SHAME & THE WEST TURNS A BLIND EYE & THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT REJOICES

WARSAW GHETTO BARBED WIRE FENCE TO PROTECT THE POLISH PEOPLE FROM WHAT THEY BELIEVED TO BE THE "JEWISH MENACE "
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PALESTINIANS AT ISRAELI CHECKPOINT AT THE ISRAELI APARTHEID WALL
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ARAB LEFT FOR HOURS HALF-BURRIED IN THE GROUND :DETAINED BY ISRAELI SOLDIERS . IS THIS HUMANE TREATMENT ???
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PEACE ACTIVIST RACHEL CORRIE CRUSHED BY ISRAELI BULLDOZER AS SHE TRIED TO STOP DESTRUCTION OF ARAB HOMES IN PALESTINE
By Alison Weir
Counter Punch
April 3, 2003
IF AMERICANS KNEW
http://www.ifamericansknew.org

"On March 16th, an Israeli soldier driving a bulldozer two-stories high crushed to death 23-year-old Rachel Corrie, an American nonviolent human rights protestor. According to numerous witnesses and photographic documentation, she was killed intentionally.

Rachel and a handful of others practicing Gandhian nonviolence in the Gaza Strip had been pleading with Israeli soldiers for two hours not to destroy a Palestinian family home. Suddenly, the Israeli bulldozer operator began driving his giant bulldozer toward the home, Rachel sitting in the bulldozer’s path. Witnesses report that she then stood up on the mound of debris and dirt pushed by the bulldozer blade and looked straight at the operator through the window. He continued, and she was pulled underneath the tractor, its blade crushing her. He then backed up, running over her again, burying her deeper into the dirt."


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MAN SHOT TRYING TO CROSS THE BERLIN WALL.
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BERLIN WALL " CHECKPOINT CHARLIE "
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BERLIN WALL WITH GRAFFITTI. WILL ISRAELIS ALLOW THOSE BEHIND THE WALL IN ISRAEL TO DECORATE THE WALL OR WILL THEY BE SHOT FOR ATTEMPTING TO DEFACE THE WALL ??? NOTE: THIS WALL IN ISRAEL WAS CONDEMNED BY THE UNITED NATIONS & NUMEROUS HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS BUT THEY OF COURSE ACCORDING TO ISRAELI'S GOVERNMENT ARE ALL JUST A PACK OF ANTI-SEMITIC NAZIS .
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WHITES ONLY SIGN DURBAN SOUTH AFRICA
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APARTHEID SIGN IN SOUTH AFRICA SIMILAR TO SIGNS IN ISRAEL WARNING ARABS FROM GOINING INTO JEWISH ONLY AREAS AT NIGHT
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PALESTINIAN REFUGEES MASSACRED BY LEBANESE MILITIA AIDDED BY ISRAELI FORCES 1982- JUSTICE ISRAELI STYLE
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ISRAELI SOLDIERS FIRE INTO CROWD OF PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATORS AUGUST 11, 2006
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DAILY ROUTINE OF ARABS IN HEBRON AS THEY PASS THROUGH ISRAELI CHECKPOINTS GUARDED BY TRICKER -HAPPY ISRAELI SOLDIERS !!! WOULD THE WEST TOLERATE THESE ABUSES IN ANY OTHER CIVILIZED NATION ???
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ARAB AT ISRAELI CHECPOINT ASKING TO BE LET THROUGH & HOPING HE & HIS FAMILY WILL NOT BE IMPRISONED OR KILLED ???
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TANK AT ISRAELI CHECKPOINT SHOWING THE PALESTINIANS WHO'S THE BOSS !!! AN EVERYDAY SCENE IN PALESTINE & YET THE WEST IS SILENT FEARING CHARGES OF ANTI-SEMITISM IF THEY DARE TO CRITICIZE ISRAELI PALESTINIAN / APARTHEID RACIST INHUMANE ANTI-ARAB POLICIES !!!
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WARSAW GHETTO WALL ERECTED BY NAZIS TO KEEP DANGEROUS JEWS UNDER THEIR CONTROL. HOW FAR WILL ISRAELIS GO IN THEIR RACIST HATRED OF ALL ARABS & MUSLIMS. WELL THEY JUST BLEW THE SHIT OUT OF LEBANON BACKED THE BUSH REGIME & THE UNCARING WEST .
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"The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them, the more they want "....
-- Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000

Anyway given the attitudes of the more radical view of Israelis & those in power it is not surprising that the Israeli government & its people believed that they had the right to bomb the shit out of Lebanon & to do so in such an arrogant & cavalier manner without caring about the numbers of Lebanese civilians who weree killed or injured & the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure since the Israelis believe they are beyond the International Laws which apply to other countries since Israel is a nation chosen by God & directed by God as they have a conenant with God going back to the time of Moses & Abraham.

Here's a bit from a book I just finished reading but there is also lots of info on these issues on the Net .

HOW ISRAEL LOST : THE FOUR QUESTIONS
Richard Ben Cramer pub. 2004
pp. 236-237



Richard Ben Cramer in his book about Israeli policies offers evidence to show that it is the Israeli's Governments hard-line policies in regards to Palestine & its form of segregation of the Arabs in what amounts to Israel's system of Apartheid which is the fundamental cause or root to the violence in Israel & Palestine which then spills over to the rest of the Middle East.

As he comments about the attitudes of successive Israeli Prime Ministers including Prime Minister Ehud Barak (1999-2001) & government officials & its military which are anti-Palestinian & anti-Arab & anti-muslim since many Israelis see Arabs as inferior & somewhat subhuman as Cramer points out:

" But in his attitude toward Palestinians he is in the Israeli mainstream - and in a long tradition of Israeli leaders implying that Palestinians are devoid of values , or not exactly human . Menachem Begin called them " beasts walking on two legs . " (Arafat was " the beast with hair on his face. " ) Begin's chief of staff , Raful Eitan, thus recommended more Jewish settlements : " When we have settled the land , all the Arabs will be able to do about it will bescurry about like drugged cockroaches in a bottle . " Begin's successor , Yitzhak Shamir, compared the Palestinians to a plague of locusts. ( But as he vowed to settlers in a 1988 speech , they would be crushed like grasshoppers ...heads smashed against boulders & walls . " ) and Barak depicted Palestinians as " crocodiles- the more you feed them , the more they want".
...You can hear the same attitude , any day of the week-almost any time you ask a Jew why so many Arabs, down to toddlers and babies, are dying in the conflict: " They push their own children in front, to give us a bad name. Human life means nothing to them ." If the Palestinians were not less than human ( at least , less human than Jews ), then how would the occupation make any sense ? "

"And only with this attitude in mind do Israeli " peace proposals " make sense. No Israeli government has ever tried to make peace on the formula that everybody knows is a winner: Give back the land. " '

And he further states what he believes everyone knows to be the simple solution to the so called Palestinian problem which the Israelis refuse to accept :


" I don't mean, give back the land except for the settlements , or the roads or the military bases. Imean , give back the land- the West Bank & Gaza. East Jeusalem9 and The Dome of The Rock) for the Arabs, West Jeusalem ( and the Western Wall- let that be the triumph) for the Jews. After that, they could work out the details- neighborhoods exchanged , water rights, maybe a fence. Would it be a mess? Plenty of mess...but worse than they have now ?"

For instance he tells the story of an Israeli who moves into a settlement area & decides to build a house & uses Arab contractors for his project & becomes friends with these Arabs & other Arabs which offends the members of the Jewish settlement who harrass him & his family finally setting his house on fire & driving him out of the settlement .
When asked by settlers to take part in going to the Arab village at night to vandalize the Arab's homes he refuses."
(pp. 236-237)

Note Richard Cramer also has some harsh criticisms of Arafat & The P.L.O. & THE Palestinian Authority which over the years has been corrupt & also oppressed the average Palestinians & seemed to act more like an agent of Israel than as a ture representative of the Palestinian People .

And here are a few of the more inflamatory comments of various Israeli leaders since Israel's creation:

Quotes dealing with Israel & Palestinians
from website: http://www.monabaker.com/quotes.htm



"We must expel Arabs and take their places."
-- David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.

"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."

-- David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

"There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?"
-- Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."

-- David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99.

"Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves ... politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves... The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country."
-- David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan's "Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

"If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel."
-- David Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth's Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).



David Ben Gurion
Prime Minister of Israel
1949 - 1954,
1955 - 1963

"There is no such thing as a Palestinian people... It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn't exist."
-- Golda Meir, statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.

"How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to."
-- Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.

"Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen."
-- Golda Meir, 1961, in a speech to the Knesset, reported in Ner, October 1961

"This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy."
-- Golda Meir, Le Monde, 15 October 1971



Golda Meir
Prime Minister of Israel
1969 - 1974


"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!"
-- Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.

"[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat."
-- Yitzhak Rabin (a "Prince of Peace" by Clinton's standards), explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry. (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen's remarks to the Knesset's foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.)


Yitzhak Rabin ,Prime Minister of Israel 1974 - 1977, 1992 - 1995


"[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs."

-- Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the 'Beasts,"' New Statesman, June 25, 1982.

"The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized .... Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever."
-- Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.


Menachem Begin
Prime Minister of Israel
1977 - 1983


"The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the River Jordan for future generations, for the mass aliya (=Jewish immigration), and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country."
-- Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service.

"The settlement of the Land of Israel is the essence of Zionism. Without settlement, we will not fulfill Zionism. It's that simple."
-- Yitzhak Shamir, Maariv, 02/21/1997.

"(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls."
-- Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988


Yizhak Shamir ,Prime Minister of Israel ,1983 - 1984,1986 - 1992


"Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."
-- Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.


Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister of Israel
1996 - 1999

"The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more"....
-- Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000

"If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force...."
-- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000.

"I would have joined a terrorist organization."
-- Ehud Barak's response to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Ha'aretz newspaper, when Barak was asked what he would have done if he had been born a Palestinian.



Ehud Barak
Prime Minister of Israel
1999 - 2001


"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."

-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

"Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours...Everything we don't grab will go to them."
-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.

"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial."

-- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online
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Also check out these articles on Israel's on-going abuse of Palestinian & Arabs civil -rights :

& article
US has to choose: Israel or the ME
By Soumaya Ghannoushi
Soumaya Ghannoushi is a researcher at the School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London
Aljazeera.net
Wednesday 02 August 2006


CHECK OUT CONNECTIONS BETWEEN ISRAEL & SOUTH AFRICA

At THIRD WORLD TRAVELER
www.thirdworldtraveler.com
Israel and South Africa excerpted from the book Israeli Foreign Policy
by Jane Hunter
South End Press, 1987

And from the Guardian :

Worlds apart by Chris McGreal
February 6, 2006

"Israelis have always been horrified at the idea of parallels between their country, a democracy risen from the ashes of genocide, and the racist system that ruled the old South Africa. Yet even within Israel itself, accusations persist that the web of controls affecting every aspect of Palestinian life bears a disturbing resemblance to apartheid. After four years reporting from Jerusalem and more than a decade from Johannesburg before that, the Guardian's award-winning Middle East correspondent Chris McGreal is exceptionally well placed to assess this explosive comparison. Here we publish the first part of his two-day special report

But for some of those with a foot in both societies, the distinctions are blurred by other realities. Some Jewish South Africans and Israelis who lived with apartheid - including politicians, Holocaust survivors and men once condemned as terrorists - describe aspects of modern Israel as disturbingly reminiscent of the old South Africa. Some see the parallels in a matrix of discriminatory practices and controls, and what they describe as naked greed for land seized by the fledgling Israeli state from fleeing Arabs and later from the Palestinians for the ever expanding West Bank settlements. "Apartheid was an extension of the colonial project to dispossess people of their land," said the Jewish South African cabinet minister and former ANC guerrilla, Ronnie Kasrils, on a visit to Jerusalem. "That is exactly what has happened in Israel and the occupied territories; the use of force and the law to take the land. That is what apartheid and Israel have in common..."

...The political decision to discriminate against Arabs was an open but rarely acknowledged secret. The authors of a 1992 book on Jerusalem, Separate and Unequal, laid bare the policy. The writers, two of whom were advisers to the city's mayors, said that Israeli policy since 1967 was "remorselessly" pursued with four objectives: to expand the Jewish population in the mainly Arab east of the city; to hinder growth of Arab neighbourhoods; to induce Arabs to leave; and to seal off Arab areas behind Jewish settlements. "

see PBS documentary ISRAEL'S NEXT WAR
focuses on the fanatacism of The Kahanist Movement & its growing influence on Israeli Policy Makers available at PBS.org for viewing online.
In "Israel's Next War?" FRONTLINE goes deep inside the world of militant Jewish radicals who pose a grave new threat to Israeli security and, potentially, to the region. "The dream of these extremists"—to blow up the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, one of the most important holy sites in the Muslim world—"should give us sleepless nights," says former Israeli Security Chief Avi Dichter. "Jewish terror is liable to create a serious strategic threat that will turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a conflict between thirteen million Jews and a billion Muslims all over the world."

Also see Kahanists Website to see what they truly believe & to check out whether I'm not just making it up :

http://www.kahane.org/
Which includes ARTICLES BY RABBI MEIR KAHANE
KAHANISTS

They Must Go .... By: Rabbi Meir Kahane

The question of transferring Arabs out of the land will drive them to a frenzied condemnation of Israeli policy. Their danger is their influence on large numbers of simple, good American and Western Jews.
The simplistic and demagogic use of labels such as "immoral", "inhumane", "un-Jewish", and "Nazi-like" is likely to find a troubled, sympathetic ear with the ordinary, decent Jew. Thus, we will pay for all the years of deceit and delusions. For all those decades Jewish and Israeli leaders refused to tell the truth about the remedy of the Arab problem in the Land of Israel. They preferred to avoid it and to lie to world Jewry. It is not surprising that any sudden policy that calls for transfer of the Arabs will meet with astonishment and guilt. It is imperative that there begins, today, a campaign among world Jewry to explain the full extent of the Arab hatred and danger. The complete truth must be told to the masses of good Jews both to justify the need to remove the Arabs and to expose the dangers .....


REVENGE - THE JEWISH APPROACH
By Rabbi Meir Kahane, Zt"l
(The Jewish Idea, Chapter 12)

Love has its place, as does hate. Peace has its place, as does war. Mercy has its place, as do cruelty and revenge. The Torah dons sackcloth over the distortion of the concept of revenge, which has become a target for the arrows of all Jewish Hellenists and worshippers of the alien culture, as if revenge were negative and evil by nature.

The very opposite is true! No trait is more justified than revenge in the right time and place. G-d, Himself, is called NOKEM, Avenger: "The L-rd is a zealous and avenging G-d. The L-rd avenges and is full of wrath. He takes revenge on His adversaries and reserves wrath for His enemies" (Nachum 1:2). Our sages also said (Berachot 33a), "Shall we say that even revenge is great because it appears between two names of G-d? 'A G-d of vengeance is the L-rd' (Psalms 94:1). Rabbi Elazar responded, 'Indeed. Where revenge is necessary, it is a great thing.''


( given the state of affairs in Israel today the Kahanists & the other Extremist Settlers Organizations in the disputed areas are closer to the mainstream racist & biblical view of Israel's place in the world to all and sundry as they say Israelis believe no one has a right to question their policies or motives as they live outside of normal academic style History & of course the Radical Christian Right from Bush to Pat Robertson to Tim LaHaye & the Reconstructionists would agree.


Bye for now,
GORD.

ISRAEL COMMITS WAR CRIMES IN ITS UNJUSTIFIED WAR AGAINST LEBANON

LEBANESE CIVILIANS DELIBERATELY TARGETED TO BE TAUGHT A LESSON BY ISRAEL & AMERICA ???
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MASS GRAVE OF LEBANESE CIVILIANS MURDERED BY ISRAELI PRECISION BOMBINGS AKA IN NEWSPEAK as "COLLATERAL DAMAGE " SO WERE THE VICTIMS OF 9/11 ALSO " COLLATERAL DAMAGE "
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ISRAEL USES OUTLAWED PHOSPHOROUS BOMBS TO KILL LEBANESE CIVILIANS IN THE NAME OF JUSTICE FREEDOM DEMOCRACY & THE AMERICAN WAY ???
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LEBANESE BOY GRIEVES OVER MOTHER KILLED BY ISRAELI FORCES
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MASSACRE IN QANA, LEBANON BY ISRAELI PRECISION BOMBING !!! IN THE ULTIMATE WAR IN THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS ...AH BUT WHO ARE THE CIVILIZED & WHO ARE THE BARBARIANS NOW !!!
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Yes some of these pictures are gruesome but these are the result of an illegal & immoral war and those who support should be forced to view such pictures & realize this is not a Video Game & that these are real people who cry bleed suffer & die just like any other person or is it that by being Muslims or Arab or just by being Lebanese they do not count as persons or as not qualifying as Human Beings.

Is this what our Great Western Society has come to ; just more of the same old racist & religious intolerance & bigotry ; that we are somehow superiour to them...

What Israel is doing to Lebanon is shameful & criminal & any country which unconditionaly supports Israeli military actions against Lebanon is also ,at the least , morally culpable & should stand up & stop the killing now & then bring those Israelis responsible to justice.

Little chance of that happening since the Israelis are just copying the tactics used by the Bush Regime in its invasion & on going occupation of Iraq against the wishes of the people of Iraq.

Anyway heres a bit about the report from Human Rights Watch...

Human Rights Watch:
Some Israeli attacks amount to war crimes

Beirut – Israeli forces have systematically failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians in their military campaign against Hizbullah in Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The pattern of attacks in more than 20 cases investigated by Human Rights Watch researchers in Lebanon indicates that the failures cannot be dismissed as mere accidents and cannot be blamed on wrongful Hizbullah practices. In some cases, these attacks constitute war crimes.

The 50-page report, "Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon, "analyzes almost two dozen cases of Israeli air and artillery attacks on civilian homes and vehicles. Of the 153 dead civilians named in the report, 63 are children. More than 500 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli fire since fighting began on July 12, most of them civilians.

"The pattern of attacks shows the Israeli military's disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Our research shows that Israel's claim that Hizbullah fighters are hiding among civilians does not explain, let alone justify, Israel's indiscriminate warfare."

Anyway see you later,
GORD.

FILM " V FOR VENDETTA " FANTASY OR A DEPICTION OF THE TIMES IN WHICH WE LIVE

" STRENGTH THROUGH UNITY UNITY THROUGH FAITH " SLOGAN OF THE TOTALITARIAN STATE IN THE VISIONARY FILM "V"
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" V " EXPLAINS TO EVEY " THERE IS SOMETHING TERRIBLY WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY "
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" THE PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE AFRAID OF THEIR GOVERNMENTS . GOVERNMENTS SHOULD BE AFRAID OF THEIR PEOPLE . " " V "

CHANCELLOR CHENEY / BIG BROTHER LURKING IN THE SHADOWS : THE TRUE ARCHITECT OF FEAR HATRED & PERPETUAL WAR !!! COULD WE CONCLUDE OR DO WE DARE ASSUME THAT HE IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE AS DEPICTED IN THE FILM "V"
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Anyway " V " is a great film which is entertaining but also has depth & is comparable to other dystopian films such as " EQUILIBRIUM " & " 1984 ". This is a must see as far as I am concerned .
The film is disturbing yet it offers a ray of hope that maybe if the people act in time they can prevent their nation(s) from sliding into an unbreachable Totalitarian Regime where only the rich & powerful & their supporters have any real freedom .

GOOD NIGHT & GOOD LUCK ,
GORD.