In the first video below Fishermen get fired on by Israeli war ship on November 25, 2012 though Israel as part of recent ceasefire supposedly lifted restrictions on Gazans being permitted to fish. At other times the Israeli gun boats and helicopters have fired on fishermen killing some and blowing up the Gazan's boats.
Imagine an American fishing boat crossing into Canadian waters and our first response is to shoot to kill or to then blow up their fishing vessel but the Isreali government and IDF see nothing odd about what they do. For instance a farmer goes out into his field which is close to the Israeli wall or fence and the IDF shoot to kill even though they know the farmer is no threat and may have been farming this land for generations. Imagine you send your children off to school not knowing whether the Settlers or IDF will harass them or beat them up or even shoot them because their school is near a settlement or near a checkpoint .
The peoples of Gaza and the West Bank face these issues everyday and then are told to be patient and that Israel is slowly reforming which it is not and told they have no right to peacefully protest or to use violence to defend themselves and their families. To the hard liners in the Israeli government the Palestinians are pests that they want to get rid of one way or another.
Gaza fishermen restrictions relaxed by Israel
Nov. 25,2012
John Rees Stop the War Coalition National Demonstration End Israel's War On Gaza 24 11 12
" Existence is resistance " /"Resistance is existence"
And an Israeli cabinet minister uses the word "Shoah" or "Holocaust" in refering to destroying the Palestinians . The Israeli government has made excuses for him saying he meant something less than a "Holocaust" claiming Shoah in English translates as merely a tragedy. But this to me seems odd since members of the Jewish community in fact do not approve of the word"Holocaust" when talking about Hitler's "Final Solution" and the deaths of six-million Jews but prefer the word in Hebrew "Shoah" which means a great tragedy they do not want to use a word to describe this horrifying event which gives any credence that this was God's punishment on the Jewish people similar to the Holocaust God visited upon for instance Sodom and Gomorrah.
This is also because some Christians believe that it was in their view the will of God and possibly punishment for rejecting Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah and for the killing of Jesus committing the crime of Deicide. For instance Evangelical leader and pro-Israel and pro-Zionists John Hagee who is head of CUFI Christians United For Israel in fact believes God sent Hitler as a hunter to hunt down the Jews for not moving enmasse to Greater Israel and the Building of the third Temple etc.
Israeli minister vows Palestinian 'holocaust' by Tim butcher at telegraph.co.uk, Feb. 29,2008
A senior Israeli politician provoked controversy today when he warned that Palestinians firing rockets from Gaza would be punished with a "bigger holocaust" from Israeli armed forces.
The use of the Hebrew word for holocaust, "shoah", tends to be used exclusively in Israel to describe the Nazi persecution of Jews.
Palestinian activists routinely claim to be suffering a "shoah" at the hands of Israel, but the Jewish state normally denies any moral equivalence between the suffering of Palestinians today and European jewry under the Nazis.
Matan Vilnai, deputy defence minister, broke that taboo when he used the term "shoah" during interview on Army Radio.
"The more qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they (the Palestinians) will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves," he said.
The Palestinian Kristallnacht and Holocaust by Roi Tov.com
They were peacefully conducting their lives when white phosphorous artillery shells, snipers with long distance rifles and other lethal weapons killed them.----------------------
Kristallnacht (German for “Crystal Night") was an anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany and Austria that took place between the 9 and 10 of November 1938; it is also called Novemberpogrome or Reichspogromnacht in German. Herschel Grynszpan-a Jew–assassinated the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath and triggered the event in which 99 Jews were killed and around thirty thousand arrested. 267 Synagogues were destroyed and thousands of homes and businesses were ransacked.
The Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict – known also as the Goldstone Report – states in article 1684: “The timing of the first Israeli attack, at 11:30 am on a week day, when children were returning from school and the streets of Gaza were crowded with people going about their daily business, appears to have been calculated to create the greatest disruption and widespread panic among the civilian population. The treatment of many civilians detained or even killed while trying to surrender is one manifestation of the way in which the effective rules of engagement, standard operating procedures and instructions to the troops on the ground appear to have been framed in order to create an environment in which due regard for civilian lives and basic human dignity was replaced with the disregard for basic international humanitarian law and human rights norms.”
Between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, Israel killed well over a thousand men, women and children, probably even more than fifteen hundred. The vast majority of them were peacefully conducting their lives when white phosphorous artillery shells, snipers with long distance rifles and other lethal weapons killed them. Children witnessed the death of their mothers; mothers were unable to help their dying sons. The report doesn’t summarize the material damages, these were too vast, but it is worth quoting article 1716 of the UN report: “…The firing of white phosphorus shells over the UNRWA compound in Gaza City is one of such cases in which precautions were not taken in the choice of weapons and methods in the attack and these facts were compounded by reckless disregard for the consequences. The intentional strike at the Al Quds hospital using high explosive artillery shells and using white phosphorous in and around the hospital also violated Articles 18 and 19 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. With regard to the attack against Al Wafa hospital, the Mission found a violation of the same provisions, as well as a violation of the customary law prohibition against attacks which may be expected to cause excessive damage to civilians and civilian objects.”
It seems Israel has outshone the Nazi Regime it so likes to attack. The Nazi Kristallnacht suddenly looks like a kindergarten picnic while reading the report about the Palestinian Kristallnacht inflicted by the State of Israel. It is important to understand that Israel doesn’t deny the facts; on the contrary, in the Hebrew media – especially the Beit Oranim Transcript (that can be downloaded from this website) – soldiers and officers of the IDF brag off on their orders to inflict terror and damage on the civilian population. They proudly describe how grannies, mothers and children were assassinated by coward IDF snipers from the distance.
It is becoming clearer to the general public that differentiating between the Israeli and Nazi crimes is getting difficult. The recent events are a warning to what can happen in Holy Land in the near future. We have recently seen an enlarged version of the Krystallnacht. The Wall separating parts of the West Bank from Israel has created an analogue of the Nazi concentration camps. What else needs to happen until the international community decides to intervene and stop the Palestinian Holocaust?
Israel still bringing in new Jewish immigrants to occupy land in the Occupied Territories in violation of United Nations resolutions against creating more settlements besides having Israel return to its pre-1967 borders
France Fortifies Israeli Settlements :West Bank Settlement Creates French Colony by Roi Tov at RoiTov.com, August 2012
What is really touching is the level of deceptiveness applied by all involved in the process. The United Nations Security Council, the International Court of Justice, and most countries (Israel being the obvious exception) agree that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the West Bank. Thus, the occupier—Israel—cannot settle there, and all its settlements and outposts are illegal. Yet, Israel is bringing foreigners to settle in the West Bank. A heavily English-accented Hebrew characterizes the voices heard in most of the West Bank settlements, but here and there one can find expat colonies from France and other places. ..--------------
...For many years, the immigration and absorption of Jews from the Diaspora into Israel was performed by the Jewish Agency for Israel, an organization founded by the State of Israel in 1948, as the legal successor of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. Over the years, its efforts to bring Jews to Israel met resistance abroad. Imagine France creating a state-agency with the open goal of bringing American citizens to settle down in France. Many countries disliked the idea. Now, imagine that France attempts to settle these American citizens in illegitimately occupied territories. This is not an activity a state can openly engage in it. Thus Israel changed tactic and went private.
...While preparing this article I searched for contacts in Eli. I found them easily, and discovered also that the thriving community has roughly 700 families. Oddly, it is defined as a “city-settlement”. Israel went private and doesn’t mention anymore its “kibbutzim” and “moshavim.” Cities rule, Socialism is out. Yet, the details I found were astonishing. They read like a kibbutz list of contacts from the 1980s. It included a “mazkirut” (roughly “secretariat”), a “general secretary,” a “culture coordinator,” and an “absorption coordinator.” The Hebrew word used for “coordinator” is less democratic than the English one, technically translating as “the centralizer.” Moreover, the process scheduled for the new settlers was identical—even in terms—to what was practiced in the past by kibbutzim. I lived that; regardless of their modern camouflage, I was watching Stalin’s comrades.
Anyway we need to backtrack a bit to get a better idea of the context of the current conflicts .
The settlements began at first as the take over of land by Jewish Religious Zealots who became Israeli Jewish squatters as it were who had no right to the land let alone control the water supply and restrict the movements of neighboring Arabs to harass them to destroy the Arabs Olive Groves and other crops to beat up non-compliant Arabs to even tossing stones or using tear gas or even shooting at Arab children on their way to and from school. So by supporting Israel President Obama and Hillary Clinton and his administration gives tacit approval to the brutal and inhumane treatment of all Palestinians by the fanatical government backed Settlers and by the IDF which ignores the rule of law and can just make it up as they go along.
So while Israel and Washington disingenuously talk about finding a long term solution the Israelis keep allowing and encouraging more Jewish Israelis or Jewish immigrants to take possession of even more Palestinian lands. When it comes to American policies regarding Israel Obama continues with those of his predecessors that is defending Israel while claiming publicly to being committed to ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians while Israel makes excuses for not being able to reach an agreement with the Palestinians.
The Palestinians have in fact for decades tried to bring about a reasonable long term solution.
It is the Israelis who are always raising objections and making unreasonable demands from the Palestinians while spewing their propaganda which characterizes the Palestinians of not being an indigenous people of the region or at least not of what is referred to as Greater Israel. In other words the right wing party the Likud which now controls the government headed by Netanyahu believe that the God of the Israelites Elohim or Jaw-eh gave all of this land to the Israelites that is the followers of Judaism also referred to as the Jewish people . And according to God's law non-Jews are either not permitted within the Jewish state or are to be treated as second class citizens who do not have the same rights as the Jewish Israelis whether religious or secular.
Of course once all the Non-Jews that is Muslims or Christians and others are deported then the religious extremist Jews will take away many of the rights of secular Jews . To begin with secular Jews would not be permitted to run for election in the Knesset or eventually have important government positions or jobs . And finally the secular Jews if they refused to become practicing Jews would have to leave Greater Israel so it could be cleansed of the unclean .
So as we see the Israeli government often gives out mixed signals or even contradictory policies regarding the settlement movement . Though Netanyahu sides with the Settler's movement but may at times kick a few settlers out to appease the USA while their intention is to just move the Settlers to another established Settlement or one newly built a few kilometers away. This sort of lying or double speak is of course typical of most world leaders so it is not unique to the Israeli leaders.
Israel Doubles West Bank Settlements Budget : Minister of Finances admits it was done secretly by Roi Tov at roitov.com , Nov. 12, 2012
also see:
Israelis evacuate controversial West Bank settlement France24.com via AP, March 9, 2012
"Israel completed the evacuation of about 300 people from the unauthorised West Bank settlement of Migron on Sunday. The case had become a rallying point for hardline settler groups opposed to any withdrawal from land claimed by Palestinians."
also see:
Israel to build new settler homes in West Bank France24.com via Reuters, July 6, 2012
"Israel on Wednesday said it would build 851 new settler homes in the West Bank after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's parliamentary victory against far-right lawmakers who wanted to legalise Israeli settlements on private Palestinian land."
Palestinians condemn legalised Israeli settlements France24.com,April 24, 2012
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In the following video Ken O'Keefe sums up his impression of Israel.
It is apparent that he is an angry and passionate critique of Israel and maybe a little over the top but possibly understandable given the Israeli Propaganda which fills the American media and other Western Nations in which the deaths of Palestinians including young children shot at point blank or knowingly bombed from the air are ignored or written off as collateral damage. And he like many other critics of Israel have been watching unfold over the decades and yet the Western Media acts a propaganda machine for the Israeli policies and its Apartheid Regime and that to a greater or lesser extent this has been the Israeli attitude and policy to crush the Palestinians and drive them out of what the Israelis believe is their land which includes all the lands of Greater Israel going back to 1948 to the present.
So is O'Keefe anti-Semitic which is the usual charge made against critics or is he just passionate and angry and fed up with the Israeli and American propaganda which demonizing all Palestinians and Arabs and Muslims ?
The way he puts it is that when one hears these various cliched anti-Semitic tropes it seems Israel turns around does something uncalled for unwarranted and seemingly callous to further the suffering of the Palestinians which O'Keefe says appear to lend some credence to such anti-Semitic stereotypes .
One does have to be careful in dealing with Israel's various policies concerning the Palestinians or Arab Israelis to differentiate between what a particular Israeli government does or in this case of Netanyahu and the Likud party as opposed to all members of the Knesset or all Israeli citizens and further not make broad unsubstantiated claims about world Jewry as if each and every Jewish person supports these policies.
The other caveat we should consider is that in many ways according to experts on Israel or Journalists whether Israeli of non -Israelis who have spent years living in Israel tell us that those of us outside Israel have greater access to information about what is actually going on in Israel and in the "Occupied Territories"(OTs) and Gaza since the media is at times heavily censored or is overwhelmed in the Media and the social media on the net.
Given this we can not blame all of the Israelis because some who are well informed are critical of the government while others just don't know the facts and are told anything that contradicts the government official stance is a lie or fabrication as part of the Propaganda of those who are pro-Palestinian. According to Netanyahu and even Obama all of the NGOs such as UN bodies such as UNESCO or UNICEF operating in Gaza or other humanitarian or human rights groups such as the Red Cross or Red Crescent or Doctors Without Borders or outside journalists Reporters without Borders or Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch are all liars and fabricators who are supposedly profoundly anti-Semitic and so are counted among Israel and America's enemies
ISRAEL A TERRORIZING ENTITY - US, Europe complicit in Israeli crimes against Gaza.
Published on Nov 26, 2012 by MLordandGod
ISRAEL VIEWED AS A TERRORIZING ENTITY - US, Europe complicit in Israeli crimes against Gaza.
Ken O'Keefe of press TV, his view of Israeli beliefs of Palestinians et al.
Gaza's cycle of aggression shapes new generations more militant than the last :The humanising experiences of middle-aged Palestinians and Israelis who had contact in everyday situations have faded away, replaced by confrontation, trauma and hatred by Chris McGreal ,The Guardian, Nov. 23,2012
"Myself, I don't want to meet them. They are all occupiers, an enemy," said Abu Nizar sitting among other fighters from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Beach Camp, a Gaza refugee camp. He said his unit had fired dozens of rockets from Gaza in the recent battles.
One of the results of years of conflict is a generation of young adults on both sides who rarely meet each other except at the point of a weapon. The humanising experiences of middle-aged Palestinians and Israelis who had contact in everyday situations – such as Palestinians working in Israel who often learned Hebrew, or Israelis taking cars for repair by Palestinian mechanics or shopping in Arab markets – faded away with two intifadas and an ever more brutal occupation.
Abu Nizar and others of his generation have not only never met an Israeli except in confrontation but grew up with the trauma of living in neighbourhoods that felt like perpetual combat zones. They in turn are raising a generation of sons and daughters enduring life under periodic barrages of rockets and shells, and perpetual siege, and developing their own perceptions of Israelis as a dehumanised enemy.
"We didn't have a normal childhood at all. The Israelis created a whole generation that hates them. They are idiots. This last war has doubled, trebled the hatred from kids today," said Abu Nizar... "My three-year-old is always asking me: why is this? What's going on? Why are there rocket blasts? I tried to tell him what's happening and now he hates Israel."
..."I used to see the soldiers when I was small," he said. "I used to throw stones at them. I remember the occupation. We were the kids of the stones. I was beaten. There was a curfew. I was caught and beaten up. I was seven years old," he said.
Abu Nizar watched how Israeli troops treated the men in his family: "They arrested my father. They arrested my uncles. The Israelis would come at night. They called all the men into the street and put them in an open area and beat them. They humiliated them. This created the hatred of the occupation."
Pillar of Impotence By Gilad Atzmon November 25, 2012 "Information Clearing House"
In the past week, the people of Gaza have been subject to some serious Israeli attacks. Some Hamas leaders and militants have been murdered and many more Palestinians - innocent civilians, babies, kids women and elders – have lost their live. Yet, Gaza is celebrating with the Hamas leadership never more popular.
So here is an interesting anecdote that deserves our attention. During the recent clashes Gazan militants launched more than 1500 rockets at Israel. These rockets caused rather limited damage with more than six Israeli fatalities. Militarily at least, this is far from a great achievement. And yet the Gazans are celebrating. Would Israelis be happy to learn that 1500 of their rockets had had such limited effect? Would any western army accept such a result at such a cost? The answer is a categorical NO. But the Palestinians are ecstatic, why, because they know they have won the battle and are now set to win the war. They won the battle, not because they killed six Israelis – actually they would have won it without hitting one single Israeli. They won it because they managed to deliver a message to Israel, world Jewry and the whole world.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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