Monday, December 03, 2012

The Ugly Canadian -Canada-Israel Relations & Israel Green Lights Settlements In Response To U.N. Granting Non-Member State Status For Palestinians


Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper supports unconditionally and so we have joined the Ugly American to become the Ugly Canadian. And so Harper's anti-Arab anti-Muslim prejudice rises to the surface. The question for Canadians is if they too agree with Harper that Israel has the right to bomb the Palestinians whenever they feel like it and that Israel's Apartheid state is somehow justified.
Are we Canadians being exposed as being as cold-hearted as the Americans when it comes to Palestinians, Arabs in general and all Muslims. Are these prejudices based upon facts or reality or a matter of taking the Bible seriously and as our guide for thinking about Middle East policies and issues.


Canada and Israel - The Ugly Canadian
Yves Engler: PM Harper has moved Canada to become the closest ally of the Israeli hard right Watch full multipart The Ugly Canadian

More at The Real News

In retaliation for the United Nation's voting in favor of Palestine become a non-member state Israel is once again violating International Law by giving the go ahead to expand the illegal settlements in the West bank and East Jerusalem. US slams Israel's decision to expand settlements  

And in response to expanding Israeli Settlements some countries are threatening to recall their ambassadors from Israel. This is just part of Israel's on going strategy to put an end to a two state solution. Israel has been since the 1970s on the path to recreating the Biblical borders as Jehovah /God promised the Israelites some four thousand or so years ago when Moses we are told led the Israelites out of Egypt. If Israel sees its destiny as God's plan for the Israelites then there is no way to rebuff the argument since it is based upon religious and metaphysical arguments and not merely political . By increasing the settlements Israel can once again argue based upon facts on the ground. There are already some 600,000 Israelis living illegally in the Occupied Territories. We should note that the more settlers there are the more tension is created between the Israeli Settlers and the Palestinians.

As it is many Palestinian villages and their farms and fields are deprived of clean water by the Settlers who more often than not build on the hill sides and drill down into the ground to steal the water or they reroute streams to benefit themselves and to rob the Palestinians of the water. The Israeli Settlers even allow their own untreated sewage to flow across Palestinian lands killing their crops and their Olive Groves and animals . This is tantamount to an attempt at Ethnic Cleansing or Genocide since their intention is to deprive Palestinians of the ability to survive under such conditions.

Israel Ambassador Recall Considered By UK, France Over Israeli Settlements By Jeffrey Heller Reuters via Huffington Post,Dec. 3, 2012
JERUSALEM, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Britain and France on Monday weighed measures against Israel to protest at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to expand settlement building after the United Nations' de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood. Germany urged Israel to refrain from expanding settlements and Russia said it viewed plans to put more new homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem with serious concern. Diplomatic sources said both London and Paris were considering the unprecedented step of recalling their ambassadors to Tel Aviv, but both countries signalled there was still room for manoeuvre to avoid a deep crisis with Israel.

"There are other ways in which we can express our disapproval," a French Foreign Ministry official told Reuters in Paris after diplomatic sources said France and Britain were mulling whether to order their envoys home from Tel Aviv. The French government called in the Israeli ambassador to Paris to express disapproval over Israel's settlement plans. Britain said it summoned Israel's ambassador in London to the Foreign Office to hear its concerns over settlement building. "Any decision about any other measures the UK might take will depend on the outcome of our discussions with the Israeli government and with international partners including the U.S. and European Union," a Foreign Office spokesman said. Angered by the U.N. General Assembly's upgrading on Thursday of the Palestinians status in the world body from "observer entity" to "non-member state", Israel said the next day it would build 3,000 more settler homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Such settlement projects in the past, on land Israel captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians seek for a future state, have routinely drawn almost pro forma world condemnation.
When Iraq was illegally and immorally bombed and invaded and occupied by the USA anyone questioning this disastrous policy were branded as appeasers and cowards and unpatriotic as were those who were against various US tactics such as renditions, secret prisons, torture etc. And why should one expect that president Obama would be anymore persuaded to ease up on sanctions on Iran as President Bill Clinton was on sanctions on Iraq which lead to the deaths of some 500,000 Iraqi children to which Madame Albright infamously said those deaths were worth the price of weakening Saddam. The USA may get upset about Israel building more "settlements" but have no compassion for civilians especially children who are suffering and dying unnecessarily in Gaza or in Iran due to Israeli and American sanctions and blockade. .

 Diaspora Blues: Why the Iranian Diaspora in the United States Disappoints Me by Holly Dagres at Huffington Post, Dec. 3, 2012
...Many forget that up until Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, a similar incident troubled the basic lives of the Iraqi people. The United Nations reports an estimated 2,690 to 5,357 infants died of malnutrition-related illnesses every month; many faulting sanctions that restricted food and medicine to Iraq since the Gulf War in 1991. Although there was a loophole in the sanctions, known as the Oil-for-Food Program, which allowed Saddam to sell oil as long as the money was used for non-military purposes.

I know that the Diaspora has its reservations about the regime. Some are Monarchist or regime sympathizers, others are Leftists, and then there are those who are conflicted in the middle or apathetic towards politics, folks who tend not to associate themselves with the political climate. But as people suffer in a homeland many still associate themselves with, whether they call themselves 'Persian' or 'Iranian,' with a longing to go back, how can we allow our political views to get in the way of humanity? This political apathy on behalf of the Diaspora must end. According to a study by MIT in 2004, "The 2000 census data suggests that the Iranian ancestral group have educational attainments that greatly surpass the national average...

With more than 27 percent of Iranian-Americans over the age of 25 having a graduate degree or above, Iranian-Americans are the most highly educated ethnic group in the United States." Let's not forget how well off we are in terms of income: "The per capita average income for Iranian-Americans is 50 percent higher than that of the nation [United States], while family average income is 38 percent higher."

...Given a history of authoritarianism in Iran, perhaps it is imbedded in our culture to not meddle in politics. But the fact of the matter is we are no longer in Iran, but in the United States of America. Over are the days of agents of the regime coming door to door and looking for dissidents; now we have the First Amendment to protect our freedom of expression. As noted in a report on apathy of the Iranian Diaspora, "If Iranian-Americans don't write their own narratives, somebody else will tell their story for them; and that may be a story they don't like."

It is becoming clear that the generation of my parents and grandparents do not want to get involved, mostly because they spent their time trying to succeed in the United States and provide their children with opportunities, which is completely understandable. Now that their legacy is set, it is up to my generation -- those who were brought up in the United States and continue to feel connected to their parent's homeland -- to stand up for what is right.
So anyway I came across the following articles the first about the anti-Islamic film "Innocent Muslims" at World Affairs criticizing Hilary Clinton apologizing for this nasty hate filled propaganda film and the second article giving an erroneous anaysis of the recent bombardment of Gaza by Israel. The problem is that the author and most of those who made comments are unable to see that these flare ups in the Muslim world are just an opportunity for Muslims to release their anger at the West and that anger is now based upon decades of being ill-treated or neglected by the West and especially America.

Enough Appeasement Already by Michael J. Totten,World Affairs Sept. 13, 2012
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just announced that she finds the anti-Muslim movie trailer that sparked violent and even murderous attacks on American embassies across the Middle East to be “disgusting and reprehensible” and that the United States government had nothing to do with it. I’d add that the trailer is idiotic and hilariously amateurish, but film criticism isn’t part of our chief diplomat’s job description. It is of course true that the United States government has nothing to do with the film, and that’s an important point to make.

Most Middle Easterners have spent their entire lives in an environment where the state owns and controls most or all of the media. State-run TV and newspapers are normal for them.

Some honestly may not understand that we do things differently here. Clinton also should have explained the First Amendment. We don’t punish blasphemy in the United States. Our government isn’t allowed to punish citizens for disrespecting a religion, a political party, the president, or anything or anyone else. This is not going to change.

It’s certainly not going to change because violent reactionaries on the other side of the planet don’t like it. And I have to say it’s a little unseemly for our government to officially take a position on a YouTube video, even one that sparked an international crisis. It’s even more unseemly that our government is taking the same position on that film as the people who just killed our ambassador in Benghazi.

and also from World Affairs a complete misreading of the outcome of the recent Gaza /Israeli conflict. The author assumes that Israel and Gaza are both at fault equally and ignores the fact that the citizens of Gaza are desperate due to the suffering and hardships and unnecessary illness and deaths in Gaza due to Israel's inhumane blockade.


  Gaza Post-Mortem by Shany Mor at World Affairs Journal.org,Nov. 2012 
Who’s up who’s down? At the end of a full week of fighting, both Israel and Hamas appear eager for a cease-fire, a clear indication that both belligerents are actually quite satisfied with the political accomplishments they have made in the fighting and that neither sees much to gain from continuing. For now. If all goes according to plan, Israel will get a respite from the incessant rocket fire on its southern towns and villages, and Hamas will get further de facto recognition of its regime in Gaza and an opening to the world via Egyptian border. Here’s an interim assessment for all relevant actors in the region.

...Hamas leaves this confrontation battered and more than a little shocked, its store of rockets depleted and much of its military leadership eliminated. It clearly miscalculated Israel’s responses as it escalated in October and November, counting on an upcoming election to deter a risk-averse leadership from escalating. Its patron in Cairo has secured for it a few notable accomplishments in the cease-fire, not least the lifting of the siege, which barely existed in the last two years. And all parties will see the opening of the Rafah passage as major achievement. During the Gaza fighting in 2009, established Arab governments were deeply critical of Hamas’s recklessness precipitating the crisis, but in this round, Hamas has acquired a notable patron and de facto recognition from a host of international actors—most notably, Israel. It has also taken its first steps outside of its Iranian umbrella and into a more natural Sunni Islamist umbrella of Egypt, together with Qatar and Turkey.

But Hamas continues to rely on Iran for weapons and know-how. Israel laid out some very modest goals for this operation and by and large met them. It has degraded Hamas’s offensive capabilities considerably, to a point that should take a year or two at the least to rebuild. It has demonstrated that the Arab Spring, the Iranian crisis, the new American administration, and the civil war in Syria combined could not deter it from a large-scale offensive in the Gaza Strip. It has done so without the enormous body count that so enraged the global opinion and caused such grave, long-term damage to Israel’s reputation in 2009. It has opened a channel of communication with the new government in Egypt and turned the Egyptians into stakeholders in the Gaza problem, and it has enjoyed an opportunity to very publicly have its close relations with the United States on display at a time when there were many doubts about Washington’s commitments.

Its intelligence capabilities impressed and shocked not just Hamas in Gaza, but nervous spectators in Lebanon, Iran, and Syria; its defensive capabilities were on full display as well with the well publicized success of the Iron Dome anti-missile system (though the long-term strategic impact of this is difficult to assess). Israel leaves this war with significant achievements, but also with the keen awareness that in a string of low-intensity conflicts it has successively exposed more and more of its home front to rocket fire; only a few towns south of Hadera and north of Tel Aviv remain unaffected, and it is safe to assume that immunity won’t outlast the next conflagration. Nor has Israel come any closer to extricating itself from the strategic sinkhole of its 45-year civilian and military presence in the West Bank.
anyway part of the problem is making the mistake of seeing Israel and Gaza as if they were militarily equals rather than seeing Israel as having a massive war machine fighting against a desperate people 1,500,000 Gazans crowded into a small strip of land who are are not permitted to leave or to acquire the goods they need or to produce much of anything.

A Gazan builds a cement factory the Israelis blow it up and then prevent the importation of cement or other building materials into Gaza. After the 2008-2009 bombardment and invasion by Israel many shops and small business and government buildings were rebuilt or just repaired and then the Israeli's during their Pillar of Fire(Defense) operation blew it all up again including TV and radio stations and buildings belonging to the media and police stations, schools and hospitals to teach the Gazan's who 's the boss. Many Westerners and Israelis rejoice at the death and destruction of Gaza and its people .

I fear that many Americans are still wanting to extract revenge for 9/11 and the botched Iraq invasion and the Afghanistan/Pakistani quagmire. But Americans forget their own history at least as it actually occurred as opposed to their National Mythologizing and delusional thinking. The Mainstream Media pushes the current and past administration's propaganda and that of Israel while ignoring reality .
Since the 1990s to the present we can safely say that America and its allies are now responsible for the deaths of over 2,000,000 that is Two Million people in the Middle East .If we add the proxy wars fought on behalf of the USA going back to 1980 we can add another Two Million victims.

 The problem was that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 or Al-Qaeda or Bin Laden nor did he have any WMDs which had all been destroyed in 1992. Americans forget that Saddam was a surrogate fighting a war with Iran which was disastrous for both nations and was ended by the USA when it looked like Iran might win. The USA wanted Iraq to punish Iran on America's behalf to take revenge against the Iranian people for ousting America's puppet the Shah of Iran who was hated by most Iranians for his brutality and secret police and death squads and the use of torture to keep his own people in line. And who was the Shah he was put into power through an American/CIA engineered Coup d'etat replacing the democratically elected and popular Prime Minister Mossadeq in 1953 because he extended the rights of the Iranian government and people over its natural resources ie oil.

This America and the West could not stand for and so Mossadeq had to go. Now the USA has bombed and destroyed most of Libya to oust Qaddafi using NATO as their cover and by doing so undermined and gutted the Arab Spring peaceful protest and its movement by giving aid to the armed rebels made up of fanatics who have massacred many innocent Libyan citizens as well as government forces which attempted to surrender . This campaign was achieved through the deaths of tens of thousands of Libyan citizens.

 In Syria the same sort of thing is occurring by way of proxy fighters as the peaceful Arab Spring reform movement was undermined by the USA/CIA who armed more radical armed rebels made up in part of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters (Mujaheddin ) In Egypt during The Arab Spring peaceful mass protest the USA backed Mubarak against the People and kept sending more arms including tear gas to be used against peaceful protesters until finally the US gave up on Mubarak and then disingenuously claimed they were always on the side of the people and reform and even democracy (shades of 1984).

 In Bahrain and Saudi Arabia the US sided again with these two brutal regimes against a popular peaceful uprising claiming that the Bahraini protesters were armed when they were not or claiming it was a sectarian conflict between the Shiites and the Sunnis rather than an across board popular uprising. But large numbers of ordinary Sunnis Bahraini citizens also took part in the protest including Middle Class and the professional class of Sunni Muslims as well as Shiites. But Americans never let the facts get in the way of their own mythology of America as being always on the side of those who fight against tyranny .

 So all these facts and incidents and American and Western lies and propaganda should be taken into account when asking the post 9/11 question "Why do they hate us?"

and so it goes,

 GORD.

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