Phony Tears.

Beirut, Lebanon, today.

 Beirut, Lebanon, July 2006 after Israeli bombing

 

Beirut, Lebanon, 2006 after Israeli bombing.

 

        I always get sick in my stomach when I hear officials of various states weep at death and destruction in other countries, when they themselves are responsible for shedding the blood of countless thousands across infrastructure they have destroyed, time and time again. Beirut has experienced a disaster of blitzkrieg proportions and its nearest neighbour, who has on several occasions devastated the infrastructure and killed thousands of citizens of Lebanon and Beirut, now stands with tears that burns holes in truth and ridicules humanity. Israel has no shame, no humanity, what has happened in Beirut has been perpetrated on a greater scale in Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank, time and time again by Israel. I saw no tears then, and I don't accept their tears now.

 

Gaza after an Israeli visit.

The following article first appeared in Haaretz

     Official Israel presented itself as shocked at the disaster that struck its neighbor, Lebanon, yesterday. Almost everyone put on a sorrowful face. Except for Richard Silverstein, who writes a blog, Tikkun Olam, no one accused Israel of causing the disaster. Except for Moshe Feiglin and a few other racists, no one expressed satanic joy over it. Fortunately, former Israeli army spokesman Avi Benayahu ran Feiglin out of the race: “With such statements, you don’t belong to the Jewish people,” declared Benayahu, the man of Jewish morality, and the stain was removed.
     Benayahu is right: The Jewish state never caused such disasters, and when our enemies fell it never rejoiced. The Israel Defense Forces, whose voice Benayahu was, never such caused destruction and devastation, certainly not in Lebanon, certainly not in Beirut. What does the IDF have to do with the destruction of infrastructure? An explosion in the Beirut port? Why would the most moral army in the world have anything to do with bombing population centers? And so the country’s leaders hastened to offer help to the stricken land of the cedars, such a typical Jewish and Israeli gesture, human, lofty and moving to the point of tears.
     True, the Israel Air Force thumbs its nose at Lebanon’s sovereignty and flies through its skies as if they were its own. True, Israel has devastated Lebanon twice in war, but who’s counting. Israel’s president issued a statement of condolences to the Lebanese people, the prime minister and the ministers of foreign affairs and defense said they had “given instructions to offer humanitarian and medical assistance to Lebanon.”
     As if all this beneficence was not enough, the mayor of Tel Aviv ordered the municipality building illuminated with the colors of the Lebanese flag. Words fail. All past hatred has been set aside, Israel is now a friend in need to its suffering neighbor. Maybe it was Tu B’Av, the holiday of love, marked yesterday. But still, a vague memory threatens to spoil the how-beautiful-we-are party, which we love so much around here.
      Was it not that same defense minister that only last week threatened that same Lebanon with destruction of infrastructure? Didn’t the prime minister also threaten Lebanon? And how does destruction of infrastructure look in Lebanon? Just like what was seen in Lebanon on Tuesday. The sound of thunder shook the city, black smoke billowed over it, destruction and devastation, civilian blood spilled, 4,000 injured at hospital doors, as described in horror by the ambassador of a European country in Beirut, who had previously served in Israel. She was injured Tuesday in the blast and was in shock.
    Half of Israel and the entire IDF General Staff know how to recite the acclaimed Dahiya Doctrine. Every second politician has threatened to carry it out. That is our language with Lebanon and Gaza. It’s the doctrine espoused by the Israeli Carl von Clausewitz, former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, the current hope of the Israeli left, when he was chief of the Northern Command.
     And what is this sophisticated doctrine? It’s the use of disproportionate, unbridled force against infrastructure, the sowing of destruction and shedding of as much blood as possible. “Flattening” – to teach the enemy a lesson “once and for all.” The IDF has tried this more than once in the past, in Lebanon and in Gaza, and it was a dizzying success story. It looks just like what was seen in Beirut on Tuesday.
     Not a week had passed since Israel threatened to destroy infrastructure in Lebanon if Hezbollah dared avenge the killing of one of its fighters in a limited military action on the border, and Israel the destroyer becomes Israel the merciful. Would you accept humanitarian aid from such a country? Is there a more sickening show of hypocrisy?
    When Israel demolished Dahiya and other neighborhoods in Beirut, the Tel Aviv Municipality building was not illuminated with the colors of the Lebanese flag. When Israel killed thousands of innocent women and children, old and young, in Gaza during the criminal Operation Cast Lead and Operation Protective Edge, the municipality was not lit up in the colors of the Palestinian flag. But on Wednesday we were all so humane, so Lebanese for a moment. Until the next Dahiya.

     Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist and author. Levy writes opinion pieces and a weekly column for the newspaper Haaretz that often focus on the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. Levy has won prizes for his articles on human rights in the Israeli-occupied territories. - "Source" -

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The World's Largest Concentration Camps.

        I, like so many others, refer to Gaza and the West Bank as the largest open air prisons on the planet, well I think we should rename them as the largest open air concentration camps on the planet. These two parts of the planet are controlled by a regime of racist, Zionist, brutal, ruthless guards, lacking in any humanity and under the direct control of the apartheid Zionist state of Israel. The aim of this regime is the elimination of the people of Palestine and the taking over the ethnic cleansed land.

 

Photo courtesy of Jewish Voice For Peace.

       Apart from, all the glaringly obvious injustices, brutalities and sadistic cruelties and the vicious attacks that kill and maim thousands of Palestinians, there is another more sinister attack on the people of the West Bank. The West Bank is festooned with a secret network of hidden cameras that is linked up to the latest Israeli state cutting edge facial recognition software. There is no such thing as privacy for Palestinian people in the West Bank. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, these cameras track and log every Palestinian face they can trace. All the information is logged and profiles built, from lovers holding hands to mothers feeding the babies, from kids at play, to people at work, where and when you were at a particular spot and for how long, all the faces and this information are noted and logged for future reference by the Zionist apartheid state of Israel in its end game of grabbing the last of the Palestinian lands. Incidentally, Microsoft is a major partner in this technology, you have been warned.
       Despite this glaringly obvious savage cruelty and inhumanity being directed at the Palestinian people to further Zionist fundamental ideology, the world looks the other way and invites the perpetrators into the marble halls of power. Sups with them at the financial Mafia's banquet and considers profitable arms deals worth more than human justice and dignity. How else would you expect capitalism to work. This gross injustice will continue as Israel is doing the job of the West's policeman in the Middle East, and is a profitable member of the capitalist club. Only the will of the people can end this festering cesspool of capitalist/nationalist/religious insanity. When will we come together and exert that will? 

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The Wall Must Fall.

 

       It is now more than ten years since the International Court of Justice declared the construction of the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank as illegal. It demanded that the wall be torn down, and called for the international community to enforce Israeli compliance. What we have seen since then is ten years of international community silence on the matter, giving Israel a free hand to continue with its brutal, illegal, apartheid policies.

 

      Ten years of ignoring the International Court of Justice on this matter, knowing that the international community will turn a blind eye, encourages the Israel State to continue with its building the largest open prison on the planet. It is time for accountability, but we can't expect our governments to put the pressure on Israel, it will have to be growing public opinion. An intensified popular struggle, forcing more boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions. 

 

    The Palestinian people are people like you and I, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, plumbers, teachers, farmers, carpenters and shop assistants. They must not be walled in like an ancient leper colony, at the whim of some Zionist illusion.

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Anarchists Against The Wall.

     Flashes of bloodshed appear in that babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and more, but rarely do we see the daily bloodshed in Gaza and the West Bank. Somehow or other the Zionists manage to keep this episode of apartheid, genocide, land-grabbing bloodshed, out of the bullshit media. This is despite the fact the most Palestinians live in a war zone.

     This short video from Anarchists Against The Wall, was of yesterday's, August 16, weekly demonstrations against "The wall" in Kfur Qaddum.

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The Leader Has Spoken.

     The following is a statement that I think a very large segment of the population might agree with, "saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps, be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza".

       It was spoken by a LibDem MP, David Ward, However, the Holocaust Educational Trust. thought fit to complain to the LibDem leader Nick Clegg, who withdrew the party whip from the MP. Is this a case of the LibDem party leader being ignorant of what is happening in that part of the world, or was it a case of him bowing to a powerful Israeli lobby group? Either way it shows the uselessness of that establishment, The Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, where an elected representative can be silenced by an unelected bunch with vested interests, and where a widely held opinion can be silenced by the authority of the "party leader".

        Democracy can never be born through the party system, party lines throttle individual opinions. However capitalism thrives in the party system, the corporate world simply buys the parties and things are shaped to suit that corporate world. Any hierarchical system is an anathema to democracy. Democracy demands horizontalism, equality among individuals, the right to voice your opinion free from the over-riding power of "the leader". As long as the people support a party political system, the longer our freedom will be in chains.

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ISRAEL AND APARTHEID.

         Recently the Israeli government has stated that it will speed up the building of settlements on the occupied territories in the West Bank. This is deemed necessary to show the Palestinian people that Israel will be firm because of the Palestinians' horrible crime of seeking membership of UNESCO. There is no country in the world would get away with treating any other people the way that the Israeli government treats the Palestinian people. Israel seems to put itself outside international law, outside the United Nations, and continually puts two fingers up to its main banker, the United States of America. Is it guilty of apartheid? Is it guilty of ethnic cleansing? It certainly is guilty of some of the most brutal blanket punishment handed out to any people in modern times. It is encouraging to see that there are still people who are trying to bring some form of international condemnation on the Israeli government for its treatment of the Palestinian people. The following is a short extract from an interesting article.

Israel cannot be held accountable for its actions by any international tribunal as it refuses to accept the jurisdiction of either the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court. The Russell Tribunal seeks to remedy this weakness in the international system of justice by providing for accountability by a court of international opinion. It does not seek to obstruct the peace process. On the contrary, it wishes to promote it. But there can be no peace without justice. This is a basic principle that Richard Goldstone, who has written an op-ed criticising the Russell Tribunal (Israel and the Apartheid Slander, New York Times, October 31, 2011), has devoted much his life to, as prosecutor before the Yugoslavia Tribunal.    READ the full article.

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