Monday, March 19, 2007

Israeli racism

Following a rather innocuous story on Israel's political problems, this blog received a rather vicious "megaphone" treatment -- and if that term is unfamiliar to you, scroll down. In response to this "troll conspiracy," I shall endeavor to print a story about Israel at least once a day.

Want to talk about racism, my Jewish friends? All right. Let's.

Let's forgo the fake "racism" which smarmy, snickering sophists can always scry into any statement, however innocent. Let's talk about the real stuff -- racism backed by violence, persecution and unjust law.

In the Palestinian city of Hebron, Israeli settlers whose behavior is indistinguishable from that of Hitler's goons, assailed a 57 year-old Danish human rights activist named Anna Maria, calling her a "Nazi" simply because she was trying to protect Palestinian children from being brutalized. Israeli police arrested not the assailants, but Maria.

This is but the most recent example of outrageous behavior by the settlers and their Gestapo; what Maria underwent was comparatively mild. In response to such abuses, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders asked Israel to stop harassing human rights workers in the occupied territories:
In an urgent appeal issued Monday, the Observatory revealed that a Human Rights worker, Ziyad Hmeidan, was dropped off by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) at the Dahiriya checkpoint, south of Hebron, marking the end of almost two years of detention without charge or fair trial.

In the days preceding Hmeidan's scheduled release, his lawyer repeatedly contacted the IPS to find out where he would be released.

Ziyad Hmeidan was arrested on May 23, 2005, while he was trying to cross through Qalandiya, a checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem. His whereabouts remained unknown for a few days after he was put under arrest. Since May 27, 2005, Mr. Hmeidan had been kept at the Moscobiyya detention centre.

The Observatory requested that Israel comply with the provisions of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly, in particular article 1, which guarantees every person's right "to promote and to strive for the protection and realisation of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels".

It also called to ensure in all circumstances the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms throughout the country and the OPT in accordance with international human rights instruments ratified by Israel, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Don't expect Israel to acknowledge its inhumane behavior any time soon:
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called a proposal for the United Nations Human Rights Council to create a mandate by which to permanently probe Israeli violations of international law, "a disgraceful abuse of power and an affront to the very concept of human rights."
Meanwhile...
During recent military operations in the Old City of Nablus, Israeli soldiers forced at least three Palestinians at gun point, two of them children, to assist in searching apartments for suspects. International humanitarian law prohibits a party to a conflict from using the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military operations.
Obviously, those Israeli soldiers did not view those Palestinian civilians as human beings, worthy of the standard protections offered by international law.

More to come. (To my "pals" at that WUJS: I didn't print this stuff before. How's that "megaphone" working out for you?)

8 comments:

sunny said...

Wow, outing the "mega-phonies" sure shut them up.

Anonymous said...

Wow, outing the racist sure inspires them.

I realize that someone who thinks Israel assassinated Kennedy will be immune to any other thought,

Yet where is the Palestinian Gandhi? India produced a Gandhi, African-Americans produced a Gandhi, South Africa produced a Gandhi, half a dozen of them, and in each case those people succeeded.

But there has been nothing even remotely like that among the Palestinians. For eighty years the only conversation they offer has been violence and more violence.

If their position had truth and merit they would not need to obscure it, but they try to distract from it. But they don't, they only work to create conditions to distract from anything that could be a conversation that settles the matter. Even trying to describe who they are is rejected unless you transfer the entire character of Jewish experience in the Holocaust to them. It is just obscenity.

Trying to equate Israel's actions with Naziism simply discredits everything else you write. Israel is smaller than the metropolitan area of New York. If you had lived for eighty years under continual threats of a group of people whose existence is based on eliminating you and whose religion is the only religion on earth that bases a central part of its tenets on specific and special contempt for Jews, you would be a different person.


beeta, Now I wonder what you would be called if you were a born and raised Israeli Jew, a historian, a professor at Hebrew University and you write a book called "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine"?

You'd be called stupid. The census question is more complex than a romanitc would like to think, a good description is this page


Zionist settlement between 1880 and 1948 did not displace or dispossess Palestinians. Every indication is that there was net Arab immigration into Palestine in this period, and that the economic situation of Palestinian Arabs improved tremendously under the British Mandate relative to surrounding countries. By 1948, there were approximately 1.35 million Arabs and 650,000 Jews living between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, more Arabs than had ever lived in Palestine before, and more Jews than had lived there since Roman times. Analysis of population by subdistricts shows that Arab population tended to increase the most between 1931 and 1948 in the same areas where there were large proportions of Jews. . .We simply do not know how many Arabs and Jews there were in Palestine before the declaration of the state of Israel. It is probable that there were about 100,000 Arab immigrants into Palestine.

Which is to say newly arrived Arab immigrants settled in the newly developed areas which were closest to the Jewish population and when fighting broke out it was from these areas that the Arab population, newly arrived, was expelled. This caused mass panic among the Arabs in 1948 which led to a stampede into Jordan.


Your contempt at the idea that Palestinians might have produced a Gandhi can only say that in your mind the only apt response to Israel is violence, which is an intractable contempt and disregard for Israelis as people. In eighty years they have not even tried, and you think that's right, and that's a pretty plainly racist character.

Israel is smaller than the metropolitan area of New York. A functional defensive line against modern militaries and irregular tactics can't be achieved in a small space and Israel is about as small as could be managed.

Anonymous said...

->"Zionist settlement between 1880 +1948 did not displace or dispossess Palestinians. " -
- So out of the blue self-described "Zion"ists dropped into no-mans.land ? Do I get You right there ?
From the heavens - down ?

Joseph Cannon said...

Bubi is himself a racist liar with no interest int he truth. And he is no longer welcome on this blog.

Don't try it again, B. You'll be deleted on sight.

Joseph Cannon said...

Bubi is himself a racist liar with no interest in the truth. And he is no longer welcome on this blog.

Don't try it again, B. You'll be deleted on sight.

Anonymous said...

bubi is wrong, mis-informed and brainwashed by God knows who. Furthermore, he chooses to stay in the dark, mis-informed and twisted.
So be it, I say.
There are always people that are waste of time and energy.
So, let's move on.
There are plenty of people out there who ask logical questions and would accept or at least entertain logical premises(not to mention history).
Of coarse as Parenti says, history is written by people in the good graces of the powers that were and are and will be(meaning, all history is not history as it happened).
And as Chomski says, always refer to secret documents after they are released(usually 30 to 50 years after the fact) and you should be rewarded with the truth.
According to Pappe the released secret documents show that the Zionist project was not only Imperialist in nature, but it always intended to ethincally clease the area of Arabs(Palestinians)from the get go(its inseption according to him was before the Nazis and WWII).
West asserts that the US was also an Imperialistic adventure by the British to 1-exploit the landscape and 2-civilize the natives(saves them accortding to Christianity by ethnically cleansing them).
The point I am trying to make is that America and Israel have a lot in common, no wonder US and Israel have been two peas in a pot for the last 50 years or so.
AND
If you are racist, anti-semite, Christian or Muslim or Jewish fundementalist... or Republican, please disregard my comment and kindly don't respond.
Peace

Anonymous said...

thank you, joe, for deleting bubbadumbo, or whatever version of his name he is currently using. i abhor the stifling of free speech, but i also abhor its abuse. moderators are important for civil discourse, and i have no problem with ridding the petty provocateurs.

i could not get past his first few grafs, but was struck with how ridiculous his first point was. no, no palestinian gandhi, quite true. but then, neither have the jews produced anything like a gandhi. just for the record.

unless, of course, you count jesus of nazareth. but, gosh, that was so long ago. and they crucified him, so not quite the same as producing - and honoring - a gandhi.

wonder where this guy was going with that? wonder where the heck it came from.

but glad he himself is gone.

Anonymous said...

dr elsewhere,
good to see you back and around!
I am facinated(I realize this is way off the real subject) by someone that makes remarks that desidedly are un-progressive (not to mention un-democtratic and off the mark historicaly)and calls himself/herself "bandarbush"or a variety of the above spelling.
My understanding is that 1- BandarBush refers to the last Saudi ambassador to the US (who has been characterized as very close to GWB), 2-someone who feels close enough to GWB and the Prince to share their point of view.
My question for is this:
Given the commenters declared identity what is your best estimate of the persons state of mind(off the record)?
Could he be a Saudi Prince in persuit of perserving his (not so God given )inhertinace?
Could he be an American of the Conservative persuation with leanings toward the end of times?
Or a troll of the usuall vareity?
Bubindarbah smells of Budhism or chaos, but I am not fooled.
An analysisis qhat I am looking for.
Or You could just laugh or have a chuckle.