Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts

Thursday, August 23, 2012

IDF is the World’s Largest Terrorist Organization: Joe Cortina

By Kourosh Ziabari

Captain Joe Cortina is a former airborne special operations officer and U.S. Army Training Center commander. 

He subsequently embarked on missions as intelligence investigator and anti-terrorist advisor and traveled to different countries in the Middle East and Central America. His visit to Israel was an opportunity for him to realize the anti-American atmosphere governing the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the feeling of resentment and antipathy the Israeli citizens have toward the United States despite the all-out military, financial and political support and backing which Washington offers to Tel Aviv.

Joe Cortina attended the University of Miami, University of Tampa Spring Hill College and Florida Southern College and holds degrees in physics, biology and chemistry.

Cortina has strong anti-Israeli views and believes that the Israel Defense Force is the largest terrorist organization in the contemporary world. He believes that Israelis are the main reason for the political and economic problems the United States suffers from.

What follows is the text of interview with Joe Cortina with whom we have talked on a number of issues, including his viewpoints regarding the policies and actions of Israel, his firsthand experiences in the Occupied Territories, the impact of Arab Spring on the political status of Israel and the recent social crisis in Tel Aviv.

Q: Joe; as a former airborne special operations commander with a remarkable experience in intelligence affairs, you have had the opportunity to visit some of the Palestinian territories and lands Israel occupies. What was your first impression upon visiting those areas? What’s your analysis of the Israelis’ treatment of the Palestinian people?

A: The poverty of the people obviously forced to live in what was for all intents and purposes an enormous outdoor prison run by sadist monsters and sociopaths was heartbreaking. I have been in more than a few impoverished nations but the combination of the struggle of everyday life coupled with the fact that these good people were occupied by the largest most barbaric brutal terrorist organization on earth was heartbreaking. Soldiers would beat and humiliate old women children and other defenseless civilians with a rage and brutality unparalleled in my experiences with terrorists in Nicaragua and El Salvador. The wanton murder of children was the crimes that will burn in my mind forever. Remember these brave people have their backs to the sea with no place to escape Israeli brutality.

Worth adding- is the fact that every dollar for every bullet that murders every Palestinian child is bought and paid for by American taxes! Every white phosphorous bomb that burns the flesh off little children in their own yards, every rocket, every plane that carries that rocket into the side of a school building or a hospital ambulance is a gift from my countrymen- I am ashamed to say. Even the Jew driven Caterpillar bulldozer that smashed the life out of wonderful caring young girl named Rachel Corrie was a gift of death ‘from America with hate’ for anyone who would stand up for some poor Palestinian farming family – be they Christian or Muslim.

Besieged Palestinian children
What hypocrisy. We claim to be a Christian Nation – yet – in the very name of Christ – two out of every ten Palestinians that we are accomplices to the murder of – are also Christians.

Among knowledgeable intelligence people – the so called IDF – is correctly termed: ‘world’s largest institutionalized terrorist organization’. I know something of real terrorism and have had unique experience working with the heads of state of friendly foreign nations who requested my assistance and skills as an advisor on counterterrorism.

I have observed legitimate military organizations as well as terrorist groups in other nations and the IDF fulfills the most stringent description to a terrorist. They attack and murder innocent civilians, murder public officials as well as news media personnel, attack medical facilities, bomb and destroy homes and businesses, target helpless civilians especially defenseless children and infants schools churches and mosques.

Been there seen that – yet should I or any humanitarian attempt to share these ugly truths with my own people, the influence of the evil Israelis is such that even in our churches, the truth is banned and censured. Should your readers still believe that myth that America is a nation built on free speech, I could never tell these same truths to a school or church inside my own country.

This is testimony of how much the Jews fear the truth in what used to be the United States of America. I have more than one friend whose lives and families have been threatened by these Godless criminal psychopaths. What a disgrace to America. Think about it. You will publish these truths and yet your culture is slandered as repressive while my own nation which I have served in its elite, with honor love devotion and respect, censures me.

I witnessed such brutalities against God’s most helpless creations that had these criminals been under my command I would have shot them dead on the spot as war criminals and to save lives of the innocent and defenseless. In short these people were the most ruthless brutal, sadistic sociopaths I have ever witnessed, including FMLN terrorists of El Salvador. They took an obvious sadistic enjoyment in torturing, maiming, killing and humiliating the helpless that I have never witnessed elsewhere. Their cowardice was unconscionably evil and demonic.

Israel’s American spy, Jonathan Pollard
Q: In one of your notes, you had mentioned that “anti-American” anti-Christian graffiti were prevalently seen in the streets of Israel as well as the commendation of Jonathan Pollard whom the American people consider a traitor. Would you please explain more about Israel’s treason to the United States? The U.S. has always been a staunch supporter, financer and patronage of Israel. How come Israel has betrayed the United States, at least culturally?

A: The traitor spy Jonathon Pollard is a folk-hero in Israel. The graffiti was legion in smaller towns that are not frequented by naive gullible American ‘tourists.’ Tel Aviv is the Jew version of the Soviet Potemkin Village deception, always sanitized so as not to show Americans the truth about how they and America are despised.

When Jew shill newspaperman Walter Durante was given a tour of the USSR and Ukraine, all the visited villages were given a complete sanitizing of any terrorizing and ethnic cleansing of the Kulak farm owners who had systematically been murdered by the millions.

The result was of course history. Durante was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his lies about the wonderful treatment of the people by the monster Stalin and his all secret police who murdered some 15 million Ukrainian farmers.

The same lies are perpetrated daily in Israel with Tel Aviv as the showcased city of ‘American Christian loving Jews.’ Pollard, the most injurious traitor in American history is not just considered okay with the Jews. He is an urban legend there! He is their national hero as was obvious by endless graffiti with anti American slogans and pro- Pollard slogans.

How come? Treason is an Israeli thing. At about two percent of the population in the USA – over 90% of the convicted spies in America have been Jews including one Congressman! Here is a comment by a prominent Jew leader of what they really say behind our backs
“My opinion of Christian Zionists? They’re scum. But don’t tell them that. We need all the useful idiots we can get right now.” — Benyamin Netanyahu, at the time a former Israel Prime Minister
The Jews there hold America and Americans in total contempt and ridicule, especially because of our Christian heritage, our founding Fathers and our Christian based Constitution.

Here is yet another example of the mockery arrogance and ridicule the Israeli leaders have for America and our leaders. Unfortunately in this case, he is not lying as Israelis usually do:
“I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.”
Ariel Sharon to Shimon Peres, October 3rd, 2001, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio.
Here is a typical incident of the type I experienced personally or frequently heard of while there.

At one of the many roadblocks, usually manned by a small IDF military unit, we stopped our armored vehicle just long enough for the CIA to ‘inspect’ the situation.

I got outside and overheard 2 of these young soldiers speaking. Much to my surprise, they had Brooklyn accents! I asked them where they were from, and they answered New York. Apparently they had left the States to serve a foreign power – remember – these were American citizens, who just happened to be Jews.

Puzzled at this bizarre reply, I decided to give benefit of doubt and responded with something like: “Boy, you guys are really something ¬ having served the military of our country; remember, they were American citizens, and then investing your time in a ‘feeling for duty’ to Israel”.

They answered proudly and without hesitation: “Oh no – we haven’t served in the United States military – there’s no way.” Then they both broke out in a cynical almost convulsive mocking laughter. So if there is any doubt where their loyalties lie; consider their unabashed answer of contemptuous scorn for the notion of patriotically serving in uniform for America.

I can’t think of any male American citizen who would sneer at serving the United States but willingly owed their loyalties to say Italy, or Greece or Ireland, or France or Germany, just because his ancestors were of that ethnic group. And if one such person voiced such an opinion, you can imagine what people would think of him. But of course, apparently if you are Jewish, such odious and openly proud mockery of love of this country is acceptable conduct. I observed this disgusting phenomenon everywhere there and not only with the IDF. So much for the loyalty of the average American Jew to America.

Q: The U.S. mainstream media, as you once indicated, don’t give realistic coverage to the plight of the Palestinian nation under the Israeli suppression and occupation. What’s the reason? Will the media feel threatened if they sound critical of Israel? Are there certain political lobbies which influence the U.S. media?
 
A: The reason is quite obvious to any thinking American citizen. Jews have total control of all mainstream news media from newspapers to periodicals to television; what I call Talmudvision. As for feeling threatened to speak the truth, you must understand that all of these news people writers news anchors producers journalists are either Jews or Jew loyal. One example, Fox news for instance is owned by the Jew Rupert Murdock.

There are literally hundreds of Jewish lobbies in America; all seditious, all violent, all treasonous, all working as parasites for the betterment of their tribe and to the peril of the American people. The ADL, AIPAC, JDL and SPLC are examples.

You speak of lobbies which influence U.S. media. I believe this needs clarification. The U.S. media is already virtually 100% Jewish! They need no ‘lobbies’ to support them and they are all controlled by Jews in America.

A fact: six Jewish companies control over 96% of the entire world’s entertainment and news media. It would take a hundred single spaced pages of small print to list them all!

Here are a very few examples of the endless list of debris that Godless Israelis use to destroy the wholesomeness goodness innocence and decency of our children 24-7 and I haven’t even included their violent video games: New World Entertainment – Ron Pearlman, Dream Works -Steven Spielberg, Viacom – Sumner Redstone [Murray Rothstein], CBS – Lawrence Tisch, Sony Entertainment – Michael Schulhof, Warner Music & Warner vision – Danny Goldberg & Stuart Hearsch, Time Warner Publishing – Norman Pearlstine, Disney Pictures – Joe Roth and Miramax – Weinstein Brothers!

Q: You have had the experience of visiting Israel in person. How has been the treatment of Palestinian children and women by Israelis? I don’t have a pre-disposition, but from your articles, I can understand that the Israeli soldiers behave toward the Palestinian children and women quite brutally. Is that right?

A: I had substantial experience observing the treatment of Palestinian children by the IDF and it was always brutal, barbaric, cruel, dehumanizing and often ended in outright cold-blooded murder. The average American simply either never gets to see or hear of these war crimes against children or doesn’t believe anybody could be that sadistic or, sadly, they just don’t consider a Palestinian’s life is worth anything as they have been infected with the Israeli mentality that these children and all Arab people in general are nothing more than “cockroaches,” “sand-niggers,” “camel-jockeys” and “rag -heads”

These vicious, cruel, senseless, dehumanizing, demeaning terms are used by the highest echelons of our corrupt Godless military by ambitious sociopathic war criminals like General McChrystal and his replacement General Petraeus, both scum of the earth. As a former company commander I can tell you that troops use racial slurs with impunity only with full approval of their superiors. What I and my brother officers would have considered as unconscionable, barbaric, racist and filth fifty years ago, has become common fare in the military today, I am sad to say.

Under the Israeli occupation, Palestinian citizens live in a constant state of trepidation, fear and anxiety

One incident burned in my mind in particular, not only for the barbarity and cruelty of the act in itself, but because of the frequency of these child murders as attested to me personally by CIA officials I was in the company of that day, who had witnessed such horrors as routine frequent and all in cold-blood just for meanness.

In Gaza City outskirts our IDF jeep escort suddenly came to a screeching halt and a soldier with an FNFAL jumped out and ran to the close by roadside to confront his threat and nemesis, a half naked 5 year old child, standing by the roadside with tears streaming down his dusty cheeks, standing defiantly against the fifth most powerful military in the world, arms raised high, brandishing his threatening weapon, an egg sized pebble.

This ‘terrorist’ I was later told, was probably an orphan who had witnessed his home bulldozed to rubble, his olive trees uprooted , his sister raped and his parents murdered by IDF terrorists. There he stood trembling but defiant, knowing he would be dead in a matter of seconds. The ‘brave’ Israeli drew his weapon down to an aiming position just as I leaped our of our embassy vehicle, raced to within a few feet of the Jew and aimed my camera at the would be murderer and screamed that he had better kill all of us if he murdered that child as I would show the pictures to the entire free world press.

He gave me a dirty look, uncocked his rifle, rose to his feet and returned to his jeep. I breathed a sigh of relief and returned to the CIA vehicle. Inside when we got under way, one of operatives seated next to me said, “You know you just saved that kid’s life!” Before I could even gather my wits to respond, a second member of the troop commented that, “Yes, but so what? That kid won’t live to see the end of the week. They shoot them like rats here in their own land”. Nobody else spoke for sometime and I never forgot the message of the incident.

The Israelis there knew no bounds to their cruelty, whether murdering journalists or baby children; the more vicious and sadistic the act the better they liked it. One particularly savage twist to murdering children was to allow the snipers to take with them vicious hungry attack dogs. For their amusement, these sick people would shoot the child and then turn the dogs loose while the bereaved, horrified parents, friends and relatives would try in vain to recover the body of their precious child before it was eaten. This of course added an additional perverted twist to the murder of the helpless child as the snipers then shot the parents of the child as they attempted to reach their baby.

These incidents were well documented by international human rights groups, physicians and eye witnesses. Try as I might; no Jew-controlled American newspaper would carry the story as it would be an embarrassment to our fine brave moral Israeli allies and besides. It was not as important in the eyes of most Americans as the all important NFL Super Bowl ‘games’. Look up the definition of ‘games’: diversions for children. Thus so is the priority of the American people today.

The Jew IDF has also frequently used children tied up on their military vehicles to be used as human shields. I witnessed this cowardly act at least once. Their level of cowardice of these Jews made me sick to my stomach!

Perhaps the most vile and reprehensible acts commonly committed by the IDF was the practice of murdering a pregnant Palestinian mother by shooting her through her belly in such a way as to murder the unborn child as well. It was such a common occurrence that these brave moral soldiers would wear special T-shirts that would show the Mother with a sniper’s crosshairs over her stomach with the caption: “ONE SHOT- TWO KILLS”. Once again – these things cannot happen in any civilized nation’s military without express permission and approval of the authorities.

Had I approved of my men doing such a vile reprehensible act years ago, I would have been relieved of my command – court marshaled – and dishonorably discharged and righteously so! But as I stated before, the IDF is an oppressive terrorist organization, not a civilized military for the defense of a nation against aggressors. They convict themselves by their own actions. They are the only modern military on earth that has ever disgraced themselves in such an abominable fashion. That is a fact!

I could write volumes regarding the atrocities of the Israeli IDF against civilians, all well documented and corroborated, but hopefully the few examples I have presented will give testimony to the criminal and demonic nature of these monsters.

Q: Do you consider Israel as one of the impediments to the betterment and improvement of Iran-U.S. relations? Iran has always complained that the United States supports Israel’s occupation of Palestine, covers up Tel Aviv’s nuclear program and uses Israel as a pretext to launch wars. Can we foresee the rapprochement of Iran and the United States with the presence of Israel?

A: Israel is not just “one of the impediments;” it is the only impediment to good relationships. As a patriot, father, journalist, veteran, former diplomat and contributor to the betterment of my nation, I and all rational, morally responsible, educated Americans I know consider Iran a friend whose sovereignty we respect.

Captain Joe Cortina says that the Americans should respect Iran’s sovereignty.


Iran is quite correct that the United States is a monumental hypocrite for supporting a stolen terrorist rogue state whose history is a seamless series of unprovoked terrorist activities against the indigenous people.

As to the reconciliation of Iran, which has committed no offense against the U.S. in any way, shape or form, and the United States, which is today an occupied nation and nothing more than Israel’s whore and attack dog, I should say that will never happen as long as the rogue criminal war mongering State of Israel exists.

Q: The United States has targeted Iran with economic embargoes, UN Security Council resolutions, an intensive media campaign and has sporadically talked of the possibility of a military strike against Iran. What’s your analysis of these threats? Can Washington bring Tehran to its knees by these ploys, especially through paralyzing Iran’s economy?

A: I believe the threats are as real as they are unfounded. The notion that we are somehow privileged to play God on who can and cannot have the benefits of nuclear power is an arrogance that I find personally offensive. We are the only nation to use atomic weaponry, and we used it to murder hundred of thousands of defenseless civilians in an already defeated nation. How courageous we were. Even more offensive to any rational person is the idea that we should call a country which was based upon terrorism of the worst kind; stolen from its previous rightful owners and is the only country on earth who has committed an act of war against America and the American people by purest definition, that is, the massacre of American sailors on the USS Liberty on the high seas.
Additionally the Israelis are the most immoral people on earth whose vile, wicked crimes against humanity and God Himself are legion, documented and endless! An attack against the sovereign nation of Iran will lead to WWII and the possible end of civilization as we know it.
Another senseless war for the greater glory of Israel will only further polarize America, further weaken our already Jew decimated economy and make our once loved and respected nation the most hated people on earth. I owe my children and grandchildren my uncompromised effort to restore and secure world peace which is the exact opposite of the goal of the Jews.

My guess is that the Iranian people have the grit and determination to withstand any and all embargos we would be foolish enough to do the Israelis bidding for.
All of this is solely about the ambitions of the Parasite State of Israel and its demonic dream of an ‘Ertz Israel’ to dominate the world. The Jew has already occupied and destroyed Russia, Germany and now my own country which is totally occupied by Jew money, influence, terror and extortion. They not only economically destroyed these nations, but have made them essentially atheist.

Lest we Gentiles and Arabs alike forget who has been responsible for more death and destruction than all other entities throughout history. It has been the Zionists and their invention, communism. Two world wars, half the world enslaved by communism and now Communism’s inseparable ally, Zionism are both manifestations of the Devil.

Q: What’s your idea on the revolutionary wave which has encompassed the Middle East since early 2011? Will the Arab Spring have influences on and implications for Israel? Will the empowerment of Islamic parties in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt have a negative impact on Israel’s security?
 
A: Here I am departing from things I know as truths from study travel and personal experience. I can only hope that my logical conclusions are correct. I was witness to part of the First Intifada, which I and others consider the same message as the Arab Spring: both seeking human rights, dignity and freedom for Arab people. That little child whose life I apparently saved on that hot dusty street in Gaza was the embodiment of the whole thing as I saw it. No sane human being wants war!

The only people I have seen in my life who thrive on wars and the misery it brings are Jews. On that issue, I know much the Israelis do not want peace. They want war! Want to know why? Because stupid goy will always be there to do their fighting for them. WWII? The Germans didn’t want war. Name one act of war against America by the Germans committed before we waged war against them. It doesn’t exist; yet every American school child somehow believes the lie that we were attacked by Germany. I am also a historian and specialist in the realm of Atlantic warfare, before as well as after we entered.

All of the offensive provocations at sea were committed by U.S., and not the Germans. That is not my opinion and I can prove it if necessary. Once again who profited most by WWII? Of course the Jews. I noticed that anywhere we fought Communists, Jews were glaringly absent from the military. I personally trained over a thousand young warriors during Vietnam, the Berlin Crisis and the Cuban Crisis period. Guess how many of the Jews were involved? None Not even one Jew did I see in uniform.

As to the question of Israeli security, the Jews will be as secure as they really want to be. If they stop murdering, robbing, torturing, humiliating and destroying Arabs and their property, then there will be no reason for them to fear reprisals for justice. If your family sends thugs to brutalize or murder my children, I will go to your family and kill everyone including your cats and dogs. If you do not needlessly harm my family, I will not have any reason to attack you. It is just that simple.

What all Arab people need to do is to put aside petty squabbles and unite for a common moral cause. Of course we are now your enemy, not in my mind but because the Jews who run my country say so. You are not my enemy. My enemy are the Jews but my people are too stupid or to complacent to understand that fact. You people need to all come together, call it what you like; Jihad, Intifada, al-Thawrāt al-Arabiyyah, but be resolved in your goal, keep free and defend your families form Jew aggression, and if dirt rich oil Arab Sheiks do not also make the commitment, they are not ‘your’ people. I know; we have the same problem here.

Q: The Arab Spring started quite promptly, unexpectedly. A street vendor set himself ablaze in protest at the mistreatment he had suffered by the police, and the street protests began, which consequently changed the whole Arab world. Could Israel and the United States evade the negative consequences of Arab Spring? What will be their strategy to counter its possible effects?

A: Does it really matter if it is a fruit peddler who is abused or a parent who has watched their child murdered? Should not All Arab people share the pain of indignities, humiliations, theft, beatings and murders of innocents at the hand of the Israelis, or sadly in this case, at the hands of their allies like the British, for whom I have nothing but resentment for reasons that could fill a book, or Americans, who are as guilty as anyone else.

We are taught from childhood that there are consequences for our actions; were we not? I have fought as well as I could for justice to the Arab people for many years of my adult life, so my conscience does not burden me with the sins of my countrymen. I have preached the truth, even as I do now, to all who have the wisdom to recognize it. I have encouraged my own people to embrace the enemies of our enemy; the Jews as they would their brothers. It is a difficult task at best.
You see, as a moral Christian person, I see no “negative” consequences of a people who wish freedom and dignity for themselves and their families, in this case, your people. My country’s Founding Fathers believed exactly as I do and you do. It is only the perversions of Jew influence that has poisoned my people’s minds. Perhaps it may be to your surprise but many of our Founding Fathers warned us centuries ago of the evils of the Jews.
Consider this ominous council of George Washington: “The Jews work more effective against us than the enemy’s armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in. It is much to be lamented that each State, long ago, has not hunted them down as pests to society and the greatest enemies we have, to the happiness of America,” From the Maxims of George Washington by AA Appleton.
A quotation from another Famous Founding Father Benjamin Franklin: “If you do not exclude them from these United States in this Constitution, in less than two hundred years they will have swarmed here is such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land and change our form of government, for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives, or substance, and jeopardized our liberty,” From notes gathered at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Sadly, good readers and friends of freedom, the above predictions have already morally and economically destroyed my country.

And finally with your permission may I quote form your sacred book, the wisdom of yet another world famous figure: “Whoever is a friend of the Jew, belongs to them, becomes one of them, God cannot tolerate this mean people. The Jews have wandered away from divine religion. They are usurpers. You must not relent in your work which must show up Jewish deceit,” The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) in the Koran.

The strategy of my corrupt occupied country will probably be another false flag disaster, designed to profane and slander Arab people. It will be done by the joint effort of the Mossad and the White House, of that you can be sure!

Q: And finally, what do you think regarding the recent uprisings in the Occupied Territories, marked by the self-immolation of four Israeli men who set themselves on fire to contest the growing social inequality and rising cost of living in the country. What’s your take on that?

A: Well; there wasn’t a lot of info on the events but I did read what was to be his suicide note. Before I read anything I was of course somewhat shocked as it was Israeli Jews who had burned themselves to death and not some bereaved widow who had witnessed her husband and children murdered by these same animals and had nothing to live for but being imprisoned by her Jew neighbors for the rest of her life. The man, Moshe Silman, was not a good man to begin with. He was been one of the IDF thugs responsible for countless deaths and suffering of the Palestinians.

My first reaction was good riddance: one less evil Jew. Then I thought, perhaps he had seen the light and could no longer live with his guilt of causing so much innocent human suffering of completely innocent civilians. I mean, after all, even Judas repented for his treason, and he is the only Jew I have ever actually read documented proof of being remorseful, but after I read the suicide note, I realized this was nothing more than a typical, self-serving, whiny Israeli.

His ostensibly last formal thoughts on earth were not repentance or guilt or compassion for the real suffering of his fellow man. My take? Here is another self centered Israeli whose concerns were money and not being treated well. He damned war criminal Netanyahu. Did he curse him for the horrors he had committed in the name of his fellow compatriots? No; that would be too noble. He was apparently angry because he didn’t get well treated after doing his duty murdering Palestinian children. He spoke of large sums of money he had paid, so he had earned lots of money somewhere.

I wonder if he ever thought that he lived a hundred times better than the poor Palestinians he starved, beat, humiliated and murdered. I will stay with my first reaction. He just got a dose of what he had been handing out for so long. Perhaps a few hundred thousand more Israelis should follow his example, and make the world a safer place for human beings. I kept looking for the “thank you” for the thousands of tax dollars I have been forced to give him and other Israeli reptiles over the years; the money I could have given my own family.

In closing, I hope that that my Iranian friends have gained some insight into the problems we have in my country and that there still are many of us here who do not bear any ill will towards Iran as there is no rational reason to. We are the educated, informed, moral people of my country and even though we may now be in the minority because of mass ignorance here, we do know who the real enemy is, and long for our own freedom from his occupation. The true Christian is all but ‘extinct’ in America, long since infiltrated and infected with the most fatal disease mankind has ever encountered: Judaism. Even the Pope who I was taught was ‘infallible’ since childhood has become an evil man, poisoned by the Jews. He is now a hypocrite and the enemy of truth!

We true Christians love our Muslim brothers as ourselves, and we are persecuted for it by our own people.

The overall arch enemy here of all my people? Mass ignorance! The Israeli is only the opportunist who knows how naive and gullible our people are, so we are easily led to drink from his shiny seductive cup of poison.

The Israeli was, is and always will be a parasite that takes it’s sustenance by sucking the life blood from it’s host victim until there is nothing left but a desiccated morally rotted corpse, a shell of what we once were. Only a fool would befriend and trust an Israeli. The reason that these wicked, demonic people hate our Founding Fathers is because they knew the truth, and tried to warn us, almost two hundred and fifty years ago!

 Source

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Torturing Children: Official Israeli Policy

This is not an actual torture victim, the foul Zionist don't release their photos to the public
By Stephen LendmanContributor
theintelhub.com


Israel treats children like adults. Only two countries impose life without parole (LWOP) sentences on minors – America and Israel.

Israel is a signatory to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). It’s explicit and binding provisions state:

“every human being” below 18 is a child;

their economic, social and cultural rights, safety and welfare must be protected “without discrimination of any kind” with regard to “race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status,” including their “right to life….survival (and) development;”

all measures shall be taken to protect children from physical and mental violence, exploitation or ill treatment; and

children deprived of liberty shall be treated with humanity and not subjected to torture or other abusive or degrading treatment.

International human rights and humanitarian law demand it.

Israel spurns CRC and other international law with impunity. Studies document it. A new one conducted by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) titled “Children in Military Custody” discussed horrendous abuses.

From September 10 – 17, a delegation comprised of nine lawyers visited Israel and the West Bank. They included a former attorney general, a former appeals court judge, and several lawyers known as QCs. They evaluated how Palestinian children are treated under Israeli military law.

On July 29, 2009, Israeli General Gadi Shamni signed Military Order No. 1644. It established the “first-instance military court for youth, presided over by a single juvenile-court judge or by a panel led by a juvenile-court judge.”
It states:

“The head of the military Court of Appeal must appoint judges from the first instance court in the military court.”

“The judges must be prepared to be competent for the post of juvenile judges after the approval of the head of the Court of Appeal to be appointed as juvenile judges for a certain period, which has been identified.”

It also requested court sessions be “as separate as possible” from regular ones for adults. In addition, a Civil Administration welfare report on the defendant’s family should be issued “if the court believes this necessary to determine the minor’s verdict.”

Under Military Order No. 132, minors are categorized as follows:
children are under age 12;
youths are from 12 – 14;
young adults are between 14 and 16; and
at age 16, minors become adults.

According to CRC, adulthood begins at age 18.

In practice, children are treated like adults. According to Defence for Children International (DCI) representative Khaled Quzmar:

“After reading the order I can say that there is nothing new.”

“They are just playing with words and trying to make useless cosmetic changes to hide the realities of the military system itself.”

“This military order also gives incredible authority to the military prosecutor who can give permission to override a series of clauses in the order itself.”

“Military Order 1644 exempts all hearings to determine whether a child should be kept in pre-trial detention until the end of the legal proceedings from the requirement of having to be heard before a ‘juvenile judge.”

In September 2011, Israel issued Military Order 1676. It raised the age for children to 18. It states parents should be told and legal counsel provided.

Language lacked specifics. The order circulated only in Hebrew. Doing so violates international law. Moreover, youths of any age are denied basic rights.

They’re abusively treated. They’re prosecuted in military courts. In practice, they don’t differentiate defendants by age.

Children 12 and under may be imprisoned. Parents and legal counsel aren’t permitted with them during interrogations. Offenses most often allege stone throwing. Many youths are falsely charged.

They can be held for weeks without access to lawyers. They can be imprisoned up to two years. Complaints filed are ignored. FCO said:

“a significant number of allegations of physical and emotional abuse of child detainees by the military which neither the complaints system nor the justice system is addressing satisfactorily.”

Prosecuted Israeli and Palestinian children for similar alleged offenses face vastly different treatment.

Israel doesn’t dispute that “major differentials (exist) between the (military) law governing the treatment of Palestinian children and” how civil law treats Israeli youths.

Separate and unequal defines Israeli policy. It stems from the belief that “every Palestinian child is a potential terrorist.”

FCO determined “undisputed facts.” At least six CRC provisions were violated.
Most Palestinian minors are arrested pre-dawn at home. Heavily armed soldiers accost them. They’re painfully tied or shackled. They’re brutalized and intimidated during arrest, transfer and interrogation procedures.

Offenses amount to torture. Legal rights are entirely denied. So is bail most often. Nearly all charged receive custodial sentences inside Israel. From arrest until release, treatment is brutal.

FCO’s report documents grievous international law breaches. Cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment is policy. So is institutionalized racism.

Council for Arab-British Understanding Director Chris Doyle called Palestinian youth and adult prosecutions “nothing less than a kangaroo court that does nothing to improve Israel’s security while criminalizing an entire generation of Palestinian children.”

Occupation harshness continues. Rogue state oppression inflicts enormous harm. Palestinians suffer grievously. Children feel it most. Many are severely traumatized.

Israel gets away with appalling crimes because world leaders don’t intervene. Public outrage has the best chance of pressuring them. Studies alone change nothing.



Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book is titled How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

Source

Friday, May 25, 2012

US lawyers express concern to Clinton over conditions of Palestinian prisoners

One of the largest lawyers' representative bodies in America has written an open letter to the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, urging her to apply pressure on her Israeli counterparts to end the illegal practice of administrative detention against Palestinian prisoners. 
 
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) has expressed its grave concern over the recent Palestinian hunger strike, highlighting the causes as "the widespread and illegal practice of administrative detention... horrendous living conditions and ill-treatment to which [Palestinian prisoners] are subjected to in Israeli prisons".
 
 The NLG highlighted further the use of long-term isolation and secret evidence in a military court system, and warns that hunger strikes will continue unless the prisoners' fundamental human rights are respected. The letter ends with a call for the immediate cessation of all US military aid to Israel, which amounts to $3.1 billion per annum. Read the full letter below:

Letter to Sec. Clinton Re: Palestinian Hunger Strikes
 
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Secretary Clinton,

Although the imminent threat of death for Palestinian hunger strikers has apparently been averted as the strikers have won concessions from Israeli authorities to improve their conditions, the National Lawyers Guild continues to express its grave concern over the issues that caused those approximately 2000 Palestinian prisoners to put their lives on the line. Those prisoners were protesting against the widespread and illegal practice of administrative detention, as well as the horrendous living conditions and ill-treatment to which they are subjected in Israeli prisons. It is regrettable that it has taken the mass near-starvation of Palestinian political prisoners to call attention to their plight.

The last minute concessions allowed Israel to avoid a volatile situation, both in its prisons and in the land it occupies. We call on you to insist that the Israeli authorities abide by their international obligations, respect international humanitarian and human rights laws, and implement the concessions they agreed to in good faith—and to do so publicly.

The written agreement apparently contains five main provisions:

* The prisoners would end their hunger strike following the signing of the agreement.

* Israel will end the use of long-term isolation of prisoners for “security” reasons, and the 19 prisoners currently in isolation will be moved out within 72 hours.

* Family visits for first degree relatives of prisoners from the Gaza Strip and for families from the West Bank who have been denied visit based on vague “security reasons” will be reinstated within one month.

* A committee will be formed to facilitate meetings between the Israeli Prison Service and prisoners in order to improve their daily conditions.

* There will be no new administrative detention orders or renewals of administrative detention orders for the 308 Palestinians currently in administrative detention, unless the secret files, upon which administrative detention is based, contains “very serious” information.

Unfortunately, Israeli authorities have not agreed to end their widespread use of indefinitely renewable administrative detention by military courts, based on secret evidence, without charge or trial. This practice is in violation of international humanitarian law, which permits the limited use of administrative detention but nevertheless requires a fair hearing at which the detainee can hear the evidence against him/her and challenge the bases for continued detention. This is also a fundamental tenet of due process rights and is required by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), in particular Article 14 paragraph 3 (a), which provides that everyone be entitled to “be informed promptly and in detail in a language which he understands of the nature and cause of the charge against him.” The policy of administrative detention contravenes these basic international human rights standards as the evidence against these detainees is submitted in secret to the military court and neither the detainees nor their lawyers are given access to it. Since the detainees do not know the evidence against them, they are unable to refute it or otherwise defend themselves.

Administrative detainees have in the past included, and will likely continue to include many Palestinians involved in organizing non-violent political activity. They have also included elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Currently 24 Palestinian MPs are in administrative detention, effectively disabling the governing body.

According to data in the military courts’ annual report, obtained several months ago by Haaretz, a leading Israeli newspaper, 98.77 percent of requests for administrative detention have been approved by military courts over the past few years. One third of the 308 currently held detainees have been held between one and two years, 13 have been held between two and four and a half years, and two have been held for even longer. Several individuals have been subjected to administrative detention several times, with aggregate time served in detention sometimes exceeding 10 years.

According to Human Rights Watch: “The idea that you can lock up 100s of people at any given time—and over the years 100s and 1000s of people—without any due process rights, really turns human rights law on its head.” The UN Human Rights Committee has consistently said that administrative detention is practiced by Israel in an unlawful way. In response to the mass hunger strike, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanded that all the administrative detainees “must be charged and face trial with judicial guarantees, or be released without delay.” We urge the US government to make this same demand concerning present and future administrative detainees.

Israel has consistently failed in the past to respect the agreements it has entered into with Palestinians regarding prisoners’ issues, including the use of long-term isolation. The release of Palestinian leader Ahmad Sa’adat, held in isolation since March 18, 2009, and the return of all isolated prisoners to the general population were the primary demands of the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike of October 2011. That strike ended with Israeli concessions that were not kept. Long-term isolation, up to 10 years in one case, continued. Ahmad Sa’adat remained isolated. Solitary confinement also continued to be systematically used pre-trial as a means of isolating detainees and coercing them to confess.

As we are sure you are aware, on October 18, 2011, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez, speaking before the UN General Assembly, called for all use of isolation longer than 15 days to be banned, saying that isolation can cause “severe mental pain or suffering” and “can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment, during pre-trial detention, indefinitely or for a prolonged period… solitary confinement should be banned by states as a punishment or extortion technique.” We therefore urge you to insist that Israel respect the obligations it has just entered into concerning putting an end to its illegal use of isolation.

This is not the first mass Palestinian prisoner hunger strike. Nor is it likely to be the last time that prisoners put their lives and health at stake in an effort to defend their dignity and human rights within a military justice system that is rife with physical and psychological torture, abuse, and deprivation.

Hunger strikes are virtually the only way that their voices can be heard. It is imperative that the US government hears the voices of Palestinian prisoners and takes action to secure and protect their fundamental rights. Their lives depend on it.

Given the likelihood that human rights and humanitarian law violations will continue to be committed and condoned by the Israeli military courts, in particular the widespread use of administrative detention, it is unconscionable that the United States continues its military aid of over $3.1 billion a year to Israel—and even discusses adding an additional $1 billion. In light of the violations we have outlined above, the National Lawyers Guild calls for the immediate cessation of all military aid to Israel.

Sincerely,
Heidi Boghosian
Executive Director
National Lawyers Guild

Monday, April 9, 2012

IOF soldiers arrest 86 Palestinians in one week including 20 children

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested 86 Palestinian citizens in the past week including 20 children and six ex-prisoners, who were held in PA jails.

Hamas movement said in a weekly report said that the children are 14 to 18 years old; adding that among the detainees was Qud Press correspondent Mohammed Mona.

It said that most of those detainees were rounded up in Qalqilia (25) while 13 were detained in occupied Jerusalem.

 Source

Monday, April 2, 2012

Barghouthi Forced Back Into Solitary Confinement

Marwan Barghouthi
by Saed Bannoura

Elected Palestinian Legislator, senior Fateh leader, Marwan Barghouthi, was forced back into solitary confinement, while his lawyer, Elias Sabbagh, was prevented from seeing him for more than a month now; Barghouthi spent more than 1000 days in solitary confinement since he was kidnapped in 2002.

The Popular Campaign for the Release of Marwan Barghouthi and All Political Prisoners, issued a press release denouncing the illegal Israeli policies, and stating that Barghouthi was forced back into solitary confinement after he called on the Palestinian people to step-up their nonviolent resistance activities against the occupation and its illegal settlements.

The detained leader called for maintaining popular resistance activities, even when and if, peace talks with Israel are resumed, and stated that the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank must demand the release of all political prisoners before peace talks can be resumed.

He also stated that the leadership must demand Israel to completely stop all
of its violations, including all settlement construction and expansion activities, in addition to demanding a clear Israeli recognition of the 1967 borders as the borders of the independent Palestinian State, with East Jerusalem as its capital, before peace talks can be resumed.

Furthermore, Barghouthi called on the Palestinian Authority to resume its international political activities, by heading to the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations, to demand full membership and full statehood recognition.

His statements came as he marks 10 years behind Israeli bars; the leader, sentenced by an Israeli military court to more than 540 years, spent more than a 1000 days in solitary confinement, and interrogation.

Even when Barghouthi was not forced into solitary confinement, he was imprisoned in larger cells with other senior political detainees, in order to prevent him from communicating with other political prisoners.

The campaign said that Barghouthi is being punished for calling on the Palestinians to achieve national unity, increasing the scope of nonviolent resistance against the Israeli occupation, the Annexation Wall and Settlements, and for calling on the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to stop all sorts of security coordination with Israel.

The detained leader spent a total of 17 years in Israeli prisons (including previous arrests and imprisonments), he was also exiled by Israel for seven years and was only allowed back into the country after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority following the singing of the Oslo Peace Agreement in 1993.

Barghouthi was one of the senior detained political leaders who drafted the National Reconciliation Document that set the strategies and the unified vision of different Palestinian factions, including Fateh and Hamas; the document, along with Mecca and Cairo Agreements, became the foundation for ending internal conflict and maintaining national unity (Although not fully implemented yet).

Source

Friday, March 16, 2012

Serious deterioration in the health of Palestinian detainee

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Palestinian captive, Hana’ al-Shalabi  enters today her 30th day of hunger strike. She informed her lawyer that she stopped taking salt and is only taking water and that she will continue until her release.

According to her lawyer, Raed Mahameed, that Shalabi was examined by a doctor from Physicians for Human Rights and the doctor said that she suffers from law heart beat rate, law blood sugar, loss of weight, weakness in muscles, yellowing of the eyes and high levels of salt  in the blood which affected her kidneys causing her pain in her sides specially the left side as well as pain in chest bones.

 Physicians for Human Rights said that Shalabi cannot sleep because of pain, she also suffers dizziness and blurred and occasional loss of vision.

Salabi told Mahameed that she took salt last week but refused to take any salt and is living on two litres of water  a day.

 Head of the legal unit at the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), Jawad Poulos, said that he applied to Ofer court to have an early review of Shalabi's case.

The PPS said, in a statement on Thursday, that the legal unit at the PPS and the defence team of Shalabi view with extreme concern the failure of the court to look into the defence appeal.

14 other captives continue with their hunger strike in solidarity with Shalabi, while popular protests in solidarity with her continued. A number of people, including Quds satellite channel were injured when IOF troops fired teargas at people holding a protest outside Ofer prison, west of Ramallah.

Participants held pictures of Shalabi and captive Kifah Hattab from Tulkarem who is on 21st day of hunger strike in solidarity with Shalabi

Meanwhile, in Burqin, the home town of Shalabi, the school girls marched in protest at her arrest and serving her with administrative detention without charge or real trial.


 Source

Saturday, March 3, 2012

IOA renews administrative detention of former minister

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) has renewed the administrative detention of former minister of local government Issa Al-Ja’bari for fourth months for the third time running.

Ja’bari was arrested on 3/5/2011 from his home in Al-Khalil and was previously held by the IOA for 30 months for occupying the ministerial portfolio in the tenth Palestinian government formed by Hamas. He was earlier held for seven years in IOA jails.

The former minister has a BA in chemical engineering and another BA in Islamic Sharia.

The IOA has recently escalated its policy of administrative detention, which orders imprisonment of Palestinian citizens at the pretext of posing “threat” to Israel without trial or declared charges.

The IOA held 37 Palestinians under administrative detention in February and renewed the administrative custody of 54 others in the same month.

 http://www.palestine-info.co.uk

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Israeli court delays verdict on hunger striker

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The Israeli military court in Ofer has decided on Wednesday to postpone verdict on the administrative custody of Palestinian young woman Hana’a Shalabi that was challenged by its lawyer.

The lawyer Jawad Bulous said that the court adjourned without specifying another date for its next hearing in the case of Hana’a who has been on hunger strike for 14 days.

He said that the judge adjourned to get acquainted with the secret report against Hana’a tabled by the Israeli intelligence.

The lawyer said that the administrative detention was passed against Hana’a at the pretext she was posing a threat to Israel’s security and to safety of the people. He added that the charge also includes planning attacks on Israel after her release in the prisoners’ exchange deal between Hamas and Israel.

He said that the defense team refuted all charges and demanded her immediate release, and drew the attention to the fact that the defendant was on hunger strike since her arrest two weeks ago.

Bulous said that Hana’a arrived to court from Hasharon jail exhausted from her hunger strike, but stressed that she would continue in her strike.

MP Samira Al-Halaika expressed discontent with the degree of solidarity with Hana’a, saying that the solidarity with Hana’a did not rise up to the situation of a young woman on hunger strike for two weeks.

She said that there should be a strategy for dealing with the Israeli administrative detention, which holds Palestinians in custody without charge.

The lawmaker said that the Palestinian people should escalate their objection to the detention against Hana’a and before her Khader Adnan, who waged a 66-day hunger strike before the Israeli court agreed to release him in April, into a wave of protests against the policy itself of administrative detention.

 http://www.palestine-info.co.uk

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Hunger-Striking Detainee Moved Back To Security Detainees Facility

Hana' Mother Carrying Her Picture
by Saed Bannoura

The Israeli Prison Administration moved, on Tuesday, hunger-striking female detainee, Hana’ Ash-Shalabi, to the security prisoners branch of the Ha-Sharon Israeli prison, after she was previously moved to the section where prisoners held on criminal charges are detained. 


The Israeli Prison Administration moved , on Tuesday, hunger-striking female detainee, Hana’ Ash-Shalabi, to the security prisoners branch of the Ha-Sharon Israeli prison, after she was previously moved to the section of were prisoners held on criminal charges are held.

Omar Ash-Shalabi, the brother of Hana’ told the Palestinian WAFA news agency that the International Red Cross managed to visit her on Tuesday, and that she informed the Red Cross that she was moved back to the section in question.

He said that she believes that measure was taken in an attempt to force her to end the hunger-strike she started more than 13 days ago. She is currently in need of medical glasses.

The Red Cross informed her family that she has high spirit, and that she is determined to continue her hunger-strike, until the Administrative Detention order that was served against her without charges is voided.

It is worth mentioning that Hana’ will be having a court hearing on Wednesday as the court will be looking into her case, the Red Cross said.

Hana’s was taken prisoner only four months after she was release under the Prisoner-Swap deal that was mediated between Israel and the resistance in Gaza.

 http://www.imemc.org/article/63078

Saturday, February 25, 2012

New Video Showing Israeli Soldiers Abusing A Cuffed, Blindfolded Palestinian

Snap Shot From The Video On Youtube
by Saed Bannoura

A new video showing Israeli soldiers abusing a cuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainee was released after being shot by a hidden camera in Ni’lin village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah.

 The video shows a cuffed and blindfolded Palestinian youth who was kidnapped during the weekly nonviolent protest against the illegal Israeli Annexation Wall and Settlements. These protests are organized by the local residents, along with Israel and International peace activists.

The cuffed Palestinian is seen on the ground while the soldiers are just moving him around, dragging his feet sometimes, and placing him in a sitting position against a wall next to another blindfolded and cuffed Palestinian.

It also shows the one of the soldiers standing next to him with his foot raised close to the head of the youth, posing as if he is going to crush his head while filming the abuse using what seems to be his mobile phone.

There have been several incidents where soldiers filmed themselves abusing detained Palestinians at roadblocks, and in other areas in the occupied territories.

In many other incidents, soldiers were caught on tape abusing the Palestinians, similar to the case of Ashraf Abu Rahma who was kidnapped in 2008, during a nonviolent protest against the Wall in Bil’in village, near Ramallah, and one soldiers had him stand near the military jeep while another soldier shot him in the leg at a close range.

Several soldiers even posted on Facebook videos they took of themselves or fellow soldiers while abusing Palestinians in the occupied territories.

In 2010, Israeli soldier Eden Abergil posted pictures on her personal Facebook page posing in front of Palestinians detained, cuffed and blindfolded at a roadblock in the West Bank.

Youtube Video Of The Abuse: February 23, 2012


 Related; Soldier Shooting Cuffed, Blindfolded Palestinian 



 http://www.imemc.org/article/63055

Friday, February 24, 2012

The Jewish Question and Racial Oppression today



http://redscribblings.wordpress.com

One reason why the years-long controversy over Gilad Atzmon has generated such rancour, and why conflicts related to it such as the recent purge of ‘anti-semites’ from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign have been so bitter, is because they threaten to re-open the Jewish question. There was a time when the Jewish question was a matter of considerable debate and public controversy among those seeking greater democracy and social and economic equality. Witness Marx’s celebrated essay The Jewish Question, among many others.

Jewish Children Liberated
from Auschwitz, 1945
It was of course, also a subject of dispute among those with the opposite aims as well. But since WWII the Jewish question has not really been explored as previously.
It is as if the Nazi genocide set a seal on it and made it one of those questions that had been ‘decided’, notwithstanding controversies around Israel which often involved major debates but which were ultimately considered to be something confined to the Middle East region. But now the decline of Israel’s moral authority, and the threat it poses to ‘world peace’, and crucially the nature of its worldwide support, means the Jewish question must be addressed again.

Re-opening it is not something that can be done lightly; the nature of the Jewish people and its historical role is intertwined with some of the most tragic and barbaric events in human history. It contains a number of paradoxes and subtleties and is complex and not easy to analyse. It has also undergone major, arguably fundamental changes since the Second World War, that have mainly been so far analysed almost exclusively through the narrow prism of looking at Israel and Zionism.

There has tended to be a division in the way that socialists and progressive political thinkers have looked at this. Questions involving Israel come under the heading of ‘colonialism’ and imperialism, whereas the Jewish communities in the advanced countries at least have tended to be looked at one of several ethnic minority communities, mainly as potential targets of racial discrimination and right-wing extremism. The division of the Jewish question into two different ‘compartments’ has however been objectively undermined by the rise to prominence of aggressive, powerful pro-Israel Jewish organisations, particularly in the United States but also in Western Europe, gradually over the past three decades or more. These have acquired considerable power. Politicians go out of their way to appease them, even though the formal electoral base that they represent is actually pretty small in all these countries without exception.

When Oppressed Become Oppressors

Palestinian Prisoners of Israeli Army
Any objective examination of the situation can only come to the conclusion that, in the advanced capitalist countries, the oppression of the Jews is no more. No government, or seriously contending opposition party anywhere in the advanced capitalist world propagates any form of hostility to Jews, and none has done so for a very long time. On the contrary, it is a badge of honour in bourgeois politics today to be vehemently pro-Israel, and to denounce any criticism of Israel from the left as ‘anti-semitic’.

In the United States, the hegemony of Israel’s supporters through such bodies is very strong – it is extremely difficult for any politician critical even of Israel’s most outrageous crimes against Palestinians to maintain a career in the main capitalist parties. Those that make such criticisms face organised and usually successful attempts to force them to grovel in apology if they are lucky, otherwise to unseat them outright. Administrations of both main parties fill many of their leading posts with rabid Zionists, from Rahm Emmanuel as White House Chief of Staff under Obama back to the neo-conservatives of the ‘Project for The New American Century’: the American-Zionist think tank that was the driving force of the Iraq war under the Bush administration.

In the UK we have a Labour Party that in government carried out a vehemently pro-Israel agenda under Blair and his Middle East special envoy and chief fundraiser, Lord Michael Levy, also known as ‘Lord Cashpoint’, a strident Zionist. Labour supported Israel’s bloodthirsty attack on Lebanon in 2006 – refusing even the usual mealy mouthed ceasefire demands – Israel bombed to kill and terrorise civiilans and destroy infrastructure but failed to defeat the Hezbollah fighters and so failed in its war aims.

Under Brown, it wrung its hands pathetically during the one-sided butchery of Gaza Palestinians in 2009′s ‘Operation Cast Lead’. While its chosen Zionist appointee as Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, banned an advert from the Disasters Emergency Committee to raise funds for humanitarian relief for Palestinian civilians. Thus the BBC under Labour endorsed Israel’s butchery.

At the base of the Labour Party, there is considerable disquiet with all this and anger at Israeli crimes reflecting, to some extent, changes in the trade unions which have now led to the TUC endorsing calls for a boycott of Israel, as have a number of important unions. There has been something of a growth of the Labour Friends of Palestine as a pale reflection of this change in the unions, though how influential it is in a party still heavily loaded with a neo-liberal, pro-Israel Blair-Brown derived cadre is highly doubtful.

Then there is the current government: Prior to the 2010 election, the Lib Dems were the least Zionist-influenced of the three main parties in Britain. In joining the Tories in government, they have become well-nigh invisible on this (as on so many other things). But 80% of Conservative MPs are sponsors of the Conservative Friends of Israel. The meaning of this is crystal clear for anyone with eyes to see. This is the same Tory party that backed the Smith regime in white-ruled ‘Rhodesia’ till it became unsustainable to continue any longer, that supported apartheid in South Africa to the hilt, whose youth leaders used to wear badges demanding ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’.

The similarity of this to their current infatuation with Israel is striking. Just as is the embrace of Israel by forces further to their right, from the pro-Zionist English Defence League and ‘British Freedom Party’ (currently allied with the Jewish Defence League – Israeli fascist followers of Meir Kahane), to the BNP’s own embrace of Israel and selection in recent years of Jewish candidates to run for council seats. This embrace of Israel by the traditionally imperialist, racist right – and the far right – speaks volumes about the real role of pro-Israeli agitation today. Support for Israel today is more and more a sign of racism and xenophobia, just as in the past was support for white ‘Rhodesia’ and apartheid South Africa.

‘Anti-racist’ racism

Though in today’s changed environment, where racist beliefs are widely discredited and it has rightly become social unacceptable to racially abuse others either individually or collectively, there is a big difference in the way this support for racist tyranny is articulated. The only way that the decades-long suppression of the Palestinian people, a racist political programme similar in degree and closely related, though not identical, to the oppression of black South Africans by the apartheid regime before 1989, can be given ideological legitimacy by the racist right, is by mendacious allegations of racism against Israel’s victims and their sympathisers.

The official reason why the Tory party, the BNP, the EDL, all the way to New Labour’s wretched neo-con cabals can deny that their support ot Israeli aparthied is racist, is by a narrative that says that the real problem is the alleged racism of the Arabs. Mendacious allegations of anti-semitism have become the main technique of reactionary bourgeois idelogues who are themselves racists, in excusing the racist oppression of the Palestinian people. This mendacity has two benefits from the point of view of those who propagate it. One is that is provides them with an alibi for racism. And two, the widespread propagation of false accusations of racism spreads cynicism about anti-racism itself, creating a popular perception that any and all form of opposition to racism is just a fraudulent game. Thus again, benefiting those ‘anti-racist’ liars who themselves have a racist agenda.

Roots of racism…

To cut through the nonsense, it is necessary to state some basic facts. One is that the essence of racism is not simply bad ideas in people’s heads. It is not hostility to some ‘other’ for its own sake – it is not mindless. Nor is it the situation where people who are themselves on the receiving end of systematic racial oppression come to hate and stereotype their oppressors. That may be regrettable and counter-productive, but it is not racism. Racism is an ideological weapon to justify the systematic oppression of entire peoples. If it is not that, it is meaningless. If there is no relation of systematic oppression, it becomes something chimerical, a subject of satire, like the various stupid sketches on some comedy shows where people with ginger hair complain about being victims of discrimination.

Racism in this sense is a product of capitalism, which is the first society in human history to create a state form around the concept of a nation, in which there was a partial homogenisation of the population around a (usually) standardised single language and a dominant, ‘national’ identity that in most cases originated in identification with a particular ethnic group, even if it is subsequently broadened. Not only did it create that state form, underpinned by an economic system that generated unprecedented economic dynamism and self-sustaining growth, but it used that power to enslave the populations of entire, distant continents, again on a scale that the mightiest pre-capitalist ruling class could only dream of.

At the same time as it did this, it gave birth to such concepts as ‘The Rights of Man’, ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” and other supposedly universal values. The contradiction between that, and the manner in which it treated the peoples it enslaved, could only be resolved by creating ideologies that demonised the victims of capitalist imperialism, that portrayed them as in some way unworthy of such rights. The ultimate expression of that was pseudo-scientific racism, that posited some kind of biological difference between ‘races’, that some ‘racial’ groups were sufficiently different in genetic terms to make them qualitatively inferior to the dominant ‘races’, in effect defining them as inferior sub-species.

That was the most consistent form of racist ideology, and found its ultimate expression in the racist theories of German fascism. Jews did not fit easily into this schema, as in general they were not a colonised people or a slave population, but a sometimes persecuted religious minority particularly in Christian Europe. As such they had been coerced, through exclusion from other fields of economic activity, into a characteristic role for practitioners of a ‘foreign’ religion, as bankers, and later usurers, to the kings and aristocracy in the early medieval period. As Abram Leon explained in his important book The Jewish Question – a Marxist Analysis, the Jews were the remnants of a people-class, and the their resistance to assimilation and most of their persecutions in the medieval period were the result of that economic role.

…and roots of genocide

With the rise of capitalism in the West, the Jews’ economic role became obsolete. Large numbers migrated to Eastern Europe and Russia, after being persecuted and driven out of their traditional feudal economic niches in the West by a new financial bourgeoisie. For a period of several centuries, they were again able to prosper, largely as traders rather than financiers until the 19th century brought about the decay of feudalism in the East also. Squeezed out of their economic niches again, the Jews were regarded as a surplus, alien population, and again subjected to persecution, leading to new migrations of many of them, this time back to Western Europe, as well as to North America, and a precarious existence for those who remained. Those that did not find their way into the emerging bourgeoisies themselves – which a layer did in America particularly – became a largely proletarianised or even pauperised section of the population, and the targets of a new form of hatred that drew on the kind of racist conceptions first used to justify slavery.

This was the oppressed stratum of the Jewish proletariat that played a significant role in pre-WWI Social Democracy, and later in the early Communist movement. Radicalised by their double oppression – exploited as workers, and targeted by racism for their Jewish origin, even though in a great many cases they abandoned ‘national’ sentiments entirely and became known for the most fervent internationalism. This is what reactionaries used to mean, more than anything else, when they targetted ‘international Jewry’ as if internationalism was some kind of curse word. From Hitler to Stalin, the worst monsters of the 20th Century ranted against ‘Jew-Bolshevism’ and ‘rootless cosmopolitanism’ respectively, and Hitler in particularly tried to exterminate this social layer without mercy.

In the USSR under Stalin, they were not exterminated, but subjected to arbitrary persecution and executions on the basis of perceived political sympathies, not ‘racial’ characteristics per se. That was the difference on this question between the Hitler and Stalin regimes, in that the Stalinists, while fearful of the internationalist spirit of Jewish workers, did not put it down to ‘racial’ characteristics and instead of wholesale extermination, used a mixture of co-optation, corruption, arbitrary repression and killings to destroy this layer morally and when neccessary, physically.

The upshot of this, however, is that this very important, oppressed layer of Jewish proletarians, whose existence and struggles were pivotal in defining the Jewish communities pre-WWII as an oppressed people, ceased to exist. That destruction is of utmost importance in analysing the Jewish question now, and the role of the Jewish communities today, as opposed to nearly three-quarters of a century ago, in the world order. How are the Jewish people(s) that exist today, as opposed to those that existed then, to be regarded? Are they in the ranks of the oppressed, or do they rank among the world’s oppressor peoples? Or is a more nuanced position that avoids either of those two polarities necessary? In examining it, it is necessary to look at the fate of those who survived, or managed to avoid, the terrible events of WWII.

Jews since the genocide

First of all, there were the relatively small groups of Zionist pioneers who migrated to Palestine from Europe and America before the tumultuous events of the 1930s. It is not necessary to say much about them since they were actually a small and quite isolated minority, who could command a certain degree of financial and political clout, but were short of numbers and mass support. So much so that it is highly likely that their project would have fizzled out, if it were not for the rise to power of Hitler in Germany and the resultant massacre of millions of Jews in Europe. This, and only this, provided them with reinforcements from the hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees – remnants of the murdered Central and East European Jews.

This desperate, easily manipulated population was indispensable in their programme of creating a Jewish state in an Arab-majority country like Palestine. Without that demographic it would have been an impossible task. Without such a terrible event as the Nazi genocide, there is no way that several hundred thousands of Jews could be induced to leave their homes in Europe voluntarily and migrate to the Middle East.

Then there are the Jews who emigrated to the United States. Today there are approximately 6.5 million Jews in the US, around 2% of the population. These have a long history, going back to the early days of the American republic. But large waves of immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and a limited influx post-WWII, increased its numbers to the point that it became, and is still, the largest Jewish population in the world – exceeding that of Israel.

To its shame, the US restricted Jewish immigration quite severely between the wars, on an explicitly racist basis, calculated to deliberately exclude Jews, among others. This was not significantly relaxed even during the Nazi genocide. Indeed influential Zionist luminaries agitated against measures to give Jews fleeing the Nazis refuge in places like Britain and the US, to try to coerce then to go to Palestine instead. They were largely successful in this.

Jews have at times been targeted by anti-semitism in the US, though to a lesser extent than in Europe. The rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan in 1913 was partly catalysed by the lynching of a Jewish teacher, Leo Frank, in Atlanta, Georgia, after a highly dubious murder case. It grew into a mass movement in the 1920s, and was strongly anti-semitic, though more or less disintegrated by the 1930s. In the 1930s, there were echoes of the anti-semitism in Europe; demagogues like Father Coughlin propagated Nazi-like anti-semitism over the airwaves. But this was limited by the logic of US imperialism’s development, which placed it on a collision course with Hitler’s Germany in what was ultimately a struggle for world domination.

Elements of anti-semitism were also visible to some extent in the McCarthy era, particularly over the execution of the Rosenbergs for spying for Russia in the early 1950s. Indeed, in the 1950s, unlike today, the Nazi genocide was something of a frowned upon subject, and those who made an issue of it were regarded as suspects, as were ‘premature anti-fascists’. Immediately after WWII, the US needed the help of ex-Nazis in a variety of fields, not least in developing its nuclear arsenal, so Nazi crimes tended to be played down.

But this was quite short-lived. The gradual ascent of Israel to be the US’s strategic ally in the Middle East, which was finally sealed in the 1967 Six-Day war, was the final nail in the coffin of any potential that might have existed for Jews to be pushed into a subordinate, oppressed status in the US. Parenthetically one could also add that this is also true in the UK, where however the Jewish population is relatively much smaller that in the US, 0.5% as opposed to 2%.

On most questions, Jews in the United States have tended to be socially liberal. Consistently they have maintained majority support for the Democratic Party since the days of the New Deal, with only slight variations. Jews played a significant role in the Civil Rights movement for black people, against Jim Crow segregation. In the earlier post-WWII period, the condition of Jewish people in America was undoubtedly no more advantageous that many other non-black minorities outside the WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) dominant group.

Changing fortunes

But while American capitalism has undergone both considerable absolute growth over the past few decades, as well as relative decline in its world economic clout, the fortunes of the Jewish population have improved dramatically. Jews are now undoubtedly, per head of population, the most successful minority group in the US by far, in terms of income, in terms of education, and in terms of relative economic power. According to the Israeli source YNetNews, Jews make up “more than 20 per cent of the Forbes 400″ which is the list of the wealthiest people in the United States – not bad for 2% of the population. This in contrast to the black population, which is still very much under-represented. This level of economic integration into the most powerful ruling class in the world means that Jews cannot be regarded, in the United States, as an excluded or oppressed population in any way.

The US also tends to set the benchmark for the rest of the advanced capitalist world – so smaller Jewish populations in countries like the UK experience a similar mainstream status, even when they are less numerous and hence possess relatively less power. They are still thoroughly respectable, as evidenced by the normal bourgeois discourse, which pointedly refers to the West as ‘Judeo-Christian civilisation’. There were times, not so long ago, when the ‘Christian’ West was not quite so inclusive.

So Jews today are not an oppressed people. What are they then? Are they an oppressor people?

Not outside Israel, no. In the United States they are (mainly, with a few exceptions) part of white America, but they are also a part that has generally had a more honourable record vis-a-vis the black American population. Jewish participation in the Civil Rights movement was considerable.

This has not always been completely pure, however – one important, relatively recent blemish on this was the mayoralty of Edward Koch in New York, in the 1970s and 80s, a Jewish mayor elected with a considerable Jewish electoral base, became known for abusive and racist policies towards the black population and managed to provoke some quite serious tensions between blacks and Jews, and some black anti-semitism in response. But this is fairly exceptional, Koch was a maverick, seeking to run at times both as a Democrat and a Republican, and not typical of Jewish politics in America, which tends to be pretty liberal.

Occasionally,you hear, derived from the Middle East conflict, the view that Jews in some way oppress ordinary mainstream Americans by their demands. This particular accusation is sometimes raised by misguided Palestinian supporters looking for allies, as well as remnants of the old anti-semitic right. It is paranoid nonsense. Jews are a tiny percentage of the US population and are not remotely capable of that. This allegation is in fact a vestige of the old anti-semitism, but it is irrelevant and impotent today. The mainstream respectability of the Jews in the US and the West in general is not going to reversed barring some totally outlandish catastrophe.

Oppression from a distance

In Israel, Jews are clearly an oppressor people. There is no getting away from this, Jews live on land taken by force from the Arabs, they enforce racist laws on citizenship and land ownership, and the majority of the Palestinian Arab population from what is now Israel proper has been driven into exile. Not only that, but Israeli laws extend the right of Israeli citizenship to every Jew that fits the Israeli definition worldwide – even if they have never set eyes on the place, while depriving hundreds of thousands of Arabs refugees who were born there, or whose parents were, of the right to even enter their homeland. There are few clearer examples of one people oppressing another.

This citizenship law, and the existence of very strong and powerful Jewish lobbying groups particularly in the United States, and indeed to some extent in Europe, that exert a great deal of pressure within the politics of the US and its allies for a policy that is strongly pro-Israel, even to the point of being indulgent, give another dimension to the question of whether Jews outside Israel act as an oppressor people or not.

Organisations like AIPAC, and other Jewish organisations of a similar ilk in the US and elsewhere; the lobbying efforts of prominent, powerful individual and collective Jewish individuals within established political parties in Western countries (not just the United States); and the mechanism of the Israeli ‘Law of Return’, which in effect (partially) internationalises Israeli citizenship on an ethnic basis; all these things have a crucial importance in characterising the Jewish people today.

All these add up to one important point – while it is clear that the Palestinian people are directly oppressed by the Jewish ethnocratic state of Israel that has deprived them of their homeland, they are also, albeit less directly, oppressed, though the mechanism of the Law of Return and the efforts of Jewish lobbying organisations in the United States and its West European allies. That is, while American and also British Jews are not oppressor peoples in those countries at all, in their international dimension they do act as oppressors of the Palestinians’, albeit from a distance or an one remove.

A false equation

This is a crucial theoretical point in clarifying why hostility to Jews is not limited to the Middle East in current circumstances, and why criticism, and even expressions of hatred, for American and British Jews from Palestinians and their sympathisers, motivated by the Palestinian issue, cannot be equated with the anti-semitism of the past even when in some cases, as with Hamas, it regrettably borrows directly from the latter.

While pre-war anti-semitism was partially driven by a form of class demagogy, using the over-representation of Jews in business and particularly finance (which is most likely the product of cultural one-sidedness and a residue of the Jews’ past as a financial people-class), what really gave pre-war anti-semitism its psychotic character was the reactionary fear of the Jews as a bearer of revolution and subversion of the status quo. That particular delusion has been completely destroyed, by the extermination of the revolutionary Jewish proletarians by the Nazis, and by Zionism, which by its actions associates Jews with reaction, not revolution. The fundamental difference is that pre-war anti-semitism was hatred for an oppressed people by their oppressors, whereas in the current very changed circumstances, hatred of the oppressor by the oppressed is what we see today..

Such hatred still is inimical from the point of view of socialists and internationalists, though it has a very different moral and political content and context from hatred of an oppressed people by a people who oppress them. It is the product of despair and impotence in facing a powerful, unremitting enemy over what is now six-and-a half decades. The demonisation of the Palestinians as racists by Zionism to excuses its crimes has generated its own antithesis, as not only many Palestinians, but even some Jewish sympathisers, now suspect or even affirm point blank that everything that Israel uses to justify its existence, including the fact of the Nazi genocide itself, is a racist lie.

Socialists have, or ought to have, different ways of undercutting misdirected hatreds generated by the oppressed for their oppressors, than when the hatred is the other way round. We have to remember that at this point, the international labour movement is politically disarmed and hardly in a position to anything effective to shift the balance of forces in the Middle East. We have to deliver solidarity, and through fraternal debate and collaboration bring about the kind of change that can transcend the despair that produces this.

Anyone who equates these very different kinds of antipathy is playing a reactionary role, is acting as a chauvinist and, wittingly or unwittingly, as an agent of the oppression of the Palestinians in today’s world, which is very different from the days of Hitler and classical anti-semitism.
 
 http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/the-jewish-question-and-racial-oppression-today.html