The Reality Of Zionism

A refutation of Shelby Steele’s propaganda piece masquerading as a legitimate editorial

By JONATHAN AZAZIAH

1. World opinion is to be divided into two categories. The first category is the category of governments, and the second category is the category of citizens. In the framework of the first category, the overwhelming majority of governments have supported the Israeli massacre of the Freedom Flotilla, because the majority of governments are under the influence and/or subversion and/or control of the Zionist lobby. In that same framework, whatever government officials have offered a condemnation of the ‘attack,’ have not specified who exactly they’re condemning, and this, as aforementioned, is the result of the Zionist lobby. Again, in the same framework, the minute amount of government officials that have actually condemned Israel itself, their condemnations ring hollow, for they will not be backed up with action. In the framework of the second category, it is becoming increasingly evident, that populations of the world, Muslim and Jewish, Christian and Hindu, Black and White, Latino and Asian, lower-class and middle class, have lost their patience with the constant tyrannical, genocidal, and quite frankly, insane behavior of the illegal occupational entity known as Israel. The people are tired of forking over their tax dollars to a state that murders, steals, occupies, rapes, tortures, imprisons for no reason, and now, pirates, when their money could go to their failing social and economic crises. The people are tired of another people, just like them, being unjustly treated in a fashion worse than animals, for 62 years. The people are weary of their governments who continue to lend their irrational, unwavering support to this criminal fraud of a nation. The people, finally, seem to understand the severity of the crimes against the Palestinians, and it seems, they finally want an end to it. When world opinion isn’t divided into these two diametrically opposed categories, then that phrase, is simply a generality being used to mislead on behalf of Israel and its cohorts in America and Britain.

2. The musical acts that have canceled their summer tour stops to Israel are not doing so because condemning Israel is some sort of beneficial and marketable trend that can contribute to their musical careers, considering the majority of the record labels are also owned by Zionists; they are doing so because they find it reprehensible that peace activists were murdered in cold blood in international waters by commando units in the middle of the night with the blessing of a deranged government. The protestor who creatively drew a skull and crossbones over the word ‘Israel’ was doing so because it is the symbol of piracy, and Israel committed an act of piracy, again, in INTERNATIONAL WATERS. The Zionist entity stole monies, credit cards, identifications, belongings, and the very aid itself, and to this moment has not released any of it, or accounted for any of it. That. Is Called. Piracy. In addition, this was a humanitarian ship from Turkey, approved by the Turkish government, carrying aid to a starving people in Gaza, due to the hellish illegal blockade imposed on the Gazans by Israel in 2006. This escalates the crimes of murder and piracy to an outright act of war, due to it occurring in international waters. Helen Thomas, the courageous White House Press veteran who has challenged the unscrupulous behavior of presidents for what seems like the beginning of time, never used the word ‘Jew.’ She was asked if she had a message for Israel, and she responded that ‘they should get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, those people are occupied.’ This is not ugly. This is beautiful, because it is the truth. Al Nakbah is one of the worst crimes in human history, and the catastrophe continues to this day. The UN did absolutely NOTHING to protect the Freedom Flotilla, and despite whatever pitiful condemnations they might have released, they haven’t done anything to punish Israel for its miserable and murderous crimes, as they have not done since Israel’s inception. The Obama administration, which is staunchly Zionist, has not condemned Israel in the slightest, and vetoed the UN resolution for an independent investigation, instead suggesting that Israel should investigate its own criminal conduct. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s violent & vile chief of staff and the son of a Zionist terrorist, was in Israel just a few days before the Freedom Flotilla massacre took place, to give the Obama administration’s approval to the Netanyahu government to carry out the assault.

3. The accusation of ‘The Jews being scapegoated again’ is not only tiresome, but pathetic. In fact, it is not only pathetic, but pathologically disturbed, and clinically insane, as evidenced by the recent suicide (murder?) of Netanyahu’s psychiatrist who simply couldn’t take the Zionist rhetoric and propaganda anymore. Anybody who is cognizant of the Palestinian plight, and who is educated about Zionism, does not need to hear the equally tiresome discourse of criticism of Israel, or Zionism, or Zionist organizations is tantamount to an attack on the Jews. Israel Shahak (RIP), Ilan Pappe, Joel Kovel, Gilad Atzmon, Michael Hoffman, Norman Finklestein, and Stephen Lendman all vehemently criticize Israel, Zionism, Zionist organizations, and Israeli policies, and they are all Jewish, some are also Israeli. Anti-Zionism does not equal Anti-Semitism, and the repetition of this is getting as old as the accusation itself. Anyone that charges a critic of Israel with anti-Semitism is simply displaying an exuberant amount of cowardice, lack of knowledge, and subservience to the Zionist entity. Israel has absolutely, positively no right to exist. It is a nation founded upon racism and ethnic cleansing, and it only continues to survive to this day by growing more and more oppressive with each passing moment. Such a nation can only fall to the pits of Hell when it is at its end. Anyone that recognizes Israel’s right to exist, condones Al Nakbah, condones the continuing murder, occupation, and rape of Palestine, and condones Israel’s rampant criminality.

4. The apartheid state of Israel is worse than apartheid South Africa. The blockade of Gaza, the separation wall appropriately, and menacingly named ‘The Iron Wall,’ the constant home destruction, the aquifer theft, the thousands of Palestinians (including children) held in Israeli prisons without charge, the abuse of prisoners ranging in physical to psychological to sexual, the inability to move without proper identification, the denial of the right of return for refugees, and the theft of farmland are only some of the brutal policies enforced against the Palestinians by Israel. The white supremacy comparison is accurate, considering, Zionism is a European ideology, and the Ashkenazi Jews who founded this ideology are not descendants of biblical Hebrews like the Mizrahim (Arab Jews) are, they are descendants of the Khazars, a ruthless pagan empire that converted to Judaism for political purposes in 741 A.D. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has never been a territorial dispute, this is a disgusting Zionist lie propagated intensely and often in the media to brainwash and confuse. The land belonged to Palestine. It was stolen by Zionists. There is nothing complicated or intricate about it. Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived in harmonious brotherhood & sisterhood under Muslim rule. All of that changed with the birth of Zionism.

5. This is not about Hamas. It never was about Hamas. This is about unarmed peace activists being murdered in international waters. This is about a people being starved, literally to death, by an illegal blockade imposed upon them because the people did not do what the occupier told them to do, which is vote for the puppet government that is working with their tormentor. Thousands of rockets? This is absurd. The minuscule amount of rockets that were fired into Israeli towns by Hamas were a response of defense, after Israel broke the cease-fire, which started the inhumane & genocidal white phosphorus bombardment of Operation Cast Lead that murdered 1,440 innocent people including 431 children. It left Gaza devastated. And due to the illegal blockade, construction materials cannot reach the government to rebuild, therefore leaving the people in something worse than a concentration camp.

Conclusion:

The massacre of the activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla (may they all rest in peace), the capture of the activists aboard the Rachel Corrie and confiscation of materials on it, and the threats against the Lebanese and Iranian ships set to sail to Gaza are the most recent incidents of evil that have been apart of Zionism’s history since its birth. From the assassination of Lord Moyne in 1944 by the Stern Gang, to the King David Hotel bombing carried out by Irgun, to the Deir Yassin massacre and the assassination of Count Folk Bernadotte also by the Stern Gang in 1948, to the Qibya massacre by Ariel Sharon in 1953, to the Kafr Qasim & Khan Yunus massacres, and the Lavon Affair in 1956, to the attack on the USS Liberty of 1967, to the Kawnin massacre of 1975, to the Bint Jbeil massacre of 1976, to the Abbasieh massacre of 1978, to the Sabra & Shatilah massacre in 1982, to the Beirut barracks bombing by Mossad in 1983, to the massacre at holy Al Aqsa in 1990, to the psychotic assault of Baruch Goldstein in 1994, to the shelling of Qana in 1996, to the diabolical & destructive Mossad operation on 9/11, Israel has only known one policy: a policy of fear & terror. In between the Zionist entity’s massacres, assassinations, and organ smuggling schemes, it continues its everyday activities of the longest-running occupation on earth. Mr. Steele has the audacity to say the Palestinians ‘advertise’ themselves as occupied. Mr. Steele has the audacity to say ‘Israel does not seek to oppress or occupy and certainly not to annihilate.’ And Mr. Steele has the audacity to say, that Palestinians, and the Muslim world are not formulating our opinions of the Zionist entity because of evidence and rational thought, but hatred. If Mr. Steele thinks such wonderful and delusional fantasies are accurate, then Mr. Steele should go live in the largest open air prison in the world known as Gaza. And after he endures a few days without clean water, harsh breathing conditions due to carbon monoxide from leaking generators damaged in Operation Cast Lead and leftover white phosphorus fumes from the same operation, and lack of nutrition due to the inability to acquire healthy food because of the blockade, Mr. Steele can look in a mirror if he can find one that isn’t shattered from Israeli aggression, and ask himself, "Why was I so blind to the reality of Zionism?"

Jonathan Azaziah is an Iraqi-Moroccan Hebrew-Russian MC, poet, activist, and writer from Brooklyn, New York currently residing in Florida. His mixtape, Take The Red Pill Volume 2: Disarm The Octopus will be available for download in mid-July. He can be reached at azaziahtheanomaly@yahoo.com.

http://www.jnoubiyeh.com/2010/06/reality-of-zionism.html

'Free Palestine', Not Only Gaza

By Hasan Afif El-Hasan

One thing is missing in the 'Free Gaza' movement. Activists and civil societies and journalists who support the Palestinian cause are rightfully angry at Israel’s murderous campaign against the aid-loaded 'Freedom Flotilla' that was going to the besieged and starved residents of Gaza, but they ignore the overall conditions in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the refugee camps.

If the Palestinian struggle is for statehood and political and civil rights, rather than to receive international handouts, then life in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the refugee camps is as bad as in Gaza. Unfortunately, foreign supporters of Israel and even Arab news media and journalists bought into the Israeli and US claim that the conditions in the West Bank are good, the “economic peace” is working, the growth of the economy had surpassed expectations and the people are prospering. They quote Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad government spokes-people that the Palestinians in the West Bank enjoy unprecedented economic boom. There is nothing further from the truth! Growth of economy that is based on international donations and subject to unpredictable daily whims and manipulations of the occupation power is nothing but a lie, empty rhetoric and a sales pitch for Netanyahu’s “economic peace” as an alternative to the end of occupation.

There can be no viable economy to speak of while Israel’s unchallenged control of the occupied lands deprives the indigenous Palestinians from controlling their resources, the land, water, borders and commerce. Palestinians’ houses are being demolished; permits for building are not issued in East Jerusalem and 80% of the West Bank; the farmers are not allowed to dig wells more than one third as deep as the Israeli settlers; and Israel restricts access to the land needed to meet Palestinian population growth. Olive and its oil have always been a major source of income for a large segment of the Palestinian farmers. The Israeli military and the settlers destroyed olive orchards in many localities and prevented the farmers from harvesting what was left of their trees.

The growth of the “economic peace” based on international hand-outs is being advertised so that Israeli military would keep control of the West Bank, including its borders and air-space, people movement and who can live there, while allowing the Palestinian Authority (PA) to police the cities and support raids by the Israeli forces against activists deemed as security threat to occupation. Israel can transform the West Bank economy into a “Gaza style” economy in no time if the PA leaders decided to end their jobs as security contractors to Israel. When Yasser Arafat tried to redeem himself and re-establish his pre-PA status as a freedom fighter, Israel and the US turned off the sources that kept the Palestinians’ economy going, starved the Palestinians, until Arafat died in mysterious circumstances and Mahmoud Abbas was installed as their trusted man in Palestine.

There are striking similarities between the Palestinian 1987-93 First Intifada against the occupation and the “Free Gaza” movement to break the blockade and the siege of the Palestinians in Gaza enclave. Camp refugees in Gaza initiated the two movements, and both movements were civil disobedience responses to Israel’s occupation and violations of the Palestinians’ civil and political rights and the complicity of Israel’s defenders in the West who allow it to pursue a pattern of unlawful excesses with impunity and dismiss its crimes as justifiable “self defense” actions.

The First Intifada main events were grassroots popular demonstrations with mostly stone-throwing Palestinian children demanding end of occupation and asking to live free in their own lands. Israel’s response to the passive uprising was to use its full military power to shoot and kill, arrest under-age protesters, jail and deport the emerging leaders and break bones of Palestinian kids. The Palestinians won the sympathy of World public opinion when they did not resort to acts of violence or use firearms and the Israeli government failed to justify killing and injuring the unarmed civilians, mostly children. Many in the international community recognized the right of the Palestinians to be free and condemned Israel’s response to the Palestinians’ legitimate demands, until Israel’s policy makers called on the PLO leaders in Tunis to step in and squander the gains of the Intifada by signing the Oslo agreements that brought the Palestinians to this point. Oslo agreements gave the Israelis time to create facts on the ground, tighten their grip on the territories and ironically sustain the illusion that the PA rules the Palestinians. After the signing of Oslo agreements, Jewish-only settlements and Jewish-only roads continued to be built and settler population more than doubled; quarter of million settlers live on East Jerusalem Arab confiscated land; the apartheid wall has been built; the Palestinians are asked to keep quiet and succumb to occupation; and the refugees have been forgotten.

Like the First Intifada, the “Free Gaza” movement is a peaceful protest by international peace activists against Israel’s collective punishment of 1.5 million Gazans. For those who do not know or forgot, Gaza is the site of repeated attacks by Israel including the unspeakable massacres committed in December 2008 that took the lives and maimed thousands; and reduced homes, schools, mosques, government civil administration and civil infrastructures to rubble. Israel destroyed Gaza, slaughtered and injured thousands of its civilian population; entire families were wiped out; more than 8,000 homes were destroyed completely, some of them on top of their occupants and 21,000 homes seriously damaged; tens of thousands were rendered homeless; and the survivors were left to face “full fledged humanitarian disaster.” What has been going on in Gaza before, during and after the 2008 massacres is “shocking and troubling beyond words”. All Gaza’s crossing points on the Israeli and Egyptian sides have been closed for three years forcing the besieged population “to act like moles to dig deep underground” to import some of their needs for survival. The potential of production and intellectual “contributions of at least one Gazan generation will be lost” due to the economic hardship that is imposed on them by Israel and its supporters.

When the people of Gaza have been abandoned by the Arab States and the hypocrites of the US and Europe betrayed the principles of justice that they claim their civilized societies hold dear, the peace activists of the “Free Gaza” movement and the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan emerged as the only defenders that Gaza people have.

As part of the “Free Gaza” movement, the “Freedom Flotilla” that had 700 unarmed peace activists from thirty-eight countries attempting to break the Israeli imposed siege on Gaza by bringing humanitarian aid to the destroyed, starved and besieged Gaza. Israel uses its military solution to deal with every confrontation including the peaceful Flotilla.

Israeli helicopter-born military commando raided the Gaza-bound “Freedom Flotilla” with its food and medicine cargo in the international waters killing unarmed activists and wounded scores. The outcry over the bloody attack by the Israelis precipitated widespread international condemnation. The Flotilla massacre has angered Palestinian supporters and embarrassed leaders of countries that had been buying into the Israeli narrative.

Many European officials whose discourse has been to support Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, blaming the Palestinians for not “acting as behaved prisoners” and provoking the Gaza tragedies, could not defend the unprovoked Israeli action against the peace activists. Several governments summoned the Israeli ambassadors and the UN high commissioner for human rights described the blockade as illegal and asked Israel to open the borders and Gaza port for import and export goods and raw material.

The European Union called Israel’s siege of 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza “unacceptable” , offered to play a role in opening Gaza borders and end the three-year closure and the United Nations called for impartial inquiry.

President Barack Obama called Gaza closure unsustainable but his administration pressured the UN Security Council not to adopt a resolution criticizing Israel. It produced a non-binding statement that failed even to mention Israel by name. Israel refused the UN call and appointed three experts and two foreign observers to investigate its military commando raid on Gaza-bound flotilla.

Following the mounting international pressure, Israel decided to ease its blockade of Gaza by allowing Gaza to import more “civilian” goods including “soda, jam, spices, shaving cream. Potato chips, cookies and candy.” Israel did not mention what Gaza would be allowed to export, but it will continue to restrict dual-use items that include construction materials that Israelis think may be used to build rockets or bunkers.

Egypt, which kept its Rafah crossing with Gaza closed since 2006, decided to open it for students, patients, visa-holders and some additional humanitarian aid. And Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces had been ousted from Gaza in 2007, insisted Israel must completely lift the three-year-old blockade. One of the declared reasons for Gaza siege had been to bolster Abbas standing among the Palestinians and weaken Hamas.

Palestinian supporters and civil rights activists must not waste this rare moment in history when majority of world public sympathizes with the Palestinians. This is the right time for civil societies and activists in the West Bank to take this moment to heart and provide people of good will all over the world sufficient facts about life under occupation in the West Bank and Jerusalem where the indigenous Palestinians are confined to tiny enclaves surrounded by massive Jews-only settlements, Jews-only highways, roadblocks and the separation wall. They should ask for freedom not only for the people in Gaza but for all Palestinians.

- Hasan Afif El-Hasan, is a political analyst born in Nablus, Palestine. His forthcoming book, Is the Two-State Solution Already Dead? , will be published by Algora Publishing, New York. He contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

http://www.jnoubiyeh.com/2010/06/free-palestine-not-only-gaza.html

War crimes suit filed against Barak, Livni in Belgium

Bethlehem - Ma'an/Agencies - Two Belgian lawyers working on behalf of Palestinian filed suit against 14 Israeli leaders on allegations of war crimes committed during Operation Cast Lead, news agencies reported.

The respondents include Israeli opposition chairwoman Tzipi Livni for her role as foreign minister during the Gaza offensive between December 2008 and January 2009, former Israeli premier Ehud Olmert, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai, and other Israeli army officials and Israel's intelligence services, Israeli news site Yedioth Ahronoth wrote.

Much of the 70-page complaint is based on the Goldstone report, Agence France-Presse reported. Claimants include a Palestinian-Belgian national and 13 Gaza Strip residents.

The claim includes an attack on a mosque near the Jabaliya refugee camp during which 16 civilians, including children, were killed. The plaintiffs were either wounded or lost a relative in the attack, the news site wrote.

Lawyers reported estimated that Belgium's attorney general will evaluate the case to determine whether it provides just cause to open a case against the senior Israeli officials "already by the end of August."

Georges-Henri Beauthier and Alexis Deswaef, the two lawyers representing the claimants, said the current charges would be brought against the Israeli leaders using the principle of universal jurisdiction, Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

The claims follow the filing suit by French activists against Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak over the Israeli army's conduct during its raid of the Freedom Flotilla which saw nine passengers killed by Israeli commandos in international waters on 31 May. The move forced Barak to cancel a Paris visit.

An arrest warrant was issued against Livni in the UK in December 2009 after British lawyers filed suit against the official on behalf of Palestinian respondents for her role in Operation Cast Lead.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu criticized the UN and other international institutions for condemning Israel's acts on Wednesday, as he addressed the Knesset.

"They want to strip us of the natural right to defend ourselves. When we defend ourselves against rocket attack, we are accused of war crimes. We cannot board sea vessels when our soldiers are being attacked and fired upon, because that is a war crime," Haaretz quoted him as saying.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=294212

Gaza Flotilla - Facts vs Israel Fiction.

LETTERS FROM PALESTINE

I became friends with Dr. Kenneth Ring after he wrote THIS article about the case of Mohammed Omer almost two years ago to the day…. a case which to this day has not yet been brought to justice.

Dr. Ring has been a devoted friend of the Palestinian Cause for several years and has just co-authored this wonderful book with Ghassan Abdullah, Letters From Palestine. If you want to read the truth about Palestine and its people, this is the book that will do that for you….

About the Book

Many books have been written dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the pro-Israeli perspective. However, relatively few reflect the Palestinian point of view. Letters from Palestine is one of the rare books that offers an American audience the chance to listen to and learn about the lives of actual Palestinian people as they describe what it is like to live in the occupied territories of the West Bank or Gaza, or to grow up as a Palestinian in the U.S.

Many of these stories can be read almost as if each contributor is writing a letter to an American friend that will give the reader a vivid sense both of the writer’s own personality and his or her daily life as a Palestinian. To further this sense of personal intimacy, each contribution is accompanied by a photograph and an introductory paragraph or two about the writer.

The contents include not only accounts of everyday trials, hassles and humiliations that Palestinians suffer, but stories of triumphs over these adversities and the use of humor to cope with the sometimes almost surreal absurdities of life under occupation. These stories — lively, poignant, tragic, funny, reflective, heartbreaking — as a whole contain much to inspire the reader with the resourcefulness of the Palestinian people and to demonstrate their resilience and creativity under the most trying of conditions. There are also stories about life under the destructive sieges of 2002, and the book ends with some searing firsthand dispatches of what people experienced during the savage bombardment of Gaza in 2008-2009.

In sum, here you will meet and come to know Palestinians in all their humanness and begin to see them beyond the usual stereotypes. Most of all, the stories in this book are meant to introduce Americans to contemporary Palestinians who represent both the traditions of their culture and the bright promise of their future.

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/letters-from-palestine/

Who Says We Can't Criticize Israel?

Libby Davies warned of a new type of McCarthyism in Canada. (MetroNews)

By Peter Ewart Like a postage stamp that has been licked too often, a word can lose its power and authority if it is used indiscriminately. So it is with the word "terrorist" that is now routinely applied by governments all over the world to demonize and marginalize political opposition. And likewise with the word "anti-semitic" which is a label stuck on just about anyone who is not in total support of the state of Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians. Indeed, Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States, was given precisely that label after calling Israel an "apartheid state". Even South African Judge Richard Goldstone, himself Jewish, who led a UN authorized fact-finding mission into Israel's invasion of Gaza last year has been called anti-semitic for his findings which have been labeled as "anti-Israel" by the Israeli government. Closer to home, Canada, the aid organization Kairos had its funding cut off by the Harper government because of, the government alleges, its support for the boycott movement against Israel and its "anti-semitism". Kairos is a joint venture of thirteen Canadian churches and church organizations, including Catholic, Anglican, Christian Reformed, Evangelical Lutheran, Mennonite, Presbyterian, Society of Friends, and United Church. The latest public figure to get the "anti-semitic" label is NDP MP for East Vancouver, Libby Davies. She has had this pinned on her because she expressed support for the international campaign to boycott and sanction Israel for its blockade of Gaza, as well as suggesting that Israel has been "occupying" the land since 1948. Prime Minister Harper has since called for Davies to resign as deputy NDP leader and Liberal Bob Rae has accused her of "hostility and ignorance". Even some members of her own party, the NDP, have attacked her, with Thomas Mulcair NDP MP calling her comments "egregious" and out of step with her party. It is quite interesting that, while the caucuses of the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP are very quick to jump on Davies, they have made no criticism of the killings by Israeli commandoes of the nine people on the ships attempting to break the blockade of Gaza by Israel. It is also quite interesting that, as a 2007 BBC poll shows (see footnote 1), 52% of Canadians have a negative view towards Israel, while only 23% had a positive one. The question should be asked: Just who is out of step with who? Is it Libby Davies or is it the three federal parties in parliament who are out of step with the Canadian people? Indeed, it is these same three federal political parties that have formed "The Canadian Parliamentary Committee to Combat Anti-semitism", the members of which are claiming that criticizing Israel is a "new form" of anti-semitism. Dylan Penner, founding member of Independent Jewish Voices, believes that the ultimate objective of this Parliamentary Committee is "to introduce legislation that would make it a crime to criticize Israel". All of this raises serious questions about freedom of speech and right to conscience in Canada. Parliamentarians and Canadians themselves should have the right to criticize the policies and practices of any of the 190+ countries in the world as they see fit, and that includes Israel. If criticism of Israel is "off limits" and "illegal", how soon before it become a crime to criticize the Canadian government itself? In an interview, Libby Davies has also said that there are other federal MPs who do not approve of Israeli actions, such as the blockade of Gaza and the invasion of Lebanon, but who "are actually afraid to speak out." According to her, this constitutes a new type of "McCarthyism" in Canada. Why are they afraid to speak out? A number of analysts have commented about the strength of the Israel lobby in the U.S. and that members of Congress are afraid to criticize Israel for fear of being targeted by this well-financed lobby. Is that the case in Canada? More than a few believe that is also true (see footnote 2). So what are the implications for politics in Canada if MPs are afraid to speak out because they fear reprisal from the lobbyists and supporters of a foreign government? For one thing, perhaps such MPs should not be in Parliament. If they are intimidated by these lobbyists, how can they be expected to stand up for their own constituents? Secondly, rather than having a parliamentary committee examining and dissecting the beliefs of ordinary Canadians, maybe it’s time would be better spent looking at the power of lobbyists in Ottawa who lobby on behalf of foreign governments and who seek to make criticism of these governments off limits or even illegal. Now that is a postage stamp that might just stick. - Peter Ewart is a writer and columnist based in Prince George, British Columbia. This article was contributed to PalestineChronicle.com. He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca. (This article was originally published in Opednews.com) Notes: (1) BBC World Service poll. March 6, 2007. (2) Canada's Israel Lobby. By Peyton Vaughan Lyon, Professor Emeritus, Political Science, Carleton University. http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16074

Netanyahu Vows to ‘Tighten’ Gaza Blockade

Pasta, Coriander May Flow, But Blockade Here to Stay

by Jason Ditz, June 20, 2010

Hours after the Israeli government announced that it was intending to issue a new “banned goods” list for the Gaza Strip, focused on placating international demands to allow more food and humanitarian goods into the tiny enclave, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a pledge that the move would actually “tighten” the blockade.

“Our friends around the world are getting behind our decision and giving international legitimacy to the security blockade on Hamas,” Netanyahu insisted, adding again that “dual use” goods would continue to be barred from Gaza.

Israel’s military has claimed broad swathes of goods to be “dual use” in the past, including imposing a three year ban on shoes under the claim that shoes could theoretically be made the part of a military uniform, and therefore had a military use.

Officials say that banned luxury goods like pasta and cordiander will be allowed into the Gaza Strip under the new list, but so far the government has been mum on the most needed item, cement. Israel has barred all cement from the strip as a “dual use” good as well, leaving the homes in the region in ruins since the January 2009 invasion despite massive pledges of foreign aid. It seems the changes in the blockade may end up being superficial, and done purely for to score points internationally.

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/06/20/netanyahu-vows-to-tighten-gaza-blockade/