Liberate America

Ten Reasons Not to Honor "Israel"

2011-10-25T19:58:00.001-04:00

Co-Authored by longtime friend Mahmoud El-Yousseph, USAF, Retired.

This list was compiled in order to dispel the hate propaganda and blatant lies Christians United for Israel (CUFI) is being allowed to spew at Van Buren High School near Findlay, Ohio on October 27, 2011 where they will hold "A Night to Honor Israel." This is being repeated at other schools across our country.

If CUFI was simply having a convention of their apocalyptic ignoramuses and blind bigots at a church or synagogue, we would not waste our time trying to educate those determined to remain fools. If CUFI were holding a meeting with our congressmen/women or senators, we would not bother to counter, as our representatives are already deep within the pockets of Israeli-interest lobbies. However, CUFI has crossed a red line when invading our public school system to poison the minds of our innocent youth.

While this event is being held after school hours, it is still being promoted in among the student body, as Van Buren Superintendent Tim Myers confided he is considering distributing "educational material" given to him by CUFI, to all students. CUFI is charging $15 per adult and $10 per student to attend, therefore common sense would dictate this event is being promoted by the school system.

There are people who believe this country is too far gone to be salvaged and there is certainly merit to that sentiment. But we are not ready to surrender our children to a false prophet and be subjected to false teachings, both religious and historical. We refuse to have them be converted into more mindless minions who would readily partake in genocide for the Zionist entity which is their god.

Here are just 10 out of the myriad reasons NOT to honor Israel and why a "Christian" group in support of such an immoral state is the epitome of hypocrisy:

10 Reasons Not To Honor Israel

1- On June 8, 1967, Israeli air and naval forces suddenly and brutally attacked the USS Liberty, a US naval intelligence ship flying a large Old Glory in international waters on a clear summer day. Thirty-four American sailors were killed in the attack and another 174 were wounded.

2- In 2003 U.S. citizen and peace activist Rachel Corrie was run down with a bulldozer by an Israeli Occupation soldier while she was attempting to prevent a home demolition. The soldier was never charged with her death.

3- In 2010, Israeli commandos kidnapped Ken O’Keefe, a former US Marine who survived the Israeli attack on the Turkish aid ship, MV Mavi Marmara which was bound for Gaza and sailing in international waters. It was during this same attack that 19 year-old American citizen Furkhan Dogan was shot multiple times at close range by Israeli forces. He was killed.

4- In 2009 Israel kidnapped and jailed former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, along with 20 other noted peace activists. They were taken from aboard Spirit of Humanity, a ship carrying medical supplies, cement, olive trees and children’s toys to Gaza after the Israeli invasion in December 2008-January 2009. Nearly 1,500 people—mostly civilians—were killed with another 10,000 wounded. Damaged or destroyed were 50,000 homes, 800 industrial properties, 200 schools, 39 mosques and two churches. The supplies were confiscated by the Israeli navy.

5- Out of over 700 General Assembly resolutions passed since the UN's 1945 establishment, nearly 450 condemn Israel. None have been passed against any Arab country. In other words, out of 193 nations in the UN, over 60% of all General Assembly resolutions condemned just ONE member: Israel!

6- Israel recently shunned a US president by refusing a settlement-freeze offer on stolen Palestinian land in return for a 10 billion dollar incentive (bribe.)

7- Israel is the only Middle Eastern country where sodomy is not a crime nor punishable. Israel also allows abortion, has a “tramp tax” for prostitutes, an increasing rate of cohabitation and premarital sex, acceptance of party life and heavy drinking, immodest clothing, etc. Israeli media portrays Jesus Christ (peace be upon him) as a bastard and Mary as a whore. These points are not intended to be a condemnation of the homosexual community or a moral judgement upon those who choose a more hedonistic lifestyle. These points have been made to illustrate the hypocrisy of Christians United for Israel, as founder John Hagee stated Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment upon New Orleans for holding a Gay Pride Parade. Ironically, Tel Aviv hosts similar events annually.

8- Israel has for a long time engaged in espionage on the US and stolen our top secrets, selling them to our enemies, thereby damaging our national security.

9 - Israel has imposed collective punishment against Palestinians by kidnapping, maintaining a siege, land theft, home demolitions, “target assassinations,” midnight raids, indefinite imprisonments and uprooting olive trees.

10- It has been documented in both Palestinian and Israeli media and in court proceedings that Israeli Occupation Forces are operating a Palestinian butchery at Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv. Israeli forces routinely kidnap Palestinians at checkpoints, raids, hospital wards or exhume them from cemeteries in order to harvest their organs for profit inside and out Israel, all without the family’s knowledge.

Please keep this group away from Van Buren school district. Readers are urged to contact School Board members to reconsider hosting such an event via email: kflanagan@vbschools.net, cmckinley@vbschools.net, krowles@vbschools.net, jsalisbury@vbschools.net, mconkle@vbschools.net or Superintendent Tim Myers at (419) 299-3384.

Syria: Popular Uprising or Another Victim of Western Interventionism?

2011-09-28T11:24:00.001-04:00

While the world is rightfully decrying the continued slaughter of Syrian protesters by their own government, it is tempting to dismiss that troubled nation as just another stubborn domino in the “Arab Spring.” It is tempting to boldly join the chorus calling for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad and his regime from power. It is tempting to describe the whole bloody situation as a tragic but necessary popular rebellion against an oppressive dictatorship. Yet the circumstances surrounding the Syrian uprising differ starkly from coups which have taken place in Tunisia and Egypt, as well as the unrest in Bahrain and Yemen.

Bashar al-Assad is not considered by most to be a western puppet, at least not in the same league as Ben Ali of Tunisia, Egypt’s Mubarak or the still ensconced King Abdallah II of Jordan. Assad never signed a peace treaty with Israel and remains an open critic of both the Jewish State and the United States. However, his predictability served western and Israeli interests for a time. Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda’s new leader, alluded to this in a warning to Syrian protesters: “America, which cooperated with Bashar al-Assad during his whole regime, claims today it stands with you…Washington today seeks to replace Assad, who sincerely protected the borders of the Zionist Entity, with another regime…that follows America.” Al-Zawahri’s statement is right on both counts.

Since the Israeli military captured Syria’s Golan Heights in 1967, there was only one attempt in 1973 to take back the land. The Israeli government has been building settlements in Golan since the 1970’s and officially annexed the territory in 1981. On May 15, 2011 the Israeli military opened fire on protesters marching towards the village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, killing four and wounding an additional 20. There was no retaliation from Syria, save for some typically blow-hard rhetoric. Syrian bullets were saved for use on their own people.

There is also plenty of evidence to prove the second part of Al-Zawahri’s statement. Western powers have played a big role in the bloodshed that Syria has experienced, the most recent upheaval being no exception. A March 2011 column by Haaretz writer Zvi Bar'el referred to a report appearing on a Syrian pro-government website:

"According to the report....the plan was formulated in 2008 by the Saudi national security advisor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Jeffrey Feltman, a veteran US diplomat in the Middle East who was formerly ambassador to Lebanon and is currently the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs. Dividing Syria into large cities, towns and villages, the plan involved establishing five recruitment networks: ‘unemployed youths, criminals, other young people, and media efforts funded by European countries but not America,’ as well as a ‘capital network of businesspeople from the large cities.’”

Retired Army General and former Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark has made numerous public addresses relating his conversation with a Pentagon officer in the weeks following the September 11th attacks. The unnamed officer informed him of a plan to “take out” seven countries in five years: Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Libya and Iran. However, it is no secret that U.S. involvement in the region goes back much farther.

In 1976, Syria saw a rebellion by Sunni militant groups including the Muslim Brotherhood against the regime of Hafez al-Assad. Rifaat al-Assad, brother of the late Syrian President and uncle to Bashar, personally oversaw the Hama massacre in 1982 during which an estimated 15,000-20,000 people were killed, effectively ending the uprising. While catastrophic in terms of human loss, the tragic consequences of the Hama massacre did not end in 1982. The father of a family friend “disappeared” at that time, along with thousands of others: victims of mass detentions and indefinite imprisonments. His whereabouts was not known until 2003, when it was discovered that after 15 years of torture, he had died in prison in 1997.
Rifaat served as Vice President of Syria before going into exile after an internal succession dispute. Despite committing war crimes, he currently lives in Mayfair, England where he enjoys the support of the Saudi royal family.

It is Rifaat al-Assad’s son, Ribal, who confirms U.S. meddling in Syria both then and now. In a September 2010 interview with Robert Fisk, he stated that "Saddam Hussein funded the Muslim Brotherhood; they were trained in Iraq and Sudan. So the Baath party decided that those in the Muslim Brotherhood were traitors." Partially declassified documents regarding then presidential envoy Donald Rumsfeld’s December 1983 meeting with Saddam Hussein confirm the US and Iraq’s common enmity towards Iran and Syria and the need to contain them. Apparently destabilizing Syria had been in both nations’ interests; the Muslim Brotherhood largely responsible for the coup attempt within Syria was trained by Saddam who in turn was receiving funding from the USA for the Iran-Iraq War in that same time period.

Ribal founded the Organization for Democracy and Freedom in Syria (ODFS) and directs Arab News Network based in London, broadcasting via satellite from Morocco to Iran. In the same Fisk interview, he stated "My father left Syria because he didn't want bloodshed. A 'coup' means dictatorship and dictatorship breeds corruption and corruption breeds terrorism. We are campaigning internationally for a new Syria.” Such rhetoric and use of foreign media is a manifestation of the destabilization plan quoted in Haaretz.

Ribal’s pet causes are promoting interfaith dialogue, a two-state solution for Palestine and vilifying Iran. In a speech to London’s Rotary Club, he accused Iran of aiming to “create instability in the region by fueling conflict in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, Egypt and Afghanistan.” Such jargon has undoubtedly made him the darling of the West—who is perhaps grooming him to head “the replacement regime” to which Al-Zawahri referred in his speech. Other anti-Bashar figures are equally shady.

Christian Science Monitor Correspondent Nicholas Blanford sums it up well in his May 2011 article “Syrian Leaders Want to Talk to Opposition Leaders, But There Aren’t Any:”

“Opposition leaders consist mainly of aging secular intellectuals, exiled former members of the Assad regime and Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood, and young, technologically savvy activists who are using social networking sites to mobilize and publicize the protest movement.”

Blanford quotes Rami Nakhle, a leading Syrian opposition activist in Beirut is as saying “There is no one in Syria who can speak on behalf of the opposition and this is better for us. There is no point in negotiating with these people.”

Clearly, the opposition—at least the safely foreign-based contingent—has no more interest in stopping the bloodshed than the regime they so despise. While supporting the current Syrian regime is incomprehensible, still more irresponsible is demanding the ouster of Bashar al-Assad when the only likely replacement is a war criminal, another western puppet or both.

Another Attack on Gaza: Retaliation or Genocide?

2011-08-23T17:52:00.000-04:00

The latest round of atrocities unleashed upon Palestinians proves yet again that the Israeli government is a homicidal opportunist. Instantly, the problem of mass demonstrations deploring increased cost of living and other economic issues plaguing the Jewish State was solved by rallying Israelis behind the one issue they all seem to have in common: the singular desire to annihilate Palestinians.

If that assessment seems harsh, or unfair to Israeli peace activists, it certainly rings true of broader Israeli society. Joseph Dana, a Tel Aviv-based writer and journalist spoke with Aljazeera regarding the protests, which according to him, were mute regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestine. “The sad reality is that if Israelis discuss Palestinian rights and specifically the rights of Palestinians under Israeli occupation, they very quickly lose public support,” he stated.

Of course the Israeli spin machine claims the bombardment of Gaza was in response to the Eilat operation, although there is no evidence that Hamas or the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) perpetrated the attack. Dana also wrote in a recent article, “Israel maintains that the PRC is responsible for the attacks but has yet to release any verifiable proof connecting the Gaza based group to the attack which has so far claimed eight lives.”

It is rather sinister that 81 members of our Congress just spent a week in the Jewish State, meeting with Israeli officials at taxpayers’ expense; days later, Gaza is attacked. It is quite probable that the strikes were carefully coordinated while conveniently, world focus is on Libya and Syria.

However, even if armed groups from within Gaza were responsible for the Eilat attacks, retaliation of this sort for a blockade that has led to the deaths of untold thousands is certainly understandable. The siege of Gaza, subsequent incursions and almost daily shootings of civilians for straying too close to the “buffer zone” are acts of war in themselves, thus warrant reaction.

Israel’s 63-year campaign of mass murder and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people is neatly packaged as “retaliation” or “self-defense” against “mortars fired by Palestinian militants” or the hackneyed “homemade rockets.” Mysteriously, the media never reports on these mortars or rockets until Israeli forces “retaliate” for them; then it serves as an excuse for continued genocide.

Genocide is defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 as “…any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

If Israeli strikes are “retaliation,” we are left to wonder just what the Israeli military was “retaliating” for during the first four months of 2011, when 49 Palestinians in Gaza were murdered during Israeli raids, including a missile strike that killed three children in the same family, all under age 16. A fourth family member also died in that strike and 13 others, mostly children, were wounded. The blog Occupied Palestine published a list of 160 names representing all those murdered this year alone by the Israeli military, including those in Lebanon and those in Golan, shot for the heinous crime of attempting to go home on the anniversary of Al-Nakba, May 15. Sadly, in mainstream American media, these victims remain nameless, referred to as simply “militants” or “jihadists.”

Maybe it would not do any good to list their names and ages, anyway. After all, Mahmoud Abu Samra is just another Arabic name which the majority of news anchors could not pronounce correctly. At 13 years of age, his bright eyes and infectious smile were memorialized momentarily on a few social network pages, then joined the sea of images of dead Palestinian children: all victims of a 63-year genocide endorsed by most of the world’s nations.

Yet if his name wasn’t Mahmoud Abu Samra—if it was Tommy Smith or Billy Jones who was mutilated by an enemy missile, if he was one of our children—how many of us would be content to limit our resistance to whining for the United Nations to recognize a fragmented state cobbled together from 13 percent of our original land? Who among us wouldn’t at least consider taking matters into our own hands, thereby granting the enemy more excuses for “retaliation?”

While the Israelis have seemed to scale back their plans for an all-out assault on Gaza for the moment, perhaps waiting for a more politically opportune time, it is important to remember the word “retaliation” can only be applied to the reactions of Palestinians—whatever form they may take—to the death, destruction and humiliation visited upon them daily. If the word “retaliation” is used to describe military operations or draconian economic embargoes carried out by the Jewish State, it must be understood that this is a euphemism for genocide.

Arab and Muslim Advocacy Groups: Whose Side Are They On?

2011-05-16T12:22:00.000-04:00

The celebration following President Obama’s announcement that Osama Bin Laden was killed by a team of Navy Seals and his body dumped in the ocean was predictably raucous: the mentality of the celebrants identifying them as the same people who still believe 19 hijackers brought down the Twin Towers in the first place. From drunken college kids to old biddies, the simple-minded euphoria spread with no questions asked as to why the story of the operation into Pakistan changes with every passing minute, the real reason as to why no photos were released, the un-Islamic disposal of the body—or bodies—the lack of dialysis equipment in the compound (Bin Laden allegedly suffered from kidney disease) and most importantly, why an unarmed man was shot in front of his family without benefit of an arrest or trial. Over one-third of Americans do not believe that Bin Laden was the perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks, well beyond the “shadow of a doubt” necessitating acquittal in a court of law.

Unfortunately, groupthink spread to the very organizations which are supposed to be advocating for the Arab and Muslim communities here in America. The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) issued this statement:

"We join our fellow citizens in welcoming the announcement that Osama bin Laden has been eliminated as a threat to our nation and the world through the actions of American military personnel. As we have stated repeatedly since the 9/11 terror attacks, bin Laden never represented Muslims or Islam. In fact, in addition to the killing of thousands of Americans, he and Al Qaeda caused the deaths of countless Muslims worldwide. We also reiterate President Obama's clear statement tonight that the United States is not at war with Islam."

If the United States is not at war with Islam, someone needs to explain why over 1 million Iraqis are dead, in a country known to have had nothing to do with 9/11. If there is no war on Islam, why—after Bin Laden’s alleged demise—do we now have the capability of flying 54 Predator drone missions at a time, with a goal to increase that number to 65 round-the-clock missions by 2013? In fact, drones have not abated in their slaughter of innocent civilians in Waziristan since Bin Laden’s death. Drone attacks have expanded into Yemen, as seen in a recent botched attempt to murder Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki, whose only apparent crime is to have e-mailed Army Major Nidal Hassan, the Ft. Hood shooter. The strike resulted in the deaths of two Yemenis.

Not to be outdone, Salam Al-Marayati, President of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) stated:

"We hope this is a turning point away from the dark period of the last decade, in which bin Laden symbolized the evil face of global terrorism. His actions and those of Al-Qaeda have violated the sacred Islamic teachings upholding the sanctity of all human life. His acts of senseless terror have been met with moral outrage by Muslims worldwide at every turn in the past decade."

It does indeed appear to be a turning point; however it is turning from a “dark period” to an even darker one, both in the United States and abroad. Hate crimes against Muslims have spiked in the wake of Bin Laden’s alleged demise. A mosque in Portland, Maine was spray painted with the words “Go Home,” among other things; the Islamic Center of Minnesota received no less than five hate mails immediately following reports of Bin Laden’s death. A schoolteacher in Texas is currently under suspension for making insensitive remarks to a Muslim student, telling her “I bet you’re grieving.”

Perhaps the most repugnant of sentiments came from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). The Michigan chapter issued a wordy diatribe, abbreviated here in the interest of space:

“ADC Michigan joins fellow Americans and all peace seeking people across the globe in rejoicing over the execution of Osama Bin Laden, head of the Al Qaeda terrorist group responsible for the national tragedy of September 11th as well as mass killings of innocent civilians in various parts of the world…While the death of Bin Laden ends one phase of our war on terror, the execution of the most recognized symbol of terrorism does not eradicate the ideology that Bin Laden represented. Despite this great victory…the threat of terror is still sound and strong. This mandates us to stay on alert and continue to be vigilant in a world that may be safer without Bin Laden. Additionally, the beginning of this new chapter requires our US Administration to re-examine policies and actions in regards to the war on terror… Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist group hijacked the noble faith of Islam and, in its name, committed heinous crimes against us in America, and the rest of humanity, including Muslims. His malevolent actions have unfortunately and unjustly cast a shadow of suspicion over the heads of the Arab and Muslim American communities in the US and abroad. Now is the time to remove this ignorance and doubt and stand united once more as we celebrate our country’s triumph. ADC Michigan salutes President Obama, his administration, and the American heroes who risked their lives for this mission on behalf of peace and humanity.”

Cast a shadow of suspicion? Who are they kidding? Muslims and Arabs have always been portrayed as terrorists in movies and television, years before 9/11. I recall watching then CBS anchor Dan Rather as those nightmarish events unfolded and he advised us “caution” when placing blame. Why did he say that? Because the first thing that came to everyone’s mind was Muslim hijackers. And “heroes?” We’re talking about a group of guys who, by the government’s own convoluted admission—threw grenades into a house full of women and children and shot unarmed people.

It is imperative that Arab and Muslim advocacy organizations start fulfilling their purpose instead of being lockstep with the U.S. administration. It is their responsibility to speak out, condemning in the strongest terms the aggression with which the U.S. has attacked Muslim countries since 9/11, and to hold the government and media accountable for the false statements, half-truths and blatant lies which allow such aggression to continue.

A "Kinder, Gentler" Zionism

2011-04-15T13:46:00.001-04:00

Goldstone’s waffling diatribe in the Washington Post—although hardly the “retraction” of his report so heralded by the pro-Israel camp—should not have come as a surprise. Given the amount of Zionist pressure put on Goldstone, it is a wonder that his backpedaling took so long. He was blackballed throughout the international Jewish community, even prohibited from attending his own grandson’s bar mitzvah. It would be difficult for anyone to bear the extraordinary pressure wielded by such a powerful concerted effort and Goldstone must have been particularly susceptible because he was—and is—a self-described Zionist. Granted, in light of his initial report alleging Israeli war crimes, he could be labeled a “soft Zionist,” but a Zionist nonetheless.

The Jewish Virtual Library defines Zionism as “the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel…” In other words, Goldstone, along with every other Zionist, believes Jews have an unalienable right to come from the four corners of the world to take over Palestine. So, Goldstone’s betrayal of Operation Cast Lead’s victims, particularly the al-Simouni family, who lost 29 members in a single Israeli attack, was to be expected:

“The shelling of the (al-Simouni) home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack. While the length of this investigation is frustrating, it appears that an appropriate process is underway, and I am confident that if the officer is found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly.” –“Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel War Crimes”

Of course Goldstone’s more recent conclusions are self-contradictory; they ignore the fact that, according to paragraph 1756 in his original report, “The Mission found major structural flaws that in its view make the (Israeli investigatory) system inconsistent with international standards….there is the absence of any effective and impartial investigation mechanism and victims of such alleged violations are deprived of any effective or prompt remedy.” We are all too familiar with the criminal cover-ups inherent to IDF internal investigations, dubbing the attack on the Mavi Marmara an act of “self-defense” and Rachel Corrie’s murder an “accident.”

But Goldstone most blatantly reveals his true Zionist colors with the statement, “I had hoped that our inquiry into all aspects of the Gaza conflict would begin a new era of evenhandedness at the U.N. Human Rights Council, whose history of bias against Israel cannot be doubted.”

Come again? A history of bias? Israel’s proxy, the USA, has a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council; hence the vast majority of resolutions critical of the Jewish State are vetoed. In fact, a mere 79 resolutions condemning various forms of Israeli aggression managed to slip through since 1948.

It is this type of victimhood on which Israelis and their apologists rely; sadly we Palestinian activists have fallen prey to this phenomenon and feel the need to appease this victimization at every turn. We now spend far too much of our time qualifying all our statements with “…now I don’t have a problem with Jews or Judaism, but rather Zionism…” If you are a Jew who is against Zionism, you know who you are and don’t need the constant caveats from pro-Palestinian groups living in constant fear of being labeled “anti-Semitic.”

Moreover, many of the organizations supposedly advocating for Palestinian rights support the defunct “Two-State Solution,” which is inherently Zionist. Israeli settlements are ensconced in what is left of the West Bank, Palestinian communities are isolated by Jewish-only roads and the non-contiguous Gaza Strip is under siege. A Palestinian state under such circumstances is not viable and to declare statehood under these conditions only legitimizes the Israeli occupation of more than 85% of historic Palestine.

Some Arab-American and Muslim organizations have even praised J Street, the “kinder, gentler” face of Zionism to “counter” AIPAC in our halls of Congress. .” According to the Jerusalem Post, one of J Street’s finance committee members - with a $10,000 contribution threshold – is none other than Lebanese-American businessman Richard Abdoo, a current board member of Amideast and former board member of the Arab American Institute. If there was any doubt about J Street’s motives, New Israel Fund CEO Daniel Sokatch removed all doubt when addressing their conference thusly: “And we believe that working for justice and equality in Israel is the best way to re-ignite a commitment to Israel in our own American community.”

Somehow another recipient of the “balanced and moderate” label is New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. His condescending tripe entitled “US Must Step In to Pull Israel and Turkey Back to the Middle” in the aftermath of the Mavi Marmara massacre included a quote from one of his Israeli friends “…and the Palestinians are beginning to act rationally.” I wonder how rational Friedman would act if he was denied the opportunity to work, travel, go to the hospital, or have access to little more than 6 hours of electricity a day for years and then watch close family members be blown apart?

Come on, people. We should know the “good cop-bad cop” routine by now. The reality of so called “moderate” voices such as Goldstone, Friedman, and J Street is that they represent the most insidious and virulent form of Zionism: the idea that this poisonous ideology can peacefully co-exist with the rest of humanity.

Letter to Smithsonian Magazine

2011-04-12T09:21:00.003-04:00

I submitted the following to Smithsonian Magazine in response to the misleading information contained in "Sifting Sacred Ground."

In his article, “Sifting Sacred Ground,” Joshua Hammer focuses on the culpability of the Islamic Waqf in removing soil containing potential archeological discoveries during a pre-approved construction project at Jerusalem’s Nobel Sanctuary/Temple Mount. He twice mentions early Christians allegedly using the site as a garbage dump. However, Hammer fails to acknowledge the numerous harmful excavations Israeli authorities have conducted adjacent to Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.

From 1970-1979, digging was done directly beneath Al-Aqsa, resulting in the opening of a tunnel under the women’s prayer area. In a separate incident, Israeli engineers measured a slight movement in part of the southern wall, as reported by Abraham Rabinovich in the Jerusalem Post (1996).

Contrary to a 1929 document in which Waqf historian Aref al Aref confirmed his belief in the existence of Solomon’s Temple, Muslims have historically referred to it as al-haikal al-mazaoum (the alleged structure). Readers would have benefited from a more accurate and balanced picture of the history and controversy surrounding the Nobel Sanctuary/Temple Mount had Hammer talked with as many Muslim academics as he did Jewish scholars.

I found Hammer’s usage of “warren,” to describe an Arab housing area particularly offensive, connoting Palestinians are akin to wild rabbits and that Israelis performed a service by demolishing the homes to create a plaza. In actuality, this is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 147).

The quote "A toothbrush would be too large for brushing that soil, and they did it with bulldozers," attributed to Israeli historian Eyal Meiron must have been paraphrased from an earlier quotation by Gabriel Barkai of the Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, who was originally cited in a 2007 BBC article.

Finally, the idea that the Waqf has ultimate jurisdiction over the Nobel Sanctuary/Temple Mount is misleading. During a visit to Jerusalem in 2001, I was prohibited from entering the area by Israeli soldiers who informed me it was "closed to tourists." It was not on a Friday or Islamic holy day; they were merely arbitrarily refusing to let in visitors.

"Radicalization": It's Not A Muslim Thing

2011-03-14T15:56:00.000-04:00

New York Congressman Pete King served as ringmaster at the latest congressional circus looking into Muslim “radicalization” and its perceived threat to the Homeland. Unfortunately, I was not invited to testify at this hearing, else I would have been happy to share my insights with Congressman King as to what “radicalization” means and how I became “radicalized.”

Granted, I am not a Muslim; therefore I will not pretend to speak for Muslims, “radicalized” or not. I will, however, hazard a guess I could do a better job than Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, who tearfully recounted the story of Mohammad Salman Hamdani during the recent hearings. Hamdani was the Pakistani Muslim firefighter killed on 9/11 who was accused posthumously of being a co-conspirator in the attacks, allegations which were later proven false. The poignant theatrics by Ellison would have been an appropriate show of sympathy, was it not for the fact that a large portion of his congressional career to date has been devoted to serving as poster boy for the State Department. Engaging in such “image-building” abroad illustrates what a tolerant and diverse country the U.S. truly is and that Muslims are accepted and even elected to prominent positions in government—when they’re not being waterboarding or spied upon while praying. Ellison also proudly served as the token Muslim on a trip to the Jewish State sponsored by the America Israel Education Federation and visited Iraq in order to personally bestow praise on occupiers.

Not to be outdone was Imam Rauf, whose exchange with erstwhile john and now co-host of yet another talking head show on CNN Elliot Spitzer, was posted on the aptly named blog “Ikhras,” (Arabic for “shut up”). Rauf’s only complaint about the Peter King hearings was that more law enforcement agencies had not been invited to testify just how many Muslims are quislings for the FBI, spying in mosques and informing on their neighbors. Such gross displays of allegiance to an organization hell-bent on oppressing not only Muslims, but peace activists as well—23 of whom have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury— pushes those of us who believe in civil disobedience rather than collaboration a little closer to “radicalization.”

According to Wikipedia, “radicalization” is defined as “the process in which an individual changes from passiveness or activism to become more revolutionary, militant or extremist. Radicalization is often associated with youth, adversity, alienation, social exclusion, poverty or the perception of injustice to self or others.” By the same token, a “radical” is “a person who holds or follows strong convictions or extreme principles, extremist” or “a person who advocates fundamental political, economic, and social reforms by direct and often uncompromising methods.” While the word “militant” has a violent connotation, the definition does not specifically include the word “violence” or the word “religion.” In fact, tens of thousands of non-Muslims in Wisconsin have been “radicalized” by a Hitleresque attack on labor unions, yet they have been pretty peaceful thus far.

Being a Christian, my “radicalization” did not involve indoctrination by Islamic militants; it began with my own observations during a trip to Palestine in 2001. One of the first things I witnessed was an Orthodox Jew riding his bike through a crowd of Muslim women in the narrow streets of Jerusalem’s Old City, his legs outstretched nonchalantly as they scrambled to get out of his way. After a few days, I traveled to Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza and met 14 year-old Muhammad, who told me he was beaten by Israeli soldiers for playing on the beach.

The process continued months later when I went to the Jordan Hospital in Amman and visited a child who had been blinded in an Israeli attack. In the same place, I saw the life ebbing away from Taha Abu Snineneh, a young man who was also a victim of Israeli fire, enduring weeks of machines working his vital organs for him before finally passing away.

I felt still more marginalized, when, like so many others in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, I was the victim of harassing phone calls and requests for a meeting with unidentified government officials from “the Defense Department” and later in 2007 when two FBI agents showed up at my door to ask me about my “connections” with Hamas.

During a protest in New York City against the 2008-09 Israeli assault on Gaza, a Jewish man was allowed to cross over from the pro-Israeli counter-demonstration and berate two Arab men while shoving his finger in their faces, all done under the watchful eye of numerous police. At the same event, I was grabbed by an officer and practically shoved down when I attempted to confront three Israeli demonstrators who were heckling me as I walked by. To add insult to injury, a letter to my Congressman resulted in a reply shamelessly promoting “our Israel.”

These incidents which led to my “radicalization” are nothing when compared to the humiliation and suffering Palestinians experience every day of their lives, whether they are forced to endure Israeli attacks, checkpoints, home demolitions and unwarranted searches, or the endless limbo of refugee camps in Lebanon and other Arab nations where they live in varying degrees of second-class citizenship.

Was it not for the grotesquely bloated handouts to the Jewish State enabling the violent persecution of Palestinians—Muslim and Christian alike—we Americans would not be faced with such drastic cuts to medical care, children’s hospitals and education, the brunt of which is being borne by the poorest among us. Ultimately “injustice to others” and “injustice to self” are intertwined.

So there you have it, Mr. King. Radicalization has nothing to do with Islam. It is a reaction: a testimony to the human spirit that we will only take so much adversity, alienation, social exclusion and injustice before demanding fundamental political, economic and social reforms by direct and uncompromising methods.

Onward Revolution: Ridding the Region of U.S. and Israeli Influence

2011-03-14T13:08:00.000-04:00

Two dictators gone in less than a month. Mass protests from Yemen and Bahrain to Algeria and Libya. In Lebanon, Hezbollah—due to a broad coalition of Muslim, Christian and now Druze support—named the country’s new Prime Minister. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad hailed these recent developments as the start of “a new Middle East free from U.S. and Israeli interference.” Somehow I doubt this “new Middle East” is what then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice envisioned when she was having her infamous “birth pangs” in 2006.

The predictable hypocrisy contrasting US reactions to the demonstrations in Egypt which toppled Mubarak as opposed to those that transpired in Iran after Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s re-election illustrates that “democracy” is only to be lauded when the movement is pro-Western. In a Muslim society, that means it has to be “moderate” and friendly to Israel.

Rather than focusing on the reforms that will hopefully benefit the beleaguered citizens of these erstwhile U.S.-backed dictatorships, Western discussions of the various revolts are dominated by fears of “Islamic fundamentalist takeovers,” propagated by Israeli paranoia. Precious time and resources are spent attempting to placate the Jewish State. In fact, it was this very desire to protect Israeli interests that led to the establishment of Western puppet despots throughout the Arab World in the first place.

Of course the Israeli military juggernaut has nothing to fear, but everything to gain from playing the victim, which they have done so well for almost sixty-three years. These quintessential opportunists are indeed capitalizing on this unprecedented upheaval. Israeli reactions have ranged from trepidation to outright panic that the new Egyptian government may not uphold the peace treaty with the Jewish State after “radical Islamists” like the Muslim Brotherhood take over.

Islamic scholar Imran Hosein predicted in 2003 that one day Arab dictatorships would be swept away, leaving the people to think they were going to have a legitimate representative government. He stated, “It is in this scenario that Israel will say ‘we have to do something; if we just sit here and do nothing, the State of Israel will be destroyed and the Jews will all be slaughtered,’” precipitating a “pre-emptive strike” of unprecedented proportions.

If this seems like a doomsday scenario or a little too far-fetched, one has only to look as far as Jerusalem University Online.com, which has posted ads on Facebook warning that “Israel could be gone tomorrow: join our ‘Without Israel’ campaign to ensure it doesn’t happen.”

On the contrary, Egyptian officials have been a little too quick to assert the peace treaty between that nation and the Jewish State will remain intact. Press TV reported that according to an Israeli spokeswoman, Defense Minister Ehud Barak talked with Head of Egypt's Higher Military Council Mohamed Hussein Tantawi by telephone two days after Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power. The Egyptian military leadership said it would respect all the country's international treaties, including the peace pact with Israel.

Former US Ambassador to Iraq Edward Peck was quoted on Press TV: “The Egyptian government now seems to intend to continue the same path of cooperating with the blockade of the people in Gaza. This has always been one of the things that the Egyptian people and the other people in the area did not like … and perceive as the Egyptian government's acquiescence in supporting what Israel is doing with the Palestinian people.”

As we have seen this past month, it is ultimately the people who will effect positive change in the reason. Corrupt governments must be brought down and bodies such as the United Nations must be discredited as counterproductive wastes. Where else could some 120 nations co-sponsor a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank, only to have their voices canceled out by one nation, the very one funding the illegal occupation of Palestine? Such travesties of international law will no longer be tolerated as momentum gains for demonstrations against these settlements and the boycott and divestment campaign of the Zionist State itself.

It is encouraging to see the preliminary reports that Egypt will allow two Iranian ships to transit the Suez Canal and open the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, at least for humanitarian purposes. These are hopeful indications of, as President Ahmedinejad said, “a new Middle East, free from U.S. and Israeli interference.” Only after that interference disappears for good can there be hope for justice and peace in the region.

How "The Middle East's Only Democracy" Crushes Dissent

2010-11-26T12:45:00.000-05:00

Ever since becoming an activist on behalf of Palestine some ten years ago, I have found ironic humor in the label, “The Middle East’s Only Democracy” used by American policymakers and media in describing the Jewish State. This statement is erroneous on two counts. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of a democracy knows that Israelis overwhelmingly shun the values associated with such a system; furthermore quite a few countries in the Middle East hold elections regularly. Most recently, Jordan elected a new parliament.

Of course there are those who argue that a democracy simply means “majority rule,” or that government leaders are elected, so technically Israel would qualify. “Democracy” is defined by www.thefreedictionary.com, “government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.” So in the purely political sense, as Israeli leaders are elected, they have democracy. However, the fifth definition of democracy reads “the principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community,” a concept diametrically opposed to Israel’s inherently racist establishment.

Not only is Israel content merely to expand settlements on stolen land and deny Arab citizens the basic rights of religious freedom, education, health care and mobility, any form of dissent is quashed. Arab Israeli Knesset member Haneen Zoabi was stripped of her parliamentary privileges for participating in the Gaza freedom flotilla. In addition to receiving numerous death threats, Zoabi was recently shot in the back and neck with rubber bullets during a protest against a march by militant settlers in the town of Umm al-Fahm. Under Zionism, there is no such thing as freedom of assembly or free speech.

Take for instance a recent haiku contest on Facebook sponsored by El Al Airlines. Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry requiring three non-rhyming lines: the first and third line consisting of five syllables, the second line containing seven. I swallowed my pride and became a fan of the page; the possible temporary damage to my reputation seemed well worth it when considering the unwitting audience I would have. However, shortly after I began posting the haiku, a chorus of “she has to be banned” ensued.
I found out that indeed, I had been blocked from posting comments on the site after an hour or so. The El Al fan page administrator deleted all my haiku. I should not have been surprised.

This is the modus operandi of the Zionist machine. Dissent is not tolerated and must be completely obliterated, as in the case of Congressmen and women who dare try and stand up to it: Paul Findley (re-districted out), Cynthia McKinney (trumped up charge assaulting a guard who was harassing her; victim of a smear campaign and voted out), Dennis Kucinich (marginalized and belittled), Jim Traficant (jailed). Prominent figures in the media are silenced, most recently the legendary Helen Thomas and Rick Sanchez, formerly of CNN. Numerous Israeli youth sit in jails for refusing to military duty in the West Bank. The most sinister, however is the way activists Rachel Corrie, Tristan Anderson,Tom Hurndall, Furkan Dogan and 8 other flotilla participants were silenced, along with the untold thousands of Palestinians who have been murdered since 1948 for the “crime” of resisting occupation or while merely trying to live out their daily lives in their homeland.

Yet the legacies of these brave individuals continue, and to honor them, I put forth the haiku again in a place where the hasbara machine cannot penetrate.

Ignorant tourists
Celebrate sixty-plus years
Of ethnic cleansing.

Bustling Tel Aviv
Welcoming occupiers
Atop Lydda's graves.

Stealing Holy Land
As amid scorched olive trees
More settlements rise.

Arrogant squatters
Frolic on stolen beaches
Kids in Gaza die.

El Al transporting
Still more and more invaders
to dear Palestine.

Flight attendants' thobes
Food service is falafel
Theft of a culture.

Big jet engines scream
Not unlike those that have rained
Hell upon Gaza.

And then there was my daughter’s contribution:
El Al carrying
"Israeli" stowaways to
Steal from Palestine

El Al's jet engines
Cannot drown out the screams of
White phosphorus wounds.

Airline of the blind
You see touristy mudbaths
Not Gaza's bloodbath.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui: Why She Was Targeted and Why She Matters to All of Us

2010-10-05T13:02:00.000-04:00

In the final scene of the 2002 remake of “Dr. Zhivago,” Lara observes the inevitable black car following her and has just enough time to make up a game with her young son, challenging him to a race. She knows full well she will never see him again.

“I’ll let you have a head start,” she smiles at her little boy. He begins running as she is escorted to the car, offering no resistance as she continues watching him from the backseat; the first leg of a journey to an unnamed Siberian gulag.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui had no such warning, no time to distance herself from her three young children during the mayhem of their 2003 kidnapping in Karachi, Pakistan. Neither U.S. nor Pakistani officials admitted knowledge of the family’s whereabouts from 2003 to 2008. It was later learned that Dr. Siddiqui was detained and subjected to brutal interrogations at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan before resurfacing in New York in 2008, answering to charges of the attempted murder of two U.S. soldiers.

For years, Dr. Siddiqui did not know whether her children were alive or dead until her oldest son, Ahmed, was released in 2008. Daughter Maryam was dropped off at the family’s residence in Karachi in April 2010, speaking only English and Farsi. The fate of baby Suleman, six months old at the time of the kidnapping, remains unknown.

Former prisoners in Bagram tell of the tortured screams of Prisoner 650, commonly known as “the Gray Lady of Bagram.” By all their accounts, Prisoner 650 was Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and she herself later testified that she endured both physical and psychological torture, including being forced to look at a photograph of her baby Suleman lying in a pool of his own blood.

It is no surprise that anyone under such unspeakable conditions would seek every opportunity to exact revenge on their tormenters. Yet discrepancies in testimony describing the “crime” for which Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was sentenced to 86 years in prison—the attempted shooting of two US soldiers—raise serious doubts as to whether it actually occurred. Furthermore, Dr. Siddiqui was detained and tortured for allegedly plotting terrorist acts and links to Al-Qaeda. Why wasn’t she brought up on terrorism charges?

The overriding question remains: Why was a brilliant American-educated neuroscientist singled out for such heinous abuses?

Zaid Hamid, Pakistani political analyst and host of the program “Brasstacks,” stated that Dr. Siddiqui’s novel and unique research in neuroscience included groundbreaking work relating to biology, psychology, perception management and mind control: the latest weapons coveted by governments, militaries and media. Dr. Siddiqui later revealed that an Indian interrogator at Bagram had asked her about her research at MIT, his familiarity with her work leading her to believe he was a former colleague.

In addition to her research at MIT, Dr. Siddiqui completed her Ph.D. in Cognitive Neuroscience from Brandeis early in 2001. Her PhD dissertation abstract discussed how people perceive, remember, and enact observations. One of her experiments required volunteers to view and then recreate the movement of a disk across a computer screen in order to study the components of visual perception and memory. She observed that they saw only the momentary positions of the disc and had to interconnect those positions. She concluded that in a sequence of movements without a visible trail, it became difficult for the subject to form a picture or a story.

A May 2010 Greg Miller appearing in Smithsonian Magazine entitled “How Our Brains Make Memories,” unwittingly ties into Dr. Siddiqui’s research. In the article, Montreal neuroscientist Karim Nader discusses the “flashbulb memory” effect surrounding such occasions as 9/11 and his theory that the very act of remembering can alter a memory.

Such a suggestion would indicate that if our own memories are altered by repeated remembering, how much easier would it be for some other entity—the government or the media for instance— to alter our memories by repeated playback of 9/11 footage, peppering scenes of the attacks with commentaries from their own “experts” and “eyewitnesses?”

Could it be that Dr. Siddiqui, because of her groundbreaking research in the field, was tapped by the government to potentially help develop a weapon of mass psychosis which would cause a nation to believe that airplanes brought down the World Trade Center and the aerial maneuvering of a novice pilot landed another smack-dab into the Pentagon? Her refusal to cooperate would have been motive enough to discredit her and lock her away, let alone if she had actually been briefed on such a plan.

Why, some will ask, was she not killed outright? Why risk the possibility of this information coming to light? One explanation is that she is being used as an example, to frighten and intimidate others who dare to defy the powerbrokers in the “War on Terror.” Furthermore, the initial injection of an unknown substance followed by years of torture rendered Dr. Siddiqui nearly incompetent to stand at her own trial. Even if connections with 9/11 plots and mind control weapons had surfaced, they would be dismissed as the ranting of an insane woman and her crackpot-conspiracy-theorist supporters.

It is imperative that we discover the truth, not just to save an innocent mother of three, but for the sake of our whole society. I have often been told that my western appearance has saved me from the horrors of interrogation, but I wonder, for how much longer? My children and I were harassed by immigration officials upon our return to the United States from Ecuador this summer and recent days have seen the homes of peace activists in Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan raided by FBI agents who confiscated laptops, cell phones and bank records.

Do we hold our elected officials and media responsible? Do we organize mass civil disobedience in support of those harassed and detained for speaking out against U.S. policy? Or do we wait for the black cars, wondering if we will have time to give our children a head start?

Ramadan Reflections From A Christian

2010-09-12T05:47:00.000-04:00

As of this writing, the Islamic holy month of Ramadan is coming to a close. The past month has been a time of unprecedented turbulence for Muslims around the world. While both natural and man-made disasters plague our brothers and sisters overseas, media-fed controversy strains Muslim/non-Muslim relations here in the United States.

The unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe in the aftermath of the flooding in Pakistan has been compounded by evidence revealing India’s role in opening major dams along shared rivers. Such tactics are reminiscent of Israel’s opening of the al-Wadi dam which flooded parts of Gaza earlier this year; however due to the size and volume of the rivers, the suffering in Pakistan is much more widespread. After rainfall subsided on July 29, the Baghliar Dam located in Indian-occupied Kashmir and the Sarobi Dam near Kabul and maintained by India, were opened, causing the rivers to overflow. To make matters worse, vitriolic comments began appearing on Western news websites covering the disaster. One example, forwarded to me by a colleague in Lahore:

“lets hope more rains and floods kill more pakis soon!! pray to god for this that he brings more rain to kill more pakis!! lets hope the rain washed these samosa smelling bastards before they are sent to hells gates! a good paki is a dead paki!!”

Kashmir, long a prisoner of the Indian army, has been under curfew for a good portion of the month; praying at mosque has been a sporadic privilege for most Kashmiris. Funerals on the other hand, have been quite commonplace as youths protesting the injustices are gunned down. Images from Indian-occupied Kashmir mirror those of Israeli-occupied Palestine, where, despite the latest round of direct “peace talks,” it is business as usual.

While Abbas and Netanyahu posed for their American-orchestrated photo op, two Israeli soldiers who committed separate atrocities walked free: one who emptied his magazine into a Palestinian schoolgirl was acquitted and peace activist Tom Hurndall’s murderer was released from prison. The monotony of the siege on Gaza is broken only by periodic missile attacks from the Israeli Air Force as tunnels—Gaza’s precarious lifelines to the outside world—are destroyed. Yet the American news media has pursued only two stories for the sole purpose of stoking controversy and pitting non-Muslim against Muslim.

The “Ground Zero Mosque” as it has been inappropriately dubbed in the press, actually sits two blocks away and cannot be seen from the former site of the World Trade Center. What should have been an issue of a man’s right to do what he likes with his private property (within zoning constraints) has transformed into a clash of civilizations-style debate on religious freedom—or lack thereof—in the United States. In all fairness, since September 11, 2001 was the manufactured catalyst for the deaths, injuries, displacement and detainment of untold millions of Muslims worldwide, the “Ground Zero Mosque,” moreover, Ground Zero itself, should become home to a Muslim Holocaust Museum.

Due to Eid al-Fitr coinciding with the ninth anniversary of 9/11, many Muslim organizations are choosing to “tone down” or cancel their Eid celebrations altogether. I daresay this falls into one of two categories: fear of retaliation from those who listened to talk radio fascists circulating the myth that Muslims are celebrating 9/11 this year, or a sheepish appeal to the American population at large that says “we respect your sensitivities, please like us.”

Either way, I want to ask those organizations if Eid festivities were ever toned down to honor the Palestinian victims of the Black September massacres in 1970. Or to honor the one million Iraqis killed during and after the U.S. invasion? Were Eid festivities ever canceled when the holiday coincided with any one of the numerous massacres in Palestine? I would point out to them that Americans aren’t canceling any celebrations for 9/11. Here in Dayton, the Hispanic Heritage Festival will pause for a “September 11 Commemoration,” but the salsa music is set to resume shortly afterwards.

This is all well and good, as commemorating the anniversary of 9/11 should not be tied ceremonies at the pieces of ground in Lower Manhattan, Washington, D.C. or a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It should not be about playing Taps or waving flags; citizens would do the greatest honor to the victims by pursuing the truth as to what really happened that day, demanding answers to the discrepancies, omissions and falsehoods put forth by the 9/11 Commission. Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel held a press conference regarding evidence of explosive material in Buildings 1, 2 and 7 of the WTC, although mainstream media was massed in Gainesville, Florida and missed it.

Although I hate to contribute to a publicity-hungry pastor’s fifteen minutes of fame, the irony of General Petraeus’ condemnation of “International Burn the Qur’an Day” merits a mention. This is the same guy who orders drone attacks destroying mosques, schools and homes in which Muslim men, women and children are incinerated, let alone copies of the Qur’an which they undoubtedly kept.

In the midst of anger and frustration at the ignorance festering within my own country, fasting throughout the month of Ramadan has increased my patience, self-discipline and inner peace. Friends and family wondered why a Christian would elect to partake in such a difficult fast, one that is not mandated by our religion. Some thought I had converted.

My reasons for fasting are simple: Jesus fasted; he also advised that some forms of healing only come with prayer and fasting (Mark 9:29). I also wanted to be in solidarity with those facing hard times in Gaza, Pakistan and so many other places who may not get to break their fasts at sunset. I fasted to support my Muslim brothers and sisters here at home in a sometimes hostile society rife with hatred and misunderstanding. It is my sincere desire to reflect this newfound patience and peace to my community and to the rest of the world.

What Christian Zionists Don't Know About the New Testament

2010-08-30T15:17:00.001-04:00

In previous articles, I have discussed how Christian Zionists have manipulated Old Testament history and prophecy to justify their unconditional support for modern-day Israel; support that includes aiding and abetting the occupation and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians—Muslim and Christian alike. Sadly, the New Testament has not been immune to abuse by Christian Zionists, either. Certain passages have been taken out of context to perpetuate the myth that the Jews, as “God’s Chosen” should be allowed to get away with murder.

Romans 1:16 is one of the most notable passages co-opted by Christian Zionists: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

There are many Christian Zionists who believe this verse instructs them to proselytize Jews exclusively before sharing their faith—such that it is—with the neighbor down the street. It is also used to emphasize the supposed Jewish “chosen-ness” as if there is some sort of divine pecking order. While logic dictates that when originally spreading Christ's message, the early apostles would have gone to the synagogues first because they were in possession of the Old Testament history and prophecy that were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. More simply, it made sense to go to the people who knew about Moses, Jonah and Isaiah before tackling the people who worshipped Zeus. Moreover, it is evident throughout the whole body of scripture, beginning with the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ to his apostles’ inspired letters to the churches, that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3: 28-29.

Jesus, foretelling signs of end times, states in Luke 21:24:
“And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”

This warning is significant, considering the ethnic make-up of modern-day Israeli society. By law, any person born of a Jewish mother has the right to Israeli citizenship. However, the connection between modern Jewry and the biblical Hebrews is virtually nonexistent. After Rome razed Jerusalem in 70AD, Palestinian Jews who fled to Europe, Africa and other parts of the Middle East introduced the local populations to Judaism, drawing a significant number of converts. Thus, modern-day Jews are mostly descended from non-Semitic peoples who have no physical connection to Palestine. Israeli immigration laws have become more liberal to include recent converts to Judaism. Therefore, that the Gentiles to whom Jesus referred are not Arabs, but rather the Israelis themselves.

Furthermore, “Israel” in the Bible does not refer to a future political nation-state. Peter, a disciple of Jesus, uses the same language in reiterating God’s promise to the early Church that was originally made to Moses and the Children of Israel (Jacob) in Exodus 19:5-6: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people…” (I Peter 2:9) This text, taken almost verbatim from the Old Testament, is proof positive that the “holy nation” no longer refers to Israel as a kingdom or earthly nation, but a spiritual body of believers in Jesus Christ, regardless of race, ethnicity or nationality.

Jesus gives us a final warning in Revelation 2:9: “I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” All Christians must heed this divine warning by separating themselves from those engaged to a heretical theology of racial superiority that supports ethnic cleansing and genocide.

Christians have a sacred duty to study God’s word so as not to be deceived by false doctrines, including Zionism. Christian Zionists are hindering the fulfillment of Christ’s Great Commission to preach his love to the world by throwing all their time, money and resources into aiding and abetting the ethnic cleansing of indigenous people by those who categorically deny Jesus Christ and everything he represents. Once Christians understand Zionism’s opposition to scripture and incongruence with Biblical prophecy, the withdrawal of all forms of support—financial, material, political and spiritual—from the lie that is Israel will surely follow.

What Christian Zionists Don't Know About Old Testament Prophecy

2010-08-25T16:45:00.001-04:00

Old Testament prophecy and history are interconnected because the ancient prophecies were fulfilled while the books that eventually became the Bible were still being written: fulfillment became history. However, Christian Zionists believe Old Testament prophets foretold the establishment of modern-day Israel and the rebuilding of a Third Jewish Temple, discarding all semblance of historical context.

It may be argued that Zionism, as a political and secular movement, never relied on scriptural land grants as the basis for a Jewish homeland. However, the symbiotic relationship between Christian and political Zionism has already been explored and proven beginning with William Hechler’s unholy alliance with Theodor Herzl. http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16204

Israel’s wars of expansion illustrate a sense of divine entitlement rather than a mere desire to create a refuge for the world’s Jewry: the annexation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, seizure of Syria’s Golan Heights, Lebanon’s Chebaa Farms and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula (later returned under duress) and for the past two decades, the United States serving as a proxy to destroy and occupy Iraq. In all the madness, one can sense a certain religious fanaticism reminiscent of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny that led early settlers in the United States to perpetuate atrocities against Native Americans in order to fulfill an imaginary divine decree that the fledgling nation would stretch from sea to sea.

While the Bible outlined boundaries for the ancient Israelites, found in Joshua 1:4: “From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun (Mediterranean), shall be your coast,” Zionists use these parameters as a present-day ordinance for the creation of a “Greater Israel,” including not only Palestine, but parts of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. This was evidenced in a 1952 speech by then Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan:

“…our task consists of preparing the Israeli army for the new war approaching in order to achieve our ultimate goal, the creation of an Israeli empire.”

To Christian Zionists, the establishment and expansion of such an Israeli empire is imperative in order to precipitate the return of Jesus Christ to earth, or the Second Coming. They believe that all Jews must be gathered in Palestine in order to fulfill prophecy; furthermore that a “Third Temple” must be constructed where Al-Aqsa Mosque—Islam’s third holiest shrine—now stands.

Chronologically, Joel’s writings are the oldest, dating back to the 9th Century BC. The book bearing his name foretells the manifestation of the Holy Spirit at the Jewish feast of Pentecost in Acts 2. The next set of prophecies was written in the 8th century BC: the Books of Isaiah, Hosea, Amos and Micah all contain warnings of Israel’s destruction, which occurred when the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC. Babylonians defeated the Southern Kingdom (Judah) in 597 BC, marking the beginning of the exile. Amos 9:11 states:

“In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up thee breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old.”

At the time Amos prophesied, Babylonian captivity was well over 100 years away, as well as Jerusalem’s subsequent restoration. Amos 9:11 is quoted by James in Acts 15:16-17 when he addresses the church council, indicating the fulfillment of Amos’ prophecy in the person of Jesus Christ, not a literal “Third Temple.”

Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Zephaniah all wrote during the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BC. When they foretell the return to Jerusalem, they are referring to the end of the Babylonian captivity, not the eventual creation of a modern political Israel.

In his essay, “Zionists and the Bible,” Christian theologian Alfred Guillaume sums it up:

“These prophecies were fulfilled. The Jews returned to Judea, rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls and rebuilt the Temple. After fluctuating fortunes, they secured a brief period of political independence and expansion under the Maccabees. Thus, the prophecies of the Return have been fulfilled already and cannot be fulfilled again. The Old Testament’s canonical literature contains no prophecy of a second return after the return from the Babylonian Exile, because after the Exile, all Jews who wished to do so returned to the Holy Land, though a great many more preferred to remain where they were….”

Those still insisting that there will be another Temple need only read John 2:19: “Jesus answered and said unto them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” Here Christ is clearly referring to himself as the temple which will be “raised up,” or resurrected. During his ministry, Christ also points to various stories found in the Old Testament in order to refute the “Chosen Race” doctrine:

“And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias (Elijah), when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus (Elisha) the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian.” (Luke 4: 24-27)

Jesus gives us many more such teachings and parables throughout the New Testament, which will be examined in an upcoming article.

What Christian Zionists Don't Know about Old Testament History

2010-08-20T12:55:00.000-04:00

I have been comforted by the divine wisdom and promise found in the Bible countless times throughout my life, yet it troubles me how this sacred book has been manipulated by so many into a how-to manual of theft and destruction. Often I have been questioned by non-Christian friends regarding biblical passages commonly abused by Christian Zionists—those who believe that Jews are God’s Chosen and must be implanted in Palestine in order to precipitate the Second Coming of Jesus Christ—“Does the Bible really say that?”

My answer is always a resounding “no.” While it is possible to take certain passages out of context and ignore the historical perspective in which they were written in order to manufacture a case for a modern-day nation called Israel, it is neither accurate nor theologically sound. Yet as many as 70 million people in the United States espouse the doctrine of Christian Zionism which endorses racism, ethnic cleansing and wholesale slaughter as manifested in the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This heresy is twofold: Zionist Christians have manipulated both biblical prophecy and the Bible’s historical content to support their murderous agenda.

It is imperative that true followers of Christ actively fight back against this lethal false doctrine that has caused far more death and destruction than any so-called Islamic extremism by first examining history from a biblical perspective. It is very important not to confuse the term Biblical Literalist with Christian Zionist. I probably take the Bible more literally than anyone I know and in fact, the most effective way to rescue otherwise benign individuals from the dangerous heresy of Christian Zionism is through a strict literal interpretation of the Bible.

Beginning with the Book of Genesis, God establishes a covenant with Abram (Abraham) whom modern-day Jews, Christians and Muslims all revere as a patriarch and a prophet. In the Covenant, God promised Canaan (Palestine) to Abram and his descendants (Genesis 17:8).

Later, in Genesis 17:19-21, God specifically establishes His covenant with Abraham’s son Isaac. Unfortunately this is an early point of contention between Christianity and Islam, as Muslims believe it was Ishmael (Ismail PBUH) whom Abraham was ordered to sacrifice in a test by God while Christians believe it was Isaac. Yet even in the Bible, God does not exclude Ishmael and his descendants from the original promise to Abraham of all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates Rivers. Christian theologian Alfred Guillaume (1888-1965) addresses this point:

“It is generally supposed that these promises were made to the Jews alone. However, this is not what the Bible says. The words ‘to thy seed’ inevitably include Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, who can claim descent from Abraham through his first son Ishmael. Ishmael was the reputed father of many Arab tribes…”

The name Israel is first heard in Genesis 32 when God renames Jacob, the son of Isaac. From this name are derived the terms “Children of Israel,” “Israelites,” and “Twelve Tribes of Israel.” Christian Zionists base Jewish claims to Palestine on the ridiculous notion that they are directly and purely descended from the biblical Israelites, as members of a Jewish “race” rather than adherents to the religion of Judaism. Ironically, anyone who converts to Judaism has legal rights to immigrate to the Jewish State regardless of heritage.

Intermarriage was prevalent early on, beginning with Isaac’s marriage to Rebekah, whose father was Syrian. Hence Arab blood was already present in the Israelites’ lineage. There are numerous other instances of intermarriage throughout the Old Testament, including Moses, whose father-in-law is identified as a Midianite, of an Arab tribe. Ruth, whose story is told in the Old Testament book bearing her name, was not Jewish but Moabite. In the first chapter of Matthew, Ruth is listed as a direct ancestor of Jesus Christ. Jacob’s youngest son, Joseph, married Asenath, daughter of Potipherah who was an Egyptian priest. She bore him two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim (Gen. 41: 50). Jacob (Israel) later adopted Manasseh and Ephraim hence the two of the Twelve Tribes of Israel bear their names.

The Twelve Tribes of Israel were to divide the aforementioned land. The Levites, to whom Moses and Aaron belonged, were chosen as a caste of priests, thus not entitled to any land. Ironically, those with the surname Cohen claim to be descended from the Levites, not knowing if this were indeed true, they would have to relinquish rights to any land in Palestine! Likewise, the tribes of Gad, Reuben and half of Manasseh elected to settle east of the Jordan River.

When Israel split in the 6th Century B.C., the Northern Kingdom (which retained the name Israel) was comprised of ten tribes. The remaining two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, formed the Southern Kingdom (Judah). From 734-732 B.C. the kingdoms were at war with each other; the Assyrians routed the Northern Kingdom ten years later. The Babylonians conquered Judah in 597 B.C., the beginning of a seventy-year exile. The majority of those who eventually returned from the Babylonian captivity were from the tribe of Judah, from where the term “Jew” is derived, first appearing in the Second Book of Kings 16:6.

Another name found in the Bible is Ashkenaz, a son of Gomer. From this word comes Ashkenazim, referring to Jews of European heritage. However, Gomer was descended from Japheth (I Chronicles 1:6) and not Shem; therefore the name itself defines them as non-Semitic people.

Biblical origins of names become very important when confronting Zionist Christians, as evidenced in this inane statement from Craig Winn, author of such inflammatory titles as Prophet of Doom:

“The name ‘Palestinian’ was derived from the Roman Latinized name of the Philistines. The Assyrians murdered the last of the Philistines in 585 B.C. There are therefore, no Palestinians alive today. There haven’t been for over 2,500 years.”

In reality, the Philistines were only one of seven Canaanite nations and inhabited the area immediately around Gaza. Canaanites were descended from Ham, not Shem (Genesis 10), thus were not Semitic and cannot be related to modern day Palestinian Arabs who are true Semites. One of the many biblical prophecies warped by Zionist Christians is found in Zechariah 14:21b “…and in that day there shall be no more Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts.” They use this passage to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, when in fact Palestinians are not Canaanites.

An upcoming article will be devoted entirely to other biblical prophecies that Zionist Christians have taken out of context and twisted to fit their homicidal master plan.

The Roots of Christian Zionism

2010-08-15T23:26:00.001-04:00

It is common knowledge that many so-called Christians throw unconditional, unyielding support behind the Jewish state. Known as Christian Zionists, or more recently “Israel-firsters”—indicating their degree of loyalty over and above the interests of their own country—it is estimated they are over 50 million strong in the United States alone. By stripping biblical passages out of their proper context and ignoring historical perspective, Christian Zionist leaders have convinced the masses that Jesus Christ will return when all Jews are gathered in Palestine, even if it means the systemic destruction of the Palestinian people.

Questions remain how such a blatantly un-biblical doctrine hijacked an entire segment of the Christian community; moreover, how the doctrine came to be so widely accepted not only in churches but in the halls of political power.

It has been argued that Christian Zionism originated as a spin-off of secular Zionism; that Christians were co-opted by political Zionists in order to gain support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Ironically, Palestine was sixth on the list for such a homeland at Theodor Herzl’s First Zionist Congress in 1897, behind locales including Argentina, Uganda and Turkey. It was in fact the Christian Zionists who were orchestrating the takeover of Palestine from the beginning.

The Politics of Christian Zionism 1891-1948 by Paul C. Merkley provides startling evidence that the poisoned theology of Christian Zionism predates Herzl, long considered the father of Zionism. In fact, Herzl received a tremendous amount of support from William Hechler, the son of Anglican missionaries and author of an 1893 pamphlet entitled “The Restoration of the Jews to Palestine According to Prophecy.” It was Hechler who arranged meetings between Herzl and Kaiser Wilhelm II, promoting the Zionist ambition to usurp Palestine among world leaders.

Early support for Zionism among United States policymakers was manifested through a handful of misguided religious nuts who manipulated leaders by flattering their sordid egotistical fantasies. According to Merkley, President Harry S. Truman compared himself to Cyrus, the Persian king who allowed Jews to return to Palestine in ancient times after the Babylonian captivity, although Zionist sympathies have run deep in America since its foundation.

The Puritans drew a parallel between themselves and the Children of Israel, escaping religious persecution in Europe just as the ancient Hebrews were led out of Egypt. America was their “Promised Land,” making way for the doctrine of Manifest Destiny (that it was God’s divine will for the new country to stretch from sea to sea) that justified the abhorrent treatment of Native Americans. By the same token, Christian Zionism justifies the killing and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to this day. Plymouth Brethren minister John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) popularized the doctrine under the name “dispensationalism,” which was further spread by the Scofield Reference Bible published in 1909. That edition contained copious footnotes instructing readers how to interpret Bible verses and prophecy centered around the re-establishment of Israel as a modern nation-state.

Thus the Zionist heresy was mass marketed to a largely ignorant populace who are convinced they do not have enough sense to read the Bible for themselves. Today, support for Israel has gained momentum through apocalyptic preaching by televangelists who make large profits for supporting Israel. They have co-opted Christian laypeople into thinking they can bring about Christ’s return, ending suffering on earth.

It would be scary enough if such ideas were confined to churches, but Zionist Christians have organized political lobbies such as Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Arguably, they have considerable influence over US foreign policy, particularly effective with neo-conservatives as witnessed during the George W. Bush administration. Numerous Christian groups encourage Jewish immigration to what is now called Israel through financial contributions while assisting ultra-orthodox Jewish groups to promote settlement expansion on Palestinian land.

Not only do Zionists distort biblical history, they spread lies about more modern events as well. Proponents of Israel will often pander the tired Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini obfuscation in an attempt to connect all Palestinians to Adolph Hitler. Husseini was imposed upon the Palestinians in 1921 by the British Mandate's first high commissioner, a British Jew named Herbert Samuel. Husseini was selected over the rival Nashashibi candidate and favored by the Zionist Commission. Husseini allied with Hitler to oppose the British, falling into the trap as so many others who have believed “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

In this manner Christian Zionists have the ability to reach outside their own cult and snag more secular (although nonetheless misguided) individuals by linking Arabs—particularly exploiting the blood connection between Husseini and late President Yasser Arafat—with the epitome of “anti-Semitic” evil. These same “Christians” are poised to use the anniversary of the September 11 tragedy to accuse Muslims of celebrating the attacks. In reality, the end of Ramadan, Eid Al-Fitr, coincides with that date this year. Meanwhile, Florida pastor Terry Jones, leader of the innocuous-sounding Dove World Outreach Center, is encouraging Christians to burn a Qur’an on September 11.

Although emboldened by all the media attention, proponents of these views are fortunately far from mainstream Christianity. The problem is that Christians who do take seriously Christ’s message of love are reluctant to gently—or not so gently—correct those hate-mongers masquerading as Christians. We must be willing to take back our faith by outspokenly refuting the heresy of Christian Zionism and its hateful manifestations both at home and abroad.

Fear or Apathy, We Are All To Blame

2010-07-05T12:40:00.000-04:00

Over the years, I have lambasted the U.S. government, particularly in the area of foreign policy. Wars, copious amounts of taxpayer dollars in aid to an apartheid state, inherent racism and hypocrisy have provided endless fodder for constant criticism.

Has that criticism been aimed at the right place? The motivations behind the aforementioned institutionalized evils are elementary: money, power and greed; however the real problem is much deeper. A government that—at least in principle—is supposed to be “for the people, by the people” must relinquish some of the responsibility for erroneous policy to the people. Whether we feel the need to acquiesce out of fear or out of apathy, we are equally culpable.

The first great enemy to humanity is fear. It is fear that ultimately leads to racism, bigotry, hatred and any number of social ills. Those in power are well aware of this, and will use any means to instill fear in their citizenry in order to manipulate them. Recently, Israeli schoolchildren underwent numerous air raid drills, supposedly in the event of an attack by Hezbollah, or maybe Iran, or just in case the resistance groups in Gaza finally develop a rocket that can hit the broadside of a barn.

Of course, a country which touts itself as a premier tourist destination cannot be under the threat of imminent attacks from Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and Gaza, yet these brainwashed youngsters will—like us—be taught not to question, only to fear and to support their government’s attacks on Palestinian civilians and humanitarian activists under the guise of self-defense.

The tragic absurdity was compounded when Israeli commandos stormed a Gaza-bound humanitarian cargo ship, murdering unarmed activists, only to make outlandish claims that they were ambushed and attacked with knives, pipes and clubs. According to the increasingly preposterous hasbara machine, the Free Gaza movement is tied to Al-Qaeda and hate-filled passengers had prepared themselves for a violent confrontation. Logic dictates that if a group of activists plans a violent confrontation against one of the most advanced and trigger-happy armies in the world, they will carry at least a couple of AK-47s rather than knives and pipes.

However, fear leaves us with the inability to reason, thus it is the most important weapon in the propagandists’ arsenal. Common sense becomes an early casualty. Traveling on internal flights within Ecuador during a recent trip served as a blissful reminder that in other places in the world, travelers do not have to dump their water and liquids in larger-than-three-ounce containers at the door, nor remove their shoes. Yet fear-mongering has convinced us that there is a bomb in every bottle of baby oil and we are poised to submit to even more indignities after the infamous alleged “underwear bomber.” It is truly amazing what people will tolerate.

The Obama administration is poised to give Israel an additional $205 million for a missile defense shield, while the state of California has announced budget cuts eliminating programs such as welfare-to-work and home health care. The vicious cycle continues: give money to Israel, cut program funding for poor and destitute Americans to keep them busy with basic survival so there is no concern for what is going on overseas.

Such apathy, like fear, is equally debilitating. Whether it is the amount of gratuitous violence in news and entertainment, or simply that we are too busy trying to find employment, pay mortgages, maintain health coverage, gas the car and put food on the table, we are losing our uniquely human ability to empathize. Our government’s endless quest for global hegemony has created these conditions—instead of focusing on our own job creation, inner cities, education and health care, foreign wars and entanglements have drained our resources, leaving our citizens to die at hospital doors and our desperate youth to gun down each other in the streets.

I ran into a former coworker at a wedding recently. Sitting together at the reception, three year-old grandson on her lap in his crisp white tuxedo, I showed her pictures of my children while listing the major life changes that had taken place in the eleven years since I had seen her. She spoke of retirement with an air of sadness not usually associated with a comfortable pension after a lifetime of hard work and then informed me quietly that her youngest son—the father of the little boy seated so solemnly in her lap—had been shot and killed in 2007.

After heartfelt yet inadequate and clichéd expressions of sympathy, I realized that I had most likely seen reports of his murder on the news, but had given it little attention: it wasn’t in my part of town and I would not have recognized the name. In other words, it didn’t affect me.

Only then did I come to the disturbing realization that I am not immune to the sickness that has infected us all to one degree or another: the apathetic tolerance that we afford such untimely loss of human life. The people in neighborhoods and situations who have to worry about getting gunned down in front of their own homes cannot be bothered with the gross oppression going on in Palestine. More ignorance and apathy allows the government to continue unabated the flow of economic and military aid to the apartheid state of Israel.

To combat these dual forces of fear and apathy, we must remember the words of the 17th Century English poet John Donne: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less…any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind…” We must afford each priceless human life the reverence it commands and refuse to succumb to the irrational scare tactics used by our government to justify mass murder.

Al-Nakba Denial: Concealing the Catastrophe

2010-04-05T14:26:00.000-04:00

On May 15, 1948, one day after the British mandate over Palestine ended, the Jewish state of Israel was officially created. That date marked the beginning of a 62-year exile for 750,000 Palestinians, who along with their descendants now comprise the world’s largest refugee population at nearly five million people. Palestinians and people of conscience all around the world commemorate al-Nakba, meaning catastrophe in Arabic. The Palestinian population within what is now Israel—one quarter of which are internally displaced from villages decimated by the Israeli army and Zionist militias—mark al-Nakba by marching through the places where their villages once stood.

The protest marches do not sit well with the establishment in the “Middle East’s Only Democracy.” In 2008 World Likud Chairman Danny Danon called for a ban on the annual Nakba Day procession. He demanded authorities arrest any Arab leader speaking against Israel and its institutions, as well as anyone seen carrying the flag of an enemy state or “terrorist organization.” Danon stated in a press release that the march is “…a deliberate and subversive challenge of the Arab Israeli leadership against the existence of the State of Israel,” elaborating that its purpose was “to oppose and incite against the state.”

The following year, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's ultranationalist party, Yisrael Beitenu, proposed legislation to ban Nakba commemorations, calling for jail terms of up to three years for any event expressing sorrow for the Palestinian tragedy.

Party spokesman Tal Nahum explained, "The draft law is intended to strengthen unity in the state of Israel and to ban marking Independence Day as a day of mourning," Ironically, Israeli Independence Day celebrations rarely coincide with Nakba demonstrations, as the former is marked in accordance with the Hebrew calendar and can fall in April or May.

Recently, the Israeli parliamentary Law Committee approved a draft law proposal that, if passed by the Knesset, would impose economic sanctions on the organizers of Nakba commemorations. Although the language was softened, discarding the jail term provision, the bill forbids government-supported organizations from spending money on Nakba activities and will levy fines as much as ten times the amount of money spent on such activities.

The mere suggestion of forbidding peaceful memorials to honor Palestinians who were killed or driven out in 1948 is a criminal attempt by the Israeli government to conceal atrocities committed while establishing the Jewish “homeland.” Thankfully, there are eyewitnesses to the slaughter that make such rewriting of history impossible.

In 2002, Dr. Anthony McRoy, lecturer at the Evangelical Theological college of Wales, published an article detailing the Ramleh and Lydda massacres perpetrated by the Haganah and Irgun militia. Beginning on July 13, 1948, the entire population of 70,000 men, women and children were forced to flee their homes. Two American journalists, Keith Wheeler and Kenneth Bilby, reported the carnage. Wheeler of the Chicago Sun Times wrote “practically everything in their way died. Riddled corpses lay by the roadside.” Bilby, writing for the the New York Herald Tribune reported seeing “…the corpses of Arab men, women and even children strewn about in the wake of the ruthlessly brilliant charge.”

Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote of the brutal treatment that Palestinians suffered during their forced exodus, relating the testimony of soldiers who partook in the torment. Looting on a massive scale was commonplace, as were rapes. After the population was gone, soldiers who were planning on joining kibbutzim stole mechanical and agricultural equipment. Palestinians were stripped of their valuables and forced to march 20 miles in searing heat to Ramallah; at one point a child fell into a well and drowned. An estimated 350 people died from heat exhaustion and dehydration during trek, although British Arab Legion Commander John Glubb later stated “nobody will ever know how many children died.”

Some Palestinian civilians stayed in Lydda, only to be massacred by Israeli forces. Out of the 426 men, women and children that were murdered, 176 were sheltered in the Dahmash mosque where they had been promised safe haven by the Israelis.It was a matter of Israeli policy to circulate news of what transpired in Ramleh and Lydda, as well as the massacre in the village of Deir Yassin three months prior, in order to demoralize and frighten neighboring Palestinians into fleeing as well.

Today, the people of Lydda and Ramleh and their descendants number around half a million, living mainly in refugee camps around Amman, Jordan and Ramallah; the airport built on the site of the devastation was named after the man who ordered the ethnic cleansing, Ben Gurion. These continuing gross injustices are part of the “ongoing Nakba” as stated by The Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights. The organization defines the situation as “…caused by Israel's system of institutionalized racial discrimination which is composed of laws, policies and practices that have resulted in second-class citizen status of Palestinians, more land confiscation, discriminatory development planning, segregation of Palestinian communities, home demolitions and forced evictions, in order to ensure Jewish privilege and domination.”

Indeed the catastrophe does not merely lie in the human tragedy and devastation wielded by depraved bands of terrorists—and condoned by the international community—for the establishment of a Jewish state 62 years ago. The catastrophe is the desperation of life under siege in Gaza, the degradation of life under occupation in the West Bank, the discrimination of life as a Palestinian in what is now Israel and the humiliation of refugee status for those suffering a six-decade exile.

The catastrophe is exacerbated not only by those who celebrate the original crime, but by denying Palestinians the right to mourn the loss of loved ones and homeland. This is by far the most damning evidence that not only is Israel is an oppressive state that routinely violates international humanitarian law, but also an Orwellian state not content to simply eradicate Palestinians from the map, but to obliterate the memory of their existence.

Questioning Holocaust Curricula: The 21st-Century Scopes Monkey

2010-03-19T13:09:00.000-04:00

It is hard to imagine more of a mockery being made of America’s public education system than occurred in the 1925 case Tennessee vs. John Scopes. The “Scopes Monkey Trial,” as it came to be known, found substitute biology teacher John Scopes guilty of violating a state law banning the theory of evolution from being taught in public schools. The Butler law, which passed overwhelmingly in the Tennessee state legislature earlier that year, made it illegal to present "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”

The American Civil Liberties Union persuaded John Scopes to challenge the Butler law as a test case to determine its constitutionality. The guilty verdict was later thrown out by Tennessee’s Supreme Court on a technicality; hence the statute was never fully tested. It did, however, set a precedent as to the degree which government can intervene in the academic freedom of public education.

Fast forward to today. Five states: California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and New York have enacted laws requiring teaching of the Holocaust in public classrooms, while an additional ten states have issued executive regulations recommending Holocaust studies be included in their respective curricula. The Simon Wiesenthal Center—ironically, same organization poised to build a “Museum of Tolerance” on top of the historic Muslim Mamilla cemetery in Jerusalem—defines the Holocaust as "the destruction of some 6 million Jews by the Nazis and their followers in Europe between the years 1933-1945. Other individuals and groups were persecuted and suffered grievously during this period, but only the Jews were marked for complete and utter annihilation."

It is not necessary to parse words; the Holocaust refers to singular Jewish suffering, while giving a patronizing nod to other groups persecuted by the Nazis. Singular study of the Holocaust comes at the omission of any other World War II-era genocide or mass persecution: the Japanese occupation of China and other countries in the region, the releasing of the atomic demon upon millions of Japanese civilians, the internment of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps, or the millions who died at the hand of Soviet president Josef Stalin, then a US ally.

Stalin waged a campaign to erase Chechnya and Ingushetia from existence, deporting 1.4 million people from these regions in the western Soviet Union between 1941 and 1944. Most were accused of being Nazi collaborators, although evidence shows they were targeted due to a series of anti-collectivization rebellions against Soviet rule. On February 23, 1944 alone, approximately 387,000 Chechens and 91,000 Ingush were forced from their homes.

The BBC reported in 2004, that young Chechen men were taken from the front lines and sent to forced labor in Siberian gulags, their medals, decorations and papers confiscated. Civilians were rounded up and taken to Kazakhstan and other central Asian republics. According to Mohmad Musaev, head of the Chechen National Archive, Russian soldiers massacred many villagers rather than going to the expense of deporting them. Seven hundred people were burned alive and others were drowned in mountain lakes. A 2002 PBS series reported that an estimated 30 percent of Chechen deportees died en route to resettlement or within their first year of exile.
In 1957, Nikita Krushchev re-established Chechnya and Ingushetia as an autonomous republic, allowing survivors to return, only to find their homes taken over by neighboring Russians.

Most people are unaware of the Chechen genocide, while the Holocaust has two internationally recognized days: Yom Hashoah, falling in April or May in accordance with the Hebrew calendar and International Holocaust Remembrance Day, designated as January 27 by the United Nations General Assembly, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The same U.N. resolution rejects denial of the Holocaust and condemns discrimination and violence based on religion or ethnicity.

If “discrimination and violence based on religion or ethnicity,” is to be condemned, then why such silence regarding the Chechen genocide, or al-Nakba, the catastrophe during which 750,000 Palestinians were driven out of their land to establish the modern Jewish State?

Aside from the fact that the victims in these cases were predominantly Muslim, the answer lies in the proximity of Holocaust Remembrance Day to Israeli “Independence Day.” Any mention of the Palestinians killed or displaced in 1948 runs contrary to the month-long media blitz of pro-Israeli propaganda using the shield of the Holocaust to silence those critical of Israel’s policies.

Holocaust studies are only serving to mask the ongoing 62-year ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians by generating unconditional sympathy for Israel. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Every member nation of the U.N. has an obligation to honor the memory of Holocaust victims and develop educational programs as part of an international resolve to help prevent future acts of genocide.” If that is the goal, Holocaust curricula are failing miserably.

Instead of condemning oppression, Israel apologists routinely use the Holocaust to defend the cruel treatment of Palestine’s original inhabitants. Paula E. Hyman, a professor of modern Jewish history at Yale Uni¬versity, has accurately observed:

“…it (the Holocaust) reinforces the sense of Jews as an eternally beleaguered people who can rely for their defense only upon themselves. The invocation of the suffering endured by the Jews under the Nazis often takes the place of rational argument, and is expected to convince doubters of the legitimacy of current Israeli government policy.”

While it may not be illegal yet, questioning the agenda behind Holocaust education in the United States earns the dreaded label “Holocaust Revisionist,” akin to the even more feared “Holocaust Denier,” first cousin to the infamous “Anti-Semite.” The climate in which the Holocaust is being shoved down the throats of our nation’s school children is comparable with 1925 Tennessee and introducing ideas contrary to the approved curriculum of Holocaust studies is the 21st Century’s Scopes Monkey. The sole purpose of this teaching is for our youth to accept Israel’s legitimacy without question, a non sequitur based on sympathy for Jewish suffering during the Holocaust. Zionist indoctrination is never logical, but thanks to our complacency, it is effective.

Israeli Environmental Terrorism: Nothing Sacred in the Holy Land

2010-02-19T22:45:00.000-05:00

“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” Jews and Christians alike have commandeered this prophecy from the Old Testament book of Isaiah to fit their respective Zionist agendas: for Jews, the establishment of the state of Israel; for Christians, the transfer of all Jews to Palestine so that Christ may return to earth. The verse is superimposed on photographs of kibbutzim gardens in vile propaganda used by televangelists and in slideshows seen in small country churches. After all, who better to take care of the Holy Land than God’s own Chosen People? In the 62 years since Israel was created, hard-working Jewish immigrants have turned the land from a barren desert into a veritable oasis fit for Abraham, Jacob, David and Solomon.

Right.

With respect to the nearly 800,000 Palestinians that were forced to flee their homes upon the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Jewish State’s wanton destruction of the environment in their absence merits condemnation as well. The land once known as Palestine began suffering detrimental and irrevocable changes in the early 1950s when Israel’s fledgling government drained the wetlands surrounding Lake Huleh, north of the Sea of Galilee, for a housing project. Once the lake was dry, the Palestinian Painted Frog that inhabited the wetlands became extinct. The last reported sighting of the small amphibian was in 1955. Today, many other species are facing extinction due to Israel’s gross disregard for the environment.

Israeli fish farming is killing off coral reefs in the Red Sea, threatening unique species of fish and other marine life. According to coral ecologist Dr. Yossi Loya, five million fish are bred in cages each year without permits, a $20 million per year industry protected by the Israeli agriculture lobby. Coral reefs in Aqaba and along the Sinai Peninsula continue to thrive, as Jordan and Egypt do not permit large scale fishing off the Red Sea coast.

Meanwhile, Israeli corporate greed is threatening another natural wonder, the Dead Sea. At a 2009 regional conference to address the dramatic decrease in Dead Sea water levels, it was determined that industrial development would need to be abated. Israeli company ICL Fertilizers/Dead Sea Works responded by increasing potash production in their Dead Sea facility by 30 percent.

In 1999, Israel’s gross abuse of natural resources led a group of concerned citizens to form Zalul, a watchdog organization that monitors the effects of industrial dumping. According to the group, 500 million tons of raw sewage are discharged into the Mediterranean Sea annually, mere miles from public beaches. Israel’s Ministry of the Environment issues licenses to the culpable corporations, effectively granting permission to dispose of waste in such a manner.

In addition to industries, several municipalities, including Acre and Ashdod, have no properly built sewage treatment plants, contributing to Mediterranean Sea pollution. In the Tiberias municipality, a malfunctioning sewage treatment plant caused the closure of seven beaches along the Sea of Galilee in 2007 after Israeli Health Ministry officials found double the allotted amounts of fecal bacteria in the water for the second time in as many months.

While Israeli citizens have been adversely affected by the government’s failure to adopt responsible policies, Israel’s environmental racism and wholesale environmental terrorism against Palestinians and neighboring countries are far more sinister. In March 2009, Israel was forced to compensate Jordan for polluting the Yarmouk River with oil waste and sewage, contaminating the Kingdom's water supply. Eleven years ago, water contaminated with sewage was pumped from Lake Tiberias into Jordan.

In the West Bank, illegal outposts and unauthorized settlements pump sewage into rudimentary pits. The village of Deir Sharaf served as a dump for Israeli settlers until 2005, despite its close proximity to underground wells on which tens of thousands of Palestinians depend for drinking and sanitation. In Ya’abad, close to the city of Jenin, most residents work in wood-coal factories that pollute the air with rank smoke. The same industry exists in Egypt, although workshops were moved out of town for the health of the residents. Such a move in occupied Palestine is impossible because the Israelis control the area outside the city limits, prohibiting construction.

The human rights organization Yesh Din released a report in December 2009 citing 69 complaints of olive groves being damaged or destroyed during the past four years, 27 of which occurred between January and October 2009. The Israel Defense Forces issued a statement that the olive harvest had passed “quietly,” despite hundreds of Palestinian trees being reported destroyed. Not only are the centuries-old olive trees vital to the livelihood of Palestinian villagers, they possess an almost spiritual quality so the loss to farmers is tantamount to losing members of their immediate families.

It is worse still in Gaza. Even before the Israeli blockade, Palestinian fishermen were prohibited from sailing more than five kilometers out to sea, rendering the immediate coastal area devoid of fish. The Israeli military routinely destroyed wells serving refugee camps in Gaza. International Solidarity Movement member Rachel Corrie wrote of sleeping in front of the wells with fellow activists to prevent their destruction before she was murdered in 2003 by an Israeli bulldozer driver.

Also in 2003, the Israeli military began bulldozing the Gaza side of the internationally recognized “Green Line,” which is the site of one-third of Gaza’s agricultural land, according to a United Nations report. Israel continues to raze olive and fruit trees, farmland, irrigation piping, homes, greenhouses and wells; anyone found within this Israeli-imposed “buffer zone” risks being shot. At least 13 Palestinian civilians have been killed and 39 injured in border regions in and outside of the buffer zone this past year, including women and children.

It is not just the human toll that has devastated Gazan farmers. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) reported in September 2009 that 35,000 cattle, sheep and goats, as well as one million birds and chickens were killed during Israel’s nearly four-week assault on Gaza dubbed Operation Cast Lead. The animal carcasses, along with chemical agents used by the Israeli army, contaminated the water. According to the farmers, chemical-laden water now dehydrates trees rather than quenching them.

Earlier, during Israel’s 2006 simultaneous bombardments of Lebanon and Gaza, the Jiyeh power plant serving southern Lebanon was hit, resulting in a 15,000 ton oil spill, devastating local fishermen along with the ecosystem. Millions of dollars of infrastructure was destroyed in Gaza, exacerbating the already grave situation concerning water supply and sanitation.

Such problems resulted in the March 2007 disaster in the village of Umm Naser when a sewage reservoir burst its banks, killing two elderly women and three children, while destroying 200 homes. International development agencies had been prevented from entering Gaza to upgrade treatment facilities or build new ones. Palestinians continue to suffer severe power shortages and just last month, Israeli forces opened dams, flooding areas of the already ravaged Gaza Strip.

Israelis have duped the international and religious communities into believing their claim to Palestine is based on a belief that the land is holy—that their spiritual and emotional connection to this land reaches across millennia. Through the willful decimation of the land’s natural resources along with its native inhabitants, the Zionist establishment has proven that in the Holy Land, nothing is sacred.

Israel Gets Away With Murder...Again

2010-02-11T15:16:00.000-05:00

Amid the glamour of the world’s tallest building, gold bars, man-made islands, casinos and fashion, a man lay dead in his hotel room. Preliminary reports would say he had been suffocated with a pillow; further investigation would determine that he was injected with poison.
Post-mortem photos of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, age 50, told a story the media would not tell: the tip of his nose blackened, red blotches covering his cheeks and jaw and a horrific indentation on one side of his nose testified of torture and a cruel execution.
Most news sources subliminally justified Al-Mabhouh’s murder in Dubai on January 20. He was described only as a “senior Hamas militant,” “founding member of Hamas’ military wing” or even “arch-terrorist.” As someone who was allegedly involved in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers in the 1980s and committed numerous other acts of armed resistance against Israel, he was undoubtedly a menace by western standards.
Al-Mabhouh grew up in the squalor of Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, but had lived in exile in Syria since 1989. He had been the target of two previous assassination attempts: a car bombing and a poisoning. The latter took place in Beirut only six months ago and rendered him unconscious for 30 hours.
The Israeli government issued a statement claiming Al-Mabhouh had traveled to Dubai en route to Iran in order to smuggle weapons back to his native Gaza. Israeli defense officials told the Associated Press that these rockets would be capable of reaching Tel Aviv 40 miles away. Evidently, there have been some major technological advances since Israel’s assault on Gaza last year, as retaliatory rockets fired from Gaza ranged only 25 miles.
While Israel has not officially acknowledged involvement in Al-Mabhouh’s murder, Israeli news agency Inyan Merkazi reported that a four-member squad of Shin Bet and Mossad agents interrogated Al-Mabhouh before executing him.
Whitewashed by western media as “extra-judicial assassinations” or “targeted assassinations,” such acts are tantamount to premeditated murder against anyone suspected of resistance against Israel’s 62-year occupation of Palestine. Al-Mabhouh’s death is the latest of numerous executions carried out by the Mossad and other Israeli government agencies throughout the Jewish State’s existence.
In 1972, the Mossad began a series of assassinations in what was supposed to be retribution for the deaths of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics. Thirty-five suspects believed to have been involved in the attack were systematically ambushed throughout Europe and Lebanon. Many had ambiguous ties at best to the Munich operation and in a case of mistaken identity Ahmed Bouchiki, a young Moroccan waiter, was gunned down in Norway. Throughout this and other operations, the Mossad used false passports without the issuing government’s knowledge or approval in what has become a trademark of that organization’s modus operandi.
In 1997, Mossad agents traveled with Canadian passports to Amman, Jordan in a botched attempt on the life of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. In 2004, New Zealand jailed two Mossad agents for six months and imposed diplomatic sanctions against Israel after the pair illegally applied for passports in that country. Authorities in Dubai investigating the murder of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh have confirmed that his killers are traveling on Irish passports.
However, not all Israeli assassinations are clandestine operations.
Fateh co-founder Khalil al-Wazir, known as Abu Jihad, was killed in 1998 at his home in Tunis in front of his family. The 2004 Israeli airstrikes that killed Hamas founder and spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin and subsequently his replacement, Abdelaziz Al-Rantissi also killed Rantissi’s son, his bodyguard and eleven bystanders, including a five year-old child.
Not only are the leaders of armed resistance in the crosshairs of Israeli assassins, but political activists who speak out against the occupation of Palestine as well. Cartoonist Naji Al-Ali, whose brutally honest body of work earned him many powerful enemies, was murdered in cold blood in London on the way to his office. Although Al-Ali was critical of Arab governments and the corruption present in the hierarchy of Palestinian resistance groups, a preponderance of evidence points directly to the Mossad being responsible for his death.
Ten months after Al-Ali was killed, Scotland Yard arrested a student named Ismail Suwan, who turned out to be a Mossad agent. Suwan confessed that his superiors knew of the plot to kill Al-Ali. Upon refusing to cooperate further, Great Britain expelled two Israeli diplomats and closed the Mossad’s London base. Despite all this, no one was ever brought to justice for the crime.
In March 2003, a 23 year-old American college student named Rachel Corrie was killed by a bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier while trying to prevent a home demolition in the Gaza Strip. It was learned through Corrie’s own writings that activists with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) had come under fire in the weeks prior to her death while trying to retrieve the body of a Palestinian killed by Israeli forces. She told also of how the camp’s water wells were being destroyed by the Israeli military and that members of ISM had slept in front of the wells to deter the attacks. Clearly the group’s activities were a source of consternation to the Israelis, one of whom took the opportunity to murder a young woman on a clear day in the Rafah refugee camp. Claiming Corrie’s death was “accidental,” he was never punished.
Many have paid the ultimate price for challenging the Israeli juggernaut, no matter what form that challenge has taken. Many individuals who never picked up a weapon have been targeted by the Jewish State. And if Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was attempting to procure weapons, he was simply guilty of trying to help his people defend themselves against Israeli aggression. Only when the western-dominated court of world opinion is no longer content to let Israel act as judge, jury and executioner, will there be justice for occupied Palestine and all the people who met untimely and brutal deaths in her defense.

Haiti Hypocrisy Hides Yet Another War Crime

2010-01-26T23:20:00.000-05:00

The human catastrophe gripping Haiti since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastated that nation on January 12 rightfully dominated nearly every newscast for a week. With devastation of such unimaginable proportions, there are the riveting stories of despair and courage, along with a relatively new and hideous phenomenon: politicization of the disaster and its aftermath.

Media opportunists have reached new depths of hypocrisy and ineptitude in covering the tragedy. Mainstream television networks and newspapers touted the overwhelming US military response, as well as other countries that were among the first to reach the victims in Haiti, including Israel.

Conspicuously absent from the kudos list were two of the first responders, Cuba and Venezuela.

On January 13, one day after the quake, a C-130 transport plane was dispatched to Port-au Prince loaded with supplies, food and doctors. To date, six massive shipments from Venezuela have reached Haiti, totaling 5,000 metric tons of foodstuffs, as well as humanitarian aid teams and heavy machinery for reconstruction. Additionally, President Hugo Chavez pledged that his country will provide Haiti with free gasoline and diesel.

Cuba has maintained approximately 400 doctors who provide free medical services throughout Haitian communities for the last several years. Therefore, Cuban medical teams were first on the scene to set up two emergency hospitals. A group of 38 Haitians currently completing medical internships in Cuba returned to their homeland to assist in the relief efforts, along with an additional three Cuban surgical teams. The Associated Press reported on January 20 that Ena Zizi, a 69 year-old pulled from the rubble after a week, was taken to the Cuban hospital for treatment. Reportedly, Cuban teams are working 18-hour shifts in order to save as many of the injured as possible.

Meanwhile, in the most poignant outpouring of compassion for the Haitian people, Palestinians—themselves no strangers to widespread death and destruction—lined up at the Red Cross headquarters in Gaza to donate toiletries, toys, sweets and blankets. Unfortunately, none of the goods will be shipped to Haiti due to the Israeli siege. Some Gazans were able to donate money, apparently the only commodity allowed to leave the Strip.

While ignoring the contributions of political and ideological rivals, American media gave Israel special recognition at every turn. The field hospital set up by the Israeli army warranted an entire segment of NBC’s nightly newscast on January 19. One senior Israeli officer stated “If we save one life, it’s as if we save the whole world.”

So let us get this straight: it is imperative to give Israelis singular credit in saving Haitian children, while ignoring the fact that last year’s assault on Gaza killed hundreds of children and maimed thousands more, not to mention the 360 Lebanese children slaughtered during Israel’s 2006 offensive.

With the American media locked in fierce competition as to who could lavish the most praise on the Israeli military for saving Haiti, another disaster was brewing in Gaza. Israeli officials opened the Al-Wadi dam east of Gaza in the wake of torrential rainfall in the region, flooding the refugee camp of Al-Nusseirat, Johr al-Deek village and al-Mughraqa, a suburb of Gaza City. Villagers provided eyewitness accounts that Israeli forces stationed in the area opened the dam without warning and without coordination with Palestinian civil agencies. Media outlets from Brunei to China to Iran reported the disaster.

According to China’s Xinhua news agency, Israel had constructed the dam to hoard rain water, depriving Gazan farms and villages of this precious resource for years. As the dam was opened, houses that had been built along the dried-up ditch were inundated with flood waters, displacing approximately 100 Gazan families and drowning cattle and poultry. Palestinian Civil Defense Chief Yousef al-Zahar stated “…what happened was a deliberate act by Israel.”

Israeli officials were quick to deny opening any dams, or that a dam even existed in the area. Israel’s Eshkol regional council bordering Gaza dismissed the claims as “silly,” maintaining they knew nothing of such a dam.

Pro-Israeli bloggers took up the cries of “water libel,” adding that there were no coordinates on any map indicating the presence of a dam and that Palestinians had made up the whole story. Of course, the Israelis would do well not to acknowledge the presence of such a dam, else admit to years of denying water to Gazan farmers.
However, pictures show that the deluge in Gaza could not have resulted merely from flash flooding. According to the Israeli Meteorological Service, up to five inches of rain fell in the area. The Gaza valley where the floods occurred runs nearly five miles from its eastern border with the Jewish state, descending to the Mediterranean Sea. The downgrade would allow for more severe flooding, but not to the levels seen in Gaza. Therefore, some other factor had to contribute to such massive amounts of water rushing into the area, i.e. Israel’s opening of the Al-Wadi dam.

Another instance of Israel’s disregard for environmental consequences—even more sinister given what happened in Haiti—took place in August 2009. Israel National News reported that tremors were created in the southern Negev in a joint project with the University of Hawaii and funded by the US Department of Defense. In the experiment, Israelis detonated 80 tons of explosive material to simulate the intensity of a magnitude 3.0 earthquake. Supposedly, this will help scientists improve seismological and acoustic readings to predict future earthquakes. It was not explained why the US Department of Defense was involved.

The tragedies of Haiti and Gaza are compounded by mainstream media’s exploitation of millions of innocent people in order to promote the US and Israel’s masquerade as benevolent societies. Good works done by governments at odds with the US-Israeli agenda are ignored, maintaining contempt for the very people who should be praised. And once again, while the world’s attention is elsewhere, Israel takes the opportunity to attack Palestinian lives and livelihoods, making a bleak existence even more unbearable.

Letter from an Ultra-Zionist: My Exchange with Congressman John Boehner (OH-8)

2010-01-11T13:14:00.000-05:00

I received the following letter from Congressman John Boehner (Ohio-8th District):

Dear Tammy,

Thank you for contacting me regarding our Israel. (Yes, he did use the word “our.”) It is good to hear from you.

H.Res 867 was introduced by Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on October 23, 2009 and referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. H. Res.867 would urge the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the “Report on the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” in multilateral fora. The resolution would further consider the “Report on the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” or the Goldstone Report, to be biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy. The resolution further supports the Administration’s efforts to combat anti-Israel bias at the United Nations and reaffirms support for Israel and for Israel’s right to defend its citizens from violent militant groups and their state sponsors. This resolution passed through the House on November 3, 2009 by a vote of 344 to 36, with 22 Representatives voting present. I voted for this resolution.

I am a strong supporter of Israel and always have been. This besieged nation is the oldest democracy in the Middle East and its stability and ability to defend itself are essential to a lasting peace in the region. Israel is surrounded by many countries which have never recognized its right to exist (with the exception of Egypt and Jordan). These neighbors have gone to war with Israel five times with the sole purpose of annihilating the Jewish state and have pledged time and time again to maintain this adversarial position.

My support for Israel does not mean that I ignore the tragic loss of life on both sides. I can assure you I am closely monitoring this situation. This is a matter Congress is paying a great deal of attention to, and we will continue to suppport President Obama’s efforts to encourage and facilitate peace.

Please rest assured I will keep your thoughts in mind should I have the opportunity to vote on legislation addressing this issue. Thank you again for contacting me with your thoughts. Pelase don’t hesitate to inform me of your concerns in the future. To sign up for email updates, I invite you to visit my website at http://johnboehner.house.gov/Forms/Form/?ID=89.

Sincerely,
John A. Boehner

I replied with the following:

Congressman Boehner:

Thank you for contacting me regarding Palestine.

Your support of HR 867, effectively dismissing the Goldstone Report as “biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy” is appalling. Judge Richard Goldstone serves as a trustee of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is a self-proclaimed Zionist. His report concluded both Israel and Hamas committed grave breaches of international law. Therefore, claims of bias are baseless, showing how far the House of Representatives will go to whitewash Israeli war crimes.
If you define democracy as a state with an elected government, then Israel may qualify. In the broader sense--the one where democratic ideals include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people, regardless of race or religion--then Israel falls painfully short.

Israel is currently holding over 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails, including women and minors. Ha’aretz, a leading Israeli newspaper, published the report of a European fact-finding mission to the prisons. It was discovered that 88 percent of the inmates were being held without formal charges, trial or hearing. Is this your idea of a democracy?

In a true democracy, freedom of religion is extended to all citizens. Israel has often denied Christian and Muslim pilgrims alike from worshipping in their respective holy sites. Muslim boys and men aged 15-40 have at times been barred from Friday prayers by Israeli authorities arbitrarily.

Moreover, it is historical fallacy to cite Arab countries as the aggressors in Israel’s wars. Prior to 1948, the Irgun and Stern gangs waged a terror campaign against British forces in Palestine, as well as targeting Palestinian civilians. The King David Hotel bombing killed 91 British personnel, injuring 45. These same gangs, led by Menachem Begin (who would later serve as Israel’s Prime Minister) massacred over 100 Palestinian men, women and children in the village of Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948. Small wonder that when Israel was established the following month, Arab neighbors attempted to thwart the total depopulation and subsequent obliteration of some 500 Palestinian villages, courtesy of the new Israeli army.

In October 1956, Moshe Dayan launched combined air and land assaults into Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.

In 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. It was during the six-day course of this war that Israel also attacked the USS Liberty, an American ship. Thirty-four American sailors died and an additional 172 were wounded. Israel claimed the Liberty was mistaken for the Egyptian El Quseir, a ludicrous excuse as El Quseir was 180 feet shorter and very differently configured. The Liberty had her name clearly written in English, while the Egyptian ship would have displayed Arabic script. Surviving sailors testified that it was a deliberate attack, unless you wish to doubt the words of the American servicemen you claim to so vehemently support. As an intelligence gathering vessel, Liberty was likely to intercept real time evidence of the massacres committed by Israel in the Golan Heights, enough motive to destroy the American ship.

The Yom Kippur War in 1973 stemmed from Egypt’s desire to regain the Sinai Peninsula lost in the 1967 conflict, as Syria tried to recapture the Golan Heights.
Israel launched a full-scale invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

It is apparent the only thing you are monitoring is the flow of money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) into your coffer. Your position itself is not surprising; however, I was shocked by your audacity to spend 42 taxpayer cents on mailing me pro-Israel propaganda. Let me make it clear that I am not buying.

Sincerely,

Tammy

The Myth of Anti-Semitism

2009-12-15T12:30:00.000-05:00

There is no label that strikes more fear into the hearts of political figures, journalists and the general public than “Anti-Semitism.” To be labeled an “anti-Semite” can mean the end of a career, the failure of a business or being shunned by friends and colleagues.

“Anti-Semitism” is a term that was coined in Europe during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Prominent Jewish scholars used it to characterize the emerging theories that “Semitic” races were inferior to “Aryan” races. Despite the fact that Arabs are Semitic, the term is now exclusively understood to mean “prejudiced against or hostile toward Jews,” according to all major dictionaries.

A similar phenomenon occurred with the word “holocaust,” referring to the period of Nazi rule in Germany from 1933 to 1945 during which Russians, gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, political opponents of the regime and prisoners of war were systematically executed. Today, visitors to Auschwitz, one of the many concentration camps built throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, find little tribute to any group other than Jews; Israeli flags litter the grounds and signs are written in Hebrew. “Holocaust” is now exclusively understood as Jewish suffering.

The prolific Jewish writer and convert to Christianity Israel Shamir, explains the use of the Holocaust and the Anti-Semitic label in his 2001 essay “The Third Dove:”
“The Holocaust Industry is but a branch of the Anti-Semitism Manufacture, a two-pronged weapon: it pumps money from Gentiles and forces Jews into obedience to the leaders of the community.”

Shamir describes how Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) not only profit monetarily from incidents of “anti-Semitism,” but how these establishments use it to bully the rest of America into silence regarding Israeli war crimes. The anti-Semitic misnomer is used to label anyone critical of the Israeli government or expressing the least bit of sympathy for the Palestinian people.

Shamir concludes his essay, “…scoundrels still use anti-Semitism as a weapon, but now most of these scoundrels are Jewish.”
So where does anti-Semitism in America occur at present?
Certainly not in our government. While Jews comprise roughly two percent of the American population, 14 Senators and 31 House members are Jewish; almost 8 ½% of Congress. Jews have served in prominent cabinet-level and advisory positions under both Republican and Democratic presidents, often with disastrous foreign policy consequences.

Bush’s influential advisers Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith and Richard Perle, strong supporters of Israel, long argued that removing Saddam Hussein from power was a critical prerequisite for Middle East peace. President Obama’s chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanuel, helped maintenance Israeli Army jeeps during the 1991 Gulf War. Before him, Emanuel’s father smuggled weapons to the Irgun militia, the same group responsible for the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel as well as numerous attacks on Palestinian civilians.

“Anti-Semitism” is non-existent in churches where an estimated 15-18 million Evangelicals espouse the doctrine of Christian Zionism, the guiding principal of which states all Jews must migrate to Palestine in order for Jesus Christ to return to earth. John Hagee, the founder and pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas boasts more than 19,000 active members and he is broadcast in over 200 countries. Hagee established Christians United for Israel (CUFI) which currently has 146,000 members and holds an annual “Night to Honor Israel,” coinciding with the Jewish feast of Sukkot, celebrated by his church.

It certainly doesn’t exist in our schools where material pertaining to the Holocaust is introduced to children as young as 7 and students learn Hannukah songs while traditional Christmas carols such as Silent Night are shunned as a violation of separation between church and state.

“Anti-Semitism” cannot be found at political demonstrations where police from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles allow pro-Israeli demonstrators free reign to heckle pro-Palestinian activists. Yet let a Palestinian protester confront the Israeli camp and law enforcement officials will shove, use nightsticks and threaten arrest. At a recent fundraiser for Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, an Israeli and his three year-old son approached pro-Palestinian activists; the child shouted “I hate you.” Ironically, it is the Palestinians who are maligned by Western media as teaching their children to hate.

The Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) is in the process of ensuring “Anti-Semitism” doesn’t exist on the Internet. Or any material critical of Israel, for that matter. The JIDF is attempting to shut down Palestinian advocacy groups on social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. They are also flagging individual Youtube accounts for various offenses such as “uploading hateful videos” or targeting users who have “hateful videos” listed as their favorites. “Hateful videos” are those which depict last year’s assault on Gaza. The JIDF inundates the administrators of these websites with abuse reports and terms of service violations so that the accounts are shut down and videos removed. However, little to nothing is done when people post such incendiary comments such as “Nuke Mecca with pork grease” on popular message boards.

Another Internet tactic is the manipulation of search engines which list the ten most popular searches of the day. On December 11, 2009 Yahoo listed “Hannukah” as number one while “Adolph Hitler” came in at number seven. Oh my! There is so much anti-Semitism that Hitler is still the seventh most popular keyword search in Yahoo. Or so they want us to think.

Finally, anti-Semitism doesn’t exist in Bahrain, despite the fact that the nation does not recognize Israel. The Bahraini Ambassador to the United States, Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo, is a Jewish woman. Since her family emigrated from Iraq more than a century ago, several members of her family have had successful political careers in Bahrain, including a cousin who was appointed to parliament.

Refusal to recognize or support Israel has nothing to do with being “prejudiced against or hostile toward Jews” and everything to do with rejecting occupation, oppression and the myriad war crimes carried out by the Zionist state.

"The Third Dove" by Israel Shamir can be read in its entirety at: http://www.israelshamir.net/English/Third_Dove.htm

The Myth of the Muslim Terrorist

2009-11-11T12:51:00.000-05:00

According to the majority of Americans, the “War on Terror” began September 11, 2001 when 19 Muslims hijacked four planes, crashing them into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. While this official version of the story, fueled by policymakers and mainstream media, ignores concrete evidence of other—distinctly non-Muslim—fingerprints on the tragedy, let us assume for the time being that these men were Islamic radicals aiming to destroy prominent American symbols and inflict mass casualties.

One of those killed in the World Trade Center was a young man named James Gadiel whose hometown of Kent, Connecticut wanted to commemorate a plaque in his honor. Since Gadiel’s father demanded the words “killed by Muslim terrorists” be engraved on the plaque, it was rejected by town council members. Ruth Epstein, one of the town leaders who voted it down, correctly pointed out that such language is disparaging, detrimental to the town’s image and hurtful to its Muslim residents.
However, “killed by Muslim terrorists” is not so offensive in that it is insensitive or promotes a negative stereotype: it is just plain inaccurate.

A “Muslim terrorist,” is a myth, a fictional character based in part on the hypocritical definition of terrorism that Western policymakers and the media have used to promote their own agenda and partly due to territorial and political conflicts being erroneously framed in a religious context. Most of the “terrorist groups” and “state sponsors of terrorism,” so named by the US State Department are reactive, formed as organized resistance in the face of oppression.

During her recent visit to Pakistan, Secretary of State Clinton condemned marketplace bombings as terrorism, while stating in a town hall meeting that US drone attacks on villages were not, even though such attacks have resulted in civilian casualties and the destruction of madrasas, religious schools for children.

Throughout the world, Muslims have had no choice but to form organized resistance to the myriad injustices committed against their communities and institutions. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran was a reaction to the Shah’s bloody regime and the CIA’s now admitted role in the coup which overthrew democratically elected (and secular) Mossadegh to put him in power. The Abu Sayyaf movement in the Philippines formed as a result of the government’s policy to encourage Catholic settlers to move from the north to Mindanao, which was richer in natural resources. Poorer Muslim communities were subsequently displaced and marginalized. Abu Sayyaf’s desire for an independent state in the southern Philippines has more to do with historical injustice (along with Spanish and American colonial influence) than religion.

The same false religious context is ascribed to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a fight between Muslims and Jews. In reality, Zionism begin as a secular movement, later establishing a state atop the mass graves of Deir Yassin, Ramleh, Acre and countless other villages decimated by the western-backed Irgun, Stern and Israeli military. In the 61 years following that disaster, the United States—founded on the principles of religious equality and freedom—has become the greatest ally of a state who has co-opted religion to justify the wholesale slaughter of Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian, while turning survivors into the world’s largest refugee population.

Recent weeks have seen Islam’s third holiest shrine, Al-Aqsa Mosque, fall under a siege by the Israeli police, attacking worshippers therein with tear gas grenades and rubber bullets. If we really lived in the alternate universe of FOX News and AM talk radio, Muslims would be carrying out daily spectacular attacks to avenge this desecration; instead Al-Aqsa is defended by a band of youths with rocks while there is silence from Islamic countries, most of whom boast corrupt western puppets as heads of government.

The assault on Al-Aqsa is the latest outrage Muslims have endured; from genocide and strangulation by the Israeli assault on Gaza to the humiliating maltreatment suffered in Guantanamo Bay, Bagram and elsewhere. According to Newsweek, tactics used in US military prisons in Iraq include the use of loud music during interrogations; one of the most frequently played songs is entitled “F-k Your God” by Deicide, attacking their very faith itself.

However, the persecution of Muslims does not just take place overseas. On October 28, FBI agents shot Detroit imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah during a botched arrest in which they loosed a police canine on him. Abdullah fired at the dog and was subsequently shot 18 times, dying at the scene. The dog was airlifted to a medical facility where it was pronounced dead. According to the FBI, Abdullah was allegedly dealing in stolen goods and was “anti-government.”

Now as the latest violent incident involving a Muslim unfolds, Arab and Islamic advocacy groups are tripping over each other to condemn the Ft. Hood shootings. Koreans did not feel such urgency when Seung-Hui Cho murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007. The difference is, Koreans have not been the victims of a sustained media campaign to define alleged criminals on the basis of their religion or nationality. Muslims have.

For far too long, our politicians and the media have preyed on an uneducated public, attempting to turn us all into Islamophobes, fearing a Muslim takeover that will turn the United States into a caliphate. For those misguided individuals, rest easy: Muslims worldwide are too busy fighting for their very existence in a war the West declared long ago.

End Israeli Exemption to International Law

2009-10-12T12:17:00.000-04:00

Throughout the world, people have attempted to distinguish ordinary Americans from the United States government. Perhaps our complacency for aiding and abetting war crimes has been attributed to lack of education, apathy in the face of an omnipotent pro-Israeli lobby or that we are simply hapless workaholics with time for little else. Yet private citizens, either for some warped religious or political viewpoint, or through sheer ignorance often exacerbate the control pro-Israel interest groups have over American institutions.

In September, the city of Dayton, Ohio--population roughly 160,000--signed a three-year commitment to share military technology with Israel. One of the key components of the agreement is the further development of unmanned aircraft. County officials reported $350,000 in private donations was raised to contribute to this and other “economic development projects” in Israel.

The attitude of this small Midwestern city is reflective of the American nation as a whole. Sharing military technology with a nation that is known to use such technology against civilians is against international law; yet human rights take a back seat to the promise of job opportunities and economic growth at the expense of people half a world away. While Americans enjoy the freedom of unfettered Internet access and ample educational opportunities, the majority choose to remain deliberately ignorant of the law and an all but forgotten value system.

The American Society of the Red Cross offers a four-hour class on International Humanitarian Law during armed conflict, which draws its legal basis from the four Geneva Conventions of 1949. Ratified by all 194 of the world’s countries, the Conventions prohibit attacks on civilians and institutions such as hospitals, houses of worship and schools. They also mandate the humane treatment of sick and injured combatants as well as prisoners of war.

In 1998, the world community took additional steps to establish a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) responsible for prosecuting individuals for violations of International Humanitarian Law. Ironically, the United States did not ratify the Rome Statute which created the ICC and notified the United Nations that it will not recognize the authority of such a court.
Not coincidentally, the United States made this announcement in May 2002, less than a month after Israel’s attack on the Jenin refugee camp. Untold numbers of civilians were massacred in the onslaught and survivors were subsequently denied Red Cross and Red Crescent access, representing yet another grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. Journalists were kept out in an attempt to conceal mass graves of Palestinian men, women and children from the rest of the world—crimes worthy of referral to the ICC.

Small wonder the United States, protector-in-chief of the Jewish State, chose that time to deny the court’s right to exist. Yet, as horrific as was the Jenin massacre, it served as a merely a bloody preamble to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and most recently, Gaza.
During Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 offensive, Gazans suffered indiscriminate attacks on civilian neighborhoods, mosques, clinics and a UN school.

The BBC reported a clinic run by Christian Aid, along with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical equipment, was destroyed in an Israeli missile attack. The clinic provided free health care, with specific focus on mothers and children. Its purpose was well-known, as Israeli military officials called the organization 15 minutes prior to its destruction, alleging “terrorist operations in the area.”

Civilians, particularly children, were targeted by Israeli soldiers. Dr. Ahmed Yahia, head of neurosurgery at the El-Arish hospital in Egypt told BBC News that brain scans “made it clear that a number of the child victims had been shot at close range.”

Compounding the human toll, Israel used white phosphorus and the DIME bomb, a heinous weapon causing catastrophic internal wounds and the rapid onset of cancer in those exposed to it.

The Geneva Convention calls on its signatories—all 194 of them—to prosecute war crimes. When a nation is unwilling or unable to do so, it is up to the international community to step in and apply sanctions against the offending nation.

However, when governments are unwilling to live up to their agreements, it should fall into the hands of private citizens to pressure these said governments; when private citizens are ignorant of international law, the pro-Israeli media juggernaut and corrupt politicians are all too eager to fill the vacuum.

Such was the case at the recent G-20 summit held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The United States, France and Britain called for sanctions against Iran for pursuing nuclear power, hypocritically ignoring Israel’s already hefty nuclear arsenal along with its demonstrated willingness to use weapons of mass destruction.

It is time International Humanitarian Law be made an educational requirement in our public schools rather than an optional course offered intermittently. Only then will we have a citizenry capable of demanding government adherence to the Geneva Convention.

The alternative is unfolding before our very eyes: a decline in civility, the breakdown of morality and the rapidly decreasing value we place on a human life. This is the legacy the children of the world are doomed to inherit if teaching international law is not made a priority.

The King-Crane Commission: Required Reading Buried Under 100 Years of Zionist Propaganda

2009-08-10T12:36:00.000-04:00

“Down with American Imperialists.” This sign, or one of its variations, can be seen at protests and demonstratons throughout the world. U.S. policies have given credence to it, fueling legitimate hatred in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and others victimized by America’s lust for oil and support of the Israeli military juggernaut. Yet less than 100 years ago, the United States was admired in the global arena as a bastion of justice and freedom. Furthermore, Zionism—the belief that all Jews are entitled to a “homeland” in Palestine—was condemned in an official document.

The King-Crane Commission is relatively unknown, buried under a century of Zionist propaganda and attempts to discredit Dr. Henry Churchill King and Charles R. Crane as Nazi sympathizers. On the contrary, Dr. King was one of the best known educators of his time and served as the director of religious work for the YMCA in France. Mr. Crane was selected as part of a special diplomatic mission to Russia and was U.S. Ambassador to Chinafrom 1920-1921. In 1919, after World War I and the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, President Woodrow Wilson apppointed King and Crane to head the Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey.
King and Crane’s mission was to record the wishes of the people in the former Ottoman territories regarding their desired form of government and the degree to which outside intervention would be accepted. President Woodrow Wilson’s July 4, 1918 address provided the backdrop for their objective:

“The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relationship upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery.”

It was in this spirit that King and Crane had embarked on their 42-day tour of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Asia Minor. The commission conducted conferences throughout the region, gathering opinions on such topics as territorial limits, independence, form of government, choice of mandate and Zionism.

The King and Crane Commission examined responses from religious, political and social/economic organizations and found overwhelming support among the Muslim population in Syria for an American mandate, as opposed to Britain or France, should it be determined that the fledgling government needed external assistance. The reasoning behind this preference was summarized in the final report as “…the nearly universal recognition of the fact that America sought no additional territory…” Article 4 of the General Syrian Congress, convened that same summer in Damascus, supported their finding:

“…And desiring that our country should not fall a prey to colonization and believing that the American Nation is farthest from any thought of colonization and has no political ambition in our country, we will seek the technical and economic assistance from the United States of America…”
While there was some disagreement in the territories as to the choice of mandate, there was nearly universal opposition to Zionism. The General Syrian Congress unanimously passed articles opposing partitioning Palestine from the rest of Syria. Leaders at that time grasped all too well the strategy of “divide and conquer”; they also understood the Zionist ambitions of setting aside Palestine as future Jewish state.

Prior to their journey, King and Crane had been lobbied by pro-Zionist groups and were, by their own admisstion, “pre-disposed in its favor.” However, during conferences with local Jewish representatives, it became apparent that their goal was the “practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine by various forms of purchase.”

Further investigation revealed something far more sinister than acquiring the land by mere “purchase.” Statements made by British officials increased the commissioners’ misgivings about the entire Zionist project. In their final recommendations, King and Crane wrote:

“No British officer, consulted by the Commissioners, believed that the Zionist program could be carried out except by force of arms. The officers generally thought that a force of not less than 50,000 soldiers would be required even to initiate the program…Decisions requiring armies to carry out, are sometimes necessary. But they are surely not gratuitously to be taken in the interest of a serious injustice.”

King and Crane also took into consideration the status of holy sites in Palestine: “The places which are most sacred to Christians—those having to do with Jesus—and which are also sacred to Moslems, are not only not sacred to Jews, but abhorrent to them.” The Commissioners went on to reason that it was neither logical nor prudent to place these most holy sites in the control of a Jewish authority.

Finally, King and Crane concluded that the implementation of the Zionist plan would be contrary to the aforementioned principle outlined by President Wilson, whereby nations have a right to self-determination free from external pressure. Nine-tenths of the population surveyed, including Muslim and Christian groups, were against Zionism. Their final recommendation read “…This would have to mean that Jewish immigration should be definitely limited, and that the project for making Palestine distinctly a Jewish commonwealth should be given up.”

It is nothing short of tragic that in the 90 years since the King-Crane Commission, subsequent American leaders have abandoned the principles which led President Wilson to embark on that diplomatic effort in the first place. The common sense and mutually beneficial policy of non-intervention was rejected in favor of big oil and strategic interests. The opportunity to forge an allegiance with emerging governments eager for freedom and self-determination was squandered in favor of the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and genocide, from Deir Yassin to Lebanon to Gaza. And America will continue to pay the price.

The entire King-Crane Commission Report can be read at: http://www.atour.com/government/un/20040205g.html

Obama: What Change?

2009-07-21T14:38:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to President Barack Obama for duping the Arab and Muslim community in America yet again with another hollow speech. He became the darling of many by opening his recent Cairo address with “Assalamu Aleikum.” So he is better at languages and public relations than G.W. Bush. Other than that, there is little difference between the two administrations.

First, there is the matter of closing the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. Obama has backpedaled on the issue of releasing photos of prisoner abuse citing it would “enflame anti-American sentiment.” Sound familiar? Then there is the manufactured red tape regarding which country will take the detainees once they are released. Common sense dictates they should be dropped off wherever U.S. soldiers captured them before unlawfully whisking them away to an overseas limbo.

If Obama supporters can stop fist-bumping long enough at their success in bringing hope and change to the masses, they might have time to raise these points and also question the status of detainees at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, America’s new Guantanamo. If they get around to it, maybe they can also ask why Obama (like Bush in the beginning of his first term) pay lip service to the idea of a Palestinian state without holding the Israelis accountable for their actions.

In Cairo, Obama stood lamenting how “terrorists” could fire rockets at sleeping children in Sderot without one word as to the utter devastation and carnage visited on Gaza by Israeli Occupation Forces less than six months ago. Not a single word. Obama never mentioned the 1,500 Palestinian men, women and children that were murdered, not to mention the thousands of mutilated wounded: amputees, burn victims and those who simply died due to lack of equipment, electricity and medicine during the Israeli-imposed blockade.

It is frustrating when supporters of a Palestinian state—to be built on less than 20% of historical Palestine—express hope in Obama’s empty rhetoric against Israeli settlement construction, while Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu states that Jerusalem will be the undivided capital of “Israel” and that there will be no Palestinian military. No military with a hostile nuclear neighbor? The scenario would be laughable except that so many are buying into it.

To add insult to injury, Obama followed up his Cairo visit with a tour of Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Nothing plays into Zionist spin better than tying a visit to the Arab World with a Nazi concentration camp. Obama is smart enough to know that, and with quintessential opportunism, he invoked the Holocaust at every turn during that visit and later at the D-Day commemoration in France.

Obama also used these occasions to launch a verbal attack against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad for his “threats” against the Jewish State, mostly created when western media mistranslated and misrepresented his words. Also appearing at Buchenwald, fellow opportunist Elie Wiesel recited a litany of man’s inhumanity to man in the decades since WWII. After Rwanda and Darfur, the massacre in Gaza was blatantly omitted yet again.

So while Obama enthusiasts talk about hope, change, and what a pleasant departure from the Bush-Cheney era the last few months have been, nothing has changed on the ground.

Ask a villager in Waziristan if she has seen any change since Obama’s inauguration. Has she seen any respite from drone attacks and do she and her children sleep any more easily?

Ask Mohammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih, who was detained at Guantanamo Bay for over seven years with no charges if he saw any change from the endless torture of being held indefinitely. Did a brief surge of hope rise up in his chest as Obama pledged to close the facility? We will never know what Salih hoped and dreamed; he killed himself on June 2.

It is high time we step up the pressure on Obama and not let him get away with the double-talk, smokescreens and blatant lies which got him elected in the first place.

The Zionist Occupation of American Media

2009-07-21T14:30:00.000-04:00

Western media has eroded into little more than sound bytes of celebrity gossip or inane stories about how cutting calories can help people live longer. When there is no way to get around reporting "hard news" so-called journalists build careers by regurgitating whatever they are spoon-fed by administration officials in scripted interviews.

All cannot be attributed to sheer incompetence. Often facts are omitted or so distorted that newscasts take on the sinister feel of state-run media, serving merely as a government mouthpiece to promote a particular agenda. The majority of the time, this is accomplished in one of three ways:

1) shoddy coverage of the dual U.S. occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan in which soldier and civilian casualties are grossly under-reported
2) portraying Muslims and Arabs as aggressive terrorists (conversely, events in which Muslims and/or Arabs are victimized go unreported)
3) blatant pro-Israel bias

The murder of Marwa Sherbini, an Egyptian woman stabbed 18 times in a German courtroom while police stood idle--although they shot her husband “accidentally” when he tried in vain to thwart the brutal attack--should have caused international outrage. However, much of the world was not aware of the tragedy. A comment posted to Al-Jazeera’s website correctly pointed out that it would have been a much different reaction if the situation had been reversed: imagine if a Jew or a Christian was murdered in an Egyptian courtroom.

On a broader scale, the media has depicted the hell that was once Gaza as resulting from “Israel’s right to self-defense.” Furthermore, the detrimental effect that the U.S. alliance with the Jewish State has had on our own citizens is kept a closely guarded secret.

On July 4, while every network was still engaged in 24/7 coverage of Michael Jackson’s death, there was a crippling cyber attack on U.S. government websites, including the Department of Treasury, the Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Transportation. The same day, South Korea suffered a similar attack on the websites of the Presidential Blue House, Defense Ministry and banking institutions. It was not reported until four days later.
Both the U.S. and South Korea came to the logical—if not overly simple—conclusion that the perpetrator was North Korea. Less-than-mediocre journalists were quick to circulate the story over the airwaves and the Internet. If they had done their jobs, they might have looked at other events reported the same day and connected a few dots. But that would have taken some actual investigative work, something foreign to today’s media.

The same day that news broke of North Korea’s alleged attack, Reuters reported that Israel has been preparing a cyber war against Iran. A spokesperson from Technologies Institute, a U.S. consultancy, stated that Israel is the sixth biggest cyber warfare threat, after China, Russia, Iran, France and “terrorist/extremist” groups. Oddly enough, North Korea, who was behind this “unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack,” according to the Associated Press, did not make the list.
Israeli officials admitted to successful tests of cyber attacks on an internal pipeline, and that furthermore, the same methods could be used to attack sites of uranium enrichment facilities in Iran. It only makes sense that Israel would have wanted to test their tactics before proceeding, and what better way to divert suspicion than attacking South Korea as well?

It wouldn’t be the first time Israel attacked their largest supporter. The USS Liberty was destroyed by Israeli bombers in 1967. Thirty-four American sailors died and an additional 172 were injured. Naval personnel listening to radio relays heard President Lyndon B. Johnson say “I don’t care if the ship sinks, I’m not going to embarrass an ally.”

The unanswered questions surrounding the 9/11 attacks have always pointed to an Israeli factor, despite government secrecy and media complicity. In the weeks prior to September 11, 140 Israelis were detained as part of a suspected espionage ring. Nearly all had served in the Israeli army with specialties in either explosives or intelligence, although Carl Cameron of Fox News quoted a senior investigator as stating "Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified."

Those cases were separate from the arrests of five Israelis who were caught filming the World Trade Center attack, laughing, giving each other high-fives and dancing as it happened. This story was verified by the Washington Post, The Palm Beach Post and ABC News. Shortly after, they returned to Israel, where four of the five filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the United States for false arrest.

The media was conspicuously absent when Rachel Corrie, an American citizen, was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza while trying to prevent a home demolition. She should have been a household name; yet her death was ruled “accidental” and was never investigated by Congress despite persistent pressure from Ms. Corrie’s parents and numerous fellow activists.

Citizens must hold news organizations accountable through letters, phone calls, education and other grass roots means. If not, we may as well live with the lies that punctuate most mainstream media reporting and surrender our First Amendment right to a free press.

Election 2008: A Lose-Lose Situation

2008-09-25T15:22:00.000-04:00

I will be the first to admit I have a bad case of tunnel vision when it comes to the Palestinian conflict. This in itself makes it nearly impossible to choose a worthy candidate in a nation where allegiance to Israel is a prerequisite to becoming electorally viable.

I will also admit the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is probably the furthest thing from the minds of most Americans, who have more immediate worries such as mortgage payments, inadequate or non-existent medical coverage and/or loved ones deployed to some illogical war zone.

However, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is in so many ways a summary of the disasters plaguing the United States today. The staggering cost of aiding and abetting the Israeli government, to the tune of $30 billion over the next ten years, is both an economic drain and a major component of our failed foreign policy.

American taxpayers are not only forced to funnel hard-earned dollars to military and economic aid for Israel, but are also providing substantial assistance to the Fatah party, as reported last year by Christian Science Monitor.

According to CSM, “Senior US officials in Washington promised ongoing military support for secular Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas amid his power struggle with Islamist Hamas as part of an $84 million aid package largely aimed at improving the fighting ability of an elite corps of loyalists from his Fatah Party.”

Such action is used to exacerbate and prolong civil strife, whereby the lack of security in the Palestinian territories can be utilized as a perfect excuse not to establish a Palestinian state. With no official state and no defined borders, Israel is free to grab more land at will, whittling away at the last 20% of historical Palestine.

Additionally, the same Israeli lobby that demands Congress’s unflinching support of the Jewish state helped sell us the now over $650 billion Iraq War, a figure which pales in comparison to the human cost. Those who deny Israeli influence in the fiasco must remember former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statement after the fall of Baghdad: “That’s one enemy of Israel gone.”

Next on their hit list is Iran. According to U.S. News and World Report, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is coming to New York next week to attend a “pro-Israel, anti-Iran rally.”

At one point, I was actually leaning McCain-Palin’s way; or rather leaning away from Senator Barack Obama and his expressed solidarity for the “brave citizens of Sderot.” His spineless denial of former friends who were pro-Palestinian activists in Chicago didn’t exactly raise his stock with me, either.

However, there is one thing Obama does have going for him: he is not of the Zionist “Christian” ilk that brought us eight years of George W. Bush. Lest we forget, McCain and Palin belong to the special evangelical breed that believes all Jews have to congregate in “Greater Israel” before Jesus Christ can return to earth. These views have been downplayed by the McCain-Palin ticket, as pointed out by conservative political activist George Ajjan on his website, www.ajjan.com.

In his analysis of Palin’s Republican National Convention Ajjan states:

“If Sarah Palin is the evangelical Christian's dream candidate, you'd never guess it from this speech - she used the word God twice, exactly as many time as Barack Obama did in his keynote remarks last week.”

Alaska’s governor may be more savvy than was our illustrious President about airing her beliefs. However, on August 17, 2008 at the Wasilla Bible Church attended by Palin and her family, the congregation was singing in Hebrew and blaming Palestinian reprisals against Israelis as “judgment from God” rather than the American-backed occupation.

All of which brings us back to our choice—or lack thereof—in the 2008 election: a candidate who supports Israel on the basis of warped religious beliefs versus a candidate who supports Israel on the basis of grabbing the Jewish community’s votes and money. Either way, the American people lose.

Home-Grown Terrorists: "Hate Bloggers"

2007-11-20T12:21:00.000-05:00

It may seem passé to speak of Islamo-Fascism Awareness week, held on our campuses in October. It may seem silly to harp on the likes of David Horowitz, Ann Coulter, and flustered Joe Kauffman--who could have used his hackneyed gig at UCLA to land a show on Comedy Central. It may seem counterproductive to mention these well-known bigots who make their millions preaching to the FOX News choir.

So let’s not waste more time or space rehashing the misguided babble of these nationally recognized pawns who somehow wind up on the bestseller list. We already know them for what they are.

Of more concern are certain bloggers, aspiring to join the ranks of Daniel Pipes and the ilk, dreaming of that name recognition that has thus far eluded them. These folks work at the local level to launch personalized attacks against private citizens, posting half-truths, rumors and malicious lies in cyberspace without all those pesky libel laws that constrain print media.

Several of my friends and colleagues have fallen victim to this type of intimidation in the past: one college professor, a Palestinian-American, found his name, work address and telephone number--along with thinly veiled threats--posted on the Fresno-based Free Republic website.

Most recently, an activist friend, also a Palestinian-American and a 20-year veteran of the armed forces, has found himself on the receiving end of a flagrant character assassination initiated by Patrick Poole.

Poole, a self-proclaimed “terrorism expert” and founder of Central Ohioans Against Terrorism (COAT) has posted the rough drafts of every letter to the editor my friend has written (how he obtained the originals is still a mystery), along with accusations that he supports suicide bombings and attacks on Americans. He even went so far to post my friend’s home address and phone number on the blog.

Curious, I decided to follow the links to Poole’s accounts on YouTube and MySpace. I was shocked when I played one of his “favorite” videos called “Open Season.” The song calls for the murder of Muslims. I clicked on another of Poole’s favorite videos and was treated to images of screaming fighter jets hitting soft targets in Afghanistan and Iraq to the repeated lyric, “Die, (expletive), die.”

Yet Arabs and Muslims are not the only ones considered “fair game” in the domain of these keyboard warriors.

In my former life, I was a staff writer and opinion columnist for the Daily Advocate, a small newspaper published in Greenville, Ohio. With a circulation of only 7,000 readers, I was quite surprised when one of my articles popped up in a smear on BizzyBlog.com run by one Tom Blumer. Blumer is a Certified Public Accountant out of Mason, Ohio.

My short article focused on how county agencies were being impacted by a data theft scandal in the Statehouse. I was informed no action was being taken because state officials told the agencies that the data was encrypted.

Several weeks later, Blumer posted my name all over his blog, attacking my credibility and citing a source claiming the data was not encrypted.

For those unfamiliar with Ohio geography, Greenville and Mason are not that close. Scratching my head and musing how a small article from a small newspaper could have incurred such wrath from a CPA located 70 miles away, I took a closer look at this self-proclaimed source of financial news.

What I found was much more than financial news: the bulk of BizzyBlog is devoted to attacking government social programs, peppered with virulent anti-Muslim articles and cross-posts to the blog of none other than Patrick Poole.

At that point, it all made sense. Blumer was evidently incensed by one of my opinion columns (which had been picked up by several newspapers in southwestern Ohio) and had been waiting for his angle. The attack on my credibility as a reporter, rather than as an opinion columnist, was a cheap attempt to do more professional damage.

Blumer even admitted to contacting my former editor, still obsessed with creating some kind of trouble for me in real life.

Why should we care happens in Ohio? Because the problem isn’t unique to Ohio. The aforementioned Free Republic is based right here in California, and hate-blogs are in existence all over the country. The real problem is that these bullies are rarely content to stay on their cyber-pulpits.

They attempt to interfere with your real world job. They post your real world address and look the other way when one of their faithful subscribers starts harassing you in real life. They post video of your real world kids on YouTube.

Any one of us could become the next target. Until legislation is passed to afford victims of cyberspace libel the same protections as those that are wronged in print media, we must stand together to face this enemy head-on.

2007-10-19T10:16:00.000-04:00

Grab an imaginary donut, the thought police are working overtime on our nation’s campuses!

While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to New York’s Columbia University “speaks volumes about really the greatness of America,” according to George W. Bush, there is more wrong with this statement than just grammar.

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger’s vitriolic introduction of Ahmadinejad, the invited guest, only testified to a gross lack of hospitality and immaturity on the part of one of the United States’ most prestigious institutions of higher learning.

However, Bollinger’s rhetoric served its intended purpose: to make him look like the “big man on campus” by appeasing protestors serving as the thought police’s visible vanguard. Most of the demonstrators who gathered outside the lecture hall where Ahmadinejad spoke, along with the thousands assembled further away at the United Nations, represented various Jewish organizations. Some stood with signs bearing the Iranian leader’s picture, emblazoned with the words “Go to Hell.”

Still up in arms over Ahmadinejad’s call for further investigation into the Holocaust and for Israel to be wiped off the map—although no one cared when Palestine was effectively wiped off the map in 1948--they have the right to speak their minds. Just let them stand two miles away as is required when Bush comes to town.

Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman joined the maelstrom by decrying Ahmadinejad’s visit “because he comes with blood literally on his hands.” Oddly enough, Lieberman made no such utterances during any of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s numerous visits to the White House. The same Sharon who was indicted by a Belgian Court for his role in the murders of nearly 2,000 civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in 1982.

Regardless how one feels about a world leader’s rhetoric or policies, it is hard to imagine, were the situation reversed, an American leader would have received such an abysmal welcome in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

My personal experience at the Iranian Embassy in Istanbul, Turkey several years ago gave me a brief taste of Iranian hospitality. My husband and I were applying for tourist visas; as we were about to enter, a guard passed a hand-held metal detector over my husband. He merely looked at me and beckoned us to come in. As no female guard was present, he preferred to risk admitting me without a search rather than to take such liberties with a member of the opposite sex.

I stepped into the waiting room and no less than three men stood immediately to offer me their seats. Although we decided against traveling to Iran after the officer explained there would be a $60 fee for each application and a ten-day waiting period, I was nevertheless impressed by the treatment I received.

Yet higher education has become more about politics and less about real-world experience. It is more about censorship rather than exposing the minds of our future leaders to different viewpoints; more about belligerence than diplomacy. It is the new face of the thought police: the pro-Israeli lobby expanding its influence from Congress to the Quad.

Take for instance DePaul University’s recent decision to deny Norman Finkelstein tenure. He subsequently resigned. Finkelstein has accused certain pro-Israeli groups of using the Holocaust for political gain, including the justification of human rights violations against Palestinians.

Barnard College professor Dr. Nadia Abu El-Haj is in the midst of another tenure brouhaha. She wrote a book entitled Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society, a work which exposes how the Israeli government, in trying to build the case for a Jewish state, uses bulldozers to destroy the remains of other cultures.

“It isn’t good enough,” Alan F. Segal, a professor of Jewish studies at Barnard said of Dr. Abu El-Haj’s work. Dr. Abu El-Haj was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and fellowships at Harvard and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Ironically, Columbia University, as Barnard’s affiliate, will have the final say regarding Dr. Abu El Haj’s tenure.

If Columbia University officials do not exhibit any more backbone than was shown during the playground-style attack on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it does not bode well for Dr. Abu El-Haj. And if the thought police have their way, it does not bode well for the intellectual freedom of our nation’s students.

Operation Northwoods and the Israeli Connection to 9/11

2007-07-12T23:22:00.000-04:00

The 1999 movie The Matrix is based on the premise that everyday life is a dream and that the real world–one where comatose humans serve as energy sources for alien robots–is a closely guarded secret. Keanu Reeves’s character discovered the truth and was offered a choice: take a pill and forget everything, or see "just how far the rabbit hole goes."

This week I am offering readers a similar choice: skip over today’s column or venture with me down that rabbit hole. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

In light of current headlines, examination of 45 year-old Operation Northwoods is more pertinent now than ever. De-classified documents available at George Washington University Library reveal the CIA’s plot to justify Fidel Castro’s overthrow–regime change–and conduct military operations against Cuba.

One of the document’s headings "Incidents to establish a credible attack," describes how Cubans friendly to the United States would be planted inside the base at Guantanamo Bay posing as hostile saboteurs. Shelling the base, causing "some damage to installations" was also suggested. Undoubtedly the most telling scenario was: "Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims."

Even more sinister, however, were the CIA’s plans to wage a terror campaign against Cuban refugees in the United States, pinning the blame on Castro and his sympathizers to further justify an invasion of Cuba.

"We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated)" the document reads. "We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding to be widely publicized." Exploding plastic bombs in "carefully chosen places" was another course of action.

Operation Northwoods included further provocative tactics, including the use of MiGs by U.S. pilots to drop "Cuban" leaflets bolstering the Communist underground in the Dominican Republic and other neighboring countries. Invasions of airspace by these fake MiGs would rally other Caribbean nations to support the U.S. against "Cuban" aggression.

Several pages were devoted to a plan "...to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a civil airliner en route from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela." Hijacking was also suggested.

Any of this sound familiar?

Most of us have heard the conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks: a missile hit the Pentagon and timed explosives brought down the Twin Towers. These "theories" – which in all likelihood originated in some government agency–were planted in order to distract the "fringe Left" and others from finding the truth.

After all, what better way to conceal the truth than to circulate not one, but two diametrically opposed and equally far-fetched scenarios to explain how over 3,000 Americans were murdered on September 11, 2001. The idea that Flight 93 was repainted and still in service somewhere is just as nutty as finding Mohammad Atta’s miracle passport lying on top of World Trade Center rubble. And both stories conveniently ignore Israel’s connection to the attacks.

Between August 26 and September 11, 2001, a group of speculators, identified by the American Securities and Exchange Commission as Israeli citizens, sold "short" a list of 38 stocks–including those of insurance companies and airlines–expected to fall in value as a result of the pending attacks.

On Sept. 6, 2,075 put options–a bet on a drop in the worth of stocks–were made on United Airlines. On Sept. 10, 2,282 put options were recorded for American Airlines, which could have yielded the speculators as much as $2 million to $4 million.

Recently, new security system developed by an Israeli company was tested at Knoxville’s airport, designed to measure travelers’ biometric responses–blood pressure, pulse and sweat levels. Each machine will run the U.S. a cool $200,000.

They’re still profiting from 9/11.

By November 2001, 60 Israelis who had been working at mall kiosks or posing as art students throughout the U.S. were detained for visa violations. This number is in addition to the 140 Israelis who were detained prior to 9/11 as part of a suspected espionage ring. Nearly all had served in the Israeli army with specialties in either explosives or intelligence, although Carl Cameron of Fox News quoted a senior investigator into the attacks as stating "Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified."

These cases were separate from the arrests of five Israelis who were caught filming the World Trade Center attack as it happened while laughing, giving each other high-fives and dancing–a story verified by the Washington Post, The Palm Beach Post and by ABC News. Now safely back in Israel, four of the five have filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the United States for false arrest.

On October 12, 2001, Mexican authorities arrested two Israelis carrying weapons and explosives inside San Lazaro, Mexico’s congress. If the Israelis had succeeded in carrying out an attack, it would have presumably been blamed on Muslim terrorists in order to gain Mexico’s cooperation in the "war on terror."

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu characterized the 9/11 attacks as "very good." Moments later he added, "Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy."

Sympathy and justification for unprecedented U.S. aggression against countries that don’t recognize Israel.

So when another "Fort Dix Six" are nabbed for an alleged terror plot, or the next time a "pro-Western" official is assassinated in Lebanon, a church is bombed in Gaza or Iraq, or a "shoe bomber" is arrested on an airplane, remember the deception of our own government and whose interests it serves to keep fomenting the bogus "War on Terror." Ask yourselves if radical Islam is the real enemy. It is imperative that all of us ask these questions, no matter how far down that rabbit hole it takes us.

Liberty

2007-06-14T16:41:00.000-04:00

June 8 marked the 40th anniversary of the heaviest attack on an American ship inflicting the highest number of casualties since World War II. The USS Liberty was an intelligence vessel, patrolling international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.

The day was clear and sunny; the ship flying the American flag, as was standard. Suddenly and simultaneously, out of that clear azure sky and sea came a two-pronged attack by Israeli air and naval forces. Napalm, gunfire and missiles rained hell on Liberty’s crew for two hours while Israeli torpedo boats closed in.

In that two hours, 34 American sailors died. Another 172 were injured

The Liberty crew managed to send an SOS, heard by nearby U.S. Sixth Fleet aircraft carriers. Fighter planes launched immediately, however turned back on orders from President Johnson. Naval personnel listening to radio relays heard Johnson say “I don’t care if the ship sinks, I’m not going to embarrass an ally.”

Israel claimed it was a case of “mistaken identity.” You know, friendly fire. Israel’s ludicrous explanation was that pilots thought the USS Liberty was El Quseir, an Egyptian vessel having 1/4 of Liberty’s displacement and half the beam. El Quseir was 180 feet shorter and very differently configured. The Liberty had her name clearly written in English, while the Egyptian ship would have displayed Arabic script.

There are several motives for Israel’s deliberate attack: to prevent the USS Liberty from transmitting intelligence pertaining to massacres by Israeli troops which were taking place in the Golan Heights and that the 1967 War did indeed result from a pre-emptive strike by Israel.
The attack could have been used to draw the U.S. into the 1967 War as well. Most of the Liberty’s survivors believe that Israel’s goal was to sink the ship and kill everyone aboard. Had there been no survivors, the attack could have been pinned on an Arab country.

Ward Boston, Jr. was the chief legal counsel to the Navy Court of Inquiry investigating the USS Liberty attack. He is also a U.S. Navy veteran, having served on the USS Yorktown.

In an editorial published by The San Diego Union Tribune, Boston stated then President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara ordered the Navy Court of Inquiry to conclude the attack was accidental.

The late Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, the Court of Inquiry’s president, was given only one week to gather evidence for the investigation, although a proper inquiry would have taken six months, according to Boston.

“We boarded the crippled ship at sea and interviewed survivors. The evidence was clear. We both believed with certainty that this attack was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew,” Boston wrote. “I saw the bullet-riddled American flag that had been raised by the crew after their first flag had been shot down completely.”

For the official record, Admiral Kidd was ordered to rewrite part of the Court’s findings, including striking Lt. Lloyd Painter’s testimony in which he stated three life rafts filled with seriously wounded sailors were gunned down at close range by Israeli torpedo boats.

Crew members’ tombstones are engraved “...died in the Eastern Mediterranean,” rather than “killed in action.”

The USS Liberty’s Commander, William L. McGonagle was awarded the Medal of Honor in a quiet ceremony at the Washington Navy Yard, not in the customary White House setting. To this day, survivors have never been allowed to testify publicly. Nor have intelligence officers who received real-time Hebrew translations of Israeli commanders ordering pilots to sink “the American ship.”

Even now, the mere mention of the USS Liberty creates a furor. The town of Grafton, Wisconsin decided to name their new $1 million library–to be built with private donations and an $83,000 federal contribution–the USS Liberty Memorial Library.

Days later, Jewish community leaders cried anti-Semitism. An angry letter from one rabbi stated the name was “insulting to Jews.” Not surprisingly, the $83,000 federal money was put on hold. Even the priest at Grafton’s Catholic Church came out in opposition to the name, stating “The USS Liberty has become a symbol of hate.”

Ironically, the University of Wisconsin’s library was officially renamed the Golda Meir Library in 1979.

Survivors of the USS Liberty attack, their families and the families of those killed gathered in Washington, D.C. last week to demand a fair congressional inquiry, a plea which presumably fell on deaf ears.

While those family members seek justice, a small city in Wisconsin seeks to commemorate Liberty’s name and conscientious members of the American public seek the truth, their killers are still being called “God’s Chosen People.”

While I take time to honor those sailors who lost their lives over 40 years ago, some wannabe nationalist in New Madison claims I have “cheapened the sacrifice” of U.S. troops. While I speak out against an Israeli-driven U.S. policy and our appeasement of the Jewish State which has cost thousands of U.S. lives, I am being compared to Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden. (Contrary to what some believe, I actually don’t mind the comparison. It merely reflects the intellect of the one doing the comparing.)

While I continue to speak out against the second-most powerful lobby in America–one that promotes the interests of a foreign government at the expense of U.S. resources, both material and human–the “real” patriots are pledging allegiance to Zionism. Indeed, Mr. Brown, you’re a regular Audie Murphy–although I doubt you know who he was.

Patriotism, for those who may be confusing the term with blind nationalism, means honoring your war dead and seeking justice for their families even if it means “embarrassing an ally.” It also means pursuing policies beneficial to one’s country, free from the yoke of foreign domination.

For Taha

2007-06-07T23:11:00.000-04:00

Recent events have forced one particular travel memory to the forefront of my thoughts. I see his doomed eyes glaring at me, haunting me.

He was someone that no one should have to see, yet everyone should have to see him. Everyone who said to heck with a cease fire in the Middle East; Israel has to defend itself. Everyone who blindly supports our war on Iraq. Everyone who thinks they know the meaning of sacrifice.

Everyone who isn’t aware there are some things worse than death.

It was my second trip to the Middle East in less than five months. I went to Jordan Hospital to visit wounded Palestinians; victims in the latest round of Israeli attacks. The lucky ones had made it to Amman for more advanced treatment. The young men in the first floor room were recovering.

All were cheered by a visit from a foreigner and a few were even able to talk and joke a little. One of them, upon learning I was American, feigned shock and attempted to hide an 8X10 of Saddam Hussein on the wall. It was one of several photos of the since ousted Iraqi President. I discovered why he was so popular among the injured: he was paying for their medical treatment. I attempted to visit the Palestinian ward again after the fall of Baghdad in 2003, but everyone was gone. They had been sent packing, no matter what their condition. Just one of the little-known consequences of regime change.

After chatting with the patients several more minutes, they suggested I go see Taha Abu Snineneh. I felt a wave of dread and my hands were suddenly cold. I had heard about Taha, the mortally wounded man that was alive only because of the myriad machines he was hooked to. I stalled for awhile, then acquiesced. It was the least I could do for him, pay him a visit.
I am not a poet, but composed the following almost immediately after leaving Taha’s room. It was the only way I could process the trauma.

Breathe In
Barely hearing my own footsteps in the silent hall
Breathe Out
Barely smelling ruined flesh in the sterile pall
Breathe In
Barely seeing doctors pass in their endless rush
Breathe Out
Barely feeling my own body in this deathly hush
Breathe In
Just a few more steps my God, it seems so long
Breathe Out
Just a few more minutes pray God will keep me strong
Breathe In
You musn't see the tears of pity or anger in my eyes
Breathe Out
Though only the machines now express your silent cries
Breathe In
Your broken, crumpled body lies still as I draw near
Breathe Out
Just your eyes move slowly to see who has come here
Breathe In
Struggling to form a word the only sound is silence
Breathe Out
You bravely fought for life and land but only met with violence
Breathe In
And only man's machines and tubes now fill your lungs with air
Breathe Out
Powerless to offer comfort all I do is stare
Breathe In
I do not speak your language and I put you in this cell
Breathe Out
Bought the missles and the fire that made this living hell
Breathe In
I wonder if you hate me seeing torment in your eyes
Breathe Out
I wonder if you know I too am paralyzed
Breathe In
You know I am American but I am not to blame
Breathe Out
I tell you with my quiet eyes that we are just the same
Breathe In
And so I bend and gently kiss your pale and lifeless hand
Breathe Out
Then turn and curse the cowards who stole much more than your land.

Taha Abu Snineneh died three days later.

False Prophets and the Deception of Many

2007-06-07T23:07:00.000-04:00

"Prophecy Conference Offered At Sugar Grove Bible Church," the headline jumped at me. Curiosity piqued, I drove to Tipp City just to see what all the fuss was about.

I walked in, was greeted with a handshake and handed a bulletin outlining the evening’s program. I looked at it and thought there must be some mistake. The graphic on the front depicted a large Star of David set against a scroll. I glanced around, thinking I had gone to a synagogue by mistake.

No, there was a large cross behind a pulpit and the altar in front bearing the words "This Do In Remembrance of Me." No wait. Upon the altar set a menorah complete with blue candles and an Israeli flag. The irony was astounding: an Israeli flag placed where the body and blood of Christ are offered at communion.

Before the presentation began, four ushers passed collection plates among the crowd of about 60 people. The congregation responded as if it was a traditional offering; digging in wallets, forking over money.

"None of this money will stay with Sugar Grove; all of it will go to the Friends of Israel Ministries," a man reassured the crowd.

Well, that was a relief. I wouldn’t want to see any of their money go to the sick and needy right here in our community.

Dr. David Levy was the guest speaker and his first topic was entitled "The Islamic Invasion of Israel." He started out by comparing the spread of Islam to a cancer, then outlined the Muslim "agenda."

"If Islam gets a foothold here in America, they will claim this land in the name of Allah and start killing non-believers," he stated.

As murmurs and whispers of fear rippled throughout the congregation, I had to wonder who really had the agenda. Someone daring to speak in the name of Christ about another people as a "cancer" is bad enough. Inducing panic by depicting Muslims as people who would kill Christians, Jews and other "infidels" at a moment’s notice is pure hate speech.

Of course the Zionist Christian agenda is no secret. A recent Zogby poll indicates 31% of registered voters adhere to the belief that all Jews must return to what is now called Israel before Jesus Christ can return. It was difficult to discern whether Dr. Levy actually believed this. Most likely, the lecture circuit guys are merely Israeli sympathizers utilizing scare tactics
to manipulate Christian beliefs. It was obviously working here.

Dr. Levy portrays the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as purely religious. Historical and political aspects, including the insertion of a foreign population on Arab land, are ignored. The plight of Palestinian Christians is never mentioned in his black-and-white, good-versus-evil fantasy where God is on Israel’s side and everyone else ends up as vulture feed.

To exacerbate this fallacy, Dr. Levy kept referring to "Allah" as if He were some sort of pagan moon god. The word "Allah" is simply Arabic for "God." Christian Arabs say "Allah." It is like saying Spanish-speakers do not worship the same God because they call him "Dios."
The presentation became more incoherent as it dragged on. I learned that Israel is at the crossroads of three continents. I guess Dr. Levy forgot about the large land mass comprising
Turkey and Syria between present-day Israel and Europe.

The implications of the statement, however, are sinister. Zionists not only desire all Jews go to Israel; they believe in a concept called "Greater Israel" (Eretz Yisrael) which ascribes Old Testament boundaries to modern-day nations. By this ancient biblical land grant, they believe that not only all of Palestine, but parts of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan belong to a Jewish state as well.

Dr. Levy continued, stating the Iraq War is a waste of time because Islam can never coexist with democracy. I suppose when the Palestinians went to the polls, their democratic process didn’t count. Electing Hamas candidates didn’t meet with Western approval. I just wonder how Dr. Levy would explain away Malaysia, a parliamentary democracy whose state religion is Islam?

Also fascinating is Zionist Christians’ contempt for the United Nations. They are irate that a U.N. peacekeeping force will be deployed in Southern Lebanon.

"U.N. stands for United Nothing," Levy quipped. Laughter erupted, ironic because without the so-called "United Nothing," their sacred cow wouldn’t exist.

The presentation was finally over. I stopped by the literature table on my way out, knowing I could not stomach another session before question-and-answer time began. I picked up a magazine entitled "Israel, My Glory." Its cover depicted a graphic photo of an Israeli soldier recovering the bloody corpse of an adult male, his eyes glazed over. "Restraint?" was the glaring headline.

Arabs and Muslims have long been accused of using images of bodies and mortally wounded children as "propaganda." Al-Jazeera, the 24-hour Arabic news channel is "inflammatory" when reporting civilian casualties in Palestine and Iraq.

Yet, littering a pseudo-Christian magazine with pictures of dead Israelis to justify a brutal attack on the Lebanese people, infrastructure, economic and educational institutions is somehow acceptable.

Zionist Christians play loosely with scripture, cherry-picking verses and applying them in a literal context to support their diabolical rhetoric against Arab and Muslim peoples. One biblical prophecy, however, is very clear: "And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many." (Matthew 24:11)

That much was being fulfilled before my very eyes.

"Don't Shoot!"

2007-06-07T22:27:00.000-04:00

"Don’t shoot! There’s an American in the back!"

The frantic cry of my taxi driver pierced the air. Our vehicle had come to an abrupt halt as an Israeli soldier jumped from behind a piece of corrugated metal. His M-16 was leveled at the rear window, a few feet from my head.

"There’s an American in the back!" He checked his weapon and demanded my passport. Aloof, I handed it to him without making eye contact. I was too angry to be scared. He thumbed through it and returned it, motioning us to continue.

I wondered what might have happened if there hadn’t been an American in the back. "It wasn’t even a checkpoint," I muttered as I looked over the brown rocky hills surrounding Bethlehem. We continued to the ruins of Herodium, a palace/fortress built in 24 B.C. by King Herod. Each bend in the road introduced sweeping vistas of fields and more rolling hills stretching in every direction. I imagined this landscape hadn’t changed much since Jesus walked here. Too bad I was out of the mood for sightseeing.

Earlier in the day I had seen the place that really mattered: The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The seven-mile trip from Jerusalem had taken the better part of an hour due to Israeli checkpoints. I had to take two different taxis because vehicles with West Bank license plates do not have access to all the roads those bearing Jerusalem identification enjoy.

Arriving at Manger Square, I tentatively stepped out of the taxi and glanced around. The place seemed deserted except for a few Asian tourists and some Palestinian Authority soldiers in blue and black camouflage.

October 2001 wasn’t a popular time to be visiting the Middle East. Three weeks after 9/11 and a year into the intifada, or uprising, sparked by Ariel Sharon’s unsolicited visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque with 1,000 armed men had scared off more sane travelers.

The soldiers stared curiously and smiled. I gave them thumbs up and entered the Church of the Nativity.

There was a service in progress, so I waited on the stone steps leading down to the small grotto where Christ was born. A few minutes later, a procession came down the stairs and I pressed myself against the wall as they passed; the priest led the way into another chamber, leaving behind a heavy aroma of incense.

I approached the silver star representing the spot where Baby Jesus’s manger once stood. Following the custom, I knelt to kiss it, pressing my lips against the cool metal. The moment was beyond comprehension; it would be fully appreciated only after some soul-searching and as a memory...if then.

More surprises were in store as I headed north to Ramallah later in the evening. There was another brutal checkpoint where I had to walk several hundred yards, joining the wave of humanity that was snaking around motionless vehicles. Horns were drowned out by sobbing babies, jostled along with bags of groceries that women were forced to balance as they made their way on foot to the other side of the checkpoint.

Arriving in Ramallah, I got off and joined the bustle of rush hour: people hurrying home from work or school; people buying fresh produce, meat and bread for dinner; people out window shopping.

I stopped at a large Internet Café, complete with a snack bar and a network of new computers. I approached the front desk and a young girl in Western attire greeted me in flawless English. I paid the minimal fee for an hour’s time after which she directed me to a computer and provided me with a city guide book at no extra charge.

I found the Hotel Wehdeh; there may have been two other guests in the whole building and the desk clerk (who doubled as bellman) still refused to take my tip.

A friend in the U.S. had given me a contact in Ramallah before leaving; I called her the following day and we set up a meeting.

I spent the morning walking around town, enjoying the open market, with its hawkers calling out prices of tomatoes, oranges, fresh baked flatbread and a variety of other produce.

I met my contact, a middle-aged lady named Maryam who took me to her apartment on the outskirts of town. She shared the place with her sister and elderly mother. They had prepared me a lavish dinner of whole roasted chicken, rice and abundant locally grown vegetables that are a staple of the Palestinian diet. Rana, a student at nearby Bir Zeit University had also been invited.

As we ate, Rana told of studying under Israeli occupation. Sometimes, there would be a "closure" or temporary sealing off of Ramallah so students could not get to class. Final exams were no excuse. In other universities, classes adhere to a syllabus and plan for each meeting.

"At Bir Zeit, we say ‘if’ we’re in class tomorrow,’" Rana sighed.

After dinner, we drank coffee out on the balcony. It was an upscale Christian neighborhood, so the bombed-out building less than a hundred yards away caught my attention. I commented that it was rather "close to home." Maryam rolled her eyes and threw her hands up. She told of frequent Israeli missile attacks in residential neighborhoods and lamented that she couldn’t even get to Jerusalem for Easter. The checkpoints were unbearable. The last time she had tried it was five years ago when she was detained. Protesting that she was a Christian, she showed the Israeli soldier her cross necklace.

"He spat on me," she whispered.

The Middle East's "Only Democracy?"

2007-06-07T22:22:00.000-04:00

"Kaman," several gentleman begged me to drink another cup of thick Arabic coffee, but I had to go. I left the makeshift sidewalk café on a Ramallah side street and started towards my hotel.
I had spent almost two hours in their company after walking by the little place, they had invited me to join them. Although they spoke only broken English, they made me feel as welcome as possible; in Palestinian culture it was their duty and heartfelt privilege to treat guests this way.

I started to cross the street when a car careened around the corner. I jumped back, only to be reassured by a sidewalk vendor, packing his cart of bananas up for the night. He made little calming gestures with his hands saying "No problem, no problem." I smiled and started across the street again. Gunfire. Heavy caliber, close by. I flinched and ducked involuntarily.
Again the vendor made motioned for me to be calm and repeated "No problem, no problem." He was obviously used to the nightly barrages, but for a small-town American, it was rather disconcerting.

The next morning I was on my way back to Jerusalem. Israeli soldiers stopped our minibus when we were halfway there and removed a passenger. He went quietly. I asked the others what had happened and they informed me the man held West Bank identification and was prohibited from entering Jerusalem.

We arrived eventually at the Damascus Gate, just outside the walled city. I wanted to see Al-Aqsa Mosque, but was barred from entering by Israeli soldiers. They told me it was closed to tourists. I wondered who it was open for? It is also closed for Friday prayer if you’re a male between the ages of 15 and 40. So much for religious freedom in the Middle East’s "only democracy."

I wound through the labyrinth of narrow stone streets, past clothing stores, restaurants and fresh baked flatbread piled high on tables. Ahead, a group of robed Arab women scattered suddenly to either side of the corridor. An orthodox Jew on a bicycle, legs outstretched, came coasting down the incline at a high rate of speed. Never having a large stick when I really need one, I moved to the side, too.

Even with my unwieldy fold-out map, it was next to impossible to find the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built on the site where Christ was entombed for three days. I ducked into a coffee shop, overhung with a thick haze of argeela smoke. The Palestinian proprietor rushed from behind the counter and asked if he could help me. I pointed to the Church on the map, expecting him to draw a few lines and point me in the right direction. He beckoned me to follow him. We walked for about five minutes, making a series of twists and turns that led us deeper into the Old City.

When we came to the massive edifice, I thanked the shopkeeper-turned-tour guide, reaching in my pocket to give him something for his trouble. By the time I looked up, all I saw was his retreating back disappearing into a crowd.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was perhaps more soul-stirring than the Church of the Nativity; gigantic mosaic murals depicting scenes from the crucifixion adorned the main sanctuary. Further inside, there was an opening in the floor where I reached through and touched the base of what is reported to be the actual Cross.

There are many different chapels representing the various divisions in Christendom: Armenian, Greek and Syrian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Egyptian Coptic and Ethiopian. Ironically, it is a Palestinian Muslim family who is entrusted with the keys to the Church due to in-fighting among these groups throughout the centuries.

The tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, who begged Pilate for Jesus’s body is also located inside the Church. Close to the small chapel built over the exact site where Christ’s body was interred, there is a stone on display, rent in two during the upheaval following His death. I knelt in that chapel for several moments, unable to pray, say or think anything.

Outside in the gathering dusk, I bought a few souvenirs. There were gorgeous Bibles with mother-of-pearl covers and elaborate Nativity scenes and crosses carved from local olive wood. I regretted neither my budget nor my small backpack afforded me the opportunity to help the beleaguered shopkeepers more.

Backtracking through the maze of streets, I felt a tug on my hair. I turned around and saw a wide-eyed baby reaching out for another pull, the mother apologizing profusely. I laughed and played with the baby for a moment before continuing to the Damascus Gate.

Taxis, minivans and buses were all gathered; drivers were shouting their respective destinations as people scurried to and fro. I searched for an indication that one might be going the same direction as me; no takers. A minivan pulled alongside me and the young driver leaned forward. "Ramallah?" he asked.

"Gaza," I responded.

He looked like he had seen a ghost and asked me if I was all right.

For the next several minutes, we argued about it. He questioned my sanity, offering one excuse after another why I should not go to the Gaza Strip. It’s too expensive, there’s nothing to do there, you’ll be killed, etc. I turned to walk away, telling him that I would find information elsewhere on how to get there.

He looked exasperated, then resigned. "I can take you to Gaza."

Welcome to Gaza

2007-06-07T22:20:00.000-04:00

It was a two-hour journey from Jerusalem to the Gaza Strip.

My driver was an Arab-Israeli named Haithem. Because of this status, he was free to move about the West Bank and Israeli territory; however he would not be permitted to enter Gaza. He tried to deter me from my insane itinerary the whole way.

When we arrived at the border, the Israelis informed us that the computers were down and the border would be closed for an indefinite period. Haithem said if we had to wait more than an hour he was taking me back to Jerusalem. Forty-five minutes later, I was allowed to cross.
After Israeli passport control, I walked a gauntlet of bunkers and concrete barricades in the no-man’s land between Israel proper and the Gaza strip. It was pitch black and I was completely alone.

Momentarily, I saw headlights approaching. A dilapidated yellow taxi pulled up, the window lowered. An old Palestinian man stared at me in disbelief, then his chubby face broke into a broad grin.

"Welcome to Gaza," he beamed.

The conversation during the brief ride into Gaza City was jovial and he brought me to one of the many brand new beachfront hotels. They were built in anticipation of a tourist boom when peace between Israelis and Palestinians seemed eminent. Things were not so optimistic now, and the posh hotels stood empty.

The glossy wood furniture in my room smelled new; it was possible it had never been slept in. I dozed off despite excitement from the trip and the incessant crowing of a rooster.
The phone rang early.

"Miss, your breakfast is ready."

My breakfast? I went downstairs and stared in amazement. A table was set for me; a spread of eggs, sliced fruits, bread and jam arranged expertly. The hotel had pulled out all the stops for its lone guest.

Walking around Gaza City, I found I had attained a sort of celebrity status. Many locals invited me to join them as I walked by outdoor cafes, vying for who would buy me tea or a sandwich. Two men asked where I wanted to go and offered me a ride. One wore an olive drab uniform and cap bearing the Fateh insignia. I went with them to use the Internet and then down to a shelter on the beach where we drank coffee.

The fleeting worry they might be kidnappers was dismissed during the ride; an AK-47 was lying across the backseat at my disposal. I posed for a picture with their sidearms and went to wade in the Mediterranean. It is a crime that this stretch of powdered sandy beach cannot be enjoyed by more tourists. It is one of the softest, whitest and most pristine I have visited.

That evening I found a small pizza parlor, much like those in the U.S., except for everyone was carrying a weapon. I was enjoying my snack when an Israeli F-16 flew over. The locals warned me to leave the area because "you never know when they’re going to bomb." I returned to my hotel and heard the F-16 flying back and forth all night, sometimes lower and louder, other times more distant. Luckily, it never dropped anything; just gave a lot of children a fearful and sleepless night.

The next day I met Hiba and two of her young children. They were on the beach eating baked flatbread with zattar, a common regional spice. They invited me to join them. Although they spoke as much English as I did Arabic, we shared the meal, laughing and talking somehow. She implored me to come home with her to meet the rest of her large family. Her brother-in-law, Mohammad, spoke fluent English, breaking the language barrier. I accompanied them to an ice cream stand; judging from the children’s reactions it was a rare treat.

Mohammad picked me up at my hotel the following day for lunch with his friends in Beit Hanoon, a village around five miles from Gaza City. I was shocked when we arrived; the roads were unpaved, pock-marked from gunfire and heavier weapons. The buildings were hollow shells, uninhabitable as a result of almost daily Israeli missile attacks.

A group of men met us and led us through an enormous orange grove. A scene from 1001 Arabian Nights materialized among the trees: cushions were laid out on the perimeter of a feast including rabbit, doves stuffed with rice; vegetables, fruits and nuts were piled high on shiny metal trays.

I wondered how they had the money for all this, then remembered everything before me was harvested from the land. Elsewhere, succulent oranges lay rotting on the ground. The men explained they were required to export them to Israel exclusively, for a fraction of their actual value.

It was the same principle with the fished-out port. Israel prohibits fisherman from sailing beyond two kilometers from shore. Not a good selection of fish in Gaza seafood markets.
I was completely relaxed as I indulged in the elaborate feast even though most of the men wore pistols. Frequently, they would break from their conversation to offer me more food and ask how I was doing.

This peaceful interlude in the middle of a war-torn land ended all too soon. We bid farewell with warm handshakes and promises to return.

I left Gaza City that evening for Khan Younis Refugee Camp. From there it would be on to Egypt, then back to the States with my world view irrevocably altered.

Khan Younis Refugee Camp

2007-06-07T21:04:00.000-04:00

I sat staring at the benign, expectant faces around me. I knew some rudimentary Arabic but now they were questioning me in what sounded like a completely different language. The young boy who had brought me to this table pushed a small cup of coffee towards me.

It was night in Khan Younis refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip. I had unwittingly caused a fistfight between two cab drivers desperate for my fare. This angelic boy had appeared through the melee, wearing the traditional robe, a dishdashe, and guided me to this group.

I looked at each of them in turn and smiled helplessly. Suddenly an officer in the blue Palestinian Authority uniform approached us. There was a brief exchange and he turned to me, addressing me in perfect English.

Relieved, I asked him where I might find lodging for the night. He ignored the question for the time being.

"Can you understand what they’re saying?" he asked me.

I indicated that I could not, apologizing for not speaking Arabic.

He informed me they had been trying to converse with me in Hebrew. "You are Israeli, aren’t you?"

Before panic closed my throat I managed to croak that I was American.

The officer smiled. "American, Israeli...we don’t care. We love people, we just don’t understand your governments."

That makes two of us. The words that young officer spoke nearly five years ago are truer now than ever. The sickening violence that has claimed the lives of 79 Palestinian and 61 Lebanese civilians, including infants and children, is as unfathomable as it is unjustified. It isn’t making the three captured soldiers any safer; it isn’t helping Israel’s reputation in the international community. A recent poll of European citizens cited Israel as the number one threat to world peace. How prophetic. However, there is one notable exception.

Enter our illustrious president, describing this massacre as self-defense. U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, cast the lone vote against a resolution condemning Israeli aggression, citing it was "unbalanced." Apparently it failed to address the status of the three captured soldiers. For that matter, the 8,238 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails were not mentioned either. But I suppose that would have made it "unbalanced" again.

The Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure, while larger in scope this time around, are nothing new.

Nidal, the Khan Younis officer, insisted I stay with his large family as a guest. The following day his cousins, one of whom was a paramedic at the Red Crescent hospital, showed me around the sprawling refugee camp. Many people live in concrete hovels that would be condemned anywhere else in the world. A lot of homes lay in rubble from Israeli attacks, the families forced to relocate to tents.

While touring the hospital, I heard horror stories of the effects of curfews and closures. Several women in labor had died at Israeli checkpoints "after hours" while waiting to be allowed to cross. The paramedic described his job as the "most dangerous in Gaza," as he was often shot at while trying to collect wounded in the aftermath of another Israeli military operation. Bullet-riddled ambulances (clearly marked as such) provided proof of his testimony.

Rolling water outages are a health concern as well as a major inconvenience. Families in the camp have one or two hours of running water a day. One young girl was in the middle of laundry when the water cut off. She had to lug the load down three flights of stairs and two blocks away to a neighbor’s whose water had just turned on.

To make matters worse, on my way into the camp I passed by a beautifully irrigated tract of land, complete with grassy lawns and palm trees. It was an Israeli settlement, draining the area’s water supply.

A large group of children followed us as we made our way to the beach. There were yards of barbed wire and an Israeli bunker that prevented us, along with the children of Khan Younis, from going to the beach. One of the boys, a fourteen year-old named Muhammad, told me what happened when he tried to go for a swim.

"Wallahi" (by God), they beat me," he said of the Israeli soldiers. Even as we spoke I could see the glint of the soldiers’ binoculars from the bunker. They were watching us. Another boy wore a crude bandage that looked like sandpaper taped to his head, a souvenir from an Israeli bullet that luckily only grazed him.

I learned that most of camp’s families had been displaced twice, the majority originating from Jaffa, Haifa or other cities further up the coast. They had been refugees once in 1948 when an estimated 750,000-900,000 Palestinians were forced out of their villages when the state of Israel was established. They evacuated again during the 1967 war when an additional 350,000-400,000 Palestinians fled, finally ending up in Gaza.

They feel they are the lucky ones, however. Palestinians living in other countries comprise 55% of the total Palestinian population. Numbering twelve million, they represent the world’s largest percentage of refugees.

"...we just don’t understand your governments." Israel is wreaking havoc in the Middle East, killing and maiming innocent civilians in the name of "self defense." The United States, claiming to be a beacon of freedom and equality in the world supports this line not only in words, but in military and economic aid to the tune of $12 billion a year. As taxpayers, we are all culpable in our support of this brutal apartheid system which persecutes people based on ethnicity and religion. Now that this rogue state has destabilized the entire region, maybe it is time for "regime change."

Rachel

2007-06-07T20:58:00.000-04:00

March 16, 2003 was a clear day in the Rafah refugee camp, Gaza Strip. The young woman from Washington had been there over six weeks with the International Solidarity Movement. The organization is dedicated to protecting Palestinian human rights in the Occupied Territories.

This time, the activists were trying to prevent a barrage of home demolitions. The Israeli Army, using American-made Caterpillar bulldozers, was leveling Palestinian houses. The aggression, they claimed, was necessary in order to widen the barren buffer zone between the Egyptian border and the rest of Gaza. They claimed weapons were being smuggled. To prevent this, they had to render dozens of families homeless.

The bulldozer was headed straight for the home of a pharmacist. The young woman from Washington, sporting a neon orange flak jacket, stood between the advancing machine and the house. In that one moment she stood, beautiful and defiant. A strong protector-figure, defending the defenseless. She didn’t budge. Surely the driver would stop. Maybe he wouldn’t stop for a Palestinian–but for a 23 year-old American girl–he would surely stop.

One moment she stood, beautiful and defiant. The next moment her body lie crumpled and broken, rendered unrecognizable by the crushing force of the bulldozer. Incredibly, the bulldozer then backed up, running over her a second time to make sure the job was finished.

The horrific images played over and over; on special reports and the evening news. The scene became no less sickening for all its repetition. Rachel Corrie became an instant household name.
I wrote an e-mail to my mother from Amman, Jordan, where I was living at the time. I expressed my outrage at the tragedy, admiration for Rachel mixed with hope that at least now the American public would pay attention to what was going on in Palestine.

I was aghast at her response: "Who is Rachel Corrie?"

"Who is Rachel Corrie?" Apparently, her murder was given only passing coverage in mainstream American media, if at all. A blurb or two in a few newspapers. A ten-second sound byte in the middle of a newscast, when most people get up to grab another cup of coffee.

But the cover-up of Rachel Corrie’s senseless death was far worse than a crime of omission. Killings in the Middle East–particularly when the perpetrators are Israeli–are routinely overlooked by American media. In Rachel’s case, however, repression of fact reached conspiratorial proportions.

The Israeli government brought no charges, ruling Rachel’s death "accidental." A House bill calling for a U.S. investigation died in committee. However, the greatest evidence of a full-scale information blackout regarding the life and death of Rachel Corrie was the attempted censorship of a play bearing her name.

Entitled "My Name is Rachel Corrie," the script was pieced together using Rachel’s earlier diaries and e-mails sent to her family while she was in Gaza. The show was highly acclaimed in London, winning numerous awards. Yet there was such opposition in New York that its opening day was postponed seven months. James C. Nicola, artistic director of the New York Theater Workshop, cancelled for fear of offending the Jewish community.

Eventually, free speech advocates and arts patrons succeeded in bringing "My Name is Rachel Corrie" to a different theater where it has met with good reviews. Performance dates have been extended for at least another month.

However, most of America is even more unaware of what goes on "off Broadway" than they are about what truly goes on in Palestine. So when I mentioned writing a tribute to Rachel Corrie marking the four-year anniversary of that horrible day in Gaza, it came as no surprise when my managing editor asked, "Who is Rachel Corrie?"

Name recognition is not so important; Rachel never intended to become famous. She simply made a commitment to an oppressed people, striving to improve their lives in some small way. Although her time was cut drastically short, she accomplished more in her chosen corner of the world than most people could in 100 years.

The Rachel Corrie Children and Youth Cultural Center now stands in Rafah. The Rachel Corrie Rebuilding Campaign has reconstructed the pharmacist’s home Rachel died trying to protect. And there are quite a few little girls named Rachel running around Gaza today.

God knows Rachel never intended to become a martyr. Her last e-mail to her father was bursting with plans to visit Sweden on her way back to the U.S., then return to Rafah and teach English. She also expressed dread at the thought of saying goodbye; not knowing if her Palestinian hosts would be alive when she returned.

As it turned out, the people she loved had to say goodbye to her first. She never got to visit Sweden, never got to teach English, never saw her parents again. A homicidal maniac driving a piece of American-made hardware saw to that.

Rachel Corrie’s body was crushed in Gaza four years ago; yet her legacy transcends the politics of fear, race, class and religious bigotry that the Israeli government and its American supporters use to crush justice and truth.

Perhaps in a premonition, Rachel wrote before leaving her home in Washington:
"We are all born and someday we’ll all die. Most likely to some degree alone. What if our aloneness isn’t a tragedy? What if our aloneness is what allows us to speak the truth without being afraid?"

The best tribute we can pay to Rachel Corrie, an American heroine, is to speak the truth without being afraid.

Pat Tillman

2007-06-07T20:53:00.000-04:00

It was a propaganda gem that comes along once every war or so. The story of Pat Tillman, an NFL star who left his multi-million dollar career with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the Army, played perfectly into the Bush administration’s spin machine. Here was a patriotic young man who, after seeing thousands of his countrymen perish on 9/11, was so overcome by righteous anger and moral duty that he walked away from riches to defend America against Islamo-fascists.

When Corporal Tillman’s death at the hands of Afghan enemy combatants in a dramatic twenty-minute firefight was first reported, the White House wasted no time:
"Pat Tillman was an inspiration on and off the football field, as with all who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror," a presidential spokesman declared.

April 22 marks the third anniversary of Pat Tillman’s death. Three years later, we know it was actually "friendly fire" that killed him.

We know a memo attesting to that fact was circulating among top brass immediately after the tragedy. We know the primary concern of that memo was to save public officials–Bush in particular–the "embarrassment" of misrepresenting the circumstances surrounding Tillman’s death. As if misrepresenting facts is anything new to Bush.

We know it was nearly five weeks before Tillman’s family and the American people were told the truth. At least the current version of the truth. There are those who believe, including Tillman’s family, that the truth may be much more sinister than a tragic case of mistaken identity.

Enter Stan Goff, a retired 26-year veteran of the elite Delta Force and Army Rangers and former military science teacher at West Point. Goff has researched virtually every detail of the Tillman case, including more than 2,500 pages of official briefings and documents from three investigations. He has conducted extensive interviews with family members and some of the soldiers in Tillman's unit.

Talking with the soldiers was difficult. According to one member of the Battalion, the Rangers were forced to sign secrecy statements that forbade them to discuss any details of Tillman’s killing for 80 years. While Goff has concluded that Tillman was not assassinated, evidence shows he was the victim of fratricide, a botched investigation and an elaborate cover-up.

In his writings, Goff also addresses the calloused statements of Tillman’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, based on his disdain for the Tillman family’s agnosticism.
After all, it was a Crusade Tillman was supposed to be fighting.

However, Tillman didn’t see it that way. He called the Iraq war "so – illegal" (expletive deleted), having been deployed there in 2003 before being sent to Afghanistan. He kept a diary which may have expressed further sentiments of that nature. Or not. We will never know.
Tillman’s personal effects, including his diary, were burned, a blatant violation of Army policy which dictates that personal effects must be returned to families. The aluminum oxide ceramic hard-plate in Tillman’s body armor also vanished.

Four Rangers admitted to shooting Tillman. One had recently undergone laser eye surgery and another claimed to have "tunnel vision." The third confessed he was "excited" by the sight of muzzle fire and the fourth said he just aimed where everyone else was shooting.

Yet an investigation concluded there was no criminal negligence in Tillman’s death or the aftermath thereof. And silence from the yellow ribbon gallery, for whom the phrase "Support Our Troops" is nothing more than a mindless mantra.

Furthermore, treatment of Tillman’s body was outrageously unprofessional. An Army report documents that CPR was performed on Tillman after his body arrived at the field hospital. This despite the fact he had suffered three machine gun shots to the back of the head, leaving little of his brain intact. When Tillman’s mother, Mary, questioned the medical examiners and field hospital personnel about this ludicrous attempt to resuscitate her son, she was told, "we are not usually criticized for trying to save lives."

It is not the only time Mary Tillman was ridiculed for asking reasonable questions. Lt. Col. Kauzlarich stated in an interview with ESPN:

"There have been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide and the parents have basically said, ‘OK, it was an unfortunate accident.’ I don’t know, these people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs."

Kauzlarich is one of the militant Christians so prevalent in our armed forces today; a man of the same ilk as General My-God-Is-Bigger-Than-Your-god Boykin. People who cannot fathom separation of church and state. But Kauzlarich didn’t stop there.

"When you die, I mean there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don’t believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt."

Worm dirt.

Something tells me the yellow ribbon people should be up in arms about this. Pat Tillman was one of our troops, not "worm dirt."

But yellow ribbon people aren’t really about supporting our troops. They are blindly following a cult of death based on a misguided religious superiority complex and hypnotized by nationalistic fervor.

What happened to Pat Tillman was illegal. When Pat Tillman saw something illegal, he had the courage and integrity to call it "illegal," no matter what the consequences.

The least we can do to honor Pat Tillman’s memory is to demand that those responsible for his death and ensuing criminal cover-up be brought to justice, from squad leaders in the field to generals at the Pentagon. And, unlike Stan Goff, I’m not ruling out the Commander-In-Chief.

California Chaos?

2007-06-07T18:12:00.000-04:00

Authorities in California said that 145 people were killed or were found dead Saturday, including those killed by bomb blasts at an open air market near Los Angeles. Of the total, 19 were found dumped in the capital of Sacramento; most of the bodies showed signs of torture.

The market bombing was the deadliest attack since Nov. 23, when suspected gang members hit Compton with a series of car bombs and mortars that killed at least 215 people.
Twelve days ago, not far from the site of Saturday’s blast, a suicide bomber crashed his car into the City Walk at Universal Studios, killing 88 people.

In Orange County, a pair of suicide bombers detonated explosives Thursday among shoppers in a crowded mall, killing at least 73 people and wounding 163.

The California National Guard reported the deaths of five more soldiers: four in fighting and one of an apparent heart attack. All died Friday.

Between San Diego and Escondido, another police helicopter was shot down, bringing the total to five helicopters lost in combat during the past three weeks alone.

Nearly two million Californians have fled fierce gang fighting and estimates are as many more could be internally displaced within California. Neighboring Arizona, Nevada and Oregon have absorbed most of the refugees, severely straining their economies.

Unbelievable? The numbers are all accurate. Only names have been changed from places like "Baghdad" and "Hillah" to well-known California cities. The purpose of this exercise is twofold: 1) to bring home the devastation the U.S. invasion and occupation have wielded upon the Iraqi people and 2) to illustrate how utterly ludicrous and irresponsible it is to compare crime rates in California cities–or any other major U.S. city–to the carnage that is post-Saddam Iraq.

Yet Daily Advocate Editor Bob Robinson maintains, through some kind of miraculous equation giving a whole new meaning to the term "fuzzy math," that California, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C. are more dangerous for Americans than Iraq.

The key to this of course is callously stripping Iraqi casualties from the equation. Using "only" the 3,000 + American war dead, spread out over the last 4 years and averaging a monthly total, the statistics can be easily skewed to whitewash the violence in Iraq.

It would be interesting to see how the number of American wounded compares– you know, amputees, blind, deaf, brain damaged. They number at least 23,417 according to CNN.

Yet war proponents still claim imbedded journalists, television reporters and newspaper editors are all part of a vast liberal media conspiracy to undermine the war effort. In other words, traitors.

The media is criticized for not reporting the good news coming out of Iraq; the good work American soldiers are doing in rebuilding Iraq. Sorry, but when pieces of 145 people litter the streets of what used to be a vegetable market, photos of soldiers passing out M&M’s to Iraqi kids get moved to the back burner.

We’re rebuilding roads, schools, hospitals, you say? Ask yourself: "Why do roads, schools and hospitals need rebuilt?" The answer is simple: American bombing campaigns wiped out most of the Iraqi infrastructure. During the attack on Fallujah alone in 2004, clinics, hospitals and residential areas were flattened, all in a failed attempt to locate Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and destroy his supporters. I’m sure that campaign won friends and influenced people...for the insurgency.

It is naive to think bombs have become any "smarter" since the years after the first Gulf War. Civilian deaths due to U.S. and British patrols enforcing the "no-fly" zones over northern and southern Iraq mounted to 300 dead and 800 wounded in an 18-month period alone. Many of the victims were shepherds in rural areas, miles away from any military outpost.

Risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the invasion (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School, Baltimore). Moreover, unemployment rate has reached 70%, according to a study by the college of economics in Baghdad University. Besides, if there was any good news to report, why have nearly two million Iraqis fled to neighboring states? Iraqis now comprise the second-largest group of refugees worldwide, Palestinians being the largest.

And speaking of Palestinians, what has happened to those living in Iraq? Many found safe haven in Iraq after the U.N. created Israel; they enjoyed a special status under Saddam Hussein’s administration.

They are refugees again, fleeing persecution by Shia militias in the ever worsening sectarian civil war. Currently, 700 Palestinians remain stranded in the no-man’s land between Iraq and Syria, trapped since May 2006. The Syrians refuse to admit them; to return home means certain death.

But surely there is good news coming from the semi-autonomous Kurdish north? Good news for Kurds; bad news for civilians in Eastern Turkey. Kurdish terrorists, emboldened by their new status, are training at camps in northern Iraq. Subsequently, they carry out bombings in Turkey with the goal of creating an independent Kurdistan from parts of Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. Several months ago, a Kurdish separatist attack on a school in Turkey killed seven children and three other civilians.

As the debate whether to hold a debate or not in Congress rages on, so too does the civil war in what used to be a secure, sovereign nation. And that civil war will continue with or without American troops present. Let us all hope Congress uses the power of the purse to end this debacle once and for all, bringing American soldiers home as soon as is logistically possible.

"O Little Town..."

2007-06-07T18:02:00.000-04:00

"O little town of Bethlehem..."

The words of this timeless Christmas carol are a touchingly personal description of the city where Jesus Christ was born. Simple, humble, the lyrics convey not only the most enchanting qualities of the town, but of the Savior who began his earthly life there.

Phillips Brooks, a Philadelphia rector, traveled to Palestine in 1868. Awed by the view of Bethlehem from the surrounding hills at night, he wrote "O Little Town of Bethlehem." The carol is profoundly moving; even more so to those who have gazed upon that ancient landscape.
"It couldn’t have been anyplace else," I remember thinking, looking over Shepherd’s Field.

Personal yet universal, Brooks’s simple and cherished words have taken on a harsh irony today. The humanitarian crisis in Palestine is growing worse by the hour, threatening the very existence of the Christian population in the birthplace of Christianity.

"O little town of Bethlehem..."

Little town, indeed. And becoming smaller with every new, more invasive Israeli annexation.
"The Israeli government just confiscated 14 percent of the birthplace of Christ." Bethlehem’s Mayor, Dr. Victor Batarsa’s complaint fell on deaf ears. Included in the latest Israeli land grab in the Northern Bethlehem District were shops, religious and social centers and other privately owned property.

Additionally, Israel confiscated a strategic 38 acres of Palestinian land south of Bethlehem. Official reasons were for "military purposes" and the "security wall," referring to the massive barrier currently under construction. In actuality, the land is being used for road projects to connect Jewish settlements around Bethlehem.

The roads will be for Jewish settlers; Palestinians will be prohibited from traveling on them. Neighboring villages will be isolated from one another, in some cases completely encompassed by either wall or the Jewish-only roads. Even now, Bethlehem residents have to apply for permits from the Israeli government if they wish to travel to Jerusalem, six miles away.

"How still we see thee lie..."

The last several years of Israeli closures and checkpoint labyrinths have impacted Bethlehem’s once thriving tourism industry significantly. Throughout 2006, occupancy rates at hotels in Bethlehem barely reached nine percent. Pro-Israeli Christian groups who organize Holy Land tours omit Bethlehem, citing "security concerns." As no attacks on tourists have ever occurred in Bethlehem, these "concerns" are a bogus attempt to vilify Palestinians. And they have the audacity to call it a Christian pilgrimage.

Needless to say, such conditions have paralyzed the local economy. Olive wood Nativity scenes and Christmas ornaments collect dust on shelves. Beleaguered shopkeepers and artisans are short not only on customers, but raw materials as well. In June, Israeli bulldozers destroyed several acres of prized olive trees to prepare for a new section of barrier wall.

"Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by..."

"It was a spiritless day," Auxiliary Bishop Pierre Burcher of Switzerland recalls his visit to Bethlehem. Spiritless. The place where mankind’s hope was fulfilled remains in a deep and dreamless sleep day and night. The wall, nearly 26 feet high, surrounds Bethlehem. By comparison, the Berlin Wall was a little less than 12 feet high.

Yet the silence in Bethlehem is preferable to the orgy of mockery that took place 18 miles southwest in Hebron. Tove Johansson, a 19 year-old Swedish human rights worker had volunteered to escort Palestinian children through an Israeli checkpoint to and from school. On November 20, her small group was confronted by approximately 100 Jewish settlers. The settlers began spitting upon and kicking the volunteers.

"We killed Jesus, we’ll kill you, too!" the settlers chanted; the refrain had become familiar to those working in the area.

"Jesus was gay!" they continued taunting, growing steadily more vicious. Israeli soldiers manning the checkpoint did nothing to intervene. The attack culminated in one settler hurling a bottle at Johansson, breaking her cheekbone. As she lay on the ground bleeding, the mob cheered. The assailants were never apprehended.

And the world was silent.

"Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light..."

Swiss Bishop Burcher, was encouraged later in his visit by attending services in the Church of the Nativity. "I was impressed by the participation and recollection of the faithful," he said after celebrating Mass.

Although Bethlehem’s Christian community has declined sharply, those remaining practice their faith enthusiastically and without interference from the majority Muslim population. Contrary to a Congressional resolution last summer, Christian-Muslim relations are strong.
The resolution, introduced by Texas Republican Michael McCaul, stated Muslim persecution has led to a Christian exodus. Fifty years ago, Christians comprised six percent of the West Bank’s population; today they make up 1.5 percent. The draft included accusations of systemic discrimination and sexual harassment against Palestinian Christians.

Daphne Tsimhoni, a professor at Haifa’s Israel Institute of Technology asserted that nearly all of McCaul’s points are misleading or pure fabrication. Rather than facing discrimination, Christians have more than their fare share of representatives within the Palestinian Authority. Since taking power, Hamas has made no attempt to impose Islamic Law. The only threat to Christians’ freedom of religion is Israeli travel restrictions, a fact glaringly omitted from the resolution.

"The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."

While the future of Christ’s birthplace looks bleak, there is hope. As American Christians become better informed about the situation in Bethlehem, we can become an effective force for change. After all, it was through $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees that made the barrier wall imprisoning Bethlehem possible. Most of all this Christmas, remember to keep the citizens of Bethlehem in your prayers.

The Core of the Problem

2007-06-07T17:57:00.000-04:00

With all the carnage resulting from the latest eruptions in Gaza and Lebanon, it seems almost obscene to discuss an extinct amphibian. Yet the fate of the Palestinian Painted Frog, including its posthumous name change, is a profound illustration of the Israeli government’s reckless disregard for life and Orwellian revisionism.

The Palestinian Painted Frog inhabited the wetlands surrounding Lake Huleh, just north of the Sea of Galilee and in adjacent parts of Syria. In the early 1950s, the newly established Israeli government drained these freshwater swamps in order to build houses. A fraction of the land was set aside as a nature preserve in 1964, but it came too late for the Palestinian Painted Frog, the last reported sighting of which was in 1955.

As if destroying a unique ecosystem isn’t crime enough, the species’ name was changed after it became extinct. In many circles, it is now known as the "Israel Painted Frog" or the "Huleh Painted Frog" part of an ongoing attempt by Zionists and their sympathizers to erase any vestige of the name "Palestine" from human memory. And we’re worried about Israel’s "right to exist?"

Coincidently, the Palestinian people who were forced to flee from the Lake Huleh area in 1948 after Al-Nakba (The Catastrophe, known to the West as "Israeli Independence Day") are playing a major role in current events as they pertain to Lebanon and the Middle East as a whole. These people, along with their children and grandchildren, now reside in the Nahr el-Bared (Cold River) refugee camp, north of the Lebanese port city of Tripoli. The camp was originally established by the League of Red Cross Societies in 1949 to accommodate refugees specifically from the Lake Huleh area of northern Palestine.

It is this camp, home to 31,023 refugees, that is currently under siege by the Lebanese Army, pounding militants and children alike with indiscriminate cannons. A lull in the three-day battle is allowing some 10,000 refugees–some on their third or fourth displacement–to "escape" to yet another refugee camp.

Media and politicians alike can blame Fatah al-Islam, a relatively unknown group with dubious links to Al-Qaida, for destabilizing the country. They can blame Syria. They can blame the complex layers of religious factions that contributed to Lebanon’s fifteen-year civil war.
Yet the facts are simple. The people of Nahr el-Bared, like those in eleven other Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, live in overcrowded squalor. Residents cope with an inadequate water supply and open sewers. Furthermore, Lebanese law defines Palestinian refugees as foreigners, despite the fact that many have lived in Lebanon for over 50 years.

Living with this status means Palestinians in Lebanon may not work unless they obtain a permit, valid for a maximum of two years. They are not easy to come by; in 1994, out of a workforce of 218,173, only 350 workers were granted permits.

According to Human Rights Watch, the situation of Palestinian women in Lebanon is particularly harsh. Women who work in the garment industry are paid below minimum wage and earn half the salary of Lebanese citizens. Because most do not have work permits, they do not receive benefits, including medical insurance. Eighty percent of Palestinians in Lebanon live in dire poverty, prohibited from seeking gainful employment.

Thus the Lebanese government is reaping the rewards of imposing such inhumane conditions on the 400,000 Palestinian refugees forced to live there. What else is there to do but foment terrorism?

Yet many of Fatah al-Islam’s members are not even Palestinian; they hail from all over the Muslim world, from places like Bangladesh, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. They came to Iraq as "foreign fighters," received training and plenty of experience, then took their expertise to fight other battles.

So the Bush administration’s genocidal foreign policy can chalk up yet another series of disastrous consequences. Civilian casualties within the camp are unknown, as no one has been able to enter Nahr el-Bared since the fighting began. Buildings that were flimsy to begin with have collapsed due to the heavy artillery used by the Lebanese Army; burying people alive.

However, the stories are emerging. Indeed, these stories are all that the thousands of refugees have to take out of the camp with them. According to one Associated Press report a couple and their six children, ranging in ages from three to thirteen, hid in a mosque for three days. The adjacent cemetery was bombarded, uprooting bodies and bones.

The Lebanese Army is currently abiding by a 38 year-old agreement that they cannot enter Palestinian camps. I hope it sticks better than it did in 1982 when the Phalangist militias, aligned with Ariel Sharon, invaded the Sabra and Shatilla camps and butchered nearly 2,000 women and children.

But in all fairness, the Lebanese Army had no control of that Phalangist militia. And to be fair now, the Lebanese should not have to deal with 400,000 disenfranchised Palestinians in their midst.

The core of the problem is the U.N.’s 1947 decision to partition off 53 percent of Palestine in order to accommodate a foreign population in the middle of Arab land. Subsequent Israeli aggressions have whittled Palestine down to a mere 20 percent of its original area.

However, the Palestinian people will never go as quietly as the Painted Frog by the same name, much to the chagrin of Zionists, both Jewish and Christian alike. Until the world realizes the root cause of Mideast turmoil, we can brace for more of the same violent images on the evening news for generations to come.

Collective Amnesia

2007-06-07T17:46:00.000-04:00

Do so-called journalists suffer from collective amnesia? Or do they just engage in paid double-speak when it comes to reporting the Palestinian conflict?

According to folks in mainstream Western media, Hamas–for some mysterious and unknown reason–broke a cease-fire with the Israelis and began launching Qassam rockets into the southern city of Sderot again. Israeli air strikes against civilians in Gaza and the mass arrests of West Bank mayors are merely a retaliatory measure aimed at protecting Israeli security and of course, their "right to exist."

However, it wasn’t Hamas who broke the cease-fire.

Although the powers that be desperately want us to forget the circumstances surrounding the current round of violence, let this serve as a reminder: During March of this year, the Israeli Army conducted no less than 30 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. All of this was confirmed at one time or another by the Associated Press, although what measly coverage they did provide was buried in half-inch columns on the back pages of American newspapers.

On March 6 and again on March 17, dozens of Israeli jeeps and hundreds of soldiers had surrounded the Old City of Nablus and declared a curfew. Their stated mission was to capture or assassinate eight fighters from Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of the Fatah movement. Meanwhile, the 40,000 residents of Nablus Old City were trapped in their homes, unable to go to work or school, or even to buy food for their families.

On March 7, the Israeli Army invaded Ramallah, arresting 107 Palestinians, bringing the total number of arrests to 671 since the beginning of 2007. Northeast of Hebron, the Israeli Army stormed the offices of charitable organizations and associated kindergarten programs, confiscating documents, books and computers. They subsequently ordered the closures of both the charities and the kindergartens.

Meanwhile in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Army razed large tracts of land around the town of Beit Hanoun.

Anna Baltzer, an extraordinary young woman whom I had the pleasure of meeting last summer at the University of Illinois, is a volunteer with the International Women’s Peace Service and was in Nablus at the time of the Israeli closure. She kept a journal, written in harrowing detail, of the humanitarian crisis that ensued. She took pictures of Israeli soldiers detaining medical relief volunteers and preventing them from delivering medical services.
Anna personally broke curfew, delivering bread to Palestinians trapped in their homes. As an international worker, she gambled that she wouldn’t be shot–and thankfully, she was right. This time.

To read more about Anna Baltzer’s experiences in Palestine, go to www.annainthemiddleeast.com/ or check out her book, Witness in Palestine: Journal of a Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories.

The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem reported that Israeli forces used Palestinians as human shields in earlier raids on Nablus during February 2007. Three individuals: a 15 year-old boy, a 24 year-old man and an 11 year-old girl, testified that Israeli soldiers forced them to enter houses that were alleged hideouts of Palestinian resistance fighters.

In one instance, Israeli forces took control of a house and interrogated the family about the location of armed Palestinians. The soldiers subsequently forced eleven-year old Jihan Dadush to lead them to an adjacent house, where she was made to open the door and enter in front of the soldiers.

"I was shaking with fear. I was afraid they would kill me or put me in jail. The only thing I wanted to do was sleep… I am afraid that the soldiers will come back and take me," the young girl told B’Tselem.

The preceding should be more than ample explanation to any reasonable person why there are rockets raining down on Sderot again. The Palestinians have the right and moral obligation to defend their people and their right to exist. Unfortunately, Hamas doesn’t receive billions in U.S. military aid, so they have to rely on homemade rockets.

To which the Israelis, as always, have responded with more airstrikes on civilians, assassinations, arrests, curfews and closures. To which the U.S., as always, has responded, "Israel has the right to defend herself."

Forty-nine Palestinians have been killed in the past 11 days.

According to U.S. policy, killing Palestinians is kosher. Look at the $40 million in military aid we just rushed to Lebanon to continue the bombardment of the Nahr al-Bared camp for Palestinian refugees. Does anyone dare ask–anyone in our illustrious crew of reporters or news anchors–where praytell was that aid last summer when over 1,000 Lebanese civilians were murdered by the Israeli Air Force, their infrastructure bombed back to the Stone Age?

Does anyone dare ask how can the U.S. get away with sending $60 million to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who also serves as the head of Fatah? Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of Fatah, is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department.

The strategy is simple: divide and conquer. Encourage Fatah to put down Hamas rather than let them build a coalition. This presents a weaker front to negotiate–or fight as the case may be–with the Israelis. To achieve this, our government breaks its own law by funding a group who, according to its own watch list, is linked with terrorism.

The people whose profession it is to raise these questions amble along placidly, sending back their little stories of "humanitarian concerns" amid the threat of growing "Islamic extremism," which is countered by "Israeli reprisals."

I guess the media are no better than those invertebrates in the U.S. Congress who can’t even stand up to an inarticulate redneck with a 28% approval rating. I had higher expectations of our journalists.