Letters to the Editor
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"david sugarman" -- you're just plain wrong on this one.
There is NO evidence that “israel does the U.S. bidding not the other way around.”
You claim that “most jews (and israelis) want to get rid of the west bank, they just don't know how.” Where’s the evidence for that? Considering Israel’s overt and covert government support for those “settlers” who rob Palestinians of their land, and Israel’s deliberate policy of apartheid, why would anyone think Israelis want to escape from the West Bank?
And: Obama may only have been thinking of the Middle East rather than making a global comparison, but his statement that "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people", is TRUE regardless of the context. The Palestinians have been herded into “refugee” camps and left there to rot since Israel started its war against them in 1947.
This is not a matter of being “pro” or “anti” Israel; or of being anti-Jewish or anti-semitic. It’s a matter of being honest with ourselves about what’s really happpening. Here’s the judgement of the great jewish historian Avi Shlaim: “The moral case for the establishment of an independent Jewish state was strong, especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust. But there is no denying that the establishment of the State of Israel involved a massive injustice to the Palestinians. Half a century on, Israel still has to arrive at the reckoning of its own sins against the Palestinians, a recognition that it owes the Palestinians a debt that must at some point be repaid.” (598)
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"Jim"...
... you miss the point. It’s not the numbers involved (6,000 people), it’s that they were “a who's who of Washington's A-list .... and included the bulk of Congress, as well as high-ranking officials from the White House, the State Department and the National Security Council. [Plus] Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ... via teleconference from Jerusalem.” THAT’s what’s spooky about these guys. That, and the fact that they have an agenda that dovetails nicely with the so-called “Christian Zionists” and with the remnants of the PNAC Criminals.
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it's not hypocritical to say:
I support those of the Jewish faith.
Fuck Israel.
That's not an oxymoron, nor a contradiction. One is a group's right to seek their god as they so desire, in a peaceful fashion. The other is a regieme of apartheid, a terrorist, murderous nation whom we should cut free immediately.
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ok, i'll give it a try
in '56 eisenhower supported egypt over britain, france and israel. the israelis got their mirage jets and most of their hardware elsewhere. in '67 for the first time, america saw that israel had a strong army and supported them thereafter with military equipment. it uses israel when it needs to (like iran contra). i said this all before. if you really believe that the U.S. government is in the grip of a zionist conspiracy, when israel has 1/50th the population and 1/100th the GDP and 1.7% of the U.S. population (70% vote democratic), then you are really out of touch with reality.
polls in israel consistently support the idea of getting rid of the West Bank. that byzantine politics and strong willed settlers and recalcitrant palestinians made this impossible does not alter this fact.
the *entire* mideast has contributed to the palestinian plight. most palestinians *don't* live in the West Bank, they live in Jordan (not in refugee camps, but without citizenship) or in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon or earning money as second class citizens in the gulf States.
there's no "moral" claim for *any* kind of a state. it only exists because people fight for it. that is true for *any* state, even europe, though that goes way back. canada and the U.S. and South America were not "given" they were "taken". sorry. that is it. do a thought experiment. if the jews were moslem, would there have been any uproar at all? would instead the palestinians welcomed them instead of conspiring with the english and germans to keep them out. the arabs as a people numbered 20 million a hundred years ago,the jews, 10 million. now the arabs number 300 million and the jews, 12. if that is too many for you, there's nothing i can do - except maybe Ghandi's advice, yes, the great-souled one, when asked (in '43) what the jews should do said, "since they are going to die anyway, they ought to all commit suicide, that way they'd at least have made a statement".
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AIPAC = scariest lobby group in America
AIPAC is the #2 most powerful lobby group in the U.S. The #1 group is AARP, a bunch of old people who want reasonably-priced meds and for children to get off their lawns.
The most powerful union lobbies in the U.S. barely register at #10 in terms of influence. In other words, American workers have a minor amount of influence compared to a lobby completely devoted to foreign country.
AIPAC wants to influence U.S. foreign policy for the sole benefit of Israel. They want the U.S. to continue to hijack the United Nations and international courts so that they will continue to fail to hold Israel to the same human-rights standards as other countries are held to.
AIPAC also wants to make sure that the U.S. continues to subsidize Israel's military. The U.S. gives Israel over $4 billion in aid every single year. Billions more are given via "back-door subsidies" -- i.e. loans that are later quietly forgiven (but since they're loans they're classified differently and stay under the public media radar).
The cluster bombs that Israel illegally and immorally dropped on Lebanese civilian areas? Made in the U.S.A. The entire Lebanese war? A test case for a U.S. air war against Iran. Did Bush, Cheney and Rice know about the Israel attack on Lebanon months before it happened? You bet they did! They authorized it! Was the attack on Lebanon in response to a border incident involving kidnapped soldiers? Um, no, that was the excuse, and in fact, internal memorandum of the Israel military proves they were looking for the right moment and excuse to attack and call it a "response."
Why did the U.S. attack Iraq? In part because Saddam was giving $25,000 rewards to the families of suicide bombers in Israel.
Why is the U.S. now refusing to parcel Iraq into three ethnic-based mini countries? Among other reasons, because a free Kurdistan would be friendly to Iran and Syria and allow them to build a long-planned "land bridge" (superhighway) that would make travel from Persia to the borders of Israel cheap and easy -- which means weapons/bombs would flow easily too.
Why does Israel insist on occupying what is internationally and legally recognized as Palestinian land? Because they want to increase their demographics to sustain an ethnically Jewish population. It's a race and culture based program, sort of like if we in the U.S. started building suburbs in Baja and Sonora Mexico in hopes of boosting Anglo-Saxon demographics. Of course we'd never do that, because the U.S. is defined as a melting pot. But Israel is defined almost entirely by its Jewish population (with limited exceptions), so they have what is currently the most racist government policy in the world that isn't universally condemned (thanks to the U.S. strongarming the United Nations).
There's also the little matter of Israel investing billions in occupied real estate and building a land-annexing "separation fence" in violation of every international law. Israel's plan is to take over the entire territory, with full control of all water and other infrastructure. Their plan for Palestinians is to slowly strangle them until they either leave, die out, or are so marginalized that they are impotent. That is Israel's plan for Palestine. They don't give a rat's ass about those humans; in fact, they define them as sub-human, much as German Nationalists did to Jews in European ghettos (but if you make such comparisons they'll scream bloody murder because they're not trying to exterminate Palestinians, only slowly strangle them, which isn't as bad).
The right-wing goals of Israel are against everything that is culturally valuable in Jewish tradition. Every lesson and moral you'll find in the Talmud is at odds with the behavior of Israel to Palestine, yet the best among the Jews are compelled to keep their mouths shut for fear of being aggressively labeled "self-hating Jews," while their non-Jewish counterparts are quickly, angrily and irrationally labeled "anti-Semites."
AIPAC's goal is to keep the U.S. on a short leash so that it will fall in lockstep with every policy of Israel, no matter how corrupt. It does this by maintaining its strength as the #2 most powerful lobbying group in the U.S.
AIPAC's efforts also have kept prosecution and exposure of the recent Israel spying scandal to a minimum. You all might not remember this, even though it is still occurring, but the worst breach of security ever to occur in the Pentagon since the Cold War was committed by operatives of the Israeli government. Look it up. The media have reported it only minimally, with scant follow-up. The U.S. government has classified everything it can. AIPAC has worked aggressively to bury this story. Go Google "israeli spying scandal" or similar terms for more details.
Oh, by the way, Israel has nuclear weapons. Over 200 warheads, probably more like 300+. What, you haven't heard this? That's because the media has buried it, even as Israeli heads of state accidentally mention it during off-the-cuff remarks. Did you hear about the Israeli diplomat who was found in the street bound and gagged, mostly naked, in bondage gear last week? No? How about the accusations (likely true) of rape against Israel's president? Israel's connections to the Russian spy-poisoning case? I'm not claiming a crazy media conspiracy, but these stories DO tend to have a shorter shelf life than you'd expect.
EVERY presidential candidate knows he/she cannot get elected without AIPAC's support, which includes a great deal of campaign funding support, so they are all falling over themselves to make strong pro-Israel statements. One by one, each candidate is paraded in front of AIPAC members and expected to perform a pro-Israel song and dance or face dire political consequences.
AIPAC is a scary organization. I urge you to read up on them. It is sickening that U.S.'s top leaders are sleeping with these asshats.