Mofaz urges Israel to boost assassinations of Hamas leaders

[ 03/05/2011 - 06:13 PM ]

NAZARETH, (PIC)-- Shaul Mofaz, former minister of Israel's military, has called on Netanyahu's government to increase assassinations against the leaders of Palestinian resistance forces after the US successfully killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Ladin in Pakistan.

“If terrorist attempts continue in the Gaza Strip, Hamas leaders must know that they represent a target for liquidation,” Mofaz, also a member of the Israeli Knesset, threatened. “This bears unquestionable legitimacy.”

Separately, another Knesset member from the Kadima party has stated that the United States had adopted Israel's strategy in the bin Ladin hit, which is to target leaders of alleged terrorist organizations, “a strategy proven efficient throughout the years”.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

MAZIN : WESTERN MEDIA FRENZY ABOUT OSAMA BIN LADEN

- 03. May, 2011

Bin Laden’s assassination and the continued state terrorism practiced by the US government and its allies, especially Israel, attempt to entrench the idea of violence as an answer.

By Mazin Qumsiyeh / My Catbird Seat

There is a western media frenzy about the reported “taking-out” of Osama Bin Laden (the previous ally turned enemy). Israeli papers reported a high level US security official as saying his instruction was not to capture Bin Laden alive but to liquidate him.  But everyone already knew this would be the case,  since it would be a messy business if the US soldiers captured such a person alive (he may even spill the beans on his US and Pakistani  intelligence links).  Most people went about their daily lives of apathy.  Even the stock market did not go up as pundits predicted.  Soon the dollar will resume its downward spiral.

The US military may feel vindicated and Pakistanis will feel their country’s sovereignty challenged. Some may choose to retaliate with violence giving the Neocons and Neoliberals their excuse to pursue their policies.  After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the military-industrial complex needed a new enemy to sustain its massive structure and conveniently the “Islamic terrorism” materialized. Of course there are fanatical Muslims (and Jews and Christians and Hindus) who are willing to kill. Yet, the US did not have to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and create more such fanatics.  But a more sober analysis shows that things will change. Bin Laden was killed a while ago not physically perhaps but as an idea! The idea suffered significant blows by the Arab Spring revolutions which showed that it does not take violence to change our societies and remove US/Israeli backed dictators.

Bin Laden’s assassination and the continued state terrorism practiced by the US government and its allies, especially Israel, attempt to entrench the idea of violence as an answer.


The brutal assault on Syrian, Yemeni, Saudi and Bahraini demonstrators and the US continued military attacks in countries around the world are part of this human foolishness.  They represent that wing of our global society that believes violence is the answer: the win-lose scenario. The hopeful ideas of popular resistance, freedom, democracy and end to exploitation successfully challenged the notions of “clash of civilization” and “might makes right”.

We thus remain hopeful despite all the false news planted around us and all the false-flag operations, and despite the 1 million Iraqis and 50,000 Afghans killed by these wars.

Here in Palestine, most people went about their lives focusing on how to find the next loaf of bread under Israeli colonial occupation.  Hardly a mention was made of Bin Laden.  If we take just one village called Izbet Al-Tabib, a tiny village of 247 residents (60% of them children), we see one example of what was on people’s minds.  The Israeli decision to take their land was met with building a protest tent on the threatened land and trying to make their story known.

Sandra Quintano, A 60 year-old American Activist

The Israeli military came and attacked the villagers and the international volunteers severely, injuring an elderly American woman and arresting three other internationals (see here).

At night more than 200 soldiers invaded the village terrorizing its population to try and stem the growing popular resistance. Please join the villagers this Thursday for solidarity starting at 1 PM.

Last night, the Israeli army arrested several Palestinians in major cities including Bethlehem (this happens regularly in defiance of the Oslo accords and with knowledge of “Palestinian security” forces).
In a few days, there will be events and commemorations surrounding the Nakba day.  The Nakba is the Palestinian catastrophe etched into every living Palestinian mind.  It is the fact that from January 1948 to the end of 1949, more than 2/3rd of our people who lived in the land that became the (Jewish) state of Israel were ethnically cleansed.  63 years later, nearly 7 million Palestinians are refugees or internally displaced people. This is the largest and most tragic and persistent post world war II atrocity.

For information, visit http://PalestineRemembered.com

Israeli Apartheid and The Nakba

By Anthony Lawson

It is important that we all join in activities to challenge colonialism on this anniversary of the Nakba.

In the US, you can also get some printed material (a Nakba Pak) from here

Below are some events but do look for events in your area or organize your own events:
From Lebanon and Jordan, see details here http://returntopalestine.blogspot.com/
Hellerup, Kobenhavn, Denmark http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=221525124531256
Israëlische ambassade, Sterrewachtlaan 40 1180 Ukkel – Avenue del’Observatoire 40 1180 Brussel
(UCCLE) http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=200013603371184
Madrid. C/ Velázquez 150, 7º http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180589978657757
Ambassade d’Israel – Paris http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179953362056178
Bern (Bern, Switzerland) http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=168998889823873
Houston, TX http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123540217721453
Consulate General of Israel, 6380 Wilshire blvd. Suite 1700, Los Angeles CA, 90048 & Consulate General of Israel, 456 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, 94104 http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=140344946036616
Israeli Embassy 122 Pembroke Road, Ballsbridge Dublin, Ireland
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=205349512829240
Ambasciata d’Israele, via Michele Mercati 12, Roma
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178215672227437
Israelische Botschaft Auguste-Viktoria-Str. 74-76 14193 Berlin
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=118993821513426
Boston Israeli Consulate
20 Park Plaza
Boston, MA
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210024405683124
Israeli Embassy, 2 Palace Green, London W8 4QB
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=197040297000383

Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke and Yale Universities. He served on the board/steering/executive committees of a number of groups including Peace Action Education Fund, the US Campaign to End the Occupation, the Palestinian American Congress, Association for One Democratic State in Israel/Palestine, and BoycottIsraeliGoods.org. He is now president of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People. He advised many other groups including Sommerville Divestment Project, Olympia-Rafah Sister City Project, Palestine Freedom Project, Sabeel North America, and National Council of Churches of Christ USA. He is an active member of a number of human rights groups (Amnesty, Peace action, Human Rights Watch, ACLU etc.). He published several books of which the most acclaimed “Sharing the Land of Canaan: human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle” which was also translated to spanish. For more about his work go to: http://qumsiyeh.org

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Where were the calls for a no-fly zone when Israel attacked Gaza, asks George Galloway

MCS

- 26. Apr, 2011

As Western powers look for an excuse to intervene in Libya, George Galloway, interviewed by the BBC, asks where were the calls for a no-fly zone when Israel attacked Gaza.

Urging the U.N. Security Council to Establish a “No Fly Zone” Over Gaza under the Principle of “Responsibility to Protect”?

Petition: “No Fly Zone” Over Gaza, Please Sign Now!!!

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

The battered judge

Panel members of the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict
speaking about the report. Photo courtesy of the United Nations.

- 24. Apr, 2011

The Goldstone investigation met the hardest test of impartiality: the chairman, Judge Richard Goldstone reported evidence that was unfavourable to his personal interests as a Zionist.

– Paul J Balles/ My Catbird Seat

The basic issue raised by the Goldstone Report on the Cast Lead Operation by Israel against Gaza is whether the investigators followed their judicial responsibilities.

Here are some of the responsibilities of a judge (from the Code of Judicial Conduct):

• A judge shall uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary.

• A judge shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all the judge’s activities.

• A judge shall perform the duties of office impartially and diligently.

Despite complaints about the report and Judge Goldstone, who chaired the fact-finding mission, there has been no impartial evidence of the investigators’ failure to meet their responsibilities.

One key definition involves impartiality” or “impartial” denoting an absence of bias or prejudice in favour of, or against, particular parties or classes of parties, as well as maintaining an open mind in considering issues that may come before the judge.

The investigation met the hardest test of impartiality: the chairman, Judge Richard Goldstone reported evidence that was unfavourable to his personal interests as a Zionist.

Before the report by Judge Goldstone was made public, Antony Lerman, writing in the Guardian reported that “despicable attacks” had been made “on human rights organisations investigating Israel’s Gaza offensive”

As most people following this saga know, Israel refused to cooperate with Judge Goldstone’s investigators. They refused to respond to letters from Human Rights Watch (HRW) and denied the Goldstone mission entry to Israel.

Furthermore, according to Lerman, Israel rubbished testimony from Gazans unless it supported Israel’s version of the offensive, and allowed the army to investigate itself.


Despite Israel’s refusal to cooperate in the HRW investigation, Israelis and Jewish organizations in America couldn’t find enough fault with Judge Goldstone.

Letters came from holocaust survivors bemoaning the facts they said Goldstone ignored: “because larger and larger rockets were arriving from Iran, and a million Israelis were threatened by these rockets.”


Twitter and Facebook entries ignored the refusal of Israel to cooperate and vented rage in non-stop temper tantrums.


It got so bad following Goldstone’s report that he was called “an enemy of the Jewish people” and could not attend his son’s bar mitzvah in South Africa.

After the story made international news, its main effect was to rally defenders of the one-sided report, and Goldstone was able to attend the bar mitzvah without Jewish protests.


Judge Goldstone’s earlier investigations into violence in South Africa, his willingness to criticise all sides led to him being dubbed “perhaps the most trusted man, certainly the most trusted member of the white establishment” in South Africa.


Writing in the Baltimore Sun, Laila El-Haddad recounts that Goldstone “published an op-ed in the Washington Post reconsidering one of the allegations in the report: that Israel intentionally targeted Palestinian civilians during the assault.”


Continuing, El-Haddad reports that “Judge Goldstone’s co-authors, Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin and Desmond Travers, sharply disagreed with him in a statement issued in the Guardian on April 14.”


She added “they stood by the report in its entirety, saying “there is no justification for any demand or expectation for reconsideration of the report as nothing of substance has appeared that would in any way change the context, findings or conclusions…”


However, Israelis and their supporters have been celebrating Goldstone’s retraction of one bit of the original report as vociferously as the Israelis dancing on the roof of a van in New Jersey on 9/11 as the twin towers collapsed.


Unfortunately, Judge Goldstone has been battered so badly that he felt compelled to retract one aspect of his report on which the Israelis refused to cooperate.

Shame on his biased critics.

Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

STUART LITTLEWOOD : Dead as Monty Python’s parrot

- 21. Apr, 2011

“This peace process is no more… This is an EX-PEACE PROCESS!”

Stuart Littlewood / My Catbird Seat

JEFF HALPER (ICAHD)

Jeff Halper now focuses on Palestine’s Big Chance: its application for statehood

In an article Mobilizing for September? Jeff Halper, Director of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), shares his thoughts on the collective action that must be taken between now and when the window of opportunity for applying for statehood opens in September.

As he rightly says, the Palestinian Authority over the years “has failed to mobilize its greatest resource and ally, grassroots activists the world over”. It also needs to provide them with guidance and leadership. “We have no idea where the PA is heading.”

So it has been left to the likes of Halper to explain the Palestinians’ options in September and inject some semblance of debate into the situation facing supporters, activists and that shabby excuse for a government in Ramallah that’s more of a hindrance than a help.

To start with… no more pointless talk of negotiations. “The interminable peace process, says Halper, “serves one purpose only: prolonging the Israeli Occupation.”

Many would go further and say that the US, Britain and the EU have connived with Israel to prolong the Occupation to the point where they hope it will become irreversible.

Washington and London won’t take kindly to a declaration of statehood unless it’s made clear to them by a coming-together of civil society across the world that there’ll be trouble, with a capital T, if they don’t do the right thing by the Palestinians and curb the twisted ambition of their Zionist bosom-pals.

Although Clinton and Hague still chirp about “re-starting talks”, the idea is as dead as the parrot in the famous Monty Python sketch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218, which might have been written specially for the Quartet ‘peace boutique’ and its gormless salesman…

Palestinian Authority: I wish to complain about this peace process what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

Quartet’s Gormless Salesman: What’s wrong with it?

PA: I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it, my lad. ‘E’s dead, that’s what’s wrong with it!

QGS: No, no, it’s resting.

PA: Look, matey, I know a dead peace process when I see one, and I’m looking at one right now…

And so on… If you’re a ‘Python’ fan you’ll know the ending says it all.

PA: ‘E’s passed on! This peace process is no more! He has ceased to be! ‘E’s
expired and gone to meet ‘is maker!
‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life, ‘e rests in peace
! If you hadn’t nailed ‘im to
the perch ‘e’d be pushing up the daisies!
‘Is metabolic processes are now ‘istory! ‘E’s kicked the bucket, ‘e’s shuffled off ‘is mortal coil!!
THIS IS AN EX-PEACE PROCESS!!
(pause)

QGS: Well, I’d better replace it, then…

No, please don’t. This is where we finally close the chapter on ‘Pointless Talks’ and fast-forward to ‘Law and Justice’. Whatever Mr Obama, Mrs Clinton, Mr Cameron, Mr Hague, et al may think, applying for statehood is now the only game in town.
“Ideally,” says Jeff Halper, “the response of the other three Quartet members [referring to the United Nations, the European Union and Russia] would be to formally declare the ‘peace process’ ended, opening the way to the only other alternative, the acceptance in September of Palestine as a member state of the UN within recognized borders…  it is crucial that the Palestinians declare it, making it clear that it was Israel that led to the collapse of negotiations. Only in that way can they prepare the ground for an independent state in September.”
In his analysis Halper paints two scenarios:

The first has a Palestinian state within already-recognised borders – the 1949 armistice lines – accepted as a full member of the UN. There would be no need to negotiate territorial swaps, ‘adjust’ borders to accommodate Israeli settlements or accept exaggerated Israeli security demands.

Admission to the UN, says Halper, “would also end all ambiguity over occupation itself, which has allowed Israel to avoid accountability under international law…  East Jerusalem is Palestinian. Period.

The Israeli presence in sovereign Palestinian territory is illegal. Period.
Continued occupation by Israel, which would now clearly violate the most fundamental principle of sovereignty upon which the entire international system is based, would become intolerable. This would activate international sanctions on Israel that could not be prevented by the US and Europe.”

And the settlements? “Easy. All settlements built on private Palestinian land must be removed.

As to the others, including the large settlement blocs, the Palestinian government could simply say: you, the settlers, are welcome to stay in your homes, but you will be living in Palestine, subject to Palestinian laws, with Palestinians free to purchase homes in your communities.”

Furthermore, by taking its place formally among the member states of the UN, Palestine would have full-ranking ambassadors in the capitals of the world and enjoy unmediated access to all the instruments of the international community: the right to introduce UN resolutions, to participate fully in international conferences and to pursue the application of international law against the Israelis, including access to the International Court of Justice.

You can imagine the steam coming out of AIPAC’s ears at the very thought of the international community actually doing the right thing…

And how would all this come about? The Palestinian ‘leadership’, assuming that anything worthy of the name and remotely credible can be brought into being by September, submits an application to the Secretary-General, confirming its obligations to the UN Charter. The application then goes to the Security Council. If it gains support from nine of the 15 Security Council members and all the five permanent members, a recommendation for admission goes to the General Assembly, which must approve it by a two-thirds majority.

Assuming the US vote in the Security Council is a “yes” or an abstention, the Palestinian application would receive near unanimous approval, according to Halper, But he adds: “The chances of the US actually allowing a Palestinian state to emerge in September is minimal, if only because Congress would not allow it.”

The second scenario sees Palestine’s application failing. It does not become a member state of the UN – at least, not straightaway. If the Security Council declines to recommend Palestine for membership, the General Assembly may send the application back to the Council asking it to reconsider. The American veto might then become an abstention, but all this would take time and the Palestinians would be unlikely to get a result in September. After that we’re into the tedious run-up to the 2012 US election.

Halper seems to feel the Palestinian Authority might then crumble and collapse, forcing Israel to re-occupy, which it could not afford to do even with all its US subsidies. “Merely the threat of that would inflame the entire Muslim world – and beyond. Even the threat of such a thing happening would force the hand of the international community. Whether the US would be pulled into joining international efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all or whether the rest of the world would simply pass it by is an open question, but the status quo would become intolerable.”

The present deadlock, if not resolved by the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state with recognized borders, “will lead to collapse and chaos”. Halper expects the demise of the exhausted ‘peace process’ to provide new openings and possibilities, a new logic and strategy, and even introduce new players.

Members of the pro-Palestine movement, inside and outside the Occupied Territories, owe thanks to this courageous Jewish friend, Jeff Halper, for his clear thinking. Meanwhile much needs to be done to prepare the ground for the Palestinians’ Big Chance in September, little more than 100 days away.

There are many pea-brains eager to block the Palestinians’ bid for freedom. And they don’t all reside in the White House. Just a few weeks ago the British prime minister, David Cameron, was saying: “I want to be clear, we will always support Israel. For example, when Iran flouts its international obligations Britain is and will remain at the forefront of the international community in ratcheting up the pressure with tough sanctions.



So, When will they learn ?



 We will not stand by and allow Iran to cast a nuclear shadow over Israel or the wider region.”

It’s perfectly OK, apparently, for Israel to flout its international obligations and cast a nuclear shadow over the region and even Europe. People who are capable of such daft and dangerous pronouncements may stop at nothing to make Israel’s enemy Britain’s enemy. They’ve already done it with the Hamas government and with Hezbollah, as well as Iran, although none is a threat to Britain. That’s the mentality we’re up against.

So when can we expect to see Palestinian unity, leadership, integrity and promotional strategy all geared up to seize September’s Big Chance? When do we get mobilized? Has the PA got what it takes to secure a rightful future for its long-suffering people?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stuart Littlewood is a marketing specialist turned writer-photographer in the UK. His articles are published widely on the web. He is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation.

Read Full Bio

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Men Die, Lions Rise

Via MCS

- 20. Apr, 2011

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Men Die, Lions Rise

By Jonathan Azaziah

Illustration : Brilliant Carlos Latuff

Is the sky falling, are there pigs flying…

I mean, is this still the same doomed reality…

Yes, because there’s still Iraqi, Afghani, Somali, Pakistani and Palestinian kids dying…

And yes, your eyes are truthful about this cruel brutality…

Peering through the fallacy…

They’ve put a mask on it, so its easier to consume the savagery…

Why they’d take him, he was a brother of peace, like harmonious music and love…

They are the sons of the beast, executioners and Lucifer’s thugs…

Vittorio Arrigoni, it’s so hard to grasp that you are gone…

But you left here as something different than what you were when you were born…

At birth you were a man, but in death you became a lion…

A martyr, a hero who in life gave a voice to those living in pain and silence…

A beacon of courage who gave everything to expose how deep the occupation’s reign of crime is…

You sought to have truth rain on the baneful tyrants…

We know that they hated you, we know that you were a target of heavy hate…

We know that they watched you, moving and marking your every place…

Now they want to convince us that your Palestinian family murdered you with their own hands…

Like we aren’t familiar with the usurping entity’s cold plans…

As if the ritualistic and brutal way you were murdered didn’t give all of the clues…

As if we would let justice slip away, as if we would be okay with them slaughtering you…

If so, they were dead wrong, we would never believe the liar’s wisdom…

We know damn well that Vittorio Arrigoni is a violent victim of Zionism…

He joins the martyrs of the Freedom Flotilla, murdered on the vibrant seas…

Murdered in cold blood for striving to break the occupier’s siege…

He joins Rachel Corrie, when monsters bulldozed her, humanity wept…

She was the definition of a pure soul, her passing made us all wonder how much of the world’s sanity’s left…

He joins Juliano Mer-Khamis, who fought for Palestine’s struggle via film…

Jenin went black when he was killed…

Masked militants, please, your stories are old…

We refuse to let your vicious hasbara taint the memory of Vittorio’s soul…

We know that IOF trains special units to pose as terrorists…

You can bulldoze our sister but you cannot bulldoze her memory or bulldoze our reverence…

Bassem Abu Rahma, and his sister Jawaher…

Heroes murdered by Israeli tear gas, stood up to vile tyrants with not a drop of fear…

These are the lions that Vittorio rose up to join…

Their martyrdom and bravery is the cure to the Zionist entity’s colonial poison…

He was a lion who stayed with Gaza during Cast Lead…

A lion who pitied IOF, showing them their humanity was past dead…

A lion who was tasered and imprisoned but remained in the Strip…

Remained to expose Zionist crimes and to show Israeli democracy is a dangerous myth…

A lion who protected children as phosphorus fell…

A lion who walked through Israel’s tanks, bombs, rockets and shells…

To defend the Palestinian babies of Gaza, now I want the media to say again…

That Palestinians murdered a man they considered their own, what a lie, a falsehood, a dose of propaganda from hellacious men…

They can print their lies Vittorio, through their TV shows and Zionazi papers…

But the truth will emerge, for al-Haqq is a force that cannot be vanquished…

And when it does, the world will see…

That you lost your life at the hands of men who hated you most, Israel is on an international murder spree…

Your mother is coming to Gaza, we will pray for her…

And when we will see her beautiful face, this is what we will say to her…

Your precious son didn’t meet death, you see he is still alive…

And when the tears fill her eyes…

We will ball too, right next to her, kneel and cry…

Umm Vittorio, men die but lions roar and rise…

And your child was a lion in every sense, you can see his face shining in Gaza’s gorgeous skies…

Your child fought for us, and for him, we will never lose hope or flee…

Umm Vittorio, you’re not alone in burying your son because so did we…

Humanity was the language Vittorio spoke to his last breath, he stayed fluent…

He taught us that division was nothing more than a strained illusion…

Rest in peace brother, we know that you will eternally “Stay Human…”

“Al-Shaheed Vittorio!” shakes Gaza as the battlecry…

The spirit of a lion, forever wrapped in the flag of Palestine…

~ The End ~

by Jonathan Azaziah

Source: Mask of Zion

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

PAUL BALLES: TRANSFORMED BY TRUTH

Via MCS

- 19. Apr, 2011

Those who read ‘Breakthrough: Transforming Fear into Compassion,’ by Rich Forer may discover that integrity is an antidote for fear of the truth.

Paul Balles / My Catbird Seat

RICH FORER VISITS THE WEST BANK SEPERATION WALL

Richard Forer joined AIPAC for the same reason that most Jews joined this Israel lobby.  He refers to what he calls “the primal fear of many Jews around the world–the fear of another holocaust.”

He felt strong support for Israel at the time of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the capture of Israeli Gilad Shalit.  However some of his friends disagreed.

Retelling a story of his discussion with a friend, Forer raises every single argument and justification ever offered for the occupation of Palestine.

As a result, Forer decided to study the history, “something I’d never really done. What I found astounded me and blew all of my beliefs apart.”

He found out that everything he, as a Jewish American, had grown up believing was false.

He discovered that the propaganda about Israel wanting peace was not true. What Israel really wanted was more land. “That’s always been their primary objective; peace is secondary to that.”

He learned that Israel’s pre-emptive attacks on Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967 were based on a falsehood that they would have attacked Israel.

Forer discovered that stories put out by Bill Clinton and Dennis Ross after the 2000 Camp David summit were also lies about how Yasser Arafat “would not go along with a very fair and generous offer made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.”

The entire history of Israel and the Palestinians put out by Israel is deceitful according to Forer.

Growing up, “I identified more as a Jew than as an American…I felt that Israel was the one place where Jews could go if ever they were persecuted again.”

In his book, Breakthrough: Transforming Fear into Compassion, Forer tells of how he changed his thinking about Israel as a benign and democratic state to a tribe of people dominated by fear.

“If Jews looked at the history and not at the fictions, their fear would crumble,” says Forer.

“They would realize that the Palestinians were not only human but that the Jews have dehumanized the Palestinians through their indoctrination.”

Forer’s transformation took place at the time of the second Lebanese war. The typical response to his transformation was to call him a self-hating Jew.
Forer makes the important point, after his visit to the West Bank, that the Palestinians and Arabs are not angry at Jews but at the Zionist ideology and the government of Israel that oppresses them.

“Every single person I met (in the West Bank) said it’s not about Jews or Muslims, it’s about human beings, it’s a human rights issue.”

Interestingly, Forer notes that the government of Israel does not represent the Jewish people. “That’s just an excuse they make.

Most of the Jewish people in Israel are apathetic.  They don’t know what’s going on.”

They don’t even know that the Separation Wall is built mostly in Palestinian territory.

“They just live in denial. If the Israelis were honest, they’d say if the Palestinians would just lie down and do what we tell them to do, then we’ll have peace and maybe we’ll give them 8 to 10 percent of Palestine.”

In his book, Forer debunks all of the arguments that people make to defend Israel against criticism.

He talks about Hebron, the only Palestinian community with a Jewish presence.  He writes about the Separation Wall and about settlements and the seizure of land by Israelis.

Virtually any argument that he heard before his transformation Forer goes into and shows what the truth really is.

A Jew, brought up on Israeli propaganda, had his early beliefs challenged by friends.  His honest study of the facts resulted in a monumental transformation.

His courageous decision to share that experience led to the publication of his book Breakthrough: Transforming Fear into Compassion.

The blind will continue to label Forer a self-hating Jew.  This will come from apathetic Israelis and Zionists who have fed on fear and falsehood.

Those who read his book may discover that integrity is an antidote for fear of the truth.

Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Wikileaks: Rice to Lieberman: "I am confident that I can build a blocking coalition to prevent a probe by the UNSC"

Via FLC

Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 10:24 AM

Wikileaks: 'Susan Rice warns against investigating Gaza'

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian