Precision Nazism I
The deal, brokered by Egyptian and United Nations officials a couple of hours before the bombing, was designed to restore calm and end the Israeli onslaught on Hamas positions and other violence that resulted in the deaths of four Palestinians and one Israeli soldier on Friday.
Since March 30, the IDF has killed at least 140 Palestinians, including women, children paramedics and journalists.
Israeli Defense Minister, the fascist Moldavian immigrant Avigdor Lieberman who lives in an illegal colony in the West Bank, confirmed he makes no distinction between civilians and combatants killed during Israeli crackdown on popular protests along Gaza"s eastern boundary: "There are 159 dead terrorists, there are some 5.000 wounded," he said, with his piggish scornful smile.
Israel had agreed to calm down for a while only because one of its criminal snipers died from his wounds.
But, as always, its officials said one thing around the negotiation table and did other as soon the United Nations' représentatives their back in Cairo.
Meanwhile, in the West Banck, Young Palestinians esalated the apartheid wall and raised their Nation's flag.
Nothing can stop Palestinian youngsters to fight for Freedom and for having a future, just like our children have.
Since March 30, the IDF has killed at least 140 Palestinians, including women, children paramedics and journalists.
Israeli Defense Minister, the fascist Moldavian immigrant Avigdor Lieberman who lives in an illegal colony in the West Bank, confirmed he makes no distinction between civilians and combatants killed during Israeli crackdown on popular protests along Gaza"s eastern boundary: "There are 159 dead terrorists, there are some 5.000 wounded," he said, with his piggish scornful smile.
But, as always, its officials said one thing around the negotiation table and did other as soon the United Nations' représentatives their back in Cairo.
Meanwhile, in the West Banck, Young Palestinians esalated the apartheid wall and raised their Nation's flag.
Nothing can stop Palestinian youngsters to fight for Freedom and for having a future, just like our children have.
Precision Nazism II
Israel's parliament on Thursday adopted a law defining the country as the nation-state of the Jewish people, provoking fears it will lead to blatant discrimination against its Palestinian citizens.
The legislation, adopted by 62 votes to 55, makes Hebrew the country's national language and defines the establishment of Jewish communities as being in the national interest.
The bill also strips Arabic of its designation as an official language, downgrading it to a "special status" that enables its continued use within Israeli institutions.
It stipulates that "Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it". It also states that an undivided Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
"This is a defining moment in the annals of Zionism and the history of the state of Israel," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset after the vote.
Palestinian members of the Knesset have condemned the bill.
"It has passed a law of Jewish supremacy and told us that we will always be second-class citizens,” Ayman Odeh, the head of the Arab Joint List - an alliance of four predominantly Arab parties - said in a statement following the law’s passage.
Ahmed Tibi, one of the lawmakers, said: "I announce with shock and sorrow the death of democracy."
The Jewish nation-state law features key elements of apartheid, which is not only immoral but also absolutely prohibited under international law.
By defining sovereignty and democratic self-rule as belonging solely to the Jewish people - wherever they live around the world - Israel has made discrimination a constitutional value and has professed its commitment to favouring Jewish supremacy as the bedrock of institutions.
There are currently over 65 Israeli laws that already discriminate against Palestinian citizens in Israel and Palestinian residents of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) on the basis of their national belonging. The new law states:
Self-determination is "exclusive" to the Jewish people/Israel is the Jewish nation's historical homeland;
Views the establishment of Jewish-only settlements as being in the national interest;
Arabic will be demoted from official language to a "special" status;
Calls the "undivided" city of Jerusalem Israel's capital;
National symbols include only the Israeli flag, menorah, Jewish holidays, Hatikva anthem, the Hebrew calendar, and Israel's Independence Day.
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Member Dr; Hanan Ashrawi strongly denounced the "Jewish Nation-State" Bill saying that with this law, Israel is legalizing apartheid.
"This law gives license to apartheid, discrimination, ethnic cleansing and sectarism at the expense of the Paltsinian people. Such racist and prejudicial legislation is illegal by all standards of international law, democracy, humanity, justice, tolerance and inclusion". Israeli government coalition has exposed its "true character by sustaining an official Policy of Jewish ethnic supremacy, which regulates the indigenous Palestinian citizens to second-class status. It also affirms Israel's willful intent to erase the Palestinian narrative, presence and continuity on the land, while actively eradicatin the history, culture and Identity of the Palestinian people chich predate the creation of the state of Israel".
She called upon all members of the international Community and people of cosncience to question "such unlawful and immoral policies, such legislation and blatant discriminatory policies", and to bring Israel to compliace with the norms and standards of civilized behavior.
"Despite all Israeli efforts ar eradicatin our rights and our Identity, the Palestinian people's resilience and determination to attain their freedom and historical validation will prevail".
Meanwhile, Netanyahu and Trump are making the 'ultimate deal' and Hanan Ashrawi warns: It will never be accepted by the Palestinians.
When Truth is assassinated
"This law gives license to apartheid, discrimination, ethnic cleansing and sectarism at the expense of the Paltsinian people. Such racist and prejudicial legislation is illegal by all standards of international law, democracy, humanity, justice, tolerance and inclusion". Israeli government coalition has exposed its "true character by sustaining an official Policy of Jewish ethnic supremacy, which regulates the indigenous Palestinian citizens to second-class status. It also affirms Israel's willful intent to erase the Palestinian narrative, presence and continuity on the land, while actively eradicatin the history, culture and Identity of the Palestinian people chich predate the creation of the state of Israel".
Meanwhile, Netanyahu and Trump are making the 'ultimate deal' and Hanan Ashrawi warns: It will never be accepted by the Palestinians.
On July 8th, The New Yorker published a short piece by Adam Entous, under the graphic above, titled “The Maps of Israeli Settlements That Shocked Barack Obama.” In the article, Entous purports to tell us the heretofore unknown inside story of how the Obama administration came to the surprising realization that Israeli settlements were taking over the West Bank. In the kind of irony The New Yorker might best appreciate, the magazine’s latest promotional tag line is: “Fighting Fake Stories With Real Ones,” and this Adam Entous article is the epitome of fake.
As Entous narrates it, in 2015, the third year of Obama’s second term, as his “Presidency was winding down,” a gentleman called Frank Lowenstein—who was, and still is,the Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State—stumbled upon a map of West Bank settlements “that he had never seen before.” Though Lowenstein—as, you know, Special Envoy for Palestinian Negotiations and all—had seen “hundreds of maps of the West Bank” and had one “adorning” his office, this “new map in the briefing book” was a revelation to him. It showed clearly that “not only were Palestinian population centers cut off from one another but there was virtually no way to squeeze a viable Palestinian state into the areas that remained.”
Shocked, shocked, Lowenstein scurried off to show the map to Secretary of State John Kerry, telling him: “Look what’s really going on here.” After studiously having the map’s information “verified by U.S. intelligence agencies,” Kerry then unfurled the map on a coffee table in the White House for President Obama to see. As Ben Rhodes, “one of Obama’s longest-serving advisers,” recounted, Obama, too, was “shocked” at Israel’s “systematic” use of settlements to “cut off Palestinian population centers from one another.”
All of this shock was then translated into action. Of the rhetorical sort. Kerry “incorporated [the key findings] into …speeches and other documents, and Lowenstein “walk[ed] [the Israelis] through” those findings—though he “didn’t show the maps to the Israelis.”(Because what? He didn’t want to “shock” them? Didn’t want to make the case to them toostrongly, lest it upset them? Didn’t want to have to apologize? [see below] Pause for a moment, or more, to consider that demurral, which remains unexplained by Entous or Lowenstein. It’s the kind of withholding of information one would do in the face of an innocent child one wants to protect, or in the face of a more powerful superior one does not want to annoy. What is the place for such reticence in the relation between the United States and Israel?)
Capping off this new wave of decisive rhetorical action, driven by the “alarm” over what he saw in the “maps” (now plural), President Obama “decided to abstain on a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the settlements.” In the true punchline of the article, Entous presents this abstention as “Obama’s final act of defiance against Benjamin Netanyahu…before Donald Trump took office and put in placepolicies that were far more acceptingof the settlers.”
All in all, this article presents a perfect exemplar of ideological production: it produces without recognizing the bizarre, nearly delusional aspects of liberal ideology in its current state; for the author and his likely readers, it shows the faults of that mindset but does not seethem, and in fact turns them into a story re-confirming the virtue of those—whether author, reader, or subject of the story—who hold that mindset. It’s not only fake; it’s a fake-out.
Either:
1) The story is true. Entous, using his reliable, inside-the-room sources and direct quotes, has accurately reported something that actually happened. Harvard-educated Barack Obama and his team of oh-so-smart and-well-educated foreign-policy wonks—Yale-educated Secretary of State Kerry and Special Envoy for Palestinian Negotiations Frank Lowenstein, and Rice- and NYU-educated Ben Rhodes (whose brother, David, is President of CBS News)—were completely unaware of what the Israelis had been doing for the 48 years before they just happened to see that map. Neither Barack Obama nor John Kerry during their careers as senators and presidential candidates, nor Obama, during over six years as President, had ever imagined any such thing.
They must have missed this UN map, on the left, showing in red all the West Bank areas inaccessible to Palestinians, which has been around since 2009.
And they must have missed this other one, on the right, also widely available since 2009, showing Israel's relentless theft and pulverization of Palestinian land. Which is the map that MSNBC apologized for showing to its viewers right after the Israeli lobby reacted.
o, in this case, if this story is true, Obama and his team are as politically stupid as Trump and his, regarding Palestine at least. If this story is true, it means that years of studying in the highest academies of the empire and working in the highest levels of political power may only yield abysmal ignorance regarding one of the most important issues in the world.
Which is, in fact, quite possible.
In a meeting at the Left Forum last year, Andy Trimlett, who produced and directed the fine new documentary, 1948: Creation and Catastrophe (which I support), told of how he was able to get a Master’s degree in Middle East Studies from the University of Washington while learning virtually nothing about what the creation of Israel entailed. He’s not the only person I’ve heard that from.
So, in his acerbic tweet, the excellent British journalist Jonathan Cook is right in his skepticism regarding this New Yorker story, but he may also be underestimating the political vacuity of the “educated” American, especially regarding Palestine and Israel: The New Yorker insults its readers’ intelligence with this article claiming that Obama officials only worked out – accidentally – in 2015 that Israeli settlements had taken over 60% of the West Bank. Who could have guessed what Israel was up to?!
Or:
2) The story is not true. Obama and Co. knew very well, all along, what Israel was doing, and they are now putting out this story—a flat-out lie–because… Well, maybe because after the Gaza massacre, with the tide turning among the Democratic constituency, to exacerbate the image of Trump as the absolute villain, etc., the Obama team, as an exemplar of establishment Democratic liberalism, wants to pose as naive innocents rather than the conscious collaborators with ethnic cleansing they were and still are. They really want The New Yorker’s readership to have that image of Obama as the one who continually “defied” Netanyahu, versus Trump who is now capitulating to him.
That, too, is a flat-out lie, as anyone who isn’t mis-educated into political stupidity by the media, the politicians, and the highest academies of the empire knows. The whole “Obama’s final act of defiance” punchline, which is in Entous’s voice, makes the story fake. There was no series of “acts of defiance” by Obama, of which the lame-duck abstention on the Security Council resolution was the “final” one.
It’s fair to say, and to his credit, that Obama acted against Netanyahu’s wishes in accepting the Iran deal, which Trump has abrogated. And Obama made good noises, from early in his administration, about the dangers of Israeli settlement construction—which, of course, indicates that he knew about all those “systematic” problems before he discovered The Map. But he, like his predecessors, did nothing about it. He, like they, enabled and supported the systematic, two-state-destroying settlement of the West Bank, and continually supported Israel in whatever violence it wanted to do to the Palestinians—including bombing the crap out of them in Gaza, twice. No slouch in that regard, Obama was first American President to give bunker-buster bombs to Israel—secretly, precisely because he had publicly said Israel had to curtail settlement construction in exchange for such gifts and didn’t want it to be known that he was capitulating. He was also the first American President to demand that “Palestinians must recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state”—a new, gratuitous, and excessive demand, insisted upon by Netanyahu. The lame-duck abstention on the Security Council resolution cost Israel nothing. Overall, Obama’s Palestine-Israel policy, consistent with American policy over decades, was one of continual capitulation to the will of Israel–including specifically on settlements. That is not some new policy “put in place” by Donald Trump.
And, if the story is not true, then, either:
2A) Adam Entous and The New Yorker—that oh-so-intelligent, sophisticated, and “reliable” journal—fully and sincerely believe the fake story the Obama people are putting out, and are communicating that bullshit to you in good faith, as what they think is true, in-depth knowledge of an important aspect of American foreign policy that you should have. In which case, Entous and The New Yorker are as stupid and gullible as any Trump supporter.
Or,
2B) Entous and The New Yorker know very well this is a fake story that Obama and his people are putting out, and they are consciously collaborating with them to get you to believe something they know to be untrue. (And the lite, bad faith version of this—that they can deny that they “know,” even if they suspect, the story is not true, because they take these— i.e., their—people at their word, share their objectives, and don’t ask too many questions—is no less deceptive and pernicious.)
Why would they do this? Because it’s the tortured-humanitarian version of Obama’s and the liberal Democrats’ implication in the colonization of Palestine that they want you to have. And because it helps enforce the fairy tale of how the good, progressively-intentioned American presidency under Obama has been completely overturned by the bad, anti-American-values presidency of Trump.
So, in any possible reading of this article, it’s a damning indictment of the liberal ideology embodied by Obama Democrats and/or by an iconic media outlet of highbrow culture. In any possible reading, someone’s a political fool. In option 1, it’s a true story, and Obama and his team were terribly ignorant fools who should not have been allowed near the responsibilities of the Presidency; in option 2, it’s a fake story, and Entous and The New Yorker have themselves either been fooled by, or are complicit in trying to fool their readers with, the Obama team’s mendacious attempt to create a false image of themselves, and a phony nostalgia about American politics. There is no option 3.
In all options, of course, the target of the tomfoolery is the audience, the likely reader of The New Yorker. Indeed, in option 2B, which gets Jonathan Cook’s vote (and mine) and is at least as likely as any other, the reader is the only one being fooled. The article, and the ideology, counts on the reader not noticing that these are its only possible—and all quite damning—meanings. Any reader who doesn’t notice this is totally captured within, and faked-out by, the ideology the article reproduces.
There’s no bigger problem in the United States today than the citizenry’s widespread mis-education into political gullibility, not to say stupidity, and it’s the height of foolishness to think this is only a problem of Republicans and rightists, of those who read Breitbart and not those who read The New Yorker, or of those who finish their education at high school and not those who get it finished off at one of the higher academies of the empire.
The United States has always been a ship of fools, with a thousand captains barking fake orders and fake news to convey the suitable propaganda. Reader, beware of the hasbara. It is everywhere.
Apartheid? You decide.
PALESTINA
#StopTheWar is a hashtag coming from many activists in #Gaza who urge the international community to hinder Israel’s attempts to launch another large-scale aggression against the occupied, blockaded, unlivable, and exhausted Gaza Strip. #GazaUnderAttack
American Jewish youth visiting Israel were given maps that erased Palestine — one traveler called it into question, on video. Check it out!
Collective punishment : Israel block fuel shipment to Gaza
GIDEON LEVY: Were it not for the Gaza Strip, the occupation would have been long forgotten. Were it not for the Gaza Strip, Israel would have erased the Palestinian problem from its agenda and continued on blithely with its crimes and annexations, with its routine, as if 4 million people were not living under its heel. Were it not for the Gaza Strip, the world would also have forgotten. Most of it already has. This is why we must now salute the Gaza Strip — mainly the spirit of the Gaza Strip, the only one that is still breathing life into the desperate and lost cause of the Palestinian struggle for liberty.
The resolute struggle of the Gaza Strip should also spark admiration in Israel. The handful of people with a conscience who still remain here should give thanks to the unbroken spirit of the Gaza Strip. The spirit of the West Bank crumpled after the failure of the second intifada, as did the spirit of the Israeli peace camp — most of which shattered long ago. Only the spirit of the Gaza Strip stands steadfast in its struggle.
And so, anyone who does not want to forever live in an evil country must respect the embers that the young people of the Gaza Strip are still trying to stoke. Were it not for the kites, the fires, the Qassam rockets, the Palestinians would have entirely exited the awareness of everyone in Israel. Only the World Cup and the Eurovision Song Contest would hold any interest. Were it not for the blackened fields in the south, there would be a huge white flag fluttering not only over the Gaza Strip but over the entire Palestinian people. Seekers of justice, including in Israel, cannot wish for this kind of submission.
It’s difficult, even insolent, to write these words from tranquil and secure Tel Aviv, following one more sleepless and nightmarish night in the south, but all days and nights in the Gaza Strip are much more difficult due to Israel’s inhumane policy, supported by most of its citizens, including people who live in the south. They don’t deserve to shoulder the burden but every struggle exacts a price from innocent victims, who we wish do not become casualties. One should remember that only Palestinians are being killed. On Saturday, the 139th victim of Israeli fire along the border died. He was 20. On Friday a 15-year-old boy was killed. The Gaza Strip is paying the full price in blood. This doesn’t cause it to desist. That is its spirit. One cannot but admire it.
The spirit of the Gaza Strip is unbroken by any siege. The evil ones in Jerusalem shut down the Kerem Shalom border crossing, and Gaza shoots. The malicious ones in the Kirya government complex in Tel Aviv prevent young people from receiving medical treatment in the West Bank in order to save their legs from being amputated.
For years they have been preventing cancer patients, including women and children, from receiving lifesaving treatment. Only 54 percent of requests to leave the Gaza Strip for medical reasons were approved last year, compared to 93 percent in 2012. That is wicked. One should read the letter written in June by 31 Israeli oncologists who called for a cessation of the abuse of Gaza women with cancer whose applications for exit permits take months to process, sealing their fates.
The 31 rockets fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip Friday night are a restrained response to this malice. They are no more than a muted reminder of the fate of the Gaza Strip, addressed to those who think that 2 million people can be treated like this for over 10 years while continuing as if nothing was happening.
The Gaza Strip has no choice. Nor does Hamas. Any attempt to pin the blame on the organization — which I only wish was more secular, more feminist and more democratic — is an evasion of responsibility. It wasn’t not Hamas that closed the Gaza Strip. Nor did the Gaza Strip’s inhabitants close themselves off. Israel (and Egypt) did it. Every hesitant attempt by Hamas to make some progress with Israel is immediately answered by automatic Israeli refusal. Nor is the world willing to talk with them, who knows why.
All that’s left are the kites, which might lead to another round of merciless bombing and shelling by Israel, that Israel of course does not want. But what choice does the Gaza Strip have? A white flag of surrender over its fences, like the one the Palestinians in the West bank raised? A dream of a green island off the coast of the Mediterranean, which Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz will build for them? The struggle is the only path remaining, a path that should be respected, even if you are an Israeli who might be its victim
BRASIL
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