The Obama Cult

Posts Tagged ‘American values’

Haaretz found [video clips] which Pales­tini­ans are seen being abused and humil­i­ated by Bor­der Police troops. The faces of the tor­menters are rarely seen, and it’s also not clear where the clips were filmed — but what is clear is the atmos­phere in which this cruel the­ater is played out. Excerpt) Read more at haaretz​.com …

This arti­cle, “Israeli troops humil­i­ate Pales­tini­ans”, by Uri Blau in Haaretz speaks vol­umes on the so-​called respect that Israelis show Arabs and Pales­tini­ans. It is one of many by Israeli press that doc­u­ment and dis­cuss, often with dis­mis­sive approval, the arro­gant oppres­sion and apartheid waged by offi­cial and pri­vate Israelis against their Arab and Pales­tin­ian cit­i­zens within Israel and those under occu­pa­tion in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem.

Espe­cially catch­ing is one bor­der police offi­cial say­ing “We were not specif­i­cally told ‘don’t do that’.”

Another offi­cer was asked “Isn’t there any­one who says this behav­ior is wrong?” The shock­ing answer: “No, who would say that?”

Humil­i­a­tion and abuse or the val­ues of Israel today. This is fur­ther evi­dence that Israel does not share our Amer­i­can val­ues. Does it mat­ter? Yes, we aid and sup­port Israel. We facil­i­tate their dehu­man­iz­ing behav­ior. We become guilty by association.

Just as apartheid in South Africa had to be resisted, same to the humi­lat­ing apartheid and occu­pa­tion by Israel. If not for the Arabs and Pales­tini­ans, then for the Jew­ish peo­ple in whose name these acts are being performed.

The above was a posted at Free Repub­lic . Almost typ­i­cal com­ments were returned that rein­forced the point:

• Lit­tle Ray: I would do worse to the peo­ple…” To whom I wrote back

I’d ask you which came first but I don’t think you’d care. I also do not think you can link the two, except if you’d want to sug­gest the Arabs and Pales­tini­ans are wag­ing a just war of resis­tance (but that is a com­pletely dif­fer­ent topic worth its own thread). What is clear HERE is that the Israelis are becom­ing dehu­man­iz­ing. Your com­ment as well, reflects an “It’s Okay” atti­tude that is, at best, troubling.

Why, except rhetor­i­cally, do you think this humil­i­at­ing behav­ior is accept­able? These are acts per­formed under the power of state author­ity and at the end of a barrel.

• Lurker wrote: “Per­son­ally I hope Israel launches enough artillery to kill every sin­gle one of those ani­mals. I’d send them a check to help defray the costs and then sleep like a baby.”

Mil­i­caBee offered a dif­fer­ent view:

Not all the Pales­tini­ans are Mohammedans. Many are Chris­t­ian, but there are fewer every day because of the Israeli treat­ment of all non-​Jews.

I am a Chris­t­ian (non-​Arab) and was in the Holy Land this year for Pascha (Easter). I am study­ing Hebrew, and I went with an open mind.

I wit­nessed (and expe­ri­enced) clergy and church-​goers has­sled by Israeli police and sol­diers. I saw a nun roughed up by sol­diers. Peo­ple sit­ting in a restau­rant owned by Chris­t­ian Arabs were rousted out. I have pho­tos of Israeli police and sol­diers point­ing machine guns — on many occa­sions — at unarmed tourists, for our “pro­tec­tion.” An Amer­i­can friend I was with was inter­ro­gated for four hours because secu­rity decided her name, Nadine, sounded Per­sian. But the abuse and has­sles we as vis­i­tors get are noth­ing com­pared to that the locals are sub­ject to.

A Chris­t­ian boy, 16 years old, was shot in the head and killed as he was com­ing out of church with his infant cousin in his arms. Pales­tin­ian Chris­tians had mor­tars shot through their house; their young daugh­ter was almost killed when sol­diers shot into their home. Israeli sol­diers burst into homes in Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­tory — no war­rants, no rea­sons given. Israeli sol­diers bull­doze olive groves on people’s land. Peo­ple have their cars crushed by Israeli bull­doz­ers. Local Chris­tians have to have spe­cial passes which allow them to come into Jerusalem. Some are only per­mit­ted to enter Jerusalem twice a year.

These are not iso­lated cases — this is typ­i­cal for Chris­tians whose fam­i­lies have lived in the Holy land for over a thou­sand years.

There are Israelis (and Arabs — Chris­tians and Mus­lims) who would hap­pily leave in peace with their non-​coreligionist neigh­bors. But the major­ity in the Israeli gov­ern­ment want all non-​Jews out; besides leg­is­la­tion, they use the police and army and their every­day abuses to accom­plish that.

As I wrote, I have now been banned by Free Repub­lic for my incon­ve­nient post about Israel. I wouldn’t be sur­prised to find that Mil­i­caBee has also been banned.

I stand by what I’ve writ­ten, Sonia Sotomayor is not qual­i­fied to sit on the Supreme Court or on the Appeals Court, where she is now employed. It is pathetic to see the White House say she is quoted out of con­text when her words were part of her pre­pared remarks, spo­ken, then used in sub­se­quent jour­nal arti­cles under her name. Out of con­text? And now Lanny Davis says her com­ments are “being mali­ciously mis­used.” Okay, point­ing out that some­one is racist may be, in Al Gore’s word­ing, ‘an incon­ve­nient truth’, but how can point­ing out that by her own words she is a racist be mali­cious? Are we to excuse her racism because it might embar­rass her?!

* * * * *

Sonia Sotomayor is not qual­i­fied to sit on the Supreme Court as she is a self-​proclaimed dis­crim­i­na­tor based on race, eth­nic­ity, and sex. She is well-​documented claim­ing that as a “Latina woman” she makes bet­ter con­clu­sions (as a judge) than does a white male. No polit­i­cally cor­rect gym­nas­tics or affir­ma­tive action guilt trip can erase the fact that Ms. Sotomayor clearly states that she finds it accept­able to use racism, eth­ni­cism, and sex­ism in her decision-​making.

Racism, eth­ni­cism, and sex­ism is not rel­a­tive and not okay from some peo­ple and not for oth­ers. A sim­ple test, are all of the fol­low­ing accept­able? If any of the fol­low­ing are not accept­able, then I sug­gest that none are.

• As a Latina woman I would more often than not reach a bet­ter con­clu­sion than a white male.
• As a Latina woman I would more often than not reach a bet­ter con­clu­sion than a black male.
• As a white male I would more often than not reach a bet­ter con­clu­sion than a black male.
• As a black male I would more often than not reach a bet­ter con­clu­sion than a white male.
• As a white male I would more often than not reach a bet­ter con­clu­sion than a white female.
• As a white male I would more often than not reach a bet­ter con­clu­sion than a Asian male.
• As a Euro­pean female I would more often than not reach a bet­ter con­clu­sion than an African female.
• As a Catholic female I would more often than not reach a bet­ter con­clu­sion than a Jew­ish female.

In my opin­ion, none of these are accept­able – race, eth­nic­ity, and sex have no place in decid­ing who makes bet­ter deci­sions. This is not Amer­i­can and does not reflect the val­ues that most of us expect of our­selves and our fel­low cit­i­zens. Not only does Sonia Sotomayer dis­qual­ify her­self from the Supreme Court, but also from her cur­rent seat on the Appeals Court. She should resign or be impeached.

Rather, WHEN not IF. In my opin­ion it is only a mat­ter of time before George Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rums­feld, Alberto Gon­za­les, John Ashcroft, Doug Feith, Paul Wol­fowitz, George Tenet, and many oth­ers will be charged with cred­i­ble and sub­stan­ti­ated war crimes. It is a sad predica­ment and our shame that Amer­ica has blood­ied its rep­u­ta­tion with state-​ordered and state-​sponsored kid­nap­ping, tor­ture, and secret pris­ons dur­ing the past eight years at the direc­tion of George Bush and his Administration.

Amer­ica is bet­ter than this.

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