The Obama Cult

Posts Tagged ‘occupation’

Diplo­macy 101 (New York Times)
New York Times edi­to­r­ial the pres­i­dent an F for diplo­macy in the Mid­dle East. Obama “demanded that Israel freeze set­tle­ments, Pales­tini­ans crack down on anti-​Israel vio­lence and Arab lead­ers demon­strate their readi­ness to reach out to Israel.” Nine months later, Israel still says no, Pales­tini­ans refuse talks until they do, and Arab states refuse to do any­thing. Obama achieved noth­ing, except a dis­mal 4% approval rat­ing in Israel.

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.

Israel’s mur­der­ous reign of ter­ror on Pales­tini­ans is a war crime that under­mines Israel’s legit­i­macy. In my opin­ion, the state of Israel as it cur­rently exists and acts is a pariah state that should be iso­lated and dis­man­tled — begin­ning with the end of all Israeli occu­pa­tion of lands out­side its 1948 bor­ders and end to any and all actions to con­trol land, air, and sea access to Pales­tin­ian lands. Fur­ther, Israel must end its apartheid rule against its non-​Jewish res­i­dents and honor the right of return of all fam­i­lies who fled or were dri­ven from their homes when the Jew­ish state was cre­ated. Finally, Israeli lead­ers who have the blood of war crimes on their hands should be arrested and pros­e­cuted for their actions. Until these steps are taken, it is my rec­om­men­da­tion that no nation, com­pany, or indi­vid­ual should have any deal­ings with the state of Israel or its cit­i­zens, lest they be guilty of facil­i­tat­ing and sup­port­ing Israel’s war crimes.

As for the United States, Israel aggres­sion, oppres­sion, and war crimes do not reflect our val­ues, nor serve our inter­ests. Enough is enough — No more money, no more weapons, and no more sup­port. Period.

And a thought about Pales­tin­ian resis­tance. Any resis­tance is legit­i­mate and is no less than I’d claim if I were in their aggrieved posi­tion. Finally, whether Pales­tini­ans ulti­mately choose to rec­og­nize Israel or not is a ques­tion best left for the future as Israel does not deserve recog­ni­tion today.

Update: I guess I won’t be writ­ing any more diary entries or com­ments at Red​State​.com. It turns out that Red​State​.com is as opposed to dis­cus­sion and dif­fer­ing view­points as are the Obama Cult (Talk​ing​PointsMemo​.com) and the PC crowd (NoQuarterUSA.net) — in their case, Red​State​.com edi­tors responded with quick calls of anti-​semitism instead of racism but it is equally uno­rig­i­nal, untrue, and deroga­tory. In response to an pro-​Israel pro­pa­ganda post I shared that I did not agree with the writer’s knee jerk sup­port and shared my above opin­ion. The result was that I was almost imme­di­ately banned. Not only that, but RedState’s edi­tors trashed my com­ment. Ban­ning is one thing as it is their Web site, but to edit and trash the com­ment while still leav­ing my name on it is not only dis­re­spect­ful but shows incred­i­ble immaturity.