posted 08-31-2003 01:38 AM            

The Israel government (the Likud party, formerly the Stern and Irgun Gangs) have certainly gained a lot of political mileage from the last bus bombing, for which Israel claims Hamas took responsibility, as this article at http://www.rense.com/general40/ppe.htm notes. One might ask why Israel is going after the moderate wing of Hamas, who have believed in dialogue and negotiation.

Israeli Assassins Kill Hopes Of Peace For Palestinians
By Conal Urquhart
The Observer - UK
8-31-03

Here are a couple of quotes from the article:

"Over the past 10 days, Israel has killed Ismail Abu Shenab, the most moderate Hamas leader, nine activists and two bystanders;"

'There are two wings in Hamas. The first believes the only language the Israelis understand is the language of blood. The second was led by Abu Shenab and it believed in the possibilities of dialogue and negotiation. Now the second group is silenced and the extreme line has been vindicated by Israel's actions.'
______________

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's statement at the Knesset to Shimon Peres on October 3, 2001, speaks volumes:

"We control America"

"Every time we do something you [Shimon Peres] tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."

- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Prime Minister,
Knesset, Tel Aviv, October 3, 2001.

posted 09-03-2003 05:19 PM            

Critics: Israeli Strikes Doing More Harm

Sep 2, 5:15 PM (ET)

By IAN JAMES

(AP) A Palestinian man looks on as masked militants from the radical Islamic group Hamas walk past,...
Full Image

JERUSALEM (AP) - Every two or three days, Israeli helicopters track down suspected Islamic militants and unleash Hellfire missiles, blowing up cars and sending crowds surging around the charred bodies.

Israel says its new war on Hamas, unprecedented in intensity, is helping prevent suicide attacks.

"Hamas is in distress because of our activity," Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Tuesday, summing up two weeks of air strikes that have killed 11 Hamas members, including a senior leader.

But the attacks also have also taken a toll in noncombatants, killing five bystanders, including an 11-year-old girl, and wounding 46.

Critics warn that Israel's self-declared "all-out war" on Hamas will bring short-term gains at best, but in the end be counterproductive by provoking more attacks and adding to resentment among Palestinians.

"For everyone they kill there will be someone else (in Hamas) who will take his place," said Ali Jarbawi, a Palestinian analyst.

Targeted killings have been a key tactic - though critics say a largely ineffective one - in Israel's war against militants since November 2000, two months after the outbreak of the current round of fighting.

In all, about 140 terror suspects have been killed in such attacks, according to Palestinian medical officials, though that total also includes fugitives killed resisting arrest. More than 100 bystanders have also died in targeted killings.

Israel's security Cabinet approved an intensified campaign of targeted killings - Palestinians call them assassinations - in response to a Hamas bus bombing that killed 21 people in Jerusalem Aug. 19.

The new policy broadened the list of targets; political leaders were now also in the cross hairs, including senior Hamas official Ismail Abu Shanab, who was killed in the first strike Aug. 21.

The new tactics raised questions about why Israel is starting all-out attacks on Hamas only now. During much of the past three years, Israel tended to target Palestinian security forces in retaliation for attacks by militants, expecting that this would somehow pressure the Palestinian Authority to crack down on armed groups.

Some observers suggest the new war on Hamas is possible because a U.S. government intent on fighting terrorism no longer objects to such methods, giving Israel a green light to press ahead.

In the past, the United States used to criticize targeted killings, particularly a July 2002 attack in which an F-16 jet dropped a laser-guided bomb on a building in Gaza City, killing a Hamas leader and 14 other people, including eight children.

The United States has not condemned the latest strikes, but Palestinian leaders say it should. They accused Israel of sabotaging fledgling Palestinian efforts to rein in militants without bloodshed.

"Tell me how we can fight terrorism if Israel keeps killing and striking against innocent people as well," Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan said in an interview published Tuesday in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. "Do they believe they are eradicating violence? No, all they're doing is increasing it."

An 11-year-old girl, Sana Daour, died Tuesday of injuries sustained in an attack last week that killed two other bystanders but missed the Hamas member targeted.

"She is not going to be the last," said a 36-year-old uncle, Ibrahim Daour, while other relatives wept at her funeral and cursed her killers.

The girl's 13-year-old sister was wounded when the missiles struck while they were out with their father shopping for school clothes.

The attacks must be stopped because of the large number of bystanders being hit, said Yael Stein, of the Israeli human rights group B'tselem.

Israel says it's doing its utmost to prevent civilian casualties.

Recently, the army has modified the $80,000-a-piece, laser-guided and armor-piercing Hellfire missiles to make them less explosive, a security official said on condition of anonymity.

Apache helicopters fly in formation and fire the missiles from a considerable distance, sometimes giving targeted men time to jump out of their cars.

In many cases, strikes have been called off "because we were scared of hitting innocent people," said Mofaz, the Israeli defense minister. Pilots have even diverted missiles after firing them, in the final seconds, when they "saw that there was a danger to innocent people."

Hamas has promised severe retribution, though so far those threats have not been realized. With Israel tapping phone conversations and sending its agents to locate militants, Hamas militants have gone into hiding, turning off their cell phones and restricting their movements.

Some warn the lull in suicide bombings will be short-lived.

"Assassinations only escalate responses," Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi said. "It's extremely dangerous, and they have to stop."

Israeli political analyst Akiva Eldar said strikes won't have a lasting effect without an Israeli willingness to discuss possible concessions on sticking points, such as the dismantling of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"This is just a very superficial treatment of a very severe disease. It's an aspirin to cancer," he said. "This is a vicious circle, and somebody has to have the courage and the vision to cut it, to stop it."

---

Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak, in Gaza City, contributed to this report.

posted 09-05-2003 12:21 AM            

Bush's Zionist Golden Boy Defames Muslims: "Quite simply, he is an example of the "politically correct" racist, meaning, a racist in favor of Israel and Judaism, and, unfortunately, he is only one of many who work diligently in keeping Americans from hearing the rest of the story."

The Rest of the Story
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4606.htm

AND ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT ARTICLE:
http://www.rense.com/general40/silenst.htm

A Failed Israeli Society Collapses
While Its Leaders Remain Silent
By Avraham Burg
8-31-03

(Avraham Burg was speaker of Israel's Knesset from 1999 to 2003 and is a former chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel. He is currently a Labor Party Knesset member.)

The Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path and an ethical leadership. Neither of these is operative any longer. The Israeli nation today rests on a scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression and injustice. As such, the end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep. There is a real chance that ours will be the last Zionist generation. There may yet be a Jewish state here, but it will be a different sort, strange and ugly.

There is time to change course, but not much. What is needed is a new vision of a just society and the political will to implement it. Nor is this merely an internal Israeli affair. Diaspora Jews for whom Israel is a central pillar of their identity must pay heed and speak out. If the pillar collapses, the upper floors will come crashing down.

The opposition does not exist, and the coalition, with Arik Sharon at its head, claims the right to remain silent. In a nation of chatterboxes, everyone has suddenly fallen dumb, because there's nothing left to say. We live in a thunderously failed reality. Yes, we have revived the Hebrew language, created a marvelous theater and a strong national currency. Our Jewish minds are as sharp as ever. We are traded on the Nasdaq. But is this why we created a state? The Jewish people did not survive for two millennia in order to pioneer new weaponry, computer security programs or anti-missile missiles. We were supposed to be a light unto the nations. In this we have failed.

It turns out that the 2,000-year struggle for Jewish survival comes down to a state of settlements, run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers who are deaf both to their citizens and to their enemies. A state lacking justice cannot survive. More and more Israelis are coming to understand this as they ask their children where they expect to live in 25 years. Children who are honest admit, to their parents' shock, that they do not know. The countdown to the end of Israeli society has begun.

It is very comfortable to be a Zionist in West Bank settlements such as Beit El and Ofra. The biblical landscape is charming. From the window you can gaze through the geraniums and bougainvilleas and not see the occupation. Traveling on the fast highway "hat takes you from Ramot on Jerusalem's northern edge to Gilo on the southern edge, a 12-minute trip that skirts barely a half-mile west of the Palestinian roadblocks, it's hard to comprehend the humiliating experience of the despised Arab who must creep for hours along the pocked, blockaded roads assigned to him. One road for the occupier, one road for the occupied.

This cannot work. Even if the Arabs lower their heads and swallow their shame and anger forever, it won't work. A structure built on human callousness will inevitably collapse in on itself. Note this moment well: Zionism's superstructure is already collapsing like a cheap Jerusalem wedding hall. Only madmen continue dancing on the top floor while the pillars below are collapsing.

We have grown accustomed to ignoring the suffering of the women at the roadblocks. No wonder we don't hear the cries of the abused woman living next door or the single mother struggling to support her children in dignity. We don't even bother to count the women murdered by their husbands.

Israel, having ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centers of Israeli escapism. They consign themselves to Allah in our places of recreation, because their own lives are torture. They spill their own blood in our restaurants in order to ruin our appetites, because they have children and parents at home who are hungry and humiliated.

We could kill a thousand ringleaders and engineers a day and nothing will be solved, because the leaders come up from below " from the wells of hatred and anger, from the "infrastructures" of injustice and moral corruption.

If all this were inevitable, divinely ordained and immutable, I would be silent. But things could be different, and so crying out is a moral imperative.

Here is what the prime minister should say to the people:

The time for illusions is over. The time for decisions has arrived. We love the entire land of our forefathers and in some other time we would have wanted to live here alone. But that will not happen. The Arabs, too, have dreams and needs.

Between the Jordan and the Mediterranean there is no longer a clear Jewish majority. And so, fellow citizens, it is not possible to keep the whole thing without paying a price. We cannot keep a Palestinian majority under an Israeli boot and at the same time think ourselves the only democracy in the Middle East. There cannot be democracy without equal rights for all who live here, Arab as well as Jew. We cannot keep the territories and preserve a Jewish majority in the world's only Jewish state " not by means that are humane and moral and Jewish.

Do you want the greater Land of Israel? No problem. Abandon democracy. Let's institute an efficient system of racial separation here, with prison camps and detention villages. Qalqilya Ghetto and Gulag Jenin.

Do you want a Jewish majority? No problem. Either put the Arabs on railway cars, buses, camels and donkeys and expel them en masse " or separate ourselves from them absolutely, without tricks and gimmicks. There is no middle path. We must remove all the settlements " all of them " and draw an internationally recognized border between the Jewish national home and the Palestinian national home. The Jewish Law of Return will apply only within our national home, and their right of return will apply only within the borders of the Palestinian state.

Do you want democracy? No problem. Either abandon the greater Land of Israel, to the last settlement and outpost, or give full citizenship and voting rights to everyone, including Arabs. The result, of course, will be that those who did not want a Palestinian state alongside us will have one in our midst, via the ballot box.

That's what the prime minister should say to the people. He should present the choices forthrightly: Jewish racialism or democracy. Settlements or hope for both peoples. False visions of barbed wire, roadblocks and suicide bombers, or a recognized international border between two states and a shared capital in Jerusalem.

But there is no prime minister in Jerusalem. ... Polls published last weekend showed that a majority of Israelis do not believe in the personal integrity of the prime minister " yet they trust his political leadership. In other words, Israel's current prime minister personally embodies both halves of the curse: suspect personal morals and open disregard for the law " combined with the brutality of occupation and the trampling of any chance for peace. This is our nation, these its leaders. The inescapable conclusion is that the Zionist revolution is dead.

Why, then, is the opposition so quiet? Perhaps because it's summer, or because they are tired, or because some would like to join the government at any price, even the price of participating in the sickness. But while they dither, the forces of good lose hope.

This is the time for clear alternatives. Anyone who declines to present a clear-cut position " black or white " is in effect collaborating in the decline. It is not a matter of Labor versus Likud or right versus left, but of right versus wrong, acceptable versus unacceptable. The law-abiding versus the lawbreakers. What's needed is not a political replacement for the Sharon government but a vision of hope, an alternative to the destruction of Zionism and its values by the deaf, dumb and callous.

Israel's friends abroad " Jewish and non-Jewish alike, presidents and prime ministers, rabbis and lay people " should choose as well. They must reach out and help Israel to navigate the road map toward our national destiny as a light unto the nations and a society of peace, justice and equality.

Translated by J.J. Goldberg.


Comment

From Terry

Jeff - This is the most powerful statement I have seen anywhere, by anyone about the condition and the future of Israel. If he is not assassinated, it will be a miracle. If the article appears in mainstream US media, it will be a tour de force. Whatever happens, a senior and influential Israeli has spoken the gospel truth. Hopefully, the Children will listen.

Terry

posted 09-08-2003 02:11 AM            

The Zionist Revolution is Dead
By Avraham Burg
Knesset member and former Speaker of Knesset
9-8-3

"It turns out that the 2,000-year struggle for Jewish survival comes down to a state of settlements, run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers who are deaf both to their citizens and to their enemies .."

The Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path and an ethical leadership. Neither of these is operative any longer. The Israeli nation today rests on a scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression and injustice. As such, the end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep. There is a real chance that ours will be the last Zionist generation.

There may yet be a Jewish state here, but it will be a different sort, strange and ugly. There is time to change course, but not much.... The opposition does not exist, and the coalition, with Arik Sharon at its head, claims the right to remain silent. In a nation of chatterboxes, everyone has suddenly fallen dumb, because there's nothing left to say. We live in a thunderously failed reality. Yes, we have revived the Hebrew language, created a marvelous theater, and a strong national currency. Our Jewish minds are as sharp as ever. We are traded on the NASDAQ. But is this why we created a state? The Jewish people did not survive for two millennia in order to pioneer new weaponry, computer security programs or anti-missile missiles. We were supposed to be a light unto the nations. In this we have failed.

It turns out that the 2,000-year struggle for Jewish survival comes down to a state of settlements, run by an amoral clique of corrupt lawbreakers who are deaf both to their citizens and to their enemies. A state lacking justice cannot survive.

The countdown to the end of Israeli society has begun. Even if the Arabs lower their heads and swallow the shame and anger forever, it won't work. A structure built on human callousness will inevitably collapse in on itself.

Note this moment well: Zionism's superstructure is already collapsing like a cheap Jerusalem wedding hall. Only madmen continue dancing on the top floor while the pillars below are collapsing. We have grown accustomed to ignoring the suffering of the women at the roadblocks. No wonder we don't hear the cries of the abused woman living next door or the single mother struggling to support her children in dignity. We don't even bother to count the women murdered by their husbands. We could kill a thousand ringleaders and engineers a day and nothing will be solved, because the leaders come up from below from the wells of hatred and anger, from the "infrastructures" of injustice and moral corruption.

If all this were inevitable, divinely ordained and immutable, I would be silent. But things could be different, and so crying out is a moral imperative. Do you want the greater Land of Israel? No problem. Abandon democracy. Let's institute an efficient system of racial separation here, with prison camps and detention villages. Qalqilya Ghetto and Gulag Jenin.

Do you want a Jewish majority? No problem. Either put the Arabs on railway cars, buses, camels, and donkeys and expel them en masse or separate ourselves from them absolutely, without tricks and gimmicks. There is no middle path. We must remove all the settlements all of them and draw an internationally recognized border between the Jewish national home and the Palestinian national home.

The Jewish Law of Return will apply only within our national home, and their right of return will apply only within the borders of the Palestinian state.

But there is no prime minister in Jerusalem.... Israel's current prime minister personally embodies both halves of the curse: suspect personal morals and open disregard for the law combined with the brutality of occupation and the trampling of any chance for peace.

This is our nation, these are its leaders. The inescapable conclusion is that the Zionist revolution is dead."

Editorial of the Israeli "The Forward" on August 29, 2003

The author is a Knesset member and former Speaker of Knesset

posted 09-12-2003 01:14 AM            

U.S. Backed Mossad Agents Involved in Hakim’s Assassination to Flee Iraq

TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) -- The U.S. Central Command helped 15 Mossad agents involved in the assassination of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim to flee Iraq, an Egyptian weekly magazine disclosed on Monday.

Ayatollah Hakim, the leader of the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), was killed in a massive car bomb blast in the holy city of Najaf on August 7. The blast left 82 killed and more than 100 wounded.

The U.S. Central Command was sure that the agents of the Zionist intelligence service Mossad had planned and executed the assassination with the help of some elements from the U.S. and Iraqi spies, Al-Osboa’ weekly said.

The U.S. Centcom acquired conviction about the plot after examining the explosives used in the operation; the explosives which were highly advanced are used only by Mossad, the weekly added.

For the first time, the Mehr News Agency broke the story about the Mossad involvement in the killing of the prominent Iraqi Shiite leader.

An Iraqi political analyst said that evidence of Mossad involvement has been found at the Najaf blast site. The analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that Zionist intelligence agents have made great efforts to infiltrate Iraqi groups in order to thwart efforts to create national unity.

After Saddam Hussein was ousted, the Zionist regime took advantage of divisions among the Iraqi Shia and sent a large number of extremist Jews and Mossad agents to Iraq, with the help of the occupying forces, to infiltrate Islamic groups and obtain information, the analyst said.

He added that a few months ago, a Mossad agent who knew Arabic and was quite familiar with Iraqi Muslim groups made a great effort to infiltrate organizations in southern Iraq and even influenced these groups.

He stated that there are reports that the terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) is helping Zionist operatives in Iraq and is receiving direct help from U.S. troops, adding that there is a written agreement to this effect.

Saddam supported the MKO for years and ordered MKO members to spy on and wage war against the Iraqi Shia.

The main goal of the Zionists is sowing discord among Muslims, especially the Shia, because they are aware of the people’s great attachment to clerics such as martyr Ayatollah Baqer al-Hakim, who have been making efforts to unite the people in order to prevent the domination of Iraq and the plunder of its resources. While not ruling out the possibility of the involvement of extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda in the blast in Najaf, he noted, “Of course, I think the massive propaganda by the pro-Western media and the emphasis on blaming Al-Qaeda or remnants of the Baath Party should be considered a conscious effort to conceal the role of Zionist and occupying forces in this abominable atrocity.”

He said that increased insecurity and the outbreak of a civil war among Muslims, especially the Shia, could be used as an excuse for continuing the occupation of Iraq, adding that U.S. troops' refusal to maintain security at religious sites is part of this plot.
__________________________________________________

The above article is best read with this information in mind:

"Even at the end of his career, Sharon was still running death squads. On Sept. 25, 1997, Israeli Television Channel One interviewed Benny Golan, a veteran of the Rimon Unit, which Sharon had created and deployed in the early 1970s in the Gaza Strip to carry out targetted assassinations of Palestinian "militants." Golan described the assassination program, and reported that members of the unit frequently "disguised themselves as Arabs" for "special operations." Other sources reported, at the time, that the "special operations" included terrorist attacks on Israeli Jewish targets to justify "retaliatory strikes" against pre-selected Palestinian and Arab targets."

FROM: Ariel Sharon - Profile Of An Unrepentant War Criminal
By Jeffrey Steinberg
Executive Intelligence Review
5-16-2

posted 09-14-2003 04:36 PM            

John Kaminski will be Jeff Rense's guest on Monday, September 15.

posted 09-15-2003 01:42 PM            

Maybe we should round up all of the Zionists and put them is one special place. Somewhere where we can keep an eye on them, sort of like a work farm where they can be deprogrammed and re-educated. I heard that there are a bunch of old boxcars out in a field in Montana somewhere that we can use. We can put them in some of the old/ closed military bases where they can make cheap clothes for sale in the Asian market. We can set a quota of garments that they will have to make before they are released. (call it the “work makes you free” plan) Only think is, they will never really get free, they will just be shuttling them from cam to camp where they can keep working until we come up with a viable, final solution. After all, “everybody” knows what they are all about

So, what do you think, Ellyn? A good plan, eh?

posted 09-15-2003 07:23 PM            

They're spreading poison about American Jews.

Many of the people spreading this poison are Jews themselves, a relatively small group that wants to convince everybody (or at least everybody in power) that the great bulk of us think the way they do, which we don't. Some non-Jews, like Pat Buchanan and other less-rabid but no less invidious bigots, but find it a good way to stereotype us: Jews all think alike, dontcha know. It's weird and freaky when militant right-wing Jews can hook up with old-fashioned anti-Semites to stereotype the rest of us, but these are weird and freaky times.

The basic tenets of the present poison seem to be these:

* American Jews support Israel's policies whatever they are;

* American Jews believe the settlements in the Occupied territories are a God-given right;

* American Jews believe Ariel Sharon has peace on his mind but can't get there only because evil Palestinians keep blowing themselves up and forcing him to respond by blowing up or driving tanks through their families' houses and orchards;

* American Jews think all issues of world peace must be subsumed to Israel's security, as defined by the Israeli government;

* American Jews favor current U.S. unilateralism and have contempt for the United Nations because it is full of mean little countries that don't like Israel.

And most important of all: any American Jew who rejects the aforementioned is a "self-hating Jew."

SELF-HATING JEWS

Could any goy have thought that one up? "You disagree with my politics, therefore you are a self-hating Jew. The problem, the ethical issues, the guilt are all yours." Freud would have danced all over it.

You respond, "No, man, you're WRONG about all of it. Let's go over the facts."

They listen, politely, or not, and at the end they say,"See? I told you, you're a self-hating Jew."

True-believers of whatever stripe find ratification wherever they look. In the court where the conclusion is foregone, all facts serve only to convict.

I first heard the phrase "self-hating Jew" in Greenwich Village in the 1980s when a group from the Jewish Defense League, Meyer Kahane's militant organization, stood in the street yelling it at William Kunstler's house. I looked out the window, saw the bared teeth and raised fists and thought that they looked and comported themselves very much like Hitler Jugend, missing only the armbands.

Kunstler's comment on them was, "Pay them no mind. They don't know what they're talking about. That's the silliest thing to call me. I don't hate myself. Everybody knows I love myself."

I went out of the house and before I'd even stepped from the doorway to the top of the steps they were yelling "Self-hating Jew! Self-hating Jew!" at me. I yelled back, "But you don't even know if I'm Jewish." They didn't care. They kept yelling "Self-hating Jew" until I reached the police barricade at Christopher Street, whereupon they started yelling at the house again.

LUNATIC STUFF

I'm not making this lunatic stuff up and neither am I waxing rhetorical.

All reliable studies and surveys show that the great majority of American Jews, whatever the level of their support for Israel itself, oppose unilateralism, think the United Nations an important forum, favor a Palestinian state, are opposed to the settlements in the Occupied Territories, oppose Sharon's militancy, are sickened and appalled by the images of Israeli tanks destroying homes, villages and vineyards, and are desperate for the killing and dying on both sides to stop now. Not after every potentially suicidal Palestinian is wiped out. Not after the world is made perfect. Now.

The neocon and radical right, though a numerical minority, have politicians running scared. One example of that is New York Senator Charles Schumer, who recently told students at an upstate Catholic military school that he was now in favor of pre-emptive wars. "Pollster John Zogby said Schumer's tough posture is a political move to appeal to pro-war upstate voters and elements of the Jewish community in New York City," wrote Buffalo News Washington bureau chief Doug Turner. Zogby "said polls show a majority of Jewish voters nationally and in New York State oppose war with Iraq. 'But the loudest voices in the Jewish community, the hard-line conservatives who favor the war, are politically the strongest,' Zogby said. 'I think he's bidding for the Likud vote,' Zogby joked, referring to the party of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon."

Given the evidence of those surveys, why do Schumer and otherwise sensible members of Congress act as if these bullies of the right represented even a large minority of us? Maybe for the same reason they continue to base U.S. Caribbean policy on the hysterical voices of the small Cuban exile community in Miami. Remember how Al Gore (D.), Dan Burton (R) and so many of the rest fell over one another trying to be politically correct and make political capital in the Elian Gonzalez soap opera three years ago? They're terrified of groups of middle-class people who scream at them and they think such screamers are more likely to vote and write checks than people who speak softly or rationally.

More and more I hear that those militaristic Jews in and advising the Bush administration--such as Paul Wolfowitz inside the White House and William Kristol on the outside--prove where Jews are at, politically.
Nonsense. That only proves what political stripe of Jews are in favor in the Bush White House.

Wolfowitz and Kristol are Americans who are Jewish and who are part of the American Conservative Right. Why single them out as Jews and then blame the rest of us Jews for them? Most of us don't like or agree with those ideologues either. Blaming the rest of us for them is like blaming the Methodists for Dick Cheney or Baptists for John Ashcroft. It's not the religion that made those people what they are. Wolfowitz, Kristol, Cheney and Ashcroft would be the way they are if they were Zoroastrians.

JEWS LIKE US

In spring 2001, I started working on a book the working title of which is "Jews like us." I thought it might be useful to give some of the Jews who don't scream a chance to say what they think about being Jewish in America now. I stopped working on the book when everything got cranked up after 9/11, but I've started doing interviews again. I have basically one question I ask everybody: "You say you're Jewish. What do you mean by that?"

The responses are astonishing in their variety. I'm continually amazed at the huge range of stories, opinion, and analysis. The only generalization I can make about it is this: hardly any of it comes close to the militant neocon line. Sure, there are some groups in which the ideology is locked down tight and some individuals for whom Sharon's version of Israel's security needs transcends all reason and decency. But that's the minority. Painting us all with the Wolfowitz-Kristol brush, saying, in effect, that our considered political and ethnical opinions are worthless, is just today's trendy way to be anti-semitic, no matter who is doing it.

There is an ever-growing number of organizations of American Jews trying to get the word out that the press and politicians should look beyond the noisy minority.
(Links to the web sites of Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel, Not in My Name, Jews Against the Occupation and Brit Tzedik v'Shalom are listed below.) Thus far, they seem to have made little impact. Their activities get almost no coverage in the press and few members of Congress consider them the same kind of threat as the militant right or the neocons.

Perhaps they've been too polite. Perhaps they will have to start making the same kind of noise that has so frightened Chuck Schumer and so many other powerful people in Washington. Perhaps they will have to remind those politicians that they also vote and write checks, and that of all the things you can accuse us Jews of there is at least one that is true: we remember.

Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel http://www.jppi.org/

Not in My Name http://www.nimn.org/

Jews Against the Occupation http://www.jewsagainsttheoccupation.org/

Brit Tzedik v'Shalom: Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace http://www.btvshalom.org/

Bruce Jackson is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Professor of American Culture at University of Buffalo. He edits Buffalo Report.

Note: even more links to various Jewish peace groups are available in the Middle East section of the Web Links on this site http://www.counterpunch.org/jackson04182003.html

posted 09-15-2003 07:37 PM            

Ariel Sharon - Profile Of An Unrepentant War Criminal
By Jeffrey Steinberg
Executive Intelligence Review
5-16-2

Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, is currently facing possible war crime prosecutions for two massacres that occurred 20-years apart: the September 1982 massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon (click for more), and the April 2002 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) mass killings in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank.

Sharon is, without doubt, guilty of these crimes against humanity, and others. He is also unrepentant. For him, these mass killings are merely necessary steps on the path toward his objective of a "Final Solution" to the "Palestinian problem," through the mass expulsion and/or extermination of the more than 3 million Palestinians and Arabs now living in Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. Under various labels, Sharon and a rogues gallery of collaborators inside Israel, Britain, and the United States, are now moving toward the final phase of their "mass transfer" plans for the Palestinians and Arabs.

EIR has "written the book" on Sharon's blood-soaked career for over 30 years. (see 1994 Profile) As a service to the current worldwide debate on his government's fascist actions, we provide this summary dossier on the Israeli mass murderer. This summary is linked to a compendium of earlier exposés of Sharon and his partners in crime.
The Sharon File
Sharon was born in Kfar Malal in 1928. At the age of 14, he joined the Haganah, and at 20, headed an infantry company in the Alexandroni Brigade during the 1948 War of Independence, during which the Israeli forces drove an estimated 300,000 Palestinians from their land, using some of the same genocidal methods against unarmed civilian populations that were used in the recent IDF invasion of the Palestinian Authority's Area A territory.

In 1953, Sharon founded "Unit 101," a secret death squad within the IDF that committed several mass murders of civilians. In October 1953, Sharon's "Unit 101" massacred 66 innocent civilians during a cross-border raid into the Jordanian West Bank village of Qibya. Under intense machine-gun fire, local residents were driven into their homes, which were then blown up around them, killing the occupants by burying them alive in piles of rubble. The April 2002 IDF massacre at the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin was, in fact, modeled on Sharon's "Unit 101" operations at Qibya.

On Oct. 18, 1953, the U.S. State Department issued a bulletin denouncing the Qibya massacre, demanding that those responsible be "brought to account." Instead, Sharon was rewarded for his war crimes by having his "Unit 101" absorbed into the Israeli paratroop corps. By 1956, Sharon had been appointed paratroop brigade commander.

Between Feb. 28, 1955 and Oct. 10, 1956, a Sharon-led paratrooper brigade conducted similar cross-border invasions into Gaza, Egypt, and the West Bank in Jordan. At the West Bank village of Qalqilya, Sharon's death squad killed 83 people.

During the 1956 joint British, Israeli, and French invasion of the Suez Canal, Sharon and his lifelong collaborator in mass murder, Rafael Eytan (click for more), carried out another horrific war crime: In three separate incidents, Sharon- and Eytan-led units murdered Egyptian prisoners of war, as well as civilian Sudanese workers who had been captured. All told, 273 unarmed prisoners were executed and dumped into mass graves. When the story broke, nearly 40 years later, in the Aug. 16, 1995 London Daily Telegraph, it nearly ruptured Israeli-Egyptian relations. This was less than three months before Sharon would bloody his hands once again, by orchestrating the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Rabin, in Sharon's eyes, had committed the mistake of signing a peace treaty with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

During the 1960s, Sharon's military career advanced. In 1964, he was appointed to head the IDF's Northern Command; in 1966, he took charge of the Army Training Department; in 1969, he was named commander of the IDF's Southern Command.

In 1972, at the urging of American organized crime figure and leading right-wing Zionist Meshulam Riklis, Sharon resigned from the IDF (he was recalled, briefly, to active duty during the 1973 Yom Kippur War) to run for the Knesset (parliament). Henceforth, Sharon would be wedded to leading international organized crime figures associated with the Meyer Lansky National Crime Syndicate in the United States, and allied Jewish mafia figures from Israel and Russia.

Even at the end of his career, Sharon was still running death squads. On Sept. 25, 1997, Israeli Television Channel One interviewed Benny Golan, a veteran of the Rimon Unit, which Sharon had created and deployed in the early 1970s in the Gaza Strip to carry out targetted assassinations of Palestinian "militants." Golan described the assassination program, and reported that members of the unit frequently "disguised themselves as Arabs" for "special operations" (click for more). Other sources reported, at the time, that the "special operations" included terrorist attacks on Israeli Jewish targets to justify "retaliatory strikes" against pre-selected Palestinian and Arab targets.

Far from ending his career of mass butchery, Sharon's resignation from the IDF coincided with the launching of an even more ambitious criminal enterprise that would see thousands of Palestinians killed and wounded as part of the "Eretz Israel," or "Greater Israel" drive to permanently annex all of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights and resettle these areas with Russian and other Jewish immigrants, after the Palestinians have been eliminated.
'Landscam' (click for more)
Sharon entered the Knesset in December 1973, at the very moment that the Israeli government lifted the ban on private sales of West Bank land to Israelis. The Knesset decision was brought about by a heavy lobbying effort by Sharon colleague and former Police Minister Yehezkel Sahar. The very first "private" purchase was for the construction of a residential community for retired IDF officers. The partners in the deal included Sahar, Gen. Reshavam Ze'evi, Sharon publicist Eli Landau, and Avraham Mintz, a founder of the fanatical settlers movement Gush Emunim.

In June 1974, Sharon personally led a group of settlers to establish an illegal outpost near the West Bank town of Nablus. It was the first of many such ventures that Sharon would sponsor, under the rhubric of the drive to "Judaize the territories."

Sharon's political career continued to advance. In 1975, Prime Minister Rabin appointed Sharon as his personal security adviser. Then, the Likud was swept into power in the 1977 elections, and Prime Minister Menachim Begin named Sharon as Minister of Agriculture. In that capacity, Sharon launched a massive expansion of Jewish "agricultural settlements" throughout the West Bank and Gaza. During 1977-81, more than 25,000 new settlers mostly members of the Gush Emunim moved into the occupied territories. The Gush Emunim settlers formed into death squads explicitly modelled on Sharon's old "Unit 101." They would play a pivotal role in a filthy Anglo-American Zionist criminal enterprise known as "Landscam" (click for more).

In 1979, the Israeli Supreme Court ratified the private land purchases in the occupied territories, and immediately, Sharon's mafia cronies set up several real estate ventures, under such names as Jumbo, Samarea and Judea, and Meteor. In 1980, Sharon and Yuval Ne'eman formed an organization, Prevention of Emergence of Another Arab Country in Eretz Israel (PEACE), to press the issue of permanent Israeli annexation of the occupied territories. The group included a number of notables from Israel and the United States, who would remain part of the extended Sharon mafia family for years to come: Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, Jewish Defense League (JDL) founder Joseph Churba, Young Israel director Harold Jacobs, Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith general counsel Arnold Forster, right-wing Knesset member and Rabbi Meir Kahane patron Geula Cohen, and Roni Milo.

Sharon toured the United States in 1980, lining up financing for a massive real estate grab. But first, Sharon launched a campaign of terror against the Palestinians in the West Bank, to literally scare them into leaving their land. In the Spring of 1982, Sharon hosted a planning meeting at his Negev desert ranch, which had been purchased for him by Riklis. Riklis, Henry Kissinger, Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, Rafi Eytan, General Ze'evi, Arieh Genger, Herbert Brin, and Eli Landau attended the session, according to an eyewitness account. Within days of the meeting, Gush Emunim and JDL terrorists began attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. "Landscam" was under way.

"Landscam" coincided with Sharon's invasion of Lebanon, which began on June 4, 1982, and was aimed at wiping out the Palestine Liberation Organization (click for more), which had established its base in several camps near Beirut. Between June 4 and Aug. 31, 1982, the IDF, under Sharon's direction (Begin had named him Minister of Defense the previous year), killed a total of 19,025 Palestinians and wounded 30,032 in a military campaign that Sharon called "Operation Peace in Galilee." Under immense pressure from the Reagan Administration (click for more), Sharon abandoned plans to assassinate Arafat, and, on Aug. 21, 1982, he allowed the PLO to evacuate 15,600 fighters from Lebanon, under an American-brokered cease-fire.

On Sept. 15, Sharon broke the cease-fire agreement, and the next day, launched a "purification" campaign against the refugee camps of Sabra, Shatila, and Burj El Barajneh. Falangist death squads protected by the IDF, which encircled the camps massacred unarmed women, children, and elderly.

On Sept. 19, 1982, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 521, harshly condemning the massacres at the camps. In a distant mirror of the current genocide in Jenin, Ramallah, and Bethlehem, Sharon ignored the international condemnations. Today, Sharon faces war crimes prosecution in court in Belgium (click for more) for his role in the Sabra and Shatila massacres, as the result of a lawsuit filed on June 18, 2001 by 23 survivors of the attacks.

On Oct. 15, 1982, a month after the 1982 massacres, Sharon held meetings in the Chouf Mountains of Lebanon and at his Negev ranch with Falange leader Camille Chamoun, Uri Dan, Rupert Murdoch, Charles Douglas-Home, and others, to move the "Landscam" West Bank real estate grab forward. On Nov. 15, 1982, a final meeting took place on several real estate purchases, mostly through Arab middle-men, to push the massive expansion of Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank at a handsome profit. Attending the meeting at Sharon's ranch were: Kissinger, Lord Harlech (Sir David Ormsby-Gore), Johannes von Thurn und Taxis, Tory Parliamentarian Julian Amery, Sir Edmund Peck, and MI-6 Mideast mandarin Nicholas Elliot.

The Kahane Commission, an Israeli body convened to investigate the Sabra and Shatila mass murders, found Sharon to be complicit in the crimes, and he was fired by Prime Minister Begin as Defense Minister shortly after the report's release. But Sharon landed on his feet. In 1984, after the fall of the Begin government and the establishment of a Likud-Labor national unity government, Sharon was appointed Minister of Trade and Industry, a position he held until 1990, when he was named Minister of Construction and Housing, a post that enabled him to continue as the leading sponsor of the massive expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. During Sharon's tenure in various government ministries, the number of Jewish settlers soared to more than 110,000.

In January 1986, Edgar Bronfman, the Jewish mafia don and president of the World Jewish Congress, admitted, in a New York Post interview, that he was negotiating on behalf of the Israeli government with Moscow, to secure Soviet permission for 400,000 Jews to emigrate to Israel in return for massive shipments of grain to the Soviet Union. The deal was cynically dubbed "Jews for wheat," in recognition that this scheme was leading to the annexation of the occupied lands by Israel. A year earlier, in another sop to the American- and British-based Jewish criminal interests bankrolling Sharon's "Judiazation" scheme, the Knesset had passed laws dropping all restrictions on cash flows into Israeli banks so long as the money was invested in Israel.
Hamas: Another Sharon Asset
During his postings in the Likud governments during 1977-92, Sharon had not only been the "rabbi" of the Gush Emunim and Kach Movement/JDL Jewish underground terrorist organizations. He also played a pivotal role in the creation of Hamas (click for more), the Palestinian Islamist group, which was formally founded in 1988. Under the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, an estimated 800 "licenses" were handed out to Palestinians, to create schools, infirmaries, food kitchens, and other social service programs. Sharon made sure that all these licenses were given to Islamists, many of whom would be Hamas founders, as a way of creating a "countergang" ruling structure to eventually supplant the power of the PLO inside the occupied territories. Sharon's sponsorship of Hamas has become a public scandal in recent months, particularly since the publication of stories in EIR in the past year, exposing these links, and detailing Sharon's plans to use Hamas as part of his "Jordan is Palestine" drive for mass transfer.
Killing the 'Peace of the Brave'
When Rabin was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1992, the former Sharon ally in the war on the Palestinians had the courage to admit that his underlying assumptions were wrong, and would lead to the destruction of Israel. He entered into secret peace talks with Arafat, which culminated in the August 1993 signing of the Oslo Peace Accords, in the presence of U.S. President William Clinton at the White House.

Instantly, Sharon declared war on the Oslo Accords and on Prime Minister Rabin (click for more). The entire "Landscam" gang joined Sharon in assailing the peace initiative. On Sept. 11, 1993, Kissinger told CBS News interviewers that Oslo was "unworkable." Several weeks later, Kissinger told the Institute for Jewish Affairs in London that Jordan would soon fall into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists and Olso would be crushed a not-so-veiled reference to Sharon's Hamas assets, which would soon launch a terror wave against Oslo in tandem with Sharon's Jewish underground.

On Oct. 11, 1993, Bertram and Herbert Zweibon, co-founders of Americans for a Safe Israel, a Sharonist front, held a conference in Crystal City, Virginia to launch a campaign to destroy Oslo and its sponsors. Five days later, Sharon delivered a speech calling for the settlers to launch a resistance to the sellout.

Sharon rushed to the United States and embarked on a nationwide tour on Nov. 14, 1993, in which he declared that the 150,000 Jewish settlers were the "only barrier to a Palestinian state." Sharon was accompanied, throughout the tour, by Yechial Leiter, a leader of the JDL in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba. While in the United States, Sharon raised millions of dollars for the Kiryat Arba "resistance" from such right-wing Zionist patrons as Florida and California bingo parlor magnate Irving Moscowitz and former Reagan Administration Ambassador to Austria and perfume heir, Ronald Lauder.

Sharon's fundraising paid off. On Feb. 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an IDF reservist and leader of Kiryat Arba, massacred 50 Palestinian worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarch holy site. Goldstein had been Rabbi Meir Kahane's Knesset campaign manager at Kiryat Arba.

In March 1994, some 200 rabbis, led by Avraham Shapira, staged a rally at Kiryat Arba and issued a religious edict, ordering resistance against any attempt by the Rabin government to dismantle any settlements. On March 31, 1994, Sharon and Yitzhak Shamir, the former Likud Prime Minister and Stern Gang terrorist, led a rally of 10,000 people attacking Oslo. ADL National Chairman Abe Foxman told the Jerusalem Post on April 2, 1994 that Rabin was "undermining organized Jewish clout" in America, through his peace antics.

Rabin was assassinated on Nov. 4, 1995 by a West Bank settler, Yigal Amir, who came from Sharon's terror hub, Kiryat Arba (click for more).

On Jan. 26, 1997, Sharon returned, triumphal, to Kiryat Arba, to deliver new marching orders to the heirs of "Unit 101." If Arafat declared a unilateral Palestinian state in the territory of the West Bank and Gaza under Palestinian Authority control, the settlers should join in the drive to annex all of Judea and Samaria. At the time, Sharon was Minister of National Infrastructure, a super-ministerial post that had been created for him by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sharon's sometimes ally and sometimes rival for power in the Likud. During 1996-99, Sharon's tenure as Minister of National Infrastructure, the settlers population in the occupied territories soared to more than 200,000.

Netanyahu's fall from power in 1999, and his replacement by a Labor government headed by former IDF chief Ehud Barak, signalled that the Oslo peace process that Sharon was dedicated to destroying, was back on the table.

After the failure of the July 2000 Camp David II negotiations to reach a final settlement, more intense private negotiations between the Barak government and the Palestinian Authority began under a number of venues. Talks took place in New York City, and later, at the resort of Taba, Egypt, producing a final accord, in draft, that would have formed a just and viable basis for two sovereign states, Israel and Palestine. The thorny issues of the right of return of Palestinian refugees, the status of the holy sites in Jerusalem, and of creating two capitals within the extended city limits of Jerusalem, were, according to several Arab and Israeli diplomatic sources, worked out in principle by January 2001. These final points, memorialized in the talking points brought to the final sessions by President Clinton, could be revived today as a basis for reaching a just solution, in the view of many Mideast diplomats familiar with the document.

But Sharon and his backers would have nothing of this.

In September 2000, Sharon visited New York City, where he met with Lauder and other supporters and financiers. He returned to Israel, reportedly with a large amount of cash to be disbursed to settlers' terrorist cells. Sharon personally staged the decisive provocation, by visiting the Islamic holy sites on al-Haram al-Sharif (click for more), what the Israelis call the Temple Mount, on Sept. 26, 2000 (click for more). Sharon was accompanied by more than 1,000 Israeli troops and paramilitary police. It was a flagrant provocation, an assertion of Israeli permanent control over the sacred sites of Islam, the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

posted 09-16-2003 05:14 PM            

However, those of us who do not wish to go the hatred, violence and destruction path, cannot allow the fear of being labelled "hateful" to muzzle us. Understanding what has been a controlling influence in our lives and what has been keeping hate alive these many years is most important, and the American people will never be free unless and until we get the Zionist and their "me first: to hell with everyone else" influence out of our government and our politics. Together we can win back our freedom. To be free once more: that's what's worth fighting for.

In my posts (see above posted article: Jews Like Us, by Bruce Jackson), I have made a very real effort to give the Jews who abhor Zionism and its philosophy a voice. There are Jews who are not Zionists, and there are Zionists who are not Jews. Zionism is a philosophy--a way of thinking.

George Ball, a very respected American statesman, wrote of the dangers in assuming that a country has a common interest with America, where no common interest exists. In 1992 he detailed how Israel has cost U.S. businesses over $365 billion in lost earnings due to U.S. contracts being taken from U.S. companies and given to Israel, along with generous trade concessions being given to Israel.

The publisher of George Ball's book: THE PASSIONATE ATTACHMENT: America's Involvement with Israel, 1947 to the Present, writes:

"In his Farewell Address, George Washington admonished his fellow citizens to steer clear of a "passionate attachment" to another nation, as such could create "the illusion of a common interest ... where no common interest exists." This warning echoes through the pages of this unflinching examination of our four-decade entanglement in the web of Middle East politics. The distinguished authors here trace the sequence of events that brought the United States into a relationship unique in its history, with its foreign policy often manipulated by another, much smaller nation. The costs have been financial: American aid to Israel well exceeds the total of U.S. payments to reconstruct postwar Europe. The costs have been political and moral: denouncing arms sales as destabilizing to the Middle East, the United States has poured weapons into Israel; while championing national self-determination, the United States has failed to do anything effective to halt Israel's colonization of the West Bank. Israeli forbearance from entering the Gulf War in 1991 and thereby undoing the coalition of Arab States put together by the Bush administration further intensified our passionate attachment. To achieve a durable settlement in an area beset by age-old disputes, the authors call for an end to our unquestioned acquiescence in Israeli action and a broadened role for collective security."

I was asked how Zionists should be treated. Would the Zionists, who refuse to give up their "me first: to hell with everyone else" philosophy, like to be treated like they have treated the Palestinian people for the last 50 years (thousands imprisoned, many of them tortured, for many years, many without charges being placed against them; many hundreds of homes blown up over many years, in line with Israel's collective punishment philosophy; acres and acres of Palestinian land and orchards destroyed; thousands killed and over 30,000 injured in Palestinian areas alone)?

And about Israel's actions in Lebanon, Jeffrey Steinberg, in his article: Ariel Sharon--Profile Of An Unrepentant War Criminal (posted above in its entirety), writes:

"Landscam" coincided with Sharon's invasion of Lebanon, which began on June 4, 1982, and was aimed at wiping out the Palestine Liberation Organization (click for more), which had established its base in several camps near Beirut. Between June 4 and Aug. 31, 1982, the IDF, under Sharon's direction (Begin had named him Minister of Defense the previous year), killed a total of 19,025 Palestinians and wounded 30,032 in a military campaign that Sharon called "Operation Peace in Galilee." Under immense pressure from the Reagan Administration (click for more), Sharon abandoned plans to assassinate Arafat, and, on Aug. 21, 1982, he allowed the PLO to evacuate 15,600 fighters from Lebanon, under an American-brokered cease-fire."

Jeffrey Steinberg also writes about the secret death squad units within the IDF and "special operations" units which include terrorist attacks perpetrated by Israel on Israeli Jewish targets, and then blaming these attacks on the Palestinians, in order to justify "retaliatory strikes" against pre-selected Palestinian and Arab targets (Just how many bombings, blamed on the Palestinians, originated with the Palestinians, I wonder?):

"In 1953, Sharon founded "Unit 101," a secret death squad within the IDF that committed several mass murders of civilians. In October 1953, Sharon's "Unit 101" massacred 66 innocent civilians during a cross-border raid into the Jordanian West Bank village of Qibya. Under intense machine-gun fire, local residents were driven into their homes, which were then blown up around them, killing the occupants by burying them alive in piles of rubble. The April 2002 IDF massacre at the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin was, in fact, modeled on Sharon's "Unit 101" operations at Qibya."

"In 1972, at the urging of American organized crime figure and leading right-wing Zionist Meshulam Riklis, Sharon resigned from the IDF (he was recalled, briefly, to active duty during the 1973 Yom Kippur War) to run for the Knesset (parliament). Henceforth, Sharon would be wedded to leading international organized crime figures associated with the Meyer Lansky National Crime Syndicate in the United States, and allied Jewish mafia figures from Israel and Russia."

posted 09-17-2003 10:39 AM            

Ellyn and Mick are taking names for possible membership now.

posted 09-22-2003 01:30 AM            

http://www.rense.com/general41/10000.htm

10,000 Israeli's Protest
The Zionist Occupation
haaretzdaily.com
9-21-3

Some 6,000 peace protestors gathered Saturday night at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv for what organizers said marked the opening of a "street campaign" that will be conducted over the next few months by Peace Now.

The demonstrators marched from the square through Tel Aviv to the Defense Ministry compound close to the Azrieli Center.

Among the speakers were Labor Party Secretary-General Ophir Pines-Paz, Meretz MK Avshalom Vilan and former Labor MK Yael Dayan.

All of the speakers kept to the central theme of the protest, calling for Israel to quit the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and for an end to the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Dayan emphasized the economic cost of the settlements, saying that the government was still pumping huge amounts of money into them, while other Israelis were going hungry. She pointed out that each year, 5,000 more children in the country slipped below the poverty line.

Demonstrators also denounced the Sharon government's policy of assassinating figures from Hamas and other extremist groups, saying the policy creates an endless cycle of violence.

Former MK and Oslo architect Yossi Beilin was also present, although he did not speak. Singer Aviv Geffen performed a selection of his songs.
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/342251.html

posted 09-23-2003 09:32 AM            

Please explain to the forum where Judaism, being an Israeli, and being a Zionist are one in the same.

That's what you are implying.

posted 09-24-2003 08:09 PM            

The high and the mighty
By Vered Levy-Barzilai

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=200053&contrassID=1

AND

27 Israel Pilots Refuse To Carry Out Air Strikes

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP)--A group of 27 Israeli reserve air force pilots signed a petition Wednesday stating they'll no longer agree to carry out air strikes against Palestinians.

The pilots called the attacks illegal and immoral.

The military had no immediate comment on the petition, an unprecedented protest from pilots.

Dozens of reserve soldiers in ground forces have opted to go to prison rather than serve in the West Bank and Gaza, reflecting growing Israeli unease with the protracted conflict.

The petition came as the leader of Hamas said Wednesday that his group wouldn't disarm or accept a truce, undercutting efforts by the incoming Palestinian prime minister to negotiate a cease-fire with Israel without confronting the militants.

Sheik Ahmed Yassin delivered his challenge to Prime Minister-designate Ahmed Qureia in his first high-profile appearance, a news conference at a Gaza City mosque, since Israel tried to kill the Hamas leader in a Sept. 6 air strike.

Yassin said Hamas wouldn't surrender its weapons. "The weapons that our people carry to defend our land and our people, and nobody can confiscate them," he said. "We can talk about this only after liberating the land. Taking weapons means surrender and defeat."

Yassin also said Hamas wouldn't agree to a truce with Israel; a unilateral cease-fire declared by Hamas and other militants June 29 collapsed in a burst of violence several weeks later.

"There is no place to talk about a truce because the enemy is continuing his aggression, killing and settlement activities," Yassin said, adding that "he who carries a bomb and blows himself up" is destined for paradise, referring to suicide attackers who have killed hundreds of Israelis.

Dow Jones Newswires
09-24-031323ET

posted 09-25-2003 12:33 AM            

http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20030924/index.php

posted 09-25-2003 09:24 PM            

Text Of Israeli Refusenik
Pilot Letter
The Jerusalem Post
9-25-3

Twenty-seven pilots addressed a letter to Air Force commander Maj.-Gen. Dan Halutz stating their refusal to serve in anti-terror operations.

We, the IAF pilots, that were educated on the lap of Zionism, sacrifice and giving to Israel, always served on the front line ready to execute any order, hard as easy, so as to protect and strengthen Israel;

We, reserve pilots and active pilots as one, that served and still serve Israel for long weeks every year, oppose carrying out attack orders that are illegal and immoral of the type that Israel executes in the territories;

We, that were raised to love Israel and to contribute to the Zionist endeavor, refuse to take part in IAF attacks in civilian population centers;

We, that the IDF and the IAF are an integral part of who we are, refuse to continue to injure innocent civilians.

These actions are illegal and immoral and are the direct result of an extended occupation that is corrupting the Israeli society as a whole.

The continuation of the occupation is seriously harming the security of Israel and its moral integrity.

We who serve as active pilots - as fighters, leaders and instructors of the next generation of pilots - declare here that we will continue to serve in the IDF and the IAF in any mission for the protection of Israel.

© 1995-2003, The Jerusalem Post - All rights reserved
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1064470661076

AND
http://www.rense.com/general42/refus.htm

Israel Grounds Refusenik Pilots
By Chris Otton
9-25-3

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel's air force Thursday cashiered seven pilots who refused to take part in missions in the Palestinian territories, with their commander accusing them of stabbing their country in the back, a military source said.

On Wednesday, 27 reserve pilots submitted a petition to air force commander Dan Halutz, saying they were no longer prepared to take part in missions that they regarded as "illegal and immoral".

The military spokesman said Thursday that 20 of the signatories were no longer even attached to units flying such missions, but that they were to be grounded anyway.

Halutz replied to the pilots in a harsh letter in which he accused them of having "shoved a knife in the back of combatants and of Israeli democracy," the source said.

Halutz was quoted in the Haaretz daily earlier Thursday as saying he planned to treat the signatories "in the same way as the IDF (military) has dealt with refuseniks until now," indicating that they would be dismissed.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon also warned the pilots not to become embroiled in politics.

"The army carries out the instructions of the political echelon, and it will continue to act against terrorists and murderers whose sole purpose is to strike at crowded population centers inhabited by innocent citizens," said Sharon.

"This is a very severe matter, which will be dealt with soon and appropriately."

One of the pilots, whose name was given as Alon, told the Yediot Aharonot daily that he felt like he had "come out against his family".

"I was proud to belong to the organization called the Israel air force, and today I am ashamed," said the Blackhawk helicopter captain.

"This is an organization that carries out actions that in my eyes are immoral and patently illegal. It is an organization that has no qualms about dropping bombs -- it doesn't matter if they are 250, 500 or 1,000 kilos (550, 1,100 or 2,200 pounds) -- on the densest neighborhoods in the world, causing massive killing of civilians."

Another captain, whose name was given only as Yonathan, said: "Does it matter to so many civilians who were killed for no wrongdoing of their own, if the pilot meant to carry out a mission that someone told him is important for the defense of the State of Israel?"

Alon said he would be prepared to fly missions which carried the possibility of killing civilians if he felt it was vital to the state's survival.

"This is not the situation in Israel 2003. We are not in a war for our existence," he said.

"We are in a war for continuing the occupation in the territories. And in light of this dubious goal, I am not willing to be the murderer of innocent civilians."

Former air force commander Major General Amos Lapidot said that while the pilots were in a minority their unease was widely shared.

"It's a minority but it's not just limited to those 27," he told AFP. "Others feel this in their stomach."

But Major General Nati Sharoni, the military's former head of planning, said the pilots had no right to air their grievances in such an open way.

"Much of what they say, I can identify with myself but this is not the way to do it," Sharoni told AFP.

"Anyone who serves in the armed forces, whether active or reserve, cannot, should not, must not say this is something that I am not going to do, even if it's questionable.

"One has to realise that this is not a democratic organisation."

The pilots should have voiced their misgivings to other officers but could only justify their actions if they were given patently illegal orders such as being instructed "to slaughter kids".

Yael Paz-Melamed, a columnist for the Maariv daily, said the writing had been on the wall for a long time.

"In private conversations, more and more pilots voiced their disgruntlement with the assassination missions they were sent on," he wrote.

"From the F-16 jet, one does not see the white in the victims' eyes. One cannot hear the outcries, the pain, the wails of the wounded. One does not see the children bleeding to death. But people who do not turn their back on their conscience, know that this is not the reason that they joined the Air Force."

posted 09-30-2003 05:46 PM            

And another article of interest:

Israelis Fire Live Ammo 'Due To Shortage'
news.com.au
9-30-3
http://www.rense.com/general42/israelisfireliveammo.htm

"Since violence erupted three years ago, 2,477 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 860 on the Israeli side."

And for those interested in this subject, this article of interest:

Israelis' Despair Revealed In Annual Survey
By David Blair The Telegraph - UK
9-30-3
http://www.rense.com/general42/surb.htm

And this article of interest:

Nuclear Watchdog 'Ignores Israel'
BBC News
9-30-3
http://www.rense.com/general42/sdnike.htm

posted 10-02-2003 05:31 PM            

Israel To Build 600 New
Settler Homes In West Bank
By Matt Spetalnic
10-2-3