Subject: International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI)
An Israeli War Crimes Tribunal May be the Only Deterrent to a Global War
By Francis A. Boyle
The United Nations General Assembly must immediately establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) as a "subsidiary organ" under U.N. Charter Article 22. The ICTI would be organized along the lines of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established by the Security Council.
The purpose of the ICTI would be to investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine--just as the ICTY did for the victims of international crimes committed by Serbia and the Milosevic Regime throughout the Balkans.
The establishment of ICTI would provide some small degree of justice to the victims of Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the Peoples of Lebanon and Palestine--just as the ICTY has done in the Balkans. Furthermore, the establishment of ICTI by the U.N. General Assembly would serve as a deterrent effect upon Israeli leaders such as Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Livni, Defense Minister Barak , Chief of Staff Ashkenazi and Israel's other top generals that they will be prosecuted for their further infliction of international crimes upon the Lebanese and the Palestinians.
Without such a deterrent, Israel might be emboldened to attack Syria with the full support of the Likudnik Bush Jr. Neoconservatives, who have always viewed Syria as "low-hanging fruit" ready to be taken out by means of their joint aggression. If Israel attacks Syria as it did when it invaded Lebanon in 1982, Iran has vowed to come to Syria's defense.
And of course Israel and the Bush Jr administration very much want a pretext to attack Iran. This scenario could readily degenerate into World War III.
For the U.N. General Assembly to establish ICTI could stop the further
development of this momentum towards a regional if not global catastrophe.
Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (Voice)
217-244-1478 (Fax)
(personal comments only)
Jewish State: Assassination attempt on US Congresswoman
“Rep. Cynthia McKinney, pro Palestinian Congresswoman anti-Israel activist and the first African-American woman to have represented Georgia in the House of Representatives has been targeted for cold blooded assassination on the high seas by the Jewish terror state.
JCN International news would like to wish Cynthia and her family all the best in this stressful time. We hope that our readers and the world will see this latest stab in the back as a final straw and declare ideological war on the terrorist state of Israel.
The sheer ovarian fortitude that McKinney displayed on interrogating Rumsfeld on the DynCorp slave trade scandal was phenomenal, brave and defiant.
McKinney has consistently remained pro Palestinian and resistant to the Jewish political Mafia and the Zionist Majority in her profession. It was only a matter of time before the criminal Jewish dark overlords on high deemed her a fit mark for assassination.
JCN International News hopes that this will awaken the Goyim to the genocidal, sinister and criminal Jewish agenda.” - Joe Mannion
For full coverage of the latest on McKinney's attack by Israel please see
http://jewishcrimenetwork.com/?p=2365
http://jewishcrimenetwork.com/?p=2363
http://jewishcrimenetwork.com/?p=2352
http://jewishcrimenetwork.com/?p=2361
Happy New Year, dear neirika. I am now reading at jcn, which you introduced us to earlier this week, and this site has taken off at a flying start, hasn't it. I will go to RadioShack tomorrow and buy a green card so I can support John. Thanks for all your work.
I am also now listening to Alex Jones who has dedicated a show to callers, and learned that AJ is making a movie on Obama. OMG
And boy, oh boy, do we ever need a Israeli War Crimes Tribunal. Absolutely essential; thanks Professor Boyle. I posted the other day about the poor Vietnamese woman who was napalmed running down the street naked. She has forgiven her tormentors and now finds herself free of anguish and is happy with her life. This morning I read this by George Kenney:
" The Jews never stop making everyone they can, all over the world, apologize for the Holocaust. Especially the Germans. As Norman Finkelstein has bravely pointed out, mining the Holocaust also has made some Jews very rich. Much more importantly, however, the Holocaust story helps Jews worldwide to keep their thumbs on the political scales. Yet for all the forced apologies, for all the monetary blackmail, and for all the political coercion there's one thing I've never, ever seen from the Jews: Forgiveness.
On the BBC website, just to take one example, Rabbi Albert Friedlander artfully explains that, for metaphysical reasons, it is impermissible for Jews to forgive anyone for the Holocaust. Now, such ideas should give pause. They are not the ideas of a religion whose bona fide stands up to serious scrutiny but seem more, from a certain point of view, like organized hate-mongering."
Don't you think it's time for Progress to voluntarily hand in his sayanim credentials before the Learned Elders of Zion send in the Mossad? An inability to forgive, is that Satanic? I believe it might be. Is Satan ageless and genderless? Would Satan always be at the ready to call a decent person some sort of derogatory name? Are you willing to speak with Satan?
In your dreams, Dupree. What would anyone do with you if they did "allure" you?
"Madoff's investors listed.One is of interest: "Chais Family Foundation, a charity that gives away about $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes, the California-based charity group invested entirely with Madoff, and was forced to shut down operations on Sunday after years of donating some $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes in Israel and Eastern Europe." Jewish, Eastern Europe, Israel, and a sudden operational shut down? WMR found an interesting link: Chais donated to an entity called the Washington Institute in McLean, Virginia, which also received funding from the Monterey Fund of Brooklyn, NY, which lists its address as BEAR STEARNS & CO., 1 METROTECH CENTERN 9TH FL., BROOKLYN, NY 11201-3831. Chais was active in marshaling support for Israel among 18-25 year old Jews in the former Soviet Union (also recruitment for Israeli syndicate and Mossad activities, perhaps?) and fighting pro-Palestinian and pro-Iranian attitudes on U.S. college campuses. In other words, Chais was engaged in blatant political activities disguised as 501(c)3 "educational purposes." Recipients of Chais funds also attacked former President Jimmy Carter, as well as Professors Mearsheimer and Walt over their book "The Israel Lobby." There is a Chais Family Auditorium at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel. Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, is the headquarters for the Mossad."
Israel needs to be disbanded, and given back to Palestine. ALL OF ISRAEL IS ILLEGAL,and has proved itself to be a criminal country.
Read this and remember, some here post direct from Mossad.
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2008/12/habitual-offender.html
"...
Most criminal law systems recognize the necessity of imprisoning violent continual recidivists on the basis that they are simply too dangerous to be left free to commit the crimes we know they will commit. Israel is, without any shadow of a doubt, an habitual offender. The world needs to be able to stop states which won't stop offending. We can't lock Israel up; we have to destroy it.
The only relatively humane way to destroy a modern nation state is to make it an outlaw, and institute 100% boycotts of it on all levels - no trade, no communications, no status in international law, no recognition of its citizens (after the bombing of a university in Gaza I never expect to hear complaints about the boycotting of Israeli academics). People will start to leave almost immediately - the world will face another Jewish refugee problem - and the entire country will be destroyed within a year. The Palestinians will then take back the land stolen from them. If Israel attempts to fight back madly - completely in character - the world will have to take collective military action to destroy it in the most humane way possible.
I say this with great reluctance, but the world really has no choice. Israel is like a psychopath, one who is 'escalating'. Each outrage is worse than the last, and the Gaza attacks may be the worst war crime yet. Self-defense means that Israel has to be named the world's first habitual offender, and forfeit its right to statehood."
Egypt: Mubarak resists pressure to open border crossing
Cairo, 30 Dec. (AKI) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says his country will not fully open its crossing into the Gaza Strip unless the Palestinian Authority is in control of the border post. Egypt has resisted dealing with the Islamic militant Hamas because it opposes the militant group's 2007 takeover of the Gaza Strip and insists Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, is the legitimate Palestinian leader.
"Egypt will not allow anyone to put pressure on its government or exploit the Palestinian issue to obtain political advantages," Mubarak said on state television in Cairo on Tuesday..........
"We are saying to everyone wanting to take advantage of the actual situation in Gaza for their political gain on the backs of the Palestinians, their blood is not cheap," Mubarak said.........
Mr. SPECIAL REPORT...
"..The Mossad is known to keep extensive files on embarrassing information to use later to blackmail individuals.
WMR has learned from a former high-level Jewish official of the Clinton administration who has extensive contacts with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that the number two Mossad chief responsible for the United States and Canada is Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel, the prospective Chief of Staff for Barack Obama. With Mossad's files at his disposal, Emanuel is in a position to blackmail politicians involved in Mossad's past "honey trap" operations, including the 1982 call boy network, which saw Israeli intelligence agents buying information from the pedophile prostitution services."
I always felt that Nancy Pelosi is being blackmailed for her husband, as well as Dianne Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum.
I believe there should be a special Congressional inquiry or Committee with subpeona power to investigate 1. Sibel Edmonds charges against Israel and the Turkish lobby
2. Israel espionage and sexpionage and blackmail of US politicians, including Clinton with his Swallow Monica Lewinsky, McGreevey's Raven, and of course the Condit murdered worker, when Condit was in Dick Cheney's office at the exact hour. There is much to be revealed here.
3. What Chertoff knows about 9-11
4. What Israel Mossad was involved in during 9-11
5. Conspiracy of Silence, Franklin Scandal involving call boys in the White House needs to be reopened.
6. What AG Gonzales was covering up in Texas Youth Prisons and child abuse
7. What sexual child abuse was going on in STRAIGHT, a camp that punished children and child sexual abuse was ignored, owned by a GOP major contributor and Ambassodor
SEXUAL PREDATORS IN WASHINGTON DC MUST BE EXPOSED, and the sexual habits of Congress must be not blackmail material.
That is how MOSSAD, ISRAEL rules the Israelis' world.....
Right on target!
MOSCOW — For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media, who are interviewing him twice a day.
A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Professor Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.
"There's a 55-45 percent chance right now that disintegration will occur," says Panarin. "One could rejoice in that process," he adds, poker-faced. "But if we're talking reasonably, it's not the best scenario — for Russia."
Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.
Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control.
Nat'l Union: After Be'er Sheva, Rockets on Tel Aviv, Dimona Next
(IsraelNN.com) The National Union party warned Tuesday against a ceasefire in the fighting against Hamas, saying that "whoever ceases fire after Be'er Sheva was targeted will wake up to missiles on Dimona and Tel Aviv."
Dimona, home to Israel's main nuclear research facility, is located 36 km to the south and east of Be'er Sheva, which was hit for the first time ever by long-range Grad-type Katyusha missiles on Tuesday.
Two missiles struck the city known as "the capital of the south." One exploded in the courtyard of a kindergarten, but miraculously no one was injured. The second landing site was not identified. Ben Gurion University of the Negev, located in the heart of the city, had already made preparations earlier in the day against a possible missile attack.
The National Union said that it embraced U.S. President George W. Bush's position regarding a ceasefire with Hamas. The American president has begun pressuring both Israel and the terrorist group to accept a "reliable ceasefire, one that is durable and sustainable," through phone calls made by State Department emissaries to both sides.
"That is different from the ceasefire that existed in the last six months," said State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid, who pointed out the Hamas had repeatedly violated the temporary truce it had negotiated with Israel. Hamas chose not to renew that six-month ceasefire, referred to as the "calm," or tahadiyeh in Arabic, which began on June 19 and expired amidst a hail of rockets that became an almost daily occurrence in the last month of the so-called "truce."
Bush, Abbas Agree
Briefing reporters at Bush's Texas ranch, spokesman Gordon Johndroe Johndroe said that "for any ceasefire to be effective, it must be respected by Hamas." Bush's spokesman added that in the absence of such a stance, a cease-fire agreement wouldn't be worth the "paper that it's written on."
The White House said that President Bush and Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas agreed in a telephone conversation Tuesday that if any new cease-fire agreement is to be effective in the Middle East, "it must be respected by Hamas."
Bush talked to both Abbas and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad after having a briefing by video conference with his own top aides on the fast-paced developments in Gaza.
MK Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) party, also came out Tuesday against the reported recommendation of a ceasefire. "The IDF must continue to clean up Gaza and not give in to all sorts of initiatives for ceasefires," he said. "The situation today is like the one that preceded World War II," he added. "Islamic extremism is endangering the world. We must strike while the iron is still hot."
------------------------------------------------------
Buchanan says Barak is killing to get votes:
Bush, Obama, and the Gaza Blitz
Posted by Patrick J. Buchanan on December 29, 2008
http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/bush_obama_and_the_gaza_blitz/
Unwilling to control its fighters, who fired scores of missiles into Israel at the end of their six-month ceasefire, Hamas gave Israel the provocation it needed to deliver a savage blow to the Palestinian enclave in Gaza.
Saturday was the bloodiest day in the history of the Palestinian people since being driven from their homes in the War of 1948. One thousand were killed or wounded, as the Israeli Air Force conducted over a hundred strikes--on graduation ceremonies for Hamas fighters, police stations and storage sites for rockets.
About Israel’s right and duty to defend its border towns, there is no dispute. When Hamas permits Gaza to be used as a launch pad for rockets, it must expect retaliation. Nor can Hamas claim some right to dictate the limits of that retaliation.
Yet the wisdom of so savage a retribution for rockets that killed not one Israeli is open to question. And crass Israeli politics seems to be behind this premeditated and planned blitz.
With Likud’s hawkish “Bibi” Netanyahu ahead in the polls for the Feb. 10 election, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Labor’s candidate, had to show that he, too, could be ruthless with Hamas.
"Israel at 60: A Grim Balance Sheet
By Mark Weber
An interview with the director of the Institute for Historical Review, conducted by the Mehr news agency, and published in the Tehran Times, a leading English-language daily in Iran, May 14, 2008.
Israel was established 60 years ago this month. Israelis are celebrating, but Arabs recall the state’s founding as the “Nakba,” or catastrophe. What’s your view?
When Israel was established in May 1948, its leaders pledged that the new state would be a model of justice in the world – a “light unto the nations.” They told the world that they were founding a country in which, at long last, Jews would live in peace and security. They said that Israel would be a self-sufficient nation where Jews would prosper on the basis of their own labor, abilities and efforts.
Israel’s leaders declared that they were creating a new society in which Jews would finally live as a “normal” people in a country of their own. Israel and its founding ideology, Zionism, was supposed to solve the centuries-old problem of tension between Jews and non-Jews.
Although Israelis cite some impressive achievements over the past 60 years, the Zionist state has failed to achieve its proclaimed goals.
Far from being a beacon of morality, it has deservedly earned a global reputation as an oppressive, self-righteous, arrogant and belligerent state.
Israel was founded on terrorism, massacres, ethnic cleansing and the dispossession of its native Palestinian population. Even now it violates international law, inflicts a harsh collective punishment on the civilian population of Gaza, and continues to deny Palestinians their human and national rights. In accord with its Jewish supremacist ideology, Israel’s discrimination against non-Jews is systematic and institutional. It is the only country in the region that occupies territory of its neighbors, that refuses to define its borders, and which possesses a large and illegal arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Even as a Jewish sanctuary, Israel cannot be regarded as a success. Jews are less safe and secure in Israel than almost anywhere else in the world. The great majority of Jews in the world have preferred not to live in “their” country.
Israel has never been self-supporting. It has always required massive subsidies from the outside – above all from the United States. Total direct US aid to Israel has amounted to well over $140 billion (in 2003 dollars). In addition, Germany and other European states and companies have paid out many billions in “restitution,” and wealthy Jewish communities, especially in the US, have provided substantial financial assistance.
Far from transforming Jews into a “normal” people, Israel and its Zionist ideology have highlighted and encouraged Jewish distinctiveness. Zionism holds that Jews around the world make up a separate nationality or people, and that Jews everywhere owe a primary loyalty to Israel and the world Jewish community, rather than to the countries of which they are citizens. And indeed, most Jews around the world express loyalty to Israel and the “Jewish people,” for example, through support for openly Zionist organizations.
Why does the United States support Israel?
President Harry Truman gave US diplomatic recognition to the new Israeli state immediately following its proclamation in May 1948. In doing so, he rejected the advice of nearly every American official who was responsible for US foreign policy. Secretary of State George C. Marshall angrily told Truman that recognizing Israel would put partisan political interests above America’s national interest.
Loy Henderson, head of the State Department’s bureau for Middle East affairs, warned the President that US backing for the new Zionist state would be “contrary to the interests of the United States and will eventually involve us in international difficulties of so grave a character that the reaction throughout the world, as well as in this country, will be very strong.” Zionists, Henderson advised, “ignored such principles as self-determination and majority rule,” and instead embraced “the principle of a theocratic racial state.” He also warned that the establishment of a US-backed Zionist state “would guarantee that the Palestine problem would be permanent and still more complicated in the future.”
Contrary to claims made by American and Israeli political leaders, US support for Israel has never been in America’s authentic national interest, nor has it been based on a commitment to democracy and freedom.
Instead, US support for Israel has always been an expression of Jewish-Zionist power. America’s wealthy and well-organized Jewish community wields tremendous influence through its important role in the media, in political and cultural life, and, more directly, through massive donations to the election campaigns of politicians of both major political parties.
The Jewish-Zionist grip has tightened over the years, and has reached a high point in the “neo-conservative” administration of George W. Bush. This is manifest above all in the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Although the motives are complex, concern for Israel’s interests was an essential factor in the White House decision to attack and subdue one of Israel’s greatest regional adversaries.
Has American support for Israel been good for the United States?
Just as perceptive Washington officials foresaw in 1948, America’s pro-Israel policy has proven terribly costly to the United States – in wasted billions of dollars, in lost international credibility and standing, and in lives squandered for the interests of a foreign state. In the years ahead, the price paid by Americans for their nation’s commitment to Israel will undoubtedly rise.
The US invasion of Iraq alone has been a calamity for America. It has cost thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Around the world, it has generated unmatched distrust and hostility toward the US. In Arab and Muslim countries, it has fueled intense hatred of the United States, and has brought many new recruits to the ranks of anti-American terrorists.
One important reason why Americans are unable to effectively offset the power of the organized Jewish community is that the US population lacks cultural, religious, ethnic or racial cohesion, and thus any common basis on which to rally and organize. In a country of individualists whose concerns center on themselves and their families and friends, the power of the focused and well-organized Jewish community is immense.
Given these realities, any fundamental shift in US Middle East policy is unlikely in the foreseeable future.
What is Israel’s future?
In spite of its impressive military arsenal, and virtually unlimited support from the United States, Israel’s long-term prospects are not good.
Although the US will continue to be the world’s foremost military, financial and economic power for the foreseeable future, and will continue to provide Israel with crucial financial, military and diplomatic support, the relative global power of the US is steadily declining.
Around the world, including the United States, loathing of Israel is widespread and steadily mounting. In Asia and Europe, political and business leaders increasingly regard Israel and its policies as harmful to global order and stability.
Regional demographic trends are also important. In Israel and its occupied territories, the Arab population is growing at a faster rate than the Jewish population, and within 20 years non-Jews will almost certainly be the majority.
Very few persons in 1985 foresaw the collapse six years later of the mighty and seemingly solid Soviet Union. But its end was predictable because it was an essentially artificial entity based on an inhumane and impractical ideology. Although Israel is a formidable military power, it is an aberrant, crisis-prone state, artificially kept alive with outside support, and based on an unworkable ideology.
Given its artificial character and built-in problems, as well as global political-economic and regional demographic trends, Israel’s future in the next 60 years is not bright."
"..The Mossad is known to keep extensive files on embarrassing information to use later to blackmail individuals.
WMR has learned from a former high-level Jewish official of the Clinton administration who has extensive contacts with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that the number two Mossad chief responsible for the United States and Canada is Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel, the prospective Chief of Staff for Barack Obama. With Mossad's files at his disposal, Emanuel is in a position to blackmail politicians involved in Mossad's past "honey trap" operations, including the 1982 call boy network, which saw Israeli intelligence agents buying information from the pedophile prostitution services."
I always felt that Nancy Pelosi is being blackmailed for her husband, as well as Dianne Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum.
I believe there should be a special Congressional inquiry or Committee with subpoena power to investigate 1. Sibel Edmonds charges against Israel and the Turkish lobby
2. Israel espionage and sexpionage and blackmail of US politicians, including Clinton with his Swallow Monica Lewinsky, McGreevey's Raven, and of course the Condit murdered worker, when Condit was in Dick Cheney's office at the exact hour. There is much to be revealed here.
3. What Chertoff knows about 9-11
4. What Israel Mossad was involved in during 9-11
5. Conspiracy of Silence, Franklin Scandal involving call boys in the White House needs to be reopened.
6. What AG Gonzales was covering up in Texas Youth Prisons and child abuse
7. What sexual child abuse was going on in STRAIGHT, a camp that punished children and child sexual abuse was ignored, owned by a GOP major contributor and Ambassador
SEXUAL PREDATORS IN WASHINGTON DC MUST BE EXPOSED, and the sexual habits of Congress must be not blackmail material.
That is how MOSSAD, ISRAEL rules the world.
"Madoff's investors listed.One is of interest: "Chais Family Foundation, a charity that gives away about $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes, the California-based charity group invested entirely with Madoff, and was forced to shut down operations on Sunday after years of donating some $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes in Israel and Eastern Europe." Jewish, Eastern Europe, Israel, and a sudden operational shut down? WMR found an interesting link: Chais donated to an entity called the Washington Institute in McLean, Virginia, which also received funding from the Monterey Fund of Brooklyn, NY, which lists its address as BEAR STEARNS & CO., 1 METROTECH CENTERN 9TH FL., BROOKLYN, NY 11201-3831. Chais was active in marshaling support for Israel among 18-25 year old Jews in the former Soviet Union (also recruitment for Israeli syndicate and Mossad activities, perhaps?) and fighting pro-Palestinian and pro-Iranian attitudes on U.S. college campuses. In other words, Chais was engaged in blatant political activities disguised as 501(c)3 "educational purposes." Recipients of Chais funds also attacked former President Jimmy Carter, as well as Professors Mearsheimer and Walt over their book "The Israel Lobby." There is a Chais Family Auditorium at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel. Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, is the headquarters for the Mossad."
Israel needs to be disbanded, and given back to Palestine. ALL OF ISRAEL IS ILLEGAL,and has proved itself to be a criminal country.
Read this and remember, some here post direct from Mossad.
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2008/12/habitual-offender.html
"...
Most criminal law systems recognize the necessity of imprisoning violent continual recidivists on the basis that they are simply too dangerous to be left free to commit the crimes we know they will commit. Israel is, without any shadow of a doubt, an habitual offender. The world needs to be able to stop states which won't stop offending. We can't lock Israel up; we have to destroy it.
The only relatively humane way to destroy a modern nation state is to make it an outlaw, and institute 100% boycotts of it on all levels - no trade, no communications, no status in international law, no recognition of its citizens (after the bombing of a university in Gaza I never expect to hear complaints about the boycotting of Israeli academics). People will start to leave almost immediately - the world will face another Jewish refugee problem - and the entire country will be destroyed within a year. The Palestinians will then take back the land stolen from them. If Israel attempts to fight back madly - completely in character - the world will have to take collective military action to destroy it in the most humane way possible.
I say this with great reluctance, but the world really has no choice. Israel is like a psychopath, one who is 'escalating'. Each outrage is worse than the last, and the Gaza attacks may be the worst war crime yet. Self-defense means that Israel has to be named the world's first habitual offender, and forfeit its right to statehood."
-----------------------------------------------------
Professor of Propaganda...
The Lies of Alan Dershowitz
In a characteristic op-ed, titled "Arithmetic of Pain", that would surprise neither his supporters nor his critics, published by the Wall Street Journal on 19 July 2006, Alan Dershowitz sinks to new lows of depravity and inhumanity in his long-standing hate-mongering and truth-twisting anti-Arab, pro-Israel crusade.
One need not go beyond the first paragraph to be hit by a dose of Dershowitz's typically one-sided, see-no-evil/hear-no-evil attitude when he tackles Israel-related subjects and issues. This eternally unbalanced pro-Israel disposition on his part does Israel no good, for it shows him to be a fundamentalist who has no time for truth and facts. His extremism therefore diminishes greatly the value of any "support" he may providing to Israel.
Dershowitz's first sentence gives his game away: "There is no democracy in the world that should tolerate missiles being fired at its cities without taking every reasonable step to stop the attacks." Anyone remotely familiar with Dershowitz's writings would know that he considers only Israel to be a Middle-Eastern democracy. This erroneous view is shared and perpetrated by most of the corporate Western media, and a distressingly large percentage of the American public. However, Lebanon also, is a Middle-Eastern democracy, and an older one than Israel at that. And since Dershowitz's statements must apply to all democracies for them to have any useful validity, the Lebanese would be, should be, and are indeed equally justified when they decide to no longer "tolerate (Israeli) missiles fired at" their country.
Likewise, Palestine is another Middle-Eastern democracy, certified as such by no less than former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, whose authority on these matters, through his work at the Carter Center, which certifies dozens of international elections, is well established. Aren't Palestinians therefore equally justified in "taking every reasonable step to stop (Israeli) attacks against their cities"?
Alan Dershowitz, intelligent though he may be otherwise, is incapable of entertaining such logical thoughts. It is said that the mark of a civilized mind consists in its ability to entertain two opposing ideas simultaneously. When it comes to Israel, Dershowitz is incapable of entertaining two supporting ideas simultaneously, if such a consideration would make them equally valid for both Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Being a good propagandist, Dershowitz sets the stage early in favor of Israel by defining its actions, and its actions alone, a priori as "reasonable." Thus, you already know that the rest of his piece will be dedicated to reinforcing that assertion: only Israel is reasonable; the Palestinians and Lebanese never are.
Dershowitz writes therefore: "The big question raised by Israel's military actions in Lebanon is what is 'reasonable.' The answer, according to the laws of war, is that it is reasonable to attack military targets, so long as every effort is made to reduce civilian casualties. If the objectives cannot be achieved without some civilian casualties, these must be "proportional" to the civilian casualties that would be prevented by the military action."
Thus, Dershowitz implies that Israel's assault on Lebanon, which has killed close to 500 innocent civilians, compared with 18 Israeli civilians killed by Hizbollah's response, is not only "reasonable", but "proportional." This is a typical racist argument, which states that when you kill one of ours, and we kill 20 of yours, our action is by definition reasonable and proportional. In other words, racists do not assign equal value to the lives of "others" compared to theirs. The U.S., of course, is equally steeped in this racist mind-set, with many Americans continuing to perpetrate Jimmy Carter's assertion that there was "equal and mutual destruction" between American and Vietnam. The numbers involved speak to the racism and inhumanity that such a statement represents: Americans killed: 52,000; Vietnamese killed: over 2.5 million! "Equal and mutual" in Jimmy Carter's racist vocabulary become "Reasonable and Proportional" when Dershowitz applies the terms to Israel's actions.
One need not go beyond the third paragraph of his piece to confirm Alan Dershowitz for the propagandist and liar-on-behalf-of-Israel that he is, since he offers the reader an outright lie. He writes: " democratic nations (...) deliberately locate their military bases away from civilian population centers. Israel has its air force, nuclear facilities and large army bases in locations as remote as anything can be in that country." Therefore, he adds: "It is possible for an enemy to attack Israeli military targets without inflicting "collateral damage" on its civilian population." In reality, Israel does no such thing, i.e. all of its military installations, like ammunition factories for example, are not "located... as remotely as anything can be in the country." Some, as Jonathan Cook confirms in one of his recent articles entitled "Five Myths", are located quite close to the city where Cook lives.
Indeed, neither does the U.S. locate its military factories "as remotely as anything can be" from its population centers. However, stating that Israel locates its military installations away from civilian centers, enables Dershowitz to state that all attacks from the Arab side that result in civilian casualties are consequently --and by definition again--not reasonable, since the Arabs could have restricted their attacks to military facilities that are away from population centers. This sets the stage for Dershowitz and Israeli apologists to paint all Arab attacks against Israel as "terrorist" in nature. Furthermore, since these "cowardly Arabs" hide amongst the population, when "reasonable" Israel attacks them, it cannot avoid "collateral damage" no matter how disproportional its actions may be. At any rate, Dershowitz cannot even countenance that Israel could ever engage in unreasonable or disproportional actions.
The above is sufficient to cast at least a reasonable doubt on Dershowitz's assertions and statements that justify Israel's every crime, including the obvious and numerous war-crimes that it has been committing in Lebanon and in Palestine. By the way, dropping leaflets inviting populations to abandon their houses, villages, towns and region, before Israel bombs and razes these places to the ground, is not the sign of a "civilized" nation either, as the Dershowitzes of the world proclaim. Emptying a whole region of its inhabitants, as Israel is attempting to do in South Lebanon Lebanon, creating close to one million refugees (out of a total population of less than 4 million) is defined under international law and the Geneva Conventions as a "war crime." Another word for it is "Ethnic Cleansing," which was one of the charges for which Slobodan Milocevic was being prosecuted by the International Criminal Court before his untimely death, while the West, including the USA, cheered the court on.
Alan Dershowitz is one of the most prominent Arab haters, Islamophobes, and unconditional war-mongering cheer-leaders of Israel's criminal actions. On this basis alone, he cannot be described as a "true" friend of Israel. From their cushy offices and comfortable homes in the US, the Dershowitzes of the world will gladly and readily fight the Arabs to the last drop of Israeli blood. All the gains that these cynical apologists seem to have achieved for Israel, are short-term and ephemeral for a simple reason: they are not based on reason and humanity, but on racism and hate. Also, when Alan Dershowitz is faced with the need to discuss an issue that involves Israel, he first checks his logical and moral brains at the door, not to mention his heart. This brings to mind one of Albert Einstein's famous quips when he said there were only two things about which he was sure -- the infinity of the universe, and the infinity of human stupidity. Then he backtracked and said he couldn't be sure about the universe. He might as well have been speaking about Dershowitz's heart.
Israel has been committing unending and ever escalating violence against its Arab neighbors for decades. That the Arabs have always had to react, and that the Palestinian and Lebanese people have taken it into their hands to create an effective resistance to Israel's huge war machine, ought to surprise no one. Yes, I know: in popular mythology propagated by Israel's propaganda machine, it's always Israel that "responds" to the provocation of Arab "terrorists", and it's Israel that has had to fend off unprovoked Arab attacks against it. This cannot be further from the truth. But to see the truth you need the eyes of a humanist, not those of a racist or those of a self-serving usurper and military occupier of someone else's ancestral homeland.
American and Israeli propagandists never miss a chance to repeat that Arabs only understand the language of power. In reality, it's Israel --and America-- that only understands the language of violence. Israel's first reaction to any difficulty is to use extreme force and to cause death and destruction. Demonstrably, diplomacy is never its preferred modus operandi. Far from being "the continuation of diplomacy through other means", war is for Israel "the replacement of diplomacy by all means." Israel could have decided to live in peace with its neighbors, were it not for its expansionist, neocolonial policies in search of ever more "lebensraum." Now it wants to solve its problems by "eliminating" Hamas, Hizbollah, and preferably all Palestinians (there are direct quotes from Israeli ministers advocating the eradication of "all" Palestinians", children included, because "all are guilty.") In the past week, a large number of columnists writing in Israeli newspapers have called on Tsahal to level all villages in South Lebanon "on the heads of their inhabitants if necessary." As reported by the BBC, one if Israel's ministers, "Eli Yishai of the Shas party, said that after warnings had been given, 'we must not enter villages where Hezbollah terrorists are hiding before we have turned them into sand boxes."
The last time someone put in motion the process to bring about such a final solution, it was Jews who were at the receiving end of a terrible genocide. Now that Israelis have acquired enormous power, including more than 300 atomic war-heads, they have succumbed to hubris, forgetting that according to the rules of Greek Mythology, Hubris is inevitably and inexorably followed by Nemesis.
Finally, Dershowitz is one of the greatest practitioners of Orwellian double-speak: for him, "Occupation does not cause terrorism, but terrorism seems to cause occupation." To borrow the title of Norman Finkelstein's recent book, the man has truly moved "beyond chutzpah." And beyond the pale. This is one brazen and cynical up-ender of historical truth and of logical thought, for whom war is peace, and lie is truth. Such Orwellian misstatements are the truth-twisting arrows that fill Alan Dershowitz's immoral quiver. Those who applaud Dershowitz and cheer him on as he continues to spill his venomous dribble on both Arabs and reasonable Jews, would do well to wake up and turn their heads and minds away from such an out-and-out lying, war-mongering, Israel-hurting racist.
Violence is never the answer. Nor is racism. Nor is hate. Alan Dershowitz is a proponent of all three. Israelis and sympathetic Jews must finally realize that Dershowitz and other uncritical apologists of Israel are neither doing them nor the world any favors.
Quite the opposite is true.
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For Palestine, come hell or high priests...Demography will have the last word.
These are terrible days for those of us who long to see Israel finally accepted by its neighbors. At a time when all 22 Arab states have offered Israel peace and normalization in exchange for the '67 territories, this war could destroy that possibility once and for all... and the PNAC killers knew that all too well since 1995 and started planning in earnest since then, to destroy any possibility of peace for ever...and they are on their way to succeeding all too well everywhere in the world. WW3 is upon us already, and the headline is all too familiar: Militarizing the energy security of the western world, I.E. for the PNAC killers' world, and for them alone.
Yes, that does mean that I question Israel's right to respond to the rocket onslaught from Gaza. Of course, it has that right. Any country has the right, even the obligation, to respond militarily to thugs who rain down thousands of rockets on its people, leaving its children quaking in terror. The question is not whether Israel has the right, but whether exercising it this way is right, of course not, the disproportionality is astounding.
For Israel, the only right response is the one that will bring it closer to the security it will only have when it is accepted by its neighbors. Some argue that this attack on Hamas will indeed accomplish that. Eliminate the fanatics, they say, and Israel can make peace with the moderates.
But, Israel is incapable of even dealing with its own crazies. Under conditions infinitely more comfortable than those of Gaza, Israeli lunatics--settlers who attack children and burn down olive groves--have become significant political players. In Israel, it is impossible to form a government without the crazies. How can anyone imagine it possible to bomb Hamas into moderation?
Of course, it would be sufficient if this war could eliminate Hamas' ability to attack Israel. Even that is a long shot with few Israelis predicting this assault will accomplish that for long.
But one thing is certain--this war is unlikely to bring peace any closer. In fact, I believe that the pictures Arabs and Muslims worldwide are seeing of the attacks on Gaza may push that day so far into the future that none of us will see it.
The other day the Washington Post put a photo of the family of five young sisters killed in a single attack on its front page. Imagine how that played in the Arab world or in the world at large. Imagine how long it will take for the memory, the stain, of those five little girls to fade.
And, no, it's not relevant that Hamas kills children too or that it does it intentionally and Israel does it by accident. Hamas is a terror organization. The standard that applies to Hamas is not the one to apply to a civilized state, a member of the United Nations, and an ally of the United States and the West. Israel is not Libya, but the state created by Jewish idealists and humanists seeking not regional domination but a Jewish refuge. It is that refuge that is now compromised.
In the New York Times the other day, the conservative Israeli historian, Benny Morris, wrote that Israelis feel that "the walls--and history--are closing in on their 60-year-old state."
He specifically refers to Iran's nuclear program, the growing power of Hezbollah and Hamas, and the disaffection of Israeli Arabs.
"Public opinion in the West (and in democracies, governments can't be far behind) is gradually reducing its support for Israel as the West looks askance at the Jewish state's treatment of its Palestinian neighbors and wards. The Holocaust is increasingly becoming a faint and ineffectual memory and the Arab states are increasingly powerful and assertive," he writes.
Just a few years ago, Israel's situation was entirely different. It was close to achieving virtually universal acceptance.
Some of Israel's most vocal supporters want us to forget that. They cling to the idea that "the world has always hated Israel" (and the Jews), rejecting as irrelevant the idea that Palestinian statelessness is at the root of the problem.
They reject that fact because it suggests that Israel is in charge of its own destiny. It can determine where it stands in the eyes of the world, and especially the Arab world, by changing its relationship with the Palestinians.
How do I know that? Because it happened once before.
Following Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's decision to recognize both the PLO and the Palestinians' right to a state in the West Bank and Gaza, nine non-Arab Muslim states and 32 of the 43 Sub-Saharan African states established relations with Israel. India and China, the two largest markets in the world, opened trade relations. Jordan signed a peace treaty and several of the emirates began quiet dealings with Israel.
The Arab boycott ended. Foreign investment soared. Israel's isolation appeared to be over.
The most graphic demonstration of Israel's changed international standing occurred at Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in 1995, which rivaled President Kennedy's in terms of international representation.
Leaders from virtually every nation on earth came to pay homage to Rabin. From President Clinton and Prince Charles to President Hosni Mubarak, King Hussein, and the leaders of every country in Europe, most of Africa and Asia (including India and China), Latin America, Turkey, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Qatar, and Tunisia. Yasir Arafat wept at Leah Rabin's apartment in Tel Aviv...what a miserable creature.
Israel was foolish to allow this criminal assassin back in Palestine to start with. It was a sad day in history. Israel had seen all too well what this criminal thug and his band of killers had done to Lebanon over several decades, and should have known better ?
The world mourned Rabin because under him, Israel had embraced the cause of peace with the Palestinians. The homage to Rabin was a clear demonstration--as was the opening of trade and diplomatic relations with formerly hostile states--that Israel was not being isolated because it is a Jewish state, but because of its conflict with the Palestinians.
Once Rabin moved to end the conflict, he ended Israel's isolation as well. (If the problem was undying Jew-hatred, Rabin's opening to the Palestinians would not have affected Israel's standing).
We need to remember this as the hard-liners insist that anti-Israel sentiment is unconnected with anything Israel does. That is simply not true. Even Ariel Sharon, hated more than any Israeli by most Arabs and Muslims, saw his image transformed overnight when he moved to relinquish Gaza. He actually received an ovation at the United Nations, leaving the old man in shock.
But that was then, this is now. I agree with Morris who seems to believe that, at this rate, Israel's days may be numbered.
So the questions have to be asked. Does the Gaza war improve Israel's long-term (or even short-term) situation? Might it not have been better to induce Hamas to stop the shelling by ending the blockade Israel imposed back when Hamas won the Palestinian election?
Was it right to insist that Hamas accept Israel in advance of negotiations rather than simply push for a total and absolute cessation of violence and blockade, followed by negotiations? Could Israel realistically expect the cease-fire to hold while Gaza remained under siege, rife with hunger, illness, and joblessness? And freezing cold. (Even during the cease-fire, Israel was turning on Gaza's heat and electricity only a few hours a day).
Again, I am questioning Israel's right to respond. But that is the wrong question. The right question to ask is why it came to this. And to ask ourselves if supporting the continuation of this war--rather than an immediate cease-fire--will do Israel more harm than good...for in the long run, Palestinians will recover their homes in Palestine, come hell or high priests...Demography will have the last word.
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