Israel makes life very hard for Palestinians, says ICRC

ICRC is the International Committe of the Red Cross:

BBC reporting:

"Israeli restrictions make normal life "close to impossible" for many West Bank Palestinians, the International Committee of the Red Cross has said. Some Palestinians are often unable to reach a hospital or visit relatives, while 50% live in poverty, it said. They are also frequently harassed by Jewish settlers, the organisation said.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said the ICRC had ignored statements by the Palestinian Authority that West Bank residents lived a "normal life". Whilst the economy has shown some signs of growth, the ICRC statement said restrictions linked to Israeli settlements had deprived many Palestinian farmers of their land.

(snip)

Israeli settlers 'still building'

It said attacks and harassment by settlers prevented many farmers from cultivating their own land, and some 10,000 Palestinian olive trees had been cut down or burned in the past three years."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8519921.stm

and the world condoned it. It is time that reasonable, rational people speak out against it and take action.

What are you talking about?

It hardly started in 1967.

Remember the Samson story?

Would you describe the dynamic between Israelis and Palestinians during those six hundred years as similar to the current situation?

I do not associate the modern Zionist movement or the Israeli state established in 1948 with Biblical Israel. That would be granting it historical legitimacy that even many modern secular and religious Zionist do not accept. Besides modern scholarship and archeology shows us that many, probably most Biblical stories like most ancient mythology, are almost certainly not accurate records of history.

Some could certainly argue that the occupation of Palestinian land began in 1948 or even with the advent of the Zionist movement in the late 1800's. But one needs to deal with realities as they are and thus it would be best to accept the the international consensus which is enshrined in international law which recognizes all land occupied after June 4, 1967 as occupied territory.

That is too long, but is hardly 'hundreds of years'.

So many debunkable, empty-headed myths passed as facts!

The conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine stretches back to the early parts of the 20th century, when jewish population started increasing as Europe's jewry fled first Russian pogroms, then took advantage of the Balfour declaration, and then started escaping the Nazis. Every time a region undergoes heavy immigration, tension and often violence erupt - have a look at the American southwest, for a good example.

The current "official" fighting has its roots in the 1948 partition and war with the Arabs stats. Even that may be pushing it back rather far; it's definitely the root point, but the actual genesis of the "modern" conflict started in 1967.

This "centuries" crap is just that; crap. What's more, it's used as justification; and I've seen it used as such by both "sides." "Well, yeah, my saide did this, but it's been going on forever so it's nothing noteworthy!"

Pure, untreated sewage.

Who would have thought it? Settlers still building when there's a freeze in effect. Did anyone believe there was a freeze in the first place?

Looks as if the pacification of the Palestinians with "economic peace" is nothing more than a reiteration of Netanyahu's 1996 proclimation nixing Oslo:

"No land for peace; peace for peace."

Is that Orwellian or what? If anyone is taking Netanyahu seriously, he really should have his IQ tested.

Just what facts are out there to show that Israel's outrageous criminal and inhumane tactics are going to result in peace?

If you compare the frequency of terror attacks against Israeli citizens today to how things were 8-10 years ago, prior to the wall/fence/barrier being built, the difference is quite significant.

In 2001-2003, suicide bombings inside Israel resulted in several hundred innocent civilian deaths. That number has been dramatically reduced since the wall/fence/barrier was built.

that would have been their prerogative.

The current wall and relentless expansion of settlements and their infrastructure, confirmed by multiple human rights organizations is simply making a viable independent Palestinian state and economy all the less plausible and may very well make it physically impossible while making Palestinian life unbearable.

No amount of force and now walls and land grabs can forever out muscle the power of geography and demographics.





http://www.vtjp.org/background/wallgraphics.htm

Israel is definitely hoping to incorporate some of the West Bank settlements into Israel in a future agreement with the Palestinians - a one-to-one land swap seems not an unreasonable option.

As it stands now - the settlements and their infrastructure would still dissect the West Bank into multiple cantons and largely dissect East Jerusalem from the West Bank. A viable and independent state requires at least some continuity - that land swaps alone cannot possibly solve.

So, a certain amount of land swap would be rational. I agree that a land swap for some areas close to the green line in exchange for a Gaza corridor would probably be a good idea in the two-state solution. But independence and continuity would still require the removal of the vast majority of settlers - I cannot imagine achieving that any other way - under the two-state solution.


“ there is no Palestinian state, even though the Israelis speak of one.” Instead, he said, “there will be a settler state and a Palestinian built-up area, divided into three sectors, cut by fingers of Israeli settlement and connected only by narrow roads."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/world/middleeast/11road.html?_r=13&pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=22948d4799a34065&ex=1187496000&emc=eta1&oref



http://www.ft.com/cms/s/728a69d4-12b1-11dc-a475-000b5df10621,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F728a69d4-12b1-11dc-a475-000b5df10621.html%3Fnclick_check%3D1&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2Fdiscuss%2Fdu

I know you are fond of maps. Consider this one from the Geneva Initiative proposal:



There are additional maps on the site detailing elements of the proposal regarding Jerusalem, including the Old City.

and only relies only on a limited number of land swaps

It offers some very plausible arrangements. Unfortunately, the current Israeli government rules out any possibility of any such arrangement by rejecting any possibility of evacuating any settlers, ever and furthermore vows to continue settlement expansion without any future freezes.

But I agree that the Geneva Initiative is a reasonable basis on which to move forward.

I actually agree with John Kerry's Remarks at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha on February 13, 2010 regarding this matter:

The Israeli and Palestinian leadership have no interest in these proposals at this time unfortunately.

although something approaching it was underway at Taba in January of 2001 - until the elections put an end to the talks and Sharon had no interest in moving forward. The Olmert/Abbas talks may have been a step toward that direction. But without a genuinely contiguous arrangement on the West Bank and a settlement on East Jerusalem and any attempt to resolve the refugee issue - well that would not solve some of the most crucial issues and would not bring an end to the conflict.

Obviously, the current Isreaeli government's pledge to refuse to even consider removal of any settlements and a pledge to the settlers to continue expansion is tantamount to rejecting the two-state solution all together. Just as the Israeli government's refusal to deal with Jerusalem is tantamount to rejecting the two-state solution.

Between the defacto government of Hamas in Gaza, and the RW governing coaltion in Israel, the notion that some sort of reasonable agreement can be worked out via negotiations that would be acceptable to all concerned parties seems sadly quite remote.

- as you yourself have previously pointed out - not Hamas. I don't think anyone seriously doubts that the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah lead by the PLO would welcome a negotiated settlement based on the Geneva Initiative and the Arab Peace Plan of 2002.

They are obviously committed to the two-state solution. While the current Israeli government's commitment to permanent expansion of settlements, refusal to deal with Jerusalem and their pledge to never-ever evacuate any settlements - ever - all constitute a rejection of the two-state solution.

I mention the Arab Peace Plan, which Sen. John Kerry also mentioned as a basis of peace along with Clinton parameters because the Arab Peace Plan was endorsed by all 22 members of the Arab League and 57 members of Organization of Islamic Conference and was endorsed by the PLO. A Number of senior American and Israeli leaders have indicated that the Arab Peace Plan could serve as a basis for negotiations. The Arab Peace Plan which is still on the table and is ratified unanimously every year, represents a clear basis to not only resolve through negotiations the Israel/Palestine issues; it offers a basis to normalize relations between Israel and the Arab and Islamic world, end outside support for groups such as Hamas and bring this whole conflict to an end.

One wonders, however, if Hamas would deem such an agreement legitimate under the circumstances.

Do you think it is possible for the PA to to conduct negotiations with Israel on behalf of the Palestinian people before reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas?

Certainly a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah would help matters. I have a suspicion that their differences could be resolved if America and Israel would interfere on the matter less.

I believe that reaching an agreement with Syria - which as you know, no one less than Bill Clinton believes would take about 35 minutes, while reaching an agreement on the Palestinian issue especially resolving the issue of Jerusalem would throw such political weight behind the agreement, it would be very hard for Hamas to resist.

It is in many ways the issues of the Golan with Syria and the issues of Jerusalem with the Islamic world that internationalizes the conflict. Indications supported by comments made by former President Clinton and many others support the idea that Syria is so desperate to pull out of their own Soviet-era malaise and join the modern world that most of their support for the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah would come to an end with a peace agreement. However, a peace agreement would simply be unthinkable even to ordinary Syrians without the Golan. Indications are that the Syrians would have no problem with negotiating the establishment of the kind of early warning systems and demilitarized zones necessary to alleviate Israel's main security concerns. This would have the added benefit of reducing Iranian influence and bringing Syria at least somewhat significantly away from that sphere of influence. Without Syria acting as a "middle man" Iranian support for disruptive influences in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories could be significantly reduced. Also, if Syria opens its doors to Israel - and indications are that they would - including establishing mutual embassies, trade and normal relations - that also opens the doors for similar relationships with much of the rest of the Arab world -including the Gulf states. It's a little hard to explain why, but it would.

Of course resolving the issue of Jerusalem - and on that issue I most definitely think the Geneva Initiative offers the most plausible blue print I have ever seen - the single biggest point of belligerence between the State of Israel and the Islamic world is largely removed.

I personally think the whole approach of piecemeal peace making is misguided. A much bigger and broader peace deal which included an agreement with the Palestinians with borders similar to Taba/Geneva, a resolution on Jerusalem simalar to the Geneva Initiative proposals, a resolution on the Golan similar to what President Clinton discussed with President Assad, a resolution on refugees in accordance with the principles of Taba/Geneva should all be done simultaneously. When it is attempted peacemeal, one unresolved issue ignites the other.

A broad settlement might very well create enough of an avalanche of support and the benefits would be so immediately transparent that the whole damn thing might actually work and the whole damn conflict could actually be brought to a conclusion; once and for all. Inshallah

Sadly, I am not optimistic that the scenario you suggest is realistic given the current leadership in Israel and the Fatah/Hamas divide.

I am still quite rueful that Livni was not able to become PM, given the fact that her party actually won the most seats. For all her faults, I think there would be a lot more hope with her at the helm for such a resolution as there is with the current Israeli PM and his RW coalition partners.

I would also like to see new Palestinian elections which I believe would result in a significant dampening of the power currently held by Hamas, which is not an organization that is as committed to long term peace with Israel as some other Palestinian political parties.

"Yeah, I know I stole your car, but I'll give it back to you if you give me your new one!"

While the Palestinian/Israeli death ratio was 6:1 before the wall, today it is about 100:1. Palestinians are still dying, the occupation is still going on, the colonization of Palestinian lands continues.

Do you suppose the occupation/colonization has had anything to do with Israeli deaths? Do you have anyknowledge as to what instigated the suicide bombings during the second Intifada? Let me know.

Makes no sense to me.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Putting aside the fact that you cited that disturbing individual whose website (and I would assume its fans) is not welcome here, there is nothing in anything that you wrote that I can see leading a person to kill innocent people and themselves.

One would think that the last thing anyone who is aware of so much innocent suffering would want to do is kill other innocent people.

And just what makes you the arbitor of sources here or anywhere. Weir lectures college students about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is welcome everywhere. She is a journalist by profession and supports her statements with facts and statistical studies.

So I ask....

Quoting the mods:

IfAmericansKnew is not considered an acceptable source due to the revisionist treatment of the Holocaust which directly echoes that of several significant Holocaust Denial groups. Please do not use it here on DU

Perhaps you were unaware that Alison Weir is the executive director and founder of If Americans Knew.

It's point is to counter the censorship of IP news and bias in the US media.

But this is the first time I've heard of any revisionist theory of the Holocaust. Do you have a specific link?

http://www.adl.org/Israel/anti_israel/alison_weir/anti-Semitism.asp?m_flipmode=3

Weir has also cherry-picked and quoted from known antisemites like Gilad Atzmon and Israel Shahak.

Congrats - in another time you'd have probably fallen for Hitler's anti-jewish zionist rhetoric.

Foxman primary theme these days is, "criticism of Israel only increases anti-Semitism. Stop it." His is a variation on the criticism-of-Israel-is-antiSemitic meme, pushed by all defenders of Israel in its quest to colonize the remaining Palestinian territories, quietly. If you look hard, you will find that Foxman has no category of articles for the Palestinians. He seems to subsume them under the category of "terrorists."

The ADL was once a venerable organization, a fighter of anti-Semitism, but now it has taken to quash negative publicity about Israel. It is a pro-Israel site, foremostly today, and most of Foxman's public appearance stress that theme.

As for Gilad Atzmon, he is an avowed anti-Zionist, as are other Jews, but that he has taken to write about it makes him an anti-Semite, a target. Well there are other anti-Zionists on the internet, one who blogs on Daily Kos named jon the anti-zionist Jew. Yet I have never heard of him being labeled an anti-Semite, in spite of his strong pro-Palestinian bent and illustrated diaries.

As for Foxman's take down of Alison Weir, it is his same old favorite theme, criticism of Israel provokes anti-Semitism, nothing more. If there is anything of substance in his article, please draw it to my attention.

Good lord!

From Gilad Atzmon's website:

http://gilad.co.uk/html%20files/onanti.html

I would encourage anyone who wants to learn more about that individual to read his own writings and draw their own conclusions.

Atzmon would have to write out "kike" or "jew filth" to earn the title of antisemite.

that makes Atzmon who is Jewish an anti-Semite. He is obviously an avowed anti-Zionist, but that is well known.

Are you claiming that everyone who is anti-Zionist is anti-Semitic?

You, and quite a few others like you, however, have boiled the ADL down to one person; Abe Foxman. He is not the ADL. Your post also shows your lack of knowledge about the works of the ADL, which has been very involved in a variety of civil rights moves and bills having nothing to do with anti-Semitism. It sponsors a number of programs that deal with all forms of diversity and the ADL is often one of the only groups seen to attach itself and work for the rights of other supposedly outside of their scope (in this case, Jews). And while Foxman is very much in the pro-Israel camp, he has not "brought the ADL from its prime purpose to defending Israel right or wrong." That is a deception of your own making.

deeply involved in Palestinian solidarity work who have a lot of experience and they do not hold a favorable view toward her and her organization at all.

Still I honestly don't understand why "If Americans Knew" is not allowed but an anti-peace extremist group like CAMERA is.

And I'm also perplexed as to why 'If Americans Knew' isn't permitted to be used as a source, but Campus Watch and Arutz Sheva can be.

My impression is that she was railroaded because she is a strong advocate of Palestinian freedom and self-determination, i.e., a Palestinian state. Someone said she was a Holocaust denier or revisionist, but beyond quoting the Norman Finkelstein theme, the Holocaust Industry, to justify occupation and colonialism of the Palestinian territories, I'm not seeing anyone support this allegation. Otherwise, her site is loaded with data which she uses to support her arguments, and maybe that's the problem.

are very a strong advocates for Palestinian freedom and self-determination and in their case supporters of the single-state solution - which is generally viewed as a less socially acceptable and more radical position than simple advocacy for a Palestinian state. There are other sources used by distinctly pro-Palestinian groups who also assemble great volumes of data and information.

My guess is that Alison Weir and “If Only Americans Knew,” may use some incautious language at times and may be thought to have some unacceptable or highly questionable associations.

But if incautious language and unacceptable or highly questionable associations are the standard, then I still certainly cannot understand why extremist like Daniel Pipes and extremist sites like CAMERA, Israel National News and Arutz Sheva are permitted,

As for IAK, I still have not seen any specifics about Weir's alleged infractions, and as she is a journalist who does her homework, I don't expect that any will be found. Perhaps it is her thoroughness that is at fault. Incautious language is also a vague basis for censorship. Isn't it possible to quote her language without quoting her site?

It's a catch-22. Some people seem to be saying, I could show you but the site does not permit it.

"Holocaust" brought up this page:

%3BLC%3A%23006666%3BLH%3A60%3BAH%3Aleft%3BVLC%3A%23660066%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.ifamericansknew.org%3BAWFID%3A5eaf61f71add48d9%3B&sitesearch=www.ifamericansknew.org&domains=www.ifamericansknew.org

All I can see is material about the use of the Holocaust to justify Israel's occupation/colonization, the main theme in Norman Finkelstein's work. That's old stuff and it fits with Weir's rap against Israeli propaganda cover of the occupation.

A specific link would be helpful, as I have never heard of her being accusing of being a Holocaust denier. She does talk about Nakba denial, but that the opposite revisionist theory of Israel's creation.

Again, quoting another DU moderator:

Website whose use of inflammatory language, broad-brushed statements, and purposeful mischaracterizations and omissions especially when dealing with subjects like religion, bigotry and the holocaust make this site unreliably biased.

Please do not use or cite.

Lithos
DU Moderator

In reference to:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x137157#137184

There is no question that proIsrael sites, even the ADL, have tried to defame Alison Weir. There is no question that she is a strong advocate for the Palestinians, but these kind of things,

inflammatory language
broad-brushed statements
purposeful mischaracterizations
omissions

I don't see, and no one is putting up any facts to counter her characterization of the IP conflict, or the proIsrael propaganda she riles against.

Frankly I think it is just a hatchet job on Weir in the attempt to shut her up. For example, you claimed she was a Holocaust revisionist or denier, but you yourself could not find any support for such an accusation. It is false, actually. I just read an ADL article on her where there is nothing mentioned pertaining to the Holocaust, but there are a lot of other claims, which really fall in line with the ADL's new role in defending Israel, whatever it does.

The site moderators needed to do some research rather than just accepting the proIsrael hatchet job that was done on her.

In the meantime, I will avoid quoting her and her site, lest more unsubstantiated defamation occurs. Put up facts and then we can talk.

If you'd like to learn more about why the site is not welcome here, I would suggest that you send a PM to the moderators.

Can you please come up with it?

I've mentioned several times that the site is not welcome here and provided the reasons the moderators have given for that. If you'd like to know the "data" that the moderators used to reach their conclusions, you can ask them. The only claims I've made about Alison Weir are that she is the founder of that site, that the site isn't welcome here, and that the reason given by the moderators as to why the site isn't welcome here is related to holocaust revisionism.

So you just believe anything you are told?

May I suggest that there isn't any data and that you are just jumping onto a false accusation that Weir is somehow anti-Semitic because she criticizes Israel. You're a true believer.

That's such an old worn out excuse for criticism for Israel's killing of Palestinians, even children. See my post here: "Another Palestinian child bites the dust."

I don't think people are anti-semitic for criticizing Israel.

I also never said anything about Alison Weir being anti-semitic.

I have no idea what you mean by "true believer"

Israel should be roundly criticized for their conduct in the Gaza invasion, for their continued seige against Gaza, and for their refusal to withdraw settlements (and in fact their continuing expansion of them on a regular basis)

The current Netanyahu-led RW government of Israel is on par with the recent Bush-led RW government here in the US.

There is nothing I would rather see more than he and his partners voted out of office and replaced by a coalition that is genuinely interested in pursuing a peaceful resolution to the conflict, beginning with the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Can you direct me to a critical article about Weir's writings or views that would support her censorship. That would not entail quoting her site, presumably. And please if it is just someone's opinion on this blog or a anti-Palestinian hate site just forget it.

...convince you that Alison Weir is too.

Weir quotes from both Atzmon and Israel Shahak (Jews worship the devil, etc.). Therefore, she's either an ignoramous who can't identify antisemitism and her work is shit, or she knows better and her work belongs on David Duke's site.

Either way, her work is shit.

======

FYI,
Here's Colonel Travers from the Goldstone Mission...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x300594#300640

That's blatant bigotry, but since Travers contributed so much to the Report, I'm sure you'll claim you don't recognize it as it such because that would call the credibility of the Report into question and you can't have that, meaning that Goldstone's Report is as worthless as any report drafted by David Horowitz and Dan Pipes. For some odd reason, you're able to identify anti-Arab or anti-Muslim bigotry, but no so much antisemitism. :eyes:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Weir's mischaracterization and assassination notwithstanding. It isn't my site, even though I have personal issues with anti-liberal censorship, especially when we have had so much of it by the press in this country as Weir's stats attest. Thankfully, left wing blogs like Huffington Post, Daily Kos, and Salon, which are considered anti-Israel blogs by official Israel information agencies, permit free discussion of the IP conflict, in fact, on both sides. The problem is that the facts are just not slanted in Israel's favor unless you consider a military occupation and colonialism of another people's lands pretty.

It is one thing to defame someone for their views, but under normal circumstances, those views are usually public and available for others to read. Now you must have gotten your information from some source. Can you provide it? I know that Weir has been pilloried on many right wing sites, but mostly it has been part of a criticism-of-Israel-is-anti-Semitic take down still heard around the internet, even here.

The information regarding the website and its links to Holocaust revision were made by the moderators of the site. My only argument is that the site is unwelcome here, and I shared with you the reasons that the moderators have provided. If you want to learn more about where they got their info, you would have to contact them directly.

Please don't do what Oberliner's requested and share publicly anything said by the mods to you. It could lead to you getting banned as I've seen other DUers get banned for doing that. Oberliner should know better than to have asked you to do it...

Sorry about that - the poster ought to keep whatever info is shared by the mods in a PM to themselves.

I just hope that poster gets the data he/she is looking for.

I kind of doubt the mods would show someone the door if it was an unintentional thing, but that's probably not worth anyone testing out.

For the record, I don't think either Alison Weir or Daniel Pipes should be permitted as sources at DU ...

Glad I came back to join in on all the excitement!

And just to clarify, my point was not that Pipes and Weir ought to both be banned from DU, but rather that a bio listing a bunch of reasonable places where a person has written or spoken does not necessarily make the speaker/writer a reasonable person.

Welcome back, btw....

Yeah, I remember a few months ago when a DUer who doesn't frequent the I/P forum popped up in one of the big forums giving me the Daniel Pipes bio from Wiki as proof of what a trustworthy and credible source he was....

I hadn't thought of it till this thread, but I do think that if If Americans Knew is banned from DU, then using Pipes and Arutz Sheva as sources should be as well. And I'd rather not have either bunch making this forum even sillier than it already is, so I'd be all for some equality in having them both banned as sources...

They perhaps erroneously believe that it is some sort of official Israeli news agency and not the RW-settler website that we know it to be.

But, hey, Fox News is used as a source in the main forums not infrequently, so who knows what the deal is.

One of them did give me a clue as to why some posts were deleted, a simple point about not introducing posts with remarks. It was in the rules but I failed to appreciate how strict the point was taken.

And thanks for your caution. This ain't like other left wing sites I blog on.

The subject of Alison Weir came up very recently on a forum I run. I'm not very keen on her embrace of some very questionable things on her site, but someone who I like and respect disagreed with me about my opinion of her. Both you and Oberliner are more than welcome to join up and join in the discussion about If Americans Knew if you want to.

http://www.israelpalestineforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=748

although the time available to me to take in another site is limited. Too bad that there is censorship here at all because bias inevitably surfaces. I'd like to post some photos and videos which show how life is actually like on the ground over there, but they are not permitted. Too bad because the saying one picture is worth a thousand words holds true in the Palestinian territories.

I find it hard to believe that in our democracy one is not able to openly discuss censorship. There are left wing values that should never be abrogated, no matter what the reason for it. We talk about it, debate, and come to understandings. But with this issue, it has almost reached the proportions of McCarthyism and blacklisting.

"Weir speaks widely throughout the country. Since early in 2001 she has provided more than 200 presentations, including two briefings on Capitol Hill, speeches at the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine (one of which was broadcast nationally on C-Span) and at such universities and colleges as Harvard Law School, Columbia, Stanford, UC Berkeley, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Vassar, the Naval Postgraduate Institute, and others. She has spoken at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, numerous Rotary Clubs, churches, libraries, and other civic and community venues.

In addition, she has been invited to give papers at international conferences, including lectures at the Asia Media Summit in Kuala Lumpur for three straight years. A top level British attendee termed her speech "the most brilliant of the entire conference."

If Americans Knew has completed seven in-depth statistical studies of US media coverage of Israel-Palestine, releasing reports on the New York Times, the Associated Press, the major primetime news broadcasts, and various other news media, research that is increasingly cited by analysts on Israel-Palestine."

Weir's problem is that she has been an effective critic of Israeli occupation and colonialism, hence the target of right wing Zionist orgs in the US. They want her shut down, and consequently call her an anti-Semite and claim all sorts of false things about her including that she is a Holocaust denier or whatever it is. None of it is substantiated. She has told the truth about censorship in the US media, and her facts on the IP conflict are correct.

He received his A.B. (1971) and Ph.D. (1978) from Harvard University, both in history, and spent six years studying abroad, including three years in Egypt. Mr. Pipes speaks French, and reads Arabic and German. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Harvard University, the U.S. Naval War College, and Pepperdine University. He served in various capacities in the U.S. government, including two presidentially-appointed positions, vice chairman of the Fulbright Board of Foreign Scholarships and board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace. He was director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in 1986-93.

Mr. Pipes frequently discusses current issues on television, appearing on such U.S. programs as ABC World News, Crossfire, Good Morning America, News-Hour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, O'Reilly Factor, and The Today Show. He has appeared on leading television networks around the globe, including the BBC and Al-Jazeera, and has lectured in twenty-five countries. He has publicly debated such figures as Noam Chomsky and Ken Livingstone.

Mr. Pipes has published in such magazines as the Atlantic Monthly, Commentary, Foreign Affairs, Harper's, National Review, New Republic, Time, and The Weekly Standard. More than a hundred American newspapers have carried his articles, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. His writings have been translated into thirty-three languages and have appeared in such newspapers as ABC, Corriere della Sera, The Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro, La Razón, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Die Welt.

<end of excerpt>

Doesn't mean that he isn't a far-right neocon whose perspectives are decidedly unwelcome here.

Can't agree more.

If we know anything about Pipes, then we know he's a virulent right wing proZionist advocate who is deep into censorship, of all places, on American college campuses, through his site, Campus Watch.

No. I am not going to link to it, because it is a violation of site rules to quote liars and propagandists like Pipes. Any critic of Israel is a target of his censorship threats. He is actually known to have put American college professors on a blacklist if they teach about Israeli-Palestinian history, and has threatened them, if they did not present the course curriculum to him personally for his approval, they would remain blacklisted. I am not kidding here. Anyone who criticizes Israel is an anti-Semite, in his eyes.

So quoting Campus Watch or Pipes' site is a definite violation of DU rules.

But again I agree that this guy is a tyranical fluke.

Neither of them ought to be quoted on a left wing site.

The moderators of DU appear to agree with that sentiment while, for some reason, you do not.

Are you certain that he is censored here at DU? I will try to look that up, but if you have a direct link to a censure, I'd be please to read it.

Seems a good illustration of how unwelcome the ideas of Daniel Pipes are at this site.

My argument is not that Pipes is specifically banned, but rather taking the bio of someone to try to prove that they are reasonable people does not always work, as is evidenced by the bio of Daniel Pipes.

Are you certain that Pipes or his site is censored here at DU?

stick around another week and you'll probably see Shira quote him. He gets quoted on this forum regularly by the usual suspects.

Just had a post deleted because Alison Weir provided the data. The data were factual and actually quoted other legitimate sources. I have seen accusations against Weir but no one has yet to provide data beyond the fact that she is a critic of Israeli occupation and colonialism.

I can only suggest that she has been too good at spreading the word, while others have been convincing enough just through ad hominum attacks to get her censored. Other hypotheses are welcome.

Posts that link to articles from Daniel Pipes are most definately not deleted, whereas a post linking to 'If Americans Knew' will be deleted. And an even more extreme example imo is the fact that we're allowed to use Arutz Sheva, which is an extremist and bigoted RW site.

If we post a link to something written by him, it's not going to get deleted, and there are those here in this forum who support and defend his views...

I'm not doing it for you...

:rofl:

You mean like the 'fact' you tried pushing here that Olmert offered bantustans in 2008 to Abbas?

Just publishing a map doesn't mean you're pushing something. Maps speak for themselves and for their sources, likewise. Perhaps you didn't want to see them.

Did you have some problems with the sources of the mappings of Olmert's proposals, or the maps themselves? I'm certain that anyone interested would like to hear your criticisms.

If you went ahead and looked at all six maps, then I don't think you are able to deny that Israel has never offered the Palestinians an independent state that was not just an Apartheid configuration of bantustans, lacking East Jerusalem and sovereign borders.

Ehud Olmert I

This is a map prepared by the BBC in 2006, showing the borders that Ehud Olmert was imposing at that time on the Palestinians through the construction of the Wall and the exclusion of Palestinians from the Jordan Valley, and by annexing Greater Jerusalem and confining the Palestinians to a northern (Nablus/Jenin/Ramallah) bantustan and a southern (Hebron) bantustan, plus Jericho.


Ehud Olmert II

This is a map prepared by the UN in 2007, showing Olmert's second offer, which is essentially a replication of the first one, above.

Apparently, it is the BBC and the UN who are enlightening about just what these offers were: Apartheid solutions. So I'm not pushing anything, but the BBC and the UN are.

Based on this article, for example in which Abbas (not Olmert) admits it was 100%...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1136351.html

The map...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasite/images/iht_daily/D171209/olmertmap.pdf

Your maps are from 2007 or before.

So are you still thinking you got the facts straight? :)

Why do you think you got it so wrong WRT Olmert's offer to Abbas in 2008? Is it ignorance or willful omission? Are you going to continue to post that crap about Olmert's "bantustans" after being corrected here? And if so, why? What should we think of you if you decide to keep pushing such false and inciteful propaganda?

At the bottom of the map, this was astericked: "*according to sources who received detailed reports from Olmert's talks with Abbas."

One has to ask why this report was not published until a year after the Gaza offensive and long after the Israeli election. Also it is noted that Arab East Jerusalem is missing from the map. And there is no statement pertaining to right of return. Also, as with many Israeli maps, the land mass taken by the settlements is diminished from the 40% plus that Israel now controls of the West Bank. And there is no statement pertaining to the slew of other settlements beyond the larger ones.

But then again,

"Abbas said a meeting had been scheduled to take place between negotiators Shalom Turgeman and Saeb Erekat, but that the start of Israel's offensive in Gaza effectively ended negotiations."

Olmert, as well as Livni and Barak were in on the decision to attack Gaza (and perhaps earlier, to break the ceasefire). If Olmert could have pushed this plan through the Knesset, it would have been more convincing that it was an official government stance. After the 2000 Camp David meetings, where we heard about the so-called "generous offer" that never was, Barak explained that not even his own party, Labor, would have voted to "disengage" (Sharon's term for withdrawal) a single settlement (Charlie Rose Show, Jan 25, 2005). It was a hoax. So for this map to be published a year later is fine and dandy. But that it could ever have become a reality, is another thing. I have no idea how Olmert expected to evacuate the Jordan Valley, and the other smaller settlements filled with religious settlers. He could gesture to give Eretz Israel away as an individual, but that it was state policy is another matter. The earlier maps are more compatible with prior conceptions, even Sharon belief that bantustans will do for the Palestinians. His disengagement idea, a Kadima one, could only lead to Apartheid.

Still, in spite of the map's source, thanks for posting it.

You were wrong about the "bantustan offer", weren't you?

So I was not wrong.

The third map if it did provide 100 percent of the remaining 22% of original Palestine is correct, then that map does not result in an Apartheid configuration, providing of course that the Palestinians were to retain control of their own borders. I can just see Olmert in a meeting with Abbas saying, okay we'll give it all to you.

Of course, the Palestinians never rejected it either. Even though East Jerusalem was not included, a sticking point for Arafat and one no doubt for Abbas, if it ever came to discussion. This appeared to be a late development just before the Israeli election, and before the Gaza invasion, and during Olmert's indictment for whatever it was.

You may also recall that at the time Olmert was warning the knesset and/or the public that Israel was moving toward Apartheid.

And Apartheid is where it is going today under Netanyahu, the "economic peace" nonsense notwithstanding. During Sharon's reign and then Olmert's, settlement building and the movement of settlers onto the West Bank continued. It is for this reason I am skeptical of Olmert's intention in saying to Abbas, okay you can have it all. He was a loser leaving office with nothing to lose. Livni was the new Kadima candidate, even though no one expected her to be any different than Sharon.

You'll just continue to present your 2007 maps as if nothing better were offered?

However, Olmert's proposal was just like Bush's last minute proposal, too little too late. The Palestinians were predictable about East Jerusalem, and Olmert knew that his proposal would be rejected in the end. But then again, it all sounded like a grandiose gesture on Olmert's part, just prior to the elections he would not be part of, given his indictment.

It is easy to give away the store when you don't own it.

...and you'll just keep presenting your maps showing that all Olmert offered was nothing better than bantustans?

I got a message saying that the user doesn't wish to receive PMs. Have you meant to set it up like that? If so, that's fine, but I was just going to give you a bit of a heads up on something that's best kept to PM and not be posted publicly in this forum :)

And yes, I know that, although DU proports to be a left wing blog, in this area there are obvious biases built into the rules. I once left DU for that reason. In the meantime, I am back, I have read the rules, and I understand them. Does it make a difference? I suppose we will find out.

In truth, proIsrael critics seem more concerned with what they perceive as a proPalestinian bias on major blogs, like Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and Salon, and have stated so (n/t). These blogs have over 750K visitors daily, and so have a wider voice. Silence is not a option for them. Smaller blogs like DU are really not of concern to forces of censorship. Likewise, being banned from DU will have little effect on spreading the message about Palestinian freedom and self-determination. We are just part of the amorphous left wing in the USA otherwise, and not more. If we were to see IP on the DU frontpage, on the other hand, it might be different. But I don't see a DU sitemeter, so it is hard to know what effect that might have.

As a more "major player" on the left, how well do you think Daily Kos represents those positions?

In the IP area, Daily Kos is not biased, and the same applies to Huffington Post, as writings representing both sides are permitted. But that is just the point, and both of these sites are seen as anti-Israel just because they expose the conflict. And both, along with Salon, have been cited by Israeli PR sources for this reason. Small blogs like DU are apparently less a concern, especially since DU sections off IP, and as far as I can tell, does not display IP news on its frontpage.

The saying that you can put lipstick on a pig, but a pig is still a pig, seems to apply here. It is just not possible for Israel to continue its occupation of the Palestinians, while it steals, i.e., colonizes, their lands and expect that it all makes for a pretty picture. And the continual killings of Palestinians, civilians and children, in particular, that go on speaks for itself. Aside of the massacres in Gaza in 2006 and 2008, every year hundreds of Palestinians were being killed, many through targeted assassinations. How does one hide these atrocities?

In my opinion, Israel prefers censorship on the blogs, just as exists in the mainstream media. That is to say, it prefers silence, since most IP news coming out is ipso facto critical of Israel.

Please don't ask me what I think about DU, in this regard.

I just posted this diary on others left wing sites (it would not be allowed here by the rules).

The Israel Hasbara Committee and the New York Times

The only subtitle appropriate for this diary is Dick Cheney's version of the hackneyed saying: “You can put all the lipstick you want on a pig. But at the end of the day, it's still a pig.” Maybe he was talking about his boss at the time. Who knows. But the saying is also well suited to the Israel Hasbara Committee, in this portrayal by Phillip Weiss of Mondoweiss.

The Israel Hasbara Committee claims it is concerned with disseminating truth about Israel and the Jewish people. Hasbara in Hebrew means, in the neutral sense, information, but in the hard sense, it refers to propaganda and when Israel is the issue these days, it most certainly refers to the hard view, propaganda.

Source: <a href="http://www.infoisrael.net/authors.html"><b>

Phillip Weiss discovered a few things about this propaganda group, and the New York Times Jerusalem bureau.

Let the good times roll: NYT’s Kershner and Bronner are listed as authors by ‘Israel Hasbara Committee’

Jeff Blankfort and Phil Weiss
February 23, 2010

"Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner, the two Jerusalem correspondents for the New York Times, are named on a long list of authors for the "Israel Hasbara Committee." David Frum, Krauthammer, Caroline Glick, David Horovitz, David Horowitz and Bob Dylan are also on the list. Mostly rightwingers. Dennis Prager, Efraim Karsh. Ed Lasky. The hits go on and on.

Kershner is an Israeli. She and Bronner are married to Israelis. Bronner’s son is in the Israeli army. Funny that some organizations would say they put out hasbara!

The committee says it’s a voluntary organization, established in 2001, and that it’s dedicated to "disseminating truth about Israel and the Jewish people." Its credo:

THE ISRAEL HASBARA COMMITTEE is an entirely independent media voice that brings you new and highly relevant news, opinions, issues and information every day, five days a week, which relates in some way to the defense of Israel and her image. The Israel Hasbara Committee continues to be the source of many original insights, comments and ideas. www.infoisrael.net is the leading website of its kind in the world."

Source: http://mondoweiss.net/2010/02/let-the-good-times-roll-nyts-kershner-and-bronner-are-listed-as-authors-by-israel-hasbara-committee.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feedburner%2FWDBc+%28Mondoweiss%29

Looking over this list of available contributors, other famous members of the Israel Hasbara Committee include Alan Dershowitz, David Horowitz, who runs the infamous Islamophobic site, FrontPage Magazine, Charles Krauthammer, David Frum, Henry Kissinger, as well as propaganda organizations like CAMERA, and even newspapers themselves like the New York Times and the Washington Post. The list is unending, but it is notable for the absence of left wing or liberal news sources, and of course, peace activists and/or their organizations. It's a right wing effort to bring a slew of proIsrael newsmakers under Israel's hasbara wing.

Still, you can put lipstick on a pig, but a pig is still a pig. And for all of these well known sources of information about Israel, it is unlikely that you will ever hear the terms, occupation or colonialism, in relation to the Palestinians, ever uttered.

So I was not wrong about Olmert's earlier offers (maps provided).

The third map if it did provide 100 percent of the remaining 22% of original Palestine is correct, then that map does not result in an Apartheid configuration, providing of course that the Palestinians were to retain control of their own borders. I can just see Olmert in a meeting with Abbas saying, okay we'll give it all to you.

Of course, the Palestinians never rejected it either. Even though East Jerusalem was not included, a sticking point for Arafat and one no doubt for Abbas, if it ever came to discussion. This appeared to be a late development just before the Israeli election, and before the Gaza invasion, and during Olmert's indictment for whatever it was.

You may also recall that at the time Olmert was warning the knesset and/or the public that Israel was moving toward Apartheid.

And Apartheid is where it is going today under Netanyahu, the "economic peace" nonsense notwithstanding. During Sharon's reign and then Olmert's, settlement building and the movement of settlers onto the West Bank continued. It is for this reason I am skeptical of Olmert's intention in saying to Abbas, okay you can have it all. He was a loser leaving office with nothing to lose. Livni was the new Kadima candidate, even though no one expected her to be any different than Sharon.

It's disingenuous of you to refer to the other maps since the map you were shown was the LATEST offer to Abbas.

We can move on to Jerusalem and refugees but first you need to admit you were wrong either out of ignorance or malice. So which is it?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Here's Erekat...


http://www.newsweek.com/id/201937/page/2

And more Erekat...


http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3241.htm

So Jerusalem was discussed as being split with E.Jerusalem as capital of Palestine, just as Olmert stated here...
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/ehud-olmert-still-dreams-of-peace/story-e6frg76f-1225804745744

Thus, you're wrong once again, pretending as though the Israeli position (or Olmert's) was totally unreasonable.

Lastly, here's Erekat talking about one of the MAIN reasons for rejecting Olmert's offer...

http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/3241.htm

One of the main reasons for rejection is what Shlomo ben Ami brought up a decade ago and what Erekat is now confirming. Mainly that Arafat and Abbas want ALL of E.Jerusalem including the Wailing Wall and they will NOT grant that Jews have any legitimate connection to the holy sites there.

Were you totally ignorant of all this or did you know but figure that by lying by omission, no one else really needs to know about this information?

while on the way out of power in a few months, and under indictment for corruption or something like that which prevented him from running again?

And you are saying that if it were a real offer, which I doubt, the Palestinian would have accepted it. That's nice. What happened? Netanyahu won the election, and everything continued as usual, i.e., the occupation and colonization that had been continuing since 1967 and during Olmert's reign as PM. Well, if Olmert were serious, why didn't he stop the colonization? And did the next PM take up his offer? We have been listening to this bullshit about a Palestinian state from the Israeli side for decades, but nothing changes.

Yet I agree with all of this. Olmert on the other hand knew that he would not be able to sell any of it to the right wing Knesset, just as Barak would not have been able to sell the generour offer to the Knesset, even his own party.

Did you bother to look up Barak's confession about Camp David? (Charlie Rose Show, Jan 25, 2005) I guess not.

But enough of this. This is my last post on the matter. Israel is on track to attain the Eretz Israel dream, which has been under the table since at least Menachum Begin's reign.

like the fact that Olmert's successor Netanyahu had already said he not honor any deals Olmert made with the Palestinians?
Netanyahu: I won't carry out an Olmert-Abbas peace deal if elected

Opposition leader favored by polls to sweep elections if held today rejects proposal to divide Jerusalem, says would toss out agreement between current PM, Palestinians

Opposition Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu has said if he is elected prime minister, he won't carry out any peace deal with the Palestinians reached by the current Israeli leader, Ehud Olmert, the Makor Rishon daily reported on Thursday.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3533242,00.ht...

as to other agreements

Netanyahu: I'm not bound by Olmert pledges, won't evacuate settlements

Likud Party Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said he would not be bound by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's commitments to evacuate West Bank settlements and withdraw from the territories.

"I will not keep Olmert's commitments to withdraw and I won't evacuate settlements. Those understandings are invalid and unimportant," Netanyahu said.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1060126.html

and it also seems Olmert had over stepped his bounds in the deal

Shaul Arieli of the Council for Peace and Security, which developed a map with a final border as part of the Geneva Initiative, said Israel's capacity to swap territory with a future Palestinian state is more limited than what Olmert reportedly proposed.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1135699.html

The fact is Abbas and his gang aren't interested in a 2-state solution that includes a durable, lasting peace with Israel. He wants every inch of E.Jerusalem, including the Wailing Wall (which Israel could never give back). He also wants full RoR, which means one state of Palestine and another state with a Palestinian majority due to the refugees flooding Israel.

And you're an apologist for that maximalist position.

Why is that?

No Israeli PM ever put a halt to the colonization except for Rabin, which lasted a few months. Behind the scenes in the past, the colonialism continued unabated while so-called peace talks were proceeding. Today, it is out in the open, and Netanyahu doesn't mind bragging that this pseudo-freeze is temporary and the colonialism will resume in several months in full force, or so he promised the settlers.

People are just tired of the bullshit from Israeli PMs, and Olmert's offer in the past few months of his reign was obviously doomed to fail. The Knesset would never have approved it, just as the Knesset would never have approved the "generous offer" in 2000, something Barak was at least honest enough to admit. Camp David was a farce, a show put on for the sake of Bill Clinton, who was also bright enough to know he was just going through the motions (listen to Barak on the Charlie Rose Show, jan 25, 2005).

If Israel were interest in peace, in the two state solution, it would halt the colonization immediately and negotiate. But it will not, I'm afraid. As Netanyahu said in 1996, via The Clean Break document: no land for peace; peace for peace, and that is just what he is offering the Palestinians today, only he is calling it, "economic peace." No state.

And so the sullshit continues, until the next phase, which is Apartheid. By that time it will be Israel plus the US against the entire world, just as happened during South African Apartheid. Then it will be One State, and everyone regardless of race or religion or ethnicity will be equal, right?

The obvious cannot be argued. It is evident.

...the international pressure would have been enormous on Israel to follow through (which they would).

Doesn't matter anyway, as the PA wants all of E.Jerusalem including the Wailing Wall and full RoR, 2 conditions that can never be met by any Israeli leader.

that your argument is ridiculous as the Olmerts offer was meaningless, but thank you for being honest as to just how intractable Israel's position on Jerusalem is

No! Nor has any PM ever stopped it except for Rabin for a few months before he was assassinated. Nothing changed and the colonization resumed, under another PM who took his place. Anyone know who that was? Don't be surprised when you find out.

Olmert was no fool and, like Barak several years earlier, made an offer he knew the Palestinians could not accept. There are over 200,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, and most if not all of them have refused Israeli citizenship when Israel illegally annexed that portion of Jerusalem. It was and still remains occupied territory.

it was a dead meaningless offer period made by a PM who was on his way out and that his successor said he would not honor but at least you admit this was not a negotiation it was a Mafia Don's demand take it or leave it, the main difference being that a Don was more likely to actually make good on his end of the deal something Olmert was unable to do

For example, I hope that most of us here would consider Dan Pipes as both bigoted and wrong. Here are some excerpts from his bio\;


'Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. His bi-weekly column appears regularly in.... newspapers around the globe, including the Jerusalem Post, Al-Akhbar (Iraq), Die Welt (Germany), La Razón (Spain), Liberal (Italy), National Post (Canada), and the Australian...


He received his A.B. (1971) and Ph.D. (1978) from Harvard University, both in history, and spent six years studying abroad, including three years in Egypt. Mr. Pipes speaks French, and reads Arabic and German. He has taught at the University of Chicago, Harvard University, the U.S. Naval War College, and Pepperdine University. He served in various capacities in the U.S. government, including two presidentially-appointed positions, vice chairman of the Fulbright Board of Foreign Scholarships and board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace. He was director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in 1986-93...

He has appeared on leading television networks around the globe, including the BBC and Al-Jazeera, and has lectured in twenty-five countries.

Mr. Pipes has published in such magazines as the Atlantic Monthly, Commentary, Foreign Affairs, Harper's, National Review, New Republic, Time, and The Weekly Standard. More than a hundred American newspapers have carried his articles, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. His writings have been translated into thirty-three languages and have appeared in such newspapers as ABC, Corriere della Sera, The Daily Telegraph, Le Figaro, La Razón, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Die Welt.'

Do you consider the University of Chicago, Harvard, the BBC and the Fulbright scholarship programme to be Islamophobic, bigoted, or poor-quality? Yet Dan Pipes is nasty, bigoted and often just plain wrong.

Often such a record simply shows that an institution believes in freedom of speech and/or welcomes controversy and the publicity and interest that it brings.

In many ways, I would consider Alison Weir as a mirror-image of Pipes. Both have some starting points that I would agree with. Yes, Alison, the occupation is a bad thing that should end, and Israel has perpetrated many injustices toward Palestinians. Yes, Dan, the extreme Islamists are nasty and dangerous, like all right-wing theocrats. But both, having decided that a particular group are All Bad, cherry-pick their evidence to support the view to an extent that makes them quite unreliable; and extend their genuine criticisms to include hostility against all Israelis and 'Zionists'/ Muslims and those secular Europaeans who tolerate them. (Or perhaps in both cases the general hostility came first?)

or lies by omission or whatever? Just one article.

an article by Blankfort that alleges '(American) war for Israel' and states that pro-Israel lobbies don't just have undue influence on American political decision making (which may be true; many lobbies do); but essentially *control* it.

It's not by Weir herself, but my point is that she seems ready to include ANY article that's negative to Israel.

and then is found to overwhelmingly vote for it in both of these bodies. Remember the Anti-Palestinian Terrorist Act? And there have been several since before and since, like the resolution nixing the UN Goldstone Report, and many others.

Next to the NRA, the Israel Lobby is believed to be the strongest in Washington. Suggest a reading of Mershirmer and Walt's book on the Israel Lobby. Yes, it is likely that AIPAC strongly inputs into American foreign policy in the Middle East. Is anyone surprised that Weir would make note of that?

Israeli/Palestinian issues.

It's another to sympathize with someone (the Malaysian PM of the time) saying that 'the Jews get others to fight and die for them', and to claim that the Iraq war is being fought for Israel!

For example, Zinni's effort, but there have been many articles written about the Israel friendly Neocons in the Defense Department and how they fudged the data implicating Iraq and 9/11 and Iraq and Al Qaeda terrorism. Therefore, repeating these allegations is not to be taken lightly. Attacking Iraq was already part of Clean Break, a Neocon policy document written for the first Netanyahu government in 1996. Wolfowitz was not there but Feith was. Wolfowitz had already concocted a plan to attack Iraq for Clinton in the early 90s, which was rejected. It was later pushed on Bush. Feith ws the prime data fudger which sent Bush-Cheney to war.

Look not knowing this stuff is one thing, but claiming it has no validity because Weir repeated is quite another. I gather that it is okay for some people to repeat, but not Weir. The attacks on her never end and I am sorry to see them repected here.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I still haven't seen anyone provide data supporting any of these accusations about Alison Weir, and I don't suspect anyone will. I've been through her site.

If there is no data supporting your allegations, you are just into character assassination, just because she is a critic of Israel in their treatment of the Palestinians. Have you ever criticized Israel for their treatment of the Palestinians, indeed their ethnic cleansing, occupation, and the colonization of their lands?

Tell you what, if I go through 1 or 2 of Weir's articles without vomiting and come back here with examples of her deliberate lies by omission, that will be proof enough for you?

government.

I have not blamed them for their very existence, and I have certainly not blamed them for what OTHER countries, e.g. America and Britain, do.

Alison Weir has included some revoltingly RW contributors on her site. Apart from her Republican colleague Findley, she has also included contributions from Paul Craig Roberts - who writes regularly for the vile anti-immigrant racist hate-site vdare.com. Also the well-known right-winger Philip Giraldi. And then there is the following from something called MER Monthly, about Rahm Emmanuel - note that this was published in 1998, and is still being treated as relevant:

"Take the word "spy" here in the overall context of the background, role, connections and allegiances of Rahm Emanuel.
He's been on TV quite a bit in the past few days -- tasked with convincing the world that Bill Clinton is to be believed in the latest "Zipper-Gate" scandal. According to Emanuel, Bill just didn't do it!
Actually in this second Clinton term Emanuel has gradually come out more and more into public view after so much behind-the-scenes work going back to Clinton's first Presidential campaign. When Clinton wants to tough-it-out he often now turns to Rahm Emanuel and the many Emanuel can call on his behalf.
These days Emanuel's title is "Senior Political Adviser" and his office is close by to the Oval Office where he can and does constantly monitor all that's going on in the Clinton Presidency.
Emanuel's real role combines money with politics with public relations -- he is a rather unique figure in the Clinton "Kosher Kitchen" White House. Most unique of all in fact is that Emanuel is a kind of out-front spy for Israel while primarily serving as Bill Clinton's main money man....

Emanuel has essentially made himself indispensable to Clinton because he is the main link to the money, especially the huge sums of American Jewish money that have poured toward Bill Clinton ever since he became their man anointed to take down George Bush.
Very little if anything goes on in the Clinton White House that Emanuel doesn't know about. And while his super close relations to the Israeli lobby are well known by Democratic insiders, few want to speak on the record about this most sensitive of subjects -- the extraordinary power and clout of the Washington Israel/Jewish lobby that totally dominates the Clinton/Gore Presidency.
Dual U.S./Israeli Citizen

Emanuel may have given up his second citizenship (quite possibly for tax reasons some indicate); but he never gave up his dual allegiance. ...During the 1991 Gulf War Rahm in fact volunteered for the Israeli Army (volunteers were not sent to combat but rather to support jobs).' (LB: Note that age 18 is when people reach legal adulthood and CAN make up their own minds whether to keep or renounce a second citizenship. Why should someone be blamed for their dual citizenship as a child?)


I am not a special fan of Emmanuel, but treating him as some sort of evil Jewish/Israeli spy in the Clinton White House, together with sneers at the 'Clinton/Gore presidency' and claims that it was 'totally dominated' (not influenced; totally dominated) by the 'Jewish/Israeli lobby' - really, is this what progressives should be supporting?




P.S. There are two ways to trivialize and deflect from GENUINE criticisms of Israel.

One is to assume that ALL criticisms of Israel must be unjustified and/or based on antisemitism.

The other is to assume that NO criticism of Israel could be unjustified and/or based on antisemitism.

Weir most definitely falls into the latter category.

as post #68 shows.

And based on your word, you think we can't find anything faulty with Weir's shithouse hatred?

Someone else above, pulled out another map provided a year later, a year after the Gaza invasion, and Olmert left office, that suggested he had upped the anty, and was ready to give most of the West Bank to the Palestinians. We have not heard from Olmert about it, as it was apparently put together much later from notes of meetings.

I still haven't seen anyone provide data supporting all of these accusations about Alison Weir, and I don't suspect anyone will. I've been through her site. She is certainly hated by the right wing.

So I was not wrong about Olmert's bantustan offers which were confirmed by the BBC and the UN.

The third map if it did provide 100 percent of the remaining 22% of original Palestine is correct, then that map does not result in an Apartheid configuration, providing of course that the Palestinians were to retain control of their own borders. I can just see Olmert in a meeting with Abbas saying, okay we'll give it all to you.

Of course, the Palestinians never rejected it either. Even though East Jerusalem was not included, a sticking point for Arafat and one no doubt for Abbas, if it ever came to discussion. This appeared to be a late development just before the Israeli election, and before the Gaza invasion, and during Olmert's indictment for whatever it was.

You may also recall that at the time Olmert was warning the knesset and/or the public that Israel was moving toward Apartheid.

And Apartheid is where it is going today under Netanyahu, the "economic peace" nonsense notwithstanding. During Sharon's reign and then Olmert's, settlement building and the movement of settlers onto the West Bank continued. It is for this reason I am skeptical of Olmert's intention in saying to Abbas, okay you can have it all. He was a loser leaving office with nothing to lose. Livni was the new Kadima candidate, even though no one expected her to be any different than Sharon.

Abbas and Erekat didn't make any mention of "apartheid" WRT Olmert's latest offer, so why are you?

Lastly, Abbas did reject Olmert's offer - claiming the gaps b/w the 2 sides were too wide, most likely due to Abbas wanting full RoR.

Of course Abbas would not accept an offer that excluded East Jerusalem, their capital.

And I must tell you, I don't think that Olmert was serious. His earlier proposals are compatible with what everyone else have offered the Palestinians: Apartheid. And that is obviously where Netanyahu is going. When that happens, this site will really be a hot place to come to.

She will quote ANYTHING on her site that is against Israel, ranging from the reasonable to the nasty. It's not just pro-Palestinian, but includes all sorts of nasty xenophobic articles implying that Israel is controlling America and getting it into wars, etc. Here's a random example: the start of an article by Jeffrey Blankfort called 'War for Israel':



'When Malaysian Prime Minister Mathahir Mohammed declared at an international Islamic Conference in Kuala Lumpur in mid-October, 2003 that “today the Jews rule the world by proxy They get others to fight and die for them,”1 the reactions in the U.S. and the West were predictable.

It was “a speech that was taken right out of the Protocols of Zion,” according to one Israeli commentator2, and Mathahir would be accused of imitating Hitler and insuring that “Muslims around the world are similarly being fed a regular diet of classic big lies about Jewish power.3

Big lies? Given Israel’s unchecked dominion over the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors over the past half century, supported in every way possible by the United States, one can assume that Muslims, not to mention intelligent non-Muslims, have no need for additional instruction as to the extent of Jewish power. As further proof of its existence, if such were needed, there would be no attempt to measure the Malaysian prime minister’s words against the reality of the times to determine if there was anything accurate in his assessment....


There is virtually no sector of the American body politic that has been immune to the lobby’s penetration. That its primary goal has not been to improve the security and well-being of the United States or the American people, but to advance the interests of a foreign country, namely Israel, may be debated, but it was acknowledged, in part, more than a dozen years ago by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio), who complained to an annual conference of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council that “There’s only one issue members think is important to American Jews – Israel.”'


Weir may not hold all the views of everyone that she quotes; but the point is that she is prepared to quote *any* anti-Israel article, without discrimination, regardless of how unreliable or nasty it is, and regardless of whether it's actually about the Palestinian situation at all. Just as some of the right-wing pro-Israel sites will quote *any* negative article about Palestians, Arabs or Muslims, regardless of accuracy or relevance.


Incidentally, Weir's main colleague on the ifamericansknew site, is Paul Findley, a former Republican congressman, who seems never to have quite got over his defeat for re-election by Dick Durbin, and like many disappointed right-wingers, apparently blames it on the Jews, oops, I mean on the pro-Israel lobby. I wouldn't trust him any further than I could throw him, and would at the least question Weir's judgement in selecting this right-winger as a colleague.


P.S. the 'arbitors of sources' here are the mods, and it's quite true that it's not permitted to link to Alison Weir's site.

Not that I don't believe you, but....Weir is on a shit list for her criticism of Israel and we don't want to get involved in lies and propaganda, especially if she cannot defend herself from the liars.

There is a small literature and books pertaining to the Israel Lobby "influence" of Congress and even its involvement in the Iraq War. Now I'm not going to say I can evaluate it at this point in time, but it is out there and just can't be dismissed as the usual anti-Semitism.

So where's the beef so to speak, the evidence.

here is the link to the original article by Blankfort ; and yes it's one of those quoted on IAK, as you can find if you google the site.

www.leftcurve.org/LC28WebPages/WarForIsrael.html

though quite possibly this will also be seen as meriting deletion. In any case, once again you can google it on IAK.

http://www.israelbehindthenews.com/bin/content.cgi?ID=720&q=1

All points of view deserve to be exposed and debated. Free speech afterall has been part of the American heritage from the beginning, and censorship not.

Is it possible here to quote their review, positions and criticism, without getting it censored, deleted, that is, and will even mention of Alison Weir be condemned?

If you're asking ME, one of my biggest problems with Weir is that she includes articles by people like the Christisons who are too ready to accuse pro-Israel people of dual loyalties/ disloyalty to America (McCarthy/ Bachmann, anyone?) and by paleoconservatives in general - e.g. Paul Findley, Karen Kwiatowski, Paul Craig Roberts, etc. etc.

Paleoconservatives are just as monstrously evil as neoconservatives. Both types of RW-ers are poisonous snakes!

Would you expect it to be used for writings by Daniel Pipes, Mark Steyn, Melanie Phillips, Dick Cheney, Michelle Bachmann, Richard Littlejohn, David Irving, Geert Wilders, etc., etc.? I don't think any of them should be denied freedom of speech in general; I just don't think they belong on DU, except perhaps as examples of hate-speech.

That particular article didn't seem to me particularly liberal.

I'm not a mod. I'm just guessing that there are some illiberal sources that they may not like.

...here? I'm not really getting that impression.

Likud of course has romanced the Religious Right in this country for years. It was part of A Clean Break recommendation, the Likud policy document prepared by a bunch of Amerncia Neocons. And in fact Netanyahu has spoken many times for James Hagee's group, CUFI, which I beieve is its acronym.

So does this mean that no one here supports the Likud party?

If they do, they really should not be on a liberal board, any more than anyone who supports a RW party.

So far as I know, no regular poster here does.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

If you take the time to read the material, and can get beyond your adversity toward Alison Weir, you might get an answer to your question. You might actually take a look at the atrocities committed by Israel against the Palestinians as well.

I just said that I personally did not understand it, and still don't.

It is not to be condoned, but just what motivates people to strap on bombs is evident in my post. When innocent people, children especially, are being killed left and right, when too many funerals are attended, at some point, you just lose it. The bombings were primarily retaliatory, provoked by hatred for the killings. Somewhere I put up information about Israeli soldiers and snipers shooting children, the Intifada boys, often in the head. It was state terrorism at its worst.

Rantisi, the doctor recruiter of bombers, now assassinated, said it all in the Times magazine: emotions soared and volunteers stepped up in greater numbers.

You message begs the question, why? And now you have an answer. If anyone else has data to the contrary or which provides other answers, I'd be happy to read it.

I do not see how knowledge of the actions that you have described could lead anyone to kill innocent people (and themselves). It does not make any sense.

Presumably all (or most) Palestinians are aware of the information that you've presented, yet hardly any of them respond to that information by becoming suicide bombers.

In fact even among those who have been most directly and personally impacted by the horrors that you describe, almost none of them kill innocent civilians and themselves as a result.

CHILDREN. Now you might want to turn your question around and ask, how could soldiers kill innocent people, the most recent example being the Gaza massacre, which Soldiers of Conscience (an group of ex-Israeli soldiers) called a turkey shoot. True, these soldiers do not kill themselves in the process. But if you can't understand that it is "emotional," as Rantisi put it in a Times Magazine interview, then I don't think anyone can help you to understand.

Do you think it is genetic, perhaps? Or do you prefer to think that it has something to do with Islamism?

I think you need to stop being dense about the matter. You have been told, even by the bomber recruiter, but seem reluctant to accept the explanation. Personally, I wish they never occurred. But when you get a civilian population fighting an American equiped military force, their ability to fight back is limited, and apparently self destruction was one choice some made. I recall a 16 year old Palestinian girl who went into an Israel restaurant and killed a 16 year old Israeli girl. Time, I believe, also did a story on it. Hard reading.

to blow up innocents.

So how is this normal WRT Palestinians, and something we should just expect when it doesn't happen elsewhere?

They were not sent by their parents, another lie intended to defame Palestinians or perhaps Muslims. There were some late teenagers and I recall a high school girl aged 16 who volunteered.

I already covered what it was that motivated these suicide bombers and I won't repeat myself once again. You will have to research the issue, but somehow I think you are probably wedded to your beliefs rather than the truth.

The only person defaming Palestinians here is you by claiming no better can be expected from them considering the circumstances.

That's the racism of low expectations.

Worse, you're indifferent to the fact that Hamas is destroying the Palestinians with this sick, suicidal ideology, and making the prospects of peace in that region much harder to obtain. If you're as interested in "saving Palestine from itself" as you are claiming you wish to "save Israel from itself", the very least you can do with your fellow activists is work to reverse what Hamas is doing, advocate for real civil and human rights in the territories, and fight against Hamas' hate indoctrination. To be indifferent to all this as you are exposes your true anti-Israel agenda and shows you're not pro-Palestinian at all.

But maybe I'm wrong, so maybe you can explain to me how you're NOT indifferent to Hamas' agenda and that you ARE genuinely interested in helping Palestinians overcome Hamas' hate industry. What are you doing to help Palestinians against Hamas, for example? Or can you simply not be bothered to do anything about the situation?

People who keep dragging this stuff up after all this time are propagandists, interested in defaming the Palestinian cause for freedom and independence by continuing to cast them as terrorists. As Jimmy Carter stated, we also have to consider the state terrorism (killing of numerous civilians) that preceded the suicide bombings. I have a post on the matter at the very end, the last message on the roll.

Hamas is just Israel's latest red herring to distract from the occupation and colonialism that has not stopped for 40 years, save two months during the Rabin administration.

Hamas TV show? I think we would all like to see a link to that one, and please, no right wing antiMulsim antiArab bigoted sites.

Do you respect these people?


Seth Ackerman Media Analyst and Contributing Writer, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
Mjr. Stav Adivi, IDF (Reserves) Courage to Refuse | Board Member, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Israel
Rabbi Arik Ascherman Executive Director, Rabbis for Human Rights
Hanan Ashrawi Founder & Secretary General, The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH), Palestine
Noam Chomsky Professor of Linguistics, MIT | Author, Hegemony of Survival
Robert Fisk Journalist, The Independent, UK
Neve Gordon Ta'ayush: Jewish-Arab Partnership | Professor of Political Science, Ben Gurion University, Israel
Toufic Haddad Co-editor, Between the Lines, West Bank
Sam Husseini Communications Director, Institute for Public Accuracy
Hussein Ibish Communications Director, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Robert Jensen Professor of Journalism, University of Texas-Austin | Board of Directors, Third Coast Activist
Rabbi Michael Lerner Founder & Executive Director, Tikkun Magazine
Karen Pfeifer Professor or Economics, Smith College | Contributing Editor, Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP)
Alisa Solomon Journalist, The Village Voice
Gila Svirsky Co-founder, Women in Black | Coalition of Women for Peace, Israel

Then listen to them in this documentary: Peace, Propaganda, and The Promised Land, 2 parts:

Part I:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCL6WdnuNp4

Part II:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo2HW4T7wK4

Enjoy the enlightenment.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

You talking as if the Palestinians were not being kept under military occupation while their lands are not being colonized by Israel, and that it has not been happening for the past 40 years in what was left of original Palestine.

Everything else beyond these easily confirmed facts is silly. And please don't give me the Palestinians deserved it because no people deserves losing their homes and villages, their country, via ethnic cleansing (1948, 1967, slowly at other times) after living in it for at least 1500 years.

Hamas, Syria, and the Iranian regime pump this kind of shit out and it does nothing to help Palestinians, nor is it the intention to help Palestinians - but only to dehumanize, demonize, and delegitimize.

I'll bet you think all the talking points or 'facts' within that video are unassailable, right? No deliberate lies by omission? No exaggerations, no hyperbole? No antisemitic tropes/memes?

I invite all here to view at least the first youtube video and comment on the integrity therein.

On the other hand, if other people's minds are bent in your direction, they might also reject it, in spite of the cast of participants I noted. More than half of them are either Israeli or Jewish, are left wing, peace activists, well known in their fields, and thoroughly familiar with the conflict.

But I've also noticed that you seem to detest anything coming from the mouths of any left wing peace activists, like all of the participants in this documentary.

Biographical Summary:

Seth Ackerman Media Analyst and Contributing Writer, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)

Mjr. Stav Adivi, IDF (Reserves) Courage to Refuse | Board Member, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Israel

Rabbi Arik Ascherman Executive Director, Rabbis for Human Rights

Hanan Ashrawi Founder & Secretary General, The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH), Palestine

Noam Chomsky Professor of Linguistics, MIT | Author, Hegemony of Survival

Robert Fisk Journalist, The Independent, UK

Neve Gordon Ta'ayush: Jewish-Arab Partnership | Professor of Political Science, Ben Gurion University, Israel

Toufic Haddad Co-editor, Between the Lines, West Bank

Sam Husseini Communications Director, Institute for Public Accuracy

Hussein Ibish Communications Director, American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee

Robert Jensen Professor of Journalism, University of Texas-Austin | Board of Directors, Third Coast Activist

Rabbi Michael Lerner Founder & Executive Director, Tikkun Magazine

Karen Pfeifer Professor or Economics, Smith College | Contributing Editor, Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP)

Alisa Solomon Journalist, The Village Voice

Gila Svirsky Co-founder, Women in Black | Coalition of Women for Peace, Israel

The very beginning (1967 war, nothing about Arab states attacking Israel and Israel offering land for peace but getting 3 "no's" of Khartoum) starts with lies by omission and the false claim that Israel's occupation is illegal (it's not). The tropes begin with Zionists (insert Jews instead) controlling the media, being too powerful with their lobby, etc. The blood libel is that Israelis or Zionists (insert Jews instead) decide willy-nilly to kill Palestinian children. It's non-stop hate.

Of course, when you can't even see Gilad Atzmon is an antisemite - then almost nothing is antisemitic or hateful where Jews are involved.

And your appeal to authority, as to who the participants are, is a logical fallacy.

Take that.
:sarcasm:

ya gotta lov 'em.

Only trying to hold you accountable for the claims you've made elsewhere in this thread (one of which you have already corrected).

Presumably, making sure that the information you present is accurate is important to you.

Hamas is just Israel's latest red herring to distract from the occupation and colonialism that has not stopped for 40 years, save two months during the Rabin administration.

I just wanted to say that I think you are very very wrong about this. Hamas is central to the breakdown of the left's plan for peace in Israel. If you talk to Israelis about this it is a real concern of theirs in terms of moving forward.

I feel like you're looking at this as though Israel is using Hamas to justify its actions to the outside world. But the reality is that this is all about internal Israeli politics. Cast Lead did nothing at all to help Israel internationally. It certainly did not bring them increased sympathy or draw attention away from the conflict at large.

And it is disingenuous to suggest that Israel has done nothing to mitigate settlement or the occupation... the opportunities during both Oslo and the Gaza pullout were seen as threats by Hamas, (as they were steps towards a negotiated settlement) who responded with increased terrorism and violence to both.

There is war, terrorism, violence all over the world (and the problem of child soldiers has been far bigger in parts of Africa than in the Middle East).

It is not normal, or a good solution, wherever it happens.

Ask the French: did the Vishy government celebrate the resistance fighters who died defending France during the German occupation? You have a comparable situation here. However, I don't really know.

'...tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."

(Wilfred Owen, WW1 poet; killed in 1918).

What would motivate soldiers to kill innocent civilians especially children? Israel forces gave permission to snipers to kill young teenagers, as young as 12 and 13.

What would make a Congolese soldier kill and mutilate small children 11 years old and younger?

These actions make no sense to me. That's why I said do not understand it. I cannot comprehend what would make people do these things.

I suspect that some soldiers - including some in the IDF, the US soldiers you mention,the perpetrators of many Africa atrocities, and so on, are doing what they're doing for the same reasons or lack thereof of common criminals.

At the other extreme, some war crimes - the bombing of Dresden, Mi Lai, the holocaust, the use of white phosphorous in civilian areas by Israel, are committed by people who genuinely believe that their cause justifies what they are doing.

It's not just those two extremes, though - in between you have an awful lot of people who are sort-of aware that what they are doing is wrong, and wouldn't do it were it not for the fact that they view their victims as "the enemy" rather than "real people" or "innocent people".

And I think the IDF and Israel in general has gone further in the direction of dehumanising the enemy than most Western armies at present, although probably not as far as happens in Africa.

I think the US armed forces has gone as far or further than the IDF with respect to dehumanising the enemy at the present time.

The Palestinians are harder to dehumanise, I suspect, because their narrative is one that many people instinctively sympathise with. Many of the US politicians that tend to take the risk of openly sympathising with the Palestinians are often Irish Catholic, for example.

Before a single suicide bomber had entered Israel after the start of the Second Intifada, sometimes called, after Sharon’s provocative visit to the Temple Mount, the al Aqsa Intifada, during its first month, 27 Palestinian children had been killed by Israeli Defense Forces in the West Bank and Gaza, the youngest only four months of age, and the majority due to gunshots to the head. Numerous children were also wounded. In the first three months alone, 159 children lost an eye presumably to rubber bullets shot from IDF rifles. Clearly the IDF were intentionally targeting these children, aiming at their heads with either rubber bullets or real bullets in the case of the child kills. We are talking here about a trained, mechanized army versus civilians, children participating in the intifada, the nonviolent resistance instituted by child and teenage Palestinian boys and girls. Oh, yes. Let’s be fair. We did hear that an Israeli soldier lost his eye from a rock thrown by a Palestinian boy from a pretty IDF spokeswoman, but it was the only such incident reported in three years.

In addition to these children, many more innocent adult civilians were killed, in the month before suicide bombings commenced. If terrorism is the intentional killing of civilians, then clearly, Israel’s armed forces were deep into terrorism, state sponsored terrorism, long before the Palestinians engaged in it to any degree. As a people fighting a military occupation, it would seem that the ultimate cause of all of these horrors on both sides rests with Israel and the purpose for which it continued its long occupation, the stealing of Palestinian lands.

To be accurate, there were sporadic bombing incidents engineered by Hamas extremists in Israel during the Oslo period. None at all occurred between 1998 and 2000. But the strong resumption of attacks after 2000, over fifty in the first year, was directly related to civilian and child killings by IDF, and it was not just Hamas, but Islamic Jihad and other Fatah associated organizations that were involved.

This Time.com article apprises of what motivated Palestinian suicide bombers at this particular moment: Why Suicide Bombing Is Now All The Rage (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,110102... )

"Until recently most Palestinians believed they had alternatives to the kind of militancy practiced by Hamas. For years after the 1993 Oslo peace accord, which brought limited self-rule to the Palestinians and the prospect of an independent state, polls showed a strong majority of Palestinians supporting the peace process with Israel and only a minority endorsing suicide bombings. Thus, in their headhunting, the fundamentalists were limited to stalwart followers of their doctrine, which holds that any kind of peace with Israel is anathema. Even then, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had to cajole--some might say brainwash--young men into believing that the rewards of paradise outweighed the prospects of life on earth.

But with the breakdown of the peace process in the summer of 2000 and the start of the latest intifadeh that September, the martyr wannabes started coming to Hamas--and they didn't require persuading. "We don't need to make a big effort, as we used to do in the past," Abdel Aziz Rantisi, one of Hamas' senior leaders, told TIME last week. The TV news does that work for them. "When you see the funerals, the killing of Palestinian civilians, the feelings inside the Palestinians become very strong," he explained."

From the mouth of Rantisi, but it also motivated Fatah supporters, to exact revenge for the killing of Palestinian civilians. Revenge is not a formal use of terrorism. See Alison Weir's film, Off The Charts, at Google Video.

This commentary is from an article by Rami Khouri, editor of the Beirut newspaper, The Daily Star, which cynically denounced Olmert’s statements professing concern for the well-being of Palestinian children:

(Ehud Olmert's Profound Ethics and Deep Lies; http://www.ramikhouri.com /)

“For anyone interested in the facts about the impact of Israeli policies on Palestinian children, a good place to start is the carefully checked data disseminated by the Palestinian Nongovernmental Organization Network (www.palestinemonitor.org ). Their data is compiled and verified on the ground by the Ramallah-based Health Development Information and Policy Institute, which has been honored by the World Health Organization for its work in promoting Palestinian health needs. So these people know what they are talking about when it comes to health conditions on the ground in Israeli-occupied Palestine. Some of the facts they provide are as follows.

In just the first two years of the second intifada, from September 2000 to November 2002:

• 383 Palestinian children (under the age of 18) were killed by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers, i.e. almost 19% of the total Palestinians killed; those figures have increased since then.

• Approximately 36% of total Palestinians injured (estimated at more than 41,000) are children; 86 of these children were under the age of ten; 21 infants under the age of 12 months have been killed.

• 245 Palestinian students and school children have been killed; 2,610 pupils have been wounded on their way to or from school.

• The Israeli policy of widespread closure has paralyzed the Palestinian health system, with children particularly vulnerable to this policy of collective punishment. Internal closures have severely disrupted health plans which affect over 500,000 children, including vaccination programs, dental examinations and early diagnosis for children when starting schools.

• During the first two months of the intifada, the rate of upper respiratory infections in children increased from 20% to 40%. Almost 60% of children in Gaza suffer parasitic infections.

• An overwhelming number of Palestinian children show symptoms of trauma such as sleep disorders, nervousness, decrease in appetite and weight, feelings of hopelessness and frustration, and abnormal thoughts of death.

• There have been 36 cases of Palestinian women in labor delayed at checkpoints and refused permission to reach medical facilities or for ambulances to reach them. At least 14 of these women gave birth at the checkpoint with eight of the births resulting in the death of the newborn infants.

The Israeli army killing of Palestinian children continues apace. In its annual report May 16, the respected global human rights organization Amnesty International accused the Israeli army of killing 190 Palestinians, including 50 children, last year (2005).”

Here is some commentary from Jonathan Cook on a grandmother suicide bomber:

“If one thing offers a terrifying glimpse of where the experiment in human despair that is Gaza under Israeli siege is leading, it is the news that a Palestinian woman in her sixties -- a grandmother -- chose last week to strap on a suicide belt and explode herself next to a group of Israeli soldiers invading her refugee camp.

Despite the "Man bites dog" news value of the story, most of the Israeli media played down the incident. Not surprisingly -- it is difficult to portray Fatma al-Najar as a crazed fanatic bent only the destruction of Israel.

It is equally difficult not to pause and wonder at the reasons for her suicide mission; according to her family, one of her grandsons was killed by the Israeli army, another is in a wheelchair after his leg had to be amputated, and her house had been demolished.

Or not to think of the years of trauma she and her family have suffered living in a open-air prison under brutal occupation, and now, since the "disengagement", the agonising months of grinding poverty, slow starvation, repeated aerial bombardments, and the loss of essentials like water and electricity.

Or not to ponder at what it must have been like for her to spend every day under a cloud of fear, to be powerless against a largely unseen and malign force, and to never know when death and mutilation might strike her or her loved ones.

Or not to imagine that she had been longing for the moment when the soldiers who have been destroying her family's lives might show themselves briefly, coming close enough that she could see and touch them, and wreak her revenge.

Yet Western observers, and the organizations that should represent the very best of their Enlightenment values, seem incapable of understanding what might drive a grandmother to become a suicide bomber. Their empathy fails them, and so does their humanity.

Just at the moment Fatma was choosing death and resistance over powerlessness and victimhood -- and at a time when Gaza is struggling through one of the most oppressive and ugly periods of Israeli occupation in nearly four decades -- Human Rights Watch published its latest statement on the conflict. It is document that shames the organization, complacent Western societies and Fatma's memory.”

the source of the information(I should say spin) is Alison Weir.

As was posted here by you
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x297338

You can censor journalists, but you can't really censor facts. Perhaps you can direct me to the alleged Holocaust revision or denial article she allegedly wrote or an article which supports this allegation. Or even an article in which she "spins" anything.

Her main focus is bias in reporting, and I would have to say that her data are rock hard and easily verified. As far as I can tell, being an effective advocate for Palestinian freedom and self-determination is her major fault.

No matter. The site managers have concluded that her site cannot be quoted here, and so let's let the matter be.

By the way, I understand that Daniel Pipes is quotable, but do you know if the same applies to David Horowitz, the right wing Islamophobic bigot?

You can censor journalists, but you can't really censor facts. Perhaps you can direct me to the alleged Holocaust revision or denial article she allegedly wrote or an article which supports this allegation. Or even an article in which she "spins" anything.

Her main focus is bias in reporting, and I would have to say that her data are rock hard and easily verified. As far as I can tell, being an effective advocate for Palestinian freedom and self-determination is her major fault.

No matter. The site managers have concluded that her site cannot be quoted here, and so let's let it be.

The occupation just continued, the colonization remained in high gear, and the settlements exploded with the population of Israelis moving into the occupied territories increasing.

In short, the cause of the retaliatory bombings remained intact, Israel's colonization.

Is that how you would characterize suicide attacks killing innocent civilians (women, children, the eldery) as they went about their business?

Would you characterize the 9/11 attacks on the US as a retaliatory bombing?

Most (maybe all) of the suicide bombings that occurred between 2001 and 2003 were retaliatory. Most people don't really understand the concept of terrorism, which is a political tool as we are seeing used today in Iraq and Afganistan. In Palestine during the second Intifada, it was a retaliatory tool, revenge, as was the kernel of the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Read on.

Before a single suicide bomber had entered Israel after the start of the Second Intifada, sometimes called, after Sharon’s provocative visit to the Temple Mount, the al Aqsa Intifada, during its first month, 27 Palestinian children had been killed by Israeli Defense Forces in the West Bank and Gaza, the youngest only four months of age, and the majority due to gunshots to the head. Numerous children were also wounded. In the first three months alone, 159 children lost an eye presumably to rubber bullets shot from IDF rifles. Clearly the IDF were intentionally targeting these children, aiming at their heads with either rubber bullets or real bullets in the case of the child kills. We are talking here about a trained, mechanized army versus civilians, children participating in the intifada, the nonviolent resistance instituted by child and teenage Palestinian boys and girls. Oh, yes. Let’s be fair. We did hear that an Israeli soldier lost his eye from a rock thrown by a Palestinian boy from a pretty IDF spokeswoman, but it was the only such incident reported in three years.

In addition to these children, many more innocent adult civilians were killed, in the month before suicide bombings commenced. If terrorism is the intentional killing of civilians, then clearly, Israel’s armed forces were deep into terrorism, state sponsored terrorism, long before the Palestinians engaged in it to any degree. As a people fighting a military occupation, it would seem that the ultimate cause of all of these horrors on both sides rests with Israel and the purpose for which it continued its long occupation, the stealing of Palestinian lands.

To be accurate, there were sporadic bombing incidents engineered by Hamas extremists in Israel during the Oslo period. None at all occurred between 1998 and 2000. But the strong resumption of attacks after 2000, over fifty in the first year, was directly related to civilian and child killings by IDF, and it was not just Hamas, but Islamic Jihad and other Fatah associated organizations that were involved.

This Time.com article apprises of what motivated Palestinian suicide bombers at this particular moment: Why Suicide Bombing Is Now All The Rage (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,110102 ... )

"Until recently most Palestinians believed they had alternatives to the kind of militancy practiced by Hamas. For years after the 1993 Oslo peace accord, which brought limited self-rule to the Palestinians and the prospect of an independent state, polls showed a strong majority of Palestinians supporting the peace process with Israel and only a minority endorsing suicide bombings. Thus, in their headhunting, the fundamentalists were limited to stalwart followers of their doctrine, which holds that any kind of peace with Israel is anathema. Even then, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had to cajole--some might say brainwash--young men into believing that the rewards of paradise outweighed the prospects of life on earth.

But with the breakdown of the peace process in the summer of 2000 and the start of the latest intifadeh that September, the martyr wannabes started coming to Hamas--and they didn't require persuading. "We don't need to make a big effort, as we used to do in the past," Abdel Aziz Rantisi, one of Hamas' senior leaders, told TIME last week. The TV news does that work for them. "When you see the funerals, the killing of Palestinian civilians, the feelings inside the Palestinians become very strong," he explained."

From the mouth of Rantisi, but it also motivated Fatah supporters, to exact revenge for the killing of Palestinian civilians. Revenge is not a formal use of terrorism. See Alison Weir's film, Off The Charts, at Google Video.

This commentary is from an article by Rami Khouri, editor of the Beirut newspaper, The Daily Star, which cynically denounced Olmert’s statements professing concern for the well-being of Palestinian children:

(Ehud Olmert's Profound Ethics and Deep Lies; http://www.ramikhouri.com /)

“For anyone interested in the facts about the impact of Israeli policies on Palestinian children, a good place to start is the carefully checked data disseminated by the Palestinian Nongovernmental Organization Network (www.palestinemonitor.org ). Their data is compiled and verified on the ground by the Ramallah-based Health Development Information and Policy Institute, which has been honored by the World Health Organization for its work in promoting Palestinian health needs. So these people know what they are talking about when it comes to health conditions on the ground in Israeli-occupied Palestine. Some of the facts they provide are as follows.

In just the first two years of the second intifada, from September 2000 to November 2002:

• 383 Palestinian children (under the age of 18) were killed by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers, i.e. almost 19% of the total Palestinians killed; those figures have increased since then.

• Approximately 36% of total Palestinians injured (estimated at more than 41,000) are children; 86 of these children were under the age of ten; 21 infants under the age of 12 months have been killed.

• 245 Palestinian students and school children have been killed; 2,610 pupils have been wounded on their way to or from school.

• The Israeli policy of widespread closure has paralyzed the Palestinian health system, with children particularly vulnerable to this policy of collective punishment. Internal closures have severely disrupted health plans which affect over 500,000 children, including vaccination programs, dental examinations and early diagnosis for children when starting schools.

• During the first two months of the intifada, the rate of upper respiratory infections in children increased from 20% to 40%. Almost 60% of children in Gaza suffer parasitic infections.

• An overwhelming number of Palestinian children show symptoms of trauma such as sleep disorders, nervousness, decrease in appetite and weight, feelings of hopelessness and frustration, and abnormal thoughts of death.

• There have been 36 cases of Palestinian women in labor delayed at checkpoints and refused permission to reach medical facilities or for ambulances to reach them. At least 14 of these women gave birth at the checkpoint with eight of the births resulting in the death of the newborn infants.

The Israeli army killing of Palestinian children continues apace. In its annual report May 16, the respected global human rights organization Amnesty International accused the Israeli army of killing 190 Palestinians, including 50 children, last year (2005).”

Here is some commentary from Jonathan Cook on a grandmother suicide bomber:

“If one thing offers a terrifying glimpse of where the experiment in human despair that is Gaza under Israeli siege is leading, it is the news that a Palestinian woman in her sixties -- a grandmother -- chose last week to strap on a suicide belt and explode herself next to a group of Israeli soldiers invading her refugee camp.

Despite the "Man bites dog" news value of the story, most of the Israeli media played down the incident. Not surprisingly -- it is difficult to portray Fatma al-Najar as a crazed fanatic bent only the destruction of Israel.

It is equally difficult not to pause and wonder at the reasons for her suicide mission; according to her family, one of her grandsons was killed by the Israeli army, another is in a wheelchair after his leg had to be amputated, and her house had been demolished.

Or not to think of the years of trauma she and her family have suffered living in a open-air prison under brutal occupation, and now, since the "disengagement", the agonising months of grinding poverty, slow starvation, repeated aerial bombardments, and the loss of essentials like water and electricity.

Or not to ponder at what it must have been like for her to spend every day under a cloud of fear, to be powerless against a largely unseen and malign force, and to never know when death and mutilation might strike her or her loved ones.

Or not to imagine that she had been longing for the moment when the soldiers who have been destroying her family's lives might show themselves briefly, coming close enough that she could see and touch them, and wreak her revenge.

Yet Western observers, and the organizations that should represent the very best of their Enlightenment values, seem incapable of understanding what might drive a grandmother to become a suicide bomber. Their empathy fails them, and so does their humanity.

Just at the moment Fatma was choosing death and resistance over powerlessness and victimhood -- and at a time when Gaza is struggling through one of the most oppressive and ugly periods of Israeli occupation in nearly four decades -- Human Rights Watch published its latest statement on the conflict. It is document that shames the organization, complacent Western societies and Fatma's memory.”

they flock to organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and any of the hundreds of organizations working on behalf of the Palestinians world wide.

Israel can continue to maim, kill, and starve Palestinians, or present them as terrorists even though they just want to be a free people, but the more it does so, the more it finds adversaries of its inhumane cause.

but what is reality for people is real, and no fancy word-parsing about some document or act will change the fact of what you have accurately described as a policy of ethnic cleansing. The fact that is a long term practice rather than a short bloody massacre is a difference in tactics and strategy, not objectives, which are made obvious every day and every year and throughout the whole history.

Maybe some who deny the obvious can point to evidence of the many ways the state of Israel has supported and fostered the formation of a strong independent Palestinian state within the original UN decreed borders instead of driving them out.

I referred him to the entire literature on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The IP conflict is and has always been about the replacement of one people by another people through force, intimidation, and deprivation. It's the whole story.

You wrote (possibly citing Alison Weir?):

"during its first month, 27 Palestinian children had been killed by Israeli Defense Forces in the West Bank and Gaza, the youngest only four months of age"

There is a website called "Remember These Children" (perhaps you are familiar with it) that attempts to document all of the Palestinian and Israeli children who have been killed throughout the conflict.

There is no mention on that site of any four month old Palestinian child being killed by the IDF during the time frame you've indicated.

Can you tell me who that four month old child was? I would like to learn more of the circumstances behind that incident as it seems curious that the "Remember These Children" website would not include this child.

I had already been aware of 27 dead children that the not-to-be-named investigative journalist (she is banned here for allegedly being a Holocaust revisionst, but I'm unable to confirm that) verified from newspaper articles, but when I later saw 86 children quoted in another article, I wrote the journalist and was directed to the Remember These Children site.

I just searched that site, and found:

31 December 2000

Abdul-Rahman Khaled Hammouda Khbeish, 4, of Balata refugee camp, killed by IDF gunfire to his head.

I must have made an error in quoting the information. Unfortunately, it is too late to edit the comment itself. But thanks for drawing that to my attention to it.

You seem to be suggesting that your post included a direct quotation from an article by Alison Weir.

If that is the case, would the fact that she apparently had this particular piece of information wrong make you wonder about the accuracy of some of her other claims?

On a more serious note, the killing of children is wrong. Especially the killing of infants and toddlers. The fact is that both Israelis and Palestinians have engaged in this behavior on more than one occasion. In my view, nothing excuses the deliberate killing of an innocent young child.

As I said, Weir only supplied the source of the information on "86 dead children" she quoted in an article, which you apparently researched as I just did again. So the error was mine. And no, I do not believe that Weir fudges data. She provides her sources and they can be easily verified.

In fact, Weir goes beyond accepting sources at face value, as she personally verified the deaths of the first 27 children through local newspaper articles. Compared to the American newspapers she often criticizes for biased reporting, I believe she is an honest investigative journalist.

By the way, do you happen to know the particular basis upon which Weir's site is banned from this site? I can't find the alleged Holocaust material.

I do not think I understand what your position is with respect to the Palestinian terrorist attack against Israeli civilians (including the children listed on the "Remember These Children" website) such as the one that occurred in June of 2001 killing the ten Israeli children noted on that site (in addition to several other young adults).

Obviously, the killing of civilians, adults or children, is intolerable, The issue I have attempted to treat is its causes, and as such that has meant cutting through the propaganda and seeing the reality.

Israel, with the assist of journalists, especially the American press, has succeeded in casting itself as a victim of Palestinian terrorism, in spite of its own instigations, state terrorism, military occupation, ethnic cleansing, and colonialism.

And the second Intifada was one source. Most of the 300 civilians killed in the West Bank at the start of it were civilians including the 86 children listed on Remember These Children, which occurred before any bombers entered Israel. In fact, these deaths and the 6,000 that followed over the next several years are entirely due to Israel's intent to colonize the West Bank, to take land away from Palestinians and provide it to Israeli settlers.

Needless to say, the suicide bombings during this Intifada were largely motivated by retaliation for killings of innocent Palestinians by Israeli armed forces, which reentered Areas A and B (Olso) and reoccupied them. Sharon on behalf of Israel were totally responsible for this action, and each individual soldier who pointed a rifle at and shot civilians and their commanders right up to Sharon himself are also responsible. And the same can be said for those Palestinians who decided to strap on a bomb. They were also personally responsible for their actions.

But in the end, when we ask what caused this Intifada in the first place, it was clearly instigated, intentionally, by Israel's leaders, and pursued on the same basis that motivated suicide bombings, retaliation and revenge. Interestingly, during this period, the colonialism continued with settlement building and expansion, and thousands of settlers migrating into the West Bank.

Yet, Palestinians are cast as the sole cause of all of these deaths in what was a slick propaganda effort by Israel and its helpers, who were now, we learn, fighting terrorism just like the Americans.

See Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land for the details if you are interested.

Part I:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCL6WdnuNp4

Part II:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo2HW4T7wK4

Other people the last 50-80 years have had it FAR worse than Palestinians and have NOT reacted similarly in retaliation. This terror existed BEFORE 1967. It is encouraged and celebrated by the viciously antisemitic govt in charge. Have you ever considered this?

BTW, your films are pure, fictional propaganda. Only the severely delusional believe the crap that the video begins with, namely that UNSCR 242 calls Israel's occupation illegal, and that's just the very tip of the iceberg WRT those videos.

In the meantime, I see that you are still pumping that old, now hackneyed propaganda meme: criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. It just doesn't work any more. The facts on the ground are just too obvious to everyone.

In that regard, I wish the admins would permit photos and videos. Then it would be possible to actually experience the reality.

Clearly, your posts on this topic are intended (in part) to try to present some explanation for what the motivations may have been behind the Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, including children.

You state your belief that these Palestinian attacks were largely motivated by retaliation for killings of innocent Palestinians by Israeli armed forces.

What would you say, then, was the motivation behind the Israeli armed forces killings of innocent Palestinians?

who is now assassinated. But he was a bomber recruiter, who worked for Hamas and I would suggest that he knew better than anyone what motivated those volunteers.

On the Israeli side, it was Sharon who put it in a nutshell: Olso is dead, no more land for peace. Well that was also Netanyahu's and Likud's viewpoint several years earlier.

What caused the Palestinian child deaths or what was Sharon's motivation? In the wider sense, the Intifada was a rebellion to stop the occupation, which was resumed in Areas A and B, as well as the colonialism that it supported. Anyone or anything that stood in its way was subject to Israeli military violence.

On the specific case of the Intifada boys who were killed or blinded, there is uncertainty on my part because the death of children is extreme violence, and I can only speculate. I recall one instance when an IDF information officer, a pretty young woman, brought a soldier before the cameras. He apparently lost or injured one eye from a rock thrown by an Intifada boy. I can only guess that it was intended to justify the actions of soldiers in tanks or hiding behind them, in injuring these kids with real or rubber bullets because they were dangerous. Then there is the publicity angle, filming of boys fighting a modern military force. What bad press. In any case, the death tolls and tolls of the wounded (e.g., 159 boys lost an eye in the first three months of the Intifada, many others injured more serioiusly) among these children were very high. 86 child deaths preceeded the first suicide bombing in Israel.

"There will be no security for any Jews, those who came from America, Russia or anywhere."

This is not a rational individual.

You've bolded the name of a 4 year old child said to have been killed by IDF gunfire to his head on December 31, 2000.

Do you have any more information on that killing?

I ask because the B'Tselem website which does a pretty extensive job of listing everyone who has been killed in the conflict (and under what circumstances) does not mention this child on its site.

In fact, there is no further information to be found anywhere about the circumstances surrounding the child you've highlighted. Just what you've shared in bold from the site.

Nothing from B'tselem at all (which is odd since it is pretty comprehensive with its information) and nothing from any other human rights organization (except the exact same one line phrase that is found on the site indicated) and no news items related to the alleged incident.

December 31, 2000 was the day that Meir Kahane's son and wife were killed by Palestinians. Israel then killed an adult Palestinian in Tulkarm the same day - two other adult Palestinians were killed in fighting there the following day.

There is no information about any incident that led to the death of the four year old child whose name you highlighted.

Can you find any details related to that killing and do you have any explanation for why it is not included on the B'tselem news site?

So do your own research. I haven't the time or inclination to run around for you. Remember These Children posted the child's name and age, etc. killed on a certain date. These 86 or so children were killed by Israeli soldiers before any suicide bombers entered Israel to retaliate.

For your sake and skepticism, we can make it 85.

People sometimes post information that turns out to be mistaken. Folks get fact-checked here all the time. It's one of the most useful things about a board like this. I know that once in a while I've posted things from sources, had the information challenged by folks here, and found that the source I used had it wrong. It's good to be able to admit those errors and not immediately believe everything one reads, even from sources that are otherwise trustworthy.

In the particular case of the child you highlighted, I've done the research and can find no information other than what is posted on the one site. There are no articles online that I can find which indicate the circumstances that might have led to that death. As the child in question is so young, one would think that there would be more information available. I would be especially shocked to know that B'Tselem did not include this incident on their site.

If a four year old child is killed by a bullet in the head from IDF forces, you can by pretty sure that B'Tselem would list that incident on their site. It seems, however, that they have not and this, I would think, would make anyone wonder what exactly happened in this case.

There is no "running around" that I am asking you to do for me. If you do not have any information regarding this incident other than the fact that you see the citation listed on that website, then that's alright with me. I thought you might know something more or have additional info.

She has an article on Counterpunch. But I have also heard some people badmouth Counterpunch. Can anyone tell me the beef with Counterpunch and whether it is censored from this site as well?

Discover Why Noam Chomsky says: "CounterPunch is must reading."

I have search their past articles and the lineup of authors is pretty impressive.