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Thursday, June 2, 2011

ME: Bonfire of the experts: the Arab uprisings and the Israeli-Palestinian question


Tony Klug, 1 June 2011

We need to understand that patience on the Palestinian side has almost completely run out after many fruitless years of aimless negotiations and feeble international mediation. The Palestinians – exasperated by US reluctance or impotence - see the shelf-life of the long-running but deeply flawed peace process expiring later this year.

I was at a meeting recently where the head of the British Foreign Office’s ‘Near East’ group openly confessed that “Many people in the Foreign Office were caught by surprise by what has been happening in the region”. To be fair, they are not alone in failing to see in advance what, in retrospect, is so obvious. The same comment could be made about the most powerful intelligence agencies across the globe, the finest professors in the best universities, revered international diplomats and indeed the whole shebang of analysts, consultants and foreign policy wonks.

But then why should we expect anything different? When was the last time venerable experts foresaw any of the seismic events of recent years? Who, before it happened, predicted the impending release of the hitherto ‘terrorist’ Mandela and the rapid dismantling of the apartheid South African state? Who imagined the sudden crumbling of the Berlin Wall and the astonishing collapse of the Soviet Union and the other communist regimes of Eastern Europe? How many soothsayers got Northern Ireland right prior to the historic deal between its warring factions?

The list goes on. Within the Middle East region itself, the abrupt fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979 was a bolt out of the blue. The dramatic visit of the Egyptian President Sadat to Israel in 1977, just four years after the unexpected war of 1973, took everyone by surprise. So too did the secretly negotiated Oslo agreements in 1993 between the Israeli government and the PLO - until then eternal enemies - which culminated in mutual recognition and handshakes on the White House lawn. Who saw coming either the first or second Palestinian intifada in 1987 and 2000 respectively? Or the Hamas election victory in 2006? Indeed, since the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948, probably every significant development - including every major outbreak of hostilities and every breakthrough peace initiative - occurred when least expected.

I pose the questions but I don’t have the answers any more than anyone else does. But the record is so compellingly and consistently poor that I suspect there must be a common factor or factors linking all these failures of anticipation. Maybe there is a tendency for the human mind to fixate on the status quo and deduce assumptions backwards. There could be an interesting Ph.D thesis there for someone!

Arab uprisings


In the current Middle East setting, the status quo throughout the Arab world, generally speaking, was, until the recent political earthquakes, one of despotic regimes suffering a chronic lack of legitimacy, rampant nepotism and widespread corruption among the ruling families and their cronies, little or no freedom of expression or right to dissent, a striking lack of democratic accountability across the board, a tightly controlled media and judiciary, high levels of unemployment and poverty, and a scary, omnipresent state security apparatus. In the face of such widespread and enduring subjugation, the question that increasingly posed itself was why had the citizens of these states not risen up and overthrown their oppressive rulers? Why had democracy by-passed the region when it had been eagerly embraced in recent times in most other parts of the world where tyranny had previously reigned, such as in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Latin America, Turkey, Southeast Asia, South Africa and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa?

The answer commonly given by self-appointed experts on ‘the Arab mentality’ was to the effect that democracy and the urge for freedom were simply not a part of the Arab DNA. If, as events have since strikingly demonstrated, this was the wrong answer, it was because it was the wrong question. Democracy had not by-passed the region, full stop, past tense. It just hadn’t burst through yet.

The Arabs, it turns out, are no different from the rest of the human race. If you prick us, as an Arab Shylock might have said, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? To which, he might have added, if you oppress us, do we not revolt and kick you out, even if we take our time about it?

So how will these dramatic changes unfold? It is of course much too early to say. There are opportunities and there are dangers. Not the least of the dangers is the ominous prospect of civil war in countries where the oppressive regimes decide to fight back and go on fighting to the bitter end. But, in the light of the dismal past record of professed experts, who is going to stick their neck out at this stage and make definitive predictions?
Nonetheless, there are certain tentative deductions that I think we can risk making even now.

One is that autocratic regimes cannot be depended on to deliver what is often proclaimed to be the key western objective of ‘stability’. This is not altogether surprising when you consider that there is usually no mechanism to change these brittle regimes that does not involve bringing down the whole system.

A second deduction is that non-violent mass action is not the poor relative of an armed uprising but, depending on the circumstances, can be far more effective in achieving and sustaining change. Had the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt been commandeered by the men and women of the gun, they would probably have instantly invited overwhelming counter-violence by the respective regimes, gladly seizing the opportunity to crush the incipient protests.

A third deduction is that, while the grievances of the Arab street may be similar, the contexts are different in each country. So it is not surprising if the revolutions – and the responses they provoke – take divergent paths, as we are witnessing day-by-day.
A fourth deduction is that no one faction – religious, nationalist or ideological - ‘owns’ the revolution, except maybe the Arab youth, male and female, who have broken the fear factor and are not prepared to swallow the old slogans, put up with a life of oppression and suffer the alienation, hopelessness and humiliations of their parents’ generation.

Today’s young have not only the longing and energy to change things but also the technological means and know-how to mobilize their fellow-citizens on a large scale despite the governmental monopoly of the classical media and other traditional forms of communication - with the telling exception of the more independently minded popular international satellite television channels such as Al Jazeera, which have in recent years beamed new and different perspectives into the Arab world.

But the ruling old guard was caught unaware in particular by Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the rest of the new social media. By comparison, putting down armed uprisings and attempted coups must have seemed like child’s play.
This is not to say that there may not be an attempt by this or that political grouping to hijack one or another of the revolutions. Eternal vigilance on the part of the young revolutionaries, coupled with strong constitutional safeguards, will be vital to forestall such an eventuality, particularly during the transitional phases.

A fifth initial deduction is that, unlike the revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989 that, in the main, aimed to transform their despotic governances into Western Europe-style liberal democracies, the Arab uprisings seem not to have very clear models other than generally wanting to change the political systems. This could be a strength or a weakness. It all depends.
So there is no question that serious change in the region is on the way. On the other hand, there are some hardy fundamentals that endure and go on enduring – chief among them the Israeli-Palestinian issue. A compelling question is what is the connection between the contemporary ‘Arab awakening’ and this perennial conflict?

On the face of it, not very much it would seem, although to a degree everything is arguably linked to everything else. Generally, however, it seems clear that the current unrest in the Arab world is essentially about the internal affairs of state rather than about Israel or Palestine.

 Nevertheless, it is hardly surprising that both Israelis and Palestinians are anxious about what the regional explosions mean for them. If not sooner, then certainly later, the developments in the region are bound to have an important bearing on the future course of the conflict and on the respective destinies of the two peoples. 

Palestinian concerns


I attended an off-the-record meeting in Istanbul recently where a group of influential Palestinians debated this very question. On the one hand, they took it for granted that support for their cause would be enhanced by the replacement of corrupt Arab dictatorships reliant on American largesse with the democratic expressions of the popular will. It was, after all, the Palestinians, as someone was keen to point out, who pioneered mass uprisings in the region with their two intifadas, blazing the way for what is happening now in other countries.

Furthermore, as freedom spreads in the region, the denial of Palestinian rights and their lack of statehood will become ever more bizarre. I shall return to the primacy of this matter later on.

On the other hand, copious media coverage of the Arab revolutions has, for now, knocked the Palestinian issue off the front pages. At a packed meeting on the Middle East at Chatham House in London a short while ago, it was striking that neither Israel nor the Palestinians even got a mention until towards the end of the hour-long event - and that was only because someone observed that no one had mentioned Israel or the Palestinians!

In addition, the open brutality of the responses of some of the Arab regimes has dented the portrayal of Israel as uniquely repressive in an otherwise relatively benign region.

Israeli concerns


For its part, a bewildered Israel has been facing both ways at once. In the final run up to the ouster of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, presumably in a bid for King Canute’s empty crown, was reported to have appealed to the United States and the countries of the European Union to continue supporting the incumbent president.

This failure to deduce even the blinding obvious on the eve of its occurrence is not uncharacteristic of a government that has made a speciality of defying the waves of global developments and international opinion. It is not a trait for which the Israeli people are likely to thank their leaders in the long run.

 The Israeli President Shimon Peres, on the other hand, has urged support for what he has called “a great moment for the region", arguing that the spread of democracy, in bringing "freedom and dignity” into the lives of its inhabitants, could dramatically improve Israel’s circumstances.

But it is possible there is a degree of disingenuousness to this argument. After all, in the battle of words, Israel’s claim to be ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ has for decades been one of its trump cards. If the Arab world is genuinely on the verge of joining the club of democratic nations – at a time when the right-wing Israeli parliament is introducing decidedly undemocratic legislation, and as the Israeli state approaches the 45th year of its military occupation of a neighbouring people - Israel could end up as the illiberal joker in a more enlightened regional pack.

Israel does, though, have a genuine concern that the long-standing peace treaties with two of its four immediate neighbours, Egypt and Jordan, could be at risk. So far, there is no indication of any moves being made to nullify these treaties and, barring the improbable takeover of these countries by extreme ideological factions, or possibly another prolonged Israeli bombardment of Gaza that causes widespread casualties, it is unlikely to happen, at least not formally.

If the treaties were to be unilaterally terminated on the Arab side, this could be the first hazardous step on the road to a full-blooded war and, after several previous rounds of death and destruction in the past, a further bout is no more in the interests of the contracting states now than it was when the treaties were signed in 1979 and 1994 respectively.

In any case, war is not what the youthful rebellions are about. Quite the opposite in fact. More in keeping with their spirit are the themes of peace, harmony, justice and dignity. The potential is now there for all the peoples of the region, including both Palestinians and Israelis, to aspire to a better, more hopeful, life.

But the potential for Israel to become ever-more isolated in the region is also there. What future actually awaits the Jewish state to a large extent depends on how the Israeli government chooses to play its cards from this time on in the light of this “great moment for the region", as Shimon Peres put it.

Above all, there is a compelling need to bring its occupation of Palestinian territory to a swift end, to be replaced by a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. If the Palestinians do not gain freedom in their own independent state, there is no prospect for Israel being accepted into the region – a self-evident observation that I, among others, originally made in a published essay nearly 40 years ago 

Time running out


Now time is seriously running out. Two years ago, a few months after President Obama took office, I wrote that he has just two years to cajole the parties into swiftly ending their conflict before he moves into re-election mode. The alternative, I suggested, was a future of indefinite strife with deeply troubling global ramifications. If this was a petard, I am now well and truly hoisted by it, as time is almost up. So, if the fading opportunity is not swiftly seized, what happens next?

First, we need to understand that patience on the Palestinian side has almost completely run out after many fruitless years of aimless negotiations and feeble international mediation. In any case, by and large, the Palestinians – exasperated by US reluctance or impotence - see the shelf-life of the long-running but deeply flawed peace process expiring later this year. From September, we are likely to see a new face to Palestinian strategy and tactics.

Why September exactly? For one thing, that is when the UN General Assembly holds its annual meeting. For another, it coincides with the end of the two-year period of infrastructure-and-institution-building proclaimed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who heads the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, in preparation for the declaration of a Palestinian state.

For a third, it marks the anniversary of the aspiration voiced by President Obama at the General Assembly last September to secure a Middle East deal “within a year” that would lead to a new member, Palestine, being welcomed into the world organization. As things have turned out, it looks like that vacant seat will be taken by Southern Sudan instead.

So, come September, the Palestinians are preparing to throw in the towel on the protracted farce of bilateral negotiations with Israel and seek to ‘internationalize’ the issue on the one hand and simultaneously ‘Palestinianize’ it on the other. What might this mean in practice? 

‘Internationalization’


To begin with, let’s look at a few of the ‘internationalization’ possibilities:

 First, based on the assumption that there is no prior deal with Israel on agreed borders, the Palestinians could call on all countries, and the United Nations as a body, to recognize a Palestinian state on the pre-June 1967 boundaries. More than 100 countries – many of them not at all hostile to Israel - have already pledged their support for such a move. If this move proceeds and is successful, this would leave Israel, with its military bases in the West Bank, in the invidious position of being in daily violation of the sovereign territory of an independent UN member-state. In many respects, Israel’s legal position would become a nightmare.

Second, the Palestinians could call for an international protectorate or trusteeship to take control of the occupied territories for a transitional period pending independence. Such an interim arrangement might be seen as less confrontational and enable the Israelis to hand over occupied territory in the first instance to an authority it might view as less threatening.

Third, they could adopt, as official policy, a vigorous campaign to isolate and boycott Israel internationally, and systematically use the panoply of mechanisms available under international law to prosecute the Israeli state and its agents. 

‘Palestinianization’


A complementary ‘Palestinianization’ strategy might include any or all of the following steps:

First, there may be a serious effort, primarily between Fatah and Hamas, to restore Palestinian national unity, on the basis that a divided people will never achieve its national goals. A strong challenge to both factions to stop the internal squabbling was the principal demand of the youthful March 15 movement as it has been dubbed – also known unofficially as the ‘eff-off-everyone’ movement - following demonstrations by tens of thousands of young Palestinians earlier this year in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Parallel with any such effort, some western governments may contemplate engaging cautiously with Hamas in the wake of the failure by Israel and the PLO to achieve a negotiated peace. There is much to be said for this as Hamas, like Fatah, reflects a major Palestinian political current which cannot be wished away as if it were a passing phenomenon.

However, achieving international legitimacy is likely to elude Hamas for as long as it fails to openly purge its Covenant of its virulently antisemitic content, crudely reminiscent of the notorious Tsarist-era forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in blaming Jews for virtually all the ills of the world, currently and historically.

Informally, some Hamas leaders credibly claim the Covenant to be largely dormant and out-dated – in three separate places, for example, it refers to the ‘Communist East’ – but even the most accommodating western governments and civil society groups may be hard-pressed to defend formal relations with a political faction that remains officially associated with the sort of imported racist bilge to which Christian Europe was once committed but from which post-World-War-Two Europe has, in the main, avidly striven to make its distance.

Second, we may see the pumping of new life, and the attracting of a new generation, into ossified Palestinian political agencies such as the PLO and its legislative body, the Palestinian National Council. These bodies had been allowed to atrophy after the Palestinian Authority took centre stage in May 1994 under the Oslo Accord, in the thwarted belief that statehood was just five years away. A reinvigorated PLO would embrace a much broader constituency than the PA by seeking to include Hamas and the diaspora Palestinians plus, potentially, Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Third, a popular campaign may erupt in the occupied West Bank of non-violent civil disobedience. The protests – which are likely to be dubbed a third intifada - could take the form of mass demonstrations, marches, sit-ins or strikes or other innovative ideas that may evolve through creative use of the new social media. Settlers, settlements and other symbols of Israeli occupation would very likely be the principal targets of the protests.

Fourth, a long-stop option might be for the PA to dissolve itself altogether and return the West Bank to direct Israeli rule. That would bring an end to the limited experiment of Palestinian autonomy but the greater cost may be borne by Israel, if only because the Israeli state would then presumably have to finance all municipal and other services, including the security agencies, from its own coffers, for it is unlikely, in such a circumstance, that the EU and other funding sources would continue with their munificence. Such a move could cause mayhem but, in desperation, cannot be ruled out.

Israeli retaliation


Nor could retaliation by Israel be altogether discounted in the form of unilateral annexations of some parts of the West Bank and unilateral withdrawals from other parts. The annexed areas would, we may suppose, include all or most of the territory on which Israeli settlements have been built – although there may be some consolidation - together with the surrounding infrastructure and modern road system.

The annexed area might also incorporate the Jordan Valley, which Israeli governments have often claimed as the state’s vital ‘security border’ to prevent armies or missiles infiltrating the West Bank from the east to attack Israel.

The areas from which Israel pulls out – probably all or most of the heavily populated Palestinian cities – might then be fenced off and left to their own fate, with or without a Palestinian Authority to govern them and represent their interests internationally.

Should Israel move to take such unilateral actions, it would doubtless invite instant condemnation by most of the world. It would be advantage to the Palestinians in terms of international sympathy and support, but game, set and maybe match to Israel in terms of creating new and possibly irreversible facts on the ground. For a few years at least, Israel might find itself increasingly isolated as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement extends its appeal globally and governments around the world vent ineffectual fury.

For their part, the Palestinians would have suffered a heavy blow in their quest for an independent state and the exercise of self-determination and may now find their other policy options – apart from possibly enforced absorption into the Jordanian state - to be extremely limited too.

This would not be an ideal situation for either Israel or the Palestinians. It would, rather, be a recipe for perpetual conflict, with no winners. It would give a new meaning to a zero-sum game.

One-state fantasy


Another circumstance which may induce Israel to make such a move is if the Palestinians carry out the veiled threat to reverse their 23-year commitment to the two-state option and switch instead – or rather switch back - to a so-called one-state solution. It is not hard to understand the pressures that are leading to this policy re-think but, in my view, it would be a seriously retrograde step: condemning the Palestinians themselves to a bitter long-term struggle with uncertain consequences to say the least.

While, in the current circumstances, it may have a strong surface appeal, I fear the one-state idea is not just a pie-in-the-sky fantasy but, more worryingly, a dangerous fantasy, in that it encourages us to imagine that the real alternative to a swift two-state arrangement is not perpetual conflict, but some sort of harmonious, egalitarian utopia which miraculously bypasses a cornucopia of intractable problems.

In other words, with one important exception that I will come to, I see it as a wasteful diversion from the only solution that fits the problem, albeit imperfectly. At the very least, in the light of the growing importance of this debate, the issues it raises need to be explored with the seriousness they warrant.

Seen through their eyes


But first, in the interests of full disclosure, I should reiterate that I originally argued for the two-state paradigm in a Fabian pamphlet back in the early 1970s. While I am open to being persuaded away from this view, the burden of events since then has, if anything, served to confirm its pertinence in my eyes, even if today it would need to have more of a hybrid quality.

I first arrived at the two-state position by seeking to understand the issues not from what I have called a ‘phoney objective detached standpoint’ but by endeavouring to view the conflict through the eyes of the principal protagonists, each in turn, will all the emotion and passion thrown in. It is an approach I recommend to fellow students of international relations among you.

What became abundantly clear to me was that the animosity between the two peoples was not deeply embedded in their histories or in their respective religious beliefs or cultural traditions - which actually have much in common - but is a tragic offspring of a bitter territorial clash whereby Israelis and Palestinians simultaneously aspired to the same piece of territory on which to build their own state. This is the root of the conflict. Everything else has been superimposed or rationalized retrospectively.

In brief, on the one side, all sorts of conspiracy theories and malevolent intent have been heaped over the years onto the Zionist movement by its detractors, some of it giving off a familiar antisemitic whiff, not so different from that which played the decisive role in winning so many Jews, and indeed others, to the Zionist cause in the first place.

Conceptually, Zionism was a distressed people’s proud, if defiant, response to centuries of contempt, humiliation and periodic bouts of deadly oppression that culminated in the systematic extermination of millions of Jews during the Nazi holocaust. The Israeli state was the would-be phoenix to rise from the Jewish embers still smouldering in the blood-soaked earth of another continent. For most Jews, it was the one and only consolation to hang onto when the madness and horrific losses of the death camps finally came to an end.

The motive was the positive one of achieving justice and safety for one tormented people in their historic homeland, not the negative one of doing damage to another people. Yet, in effect, this is precisely what it did do, and at some point Israelis and their supporters around the world will have to come fully and openly to terms with this.

The Palestinians, likewise, did not set out to damage anyone. They merely wanted for themselves what, with considerable justification, they felt was their entitlement. While their Arab brethren were achieving independence in neighbouring countries, the Palestinians – the knock-on victims of Nazi atrocities - were paying a heavy price for losing out in the geo-political lottery.

Dispossessed, degraded and derided – conditions from which they are yet to recover - their original felony was simply to be in the way of another anguished people’s desperate survival strategy. Almost everything that has happened since then is in some way a consequence of this.

To a significant degree, the genesis of the Israeli-Palestinian clash, as intimated, lay in the endemic prejudices and discriminatory practices of European societies, made worse by the double - or more accurately treble - dealings of Anglo-French diplomacy in the first half of the twentieth century which made contradictory pledges to the Arabs and Jews, neither of which was truly kept or intended to be kept by the two ambitious imperial powers who secretly agreed to carve up much of the post-Ottoman Middle East between them.

Present-day Europeans would do well to reflect with a degree of humility on this history, whatever their particular partisan inclinations today, when zealously moralizing from a distance about the goings-on in the region ever since.

It is important to understand that, despite the sharp claims sometimes made, Palestinian animosity towards Israel stems primarily not from it being a Jewish state but from the huge disruption the creation of that state and its policies since that time have inflicted on the lives, dignity and destiny of the Palestinian people, including its right to self-determination. It would not have been profoundly different had the state in question not been Jewish but, say, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist.

By a similar token, Israeli – and by extension Jewish - antipathy towards Palestinians is not, at root, because the latter are Arabs or Muslims but because of a perception that they pose a persistent threat to the peaceable exercise of Jewish self-determination in their own state. It would have been no different had they been Ugandan Africans or Catholic Argentinians, bearing in mind that land in both Uganda and Argentina was implausibly mooted at one time as a possible venue for a future Jewish homeland.

One v two states


Through adopting this more – shall we say - subjective, empathetic approach as a vital tool of analysis, it seemed clear to me that without satisfying the common, minimum, irreducible aspirations of both peoples for self-determination in at least part of the land that each regarded as its own, a resolution of the conflict was impossible.

Some 40 years on, the two-state proposal is, in one way, a lot more complicated in the light of the materially changed facts on the ground and with the number of settlers having grown from 5,000 then to 500,000 now. But, on the other side of the balance sheet, there are a number of powerful factors of more recent vintage in its favour.

First, from a handful of advocates four decades ago, there now exists worldwide support for the two-state concept. Even Hamas has shifted its ground and, for some time, has been signalling its preparedness to do a deal based on the 1967 borders. And in June last year, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu uttered, for Likud - the hard-line nationalist party he leads - the hitherto forbidden phrase ‘a Palestinian state’, even if he hedged it with strict preconditions. This would be a strange time indeed suddenly to abort the whole idea and start all over again with a different idea, and a very controversial one at that.

Second, there is a profound lack of visceral enthusiasm, currently and historically, among both Palestinians and Israelis for a unitary state for both peoples. On the contrary, such a prospect is widely viewed as deeply threatening on both sides.

Although in the past the PLO charter did envisage one ‘democratic secular’ state of Palestine, it was explicitly to be ‘Arab’ in character and would include only those Jews – defined exclusively in religious terms - who arrived before the ‘Zionist invasion’, variously interpreted as 1917 or 1948. In other words, it would include very few of them. There is little evidence or indeed reason to suppose that Palestinians today are in reality any more ready to drop their demands for national independence and self-determination and share common statehood instead with another people in a combined non-Arab - and non-Muslim - state. Indeed, why would anyone expect this of them?

What, for the most part, the Palestinian people yearn for and manifestly need is an end to occupation and for Palestinian sovereignty over the evacuated territories. Opinion poll after opinion poll has demonstrated this, at least among the Palestinians suffering occupation. ‘One state’ profoundly deflects from this aspiration.

In parallel, an attempt to eradicate the Israeli state and its predominantly Jewish character is liable to revive the Jewish fear of genocide, or minimally of discrimination and persecution, and meet with fierce resistance. In the light of their history, it is hard to imagine Israeli Jews, of almost any stripe, voluntarily sacrificing their hard-won national independence to become a minority again in someone else’s land.

To put it another way, Israel/Palestine is not South Africa. Nor is it Northern Ireland. Nor is it directly analogous to a host of other international or historical trouble spots which are, from time to time, cited by way of comparison, notably Sri Lanka, India/Pakistan, Algeria under French rule, Cyprus, East Timor, Iraq or Darfur. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are Nazis: that’s toxic nonsense. Israel behaves like occupiers behave. The Palestinians behave like the occupied behave. Each of them is acting out probably one of the few cast-iron laws of history. Ending the occupation is the only way to change both behaviours.

Each conflict has its own peculiar features and, if a solution is to tick the vital boxes, it has to spring from the inside-out rather than be imported from the outside-in. The struggle against apartheid in South Africa, for instance, was essentially a civil rights struggle. Israel/Palestine, as noted, is primarily a clash of two national movements - even if there is a heavy-duty civil-rights dimension - and any proposal that disregards either national imperative, let alone both of them, is incongruous and, I believe, bound to fail.

Third, over the past 50 years, there have been numerous - initially enthusiastic but ultimately unsuccessful - attempts in the region to merge separate entities. Probably the best known was the United Arab Republic of Egypt and Syria - conceived as an initial step toward creating a wider pan-Arab union – which lasted, primarily on paper, from 1958 to 1961, when Syria formally withdrew. Other short-lived experiments at Arab unity have in addition included, at different times, Iraq, Jordan, North Yemen, Sudan and Libya.

If such attempts spectacularly failed among peoples who in some way perceive themselves as sharing a common language, culture, religion and a sense of history and destiny, on what ground should we anticipate a more positive outcome between two peoples who share none of these traits or aspirations and who have been bitter foes for the best part of a century?

Further, there is not just one but many versions of one united state and very little effort has been made to put flesh on the skeletons of any of them. It is one thing to attract support for the high-flying rhetoric, but a lot of it falls away once it comes down to the content. Depending on the proponent, ‘one state’ could be unitary, federal, confederal, bi-national, democratic, secular, cantonal (Switzerland), multi-confessional (Lebanon), Islamic (Hamas), Arab (PLO charter) or Jewish (Greater Israel).

Some of these terms are frequently used interchangeably even though they are often mutually inconsistent, sometimes even fiercely contradictory. To get a grip on the substance of these matters, we need to move beyond the ‘one-state’ cliché.

The proponents of a unitary ‘secular democratic’ state, in particular, need to show how in practice its version will not be tantamount to the continuation of occupation under another name, will not perpetuate and exacerbate the existing economic and social imbalances, will not foster an ‘apartheid-style’ entity and will not lead to the political domination of either people over the other. Crucially, they will need to explain how the national imperatives of both peoples will, hey presto, melt away. 

Binational confederation


While some supporters of one state argue fervently for a unitary ‘secular democratic’ state, others – at the opposite poll – support a ‘bi-national confederal’ state, in which the constituent elements would retain their national identities and essential zones of sovereignty. To my mind, this latter conception is a possible – I would say desirable – future outgrowth of a two-state model and may be where a future generation will take us, possibly to incorporate other neighbouring states too, notably Jordan.

But a future confederation should not be confused with a condominium - as it sometimes is, inadvertently or mischievously - whereby in effect the Palestinian entity would be jointly governed by Jordan and Israel with a degree of Palestinian internal autonomy.

If we take the European Union as a model, a genuine confederation could only come about through sovereign nations volunteering to delegate upwards parts of their sovereignty for common benefit. But first, they need to have their sovereignty. Israel has had its sovereignty for nearly 63 years. Jordan for two years longer than this. To this day, Palestine does not have sovereignty at all. This missing parameter is, and always has been, at the heart of the conflict.

It is worth noting too that the constituent states of the EU – and even of the more closely integrated Benelux, comprising Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg - have retained their separate national identities, for the reason that it is important to them, unlike what would be required of Israel and Palestine in a unitary state.

Finally, a quick but telling anecdote: a few months ago, as part of an Oxford Research Group delegation, I visited Gaza to attend a Palestinian workshop. On both entering and leaving the territory, Egyptian officials in Rafah took our Palestinian colleagues - eminent intellectuals and peace activists - aside for interrogation. This delayed our passage for several hours and it was not clear until the last moment whether they would let them pass at all.

In the end they waived them through, explaining that, on the way in, it was a case of mistaken identity and, on the way out, a clerical mishap. The disbelieving Palestinians attributed the delays to the sort of harassment to which they were accustomed both within and without the Arab world. It is the price of statelessness - and there is only one sure way to remedy this inequity.

So, whichever way we look at it, there is, I believe, no escaping the two-state paradigm as the basis of a resolution to the conflict.

International consensus


To my mind, following the 1967 war, roughly 30 years were irresponsibly squandered on all sorts of platitudinous UN resolutions and international plans of limited worth until, eventually, a solid international consensus, backed by majority Palestinian and Israeli opinion, emerged, around the turn of the century, in support of two viable states as the backbone of a solution. The consensus was eventually reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 1397 in 2002.

In the same year, the Arab League adopted the Arab Peace Initiative that called for a comprehensive regional settlement with full normalization of relations among all states of the region, including the Israeli and Palestinian states, in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the territories it captured in 1967. Not long before then, such a proposal would have had Israelis dancing in the streets.

So finally the whole international community, with the Arab world importantly on board, agreed a common destination. But still it had to get the strategy right - and this it has persistently failed to do. While each had its merits, a range of initiatives – from the Madrid and Oslo processes in the 1990s, through the Camp David summit in 2000, the Taba talks (January 2001), the Mitchell Report (May 2001), the Road Map (2003), the summits at Sharm el-Sheikh (2000/2005), Aqaba (2003) and Annapolis (2007), and several others besides, proved to be either dead-end, stillborn or toothless.

All the while, through its burgeoning settlement programme, the state that already had its independence doggedly chiselled away at the minuscule territory of the putative Palestinian state, bit-by-bit eroding the feasibility of the only destination that made any sense.

In consequence, as observed, even the most pragmatic Palestinian opinion has steadily been losing faith in the two-state outcome, some 23 years after the PLO in 1988, at its historic congress in Algiers, dropped its previous demand for the eradication of the state of Israel and momentously lowered its hitherto immutable demand for 100 per cent of the land, agreeing instead to settle for a state on the remaining 22 per cent within the framework of a two-state solution.

This solemn decision was the Palestinians' great historical compromise. For as long as Israel's leaders persist with the belief that a further deal can be cut over the 22 per cent, peace will continue to be elusive.

In parallel, the deadly record of suicide bombings followed by the epidemic of Hamas rockets, which has terrorized the population of southern Israel for years – most notably after Israel withdrew its forces and settlers from Gaza in 2005 - has deepened the mood among ordinary Israelis that peace-making is futile, that Palestinians are not serious about peace and that a state in the West Bank is merely a device to attack Israelis from closer range and finish them off. To many Israelis, ‘peace’ has become a four-letter word – which, it so happens, it is in the Hebrew language!

The principal casualty of these negative political currents on both sides could be the irretrievable collapse of the hard-won consensus destination. That would take us back to square one.

Endgame


The important question now is what to do with such time as is left before the window of opportunity shuts firmly tight? I believe the answer is to shift the focus sharply away from process – or, worse still, talks about process – direct to the endgame.  I have written about this previously but, in brief, the aim should be to establish a clear horizon coupled with an effective enforcement mechanism that would not easily be derailed by the first atrocity or disrupted by the furtive manoeuvrings of any party.

At this point, if President Obama is not ready, willing and able to openly take the lead himself, it is up to other leading members of the UN Security Council, preferably with the fulsome backing of the Arab League, to initiate a process to determine the shape of a final resolution – we know broadly, and even in some detail, what it would have to look like - and to fashion potent inducements, positive and negative, for the conflicting parties to meet their respective interim targets along a fixed timetable towards the final destination.

In a double whammy, achieving the interim targets could attract powerful rewards in each case at each stage – material or diplomatic - while failure to achieve them would suffer stringent penalties.

If the conflicting parties are not happy with any elements of the final plan, they would be free to negotiate an alternative with each other. But, in a change from the past, the default position would be the Security Council resolution, not the status quo that invariably favours the stronger party and that has consistently impeded all progress towards a resolution of the conflict.

International political will


So, without underestimating the complexities, a settlement of the conflict could, maybe, still be rescued, even after September. Indeed, it could even be September that triggers a major new push. It would take a determined international effort – ideally to include a galvanizing visit by President Obama and other senior international figures to Israel and the occupied West Bank - some innovative thinking, a degree of goodwill, and a healthy dose of coercion.

An initiative of this type would almost certainly be welcomed, overtly or covertly, by the traumatized mass of Palestinians and Israelis desperate for a way out of their seemingly intractable problem. With the requisite political will, even the most obdurate issues could still be resolved to the minimum satisfaction of the principal parties and to the general relief of us all. But time is closing in.

So there it is. I’m sure there is plenty there to disagree with. Thank you for your attention.


This piece is adapted from a presentation by Tony Klug to the Foreign Affairs Society at St Andrews University, Scotland, 14 April 2011



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BRAINWASHING FOR KINDERGARTEN KIDS
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BB: Quotes from the TALMUD

BB: Quotes from the TALMUD
Talmudic quoutes

BB: Talmudic Quotes


CLAIM 01: "A pregnant non-Jew is no better
than a pregnant animal.
"
Coschen hamischpat 405.


RESPONSE: The above quote is a wrong inference from a fiscal law in Shulchan Oruch, Choshen Mishpat 405.3, that relates to times when slavery was a standard and accepted practice across the world.

BLOGGER: Response is BS. Even during the time mentioned above, the quote of Talmud, which is supposed to be a holy book, should not be as it is.

CLAIM 02: "It is permitted to take the body and the life of a Gentile." Sepher ikkarim III c 25.


RESPONSE: This is a misquotation. Rabbi Yosef Albo (the author) was asked by a Christian thinker about seeming injustice of the laws of Judaism dealing with charging interest on a loan. (According to Deuteronomy 23:20 and 23:21, a Jew is not allowed to lend with interest to another Jew, but may do so to a Gentile).

R. Albo answers: The "Gentile" or "heathen" in the above passage refers to idolater, who refuses to keep seven Noahide laws. The laws are universal for all mankind: A) prohibition of idolatry, B) prohibition of blasphemy, C) prohibition of murder, D) prohibition of immorality and promiscuity, E) prohibition of theft, F) establishment of judicial system, G) prohibition of cruelty to animals.

Such a person, who does not respect other's rights, places himself apart from human community and therefore can expect to be treated according to his own rules. He is a threat to everyone around and hence if somebody kills him, that person is not charged. On the contrary, even according to non-Jewish philosophers in those days (14th and 15th century, Spain), as R Albo brings, such a person should be killed. So it is regarding money matters: the prohibition of taking interest, that applies to everybody, including a non-Jew who keeps the Noahide laws (as R. Albo mentions a few sentences earlier), do not apply to him.

BLOGGER: What a crackpot full of steaming shit. First, an idolater is not obliged to follow the Nohide laws. Second, even if he is, but violates them all or part thereof, he does not deserve to be killed by someone. Third, one can not just kill someone who has a different belief. Anybody is free to believe in whatever he wants as far as no harm is
done to those living around him when the belief is carried out into action.

CLAIM 03: "It is the law to kill anyone who denies the Torah. The Christians belong to the denying ones of the
Torah.
" Coschen hamischpat 425 Hagah 425.


RESPONSE: This is from the Shulcan Aruch and applies to killing Jewish heretics. The following line in this passage is that this law does not apply to anyone non-Jewish and it is forbidden to harm any gentile. The Jewish heretics are people which are a potential cause of harm and trouble to the Jewish nation. The penalty is designed to demonstrate the severity with which heretical views were considered, rather than a practical penalty as such penalties were rarely imposed. E.S./David S. Maddison.

BLOGGER: The quote says, “anyone who denies the Torah”, then immediately followed by, “The Christians belong to the denying ones of the Torah.” I cannot find any reference to Jewish heretics, or “it is forbidden to harm any gentile”. Response is nothing but hogwash.



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BB: Pervert Rabbis













































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CASES OF SHAME: What is a rabbi?

The word "Rabbi" refers to one of the ancient scribes - supposedly a holy man - who participated in writing the "Talmud". In Arabic, which is a Semitic language and a cousin to Hebrew, the word is"Rabbanie", or "Rabbie", means a godly man. My question is, are they really godly? I strongly doubt that. Below are some of their news…

Israel's new Ashkenazi chief rabbi case: JERUSALEM: Israel's new Ashkenazi chief rabbi is facing growing calls to step down amid allegations of misconduct. The allegations center on sexual harassment charges against Yona Metzger, as well as charges that he engaged in fraud and is not qualified for the post. Aides to Metzger have rejected the allegations as a smear campaign fueled by political rivals.

Metzger and his Sephardi counterpart, Rabbi Shlomo Amar, were elected as Israel's chief rabbis April 14 by a 150-member public committee. Since then, however,
opposition to Metzger has grown. In the latest development, a Tel Aviv accountant filed a petition Monday in the High Court of Justice challenging Metzger's appointment. It will be heard by a three-judge panel.


The petition claims that allegations of fraud and other improprieties involving Metzger were not fully investigated because of his 1998 pledge not to stand for chief rabbi of Tel Aviv. Metzger's spokesman, Roni Rimon, told the Israeli daily Ma'ariv that the petition was full of "lies, lies and more lies" produced by "professional slanderers.". Metzger had been accused of forging witnesses' signatures on marriage contracts and unlawfully demanding payment for performing weddings, the daily Ha'aretz reported. As a result of the allegations, Metzger's permit to serve as a chief rabbi of a major city was revoked. However, it was reinstated several months later after a hearing before three senior Israeli rabbis -- including Eliyahu Bakshi - Doron, a former Sephardi chief rabbi -- who accepted Metzger's explanations and his commitment to leave the Tel Aviv race, the paper said.

The petition also argues that the Metzger, 50, who previously was rabbi of north Tel Aviv, was not qualified to
fill the chief rabbi's duties as head of the country's rabbinic court system because he never had been a religious judge or rabbi of a major city. The
petition maintained that the elections committee for the chief rabbi was not adequately informed of the misconduct allegations against Metzger. In related development, Ma'ariv recently published what it said were sexual harassment allegations involving Metzger. Three weeks before Metzger's election as chief
rabbi, the paper reported, it learned of complaints from four adult men who
claimed Metzger had touched their arms, legs and chests and expressed admiration for their muscular physiques.


Park Avenue rabbi Case: A prominent Park Avenue rabbi had a mistress nearly half his age sign a bizarre cohabitation contract - promising she’d get liposuction, become better educated and continue their already hot-and-heavy sexual relationship in exchange for half his house, the woman claims in a bombshell lawsuit. Janet Pizzo says she had a seven-year affair with the married Metropolitan Synagogue Rabbi Joel Goor - which included recurring steamy sex in his rabbinical office while he lied to his wife about his whereabouts. But their courtship crumbled when she suspected him of having another girlfriend, and he’s since become vindictive. She even caught him on audio tape threatening to prance around their Bronxhome naked in front of her 17-year-old daughter.

You’ve got to move,Goor says, according to an audio tape reviewed by The Post. “This is my house . . . I’m allowed to walk around nude in my house. So you better tell [her daughter] Mary,Goor told Pizzo.“I’m allowed to walk round this house . . . and I’m going to.”. Goor’s lawyer declined to comment on the allegations. “I truly loved this guy, I really did,” said a weepy Pizzo, 48, complaining how the 73-year-old Man of God locked her out of their bedroom, removed the cushions from her couch and vowed to unplug the refrigerator. http://www.canonist.com/?p=1245


BB: More corruption: human organ trafficking and money laundering case.

Remember the group of Zionist Jews in New Jersey, USA, who were involved in human organ trafficking, the Zionists were heavily into human organ trafficking. Nonetheless, the controlled media stooges quickly suppressed the information, and today we hear very little of it. See them below being arrested by the FBI. Please, click on picture.

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BB: The Greater Israel and their own words out of the horse's mouth

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Sons of Satan





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Jews; offspring of Satan






BB: Miscellaneous

BB: Miscellaneous

Zionist Israel




1. "There is a huge gap between us (Jews) and our enemies, not just in ability but in morality, culture, sanctity of life, and conscience. They are our neighbors here, but it seems as if at a distance of a few hundred meters away, there are people who do not belong to our continent, to our world, but actually belong to a different galaxy." Israeli president Moshe Katsav. The Jerusalem Post, May 10, 2001

2. "The Palestinians are like crocodiles, the more you give them meat, they want more".... Ehud Barak, Prime Minister of Israel at the time - August 28, 2000. Reported in the Jerusalem Post August 30, 2000

3. " [The Palestinians are] beasts walking on two legs." Menahim Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the Beasts". New Statesman, 25 June 1982.

4. "The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988

5. "When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.

6. "How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to." Golda Maier, March 8, 1969.

7. "There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed." Golda Maier Israeli Prime Minister June 15, 1969

8. "The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only bluff, which was born and developed after the war." Israeli General Matityahu Peled, Ha'aretz, 19 March 1972.

9. David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

10. Ben Gurion also warned in 1948 : "We must do everything to insure they ( the Palestinians) never do return." Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes. "The old will die and the young will forget."

11. "We have to kill all the Palestinians unless they are resigned to live here as slaves." Chairman Heilbrun of the Committee for the Re-election of General Shlomo Lahat, the mayor of Tel Aviv, October 1983.

12. "Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." - Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, October 3, 2001, to Shimon Peres, as reported on Kol Yisrael radio. (Certainly the FBI's cover-up of the Israeli spy ring/phone tap scandal suggests that Mr. Sharon may not have been joking.) 

13. "We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.

14. "We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinian refugees] never do return" David Ben-Gurion, in his diary, 18 July 1948, quoted in Michael Bar Zohar's Ben-Gurion: the Armed Prophet, Prentice-Hall, 1967, p. 157.

15. " ... we should prepare to go over to the offensive with the aim of smashing Lebanon, Trans-jordan and Syria... The weak point in the Arab coalition is Lebanon [for] the Moslem regime is artificial and easy to undermine. A Christian state should be established... When we smash the [Arab] Legions strength and bomb Amman, we will eliminate Transjordan, too, and then Syria will fall. If Egypt still dares to fight on, we shall bomb Port Said, Alexandria, and Cairo." " David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

16. "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." Israel Koenig, "The Koenig Memorandum"

17. "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.

18. "We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'" Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.

19. Rabin's description of the conquest of Lydda, after the completion of Plan Dalet. "We shall reduce the Arab population to a community of woodcutters and waiters" Uri Lubrani, PM Ben-Gurion's special adviser on Arab Affairs, 1960. From "The Arabs in Israel" by Sabri Jiryas.

20. "There are some who believe that the non-Jewish population, even in a high percentage, within our borders will be more effectively under our surveillance; and there are some who believe the contrary, i.e., that it is easier to carry out surveillance over the activities of a neighbor than over those of a tenant. [I] tend to support the latter view and have an additional argument:...the need to sustain the character of the state which will henceforth be Jewish...with a non-Jewish minority limited to 15 percent. I had already reached this fundamental position as early as 1940 [and] it is entered in my diary." Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department. From Israel: an Apartheid State by Uri Davis, p.5.

21. "Everybody has to move, run and grab as many hilltops as they can to enlarge the settlements because everything we take now will stay ours... Everything we don't grab will go to them." Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

22. "It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism,colonialization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands." Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot, of 14 July 1972.

23. "Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine,Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.

24. "One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail." -- Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, Feb. 27, 1994 [Source: N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, 1994, p. 1]

25. "We Jews, we are the destroyers and will remain the destroyers. Nothing you can do will meet our demands and needs. We will forever destroy because we want a world of our own." (You Gentiles, by Jewish Author Maurice Samuels, p. 155).

26. "We will have a world government whether you like it or not. The only question is whether that government will be achieved by conquest or consent." (Jewish Banker Paul Warburg, February 17, 1950, as he testified before the U.S. Senate).

27. "We will establish ourselves in Palestine whether you like it or not...You can hasten our arrival or you can equally retard it. It is however better for you to help us so as to avoid our constructive powers being turned into a destructive power which will overthrow the world." (Chaim Weizmann, Published in "Judische Rundschau," No. 4, 1920)

28. "Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves." - Israeli prime Minister Menachem Begin in a speech to the Knesset [Israeli Parliament] quoted by Amnon Kapeliouk, "Begin and the Beasts," New Statesman, June 25, 1982

29. "Tell me, do the evil men of this world have a bad time? They hunt and catch whatever they feel like eating. They don't suffer from indigestion and are not punished by Heaven. I want Israel to join that club. Maybe the world will then at last begin to fear us instead of feeling sorry. Maybe they will start to tremble, to fear our madness instead of admiring our nobility. Let them tremble; let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are a savage country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go wild, that we might start World War Three just like that, or that we might one day go crazy and burn all the oil fields in the Middle East. Even if you'll prove to me that the present war is a dirty immoral war, I don't care. We shall start another war, kill and destroy more and more. And do you know why it is all worth it? Because it seems that this war has made us more unpopular among the civilized world.We'll hear no more of that nonsense about the unique Jewish morality. No more talk about a unique people being a light upon the nations. No more uniqueness and no more sweetness and light. Good riddance." -- Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon

30. "The Modern Age is the Jewish Age, and the twentieth century, in particular, is the Jewish Century." -Yuri Slezkine, Professor of History at University of California, Berkeley, "The Jewish Century"; Princeton University Press

31. "What shocks and worries me is the narrow-mindedness and the shortsightedness of our military leaders. They seem to presume that the State of Israel may or even must-behave in the realm of international relations according to the laws of the jungle- -the long chain of false incidents and hostilities we have invented, and so many clashes we have provoked;" - From Diary of Moshe Sharett, former Primer Minister of Israel in Livia Rokach, Israel's Sacred Terrorism published 980

32. Hebrew essayist Achad Ha-Am, after paying a visit to Palestine in 1891: "Abroad we are accustomed to believe that Israel is almost empty; nothing is grown here and that whoever wishes to buy land could come here and buy what his heart desires. In reality, the situation is not like this. Throughout the country it is difficult to find cultivable land which is not already cultivated."

33. The Balfour Declaration to Baron Rothchild, on the 2nd of November, 1917: "His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

34. Lord Sydenham, Hansard, House of Lords, 21 June 1922: "If we are going to admit claims on conquest thousands of years ago, the whole world will have to be turned upside down."

35. 1923:Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall, "Zionist colonization must either be terminated or carried out against the wishes of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, be continued and make progress only under the protection of a power independent of the native population - an iron wall, which will be in a position to resist the pressure to the native population. This is our policy towards the Arabs..."

36. Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism (precursor of Likud), The Iron Wall, 1923: "A voluntary reconciliation with the Arabs is out of the question either now or in the future. If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison for the land, or find some rich man or benefactor who will provide a garrison on your behalf. Or else-or else, give up your colonization, for without an armed force which will render physically impossible any attempt to destroy or prevent this colonization, colonization is impossible, not difficult, not dangerous, but IMPOSSIBLE!... Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important... to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot - or else I am through with playing at colonizing."

37. David Ben Gurion, future Prime Minister of Israel, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985: "We must expel Arabs and take their places." 
38. Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department in 1940. From "A Solution to the Refugee Problem": "Between ourselves it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples together in this country. We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are in this small country. There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries - all of them. Not one village, not one tribe should be left."

39. Israeli official Arthur Lourie in a letter to Walter Eytan, director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry (ISA FM 2564/22). From Benny Morris, "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem 1947-49", p. 297: "...if people become accustomed to the large figure and we are actually obliged to accept the return of the refugees, we may find it difficult, when faced with hordes of claimants, to convince the world that not all of these formerly lived in Israeli territory. It would, in any event, seem desirable to minimize the numbers...than otherwise."

40. David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben- Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978: "We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai."

41. BenDavid -Gurion, one of the father founders of Israel, described Zionist aims in 1948: "A Christian state should be established [in Lebanon], with its southern border on the Litani river. We will make an alliance with it. When we smash the Arab Legion's strength and bomb Amman, we will eliminate Transjordan too, and then Syria will fall. If Egypt still dares to fight on, we shall bomb Port Said, Alexandria and Cairo... And in this fashion, we will end the war and settle our forefathers' account with Egypt, Assyria, and Aram"

42. [Begin, and Yitzhak Shamir who were members of the party became Prime Ministers.] Albert Einstein, Hanna Arendt and other prominent Jewish Americans, writing in The New York Times, protest the visit to America of Menachem Begin, December 1948: "Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our time is the emergence in the newly created State of Israel of the Freedom Party (Herut), a political party closely akin in its organization, method, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties."

43. Martin Buber, Jewish Philosopher, addressed Prime Minister Ben Gurion on the moral character of the state of Israel with reference to the Arab refugees in March 1949. "We will have to face the reality that Israel is neither innocent, nor redemptive. And that in its creation, and expansion; we as Jews, have caused what we historically have suffered; a refugee population in Diaspora."

44. Moshe Dayan (Israel Defense and Foreign Minister), on February 12 1952. Radio "Israel.": "It lies upon the people's shoulders to prepare for the war, but it lies upon the Israeli army to carry out the fight with the ultimate object of erecting the Israeli Empire."

45. Martin Buber, to a NewYork audience, Jewish Newsletter, June 2, 1958: "When we [followers of the prophetic Judaism] returned to Palestine...the majority of Jewish people preferred to learn from Hitler rather than from us."

46. Aba Eban (the Israeli Foreign Minister) stated arrogantly. New York Times June 19, 1967: "If the General Assembly were to vote by 121 votes to 1 in favor of "Israel" returning to the armistice lines-- (pre June 1967 borders) "Israel" would refuse to comply with the decision."

47. Dr. Israel Shahak, Chairperson of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights, and a survivor of the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Commenting on the Israeli military's Emergency Regulations following the 1967 War. Palestine, vol. 12, December 1983: "Hitler's legal power was based upon the 'Enabling Act', which was passed quite legally by the Reichstag and which allowed the Fuehrer and his representatives, in plain language, to be what they wanted, or in legal language, to issue regulations having the force of law. Exactly the same type of act was passed by the Knesset [Israeli's Parliament] immediately after the 1067 conquest granting the Israeli governor and his representatives the power of Hitler, which they use in Hitlerian manner."

48. Joseph Weitz, Director of the Jewish National Fund, the Zionist agency charged with acquiring Palestinian land, Circa 194. Machover Israca, January 5, 1973 /p.2: "The only solution is Eretz Israel [Greater Israel], or at least Western Eretz Israel [all the land west of Jordan River], without Arabs. There is no room for compromise on this point ... We must not leave a single village, not a single tribe." 
49. Israeli Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg, Inferring that killing isn't murder if the victim is Gentile. Jerusalem Post, June 19,1989: "Jewish blood and a goy's [gentile's] blood are not the same."

50. Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, tells students at Bar Ilan University, From the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989: "Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories."

51. Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declares at a Tel Aviv memorial service for former Likud leaders, November 1990. Jerusalem Domestic Radio Service: "The past leaders of our movement left us a clear message to keep Eretz Israel from the Sea to the Jordan River for future generations, for the mass aliya [immigration], and for the Jewish people, all of whom will be gathered into this country." 
52. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000: "If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force...."

53. Ben Gurion: In 1899, Davis Triestsch wrote to Herzl: " I would suggest to you to come round in time to the "Greater Palestine" program before it is too late... the Basle program must contain the words "Great Palestine" or "Palestine and its neighboring lands" otherwise it's nonsense. You do not get ten million Jews into a land of 25,000 Km2". " The present map of Palestine was drawn by the British mandate. The Jewish people have another map which our youth and adults should strive to fulfill -- From the Nile to the Euphrates."

54. Vladimir Jabotinsky (the founder and advocate of the Zionist terrorist organizations), Quoted by Maxime Rodinson in Peuple Juif ou Problem Juif. (Jewish People or Jewish Problem): "Has any People ever been seen to give up their territory of their own free will? In the same way, the Arabs of Palestine will not renounce their sovereignty without violence."

We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one - progressive, liberal - in Israel; and the other - cruel, injurious - in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.



BB: MOSSAD

BB: MOSSAD

BB: ADAM YAHIYE GADAHN: A Jew who pretended to have converted to Islam assumed different aliases.

BB: ADAM YAHIYE GADAHN: A Jew who pretended to have converted to Islam assumed different aliases.

BB:They Pretended to have converted to Islam, and started talking violently to smear Islam Muslims.

BB:They Pretended to have converted to Islam, and started talking violently to smear Islam Muslims.

BB: They call themselves Jews though their ancestors never set foot in Palestine.

BB: They call themselves Jews though their ancestors never set foot in Palestine.

BB: The Real American History

BB: Books to read

BB: Books to read

BB: News Reels

BB: News Reels

BB: Misc. (Vids and other stuff)

BB: Misc. (Vids and other stuff)

BB: 9/11(Michael Moore)

BB: 9/11(Michael Moore)
Click link below for movie

BB: 9/11

The Gift of 9/11 Sept. 2008
Smoke and Dust Mar. 2009 *
Sunday Doodles Mar. 2009 *
Lessons from Oz June 2009 *
The 6,000 Feb. 2010 *

Gadgets

Gadgets
Misc.