PALESTINE/ISRAEL: Chosen by who...A draconian diety?!!!

Wait, Netanyahu said what?

Posted by Editor on October 24, 2015 in News & Analysis, Palestine, United States, World | | Leave a response

Benjamin Netanyahu needs an intervention. And his own people need to undertake it. Hating Palestinians is one thing. Giving Hitler a pass is quite another.

by Amer Zahr

There were warning signs. We all knew he was a little off, but I never thought it would get this bad. I have heard him call Palestinians a “demographic threat.” Of course, labeling indigenous people a “demographic threat” to a colonizing enterprise is pure nonsense. So, I knew he was a little bizarre, but even I never thought it would get this bad.

I have heard him call Israel the “one and only” Jewish state. Of course, as far as I know, no other person or entity, not even the Upper East Side of Manhattan, has made a claim. So, I knew he was a little out of touch, but even I never thought it would get this bad.

I have heard him speak in front of the United Nations many times. This is where his delusion has made special appearances. Just this year, he spent 44 seconds staring at the audience. It was awkward. In 2013, while talking about Iran at the United Nations, I heard him say, “The last century has taught us that when a radical regime with global ambitions gets awesome power, sooner or later its appetite for aggression knows no bounds.” Tell me about it. In fact, in that 2013 speech, he spent 2535 of his 3015 words talking about Iran. I counted. That’s 84%. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani didn’t even spend 84% of his time talking about Iran.

In 2012, I even saw him stand up in front of all of the distinguished delegations of the world and say, “I brought a diagram.” Then, as we all warmly recall, he pointed to a circle with a wavy line coming out of it and said, “This is a bomb. This is a fuse.” Now, we all know that’s not what a bomb looks like. As Ahmed Mohamed showed us in Texas, a bomb looks like an alarm clock being carried by a 14-year-old Muslim kid.

So, I knew he was a little deviant, but even I, a Palestinian who has been repeatedly racially profiled upon entry to my homeland, who has observed Israeli checkpoints that utterly dehumanize us, who has even witnessed the audacious theft of hummus, even I never thought it would get this bad.

A couple days ago, at the 37th World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, referring to Haj Amin El-Husseini, the once-grand mufti of Jerusalem, said: He flew to Berlin. Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time. He wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, “If you expel them, they’ll all come here.” “So what should I do with them?” he asked. He said, “Burn them.”

When I woke up this morning, I saw this quote all over my newsfeed. At first, I giggled. “Netanyahu blaming us for the Holocaust is really funny,” I thought. As a comedian, I always welcome lighthearted satire in times of distress. It can lift spirits. Actually, I was even a little threatened. “That’s really a creative story. I wish I would have thought of it first.”

But then, the story appeared on Haaretz. Then the Guardian. Then CNN.NBC. Reuters. BBC. As it turns out, it wasn’t “creative” at all. It wasn’t a comedian lampooning Netanyahu. It was Netanyahu lampooning the Holocaust.

It should be noted here that no audio recordings, video evidence, or transcripts detailing anything close to the conversation Netanyahu recounted exist. Al-Husseini may not have been a peace-loving saint, but he was no inspiration for Hitler. Hitler was the inspiration for Hitler. Unsurprisingly, the prime minister got some basic facts wrong. He declared that El-Husseini was the grand mufti of Jerusalem during this alleged conversation with Hitler. El-Husseini’s tenure in that position ended in 1937. He didn’t meet Hitler until 1941. Netanyahu also claimed that El-Husseini died in Cairo. He died in Beirut. But then again, how important are a couple tiny inaccuracies when you’re telling really big lie?

Incidentally, Netanyahu is the son of an academic historian. So, while rabbis will tell you that being Jewish is genetic, being a historian is obviously not.

So, basically, it seems that Bibi made the whole thing up. And while making outrageous claims is something we have come to expect from him, this brings it all to a whole new (low) level. It’s evidence of a borderline psychotic disorder. Maybe not so borderline.

Luckily, his ridiculousness did not go unchecked. Chancellor Angela Merkel immediately clarified that Germany was responsible for the Holocaust. Israeli Labor opposition leader Isaac Herzog commented that Netanyahu “trivialized” the Holocaust and called on him to “correct himself immediately.” They weren’t the only ones to comment. Upon hearing of the fiasco, other voices emerged:Bernie Madoff: “I have never heard a lie like that. I’m jealous.”, Dick Cheney: “When I was co-president, I could have used that type of talent.”, George W Bush: “I’m gonna have him help me write my autobiography. And read it to me.”, Bill Clinton: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

It’s living in an alternate universe. It’s seeing the world in a way no one else sees it. And not in a good Einstein-like way, but in a terrible, destructive, Hitler-like way.

As a Palestinian, I am quite accustomed to seeing Israel and its leaders invoke the Holocaust to somehow justify terrible actions against my people. That is strange and uncomfortable enough.  But in Netanyahu’s twilight zone, policies of extrajudicial killing, house demolitions, massacres, land confiscations, and essentially everything Israel has done since 1948, are recast as some sort of “revenge” for the Holocaust. That’s now how he is making it all okay. And I have to admit, even I never thought it would get this bad.

Then again, I guess I should have seen it coming.

Amer Zahr is an Arab-American comedian, speaker, and writer. Drawing on his experiences growing up as a child of Palestinian parents, he finds the humor in society, culture, and politics.

He has produced and headlined in 3 of his own comedy tours, “1001 Laughs Comedy Tour,” “We’re Not White!” and “In 1948.”

He founded and produced the first-ever “1001 Laughs Ramallah Comedy Festival,” a production in Palestine that featured 10 comedians and 7

 shows in August 2015.  The festival entertained over 2,000 locals and was funded by the US Consulate General in Jerusalem, a branch of the United States Department of State.

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Hebron activist showed Israel’s crimes to the world

Posted: 24 Oct 2015 06:11 PM PDT

Hashem al-Azzeh harvests his family’s olives directly beneath the Israeli settlement of Tel Rumeida in the West Bank city of Hebron in October 2012. Ryan Rodrick BeilerActiveStills

“Hashem was a simple man in his character, but he was solid,” Shweiki added. “He called for peace all over the world. He didn’t call for any violence. But he wanted to live in peace in his own land in his home.”

by Ryan Rodrick Beiler 

                                 

Hebron resident and anti-occupation activist Hashem al-Azzeh died Wednesday after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli forces.

According to Palestinian media reports, al-Azzeh, who suffered from a heart condition, began feeling chest pains while in his home in the Israeli-controlled Tel Rumeida neighborhood of the occupied West Bank city.

“There was no chance to get an ambulance there,” Hisham Sharabati, coordinator of the Hebron Defense Committee and a field worker for the Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq, told The Electronic Intifada. Israeli forces do not allow Palestinian vehicles to drive on the streets near his home, which are reserved for Jewish motorists.Neighbors had to carry al-Azzeh down the hill to the nearest military checkpoint, where there were clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian youth.“There was tear gas there and the army kept them [al-Azzeh and his neighbors] for 10 minutes,” said Sharabati. “He had heart problems from before, but his situation deteriorated because the tear gas made it worse and then the checkpoint delay.”

When al-Azzeh was eventually brought to a hospital, he was pronounced dead upon arrival. He leaves behind his wife Nisreen and four children, the oldest of whom is 16.

Pregnant wife assaulted

Al-Azzeh lived in a part of Hebron that was frequently attacked by Israeli settlers.“Hashem lived in a hilly area where the settlers’ homes are higher than his,” said Sharabati.

Like all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, the Tel Rumeida settlement is illegal under international law. But this particular enclave, comprised of stacks of trailers flanked by Israeli army checkpoints, houses some of the most fanatical and violent settlers in the West Bank.

Al-Azzeh and his family endured sustained harassment from these extremists, including an attack in which settlers assaulted his nephew, then aged 9. The settlers forced a rock into the boy’s mouth to crush his teeth, al-Azzeh had said in a video recording.

In another incident, al-Azzeh’s own teeth were smashed when settlers attacked his home, ransacking it and destroying the furniture. Al-Azzeh’s wife was assaulted by settlers twice while she was pregnant in her first and second trimesters. She miscarried both times.

Fanatic settlers

“Hashem had a big role in showing the world, showing the press, showing solidarity groups, showing any visitor the details of the harassment by the Israeli colonizers in the city of Hebron,” said Sharabati. “The settlers practice all these crimes in the presence of the Israeli army who do not do anything to stop them.”

“Everybody who knew him loved him for his method of giving the point of view of the Palestinian residents of Tel Rumeida and Hebron who are suffering from the settlements,” said journalist and Hebron Defense Committee member Bassam Shweiki.

“The settlers of Hebron are the most fanatic settlers in the West Bank,” he added.

One of the Tel Rumeida settlement’s founding residents is the US-born Baruch Marzel, who has been arrested dozens of times by the Israeli authorities and whose criminal record includes acts of violence against Palestinians and Israeli police. Marzel has told The Times of Israel, “We need to remove from here all our enemies.”

Graffiti spray-painted on the side of a Palestinian school near the al-Azzeh home reads “Gas the Arabs/JDL.”

“Gas the Arabs! JDL” spray-painted on an exterior wall of the Cordoba School near Shuhada Street in Hebron, October 2012. Ryan Rodrick BeilerActiveStills

JDL is the acronym for the Jewish Defense League, which was founded by the right-wing settler Meir Kahane. Kahane founded Kach — an organization so racist and extreme that even in Israel it was outlawed and classified as a terrorist group.

Baruch Marzel, who joined the JDL during his teenage years, is a vociferous supporter of Kahane.

Another infamous JDL member was Brooklyn, New York–born settler Baruch Goldstein. In 1994, Goldstein killed 29 Palestinians and injured 125 inside Hebron’s Ibrahimi mosque before he was beaten to death by survivors.

Following the massacre, the Israeli authorities divided the mosque into Muslim and Jewish sections. The killings also precipitated the closure of Shuhada Street and other areas of Hebron’s Old City — collectively punishing Palestinian residents for the actions of an extremist settler.

Harassed during harvest

For al-Azzeh, simply remaining in his home was an act of resistance. While many of his immediate neighbors left as closures choked off virtually all economic activity in the area, he and his family stayed, often hosting international visitors and sharing his stories of struggle with them.

This reporter witnessed a typical episode of Israeli repression three years ago during the olive harvest. It was the first time al-Azzeh had been able to harvest his olives in five years.

Accompanied by a handful of International Solidarity Movement volunteers, al-Azzeh made relatively short work of his few trees as many of the olives had already been picked by the settlers.

Israeli settlers, among them Baruch Marzel, stand at the entrance to Tel Rumeida neighborhood in April 2014. Keren ManorActiveStills

As the work was finishing, settlers barged into the small grove, claiming that not only were the olive trees theirs, but that the entire land had been given to them by God. When soldiers arrived on the scene, they separated the two groups and in the process arrested a volunteer and two Palestinians — one -Aalzzeh’s next-door neighbor and the other a videographer for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

Even though an Israeli officer eventually acknowledged al-Azzeh’s ownership of the land, the officer ordered him and his supporters to leave the area for the rest of the day. Baruch Marzel stood among the settlers watching the scene unfold from above.

Pattern of abuse

That incident of settler belligerence facilitated by the Israeli army is typical of the harassment and abuse endured by the al-Azzeh family and many other Palestinians in Hebron.

More than 50 Palestinians have been killed in shootings and clashes with Israeli forces since the beginning of October, during which time 10 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians.

“There are many Palestinians who are involved in resisting the occupation,” said Sharabati. “It’s true that maybe some try to stab an Israeli settler or an Israeli soldier. But we believe that in many other cases the soldiers and the settlers just invented these excuses after shooting.”

A Palestinian woman passes an Israeli checkpoint off Shuhada Street in February 2015. Ahmad Al-Bazz ActiveStills

Hashem al-Azzeh’s form of resistance was “social struggle,” according to Shweiki: “Struggle by words — by giving every moment of his time whenever possible to explain what’s happening.”

“He was a simple man in his character, but he was solid,” Shweiki added. “He called for peace all over the world. He didn’t call for any violence. But he wanted to live in peace in his own land in his home.”

 About the author

Ryan Rodrick Beiler is a freelance photojournalist and member of the ActiveStills collective who lives in Oslo, Norway.

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Israel Is Occupation Addicted – by Gideon Levy [VIDEO]

Posted by Editor on October 24, 2015 in Activisim & BDS, News & Analysis, Palestine, United States | | Leave a response

Gideon Levy, Respected Israeli journalist, explains why Israel is like an addict living off the financial aid from the USA to keep feeding it’s “occupation addiction”

By Gideon Levy

Embed: <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=5691f5b140e6" frameborder="0" web: allowfullscreen></iframe>

Site: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bb6_1443734386

Full Speech By Gideon Levy – Is the Lobby Good for Israel?

Source: Information Clearing House

 

About the author

Gideon Levy is a Haaretz columnist and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board.

Long live Palestine