Israeli Air Strike

[Elvis]

I'm unsure what to think of the boycott. It's not about dogma, it's about tactics.

Boycotting Israel may be the only thing 'the public' (who are so inclined) can do.

We're talking about a cornerstone of American foreign policy here.

It's not like we're fighting discrimination against Blacks - this isn't the 1960s, and it's not a domestic issue.

It's difficult to change foreign policy - let alone that of the most powerful country in the world.

The boycott should be aimed at the companies that do business in the OT. From what I understand that's the focus. And I think it's justified. What right do those companies have?

I mean Nokia (I think) is providing Iran w/ the tech to track cell-phone calls and blah blah during the recent election shenanigans.

A lot of these companies in the OT are ideologically driven (like Zion Oil and Gas - the name gives it away heh). However, corporations in general are supposed to maximize profit. They don't care about politics.

So we got to hold them accountable (like we should do w/ governments).

I don't see another way. Even this BDS campaign is not going to be that effective. Israel itself is the manifestation of the military industrial complex. It's our watchdog in the ME.

[kuronosan]

Wrong. True American patriots have allegiance to the United States alone, with no dual loyalty to foreign entities.

And yes, the ingratitude really is astounding. Considering the USA was giving Israel life support in it's early decades and now continues to give it countless amounts of aid. Any form of advising Israel on how to come closer to peace shouldn't be reacted against so viciously.

One should note though that these are the right-wing in Israel. I'm not going to go all out and do a Jew-Boycott just because Firas doesn't want Israel to exist. There are some left-wingers (who have other policies that I disagree with if introduced in the USA ironically) who do not agree with settlements and really want a more secular form of government.

I hope you realize how incredibly sarcastic I was being.

[Kuya]

Since this hasn't been updated in a while, i suppose i'll post some easy and quick reading. I would suggest that anyone who has time and is curious go visit the Middle East one day, especially if you're self identified conservative, the experience might be quite shocking.

I'm quoting all of it:

Dear Professor Makdisi,

I don’t know if you remember me, but I finished my PhD in the Rice history department in 2007. I was one of Thomas Haskell’s students. We ran into each other a handful of times, including once when I helped you with some of the microfilm machines in Fondren Library. Anyway, this is a strange e-mail, both to write and most likely to receive. But I wanted to tell you about some recent experiences which have profoundly changed my view of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. You have demonstrated an interest in changing how people think about the issue, and so I thought you might be interested in what for me has turned out to be a transformative event.

First of all, a quick word about presuppositions. I confess that I previously never paid a great deal of attention to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Insofar as I did follow the issue, my sympathies were with neoconservatives. Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis were my guides. They were realists, I would tell myself, whereas those who quarreled with them, for instance colleagues at Rice who were more interested in postcolonial studies than I, had political axes to grind. Not for me the romance of resistance. I was a good skeptic, an empiricist; and if there was a problem in Israel it was clear to me it had to do with Muslim fundamentalism, terrorism, and the clash between Enlightenment values and democracy on the one hand and premodern tribalism and totalitarianism on the other.

Flash forward a couple of years.

I’m through with grad school, I finally have some time and money, and I embark on a self-directed course of study on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I have my feelings, sure, but I realize that I don’t know a whole lot, that a lot of smart people disagree with me, and now I want to make a good faith effort to learn about the issue and test my prejudices against the scholarship in the field. I read Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said, Benny Morris, Patrick Seale, David Fromkin, Juan Cole, Efraim Karsh, Tom Segev, William Cleveland, Bernard Rougier, Albert Hourani. I read your book and article on anti-Americanism. And I spend two weeks traveling through Syria, Lebanon, Jerusalem and the West Bank. In sum, I read about forty books from a number of different standpoints and travel through the region to see what is going on with my own eyes.

The result? Well, the whole experience essentially knocked me on my butt. I was wrong about a great many things. And not just wrong but deeply wrong. Wrong to a degree that to realize it has left me shaken, wondering how exactly I got to be so intellectually, and in this case morally, obtuse. Just a taste of the data that undid my worldview:

1) The Arab people I met in Syria, Lebanon and the West Bank (and Jerusalem), the vast majority of them Muslims, were almost uniformly lovely, warm, and welcoming. I wasn’t expecting passersby in the street in all of these places to invite me into their homes for tea to discuss how much they "hate George Bush, but like Americans." (This happened too often to count.) Pretty much everyone thought U.S. policy was a disaster. But they were angry about policy and lovely to me in ways that make the "they hate us for our freedom" line not only inaccurate but criminal. Among the people I met: a 20 year old Shiite Muslim named Mohammed whom I met in the Bequaa Valley. Mohammed supports Hezbollah because of their 1) resistance to Israeli incursions into Lebanon (he didn’t say anything about Hezbollah provocations), 2) their welfare programs, and 3) their support of the Palestinian cause (all his words). He’s been to Mosque no more than twice in his life, eats pork, and likes nothing more than going dancing in Beirut. That is to say, he is entirely secular. With Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington as my guides, I have no way to make sense of such an encounter.

2) Driving through the West Bank at night allows one to see the proliferation of illegal Israeli settlements with immediate and striking force. They are everywhere, some small, some huge, in the high ground lit up like prisons. I thought the reason why the two-state solution had failed was Palestinian intransigence. A look at the settlements – even a quick look – demolishes such a simple explanation. Traveling through the West Bank at night, and later visiting and talking with people in Ramallah, reinforced an essential point: Israel, at least powerful forces within Israel, is actively pursuing policies to colonize and annex the West Bank while simultaneously making life so difficult for Palestinians that they will pick up and leave. The evidence was there for anyone with eyes to see, irrefutable and horrible in its obviousness. How I got duped by the "Israel wants peace behind the 1967 borders but extremists deny it to them" line is a question I will be asking myself again and again with embarrassment and not a little shame.

I could go on, but this (unsolicited) e-mail has gone on long enough and you get the point. What I’m saying is this: keep writing, keep telling U.S. citizens to better inform themselves about what is going on in their name and with their tax dollars. If they’re honest, and they go see for themselves what’s going on, I can guarantee that the reasonableness of what you and others have written on the matter will soon become apparent.

I would hope that if any of you ever happen to get into a small conversation about Israel/Palestine, you would do your best to inform people or at least implant some curiosity, as the misinformation that permits this conflict to continue is very thick in the US. Naturally, this thread has a vast amount of resources to inform anyone.

[kuronosan]

The problem is that Israel will never get the ass-kicking it so rightfully deserves.

[Faris]

btw i love those videos Elvis, laughed my ass off.

[Elvis]

Human Rights Watch - White Flag Deaths: Killings of Palestinian Civilians during Operation Cast Lead

August 13, 2009

This 63-page report is based on field investigations of seven incident sites in Gaza, including ballistic evidence found at the scene, medical records of victims, and lengthy interviews with multiple witnesses - at least three people separately for each incident.

[Kuya]

At this point, any question of how or why the US government can support regimes that do things like these is fruitless. A better question would be when or how can the American people do something about this. Force some responsability unto the US's activities outside the US. Perhaps Americans should protest by refusing to pay their taxes.

[pohibaba]

At this point, any question of how or why the US government can support regimes that do things like these is fruitless. A better question would be when or how can the American people do something about this. Force some responsability unto the US's activities outside the US. Perhaps Americans should protest by refusing to pay their taxes.

Vote for Ron Paul.

[pohibaba]

So, apparently Mike Huckabee is so far right that he's even making Netanyahu look like a peace-loving liberal:

Former U.S. presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Tuesday there is no room for a Palestinian state "in the middle of the Jewish homeland" and Israel should be able to build settlements wherever it wants — taking a stance firmly at odds with Washington.

A three-day tour of Israel, hosted by a far-right group of religious nationalists, is taking Huckabee to some of the most contentious hotspots in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict including a West Bank settlement outpost that even Israel's hard-line government considers illegal and an east Jerusalem housing project that the Obama administration has demanded be halted.

Huckabee's opposition to a Palestinian state puts him at odds with the accepted wisdom of both Democrats and Republicans — and to some degree even with conservative Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come out in favor of some form of Palestinian independence.

Speaking to a small group of foreign reporters in Jerusalem, Huckabee, seen as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, said the international community should consider establishing a Palestinian state some place else.

"The question is should the Palestinians have a place to call their own? Yes, I have no problem with that. Should it be in the middle of the Jewish homeland? That's what I think has to be honestly assessed as virtually unrealistic."

The politician, a Southern Baptist preacher and a two-time former governor of Arkansas, praised Israel for giving Muslims access to Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock — also the site of the ancient Jewish temples — even though the presence of a mosque there "could be considered an affront."

"Israel is a place where they're going to allow other cultures and religions, but don't ask the Jewish people whose homeland it is to completely yield over their ability to live within the context of their country," said Huckabee.

President Barack Obama is calling for a complete freeze on Israeli settlement activity on lands the Palestinians claim for their would-be state.

Washington appeared to receive at least partial satisfaction on Tuesday, when Israeli officials confirmed that their government has quietly stopped giving approval to new building projects in the West Bank. The move does not add up to a settlement freeze, however, because previously approved projects are still being built.

Huckabee is being hosted by the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, a pro-settler group seeking to bolster the Jewish presence in traditionally Arab east Jerusalem, where Palestinians hope will serve as their future capital. Their activities, some of them funded by American millionaire Irving Moskowitz, are aimed at blocking the division of the city as part of any future peace deal.

Huckabee said he welcomed a demonstration Monday night by anti-settlement protesters outside the Shepherd Hotel, the site of a planned housing project in east Jerusalem which the Obama administration has demanded be stopped and where the Moskowitz family hosted Huckabee for dinner.

He called the freedom to protest an "affirmation of everything that is wonderful and great about Israel and the United States."

During his tour, Huckabee will also visit the site of a planned neighborhood near Jerusalem that has also drawn U.S. ire and which Palestinians say will slice their future state in half. He will also travel to Hebron, the traditional burial place of the Biblical patriarch Abraham and the focus of particularly acute tensions between Muslims and Jews.

Source.

[Elvis]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftsEA-dK61Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa6vDvETRIs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z-A9sUX2zQ

This page is the YouTube page for the blog I often mention admiring - Mondoweiss.

Phillip Weiss visited Gaza along with CodePink/Norman Finkelstein/and other journalists, human rights workers, etc.

He has posted interviews w/ people in Gaza after operation 'Cast Lead'

YouTube - MrPhilipweiss's Channel

Other YouTube pages w/ eye-witness interviews/etc.:

YouTube - codepink84's Channel

YouTube - coolfire2's Channel

[Faris]

Now that I look at my previous post, I see that it could be misconstrued as the commonly heard political phrase "it has a right to exist", but that was not my intention at all. I was just driving the point that

I believe that ending it's existence would way over complicate things for obvious reasons. I might have jumped the gun when I called Firas out, but judging by his previous posts on the board and his background, I'm pretty positive his grievances don't end at Israel's policies, more so he has a problem with the fact that it exists. Who knows, I could be wrong though.

Just know that when you boycott American/Israeli goods you're boycotting many of the people who don't support these politics and genuinely want peace. Israel may be very strongly unified and a nationalist state in Jewish identity, but they differ extremely in geopolitics/sociopolitical views.

I'm totally aware of that, but what I have to give up something to support the other, the option:


1- Boycott American products that help in aiding Israel, and hurt people (minorities) in America that don't support/dont care about the whole thing. This results in lower revenue, which means less aids for Israel and less power for them.

OR

2- Disregard boycotting those products which will help the employment of minorities and people who dont support/dont care about this Israel/Palestine, but by helping the minorities i'll be helping the revenue for those companies, which in return will aid Israel and that causes more power against Palestinians.


I've been boycotting Starbucks for over a year now, among other companies, and I'm sure 1 year of boycotting, from me only took away atleast 1 bullet from an Israeli gun. and that to me is progress.

I'm happy to see people starting to realize the truth about Israel/Palestine from the West.

[Elvis]

Can't remember if I or someone else posted this but it's fantastic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd4TN-Sjh1E

This guy blatantly lies about so many things. Some truth - but often framed dishonestly. This was at the recent San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, and most of the crowd was Jewish. Great to see that they aren't falling for the typical hasbara garbage.

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb's comments on the film and the festival are located in the description.

[Kuya]

What does hasbara mean?

[Lee]

What does hasbara mean?

Hasbara = explanation

[Elvis]

Chomsky summarizes the context in which I'm using the term:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXcL5o55q8s

@9:01

[Sikozu]

All of this somehow reminds me of the buildaberg (S?) group......

[Lee]

Bilderberg.

[Kuya]

Can't remember if I or someone else posted this but it's fantastic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd4TN-Sjh1E

This guy blatantly lies about so many things. Some truth - but often framed dishonestly. This was at the recent San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, and most of the crowd was Jewish. Great to see that they aren't falling for the typical hasbara garbage.

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb's comments on the film and the festival are located in the description.

At the end he says context, when before he inexplicably and constantly talks about terrorists or whatever you want to call them when the subject is about Rachel. Interesting hint there.

People should not have to hear lies, and one would wish that the media would call out lies more often.

[Elvis]

TheRealNews on the water resource situation in I-P:



A New documentary on Gaza and the immediate aftermath, by Max Blumenthal:

[Elvis]

hate to necro-bump my blog, but I thought this was one of the most insightful and interesting interviews concerning the I-P conflict:



Interview with Jimmy Johnson, International Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) on The Matrix of Control: The Mechanisms of Domination in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

For more info:
http://www.icahd.org

The interview deals with the strategic value of Israel within the context of urban warfare and occupation.