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The resistance of the oppressed

uprootedpalestinians — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 10:47:00 +0000

The resistance of the oppressed

Paul J. Balles argues that perhaps what Americans love about Israel is that “Israelis act like America’s early settlers and garrisons of troops murdering and maiming tribes of people they consider lesser breeds”. But he warns that “America has forgotten the outcome of other conquests by nations and empires that over-extended themselves. All have fallen!“

The Indian [was thought] as less than human and worthy only of extermination. We did shoot down defenceless men, and women and children at places like Camp Grant, Sand Creek and Wounded Knee. We did feed strychnine to red warriors. We did set whole villages of people out naked to freeze in the iron cold of Montana winters. And we did confine thousands in what amounted to concentration camps. – Wellman, The Indian Wars of the West, 1934

On Thursday 26 November 2009, Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving. The holiday is celebrated in remembrance of the pilgrims and in order to give thanks for the harvest. About the holiday, Professor Robert Jensen has written:

European invaders exterminated nearly the entire indigenous population to create the United States. Without that holocaust, the United States as we know it would not exist. The United States celebrates a Thanksgiving Day holiday dominated not by atonement for that horrendous crime against humanity but by a falsified account of the “encounter” between Europeans and American Indians.

Today there are approximately 310 American Indian reservations (or should we refer to them as Bantustans?) in the continental US. Perhaps we should call the forced Palestinian enclaves reservations. North America, South Africa, Palestine – all invaded and occupied with indigenous populations exterminated and imprisoned.

Their lands and homes have been taken by settlers protected by troops. They’ve been herded onto refugee camps called reservations or Bantustans and kept in poverty and despair.

Their fathers tell them stories of how they or their grandfathers resisted the oppressors and how their arrows or stones were no match for the guns and cannons used by the foreign settlers.

Now, the young tribesmen read newspapers in English and watch television. Some even have computers and the Internet.

They see films about Japanese Kamikaze pilots during World War II and about the French resistance. We read about Palestinians blowing themselves up because the settlers in Palestine have been their oppressors.

If I die while killing 20 of my enemies, doesn’t that serve my people in their war against oppression? Hasn’t this been the justification for all soldiers dying in all wars?

Didn’t we send our youth into Iraq because we approved the certain suicide of all those who would die? That’s what’s so attractive about invading places like Afghanistan and Iraq: we can act like oppressive settlers again.

Perhaps that’s what Americans love about Israel. Israelis act like America’s early settlers and garrisons of troops murdering and maiming tribes of people they consider lesser breeds.

America has forgotten the outcome of other conquests by nations and empires that over-extended themselves. All have fallen! America should know better, having fallen to resistance in Vietnam. How many young lives succumbed to our leaders’ suicidal commitment?

But what about the resistance to occupations? Isn’t South Korea feeling occupied? What about the Philippines? Japan recently complained about American troops in Okinawa. How about all the other places where America has over-extended its military presence?

What would the US do if a number of American Indian tribesmen decided they had been occupied long enough, been impoverished long enough? Suppose they rose up against the oppression.

Should there be an American Indian uprising – a resistance move after generations of submission – would the only path for America to take and remain true to itself be to eliminate the terrorists? Isn’t that what Israel does now?

Destroy their homes and camps; force them across borders into Canada and Mexico, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria. Build walls. Wipe out all potential weapons sources. Don’t call it genocide! Call it “eliminating terrorism”! Call it “self-defence”!

Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.

Posted by JNOUBIYEH at 9:50 PM

Labels: US-Israeli crimes

A violência que a mídia não vê

virusplanetario — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:11:33 +0000

Por Marcelo Salles, do Fazendo Média

A fotografia acima é de Carlos Latuff, que flagrou uma agressão de guardas municipais (Eduardo Paes, PMDB, é o prefeito) no centro do Rio de Janeiro, na tarde de terça, 11 de novembro de 2009. A legenda diz o seguinte: “Não satisfeito em confiscar as mercadorias do ambulante (de bermuda), guarda municipal pisa nos produtos que ficaram pelo chão”.

Em entrevista ainda inédita, concedida para a Caros Amigos, Nilo Batista fez algumas observações interessantes a esse respeito, entre elas a de que todos gostam de se meter no tema da violência urbana, mas geralmente os que se manifestam reivindicam a condição de vítima. Não percebem que são agentes da violência quando aplaudem esses choques de ordem, ou quando se omitem diante das agressões contra as populações pobres.

Volto ao assunto em breve.

THIS WALL WILL ALSO FALL!

uprootedpalestinians — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:05:00 +0000

Link

November 10, 2009 at 8:09 am (Apartheid, Associate Post, Cartoons, Israel, Palestine)

This one too will fall…..

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

click on image to enlarge

Palestinians break Israel’s wall

Palestinians and foreign activists have torn down segments of Israel’s separation wall in a demonstration marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In the town of Qalandiya in the occupied West Bank, a group of masked activists using a lorry pulled down a two-metre cement block before Israeli security forces confronted them with tear gas grenades. Several of the estimated 50 demonstrators passed through the hole they had made, hoisting a Palestinian flag and setting ablaze tyres on the other side.

Protesters were wearing shirts with the text “Jerusalem we are coming”, which was the slogan for the protest.

Abdullah Abu Rahma, leader of the People’s Campaign to Fight the Wall, said: “Today we commemorate 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

“This is the beginning of the activities, which we do, to express our hold on our land, and our refusal to this wall – the wall of torture, the wall of humiliation.”

Activists have vowed to hold a week of protests in the Palestinian territories and around the world, including a campaign calling for the release of all anti-wall activists currently imprisoned.

Last Friday, Palestinian youths almost toppled a segment of wall using a hydraulic car-jack in the West Bank village of Nilin.

Regular protests

Protests against the wall have become a regular event in Nilin and in the nearby village of Bilin, where Palestinian, international and Israeli activists are commonly confronted by tear gas and rubber bullets fired by Israeli troops.

Israel began building its barrier, consisting of fences and walls, in 2002, citing security reasons.

The wall is up to 8m high in places, twice the height of the former Berlin wall. Palestinian sources anticipate that it may be more than 750km-long when construction is finished, more than four times the length of the Berlin wall.

Palestinians say the route of the wall has been set in such a way that it grabs land that could have been included in a future Palestinian state.

The International Court of Justice, in a non-binding decision in 2004, said the Israeli-built barrier was illegal and should be taken down because it crossed into occupied territory.

A report by Stop the Wall, a Palestinian coalition of NGOs opposed to the wall, said that in 2007 alone, Israel demolished more than 160 houses and appropriated more than 3sq km of land in the Palestinian West Bank in its construction of the wall. Source:

Al Jazeera and agencies

Palestinians symbolically dismantle sections of the wall

Multimedia report, The Electronic Intifada

“Tear down this wall!” then US President Ronald Reagan told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, demanding he tear down the infamous Berlin wall. Two years later, on 9 November 1989, media around the world broadcast images of crowds of Germans from both the east and the west climbing atop the barrier and tearing down large sections of the wall. For many, the event was highly symbolic as it was perceived as the end of the Cold War and the start of a period when the world was headed in a more just and peaceful direction, free of walls keeping peoples apart.

However, two decades later, walls of separation still exist throughout the world. Israel’s wall in the West Bank is much bigger than the Berlin wall ever was, as it encloses more than two million Palestinians inside the occupied West Bank. This wall separates Palestinians from their families, land, natural resources and communities.

(ActiveStills)

For years Palestinians in various West Bank villages, along with Israeli and international supporters, have led regular nonviolent demonstrations protesting the wall. In Nilin village, located near the West Bank city of Ramallah, protestors decided to do something different on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall.

In a symbolic action, the protestors in Nilin on 6 November were able to knock down a section of the wall before the Israeli army arrived and fired tear gas at the crowd.

Nilin media activists reported:

One protestor managed to climb on to the wall and he raised the Palestinian flag, hereby sending a message to Israel that the Palestinian flag will always go up on Nilin’s land. Even if the land is cut off from the village now, the people of Nilin will never give up the right to their own land. Simultaneously, a group of youth threw bottles with red paint at the Israeli soldiers, the red paint representing the blood of the martyrs in Nilin that were killed by these soldiers.

A small group of participants brought a jack that they placed under one of the concrete segments of the wall. After two hours, the concrete started coming off the ground, partially falling down. This was a strong message from Nilin, one protestor stated: “last Monday the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall was celebrated all over the world; now it’s time for the apartheid wall to fall and this will start in Nilin. We in Nilin are most determined to get our land back, and we will break down this ugly wall.”

The video above, and images below, show the Nilin action that tore down — albeit a small piece — of the Israeli wall.

(ActiveStills)

(Ahmed Mesleh)

In a similar action on 9 November dubbed “We are going to Jerusalem,” near the Qalandiya refugee camp outside Ramallah, hundreds of Palestinians along with dozens of internationals attached a rope to the wall as they used a truck to tear down one of the concrete slabs. As they demonstrated over the downed segment of the wall, Israeli soldiers arrived firing teargas and rubber bullets at the crowd. The below images show the action.

(Ahmed Mesleh)

Source

Posted by JNOUBIYEH at 11:49 AM

Labels: Israeli Apartheid Wall

THIS WALL WILL ALSO FALL!

uprootedpalestinians — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:05:00 +0000

Link

November 10, 2009 at 8:09 am (Apartheid, Associate Post, Cartoons, Israel, Palestine)

This one too will fall…..

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

click on image to enlarge

Palestinians break Israel’s wall

Palestinians and foreign activists have torn down segments of Israel’s separation wall in a demonstration marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Protesters were wearing shirts with the text “Jerusalem we are coming”, which was the slogan for the protest.

Abdullah Abu Rahma, leader of the People’s Campaign to Fight the Wall, said: “Today we commemorate 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

“This is the beginning of the activities, which we do, to express our hold on our land, and our refusal to this wall – the wall of torture, the wall of humiliation.”

Activists have vowed to hold a week of protests in the Palestinian territories and around the world, including a campaign calling for the release of all anti-wall activists currently imprisoned.

Last Friday, Palestinian youths almost toppled a segment of wall using a hydraulic car-jack in the West Bank village of Nilin.

Regular protests

Israel began building its barrier, consisting of fences and walls, in 2002, citing security reasons.

Palestinians say the route of the wall has been set in such a way that it grabs land that could have been included in a future Palestinian state.

The International Court of Justice, in a non-binding decision in 2004, said the Israeli-built barrier was illegal and should be taken down because it crossed into occupied territory.

Al Jazeera and agencies

Palestinians symbolically dismantle sections of the wall

Multimedia report, The Electronic Intifada

(ActiveStills)

In a symbolic action, the protestors in Nilin on 6 November were able to knock down a section of the wall before the Israeli army arrived and fired tear gas at the crowd.

Nilin media activists reported:

One protestor managed to climb on to the wall and he raised the Palestinian flag, hereby sending a message to Israel that the Palestinian flag will always go up on Nilin’s land. Even if the land is cut off from the village now, the people of Nilin will never give up the right to their own land. Simultaneously, a group of youth threw bottles with red paint at the Israeli soldiers, the red paint representing the blood of the martyrs in Nilin that were killed by these soldiers.

A small group of participants brought a jack that they placed under one of the concrete segments of the wall. After two hours, the concrete started coming off the ground, partially falling down. This was a strong message from Nilin, one protestor stated: “last Monday the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall was celebrated all over the world; now it’s time for the apartheid wall to fall and this will start in Nilin. We in Nilin are most determined to get our land back, and we will break down this ugly wall.”

The video above, and images below, show the Nilin action that tore down — albeit a small piece — of the Israeli wall.

(ActiveStills)

(Ahmed Mesleh)

Source

Posted by JNOUBIYEH at 11:49 AM

Labels: Israeli Apartheid Wall

IL MONDO VISTO DA LATUFF

willoworld — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:57:01 +0000

FONTE: http://latuff2.deviantart.com/

Israel’s ‘Right To Exist’? The UN Legitimacy Myth

uprootedpalestinians — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:14:00 +0000

Link

Alan Hart does well to provide this historical corrective, excerpted from ‘Israel’s Right to Exist?‘

According to history as written by the winner, Zionism, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. This is propaganda nonsense.

In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.

Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a proposal – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.

The truth is that the General Assembly’s partition proposal never went to the Security Council for consideration. Why not? Because the U.S. knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented by force given the extent of Arab and other Muslim opposition to it; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.

So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what the hell to do about Palestine – after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away, effectively surrendering to Zionist terrorism – was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion. The option favoured and proposed by the U.S. was temporary UN Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what do that Israel unilaterally declared itself to be in existence – actually in defiance of the will of the organised international community, including the Truman administration.

The truth of the time was that the Zionist state, which came into being mainly as a consequence of pre-planned ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist UNLESS … Unless it was recognised and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved. And that legitimacy was the only thing the Zionists could not and cannot take from the Palestinians by force.

See also:

The Six Day War Deceptions: A Historical Corrective

Palestine’s Right to Exist

Kissinger’s role in recognising Israel demand

Jonathan Cook, The Recognition Trap

Chris Hedges, Bring Down That Wall

Bill and Kathleen Christison, Does It Matter What You Call It?

Hamas leader says Israel’s existence is a reality

Israel rewrites history with impunity, but Iran is vilified for discussing it

Israel’s ‘Right To Exist’? The UN Legitimacy Myth

uprootedpalestinians — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:14:00 +0000

Link

Alan Hart does well to provide this historical corrective, excerpted from ‘Israel’s Right to Exist?‘

According to history as written by the winner, Zionism, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. This is propaganda nonsense.

In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own.

Despite that, by the narrowest of margins, and only after a rigged vote, the UN General Assembly did pass a resolution to partition Palestine and create two states, one Arab, one Jewish, with Jerusalem not part of either. But the General Assembly resolution was only a proposal – meaning that it could have no effect, would not become policy, unless approved by the Security Council.

The truth is that the General Assembly’s partition proposal never went to the Security Council for consideration. Why not? Because the U.S. knew that, if approved, it could only be implemented by force given the extent of Arab and other Muslim opposition to it; and President Truman was not prepared to use force to partition Palestine.

So the partition plan was vitiated (became invalid) and the question of what the hell to do about Palestine – after Britain had made a mess of it and walked away, effectively surrendering to Zionist terrorism – was taken back to the General Assembly for more discussion. The option favoured and proposed by the U.S. was temporary UN Trusteeship. It was while the General Assembly was debating what do that Israel unilaterally declared itself to be in existence – actually in defiance of the will of the organised international community, including the Truman administration.

The truth of the time was that the Zionist state, which came into being mainly as a consequence of pre-planned ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist UNLESS … Unless it was recognised and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved. And that legitimacy was the only thing the Zionists could not and cannot take from the Palestinians by force.

See also:

The Six Day War Deceptions: A Historical Corrective

Palestine’s Right to Exist

Kissinger’s role in recognising Israel demand

Jonathan Cook, The Recognition Trap

Chris Hedges, Bring Down That Wall

Bill and Kathleen Christison, Does It Matter What You Call It?

Hamas leader says Israel’s existence is a reality

Israel rewrites history with impunity, but Iran is vilified for discussing it

US AID TO PAKISTAN

uprootedpalestinians — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:04:00 +0000

TUESDAY’S TOON

November 3, 2009 at 11:43 am (Associate Post, Cartoons, Pakistan)

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

click on image to enlarge

US AID TO PAKISTAN

uprootedpalestinians — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:04:00 +0000

TUESDAY’S TOON

November 3, 2009 at 11:43 am (Associate Post, Cartoons, Pakistan)

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

click on image to enlarge

Media Manipulation Via Editorial Cartoons with distortions and exaggerations REVEALED

kreplach — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:34:08 +0000

I usually find editorial cartoons on the Israeli conflict are particularly shallow or deceitful. Here I have taken about 3 such editorial cartoons are are blatantly Pro-Palestinian (Arab) that is so obviously panders to the ignorant uneducated observers on the world stage. I take it apart showing how the cartoonist tries to bypass the reasoning brain in refer to the facts of this subject in order to get the outraged knee jerk reactions.

Cartoon of the day

uprootedpalestinians — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:43:00 +0000

Link

By Carlos Latuff • Oct 11th, 2009 at 12:04 • Category: Artwork, Cartoon of the day, Palestine

Tagged as: Carlos Latuff, Mother Palestine, Palestine

Carlos Latuff is a friend of Palestinian people.
Email this author All posts by Carlos Latuff

Cartoon of the day

uprootedpalestinians — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:43:00 +0000

Link

By Carlos Latuff • Oct 11th, 2009 at 12:04 • Category: Artwork, Cartoon of the day, Palestine

Tagged as: Carlos Latuff, Mother Palestine, Palestine

Carlos Latuff is a friend of Palestinian people.
Email this author All posts by Carlos Latuff

Der Putsch in Honduras, aus der Luft betrachtet

John Martin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:27:36 +0000

Latuff: Embaixada de Honduras em Londres

mariafro — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 03:02:55 +0000

As charges de Latuff sempre ganham o mundo.

A série que ele fez sobre o golpe de Honduras já circula em Londres.

Nas duas fotografias abaixo podemos ver duas delas fixadas nas portas da Embaixada hondurenha em Londres.

Clique em cada uma delas para ver a versão ampliada.

E, abaixo, o vídeo da manifestação na Embaixada de Honduras em Londres, contra os golpistas que destituíram o presidente Zelaya do poder.

La Negra

pedalante — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:27:30 +0000

Ontem, (04 de out), transvivenciou Mercedes Sosa, nomeada por muit@s como a voz dos sem voz na América Latina.

Arte: Latuff

Ganhou o apelido de “la Negra”, por causa de suas longas e belas madeixas; de forte opinião política, sempre se posicionava ao lado dos oprimid@s do continente latino, com sua voz marcante e emocionante, essa era Mercedes, Mercedes Sosa ou simplesmente a voz dos que não tinham voz!

mais sobre a voz da América Latina:

( 1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

-.-.-.-.-.-

HONDURAS TODAY ~~ WE ARE ALL PALESTINIANS!

uprootedpalestinians — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:59:00 +0000

Link

September 29, 2009 at 7:57 am (Activism, Anti fascism, Current Affairs, Democracy, DesertPeace Editorial, Free Speech, Honduras, Human Rights, International Solidarity, Latin America, Palestine, Photography)

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

Yesterday, my Associate and dear friend Carlos Latuff stated that this Blog is ‘mostly about the Middle East’. That is very true, for the simple fact that I live here. The Palestinian cause, in particular, is very close to my heart as they are my people. As Carlos himself stated, “WE ARE ALL PALESTINIANS”. His series of cartoons dealing with that can be seen HERE.

BUT…. this Blog deals with International Issues as well, especially those issues where Justice and Democracy are threatened. The Human Race is one…. we are all brothers and none of us will be free until we are all free. Nothing says that better than the following video featuring Peter, Paul and the late Mary Travers. The words are by Tom Glazer and the music is by J.S.Bach.

Here are the lyrics…

Because all men are brothers wherever men may be
One union shall unite us forever proud and free
No tyrant shall defeat us, no nation strike us down
All men who toil shall greet us the whole wide world around.

My brothers are all others forever hand in hand
Where chimes the bell of freedom there is my native land
My brother’s fears are my fears yellow white or brown
My brother’s tears are my tears the whole wide world around.

Let every voice be thunder, let every heart beat strong
Until all tyrants perish our work shall not be done
Let not our memories fail us the lost year shall be found
Let slavery’s chains be broken the whole wide world around.

Here are some photos showing the brutality against the Resistance in Honduras…..

Is the following what awaits the people of Honduras? The world must SAY NO NOW!

DEMOCRACY MUST BE RESTORED NOW!!

He claimed he was Chile’s saviour but devised one of the worst concentration camp regimes since Hitler’s ‘Grand Plan.’ As Chile comes to terms with General Pinochet’s death, we offer you the definitive film on his crimes.

Under Pinochet’s regime, over a quarter of a million people were detained in prisons like the Chacabuco desert camp. These are the only images to have emerged from his camps and reveal the true horror of his regime. “They must stay here until they realise they are on the wrong path,” states the guard at Chacabuco Concentration camp. Nearby prisoners suspected of being Communists are forced to march and sing military songs. One of the victims filmed at the camp was Patricia Letelier. Now, she lives in exile in Scotland and recalls what happened to her at Chacabuco. “I heard shouting and screaming and knew what was waiting for me. Shortly afterwards my own torture began.”

Powerful images show men kneeling with their hands in the air, being kicked and beaten with the butts of soldiers’ guns. Others show men being marched into the stadium stripped naked with blankets over their heads.

HONDURAS TODAY ~~ WE ARE ALL PALESTINIANS!

uprootedpalestinians — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:59:00 +0000

Link

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

Here are the lyrics…

Here are some photos showing the brutality against the Resistance in Honduras…..

Is the following what awaits the people of Honduras? The world must SAY NO NOW!

DEMOCRACY MUST BE RESTORED NOW!!

Honduras Hoje (Brasil pós 2011?)

pedalante — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:01:16 +0000

arte: Latuff

…….

Arte: Latuff

.-.-.-.-.

Wajah Umat Islam Saat Ini

ejajufri — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:01:38 +0000

Kira-kira seperti inilah wajah umat Islam saat ini. Di belahan dunia manapun kekuatan luar berusaha

JEWISH NAZISM. SEGREGATIONISM. FASCISM. RACISM. HATE. ZIONISM.

Djiin Of Truth — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:20:20 +0000

The Prime Minister’s Office and the Jewish Agency unveiled an aggressive advertisement campaig

The Israeli Occupation of America

uprootedpalestinians — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:31:00 +0000

Link

Posted by realistic bird under Politics Tags: control, Israeli lobby, Israeli policies, Occupation, Politics, US

by Carlos Latuff

By Hesham Tillawi, PhD, source

‘Israel need not apologize for the assassination or destruction of those who seek to destroy it. The first order of business for any country is the protection of its people.’ Washington Jewish Week, October 9, 1997
I came from a country occupied militarily by Israel to the land of “the free and the brave” only to find out it too was occupied politically by Israel.

The Palestinian people, holding on to whatever shred of hope they can, are counting on the day Americans see the error of their ways and change their opinion of the whole Middle East situation and understand it for what it truly is–A conquered, oppressed people living a hellish existence under a maniacal, occupying power and who will then contact their representatives in Congress and have them put the heat on Israel in fulfilling the agreements she made years ago with the PLO such as Oslo, Taba, Camp David, Wye River, the Road Map, or even Annapolis.

The sad fact however is that the Americans–as much as they champion themselves as a “free people”–are in no better shape than the Palestinians. On the contrary, the American position is worse than that of the Palestinians. The Palestinians can identify the enemy–he is the one with the gun and blowing away their loved ones. They know they are occupied and oppressed. They know how Israel occupied Palestine, killed its inhabitants and forced the majority of those who survived the carnage out of their homes and lands to then live as strangers in refugee camps.

The Americans however, have no idea. Like a drug addict who thinks he feels great after shooting up, he does not realize he is a slave, to his substance and to his pusher. The history of how the Zionists’ controlled England is not shrouded in mystery. Through Jewish control of the British government the Balfour Declaration was drafted that “gave” the land of Palestine to the Jews after WWI, a land they did not own or possess.
But how in the world did they occupy the United States politically? There is no real “Balfour Declaration” we can point to as proof.

Or can we?

Jewish influence in American politics–while there from the earliest days and certainly apparent during the Wilson, Roosevelt and Truman administrations–did not become the force it is today until the Kennedy era, or, rather, after the Kennedy era.

As all know, in 1961 John Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States, a presidency cut short as a result of his assassination in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Robert Kennedy, the president’s younger brother was Attorney General of the United States and therefore the head of the Department of Justice.

What is little-known is that the Kennedy’s realized early on that indeed the country was in trouble and that something needed to be done about it. The trouble in this case was the influence slithering its way into American political life from a far-away state only about 12 years old known as Israel. Both Kennedy brothers, learning politics at their father Joseph’s knee, understood the dynamic of this thing known as “Jewish interests”, how it would play out and what the repercussions would be for America.

Of the many issues revolving around Israel and the Zionist question the two more important as pertains the Jewish state were (A) Israel’s nuclear program, and (B) the issue of an organization known as the American Zionist Council.

According to Pulitzer Prize winning author Seymour Hersh, President Kennedy was profoundly committed to nuclear nonproliferation and was categorically opposed to nuclear weapons in the Middle East, which meant opposing Israel’s nuclear program. Hersh states that JFK exerted heavy pressure on Israel to stop the program and was serious about it. At the time Kennedy was in the middle of crises mode with the Russians in trying to arrange a nonproliferation treaty with them and therefore Israel’s nuclear program would be a big embarrassment. In addition to being an embarrassment it would open up the possibility of a nuclear conflict with Russia, given her allies in the Middle East, something made all the more believable in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis that almost resulted in a nuclear war between the two giants. John Kennedy had nightmares about the prospect of nuclear proliferation, saying “I am haunted by the feeling that by 1970, unless we are successful, there may be ten nuclear powers instead of four, and by 1975, 15 to 20…. I see the possibility in the 1970s of the president of the United States having to face a world in which 15 or 25 nations may have these weapons. I regard this as the greatest possible danger and hazard.”

Secret letters and secret meetings between Kennedy and Ben-Gurion give a clear picture of the difficulty Kennedy faced in negotiating with the Israeli Prime Minister who stated many times that nothing will save Israel but nuclear power. According to author Michael Collins Piper in his book Final Judgment Ben Gurion wrote Kennedy saying: “Mr. President, my people have the right to exist, and this existence is in danger.”

It does not take a skilled translater to figure out what Ben Gurion was saying, namely that Kennedy’s opposition to nuclear weapons in the Middle East was seen as an existential threat to the Jewish people and their newly-formed state. Going further, Kennedy insisted on inspections of Israel’s program as evidenced in a secret letter sent to then-Israeli Prime Minister Levy Eshkol that stated that American support of Israel “could be jeopardized” if the Americans were not allowed to inspect the Israeli nuclear facilities.

As if the aforementioned were not enough, there was another front in this private war between Kennedy and the “Jewish state” equally important in its scope if we are to understand what kinds of forces were at play here that led to America’s change of policy with regards to Israel. It involves the issue of spying, bribery and the direct controlling of American politicians by a foreign power and the one creature at the center of all of it was something known as the American Zionist Council and the Kennedys’ insistence it register as a foreign agent under the provisos of FARA, the Foreign Agent Registration Act passed by Congress back in 1938 to prevent German agents in the U.S. from buying their way into the American system of government and public opinion. The purpose of FARA was “to insure that American public and its law makers know the source of information- propaganda intended to sway public opinion, policy, and laws.”

In other words the Kennedy’s understood the danger of the Zionist Movement on the United States of America and treated it just like Germany was treated during the Hitler years. The Kennedy’s understood the reality of the situation as it existed during their days in government, that the AZC was an agent of a foreign government, Israel, which would prevent it from buying American politicians and exerting the kind of influence over public opinion making that for all intents and purposes is now is a fait accompli.

Negotiations went back and forth between the Department of Justice headed by the President’s brother Robert and the American Zionist Council. The council refused to register and the DOJ tried to exert pressure on them, even going so far in one instance as giving them 72 hours to register, but at no avail. Examining the newly-de-classified documents containing the minutes of those meetings between the DOJ and the AZC one can see the language of gangsters being used. In one of those documents dated May 2, 1963 the head legal counsel Simon H. Rifkind for the AZC explained to the representatives of the DOJ the nature of the AZC, saying “The council is composed of representatives of the various Zionist organizations in the United States” and thereby, in effect, it represented “the vast majority of organized Jewry within this country.” The message was clear here–As far as organizations go it is big and powerful. Judge Rifkind obviously wanted to make sure the Kennedy’s knew they were picking a fight with a gorilla and not some small mouse.
He did not stop there but went further by stating that the vast number of Jews who adhered to the principles of Zionism could not understand how “our administration” could “do such harm to the Zionist movement and impair the effectiveness of the council by insistence on registration.”

Here Judge Rifkind made sure he used the phrase “our administration” instead of “our government” to make a specific point, namely that he was talking about Kennedy personally, that it was the Jews responsible for him getting elected and that if he continued with his agenda he was in effect entering into a war with organized Jewry.

Another meeting very much worth noting was held on October 17, 1963 between DOJ and AZC. In this meeting Judge Rifkind insisted on non registering, citing that fact that “It was the opinion of most of the persons affiliated with the Council that such registration…would eventually destroy the Zionist movement” and adding that he did not believe his clients would “file any papers or sign any papers indicating that the organization was an agent of a foreign principal”. In other words, “Screw You America and your laws, we’ll do what we want” as well as threatening the administration and telling them who really ruled the country, not the Kennedy brothers but rather the persons “affiliated” with AZC. Once translated from Gangsterese into understandable political language, this statement was in effect a direct warning/threat to the Administration that the war was on. It is up for grabs whether or not the Kennedys understood this to be the real threat it was, but nevertheless the Administration decided to continue with its position.

On November 22, 1963 President John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. As the AZC went away into the sunset, AIPAC came riding in, born and led by the same persons who created and managed AZC for the same purpose. This time however, the message went out clearly for all on Capitol Hill to hear and understand–“Do not stand in our way of influencing public opinion, policy, or laws.”

Obviously, the message has been effective, as all American leaders save a few such as James Traficant have done as instructed. According to the former Congressman, Israel receives $15 Billion worth of aid from the American Taxpayers without a single discussion or a single argument on the floor of either the house of Representatives or the Senate. Why? Because no one dares to question it. Why is it that most of our politicians make pilgrimage to Tel Aviv and the “wailing wall” in Jerusalem to get the blessing of Israel before they are even approved by their own political parties here in the United States? Why is it our Congress is always split down the middle on all other issues presented to them except when it deals with Israel? We all still remember the comment made by former Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon to his Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in October 2001: “Don’t worry about American pressure, we the Jewish people control America.” When people with eyes to see state that fact they are called anti-Semites, despite the fact that what is being said is the truth.

The “control” Sharon spoke about has been there for a long time now. Consider what the late Senator Fulbright (who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and who held hearings back in 1963 regarding the AZC and the fact it should be registered as a Foreign Agent registration) said when speaking on the CBS television program “Face the Nation” had to say–

“I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy not approved by the Jews…Terrific control the Jews have over the news media and the barrage the Jews have built up on Congress… the Jewish influence here is completely dominating the scene and making it almost impossible to get Congress to do anything they (the Jews) don’t approve of.”

These words were not spoken by a researcher or a reporter but by a brave American hero who actually lived through and experienced the Jewish influence over our political system and media.

This Israeli political occupation of the United States should not go on unchallenged, and American Jewry should understand that secrets cannot be hidden from the people forever. Nothing less than a revolution will correct this situation. The corrective action should be taken at the ballot boxes by electing people who are not afraid to challenge AIPAC and the likes and make America’s Foreign Policy truly American and not Israeli.

As a first step in this process, let us keep the words of our dear martyred President John F Kennedy in mind– “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”.

- Hesham Tillawi, PhD International Relations is a Palestinian American writer, Political Analyst and a TV and Radio Talk Show Host.

The Israeli Occupation of America

uprootedpalestinians — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:31:00 +0000

Link

Posted by realistic bird under Politics Tags: control, Israeli lobby, Israeli policies, Occupation, Politics, US

by Carlos Latuff

By Hesham Tillawi, PhD, source

Or can we?

These words were not spoken by a researcher or a reporter but by a brave American hero who actually lived through and experienced the Jewish influence over our political system and media.

- Hesham Tillawi, PhD International Relations is a Palestinian American writer, Political Analyst and a TV and Radio Talk Show Host.

TODAY’S TOON ~~ 9/11 EIGHT YEARS ON

uprootedpalestinians — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:09:00 +0000

Link

September 12, 2009 at 8:16 am (Associate Post, Cartoons, Conspiracy Theories)

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

TODAY’S TOON ~~ 9/11 EIGHT YEARS ON

uprootedpalestinians — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:09:00 +0000

Link

September 12, 2009 at 8:16 am (Associate Post, Cartoons, Conspiracy Theories)

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

Zionism for Dummies

uprootedpalestinians — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:02:00 +0000

Link

Posted by realistic bird under

by Carlos Latuff

By William James Martin, counter punch

In pondering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict I have found that very few people actually have a basic understanding of the conflict nor could they define it in even rough approximating terms.

Thus one sometines hears that it is all about Arab/Palestinian ‘terrorism’ and suicide bombings and the ultimate goal of the terrorists-Palestinians is to ‘push all the Jews into the sea, dead or alive” and that their motives are those of anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews. Those who hold this view see the conflict as one of the survival of the Jewish state amid a sea of irrational hatred.

That is the view of the Zionists, and the one they would like for the world to accept.

One also hears that the conflict is a religious one between Jews and Arabs and that it has been continuous for ‘thousands of years’.

Neither is correct.

The first Palestinian suicide bombing occurred in 1994, 40 days after the massacre by the Brooklyn native Baruch Goldstein of 29 praying Muslims at the Al Ibrahim Mosque in Hebron. The ’67 War and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip was 25 years old at that time. Thus an entire generation of Palestinians had grown to maturity knowing nothing but occupation before the first suicide bomber struck.

The phrase, “push all the Jews into the sea, dead or alive”, can be traced to a 1961 speech to the Knesset delivered by Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. This apparently was the first use of this phrase by a significant political personality, and thus, for all intents and purposes, the phrase has a Jewish and not an Arab origin. The propagation of this emotional phrase throughout the Israeli-Palestinian debate has its source the Israeli Prime Minister himself. (See “Who is Pushing Whom into the Sea”?)

The view that the conflict is religious and that it has been ongoing for thousands of years is inaccurate. For approximately 2000 years Jews and Arabs enjoyed a harmonious relation, and for four hundred years up until World War II, as citizens of the Ottoman empire with equal rights. Indeed, Jews enjoyed high government position within the Ottoman Empire.

Change occurred in 1896 with the publication of Theodore Herzl’s book, The Jewish State, in which Herzl propounded the idea of inevitability, immutability, permanence, and omnipresence of anti-Semitism and argued that the only solution was a separate state for Jews.

Herzl’s understanding of the inevitability of anti-Semitism was possibly self fulfilling, for rather that opposing anti-Semitism in the first half of the 20th century, the Zionists found common cause with Hitler, Eichmann and the Nazis and used anti-Semitism and Nazism as a means of achieving their end which was the establishment of a Jewish state. The two reactionary movements shared the view that German Jews were living there as a ‘foreign race’ and that the racial divide was essential to maintain. (Historian Lenny Brenner has written three excellent books on the Zionists-Nazi collaboration.) The Zionist’s use of Nazism involved, among other things, the blocking of avenues of escape to other countries of Europe’s Jews and diverting them to Palestine, even as the death trains began to roll in Europe. The rise of Nazism and Hitler to power was never, or almost never, opposed by the Zionist prior to the establishment of Israel.

History might have been very different had the Zionists component of Jewry opposed Nazism and there might never have been a Holocaust. And there might never have been a state of Israel, as many of the Zionists well understood.

Lenni Brenner puts it:

‘… of all of the active Jewish opponents of the boycott idea [of Nazi Germany], the most important was the world Zionists Organization (WZO). It not only bought German wares; it sold them, and even sought out new customers for Hitler and his industrialist backers.

The WZO saw Hitler’s victory in much the same way as its German affiliate, the ZVfD [the German Zionist Organization]: not primarily as a defeat for all Jewry, but as positive proof of the bankruptcy of assimilation and liberalism.’ [Brenner, Zionism in the Age of Dictators] Zionist collaboration with the Nazis, as well as with the Fascists and Mussolini is a deep and extensive topic and must be abandoned here.

Though a region of Argentina as well as Ethiopia were considered by Herzl, Palestine was the site for which there was the greatest consensus. Of the indigenous Palestinians, of which there were about a million at the time living in Palestine, he said:

“[We shall] 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.”
Thus the concept of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionism was introduced.

It is not rocket science. If you want to create a state exclusively of European Jews in the heart of the Middle East, you must first get rid of the Arabs.

Herzl went on the found the World Zionists Organization, whose intent was to establish a Jewish state in Palestine and to make itself into proto-government from which the actual state government would seamlessly emerge upon the establishment of the Jewish state.

Though the world seems not to understand the intent of the Zionist program, there was no misunderstanding among the Zionists themselves.

In his 1923 book, The Iron Wall, Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder to the “Revisionists” wing of Zionism, wrote:
“There can be no discussion of voluntary reconciliation between the Arabs, not now and not in the foreseeable future. All well-meaning people, with the exception of those blind from birth, understood long ago the complete impossibility of arriving at a voluntary agreement with the Arabs of Palestine for the transformation of Palestine from an Arab country to a country with a Jewish majority.

“Any native people view their country as their national home, of which they will be the complete masters. They will never voluntarily allow a new master. So it is for the Arabs. Compromisers among us try to convince us that the Arabs are some kind of fools who can be tricked with hidden formulations of our basic goals. I flatly refuse to accept this view of the Palestinian Arabs.

“The Palestinians will struggle in this way until there is hardly a spark of hope….it matters not what kind of words we use to explain our colonization. Colonization has its own integral and inescapable meaning understood by every Jew and every Arab. Colonization has only one goal. This is in the nature of things. To change that nature is impossible. It has been necessary to carry on colonization against the will of the Palestinian Arabs and the same conditions exist now.

“A voluntary agreement is inconceivable. All colonization, even the most restricted, must continue in defiance of the will of the native population. Therefore, it can continue and develop only under the shield of force which comprises an Iron Wall which the local population can never break through. This is our Arab policy. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy.

“Whether through the Balfour Declaration or the Mandate, external force is a necessity for the establishing in the country conditions of rule and defense through which the local population, regardless of what it wishes, will be deprived of the possibility of impeding our colonization, administratively or physically. Force must play its role – with strength and without indulgence. In this, there are no meaningful differences between our militarists and our vegetarians. One prefers an Iron Wall of Jewish bayonets; the other an Iron Wall of English bayonets.

“If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must provide a garrison for that land,… . 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. Zionism is a colonization adventure and there fore it stands or it 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 colonization.

“To the hackneyed reproach that this point is unethical, I answer – absolutely untrue. This is our ethic. There is no other ethic. As long as there is the faintest spark of hope for the Arabs to impede us, they will not sell these hopes – not for any sweet words not for any tasty morsel. Because this (the Palestinians) is not a rabble but a people, a living people. And no people makes such enormous concessions on such fateful questions, except when there is no hope left, until we have removed every opening visible in the Iron Wall.”

The ‘Revisionists’ advocated the revision of the British Mandate for Palestine to include the east bank of the Jordan, now the state of Jordan, as well as the west bank, the Jordan River forming the eastern boundary of the mandate at that time. The ‘Revisionist’ transformed over time into the present day Lukud party, the right wing party of Menachem Begin, who regarded Zabotinsky as his model and philosophical father, of Yitzchak Shamir, who became the leader of the Revisionists at the time of Zabotinsky’s death, of Ariel Sharon, and of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Thus in 1937, Ben Gurion stated:

“The compulsory transfer of Arabs from the valleys of the proposed Jewish state could give us something which we never had, even when we stood on our own feet during the days of the First and Second Temple.”

And in a letter to his son, also in 1937, he stated:

“We must expel the Arabs and take their places and if we have to use force, to guarantee our own right to settle in those places then we have force at our disposal.”

And in early 1948 Ben Gurion wrote in his War Diary,

“During the assault we must be ready to strike the decisive blow; that is, either to destroy the towns or expel its inhabitants so our people can replace them.”

And in February 1948, Ben Gurion told Yoseph Weitz, director of the settlement of the Jewish National Fund and head of the official Transfer Committee of 1948:

“The war will give us land. The concept of ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ are peace concepts, only, in war they lose their whole meaning.”

And in 1940, Joseph Weitz, who was head of land purchasing for the World Jewish Organization, and head of one of several ‘transfer committees’ (committees to study ways of transferring the Arabs from Palestine) wrote:

“Between ourselves it must be clear that here is no room for both peoples together in this country. We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are in this 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.”

And in 1983, Raphael Eytan, then chief of staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, said,

“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….When we have settled the land, all the Arab will be able to do will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”

Exactly why the indigenous people of Palestine do not have right to live on the land of their and their ancestors births, or why the colonial European Jews have this right, Mr. Eytan is silent.

And in 2002. Moshe Yaalon, chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Force, said,

“The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”

Between the time that Israel declared itself a state in May of 1948 and the summer of 2005, Israel killed 50,000 Palestinians, according to Israeli Historian Ilan Pappe. And since October of 2000, Israel has killed 6348 Palestinians, according to the web site, “If American Knew”. The latter figure averages to about 2 Palestinians killed per day by Israel (1.932, by my calculation.)

One thing is certain: Israel is not the victim, as it is constantly screaming, but the victimizer.

What then is the conflict all about? What is the theme that runs through the entire history of Zionism?

It is about the ongoing program of Zionism to destroy the Palestinians as a people and to assume possession of their ancestral land.

There are Zionists who would settle for a two state solution and a withdrawal of the Israel presence to the 1967 borders allowing a mini-Palestinian state on the remaining 22% of Palestine. But the reality on the ground is that Israel has expanded beyond the point of retreat with 300,000 settlers in the West Bank, 183,000 in East Jerusalem, as of this writing, with 200 or more settlements in the West Bank some twice the size of Manhattan containing their own, schools, universities, shopping malls and the billions of dollars of invested infrastructure, both private and public, and a segregated, for-Jews-only, highway system, 300 miles long, cutting up the West Bank with Palestinians imprisoned between these disjoint concrete and asphalt barriers.

But whatever the views of these moderate Zionists, who call for contraction to the ’67 borders, the dynamics of Israel is and has always been expansion. The centrifugal forces pushing the expansion are multivaried and complicated. They are religious, they are military, they are for want of security, they are from want of power for its own sake, but they are persistent and they have an entire century of momentum and a century of Zionism on the move.

What the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is all about then is the destruction of the Palestinian people and their evacuation and the complete takeover of Palestine to the Jordan River by the Jewish state. And what hangs win the balance is whether or not the Palestinians will be destroyed and eliminated as a people with a distinct culture and history and with an attachment to the land of their birth and their parent’s and ancestor’s births.

William James Martin teaches in the Department of Mathematics at the University of New Orleans.