Friday 9 January 2009

World will change as consciousness evolves

Former Douglas Shire Councillor Rod Davis files this feature from on board his boat, somewhere in Panama.




It was a bit of a tough call, getting up and packing, making porridge and beans, and getting a boat over here with shitful hangover, but hey, at least I’m away from the lunatics who keep lighting bungers day and night on Bocas, here in Panama's Caribbean coast, making it me feel a tad Palestinian.
Some righteous Israeli foreign minister called Livni, or something, ( more like Live NO to a Palestinian) had all the air time she wanted on CNN, to justify her countries brutality. She’s upping the score, whilst maintaining her ratios. Since last CNN broadcast, she has managed to blow another 100 Palestinian men, women and children into oblivion, raising her death toll score to 400, whilst only one more Israeli has been killed, keeping a fine balance on her 100 to 1 retaliation rate. The manipulators of the Zionists deserve a word or two.
They should be ashamed of themselves, is the tright way to summarise it. With the Fourth Reich US on the edge of implosion, without the evil black hand of the US to pat the murdering Israelis on the back, it could get real messy for Israel in a few years. The Israelis just don’t know how badly they have been used by the Rothschild Illuminati as a tool antagonise the Middle East, and urge earth to war.
My favourite freak, and lucky to be alive conspiracy theory writer, sent out his weekly blog yesterday. David Icke, former professional soccer player, and one time spokesmen for the UK Greens, doesn’t tend to twaddle around with the story of Israel…he’s our best yet conspiracy theorist, just that he’s all conspiracy, and no theory:
“So yet again the people of the virtual-concentration camp, known officially as ‘Gaza’, are being bombarded from the sky by the bully-boys of Tel Aviv.
State-of-the art Israeli jets, paid for by the United States, bomb civilian targets in this tragic, poverty-stricken wasteland which acts as a holding camp for the human beings the Israeli government would rather be dead. Waiting in the wings are Israeli tanks preparing for a possible ground invasion of Gaza, again paid for by the United States.
The world watches as a nation of people, the Palestinians, are systematically crushed and destroyed by the tyrants who call the shots in Israel on behalf of that country’s real power structure - the House of Rothschild.

And, taxpayers of America (and elsewhere), you are paying for this calculated slaughter. American aid to Israel accounts for something like a third of all US overseas aid when Israel is home to just .001 per cent of the global population and has one of the highest incomes per head in the world. This is even without all the ‘private’ donations from US corporations and individuals which are tax-deductible even when given to the Israeli military, unlike any other foreign power.
According to 2007 figures, the United States government gave more than $6.8 million to wealthy Israel every day while to the desperate and devastated Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank they gave just $300,000.
This and other support makes Israel the biggest recipient of United States foreign military funding since the Second World War. In their book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt write:
  • ‘Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars.

Why do they do this? Because the House of Rothschild controls Israel and the House of Rothschild controls the political system of the United States. The network that links the two is called ‘Zionism’, a Rothschild creation - just like Israel itself.

The might of this Zionist cabal spanning Israel, the United States, Europe and beyond is yet again, like the playground bully that it is, attacking the little kid in the calipers - the people of Gaza.

At the time of writing the death toll is 430 Palestinian men, women and children with more than 2,000 injured. They are bombing the unarmed innocent knowing there will be no credible response - the way all bullies operate. Oh, brave men of Israel; oh how Yahweh would be so proud:

  • ‘When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy.’ - Deuteronomy 7:1-4

What we are seeing in Gaza, and have seen so many times, both there and in the Lebanon, is merciless Old Testament slaughter: cold, calculated, heartless slaughter.

  • ‘So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. “This is what you are to do,” they said. “Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin”.’ -Judges 21:10-24
  • Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, “Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all - old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple.

    So they began by killing the seventy leaders. ”Defile the Temple!” the LORD commanded. “Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!” So they went throughout the city and did as they were told. -
    Ezekiel 9:5-7

Imagine if Iran or anyone else outside Israel and the United States (both Rothschild assets) was doing what the Israeli military is doing in Gaza. There would be global condemnation, not least from Israel and the United States, resolutions passed in the UN Security Council and talk of the need for sanctions or military intervention to ’save the innocent’.

But when Israel does it we have vacuous calls for a truce, an end to the violence while ‘understanding Israel’s position’, and, in terms of soon-to-be President ‘Change’ Obama, silence. It’s all a fraction of what others would face because Israel is a wholly-owned asset of the Rothschilds and so is not subject to the same rules as anyone else. As former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said:

  • ‘Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.’

And Prime Minister Golda Meir betrayed the same Zionist arrogance:

  • ‘This country exists as the fulfilment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.’

Ah, it’s all in the Old Testament? Gotcha, right, well do as you like then. The ‘Jewish homeland’ was from the start a Rothschild fiefdom orchestrated through the global secret society network of interbreeding families where The Rothschilds funded the early European settlers in Israel, and manipulated events in Germany that led to the horrific treatment of Jewish people and others, and then used that as the excuse to reach their long-term goal - a Rothschild-Illuminati stronghold in Palestine using the Jewish population as fodder to be used and abused as necessary.

They called their plan ‘Zionism’. This term is often used as a synonym for Jewish people when it is actually a political movement devised and promoted through the House of Rothschild and opposed by many Jews. After the Rothschild-controlled Zionist terrorists had bombed the State of Israel into existence in 1948, an estimated 800,000 Palestinians were made refugees and fled what had been their own country. Their descendants are said to number some four million.
And the world simply looked on - just as it does to this day - because Israel is a law unto itself and so terms like justice, fairness, decency and mercy do not apply.

One writer recently described conditions in Gaza:

  • ‘ … Israel nails shut the coffin that is Gaza under a siege that has lasted nearly three years, steadily intensifying so that malnutrition rates rival those of sub-Saharan Africa, sewage runs raw in the streets and pollutes the ocean, homes are still being bulldozed to super-add collective punishment upon collective punishment; men, women and children are still being sniped at and killed; children are deafened by continuing sonic booms, the vast majority of them suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, and many of that majority have no ambition other than becoming “martyrs” …’

The Bush administration for the last eight years has been dominated by the Neo-conservative, or ‘Neocon’, network which is, itself, dominated by US/Israeli duel citizens and/or Zionists like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Dov Zackheim, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Elliot Abrams, Douglas Feith, John Bolton, Robert B Zoellick, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others. The neo-con godfather is the late Leo Strauss, a German-born Jewish ‘philosopher’, who believed that people must be governed by a ‘pious elite’.

But surely those days of Zionist dominance are over because ‘Mr. Change’ is coming to ‘power’ now. Er, if only. Barack Obama has packed his ‘new’ administration with Zionists like Rahm Emanuel, his White House Chief of Staff. Emanuels’ father, Benjamin, was a member of the Irgun terrorist group in Palestine and we can clearly expect the Obama administration to be balanced and fair on its Israel/Palestinian policy. No wonder Obama has kept quiet on the Israeli bombing of Gaza.

You got’a hand to the Illuminati, they are very professional lot. They indeed know how the Illumination works, just they use it for the dark. Still, no point in complaining I suppose, we all signed up to reincarnate to a planet of duality, of good and evil, and the trick is simply to observe and not absorb.

Maybe, I add a trite spiritual phrase, ‘observe and not absorb‘, is only that can come from the comfy pens of western spiritual writers, not watching their families bleed under yet another bombing. Nonetheless, some argue you can’t “fight” to save the world. Peace kills according to P.J ORourke.

There is only one way to sort things, say the likes of Gandhi’s image, and that’s inside ya’self, not outside ya’self.

The world will change as the consciousness evolves, not because the peace comes upon Israel. The answer, in that top secret hiding place, is inside humanity’s heart.

21 comments:

Paul said...

well done - great post. - Crash

Anonymous said...

I would like you to read all or part of this letter, from Rabbi Lerner from Tikkun - US Jewish social justice movement leader.

Also there is a good list of demands here to build discussion around.

-------
Rabbi Lerner on Israel in Gaza

Israel in Gaza
By Rabbi Michael Lerner
January 5, 2009

Israel is still using a strategy of domination in its struggle with Hamas, trying to use force to gain security. But this is a recipe for endless war.

Gaza, December 31, 2008
Israel’s attempt to wipe out Hamas is understandable, but it cannot work.

No country in the world is going to ignore the provocation of rockets being launched from neighboring territory day after day. If Mexico had a group of anti-imperialist South Americans bombing Texas, imagine how long it would take for the US to mobilize a counter-attack. Israel has every right to respond.

But the kind of response matters.

Massive bombings of the sort that have thus far killed over 400 Palestinians and wounded 1,000 other civilians is a classic example of a disproportionate response.

Before Israel’s massive bombing, the Hamas bombings that began when the previous ceasefire ran out had not (thank God) killed any one. The reason is obvious: Hamas has no airplanes, no tanks, nothing more than the weapons of the powerless—limited range mortars with limited accuracy. Hamas can harass, but it cannot pose any threat to the existence of Israel. And just as Hamas’ indiscriminate bombing of population centers is a crime against humanity, so is Israel’s massive attack against civilians (in addition to those killed thus far in Gaza, there are the thousands killed by Israel in the years of the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza). Israel's human rights violations during the cease fire included a massive cut off of food and other vital necessities--a crime against international law.

On the other hand, any understanding of the situation must also include acknowledgment of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder faced by Israelis living under the constant threat of terrorism, to which the katyushka bombings, however ineffective militarily, contribute massively. Living under constant threat of attack, plus hearing the leader of Iran talk about wiping Israel off the map, is a background condition that shapes Israelis ability to be so insensitive to the human damage they have caused by the Occupation. Conversely, the ongoing trauma of expulsion and the Occupation that has contributed to the ongoing ethical insensitivity of many Palestinians to the suffering that they cause Israelis by engaging in terror attacks against civilians. In short, compassion for both sides is a desparate necessity.

Hamas had respected the previously negotiated ceasefire except when Israel used the ceasefire as cover to make assassination raids against Hamas and other Palestinian leaders. Arguing that these raids were hardly a manifestation of ceasefire, Hamas would, as symbolic protest, allow the release of rocket fire (usually hitting no targets). But when the issue of continuing the ceasefire came up, Hamas wanted a guarantee that these assassination raids would stop. And it asked for more. With hundreds of thousands of Palestinians facing acute malnutrition bordering on starvation, Hamas insisted that the borders be opened to counter Israeli attempts to starve the Gazans into submission. And in return for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, it asks for the release of a thousand Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.

Hamas has made it clear that it would accept the terms of the Saudi Arabian peace agreement, though it would never formally recognize Israel. It would live peacefully in a two state arrangement, but it would never acknowledge Israel’s “right to exist.” This position is unnecessarily provocative, and represents deep self-destructiveness on the part of Palestinians who believe that this failure to acknowledge Israel’s rights is the only symbolic weapon they have left. To many Israelis, trapped in their own history as survivors of genocide and oppression, Hamas’ refusal to give official recognition is a way of saying, “We’ll wait till we have adequate military power, and then we’ll break any de facto truce and ceasefire and use that power to wipe out Israel, so just give us time.” Some Hamas people have actually said that publicly. Similarly, there are members of the Knesset who say that they will never accept anything less than the total expulsion ("transfer") of all Palestinians to neighboring Arab states.

Israel seeks to wipe out Hamas. But even if it killed every one of Hamas' twenty-thousand members in Gaza, it would not extinguish the impulse toward Islamic fundamentalism that Hamas represents. Surely Israelis by now know that killing only creates new generations of angry people who will be the next wave of terrorists. So what does Israel really seek? Probably it hopes to make Hamas so powerless that it loses the election against Fatah, and then the Palestinian Authority, itself deeply weakened by Israel's ongoing occupation, will negotiate a peace treaty that creates a "Palestinian state" that is actually a series of cantons or little separated city-states that are themselves cut off from each other by Israeli roads and military--in short a Palestinian state that will be neither economically nor politically viable. Then Israel can claim to have "given" the Palestinians "waht they want," and meanwhile Israel will retain its settlements throughout the West Bank and continue de facto control. Yet this will not generate long-term peace, but only a temporary rest in the fighting. Only a fully just settlement that allows Palestinians a real state that incorporates all of the West Bank and Gaza (with minor border modifications as detailed in the Geneva Accord of 2003) and that provides real compensation for Palestinian refugees, and a state created in a spirit of generosity and genuine caring on the part of Israel, will end the violence and provide Israel with lasting safety.

Let me be clear. I hate Hamas and everything it stands for. I want to see it defeated. But that defeat can only happen politically through isolation, not militarily through slaughter. The way to defeat Hamas is through meeting the legitimate needs of the Palestinian people and doing so in a spirit of genuine caring, in which the Jews of the world and the ISraeli people show that they recognize Palestinians as our brothers and sisters, made in God's image and equally precious to God as the Jewish people. In short, by Jews taking seriously our reliance on God and God's message that the world should be based on love, generosity, caring, kindness, and compassion. In short, a reversal of the reliance on power that has not brought Israel safety or security, and a trust in the fundamental decency of the majority of Palestinians. This is what it would mean for Jews to take seriously our own Judaism and manifest it in a Jewish state.

How do we get out of these dynamics that lead to the current situation in which a small number of Israelis and a huge number of Palestinians are killed or maimed?

The first step is for the world to demand an immediate ceasefire. That ceasefire should be imposed by the United Nations and backed unequivocally by the US. Its terms must include the following:

A. Hamas stops all firing of missiles, bombs, or any other violent action originating from the West Bank or Gaza, and cooperates in actively jailing anyone from any faction that attempts to break this ceasefire from territory controlled by Hamas;

B. Israel stops all bombing, targeted assassinations, or any other violent actions aimed at activists, militants, or suspected terrorists in the West Bank or Gaza, and uses the full force of its army to prevent any further attacks on Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, including Hebron, from any Israeli citizen or anyone based in territory under the effective control of Israel;

C. Israel opens the border with Gaza and allows free access to and from Israel by Gazans and Palestinians, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons. Israel allows free travel of food, gas, electricity, water, and consumer goods and materials including from land, air, and sea, subject only to full search and seizure of any weapons or materials typically used for weapons;

D. Israel agrees to release all Palestinians held in detention with or without trial or in prison and to return those Palesitnians to the West Bank or Gaza according to the choice of the detainees or prisoners. Hamas agrees to release Gilad Shalit and anyone else being held involuntarily by Palestinian forces;

E. Both sides agree to invite an international force to implement these agreements;

F. Both sides agree to end teaching and/or advocacy of violence against the other side in and outside mosques, educational institutions, the press, the media, etc;

G. This cease-fire is agreed to for the next twenty years. NATO, the UN, and the US all agree to enforce this agreement and impose severe sanctions on either side should either be determined to be in violation of the conditions.

These steps would make a huge difference by isolating the most radical members of each side from the mainstream, making it possible to begin negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian people on a much broader and deeper set of issues.

The basic condition for creating peace is to help each side feel “safe” enough to ignore those within their own community who claim that peace is impossible and that no one cares about the safety of “the Jews,” or “the Palestinians.” A first and critical step is to speak in a language that is empathic toward the suffering of each people. Rather than try to prove that the Palestinians are “nothing but” terrorists or that Zionism is nothing but an elaborate scheme for continuing and escalating Western colonialism and imperialism, we must create a climate of discourse in which both sides’ stories are genuinely heard and undertstood. I’ve done this last part in my book Healing Israel/Palestine (North Atlantic Books, 2003).

Yet Israel, as the militarily superior power, ought to take the first steps to end this conflict once and for all. It could do that at any time by making the following moves:

1. Implementing a massive Marshall Plan in Gaza and in the West Bank to end poverty and unemployment, rebuild all that has been destroyed of the Palestinian infrastructure, and encourage investment in a new Palestinian economy;

2. Dismantle the settlements or tell the settlers unequivocally that they must become citizens of a Palestinian state, live by its laws, face charges if their settlements were constructed on land stolen from Palestinians, and that they will not be able to count on Israel to protect them;

3. Accept 30,000 Palestinian refugees back into Israel each year for the next thirty, a number that would not seriously endanger the population balance, apologize for its role in the 1948 expulsions of Palestinians (known as al Naqba), and offer to coordinate a worldwide effort to raise funds to compensate Palestinians for all that they lost during the Occupation (at least to those living in poverty--and conversely, there should be reparations to Jews who fled Arab lands, at least to those who are todaly living in poverty).

4. Recognize a Palestinian state within borders already defined by the Geneva Accord of 2003.

This is the only way Israel will ever achieve security. It is the only way to permanently defeat Hamas and all extremists who wish to see endless war against Israel. But it won’t happen until there is a massive shift in understanding about what promotes “security.”

Israelis have bought into a worldview about security that predominates in much of the world and is the central principle of American foreign policy: “homeland security can only be achieved by domination, either military, economic or diplomatic, of all those who might be potential adversaries.” It was this strategy of domination that led the US into the war in Iraq and that still leads some Obama advisers to believe that it would be wise to shift the focus of that war to Afghanistan and/or Pakistan. Yet the strategy of domination does not and cannot work in the 21st century.

The most significant contribution the new Obama Administration could make to Middle East Peace would be to embrace an alternative strategy: that homeland security is best achieved through generosity and caring for others. If the US were to announce its embrace of a Global Marshall Plan, beginning with the Middle East and backed up with money and the conscious articulation of a Strategy of Generosity, it would do more to help Israel than all the armaments it can promise and all the shuttle diplomacy it might facilitate. If this new way of thinking could become a major part of US policy, it would have an immense impact on undermining the fearful consciousness of Israelis who still see the world more through the frame of the Holocaust than through the frame of their actual present power in the world.

Meanwhile, it breaks my heart to see the terrible suffering in Gaza and Israel, as it does when witnessing the suffering brought to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Darfur—and the list goes one. For me as a religious Jew it is all the worse, because under the guise of serving God, both Jews and Arabs are actually acting out their accumulated pain in ways that will generate future suffering. At the same time Jews in the US who yearn to justify Israel’s actions only confirm to many young Jews that there is no place for them in the Jewish world if they hold a normal ethical sensibility, and further confirms to me how easy it is to pervert the loving message of Judaism into a message of hatred and domination. So I remain in mourning for the Jewish people, for Israel, and for the world.

Tags: afghanistan, Judaism, foreign policy, gaza, geneva accord, hamas, iraq war, israel, middle east, obama administration, pakistan, palestine,

Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun, a prominent progressive Jewish and interfaith magazine and chair of the interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives.
Lerner has been described as "a prophetic voice" by the New York Times, Cornel West of Princeton, Jim Wallis of Sojourners, and the most recent of his 11 books, the New York Times bestseller The Left Hand of God, has been lauded by the L.A. Times, the Washington Post, and by Karen Armstrong, George Lakoff, Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman and Howard Zinn. Lerner has been one of the most prominent Jewish voices in opposition to the war in Iraq and in critiquing Israeli policy toward Palestinians. He is rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco.

KitchenSlut said...

Another anti-semitic fruitloop heard from with no clue by Rod that he is part of the problem and not part of the solution.

Meanwhile over at place of fellow fruitloop Syd Walker he is still posting a video of an alleged Israeli attack which is actually Hamas blowing themselves up at a parade in 2005. This has been exposed as a hoax for the last week and retracted or qualified even on reputable pro-palestinian websites.

Well dome Syd! So much for promotion of the internet as a force for truth!

Anonymous said...

Hi Margaret

Rabbi Lerner is fortunate indeed to have such an assiduous fan of his views in Cairns. Would't a link to his latest, rather lengthy thoughts have sufficed?

Actually, I'm more interested in your views, Margaret, than that of the well-known Tikkun leader. I already know, broadly speaking, what he thinks. I'd much rather read, in your own words, why you agree with him?

Did you support 'separate development' in South Africa too?

If not, what's the difference?

Anonymous said...

Thank you for bringing that to our attention Margaret. Such obvious commonsense is, as the cliche says, not all that common.
I am impressed by the 'Interfaith' movement that seeks to remove manmade 'barriers' between people of different faiths and by Rabbi Lerner's comments.

Anonymous said...

With due respect, Maragaret, why not post a link to Rabbi Lerner's lengthy disquisition? Or at least explain in your own words why you agree with him?

As it is, this comes across to me as some kind of brain teaser. What is it about the well-known American advocate for a nicer, kinder apartheid Israel that you agree with so strongly? Did you take a similar line on South Africa in the old days?

Anyone interested in daily reports from a genuine (unembedded) journalist in Gaza can visit the blog of Sameh Habeeb. As of yesterday, the Israeli bombers appear to have missed him.

Latest death toll figues quoted on his site: 980 killed and more than 4400 injured.

Those who believe the carnage is directed from the White House (the Noam Chomsky hypothesis) may be interested in this article, which indicates fairly clearly who wears the pants in the US/Israeli relationship, at least under George W Bush.

Anonymous said...

Hi Sid, Margaret’s up on the Cape working today, so I’ll give you my perspective on why we promote and support rabbi Lerner’s thinking on peace in the Middle East.

It takes as its starting point the right of all peoples to exist, and to have a free and effective expression of national identity. I always hesitate to get into the detail of who did what to whome over the last 3,000 years because (a) it’s all disputed and (b) it doesn’t really aid the construction of peace.

Rabbi Lerner recognises the present asymmetry between Israel and Hamas, and holds Israel responsible for contributing proportionately to the peace process. The return of refugees, compensation for acquired property, respect for national boundaries and law. His ideas about a “Marshall Plan” for Palestine offer hope.

Most of the barriers to the peace process can be found in unrealistic expectations of entitlement by one side or the other, along with an unhealthy obsession with vengeance. I don’t care what atrocities folk have suffered in the past. Bombing men, women, or children to make a political point is simply unacceptable. We should all be making that crystal clear.

There’s a small vigil on Friday evening at City Place at 6.30 pm, followed by a film – “Palestine is still the issue” at 105-107 Digger St at 7.30 pm. Come along for a discussion if you like.

Anonymous said...

Hi Bryan

Welcome back to you and happy New Year!

The 'right of all people to exist' is not in dispute, as far as I'm aware. No one in the anti-apartheid movement, as I recall, argued that the Afrikaners had no right to exist.

What was in dispute at that time was the right of a sectarian, supremacist government in SA to claim democratic status (by limiting its franchise) - and the full participation of that apartheid country as a member of the family of nations.

25 years ago, I took the position that apartheid should be isolated and ostracized. I imagine Margaret and yourself did too. What's the difference now?

Why support Rabbi Lerner’s ‘solution’ when he knows, you know (surely you know?) and everyone else knows it is pure fantasy that won’t happen? (there’s no way Israel will roll back to the Green Line, short of military invasion). Lerner's fantasy, however, is a dangerous fantasy - because it provides a fig leaf covering the key reality of the Holy Land. That reality is quite simple - South Africa-style simple. The Zionist movement has turned the entire country (it used to be called Palestine - all of it) into a nuclear-armed apartheid State, with a few impoverished Bantustan-style ghettoes for the annoying indigenes who won’t emigrate.

Rabbit Lerner - and his equivalents in Israel such as Uri Averny - may be well-intensioned for all I know. But the net effect of their efforts, in my opinion, is to render simplicity complex - and to blunt global moves to isolate Israel as an apartheid rogue State.

Of course, there are genuine friends of the Palestinian cause among the Jewish population in Israel - people like Israel Shamir. They do not get published in The Times and other Murdoch organs. They don't appear on ABC Lateline either. You may never read them yourself - either because you've never encountered them, or because you've heard they are accused of 'anti-Semitism'. That accusation, I imagine, puts you in a state of apoplexy.

I shall try to get to the meeting on Friday, but I'm sorry to say I've little enthusiasm for it. This is what I'd probably say if I go along -= and when you read it, you may well be relieved if I don't show up.

Three obvious targets for a demo in Cairns occur to me.

First is the ABC, for its disgusting, insidious pro-Zionist bias.

Second is the Cairns Post (local outpost of the Murdoch Empire), for serving up even more pro-Zionist bias than the ABC.

Third is the Westfield Centre. It's beyond me why anyone who cares about Palestine shops in consumer precincts that are, in whole or in part, within the empire of billionaire Frank Lowy, a Zionist 'commando' from the 1940s (the British, at the time, called his ilk ‘terrorists’, for good reason).

A few demos at Cairns Central might be useful to make that point.

I imagine if I so go along to your meeting, a posse of committed 'peace activists' (probably yourself included) would do everything in their power to discourage such actions. I may be wrong, but I doubt it.

In my experience, folk such as your good self – and the nice people at Green Left - allow Zionists to condition your response to their atrocities. In my heretical opinion, that makes you part of the problem, not the solution, when it comes to Palestine. You spend more time agonizing over whether potential allies 'over-step the mark' than about how to defeat Zionist aggression and dominance.

You are what’s known in the Zionist literature as 'useful idiots': self-motivated promoters of Philo-Judaic propaganda.

In the South African context, some quite decent people promoted the progressive white liberals in SA, but wouldn't advocate the release of Nelson Mandela because he refused to renounce violence. You remind me of them.

To use the analogy of witnessing a rape, you demand the rapist stops - but demand just as loud that the victim stops scratching his neck.

I write in sadness, not in anger, Bryan - and in the belief that discussions like can change minds.

Zionists are extremely well-connected in the west and very skilled at propaganda. It's hard to see through their haze of subtle lies, but it can be done.

Anonymous said...

Hey Sid, I'm not able to discern the course of action you're proposing to achieve peaceful resolution in the Middle east.

Ostracise israel, OK. Then? How do we bring about disarmament? The economic development of Palestine?

Anonymous said...

Hi again Bryan.

Did you run a similar argument against boycotting South Africa Bryan?

It's possible, but somehow I doubt it...

The Israeli State needs to be isolated. We need a global boycott. A fair compromise between the Jewish and Palestinian people of the Holy Land must be reached. That cannot/will not happen while it's business as usual in Israel.

Israel is increasingly compared with apartheid South Africa, but several prominent and well-informed South African veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle claim it's worse.

Here’s a short extract from Demands grow for Gaza war crimes investigation in Tuesday’s Guardian newspaper:

The Israeli military are accused of:

* Using powerful shells in civilian areas which the army knew would cause large numbers of innocent casualties;

* Using banned weapons such as phosphorus bombs;

* Holding Palestinian families as human shields;

* Attacking medical facilities, including the killing of 12 ambulance men in marked vehicles;

* Killing large numbers of police who had no military role.

Israeli military actions prompted an unusual public rebuke from the International Red Cross after the army moved a Palestinian family into a building and shelled it, killing 30. The surviving children clung to the bodies of their dead mothers for four days while the army blocked rescuers from reaching the wounded.

Anonymous said...

Jew shills even here in Cairns. Seem to be the only people around happy to defend the indefensible. I'm not an anti-Semite, I support the Palestinians (the real Semites here) against the murderous Khazar invaders (the ones who claim to be victims of anti-Semitism, but are in fact of Eastern European stock). I'm fine with Semits but the Khazars are just the living end.

Anonymous said...

Well its the real Margaret Pestorius here. I don't actually remember posting that letter. Though I did send it to a very small number of friends. [Michael???] So sorry for this tardy reply - took a while to latch on I was in the middle of such heated discussion.

We're having a small vigil tomorrow for Gaza, against the bombing, against the oppression, against the treatment of Palestinians in GAza [and Israel]. but I don't think its against Israel per se.

And yes I would have supported a nonviolent solution and nonviolent responses for South Africa. In fact the research shows [Beware: expert claim] that many actions that met campaign objectives in South Africa were nonviolent tactics including economic sanctions and a long long nonviolent struggle in many continents. And this despite the fact the tactics were coordinated by those running a parallel armed struggle.

Its a bit of a 70s and 80's paradigm. "Can I support a struggle against oppression without supporting the armed bits of it??" Australians got confused back there re Elsalvador and Chile. Actually you can support oppressed people in lots of different ways without saying yes to violence. I unashamedly say NO to violence. WHEREVER. I'm for the nonviolent Jew, Jesus. [And his mum the Jew, Mary. And Rabbi Lerner etc etc etc]

Violence is violence is violence. We have it here too. Not sure why all the heated feelings about the JEWS. Except for our culture being built on a thousand years anti-semitism. In fact anti-semitism predates racism and that's saying somthing! We know how strong racism is round here.

Its sort of interesting to get a good look at the feelings people have about Jews every now and then. It runs deep in all of us I guess - like racism. [I try to keep a lid on mine though! you know private thoughts that I press the delete button on. hint hint]

Jews have been set up to play a middle role where the upper/owning classes can use them to BLAME when things look like falling down around those thieving classes. you know "it wasn't me it was them....they stole all the money I just got the big house on the canal in Amsterdam and the country mansion. But I was deserving of that. Don't attack me - Get THEM" [pogrom pogrom pogrom...]

So if you ever find yourself blaming a jew for anything - alarm bells....

However, the State of Israel is having a few problems with its range of conflict resolution methodology.

So action FRIDAY 6.30 -FOR GAZA, AGAINST VIOLENCE, AGAINST THE ARMING OF ISRAEL BY THE US, SUPPORTING THE ISRAELI REFUSNIKS, and looking for a just peace in Palestine - WITHOUT land stealing and settlements. etc etc etc

Don't come with your conspiracy theories. Its complex. Compassion, love and courage.

Margaret

Anonymous said...

Ah Margaret. Perhaps you should stick to quoting rabbis after all?

>>> So if you ever find yourself blaming a jew for anything - alarm bells....

Just to be clear about this, Margaret, if a Jewish person happens to tread on my foot, do I (a) hold my tongue (b) blame myself (c) find a Palestinian to blame?

>>> However, the State of Israel is having a few problems with its range of conflict resolution methodology.

That must be the most preposterous verbiage I've read that didn't come directly out of Tel Aviv.

Mark Regev could use a scriptwriter like you, especially on a day like today with the UN warehouse in Gaza ablaze after a white phosphorus attack.

>> Don't come with your conspiracy theories. Its complex. Compassion, love and courage.

Spare me your simplistic claptrap.

Anonymous said...

Is this always the tone of this blog?

I'm not sure its useful in building dialogue in a small community.

I was just putting out my thinking. I'm not really into being restated and misrepresented.

I'm not sure the a] B] c} thing summarises my thinking.

What is your strategic program Syd? What steps forward should we take?

Anonymous said...

Margaret

I apologize if my tone was excessively snarky.

In particular, I never intended to post two comments asking to clarify why you chose a quote from Rabbi Lerner. I didn't realize the first comment had been posted when I commented again. My mistake. It may have made it seem like I was harassing you, which was not my intention.

But it is my intention to debate the issues raised in Rabbi Lerner’s text. I’ll do it in available forum. I think one tiny benefit that can potentially be squeezed from the current horror in Gaza is that it makes such conversations possible. IMO, the topic we are discussing is close to the most important on the planet today.

I encourage you – and anyone else who is interested, to read these two articles:

Rabbi Lerner, the Green Party, and Divestment from Israel
by Bryan Atinsky

Do Jewish sensitivities matter at this time? by Karin Friedemann

The first shows why, in the opinion of many including myself, Rabbi Lerner is a (very effective) wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The second is more controversial and challenges in a quite direct way the Judeophilia that you – and many, many others in the western world, especially on the left - seem to find obligatory in all discourse. Obligatory, that is, not only for yourselves but for others too… I suggest you read some of the comments too. You'll probably find this hard going... but why should this not be part of our common discourse, along with the very pro-Jewish perspectives that are so regularly presented to us via our mass media and mainstream cultural industries? Why kind of debate do we have when a large part of the discourse is missing?

You described the last 1,000 years as "a thousand years anti-semitism". There are problems with this. First, the term itself was only invented in the late 19th century. Second, it is clearly 100% one-sided. Are you saying that all Jews behaved blamelessly during this period? If so, I think you need to study more history from more sources. Israel Shahak's The Weight of 3000 Years is a useful starting point, IMO.

What's the answer in Palestine?

The long term answer for the Holy Land (the whole of Palestine), in my opinion, is that it once again becomes whole. An undivided electorate within an undivided land (original PLO policy, by the way). Of course, all the people driven from the land from 1947 onwards – and their descendants – should be entitled to citizenship – along with all more recent immigrants and their descendants. A normal democracy, in other words…

If Hamas wins elections under a united franchise, fine. If Likud wins, fine. I suspect, however, that a broad-based party such as a Palestine-style ANC – or a coalition of non-sectarian parties - would win a fair election in such circumstances.

Of course, IF the Palestinians choose – without duress – to live in separate enclaves under the so-called ‘two state solution’, that’s their right. But their wishes should be put first for once - instead of last. In my opinion, they would do best to demand the one state solution. Ultimately, it’s up to them.

The Israeli Government – for 60 years but with ever-greater dominance – has never tried to negotiate a solution with its neighbours on an equal partner basis. In my book, 60 years is quite long enough for a bizarre social experiment that has demonstrably failed to deliver humane outcomes.

The Israeli Government will never contemplate negotiating a solution with its neighbours on an equal partner basis until it is forced to do so. The can be achieved by (a) military means or (b) severe international isolation. I favour the latter. In this regard also, my position is similar to my anti-apartheid position 25 years ago. I favoured boycotting South Africa. I did not favour armed invasion. Neither, as far as I know, did the ANC leadership ever call for that.

The campaign for the international isolation of Israel is deliberately and systematically undermined by folk like Rabbi Lerner. I think he probably knows what he’s doing and why, but I suspect many of his well-intentioned followers in the west have no idea how they are being conned.

The like of Lerner would have us avoid this conversation entirely, branding it as ‘anti-Semitic’. What utter nonsense. It’s an insult to our intelligence.

The meeting tonight in Cairns, which I compliment you in organizing, is one of many around the world at this time. The policy position taken at these gathering is important.

Israel wants to use its ‘Get out of Jail Free Card’, yet again, to avoid a South Africa boycott. It’s important it loses this battle. It’s time that at least the Greens call for a Venezuela-style break of diplomatic relations and an economic boycott.

Decent Jewish people on this planet such as Mordechai Vanunu, - let alone the rest of us – are done no favours if discourse is so self-policed that Jewish criminals get away with appalling crimes.

And yes, I do mean to use the world Jewish in that context. In doing so, I’m doing nothing other than use the same word about people they use themselves. What is unacceptable about that?

It’s time to break this silly hex over the English language and speak clearly about things, not in a way that lends comfort to mass murderers.

Today the central hospital in Gaza was set alight by white phosphorus (how many war crimes is that?) – following the destruction of the UN compound in Gaza by white phosphorus (how many war crimes is that?).

Exactly what would Israel have to do to merit boycott, in your opinion? It has already killed a thousand Gazans and maimed several thousands more in front of the whole world. Not enough yet? When will it ever be enough?

What will it take to break your hex so – to coin a phrase from the Buddha - you see things clearly, as they really are?

KitchenSlut said...

You know the more I hear from Bryan Law the more I am impressed and disregard previous conceptions.

Sorry Bryan I didn't vote for you in that Mayoral election before last as I actually voted for the man who had been disqualified before the ballot as a bankrupt! It seemed a better option than either KB or Val Shier in 2004.

I haven't been in here for some time to try and contain my emotions in the face of rampant propoganda and bullshit from people claiming to know the answer on this and displaying obvious underlying bigotry. The Jewish shill claim is a classic, shill being a currently fashionable slur against anyone who opposes you.

As my favorite philosopher Billy Connolly has said "Seek the company of people trying to understand the question. Avoid the company of people claiming to know the answer"

The second time today Bryan has hit the nail on the head in a debate forum I have seen!

The Rabbi Lerner event is on as I post and now sorry not to be there!

KitchenSlut said...

Sorry Syd but i'm very lazy and trying to locate your previous blog link to Ishmael Shamir where you support his view that the Global Financial Crisis may be a planned Jewish conspiracy and if you will forgive me the claim that "you dont need to be Jewsish to adopt bad jewish practices" ?

Anonymous said...

I think this may be the link you've been looking for, Kitchenslut...

Click and enjoy

Anonymous said...

Hi Syd.

I must take responsibility for posting the full Rabbi Lerner's letter. I clicked on the link in Margaret's original email and sent a comment to Mike,he forwarded it on and the whole letter came out.

My fault everyone.
Terry

Anonymous said...

Terry,

No fault, as far as I'm concerned. I may have been at fault for being rather full on. But I do think these issues are important and worth discussing seriously.

Anonymous said...

I thought of Rod and his remark that the "World will change as consciousness evolves" when I encountered this video, which I've blogged under the title 'Winning the Hearts and Minds'

I wonder if he talks to the natives like this on his travels? :-)