Please find me a Rabbi, politician, or any Israeli or Jewish leader that advocates murder as this man does. As Mohamad Abbas just did two weeks ago. As Stephens so eloquently said, you are not just an apologist. You are an accomplice. When will your infantilizing of the Palestinian blood lust end? What would it take?
Nice qualifier, as this man does? Jeez, do you answer questions posed or play the Israli apologist card every time? When will the occupation end and the settlements stop expanding? Oh, I'm pretty certain Bibi has spoken the same, just not in the same vernacular. Answer my 1948 question first, perhaps? When will Israel stop being the victim? Israeli text books don't advocate the elimination of Palastine? Righteousness rules the day? Geez, as an unbeliever, I can't go to the Wailing Wall without looking over my shoulder, maybe getting a rock to the head or a shiv in my back from the black hatted ones. Yes, Israel is innocent and a victim. I get it. All righteous and without blame. Why was the USS Liberty attacked again? Go ahead, post some more "outrage." I'll just look at the young woman run over by the bulldozer again. Please, answer a question posed.
Nice qualifier, as this man does? Jeez, do you answer questions posed or play the Israli apologist card every time? When will the occupation end and the settlements stop expanding? Oh, I'm pretty certain Bibi has spoken the same, just not in the same vernacular. Answer my 1948 question first, perhaps? When will Israel stop being the victim? Israeli text books don't advocate the elimination of Palastine? Righteousness rules the day? Geez, as an unbeliever, I can't go to the Wailing Wall without looking over my shoulder, maybe getting a rock to the head or a shiv in my back from the black hatted ones. Yes, Israel is innocent and a victim. I get it. All righteous and without blame. Why was the USS Liberty attacked again? Go ahead, post some more "outrage." I'll just look at the young woman run over by the bulldozer again. Please, answer a question posed.
expansion will not end. occupation will not end. the us blocks everything at the un and kowtows to israel.
boycott divest sanction
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
hey johnnie. hasbara called. they want their money back. you are not changing any minds here. you are not playing the victim card as effectively as you should be.
Post edited by gimmesometruth27 on
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
why is it every time something happens in gaza the israeli apologists flood this place with their "i'm a victim" shit trying to justify the actions of the idf and the settlers?
and why are people like me called stupid for calling them on it?
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
Nice qualifier, as this man does? Jeez, do you answer questions posed or play the Israli apologist card every time? When will the occupation end and the settlements stop expanding? Oh, I'm pretty certain Bibi has spoken the same, just not in the same vernacular. Answer my 1948 question first, perhaps? When will Israel stop being the victim? Israeli text books don't advocate the elimination of Palastine? Righteousness rules the day? Geez, as an unbeliever, I can't go to the Wailing Wall without looking over my shoulder, maybe getting a rock to the head or a shiv in my back from the black hatted ones. Yes, Israel is innocent and a victim. I get it. All righteous and without blame. Why was the USS Liberty attacked again? Go ahead, post some more "outrage." I'll just look at the young woman run over by the bulldozer again. Please, answer a question posed.
I'm pretty sure I answered your question, but I've been trying to stay on topic. Honestly, by reading the above response it is quite clear that you have zero understanding of the reality on the ground in Israel or in Gaza. You have obviously never been to either place.
"Israeli text books don't advocate the elimination of Palastine?"
No, they do not. I will personally send you $100 through PayPal if you can find an Israeli textbook used in Israeli schools that advocates this. On the other hand, I can personally send you right now, examples of this from the Palestinians.
"Geez, as an unbeliever, I can't go to the Wailing Wall without looking over my shoulder, maybe getting a rock to the head or a shiv in my back from the black hatted ones. "
Only an ignoramus would say such a thing. Anyone who has ever been to Israel, Jerusalem, or the Western Wall can attest that EVERYONE is welcome there as long as they respect the rules of modesty that you would expect from any holy site. No "black hatted one" has ever stabbed anyone at the Western Wall nor thrown any stones at "unbelievers." The same is far from true on the Temple Mount where Arabs regularly stone and harass "unbelievers." But you have nothing to say about this.
hey johnnie. hasbara called. they want their money back. you are not changing any minds here. you are not playing the victim card as effectively as you should be.
Right. Anyone advocating for Israel must be a paid shill.
Nice qualifier, as this man does? Jeez, do you answer questions posed or play the Israli apologist card every time? When will the occupation end and the settlements stop expanding? Oh, I'm pretty certain Bibi has spoken the same, just not in the same vernacular. Answer my 1948 question first, perhaps? When will Israel stop being the victim? Israeli text books don't advocate the elimination of Palastine? Righteousness rules the day? Geez, as an unbeliever, I can't go to the Wailing Wall without looking over my shoulder, maybe getting a rock to the head or a shiv in my back from the black hatted ones. Yes, Israel is innocent and a victim. I get it. All righteous and without blame. Why was the USS Liberty attacked again? Go ahead, post some more "outrage." I'll just look at the young woman run over by the bulldozer again. Please, answer a question posed.
expansion will not end. occupation will not end. the us blocks everything at the un and kowtows to israel.
boycott divest sanction
I hope you aren't typing this on a computer with an Intel chip. They have R&D in Israel and a $10 billion investment thus far. Got an iPhone? You can toss that too. I also hope you don't use any products from Apple, Google, Facebook, or Microsoft. You can also toss your Nike's, stop using Waze on your smartphone, and toss your HP printer.
We'd boycott the Palestinians, but they don't actually make anything other than missiles.
Some publications -- like 972 mag, Al Jazeera, Electronic Intifada -- etc have argued recently that the ongoing terrorism is the fault of the "occupation," by which they mean either the presence of Israelis in Judea & Samaria, or the re-establishment of Israel in 1948, or both.
This is patently false, but more importantly, it undermines the Arab civilian population.
If you study the sociological underpinnings of terrorism, more often than not, said acts have absolutely nothing to do with perceived injustice by another force; instead when you trace said actions backwards it has to do with the selfsame organizations that sent people to go murder innocent civilians in the first place. In the case of Hamas, for example, that regime follows what I like to call the "Jim Jones effect."
Jim Jones's church started out welcoming people from underprivileged backgrounds and giving them a place where they could feel a sense of purpose and direction. In doing so, Jones created a community where people felt safe and protected from the perils of the outside world. But overtime, Jones began to abuse his congregants and tell them that it was the outside world that was responsible for the misery they were now feeling under Jones's direction.
When Jones forced his people to drink koolade laced with cyanide, someone recorded what he told them and today we have the audio. There's a great PBS documentary on this subject which I recommend you watch. He said specifically, "we are going to commit a revolutionary act of suicide" against the outside world. Which is to say he followed the below steps:
1. Make people feel loved. 2. Abuse them 3. Tell them the pain they're feeling is a result of outside forces. 4. Get them to commit suicide to escape such forces.
This is, with variation, the EXACT formula that Hamas follows.
1. Hamas made Gazans feel loved and of value. 2. It then derived them of civil liberties, persecuted women, gays, religious minorities, and forced the people to uphold its campaign against Israel, literally forcing and murdering children in the process of building its terror tunnels. It steals billions of dollars from its people as well. 3. It then said (and continues to say) that the misery of Gazans is actually the fault of an Israeli occupation. 4. Then it encourages its men to go commit "a revolutionary act of suicide" against Israelis.
It is the exact same cycle; Its basic human psychology. The Palestinian Authority follows it to a lesser degree, but nonetheless, what we've seen with Abbas's incitement recently regarding Al Aqsa Mosque is in the exact same vein. No one will care about his stealing of money from his people, his jailing of peaceful political dissidents, and the culture of persecution against women under his regime if he's busy telling his people that Jews have filthy feet and that Arab blood should be spilled in getting rid of those Jews.
Its a smokescreen/rally around the flag effect. Focus on destroying Israel, and ignore the abuses your government is foisting on you.
So you see, none of this has ultimately nothing to do with the presence of Israelis in the WB. I suggest that even if Israelis weren't in the WB, the PA and Hamas et al WOULD HAVE to preach THE EXACT SAME THING to their people. Because doing so supports their regimes' existence, both financially and otherwise.
So its not merely that publications who blame whats going on on the presence of Israel in the disputed territories are inaccurate, its that their ideas actually undermine the people it purports to represents.
If it were true that an "occupation" were the cause of terrorism, then Gazans and Arabs in the WB would be committing suicide bombings and knife attacks against the PA and Hamas IN GREATER NUMBER since they enact ACTUALLY egregious forces on their people, like honor killings, misallocation of funds, and the like.
Thus it seems that the ONLY way to actually get rid of terrorism -- once you understand how this terrorism works -- is to get rid of the PA and Hamas.
Moreover, the textbooks tend to deny each other’s existence. Of 800 maps of their contested land studied by the researchers, 87% of the Israeli ones mark none of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river as Palestinian, whereas 96% of Palestinian maps make no mention of Israel. “Israeli school maps feed into the Palestinian narrative that Israel wants to grab more and more land, and Palestinian school maps feed an Israeli narrative that Palestinians want to throw them into the sea,” says Bruce Wexler, the Yale professor who oversaw the project. Israeli critics of the report have panned the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land, an association of local rabbis, imams and priests, who commissioned Mr Wexler, a Jewish American.
Halifax2TheMax said:
"Israeli text books don't advocate the elimination of Palastine?"
No, they do not. I will personally send you $100 through PayPal if you can find an Israeli textbook used in Israeli schools that advocates this. On the other hand, I can personally send you right now, examples of this from the Palestinians.
Say again? Two wrongs don't make a right so you can climb down from your moral high horse now.
Where exactly do these books call for the elimination of Palestinians? From the Wikipedia article discussing the study you referenced:
Israeli schoolbooks were deemed superior to Palestinian ones with regard to preparing children for peace, but the study praised both Israel and the Palestinian Authority for producing textbooks almost completely unblemished by "dehumanizing and demonizing characterizations of the other". The study appeared to undermine a charge, often used by Israel to delegitimize Palestinian claims that they were ready for statehood, according to which Palestinians were "educated to hate". With regard to maps, 4% of Palestinian maps mark the Green Line, or label the area west of it as "Israel", 6 out of 10 omit borders, while another third include the green line without reference to Israel, 76% of Israeli textbook maps fail to distinguish the Palestinian territories and Israel, and the Palestinian areas lack labelling, implying that the Palestinian areas form part of Israel.
The difference being that Palestine is not actually a state. (I wouldn't even call them independant territories anymore now that Abbas declared Oslo null and void.) Still, 1/4 of Israeli textbooks did do so. Contrast this to the Palestinian textbooks, 96% of which make ZERO reference to the existence of Israel. I still don't see you providing evidence that Israeli textbooks advocate the elimination of "Palestine" or Palestinians.
Oh, and don't forget this little tidbit about the report. Nice to know advocating Jihad was not considered to have an impact on war and peace.
Dr. Arnon Groiss, who was on the Scientific Advisory Panel of the study and in the past conducted an independent research of Palestinian, Egyptian, Syrian, Saudi Arabian, Tunisian and Iranian schoolbooks between 2000 and 2010, has highly criticized the study methodology and subsequent conclusions. Groiss objected, inter alia, to the selection of the Study Material ("highly demonizing pieces were not included, under the pretext that they were not explicit enough", "explicit denial…was not included too"), to the categorization methods ("real cases of ignoring the 'other' deliberately without degrading him slipped away from scrutiny", false positive descriptions) and to the analysis itself ("There is no attempt to study the quotes more deeply and draw conclusions", "the report considers Jihad and martyrdom as values, which is acceptable academically, but it fails to evaluate their impact on the issues of war and peace"). Groiss concluded that "the main question, namely, to what extent is this or that party engaged in actual education for peace, if at all, has not been answered by the report itself."
Some publications -- like 972 mag, Al Jazeera, Electronic Intifada -- etc have argued recently that the ongoing terrorism is the fault of the "occupation," by which they mean either the presence of Israelis in Judea & Samaria, or the re-establishment of Israel in 1948, or both.
This is patently false, but more importantly, it undermines the Arab civilian population.
If you study the sociological underpinnings of terrorism, more often than not, said acts have absolutely nothing to do with perceived injustice by another force; instead when you trace said actions backwards it has to do with the selfsame organizations that sent people to go murder innocent civilians in the first place. In the case of Hamas, for example, that regime follows what I like to call the "Jim Jones effect."
Jim Jones's church started out welcoming people from underprivileged backgrounds and giving them a place where they could feel a sense of purpose and direction. In doing so, Jones created a community where people felt safe and protected from the perils of the outside world. But overtime, Jones began to abuse his congregants and tell them that it was the outside world that was responsible for the misery they were now feeling under Jones's direction.
When Jones forced his people to drink koolade laced with cyanide, someone recorded what he told them and today we have the audio. There's a great PBS documentary on this subject which I recommend you watch. He said specifically, "we are going to commit a revolutionary act of suicide" against the outside world. Which is to say he followed the below steps:
1. Make people feel loved. 2. Abuse them 3. Tell them the pain they're feeling is a result of outside forces. 4. Get them to commit suicide to escape such forces.
This is, with variation, the EXACT formula that Hamas follows.
1. Hamas made Gazans feel loved and of value. 2. It then derived them of civil liberties, persecuted women, gays, religious minorities, and forced the people to uphold its campaign against Israel, literally forcing and murdering children in the process of building its terror tunnels. It steals billions of dollars from its people as well. 3. It then said (and continues to say) that the misery of Gazans is actually the fault of an Israeli occupation. 4. Then it encourages its men to go commit "a revolutionary act of suicide" against Israelis.
It is the exact same cycle; Its basic human psychology. The Palestinian Authority follows it to a lesser degree, but nonetheless, what we've seen with Abbas's incitement recently regarding Al Aqsa Mosque is in the exact same vein. No one will care about his stealing of money from his people, his jailing of peaceful political dissidents, and the culture of persecution against women under his regime if he's busy telling his people that Jews have filthy feet and that Arab blood should be spilled in getting rid of those Jews.
Its a smokescreen/rally around the flag effect. Focus on destroying Israel, and ignore the abuses your government is foisting on you.
So you see, none of this has ultimately nothing to do with the presence of Israelis in the WB. I suggest that even if Israelis weren't in the WB, the PA and Hamas et al WOULD HAVE to preach THE EXACT SAME THING to their people. Because doing so supports their regimes' existence, both financially and otherwise.
So its not merely that publications who blame whats going on on the presence of Israel in the disputed territories are inaccurate, its that their ideas actually undermine the people it purports to represents.
If it were true that an "occupation" were the cause of terrorism, then Gazans and Arabs in the WB would be committing suicide bombings and knife attacks against the PA and Hamas IN GREATER NUMBER since they enact ACTUALLY egregious forces on their people, like honor killings, misallocation of funds, and the like.
Thus it seems that the ONLY way to actually get rid of terrorism -- once you understand how this terrorism works -- is to get rid of the PA and Hamas.
What a croc of shit but what should I expect from a self proclaimed Israel Zionist? Equating the PA and Hamas to Jim Jones and his cult is laughable. What a hack piece.
Nice qualifier, as this man does? Jeez, do you answer questions posed or play the Israli apologist card every time? When will the occupation end and the settlements stop expanding? Oh, I'm pretty certain Bibi has spoken the same, just not in the same vernacular. Answer my 1948 question first, perhaps? When will Israel stop being the victim? Israeli text books don't advocate the elimination of Palastine? Righteousness rules the day? Geez, as an unbeliever, I can't go to the Wailing Wall without looking over my shoulder, maybe getting a rock to the head or a shiv in my back from the black hatted ones. Yes, Israel is innocent and a victim. I get it. All righteous and without blame. Why was the USS Liberty attacked again? Go ahead, post some more "outrage." I'll just look at the young woman run over by the bulldozer again. Please, answer a question posed.
expansion will not end. occupation will not end. the us blocks everything at the un and kowtows to israel.
boycott divest sanction
I hope you aren't typing this on a computer with an Intel chip. They have R&D in Israel and a $10 billion investment thus far. Got an iPhone? You can toss that too. I also hope you don't use any products from Apple, Google, Facebook, or Microsoft. You can also toss your Nike's, stop using Waze on your smartphone, and toss your HP printer.
We'd boycott the Palestinians, but they don't actually make anything other than missiles.
Sure, the whole world economy would come to a screeching halt if everyone stopped buying products from Israel. I think we should start with ending the $3BB in US aid that's provided and I'm okay with the impact on US MIC. I could do all those things you suggest and it wouldn't impact my life one iota.
Hard to develop any kind of economy when Israel controls your ability to reliably import/export. I love your smugness in this observation as if you relish the fact.
Please find me a Rabbi, politician, or any Israeli or Jewish leader that advocates murder as this man does. As Mohamad Abbas just did two weeks ago. As Stephens so eloquently said, you are not just an apologist. You are an accomplice. When will your infantilizing of the Palestinian blood lust end? What would it take?
Nope, no blood lust on the Israeli side. They're just poor innocent victims being murdered because well, they just want to live in peace on land already occupied by the Palestinians. When will your excuses end?
Where exactly do these books call for the elimination of Palestinians? From the Wikipedia article discussing the study you referenced:
Israeli schoolbooks were deemed superior to Palestinian ones with regard to preparing children for peace, but the study praised both Israel and the Palestinian Authority for producing textbooks almost completely unblemished by "dehumanizing and demonizing characterizations of the other". The study appeared to undermine a charge, often used by Israel to delegitimize Palestinian claims that they were ready for statehood, according to which Palestinians were "educated to hate". With regard to maps, 4% of Palestinian maps mark the Green Line, or label the area west of it as "Israel", 6 out of 10 omit borders, while another third include the green line without reference to Israel, 76% of Israeli textbook maps fail to distinguish the Palestinian territories and Israel, and the Palestinian areas lack labelling, implying that the Palestinian areas form part of Israel.
The difference being that Palestine is not actually a state. (I wouldn't even call them independant territories anymore now that Abbas declared Oslo null and void.) Still, 1/4 of Israeli textbooks did do so. Contrast this to the Palestinian textbooks, 96% of which make ZERO reference to the existence of Israel. I still don't see you providing evidence that Israeli textbooks advocate the elimination of "Palestine" or Palestinians.
First, Wikipedia is hardly an unbiased source as it's contributors could be just about anyone, including pro-Israeli Zionists. When I have the time I'll look it up and check the multiple citations I'm sure to find and check those out as well. For now, I take your post with a grain of salt.
Is not teaching the future generations that a people doesn't exist in a "state" a way to de legitimize them and posit that their territory is for the taking? And did Abbas not withdraw from the Oslo Accords because Israel continues to expand it's settlements in the WB? True, yes? Palestine is not a state because Israel won't allow it to be recognized by the US and other western powers. But that's starting to change, and thankfully and rightfully so.
Nice qualifier, as this man does? Jeez, do you answer questions posed or play the Israli apologist card every time? When will the occupation end and the settlements stop expanding? Oh, I'm pretty certain Bibi has spoken the same, just not in the same vernacular. Answer my 1948 question first, perhaps? When will Israel stop being the victim? Israeli text books don't advocate the elimination of Palastine? Righteousness rules the day? Geez, as an unbeliever, I can't go to the Wailing Wall without looking over my shoulder, maybe getting a rock to the head or a shiv in my back from the black hatted ones. Yes, Israel is innocent and a victim. I get it. All righteous and without blame. Why was the USS Liberty attacked again? Go ahead, post some more "outrage." I'll just look at the young woman run over by the bulldozer again. Please, answer a question posed.
expansion will not end. occupation will not end. the us blocks everything at the un and kowtows to israel.
boycott divest sanction
I hope you aren't typing this on a computer with an Intel chip. They have R&D in Israel and a $10 billion investment thus far. Got an iPhone? You can toss that too. I also hope you don't use any products from Apple, Google, Facebook, or Microsoft. You can also toss your Nike's, stop using Waze on your smartphone, and toss your HP printer.
We'd boycott the Palestinians, but they don't actually make anything other than missiles.
you know that is bullshit. israel doesn't make bombs? of course not. they get them from us.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
how about the right wing israelis stop bombing mosques and pushing the arabs out of their holy sites?
i know it seems ludicrous to zionists that you can't just take land and push people off of their holy sites and expect the arabs to just allow them to do it.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
If what we see going on in Israel-Palestine is not yet a third Intifada, one may not be far off. As presented in the mainstream press, the stabbings of Israeli settlers, the rock-throwing, the mass uprisings, all seem chalked up to some inexplicable proclivity toward violence on the part of Palestinians. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that this wave of violence comes in response to an on-going campaign to desecrate and destroy holy sites that anchor non-Jewish peoples to their faiths -- not only are mosques being destroyed, so too are Catholic churches.
Most egregiously, Israeli groups are attempting to replace the al-Aqsa mosque with a Jewish temple. In mid-September "Israeli forces entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound's southern mosque on Tuesday sparking the third straight day of violent clashes at the third holiest site in Islam. Dozens of Palestinians were injured in the clashes, during which Israeli forces fired stun grenades, tear gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinian worshipers." These efforts are part of what is called "temple activism."
Parallel to the illegal destruction of Palestinian homes and the building of settlements, what we find here is the destruction and appropriation of holy sites.
It is important to note that this purposeful destruction of religious institutions continues a process we witnessed during Israel's attack on Gaza last summer:
In the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge, Israel's 51-day military assault, the Palestinians in Gaza are faced with the huge task of reconstruction. Most of the shattered civilian infrastructure can be replaced, but Palestine's cultural heritage in Gaza, built over a thousand years and more, has been damaged irrevocably. Many of Gaza's most ancient sites have been left in ruins by Israel's attack on the territory. Houses of worship, tombs, charity offices and cemeteries have all been damaged by the shelling, but Gaza's historic mosques have been the worst affected. Many of these sites date back to the time of the first Islamic caliphs, the Ottoman Empire and the Mamluk Sultanate. Protective Edge damaged 203 mosques, of which 73 were destroyed completely. Two churches were also damaged, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs. The targeting of mosques by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in the latest offensive was three times more than in the 2008-2009 attack, the ministry's report said. The current clashes over the Noble Sanctuary have been depicted in the mainstream press in the usual fashion -- omitting or distorting key details to make it appear that there is nothing that warrants the violence coming from Palestinians. The Institute for Middle East Understanding has issued a corrective to that. Two key points stand out. The IMEU notes that while some news accounts assert that Israelis pushing for greater access to the Noble Sanctuary mosque (known as the Temple Mount to Jews) just want religious freedom, what we actually find is the appropriation of another religion's holy sites.
The right-wing Israeli individuals and groups that are pushing for more access and Jewish prayer in the Noble Sanctuary want to remove the Muslim holy sites that it houses and replace them with a Jewish temple. On its website, one of the movement's most prominent organizations, the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement, declares as its objective: "Liberating the Temple Mount from Arab (Islamic) occupation. The Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque were placed on this Jewish or biblical holy site as a specific sign of Islamic conquest and domination. The Temple Mount can never be consecrated to the Name of G-d without removing these pagan shrines." Second, IMEU debunks the idea that Israeli authorities reject attempts to change the status quo in the Noble Sanctuary and oppose actions by Jewish extremists that provoke tensions over it:
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly that he has no intention of changing the status quo in the Noble Sanctuary, senior officials in his current and previous governments have openly called for the construction of a Jewish temple in the Noble Sanctuary, including Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel of the extreme right wing Jewish Home party and Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely of Netanyahu's Likud party. In July 2013, then-Housing and Construction Minister Ariel declared to an "archeological conference" in the occupied West Bank: "We've built many little, little temples... but we need to build a real Temple on the Temple Mount." Without this context the violence we are witnessing now seems inconceivable. But a people deprived of their land, their resources, their human rights, indeed of thousands of their loved ones, is reacting now to the destruction and appropriation of an essential set of cultural and religious sites. These acts of destruction are not random -- they are targeted acts of intimidation and brutality, and as racist and bigoted in nature as the burnings of black churches we saw in the US south last July.
And it is predominantly young Palestinian people, seeing what they consider the brutal theft of their religion and culture, who are paying a disproportionate price in an asymmetrical war -- knives and stones against armor-plated vehicles and heavily protected soldiers with rifles with laser sights.
Here are excerpts from Amnesty International's report on the killing of a young woman, 18-year-old Hadeel al-Hashlamoun, an event they termed an "extrajudicial execution":
Israeli soldiers shot and mortally wounded 18-year-old Hadeel al-Hashlamoun after they stopped her at a checkpoint in the Old City in Hebron. Pictures of the stand-off that led to her death and accounts by eyewitnesses interviewed by Amnesty International show that she at no time posed a sufficient threat to the soldiers to make their use of deliberate lethal force permissible. This killing is the latest in a long line of unlawful killings carried out by the Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank with near total impunity... According to [one witness], Abu Aisheh, the soldier who had shot first got up and moved closer to her, until he was about a metre away, and then shot at her upper body four or five times again while she was lying motionless on the ground. He said that the soldier shot a few times despite other soldiers yelling at him to stop. Israeli authorities claim that a metal detector found that al-Hashlamoun had a knife, but this has been disputed. Amnesty International addresses this possibility:
Even if al-Hashlamoun did have a knife, Israeli soldiers, who are protected with body armour and heavily equipped with advanced weapons, could have controlled the situation and arrested her without threatening her life. Open fire regulations of the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank allow soldiers to open fire only when their lives are in imminent danger, and Amnesty International concludes that this was not the case in the shooting of al-Hashlamoun, as she was standing still and separated from the soldiers by a metal barrier. There was no attempt to arrest al-Hashlamoun, according to the eyewitnesses, or to use non-lethal alternatives. To then shoot al-Hashlamoun again multiple times as she lay wounded on the ground indicates that her killing was an extrajudicial execution.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
Obviously both sides of the conflict will have their version to present when asked about many of these sorts of incidents. Yet a pattern of obfuscation, misinformation, distortion, unequal punishment and immunity from prosecution is emerging. For example, the New York Times reported the killing of two Palestinian youths in the occupied West Bank last year: "Mohammad Mahmoud Odeh Salameh, 16, and Nadeem Siam Nawara, 17, were fatally shot in the chest during a demonstration in Beitunia, a West Bank town outside Ramallah. A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said the matter was still under investigation but no live bullets had been fired -- an assertion disputed by Palestinian officials."
New York Times story also reports another, quite different version of this event: "Ahmad Badwan of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committee, whose ambulances attended to the victims, disputed [that] account in an interview, saying the protest 'began peacefully' and 'turned into violence when the Israeli Army used live fire to disperse stone throwers.'" So far, both sides have equal claim to the truth.
Yet a videotape shows that neither boy was actively participating in the protest or posing a threat to Israeli soldiers when shot. And the result of a forensics investigation refutes the Israeli claim that their forces were not using live ammunition:
After undertaking an autopsy of the body of Nadim Nawarah, 17..., forensic pathologists have determined that a live bullet was the cause of his death. The Palestinian teenager was killed by Israeli forces on May 15 during clashes in the West Bank town of Beitunia... At the request of the Nawarah family, Al Haq, Defense for Children International-Palestine, Physicians for Human Rights and B'Tselem coordinated the attendance of the international forensic pathologists. Responding to the conclusions of the autopsy, the four non-government organizations stated: "These findings underline the urgency of our demand that the criminal investigation into the Beitunia killings be conducted efficiently and concluded promptly." And that is what Representative Betty McCollum (D-Minn) too is demanding. In a letter to Ambassador Anne Woods Patterson and Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski, McCollum notes:
Nadeem's murder was captured on video by local security cameras as well as [by] international journalists. One can literally watch the murder of this Palestinian teenager as he walks innocently down the street. A 16-year-old youth, Mohammed Dahar, was shot and killed in the same location, one hour after Nadeem's murder. Like Nadeem, Mohammed was innocently walking down the street, and his murder was also captured on video. McCollum then makes three critical requests, stating:
1) The case must be raised with Israeli officials, impressing on them that the US government expects a fair, transparent and credible trial. The person(s) responsible for the murder of this Palestinian youth must be held accountable; 2) I would request that a US State Department official be present to observe the conduct of the trial to ensure appropriate standards of justice are achieved; 3) Finally, I request the State Department investigate whether the killing of Nadeem Nawara and Mohammed Daher constitute violations of the "Leahy Law." If a Leahy Law violation occurred, then the 38th Company of the Israeli Border Patrol should be ineligible to receive future US military aid and training, and all border police involved in this incident should be denied US visas as stipulated by the law. There are three reasons why this letter is extremely important. First, it shows that the killing of Palestinian youths by Israeli soldiers, police and settlers is not uncommon at all; rather, such murders can take place at demonstrations and checkpoints, but also on quiet streets, and with clear pre-meditation. Second, the letter brings out the fact that these actions are materially supported by our US taxpayer dollars, and thus we have a special obligation to, as McCollum does, insist in fair, transparent trials and that those responsible be held accountable. Finally, her letter indicates her concern that justice may not be delivered solely through the agency of the Israeli justice system.
Indeed, routine mishandling of investigations is complemented by a two-tiered system of justice--this is a crucial point. Emily Schaefer Omer-Man, Coordinator of the Criminal Accountability of Israeli Security Forces project for Yesh Din notes:
Israel operates a dual legal system in the West Bank. In practice, this means that a Palestinian and an Israeli settler who stand accused of the same crime, committed in the exact same territory, experience fundamentally separate criminal justice systems, from arrest through interrogation, trial and punishment. The Palestinian is tried under the Israeli Military Court system of laws, procedures and penalties and his or her Israeli settler neighbor is tried under the Israeli civilian criminal justice system. The result is a system that is both separate and unequal, and which denies basic due process rights to the Palestinian population living under occupation. Finally, changes in the laws regarding police action have been modified to guarantee that such crimes will only increase. Here is Haaretz's report on the discussions which recently took place, loosening the constraints on the use of open fire and punishing the parents of children who are convicted of throwing stones (such collective punishment is illegal under international human rights law):
"Until recently, police officers would open fire when their own lives were at risk," Netanyahu said. "From now on, they will be allowed to open fire -- and they will know they have a right to do so -- when anyone's life is in danger." The cabinet also decided to take measures against minors over the age of 14 who throw stones, as well as their parents. The measures include revoking stipends of parents whose children are sentenced to prison. The cabinet will examine the legality of fining parents to minors aged 12-14, and imposing bail on parents to minors under the age of 12. Again, we in the US know very well how "risk" to police officers can be very loosely interpreted. In Israel, a 10-year-old throwing a rock in an officer's direction now constitutes a "threat" answerable with a live bullet.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
A few months ago, over a thousand Black activists, scholars, cultural workers, students and organizations issued a statement of solidarity with Palestinians, and a recent film featuring Ms Lauryn Hill, Danny Glover, Angela Davis, Omar Barghouti, Nora Erakat and many others gives visual expression to that solidarity. These activists draw the parallels between life under Israeli occupation and life under American racism. As Cornel West declared,
There is no doubt that Gaza is not just a "kind of" concentration camp, it is the hood on steroids. Now in the black community, located within the American empire, you do have forms of domination and subordination, forms of police surveillance and so forth, so that we are not making claims of identity, we are making claims of forms of domination that must be connected. When people's schools, hospitals and mosques are purposefully bombed, when an illegal blockade strangles their economy, when they are deprived of electricity and water and when their homes and places of worship are taken over brutally, it is no wonder they will resist and fight against those committing those acts. With this rash of summary executions of Palestinian youths, seemingly sanctioned by the state, it is no wonder that those interested in social and racial justice in the United States will find these stories deeply disturbing, and familiar. And people of conscience will act. We can boycott Israeli products, and academic and cultural institutions, divest from companies that profit from investments in Israel, and call for sanctions. We can answer the call for solidarity emanating from Palestinian civil society -- the legal, non-violent movement called BDS.
In so doing we are saying that the status quo is unacceptable and we refuse to go along with it.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
Nice qualifier, as this man does? Jeez, do you answer questions posed or play the Israli apologist card every time? When will the occupation end and the settlements stop expanding? Oh, I'm pretty certain Bibi has spoken the same, just not in the same vernacular. Answer my 1948 question first, perhaps? When will Israel stop being the victim? Israeli text books don't advocate the elimination of Palastine? Righteousness rules the day? Geez, as an unbeliever, I can't go to the Wailing Wall without looking over my shoulder, maybe getting a rock to the head or a shiv in my back from the black hatted ones. Yes, Israel is innocent and a victim. I get it. All righteous and without blame. Why was the USS Liberty attacked again? Go ahead, post some more "outrage." I'll just look at the young woman run over by the bulldozer again. Please, answer a question posed.
expansion will not end. occupation will not end. the us blocks everything at the un and kowtows to israel.
boycott divest sanction
I hope you aren't typing this on a computer with an Intel chip. They have R&D in Israel and a $10 billion investment thus far. Got an iPhone? You can toss that too. I also hope you don't use any products from Apple, Google, Facebook, or Microsoft. You can also toss your Nike's, stop using Waze on your smartphone, and toss your HP printer.
We'd boycott the Palestinians, but they don't actually make anything other than missiles.
nope, no iphone here. no hp printer either have a computer from microsoft, a pair of old shoes from nike and use facebook.
i am not paying microsoft for anything, and facebook doesn't cost me anything. zuckerberg does nice things for charity in my own country, so he is alright.
but still, if boycott, divest, and sanction was not working, why would someone like you so fervently demonize it with such bile? it is obviously striking some nerves somewhere.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.- Hemingway
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Comments
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
boycott
divest
sanction
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
and why are people like me called stupid for calling them on it?
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
We'd boycott the Palestinians, but they don't actually make anything other than missiles.
Some publications -- like 972 mag, Al Jazeera, Electronic Intifada -- etc have argued recently that the ongoing terrorism is the fault of the "occupation," by which they mean either the presence of Israelis in Judea & Samaria, or the re-establishment of Israel in 1948, or both.
This is patently false, but more importantly, it undermines the Arab civilian population.
If you study the sociological underpinnings of terrorism, more often than not, said acts have absolutely nothing to do with perceived injustice by another force; instead when you trace said actions backwards it has to do with the selfsame organizations that sent people to go murder innocent civilians in the first place. In the case of Hamas, for example, that regime follows what I like to call the "Jim Jones effect."
Jim Jones's church started out welcoming people from underprivileged backgrounds and giving them a place where they could feel a sense of purpose and direction. In doing so, Jones created a community where people felt safe and protected from the perils of the outside world. But overtime, Jones began to abuse his congregants and tell them that it was the outside world that was responsible for the misery they were now feeling under Jones's direction.
When Jones forced his people to drink koolade laced with cyanide, someone recorded what he told them and today we have the audio. There's a great PBS documentary on this subject which I recommend you watch. He said specifically, "we are going to commit a revolutionary act of suicide" against the outside world. Which is to say he followed the below steps:
1. Make people feel loved.
2. Abuse them
3. Tell them the pain they're feeling is a result of outside forces.
4. Get them to commit suicide to escape such forces.
This is, with variation, the EXACT formula that Hamas follows.
1. Hamas made Gazans feel loved and of value.
2. It then derived them of civil liberties, persecuted women, gays, religious minorities, and forced the people to uphold its campaign against Israel, literally forcing and murdering children in the process of building its terror tunnels. It steals billions of dollars from its people as well.
3. It then said (and continues to say) that the misery of Gazans is actually the fault of an Israeli occupation.
4. Then it encourages its men to go commit "a revolutionary act of suicide" against Israelis.
It is the exact same cycle; Its basic human psychology. The Palestinian Authority follows it to a lesser degree, but nonetheless, what we've seen with Abbas's incitement recently regarding Al Aqsa Mosque is in the exact same vein. No one will care about his stealing of money from his people, his jailing of peaceful political dissidents, and the culture of persecution against women under his regime if he's busy telling his people that Jews have filthy feet and that Arab blood should be spilled in getting rid of those Jews.
Its a smokescreen/rally around the flag effect. Focus on destroying Israel, and ignore the abuses your government is foisting on you.
So you see, none of this has ultimately nothing to do with the presence of Israelis in the WB. I suggest that even if Israelis weren't in the WB, the PA and Hamas et al WOULD HAVE to preach THE EXACT SAME THING to their people. Because doing so supports their regimes' existence, both financially and otherwise.
So its not merely that publications who blame whats going on on the presence of Israel in the disputed territories are inaccurate, its that their ideas actually undermine the people it purports to represents.
If it were true that an "occupation" were the cause of terrorism, then Gazans and Arabs in the WB would be committing suicide bombings and knife attacks against the PA and Hamas IN GREATER NUMBER since they enact ACTUALLY egregious forces on their people, like honor killings, misallocation of funds, and the like.
Thus it seems that the ONLY way to actually get rid of terrorism -- once you understand how this terrorism works -- is to get rid of the PA and Hamas.
Moreover, the textbooks tend to deny each other’s existence. Of 800 maps of their contested land studied by the researchers, 87% of the Israeli ones mark none of the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan river as Palestinian, whereas 96% of Palestinian maps make no mention of Israel. “Israeli school maps feed into the Palestinian narrative that Israel wants to grab more and more land, and Palestinian school maps feed an Israeli narrative that Palestinians want to throw them into the sea,” says Bruce Wexler, the Yale professor who oversaw the project. Israeli critics of the report have panned the Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land, an association of local rabbis, imams and priests, who commissioned Mr Wexler, a Jewish American.
Halifax2TheMax said:
"Israeli text books don't advocate the elimination of Palastine?"
No, they do not. I will personally send you $100 through PayPal if you can find an Israeli textbook used in Israeli schools that advocates this. On the other hand, I can personally send you right now, examples of this from the Palestinians.
Say again? Two wrongs don't make a right so you can climb down from your moral high horse now.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
From the Wikipedia article discussing the study you referenced: The difference being that Palestine is not actually a state. (I wouldn't even call them independant territories anymore now that Abbas declared Oslo null and void.) Still, 1/4 of Israeli textbooks did do so. Contrast this to the Palestinian textbooks, 96% of which make ZERO reference to the existence of Israel.
I still don't see you providing evidence that Israeli textbooks advocate the elimination of "Palestine" or Palestinians.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Hard to develop any kind of economy when Israel controls your ability to reliably import/export. I love your smugness in this observation as if you relish the fact.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
Nope, no blood lust on the Israeli side. They're just poor innocent victims being murdered because well, they just want to live in peace on land already occupied by the Palestinians. When will your excuses end?
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
I still don't see you providing evidence that Israeli textbooks advocate the elimination of "Palestine" or Palestinians.
First, Wikipedia is hardly an unbiased source as it's contributors could be just about anyone, including pro-Israeli Zionists. When I have the time I'll look it up and check the multiple citations I'm sure to find and check those out as well. For now, I take your post with a grain of salt.
Is not teaching the future generations that a people doesn't exist in a "state" a way to de legitimize them and posit that their territory is for the taking? And did Abbas not withdraw from the Oslo Accords because Israel continues to expand it's settlements in the WB? True, yes? Palestine is not a state because Israel won't allow it to be recognized by the US and other western powers. But that's starting to change, and thankfully and rightfully so.
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
i know it seems ludicrous to zionists that you can't just take land and push people off of their holy sites and expect the arabs to just allow them to do it.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
What's Behind the Explosions of Violence in Palestine? -- The Destruction of Religious Sites and "Extrajudicial Executions" of Palestinian Teenagers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-palumboliu/whats-behind-the-explosio_b_8298362.html
If what we see going on in Israel-Palestine is not yet a third Intifada, one may not be far off. As presented in the mainstream press, the stabbings of Israeli settlers, the rock-throwing, the mass uprisings, all seem chalked up to some inexplicable proclivity toward violence on the part of Palestinians. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is that this wave of violence comes in response to an on-going campaign to desecrate and destroy holy sites that anchor non-Jewish peoples to their faiths -- not only are mosques being destroyed, so too are Catholic churches.
Most egregiously, Israeli groups are attempting to replace the al-Aqsa mosque with a Jewish temple. In mid-September "Israeli forces entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound's southern mosque on Tuesday sparking the third straight day of violent clashes at the third holiest site in Islam. Dozens of Palestinians were injured in the clashes, during which Israeli forces fired stun grenades, tear gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets at Palestinian worshipers." These efforts are part of what is called "temple activism."
Parallel to the illegal destruction of Palestinian homes and the building of settlements, what we find here is the destruction and appropriation of holy sites.
It is important to note that this purposeful destruction of religious institutions continues a process we witnessed during Israel's attack on Gaza last summer:
In the aftermath of Operation Protective Edge, Israel's 51-day military assault, the Palestinians in Gaza are faced with the huge task of reconstruction. Most of the shattered civilian infrastructure can be replaced, but Palestine's cultural heritage in Gaza, built over a thousand years and more, has been damaged irrevocably. Many of Gaza's most ancient sites have been left in ruins by Israel's attack on the territory. Houses of worship, tombs, charity offices and cemeteries have all been damaged by the shelling, but Gaza's historic mosques have been the worst affected. Many of these sites date back to the time of the first Islamic caliphs, the Ottoman Empire and the Mamluk Sultanate.
Protective Edge damaged 203 mosques, of which 73 were destroyed completely. Two churches were also damaged, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs. The targeting of mosques by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in the latest offensive was three times more than in the 2008-2009 attack, the ministry's report said.
The current clashes over the Noble Sanctuary have been depicted in the mainstream press in the usual fashion -- omitting or distorting key details to make it appear that there is nothing that warrants the violence coming from Palestinians. The Institute for Middle East Understanding has issued a corrective to that. Two key points stand out. The IMEU notes that while some news accounts assert that Israelis pushing for greater access to the Noble Sanctuary mosque (known as the Temple Mount to Jews) just want religious freedom, what we actually find is the appropriation of another religion's holy sites.
The right-wing Israeli individuals and groups that are pushing for more access and Jewish prayer in the Noble Sanctuary want to remove the Muslim holy sites that it houses and replace them with a Jewish temple. On its website, one of the movement's most prominent organizations, the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement, declares as its objective:
"Liberating the Temple Mount from Arab (Islamic) occupation. The Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque were placed on this Jewish or biblical holy site as a specific sign of Islamic conquest and domination. The Temple Mount can never be consecrated to the Name of G-d without removing these pagan shrines."
Second, IMEU debunks the idea that Israeli authorities reject attempts to change the status quo in the Noble Sanctuary and oppose actions by Jewish extremists that provoke tensions over it:
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said repeatedly that he has no intention of changing the status quo in the Noble Sanctuary, senior officials in his current and previous governments have openly called for the construction of a Jewish temple in the Noble Sanctuary, including Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel of the extreme right wing Jewish Home party and Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely of Netanyahu's Likud party. In July 2013, then-Housing and Construction Minister Ariel declared to an "archeological conference" in the occupied West Bank: "We've built many little, little temples... but we need to build a real Temple on the Temple Mount."
Without this context the violence we are witnessing now seems inconceivable. But a people deprived of their land, their resources, their human rights, indeed of thousands of their loved ones, is reacting now to the destruction and appropriation of an essential set of cultural and religious sites. These acts of destruction are not random -- they are targeted acts of intimidation and brutality, and as racist and bigoted in nature as the burnings of black churches we saw in the US south last July.
And it is predominantly young Palestinian people, seeing what they consider the brutal theft of their religion and culture, who are paying a disproportionate price in an asymmetrical war -- knives and stones against armor-plated vehicles and heavily protected soldiers with rifles with laser sights.
Here are excerpts from Amnesty International's report on the killing of a young woman, 18-year-old Hadeel al-Hashlamoun, an event they termed an "extrajudicial execution":
Israeli soldiers shot and mortally wounded 18-year-old Hadeel al-Hashlamoun after they stopped her at a checkpoint in the Old City in Hebron. Pictures of the stand-off that led to her death and accounts by eyewitnesses interviewed by Amnesty International show that she at no time posed a sufficient threat to the soldiers to make their use of deliberate lethal force permissible. This killing is the latest in a long line of unlawful killings carried out by the Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank with near total impunity...
According to [one witness], Abu Aisheh, the soldier who had shot first got up and moved closer to her, until he was about a metre away, and then shot at her upper body four or five times again while she was lying motionless on the ground. He said that the soldier shot a few times despite other soldiers yelling at him to stop.
Israeli authorities claim that a metal detector found that al-Hashlamoun had a knife, but this has been disputed. Amnesty International addresses this possibility:
Even if al-Hashlamoun did have a knife, Israeli soldiers, who are protected with body armour and heavily equipped with advanced weapons, could have controlled the situation and arrested her without threatening her life. Open fire regulations of the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank allow soldiers to open fire only when their lives are in imminent danger, and Amnesty International concludes that this was not the case in the shooting of al-Hashlamoun, as she was standing still and separated from the soldiers by a metal barrier. There was no attempt to arrest al-Hashlamoun, according to the eyewitnesses, or to use non-lethal alternatives. To then shoot al-Hashlamoun again multiple times as she lay wounded on the ground indicates that her killing was an extrajudicial execution.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Obviously both sides of the conflict will have their version to present when asked about many of these sorts of incidents. Yet a pattern of obfuscation, misinformation, distortion, unequal punishment and immunity from prosecution is emerging. For example, the New York Times reported the killing of two Palestinian youths in the occupied West Bank last year: "Mohammad Mahmoud Odeh Salameh, 16, and Nadeem Siam Nawara, 17, were fatally shot in the chest during a demonstration in Beitunia, a West Bank town outside Ramallah. A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said the matter was still under investigation but no live bullets had been fired -- an assertion disputed by Palestinian officials."
New York Times story also reports another, quite different version of this event: "Ahmad Badwan of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committee, whose ambulances attended to the victims, disputed [that] account in an interview, saying the protest 'began peacefully' and 'turned into violence when the Israeli Army used live fire to disperse stone throwers.'" So far, both sides have equal claim to the truth.
Yet a videotape shows that neither boy was actively participating in the protest or posing a threat to Israeli soldiers when shot. And the result of a forensics investigation refutes the Israeli claim that their forces were not using live ammunition:
After undertaking an autopsy of the body of Nadim Nawarah, 17..., forensic pathologists have determined that a live bullet was the cause of his death. The Palestinian teenager was killed by Israeli forces on May 15 during clashes in the West Bank town of Beitunia... At the request of the Nawarah family, Al Haq, Defense for Children International-Palestine, Physicians for Human Rights and B'Tselem coordinated the attendance of the international forensic pathologists.
Responding to the conclusions of the autopsy, the four non-government organizations stated: "These findings underline the urgency of our demand that the criminal investigation into the Beitunia killings be conducted efficiently and concluded promptly."
And that is what Representative Betty McCollum (D-Minn) too is demanding. In a letter to Ambassador Anne Woods Patterson and Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski, McCollum notes:
Nadeem's murder was captured on video by local security cameras as well as [by] international journalists. One can literally watch the murder of this Palestinian teenager as he walks innocently down the street. A 16-year-old youth, Mohammed Dahar, was shot and killed in the same location, one hour after Nadeem's murder. Like Nadeem, Mohammed was innocently walking down the street, and his murder was also captured on video.
McCollum then makes three critical requests, stating:
1) The case must be raised with Israeli officials, impressing on them that the US government expects a fair, transparent and credible trial. The person(s) responsible for the murder of this Palestinian youth must be held accountable;
2) I would request that a US State Department official be present to observe the conduct of the trial to ensure appropriate standards of justice are achieved;
3) Finally, I request the State Department investigate whether the killing of Nadeem Nawara and Mohammed Daher constitute violations of the "Leahy Law." If a Leahy Law violation occurred, then the 38th Company of the Israeli Border Patrol should be ineligible to receive future US military aid and training, and all border police involved in this incident should be denied US visas as stipulated by the law.
There are three reasons why this letter is extremely important. First, it shows that the killing of Palestinian youths by Israeli soldiers, police and settlers is not uncommon at all; rather, such murders can take place at demonstrations and checkpoints, but also on quiet streets, and with clear pre-meditation. Second, the letter brings out the fact that these actions are materially supported by our US taxpayer dollars, and thus we have a special obligation to, as McCollum does, insist in fair, transparent trials and that those responsible be held accountable. Finally, her letter indicates her concern that justice may not be delivered solely through the agency of the Israeli justice system.
Indeed, routine mishandling of investigations is complemented by a two-tiered system of justice--this is a crucial point. Emily Schaefer Omer-Man, Coordinator of the Criminal Accountability of Israeli Security Forces project for Yesh Din notes:
Israel operates a dual legal system in the West Bank. In practice, this means that a Palestinian and an Israeli settler who stand accused of the same crime, committed in the exact same territory, experience fundamentally separate criminal justice systems, from arrest through interrogation, trial and punishment. The Palestinian is tried under the Israeli Military Court system of laws, procedures and penalties and his or her Israeli settler neighbor is tried under the Israeli civilian criminal justice system.
The result is a system that is both separate and unequal, and which denies basic due process rights to the Palestinian population living under occupation.
Finally, changes in the laws regarding police action have been modified to guarantee that such crimes will only increase. Here is Haaretz's report on the discussions which recently took place, loosening the constraints on the use of open fire and punishing the parents of children who are convicted of throwing stones (such collective punishment is illegal under international human rights law):
"Until recently, police officers would open fire when their own lives were at risk," Netanyahu said. "From now on, they will be allowed to open fire -- and they will know they have a right to do so -- when anyone's life is in danger."
The cabinet also decided to take measures against minors over the age of 14 who throw stones, as well as their parents. The measures include revoking stipends of parents whose children are sentenced to prison. The cabinet will examine the legality of fining parents to minors aged 12-14, and imposing bail on parents to minors under the age of 12.
Again, we in the US know very well how "risk" to police officers can be very loosely interpreted. In Israel, a 10-year-old throwing a rock in an officer's direction now constitutes a "threat" answerable with a live bullet.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
A few months ago, over a thousand Black activists, scholars, cultural workers, students and organizations issued a statement of solidarity with Palestinians, and a recent film featuring Ms Lauryn Hill, Danny Glover, Angela Davis, Omar Barghouti, Nora Erakat and many others gives visual expression to that solidarity. These activists draw the parallels between life under Israeli occupation and life under American racism. As Cornel West declared,
There is no doubt that Gaza is not just a "kind of" concentration camp, it is the hood on steroids. Now in the black community, located within the American empire, you do have forms of domination and subordination, forms of police surveillance and so forth, so that we are not making claims of identity, we are making claims of forms of domination that must be connected.
When people's schools, hospitals and mosques are purposefully bombed, when an illegal blockade strangles their economy, when they are deprived of electricity and water and when their homes and places of worship are taken over brutally, it is no wonder they will resist and fight against those committing those acts. With this rash of summary executions of Palestinian youths, seemingly sanctioned by the state, it is no wonder that those interested in social and racial justice in the United States will find these stories deeply disturbing, and familiar. And people of conscience will act. We can boycott Israeli products, and academic and cultural institutions, divest from companies that profit from investments in Israel, and call for sanctions. We can answer the call for solidarity emanating from Palestinian civil society -- the legal, non-violent movement called BDS.
In so doing we are saying that the status quo is unacceptable and we refuse to go along with it.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
have a computer from microsoft, a pair of old shoes from nike and use facebook.
i am not paying microsoft for anything, and facebook doesn't cost me anything. zuckerberg does nice things for charity in my own country, so he is alright.
but still, if boycott, divest, and sanction was not working, why would someone like you so fervently demonize it with such bile? it is obviously striking some nerves somewhere.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/last-interview-auschwitz-survivor-urged-palestinians-not-give-their-fight
You never really had to begin with.
Sometimes it's not the song that makes you emotional it's the people and things that come to your mind when you hear it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/21/netanyahu-says-palestinian-gave-hitler-idea-for-the-holocaust/?tid=sm_fb
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Libtardaplorable©. And proud of it.
Brilliantati©
On the other hand it moves this away a bit from the religious under current being developed recently.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."