Queer “Settlers” Land on Berkeley Starbucks, Analogy to Israeli Colonists

End The Occupation Now!


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http://www.opendemocracy.net/forum/document_details.asp?CatID=127&DocID=1380

i like it when the words 'queer' and 'erected' are used in the same story HeHeHeHe

But every white American IS a colonialist, there's no need to put on a bizarre street theatre, you ARE living on someone elses land, and you did take it because YOU wanted to. Even if you personally did not kill indians, you are enjoying this crime to this day.

This is one of those actions that are so unique and good, it makes all the spamming and rediclousness on Indymedia worth slogging through!

The thing II love is that this wasn't all about mainstream news coverage, or trying to get huge numbers of people, but just put out an improtant and creative way to view the current events in the middle east.

I've posted a number of responses - to pro-Israeli spammers on here who were posting things about a Berkeley cafe blowing up - explaining that Berkeley isn't currently occupying anything.

This isn't to make light of the Native American issue - we need to deal with that also - but it's important for people to get a sense of things right in their own space, to see it more clearly. Maybe Native American street theater can be next.

Starbucks was a *perfect* choice.

This is brilliant. I want to see more actions like this. Fun and makes the point about the absurdity of zionist philosophy with a zing!

For those interested this is the Starbucks located on Shattuck Ave between Allston and Kittredge. Might want to avoid the place until they can wash the stench and disease of "fag" from the shop.

Your opinion on hygiene isn't relevant here.

Interesting idea but it rates so high on the weirdness factor that I don't really think anybody would take it seriously. It's like having 15 people dressed as Martians agitating for a change in water policy. That's my take on it.

As a member of the Queer Defense force, I was interested in sharing the information about our settlement. You can see more photos at

http://jackie.eastwest.nu/queerkeley/queerkeley.html

great job guys

Absolutely brilliant! The logic of Queerkley is still more consistent than that of Israeli settlements. But to make the point to the full, Queerkley should be WITHOUT a constitution, should be for queers ONLY, as prophesied to Prophet Harvey. Those born in Russia and the Pacific islands, or wherever so long as they are queer, can come and settle on the promised land. Those who claim to have been living on the land for ages should be expelled, or, if they abide by the queer rule of law, work as garbage collectors and masons for the enlarging settlements.

Brilliant! Clever! Keen! Smart! Witty! Clever! Ingenious! And all this from a group of men who like to suck dick and women who like to eat pussy! What will these fags and lap-lickers think up next?

i like it when the words 'queer', 'point', 'long', 'come', and 'enlarging' are used in the same story HeHeHeHe

love you people, thanks for bringing light to what star(bucks ) and settlements are about

how long till the queers start killing the children of the men and women just trying to earn a buck working at this business ?

The Jewish settlement movement from 1880-1939 was carried out by legal means. They bought land, applied for immigration visas, and some sought (and gained) citizenship of the British Mandate Palestine.

What most don't realize is that the first acts of violence occured in 1920, 1921, and 1929 when Arabs attacked Jews. Even more astonishing is that the first people forcibly evicted from their homes were also the Jews during the terrible Arab revolt starting in 1936..*

After sixteen years of trouble and the eviction of hundreds if not thousands of their people, I think the mainstream Jewish community gave up on cooperation with the "native" Palestinians. Point is there are to many well-meaning folk that are desperately ignorant of the events in the Middle East prior to 1948.

*Documented proof of these sad time are stored on http://www.un.org in the form of annual reports, addendums, etc from the British Administration to the League of Nations. Also of interest is T.E. Lawrence's role in the creation of Trans-Jordan and his assessment that Palestinian self-rule was inappropriate and that the territory should belong to Syria.

It's 1:30 am in New York City. I'm up later than usual since I got back from Palestine a few weeks ago sometimes I can't sleep and just check out the news. This has definitely made my morning. You all are creative, fierce and hilarious, can't wait to hear about more Starbucks Settlments.

Great action,
a queer femme in Brooklyn

Yes, we acknowledge that. One of our signs said: "Jamestown 1608 - Palestine 1948 - Berkeley 2002"

And our leaflet spoke to it as well.

thank you for your ingenuity and humour,
it encourages me to go back out there.

(I would very much like to be invited to your next action in any berkely cafe...)

an israeli lesbian
from "black laundry",
lesbians and gay men against the occupation,
tel aviv

going to rush into Tully's and blow up all the civilians in response to the occupation at Starbucks? Should other coffee shops chase all the Queers out of their stores and therefore force more "occupiers" to accumulate at Starbucks? So many questions unanswered.....

Great way to bring it down to a visible analogy for the public. Loud, visual, and very clear - no one got hurt - but maybe damp.

Keep up the good work.

Why are our political leaders silent in the face of policies and attitudes that many Israelis, and certainly a majority of Americans, reject? Why haven't Congress and the White House made it clear that ethnic cleansing and race/religion based policies are unacceptable and could endanger the $3 billion in aid we send Israel each year?

Adel Kaadam is still waiting to move into a house in Katzir. How long is our country going to be quiet while he stands at the back of the bus? Where is our sense of outrage?
Elizabeth Hall

You acknowledge that?? oh goody. What are you going to do about it? Have you packed your bags yet?

May the farce be with you!

Bravo!!! I am so proud to see that Gays and Lesbians are taking a stand in regard to the attrocities committed by Israelis on the people of Palestine !
God bless all of you !
Americans VS Zionism

Perhaps you should get your history correct concerning Palestine We might start by showing that that 80 percent of the popluation are NOT Hebrew/Semite.

Khazar/Ashkenazi Jews are NOT from the seed of Abraham

Secondly: Let us examine the TRUE history of the region

History of the occupation and those that were in the area before the time of Abraham

Introduction
Early History of the Region
The British Mandate Period--1920-1948
The UN Partition of Palestine
Statehood and Expulsion - 1948
The 1967 War and Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
The History of Terrorism in the Region
Jewish Criticism of Zionism
Zionism and the Holocaust
General Considerations
Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel
Intifada 2000 And The "Peace Process"
Views Of The Future
Conclusion I For Jewish Readers
Conclusion II

20 ZIONIST MYTHS EXPOSED


1. MYTH: Nationhood and Jerusalem. Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

Israel did not "become" a nation (need definitions for both) and it is important not to compare apples to oranges. Israel of today has little to do with "Israel" of 3000 years ago. Archeologists at Tel Aviv University showed that city states and kingdoms were routinely made and obliterated in the ancient land of Canaan while the natives survived and continued to live. Ethnic cleansing was only recently practiced (1947-1949). The Israelites evolved from local Canaanites (archeological evidence, not the stories of the bible which were never intended to be taken literally). But even if one is to take the stories of the bible literally, there is plenty of "evidence" in the bible that Hebrews prospered with Adomite and other Canaanites. These are not states or nations in the modern sense. In either case, what is the relevance of this to politics in the Middle East. Christianity arose 2000 years ago well after Judaism but before Islam and that does not add anything to whether Christians need to go back and build a Byzanine state in Palestine. History is important so here goes.

Canaanitic groups are classified into Western Canaanitic languages (Aramaic, Assyrian, Phoenician etc.) and Eastern Canaanitic languages (Arabic and Hebrew which were spoken but not written languages). Northern Canaanites (e.g. Nebateans and Phoenicians) developed the written languages. All these groups lived, fought, interacted, collaborated, etc. but no group was obliterated in history. Two facts are easily verified as examples. Palestinian villagers especially in Northern Palestine for hundreds of years and until today use the name Cana’an for their children and many have it as a surname. Second, designs on the cloths of villagers (the folkloric symbols) are canaanitic symbols (& are shared by location and by locals who are both christian and muslim). I can site several other examples including ritualistic events that are likely pagan in origin.

The Jebusites (Canaanites) around 3,000 B.C. dwelt on the tract of land "Jebus" which later became Jerusalem? Ur-Shalem (Jerusalem) is a Canaanite word meaning, the house of Salem, the chieftain of the clan of Jebusites. The name Salem is Shalem in the Aramaic language and was also adapted to Arabic and Hebrew (but much later) to indicate peace. Similarly While Arabs and Jews think Bethlehem means house of bread or meat respectively, it is more appropriately house of Laham (the Canaanitic god of the southern hills). The temple of Solomon likely was built on the ruins of the Jebusite temple just like the Aksa was built on the same ruins.

Historically, new religions did this so that they can adapt the locals to the new religion (i.e. you cannot shock them to stop them from going to their holy places but it is possible to change what Campbell calls "the face of God" (i.e. the image). Hence the Kaaba in Mecca is also the someplace that the ancient Pagans worshipped.

All these groups lived, fought, interacted, collaborated, etc. but no group was obliterated in history. Palestinian villagers especially in Northern Palestine for hundreds of years and until today use the name Cana’an for their children. Second, designs on the cloths of villagers (the folkloric symbols) are Canaanitic symbols (& are shared by location and by locals who are both Christian and Muslim). I can site several other examples including ritualistic events that are likely pagan in origin. Jews converted to Christianity and Christian converted to Islam as major trends during the establishment of these religions is also well documented.

One of the major myths perpetuated by latter followers of the religion is their novelty/freshness/ uniqueness and in the case of of some followers of Judaism thinking that is more than a religion but an inherited attribute. Genetically, Palestinian Christians and Muslims are closer to Sephardi Jews than either group is to Ashkenazi Jews who are in turn more turcik (and indo-European- due to significant pool of Khazars who converted to Judaism a few hundred years ago). Ashkenazi thus are not true semites. The use of the word anti-semitic is corrupted as Arabs are Semites and most Jews are not.

Sources

Davies P.R., "In Search of 'Ancient' Israel", Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1992.

Hadawi, S., "Bitter Harvest, a modern history of Palestine", 4th Edition, Olive Branch Press, NYC, 1991

Marcus, A.D., "The View from Nebo, How Archeology is rewriting the Bible and Reshaping the Middle East", Little, Brown, Boston, 2000.

Whitelam K.W., "The Invention of Ancient Israel and the silencing of Palestinian History", Routledge, London, 1996.

2. MYTH: Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

For well over 2000 years, the land was called Palestine and its inhabitants, the Palestinians, and by the rest of the world. Any search of textbooks published before Israel was established will reveal this very clearly. The issue of nationalism requires some comment. The Philistines settled in the land of Canaan around 1250 BC, establishing 5 kingdoms: Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron. It was from the Philistines that Palestine received its name. Since Roman times, this land has been known as Palestine. The Palestinians of today, Muslims and Christians, trace their descent to all the peoples who have lived on this land from the time of the Canaanites. Natives in Palestine (who happen to speak Arabic and hold religions such as Bahai, Christian, Muslim, Jewish) like all native people anywhere in the world. In their natural state over thousands of years, they identified themselves with their villages, tribes and languages but not necessarily a nation in the modern sense of the 20th century. Arab nationalism was bolstered to counteract Ottoman empire and Palestinian nationalism is part of the nationalism and development of new countries all over the previous colonial empires in Africa and Asia (witness Kenya or Tanzania or Nigeria, none of them had nationalism as seen today a hundred years ago).

This was true for all natives regardless of religion they had. Of course if they traveled outside of Palestine, they were recognized and identified as Palestinian by their dress, accent (Palestinian accent is very different than say Arabic accent in Egypt or Lebanon or Jordan), and their own self identification. This is analogous to Irish people versus English. Arab Nationalism and Palestinian nationalism have books written on them.

But whether people align themselves with local nationalism, pan-Arab nationalism, Islamism, Zionism, or communism, natives (regardless of their religion) of-course do not loose their rights to continue to live and prosper in their own land and country.

3. MYTH: Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E. the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

There was no Jewish conquest in 1272 BC. As mentioned above, Judaism evolved as one of many religions in the land of Canaan. They certainly did not have dominion over the land for 1000 years, nor did they have a continuous presence on the land of Canaan.

Some relevant quotes:

"Between 3000 and 1100 B.C., Canaanite civilization covered what is today Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon and much of Syria and Jordan...Those who remained in the Jerusalem hills after the Romans expelled the Jews [in the second century A.D.] were a potpourri: farmers and vineyard growers, pagans and converts to Christianity, descendants of the Arabs, Persians, Samaritans, Greeks and old Canaanite tribes." Marcia Kunstel and Joseph Albright, "Their Promised Land."

"But all these [different peoples who had come to Canaan] were additions, sprigs grafted onto the parent tree...And that parent tree was Canaanite...[The Arab invaders of the 7th century A.D.] made Moslem converts of the natives, settled down as residents, and intermarried with them, with the result that all are now so completely Arabized that we cannot tell where the Canaanites leave off and the Arabs begin." Illene Beatty, "Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan."

"The extended kingdoms of David and Solomon, on which the Zionists base their territorial demands, endured for only about 73 years...Then it fell apart...[Even] if we allow independence to the entire life of the ancient Jewish kingdoms, from David's conquest of Canaan in 1000 B.C. to the wiping out of Judah in 586 B.C., we arrive at [only] a 414 year Jewish rule." Illene Beatty, "Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan."

4. MYTH: The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 C.E. lasted no more than 22 years.

Arab refers to people whose mother tongue is Arabic. Since the 635 AD, the only time the land was not ruled by people who are Arab by definition is when it was under Ottoman rule. This is over 800 years of Arab rule and it was over all the land of Palestine (more than twice the time the small part of Palestine was ruled by the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel). But even the Ottoman's had the natives run most of their affairs and thus, the leadership in Palestine under Ottoman rule were natives of the regions ruled and in the case of Palestine they were Palestinian Arabs. The Arab delegates from Palestine to the Ottoman grand parliament had to travel regularly back and forth and used declarations in Both Turkish and Arabic.

"Palestine became a predominately Arab and Islamic country by the end of the seventh century. Almost immediately thereafter its boundaries and its characteristics - including its name in Arabic, Filastin - became known to the entire Islamic world, as much for its fertility and beauty as for its religious significance...In 1516, Palestine became a province of the Ottoman Empire, but this made it no less fertile, no less Arab or Islamic...Sixty percent of the population was in agriculture; the balance was divided between townspeople and a relatively small nomadic group. All these people believed themselves to belong in a land called Palestine, despite their feelings that they were also members of a large Arab nation...Despite the steady arrival in Palestine of Jewish colonists after 1882, it is important to realize that not until the few weeks immediately preceding the establishment of Israel in the spring of 1948 was there ever anything other than a huge Arab majority. For example, the Jewish population in 1931 was 174,606 against a total of 1,033,314." Edward Said, "The Question of Palestine."

Other Sources

Davies P.R., "In Search of 'Ancient' Israel", Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1992.

Hadawi, S., "Bitter Harvest, a modern history of Palestine", 4th Edition, Olive Branch Press, NYC, 1991

5. MYTH: For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

Throughout the 5000 year history of the area, Jerusalem was a Israelite (not Jewish) capital for only 421 years. After Solomon's death, when the kingdom split, this marked the end of a united kingdom of Israel. The Northern Kingdom was named Samaria after its capital. Jerusalem was not the capital of the Northern Kingdom which was comprised of 10 tribes, the majority of the Israelites. The kingdom of Judah in the South kept its capital as Jerusalem, but that kingdom was made up of only 2 tribes. So, the majority of the Israelites did not consider Jerusalem their capital. When the Assyrians invaded Samaria, their inhabitants were dispersed, and came to be referred to as the "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel." So the ten lost tribes of Israel had only lived in the Kingdom of Israel until the Assyrian invasion (205 years) before they ceased to exist. The Southern kingdom of Israelites, who descended from the tribe of Judah made for Sephardic Jews of the present day (not Ashkenazi) . Jerusalem was the capital of Judah, not Israel, for 421 years.

6. MYTH: Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.

Jerusalem is mentioned in the Holy Koran as is the Prophet Mohammad's night journey to it. Contrary to the Tanach, the Quran is not a book of stories about historical figures and ancestors. The Quran is mainly concerned with giving guidance to the believers on how they can best achieve salvation. Mecca is mentioned only once in the Quran and Medina is only mentioned twice. The Quran does not even mention these cities as being holy, and offers very few names of places. The fact that they are mentioned so few times certainly does not diminish their status in the eyes of all Muslims. Islam is not only comprised of the Quran, but of the Hadith of the Prophet and the Shariah. The Prophet said, "A journey (with the intention of worship) should be taken only to three mosques: The Sacred Mosque in Mecca, my Mosque in Medina, and the Masjid Al Aqsa in Jerusalem." It is a sacred duty for Muslims to visit Jerusalem, its mosque and the sacred areas that surround it. Pilgrims to Mecca and Medina often visit Jerusalem first. Virtually the entire city of Jerusalem is Waqf land (religious endowment). This land cannot be sold nor transferred. The Masjid Al Aqsa has always been a primary seat of learning in Islam, attracting many Muslim scholars who have settled in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is also mentioned countless times in the New Testament (Christian Holy Book) and many other Holy Books (Bahai's etc.). If this is supposed to make it any less important to one religion or another, it is a ridiculous assumption. But rights of native Palestinians (Jews, Chritisans, and Muslims) to Jerusalem is not derived of religious texts but by virtue of domicile and living there for hundreds and thousands of years.

7. MYTH: King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.

King David did not found Jerusalem. Jerusalem was founded by Jebusites (Canaanites). King David merely renamed it from Ur-Shalem to Yerushalaym. Many Zionists consider David an important King. Muslims and Christians revere King David more as a prophet/a messenger of God. It was also documented that Prophet Mohammed revered Jerusalem from early childhood, and he visited Syria and Palestine on trading expeditions with his uncle, and later for his future wife, Khadija. Let us also not forget that Christian Palestinians hold Jerusalem as their most holy city, and has been holy to them for 2000 years. However, their ancestors have lived continuously in this city for 9000 years, since Christian Palestinians trace their descent to all the peoples of Canaan who lived on this land.

Expansion on the Issue of Jerusalem:

The modern 20th century concept of "capital" is not the same as what was practiced in history. 3000 years ago was a period of city-states where a city. But regardless, let us talk about Jerusalem.

Jerusalem has always been at the center of life for the native Palestinian inhabitants going back five thousand years. The Jebusites (Canaanites) around 3,000 B.C. dwelt on and built the city they called Ur-Salem (Jerusalem), a Canaanite word meaning the house of Salem, the chieftain of the clan of Jebusites. At the time this was the beginning of periods in history called city-states (small states with one large city center). The name Salem is Shalem in the Aramaic language and was also adapted to Arabic and Hebrew (but much later) to indicate peace. Similarly while Arabs and Jews think Bethlehem means house of bread or meat respectively, it is more appropriately house of Laham (the Canaanitic god of sustenance, the God of the hills or Efrata). The temple of Solomon likely was built on the ruins of the Jebusite temple just like the Aksa was built likely on the same ruins. Historically, new religions did this so that they can adapt the locals to the new religion (i.e. you cannot shock them to stop them from going to their holy places but it is possible to change what Campbell calls "the face of God" (i.e. the image). This Palestinian center of life continued as the area came under various degrees of control from Assyrians to Egyptian to Judahite to Roman to Khalifate Islamic to Ottoman to British to Jordanian and to Israeli. Jerusalem thus has always been a center of Palestinian/natives life as Beirut was of Lebanese life or Cairo/Giza of Egyptian life before the modern era of national independence from colonialism. The modern concept of a political capital for a multi-city state is a much later historical development. In Palestine, the recognition of Jerusalem as a political capital was congruent with separation and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. As an economic and religious capital for Palestine, Jerusalem has always been recognized by the people of the area. It is not a surprise thus that printing presses, major business, religious centers etc. were all in Jerusalem.

Jerusalem has always been an international city with a multi-ethnic and multi-religious community. In fact, even Kings Solomon and David allowed flourishing Canaanite (native inhabitants in the land while they ruled from Jerusalem). The city saw even more open and accelerated development with a multiethnic and multi-religious community flourishing during the Islamic periods. The Khalif Umar who brought Jerusalem under Islamic rule was the most recognized pluralist in this regard. Karen Armstrong, in her well respected book, "Jerusalem: One City Three Faiths" (NY, Knopf, 1996) writes:

"Umar also expressed the monotheistic ideal of compassion more than any previous conqueror of Jerusalem, with the possible exception of King David. He presided over the most peaceful and bloodless conquest that the city had seen in its long and often tragic history. Once the Christians had surrendered, there was no killing, no destruction of property, no burning of rival religious symbols, no expulsions or expropriations, and no attempt to force the inhabitants to embrace Islam. If a respect for the previous occupants of the city is the sign of the integrity of a monotheistic power, Islam began its long tenure in Jerusalem very well indeed." (p.228)

Not only did the Muslim conquerors do well by the Christians, but Umar lifted the ban on Jews living in the city for the first time since 70 CE. As for the Temple Mount, Umar was infuriated at how it had been allowed to deteriorate and set about clearing and restoring it. Armstrong writes:

"As soon as the platform had been cleared, Umar summoned Ka'b ibn Ahbar, a Jewish convert to Islam and an expert on the isra'iliyat or as we would say, "Jewish studies." It came naturally to the Muslims to consult the Jews about the disposition of the site that had been scared to their ancestors. Both the Jewish and Muslim sources make it clear that Jews took part in the reclamation of the Mount." (p.230)

When the Crusaders took over Jerusalem, both Muslims and Jews were persecuted and banished from the city. It was not until Salah ad-Din (Saladin) reconquered the city in the late 12th century that they were invited back to the city they held sacred. Saladin, like Umar before him, protected the Christian holy sites even though he was advised by some of his entourage to destroy them. Jewish and Christian Holy places also managed to survive Ottoman rule for five centuries.

8. MYTH: Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with heir backs toward Jerusalem.

Muslims living anywhere except between Jerusalem and Mecca (a very small population) have their backs towards Jerusalem. Muslim Qibla (direction of Prayers) is towards Mecca where Muslims believe Prophet Abaham built the Kaaba as a place of prayer. The Black Stone in the Ka'bah has been there since the time of Adam. Abraham and his first born son Ishmael built the Ka'bah because of God's commandment to do so (2:125-27). The Original Muslim Qibla was actually Jerusalem and was changed only after the Prophet's journey to Jerusalem (the miraculous Mi'raj) that he received commandments to change it. Some believe this was to recognize the earlier historical events and some think it was to unify the tribes of Arabia. Muslims though like other people believe God is everywhere and is certainly not residing in one place or another.

As for the direction of Jewish prayers, Jews did not always face Jerusalem in their prayers. The Bible says that the early Israelites faced south when they prayed (Exodus 27:9ff;40:24). This confirms that the Ka'bah, which is south of Jerusalem was the Qiblah for the early Israelite communities as well.

Myths 9-12 On Refugees

9. MYTH: Arab and Jewish Refugees: In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

10. MYTH: The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.

11. MYTH: The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.

12. MYTH: Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.

Two competing stories existed until recently. Palestinians who reported how they were basically ethnically cleansed before, during and after the war and the Israeli story of they left on their own will, they were encouraged to leave, we asked them to stay. These two competing stories until recently, when the "new Israeli historians" such as Ilan Pappe, Morris, Sternhall, Avi Schlaim and Tom Segev debunked the established Israeli myths using Israeli archives and declassified material. As an example, after opening the IDF archives we find a cable dated October 31, 1948, signed by Major General Carmel and addressed to all the division and district commanders under his command: "Do all you can to immediately and quickly purge the conquered territories of all hostile elements in accordance with the orders issued. The residents should be helped to leave the areas that have been conquered."

The truth, which was revealed and documented by direct references to Israeli, American, British and UN archives, by historians like Michael Palumbo and the Israeli historians (Pappe, Shlaim, Segev, Morris, Sternal) not to mention the credible Palestinian historians, was contrary to the Israeli and Zionist propaganda about the war. According to these honest and credible accounts, the truth, which is there for everyone who wants to know the truth, was as follows:

The "War of Independence" did not start on 15 May and in self-defence against the "aggression" of the Arab armies who invaded Israel. The war started in early April by the Haganah, which launched its offensive according to "Plan Dalet". Preparations for this war began immediately after WWII. (I refer you here to the activities of Ben-Gurion that were detailed in Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion: A Biography. New York: Delacorte Press, 1977).

The Zionist leadership was in tacit agreement with Emir Abdullah of Transjordan. According to this agreement, Palestine would be divided between the Jews and Abdullah. Abdullah would take that part of Palestine allotted to the Arabs west of the Jordan Valley according to UN Resolution # 181 (II) of 29 November 1947. This part later became to be known as the West Bank. The rest of Palestine was to be left for the "Exclusive Jewish State". (Documented and intriguing details of this agreement were presented in: Avi Shlaim, "Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, The Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine". New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).

Yosef Weitz, Director of the JNF Lands Dept. was very active as of March 1948 in planning for and implementing plans to expel the Palestinians, destroy their villages, and build new homes for the influx of new Jewish immigrants. These activities were given in detail by Benny Morris in his "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem: 1947 - 1949", and "1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians". If the Jewish Community in Palestine was in a state of self-defence and threatened by the "mighty Arab armies" they could not afford the time for Yosef Weitz activities [that were planned and implemented in cold blood].

In his book "The Gun & the Olive Branch," David Hirst describes in detail covert Israeli operations to scare Iraqi and Egyptian Jews into fleeing their homes for the "sanctuary" of Israel. In Iraq they did so by placing bombs in areas frequented by Iraqis who were Jewish, then starting whispering campaigns that scared people into emigrating. The plan worked brilliantly, but then again, Israeli intelligence/covert operatives, had experience with such things from massacres like Deir Yassin. Slaughter 250 people and terrorize hundreds of thousands into fleeing their homes lest they suffer the same brutal fate. In Egypt, the plan had two targets, one, to spur emigration of Egyptian Jews, and two, to damage nascent relations between the Free Officers junta, led by Jamal Abd-un-Nasir and the US and Britain. A series of bombing took place and a handful of Jewish residents, some Egyptian, some foreign, were arrested, tried, and convicted. Two were hung. Again, the whispers started, but few actually left the country.

Despite Israeli protests that the accused were being framed a la Dreyfus, political infighting within the Israeli government over the matter, labelled the "Lavon Affair," after the then minister of defense, Pinhas Lavon, launched a 1960 inquiry that concluded that elements of the Israeli security apparatus, guided by David Ben Gurion, were in fact responsible for the bombings in Egypt. Sadly, after the 1956 Israeli/British/French invasion of Egypt, however, the Egyptian government took the Israeli bait and began ordering the expulsion of large numbers of Jews, some Egyptian, others with foreign citizenship, from Egypt. The number who left is as high as 50,000.

In his book "Ben Gurion's Scandals" Naeim Giladi (an Iraqi Jew and ex Zionist) discusses the crimes committed by Zionists in their frenzy to import Jews from Iraq to Israel in the 1950s. He lives in New York now after he left Israel and he wrote to 'The Link' about his book saying "About 125,000 Jews left Iraq for Israel in the late 1940s and into 1952, most because they had been lied to and put into a panic by what I came to learn were Zionist bombs. But my mother and father were among the 6,000 who did not go to Israel.."

Here are relevant quotes from the horse's mouth on refugees.

"Before [the Palestinians] very eyes we are possessing the land and the villages where they, and their ancestors, have lived...We are the generation of colonizers, and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel we cannot plant a tree and build a home." Israeli leader Moshe Dayan, quoted in Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, "Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel"

In an article in the Haaretz newspaper, Danny Rabinovitz wrote, "What happened to the Palestinians in 1948 is Israel's original sin. . . . Between the 1950s and 1976, the state systematically confiscated most of the land of its remaining Palestinian citizens."

Testimony of an Israeli soldier who participated in the massacre at al Duwayima Village, on 29th October 1948. Quoted in Davar, 9th. June 1979:

" Killed between 80 to 100 Arabs, women and children. To kill the children they fractured their heads with sticks. There was not one house without corpses. The men and women of the villages were pushed into houses without food or water. Then the saboteurs came to dynamite the houses. One commander ordered a soldier to bring two women into a house he was about to blow up… Another soldier prided himself upon having raped an Arab woman before shooting her to death. Another Arab woman with her newborn baby was made to clean the place for a couple of days, and then they shot her and the baby. Educated and well-mannered commanders who were considered "good guys"…became base murderers, and this not in the storm of battle, but as a method of expulsion and extermination. The fewer the Arabs who remain, the better." Only a small number of Arab Jews supported Zionism and most immigrants were not refugees but immigrated to Israel in the 1950 (long after the war). The same for Russian or Polish Jews (are not termed refugees but migrants, immigrants). Zionists of European origin, like David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Abba Eban often made derogatory statements regarding Arab Jews who they considered to be inferior to themselves. The Jewish communities had flourished in Arab lands for thousands of years, and they contributed greatly to Arab culture as did all other peoples who settled in the Arab World. Off the coast of Tunisia, on a small island of Djerba, a Jewish colony lived that traced its presence there to at least 1000 BC. According to Rabbi Moshe Schonfeld, "Some Djerban rabbis who were not to be fooled nor intimidated by the Zionists were harassed, threatened and even beaten." (Schonfeld, "Genocide in the Holy Land, 508) Rabbi Schonfeld also wrote about the same tactics used to get the Jews of Iraq to flee to Israel. Zionists tried to convince these Arab Jews that it was the Arabs who were exploding bombs in their neighborhoods, but it was the Zionists who dreamed of populating Israel with Jews form all over the world. Wilbur Crane Eveland, a former CIA operative, wrote about the Zionist crimes against Arab Jews in Iraq (Feuerlicht, "The Fate of the Jews," 231). Jewish author, Alfred Lilienthal, wrote about the oppressive treatment by Ashkenazi (European) Jews in Israel of the Sephardic Jews (Semitic Arab origin) in his book "The Zionist Connection." Jews in the Arab World were always treated with respect and civility throughout history. Any mistreatment they received was in the hands of the Zionists in Israel. In either case, Arab countries continues to have a policy of welcoming emigrants back to those countries unlike Israel

As to absorption of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries, that is against International law and becomes complicity with a war crime. Jewish immigrants are absorbed in Israel as part of the Zionist dream and this is not the same thing as indicated above (i.e. not an issue of population exchange). For example, there was no population exchange when one million Russian Jews came to Israel. In either case, the right of those people to return to their countries is preserved by International law which is very clear about forcible movement of people.

Nathan Chofshi, wrote: "We came and turned the native Arabs into tragic refugees. And still we have to slander and malign them, to besmirch their name. Instead of being deeply ashamed of what we did and trying to undo some of the evil we committed...we justify our terrible acts and even attempt to glorify them." (Jewish Newsletter, New York, 9 February 1959, cited in Erskine Childers, 'The Other Exodus' in Spectator, London, 12 May 1961)

Martin Buber, Jewish Philosopher, addressed Prime Minister Ben Gurion on the moral character of the state of Israel with reference to the Arab refugees in March 1949: " We will have to face the reality that Israel is neither innocent, nor redemptive. And that in its creation, and expansion; we as Jews, have caused what we historically have suffered; a refugee population in Diaspora"

13. MYTH: The Arab - Israeli Conflict: The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.

News for you: Arab is not equivalent to Jew. Arabs are people of diverse religions (including Jewish). Anybody who speaks Arabic is an Arab. Some are descendents from Canaanites, some from Berber or Pharaonites or Israelites.

14. MYTH: The P.L.O.'s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them with weapons.

The PLO charter called for a democratic one state for all its citizens. This was changed when the PLO moderated its views in 1970s to accept a two state solution. Charter articles were voided that did not agree with this concept and based on International resolutions (242 and 338).

The Oslo Accords include as supplements statements made by PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In this statement, Arafat writes: "The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security. The PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338."

In the Declaration of Principles. Article I states that: "The aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within the current Middle East peace process is, among other things, to establish a Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority, the elected Council, (the "Council") for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, for a transitional period not exceeding five years, leading to a permanent settlement based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338."

What the PLO agreed to was actually not good. Many believe that if by the Jewish you mean maintaining all the racist laws and institutions, then we should all be against such a state. If Israel is to become a state of its people, then it is a state worth supporting.

A Jewish human rights advocate asked me to imagine if a country had no constitution but a set of basic laws that say its land belongs to Baptists as a nation (or Bahai, Sufi or Shinto). The law distinguishes between Baptist nationals (found all over the world) and citizens who actually live there and gives nationals many rights not accorded to non-Baptists under its control.

Imagine a country with specific programs to ensure its designated capital remains at least two-thirds or more Baptist (by denying residency rights and building permits to non-Baptists) and does not allow non-Baptist refugees and internally displaced people to return to their homes, stating openly that this may upset the Baptist nature of the state.

Imagine if its parliament enacted a law that prohibits parties from running in elections if they deny the Baptist nature of the state. Imagine a national anthem that talks about Baptist yearnings. Imagine if that country's Supreme Court allows the executive branch to build and run Baptist-only roads, towns and villages on lands confiscated from native citizens.

To reduce their mingling, and for Baptist security, non-Baptists are segregated in small "bantustans" that are surrounded by army checkpoints so that they cannot travel between them and, thus, are effectively confined in prisons without the need for the Baptists to feed them. Baptists nearby - many living on confiscated land - control most of the resources, (use seven to 10 times more in water per capita in an area with a water shortage) control most of the agricultural lands, receive government subsidies and go to work and schools unhindered by any checkpoints.

A country with all these characteristics and basic laws not only exists, but also gets $5 billion of our tax money annually without any tangible benefit to the United States. These Israeli basic laws were unfortunately upheld by its Supreme Court. Israel is also in violation of more than 80 United Nations General Assembly and Security Council resolutions as well as in violation of U.S. laws pertaining to use and dissemination of U.S.-supplied weapons and technology. Many in the Muslim and Arab world and many Jews in Israel hold opposition not to an undefined "Israel" but to a Jewish supremacist state which must change if it is to survive.

15. MYTH: Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

Between 1948 and 1967, the states were in a state of war. People from both sides were not allowed to travel to the other side. Muslims and Christians from the West Bank could not visit West Jerusalem and Jews from Israel could not visit East Jerusalem (including the Old city). Jews other than from Israel had access including for example Samaritan Jews who lived in the West Bank and continued to live there throughout this period. I know many American Jews who also visited during that time.

The statement that "all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths" is one of the most grossly erroneous statements made by Zionist propagandists. On the contrary, it is the Jewish state that has had a long history of desecrating Christian holy sites and both Christian and Muslim cemeteries. The Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv stands on a Muslim cemetery bulldozed indiscriminately. In 1947 there were 350,000 Christians in Palestine. The Melchite church lost many churches in 1948 at the hands of the Israelis. They lost churches in Damound, Somata, Kafr-Bur'om and Ikret, a village destroyed by the Israeli army on Christmas day in 1952. During the 1967 war, many churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem were desecrated and looted by soldiers and civilians alike. The names of all churches as well as the details of each incident since 1948 is well-documented by the clergy of each denomination, and the incidents number in the hundreds. The lack of respect for biblical history is also exhibited by the destruction of 3 biblical villages, Beit-Nuba, Emmaus, and Yalu. These villages were known from the time of Jesus. Since 1948, Israel has demolished 531 Palestinian villages and towns, many of which were part of biblical history. Many Christian shrines have been destroyed as well. Since 1948, there has been a continual campaign against Christian missionaries, persecution of Christians in Israel, attacks against Jewish-Christian meetings, censorship of films that mention the name of Jesus Christ, attacks on Christian schools, the confiscation of Christian artifacts from private homes, the beating of Christian women, and the obliteration of Christian shrines. The confiscation by Jewish settlers of St. Johns' Monastery, located near the church of the Holy Sepulcher, is an example of the regular attacks committed by Israelis against Christian holy sites.

16. The U.N. Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.

17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.

Answer to 16 and 17: Yes and for good reasons. Unfortunately most of these resolutions have no enforcement authority. The US, as Israel's patron and mentor, vetoed resolutions with teeth.

18. MYTH: The U.N was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.

19. MYTH: The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

20. MYTH: The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

See MYTH 15 above regarding MYTH 20. Israel destroyed 531 Palestinian villages and hundreds of mosques and dozens of churches (see http://www.Palestineremembered.com). No UN resolutions passed condemning this destruction. There is no credible evidence of 58 synagogues destroyed by the Jordanians. There was a road built through the area which includes a cemetery on the Mount of Olives but this used even before the Jordanians (under British and Ottoman rule). By contrast dozens of Muslim cemeteries were bulldozed with the 531 villages ethnically cleansed and erased by the Israeli forces since 1947. I recommend people read the book "Collusion across the Jordan" by Avi Shlaim about the very close and intimate relationship between Israeli leaders and the Jordanian regime over 80 years (including during times considered at war). Certainly if these were issues for the Israeli government, they would have addressed it with their Jordanian friends and collaborators.

Try to find any evidence of what happened in Palestine 1920, 1921 & 1929 from a pro-Palestinian web site.

Some of them won't even list any events prior to 1948, and those that do sometimes ignore these particular years. For the few that buck the trend, all that you will find is a passing mention of unrest.

Boths sides have myths, lies, and denials of the truth. Consider it a challenge if you wish to prove me wrong -- find out what happened in 1920, 1921 & 1929. For the truly brave, 1936 is especially eye-opening.

they do talk about it quite a bit actually. I found tons of them. Here's a few:

http://www.cactus48.com/mandate.html
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_riots_1936-39.php
http://www.al-bushra.org/America/0america.html
http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/chronology/14001962.htm
http://www.ttt.org.il/july99/article2.htm
http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/his_palestine.html

etc etc.
basically, your claim that they avoid debate about this area of history was made in haste, methinks.

A good book showing early racist attitudes by Zionists is Gershon Shafir's "Land, Labor and the Origins of The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914". Despite its name it describes the conflicts between Jews and Palestinians through the end of the British mandate and it is pretty nonbiased. While it reports both attacks and labour conflicts it is left to the reader to judge the results.

Before the Young Turk uprising under the Ottomons, there was hardly any conflict between settlers and the native population but much of this was because the first Aliyah resulted in European landlords replacing Ottomon landlords. The conflicts in the 20s came from both sides when many of the Jeiwsh groups were trying to ethnically cleanse regions (make them Jewish only) by bringing in Jews from Yemin and then creating self sufficent collective farms that wouldnt have to compete with Palestinian labour. While there were attacks on Jewish settlements during this time period (with the charge being European colonialism rather than anything antiSemitic), there were also Jewish labor actions demanding plantation owners not employ Palestinian labor. Before this point the settlements didnt look like an attempt to take over the country. In retrospect considering that the settlers did take over much of the country and kicked the native population out, can you blame Palestinians for coming to their senses and seeing the dangers of colonization at this time?

here are some proPalestinian web sites with early history:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story725.html
http://www.palestinefacts.org/
and I'm sure there are more, but that book I mentioned is one of the few that directly addresses the conflicts in the 1920s.

I did't go through all of your links werq, but I don't think you did either.

Passia.org - http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/chronology/14001962.htm
Makes no mention of the events I'm referring to in 1920 and does not begin to account for transpired in 1921 & 1929

PalestineFact.org - http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_riots_1936-39.php
Although I can't confirm this, I believe this site Is run by a pro-Israeli group (the "About Us" is deliberately vague about the people responsible for this site). As such, I can't count it as a pro-Palestinian site.

Al Bushra - http://www.al-bushra.org/America/0america.html
Al-Bushra is run by Rev. Labib Kobti from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem (The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Jerusalem) who serves now the Arab American Roman Catholic Community in California, USA, so it's not your typical pro-Palestinian site. Even so, it does do a good job of describing the events of 1920 but for some reason skips the events of 1921. As for 1929, it leaves the impression that the conflict was an even battle, but neglects to mention that many for the Arabs were by killed by British soldiers in trying to protect the Jews. It does not account for the lopsided figures in arrests, injuries, and the amount of damage (in Pounds) to property. Neither does it mention the horrors of Hebron.

King Hussein.gov.jo - http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/his_palestine.html
This site does exactly what I charged of pro-Palestinian sites. Read it yourself, it only takes a minute.

I didn't really read them either. So perhaps you're right. I figure the best source would be British archives since they are fairly impartial about the whole thing (they only wanted to get the hell out). But you could say also that Israeli sites fail to mention the terrorism by the early settlers, during the Mandate years.

I don't think there is a moral high ground to win in those distant times, for either side. Even if there was - it wouldn't change anything about what's happening now. You can't use history to form an accurate basis for predicting the motives and intentions of current groups. You can only use history to understand the patterns of human tragedies and how and why they occurred, what mistakes are made. If X did this in the past, to Y, there is no real indication that in the future the same thing will occur; in fact, Y could even do that to X.

I can't say with certianty history would have been different, but the peaceful, cooperative side of Zionism lost out to the zealouts in part because many came to believe that the Arabs would never leave them in peace.

Sadly, the same can be said for the Palestinians. Many of the more educated members wanted to cooperate with the Jews to develop Palestine into a modern nation. But the many instigators of hate and fear persuaded enough of the population to take part in the rioting and massacres of the Jewish people for the die to be cast.

The moral of this history lesson is that the real danger has been, and always will be, the extremists (on both sides) who will use any means necessary to get what they want. Do yourself a favor, and learn the true history of Palestine from the end of the Ottoman Empire until the start of World War II. It might change the way you look at things for the better.

In response to claiming one of those links was proIsrael. The book by Gershon Shafir I mention was also somewhat "proIsrael" but it does put the events in the 20s in a light that makes the early Zionists look pretty bad.

The reason history matters in the region is that there are millions of Palestinians living in UN run refuge camps who want to return to homes that are unoccupied but inside the state of Israel. People use the events in 47 and 48 to claim that thse people left voluntarilly but in other conflicts leaving out of fear would still give one the right to return under international law. Why did the neighboring states attack Israel? Alot of that wasn't antiSemitism and was tied to anticolonial movements worldwide as well as the racist behavior of many of the Zionist leaders in the preceding years.

Of course the people of Israel cant leave but Palestinians have a right to return. Also questions need to be raised (and are inside Israel) about the morality of basing membership of a state off religious or ethnic identity (why can many nonJewish Russians move to Israel but not Palestinians).

"I can't say with certianty history would have been different, but the peaceful, cooperative side of Zionism lost out to the zealouts in part because many came to believe that the Arabs would never leave them in peace. "

Labor actions demanding that companies not hire Palestinians and land ownership with stipulations that the land must be resold to only Jewish settlers is hardly a peaceful way to interact (and all that was taking place before the 1920s). When violence did start in the 1920s there were Zionists groups such as Hashomer that were hardly peaceful and started being miltaristic before any attacks occured.

There is a great and compelling irony here. Queer Nation of Berkeley raises some of the same questions about Israeli colonization of Palestine that are mentioned by the anti-Zionist Christian conservative movement (that element which rejects dispensational premillennial prophecy). My article on this subject at http://www.MarkDankof.com may be of interest, as well as some of the listings on Palestine Indy Media which expose the links between the Dispensational Christian Right, the Israeli Lobby, and the subsequent sad state of American foreign policy in the region.

If there is a good, articulate liberal who would like to team up with me to research the economic and political network involved in all of this, let me know. It would make a great article for Global News Net (GNN) and San Francisco/Palestine Indy Media.

Mark Dankof

Please elucidate for me "the peaceful cooperative side of Zionism". Do you mean peacefully creating a Jewish only state? Cooperating with other Jews who are ethnically cleansing the indigenous population? Seriously, Zionism is defined as the movement to (re) establish the Jewish national state of Israel. Herzl came out with "Judenstat" in 1896. Does anyone seriously think the Palestinians of that era couldn't read? 1896, yah, that's about when I would have started to resist too. How can any of you ignore this as being the "kernel" of all that has come to be? Zionism is evil, apartheid and racist. Abolish Zionism, create one secular democratic state; Jews forever have the right of citizenship, Palestinians forever have the right of citizenship...there is a more complete "solution" at this link: http://www.PetitionPetition.com/cgi/petition.cgi?id=4426
Baby, it ain't rocket science! It's Zionism in bed with what Ike warned us about in his farewell address; the military-industrial complex which does NOT want this struggle to end (or for that matter, war anywhere to end!) Read "Rogue States" by Chomsky for an intro

Just so we all get this clear:

On the community website, of which I am a member, there is a "tracker". It is nice to know that our government is keeping us all well and safe *sarcasm*

This is the info I tracked and the message I sent him:

Next time you drop in, say hi :)

67.1.231.143.in-addr.arpa PTR mercury.house.gov
231.143.in-addr.arpa NS mercury.house.gov
231.143.in-addr.arpa NS tungsten.house.gov
mercury.house.gov A 143.231.1.67
tungsten.house.gov A 137.18.255.242


Information for 137.18.25.9

[whois.arin.net] House Information Systems (NET-HOUSE) 2nd and D street, SW Washington, DC 20515 US Netname: HOUSE Netblock: 137.18.0.0 - 137.18.255.255 Coordinator: Adams, Joseph (JA1117-ARIN)

joe.adams [at] mail.house.gov

(202) 226-6194 (FAX) (202) 226-0123 Domain System inverse mapping provided by: MERCURY.HOUSE.GOV 143.231.1.67 TUNGSTEN.HOUSE.GOV 137.18.255.242 Record last updated on 18-Jun-2002. Database last updated on 20-Aug-2002 22:45:27 EDT.

Fantastic job Berkeley! As usual you come through with flying colors.

wow, Theresa, thanks. Tell Joe hi for me. I am thinking though to be fair, he HAS to have some sort of function, and considering the government knows? the mossad committed 9-11, what are they to do???
To Joe, I add this, there is help for you. Please, visit voyer- oY! ole'.com, it is a 12 step program. I am rooting for you!

thats the most hilarious showing of the ass ive seen in a while.
man o man, its a real sweet spot on the planet out there isnt it.
wheres a good 8.8 when you need one.

so im guessing the 'artists' didnt hunt down and kill any children then ?

Whose riding the Panzers? Flying the Heinkels now? NOW! I say. Not back before we were born. NOW! Whose casting covetous eyes on Polandstine and crying out for lebensraum? Whose hemming in with cannon barrels and SS agents the new ghettos of the mideast where misery is the norm and death the only way out? The Zionists, the swine, that's who. I exult when they're blown up! My heart goes out to the Palestinians. I don't care what they do to get their freedom. Blow up innocent little babes, whatever. Moses, the Jew par excellance, said: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's property. It's time his own people obeyed the law he laid down, they're such pious scholars of all things Jewish.

Philadelphia Inquirer: Page One

HEBRON DESCENDANTS DECRY ACTIONS OF CURRENT SETTLERS

They Are Kin of the Jews Ousted in 1929
By Alan Sipress
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

RA'ANANA, Israel -- Yona Rochlin pages through the thick Hebrew volume, caressing the history of her beloved Hebron. She pauses at a black-and-white photograph of a man with spectacles and a long white beard, her grandfather's grandfather, the renowned Elijah Mani, posing in the turban and embroidered robe of an honored rabbi.

After generations of peaceful coexistence, Rochlin's family left Hebron in 1929, just before anti-Jewish hatred erupted into Arab riots that left 67 Jews dead. Now she and a growing corps of the city's Jewish descendants are renewing their links with Hebron.

Their aim is not to reclaim the West Bank city. Instead, after years of anonymity, they are reasserting their heritage in the face of militant Israeli settlers who moved into Hebron's ancestral Jewish homes after 1979.

``The settlers were holding the history book of Hebron for 30 years,'' Rochlin, 45, said. ``All of a sudden, we came out of the pages. It must be a nightmare for them.''

These descendants have launched a publicity campaign contesting the right of the 450 current settlers to speak in the name of the former Jewish community. They are demanding instead that the enclave be plucked from the heart of Hebron, a city of 120,000 Palestinians.

The settlers live in a portion of Hebron that remains under Israeli army control after a partial troop redeployment in January. None of the settlers is descended from the earlier community. Some are American, and many others are not native-born Israelis.

``The settlers are a loaded bomb that can blow up peace altogether,'' said Yair Keidan, 46, whose father was born in Hebron. ``We're not talking about Zionists. We're talking about lunatics, radical fanatics.''

After centuries of exile, Jews started returning to this biblical city in the 13th century. By the 15th century, they had begun to flourish under Ottoman rule.

The community reached up to 1,500 by the mid-19th century, when the revered, Baghdad-born Rabbi Elijah Mani arrived. For more than 40 years, he served as chief rabbi, expanding Hebron's Jewish institutions and winning respect among the Arab population as well.

When he died in 1899, hundreds of Jews and Arabs attended his funeral, according to Rochlin, a former employee of the airline El Al who now lives in the comfortable Tel Aviv suburb of Ra'anana. She beamed as she told the story of her ancestors. She said the Muslims so honored Elijah Mani that they tried to declare him a local saint.

Other Jewish descendants were raised on similar tales of harmony between the Arab and Jewish populations.

But as the competing nationalisms of Jews and Arabs gained steam in the 1920s, relations between the groups soured. In 1929, an Arab mob massacred Jewish neighbors and ransacked their homes. Scores of survivors fled the city.

Amnon Birman, 48, a Jerusalem newspaper columnist whose mother was born in Hebron, recalled that his great-grandfather, Jonah Tsarfat, saved the family in 1929. A rabbi and mystic, Tsarfat had a dream on the night before the violence that he should journey to the port of Jaffa and bathe his wife in the sea there to cure her of rheumatism. They set out before the riots began.

These descendants do not deny the horror of the 1929 massacre, but they are enraged at the settlers. They accuse the settlers of exploiting the massacre's memory while fostering anti-Arab violence, most notably the 1994 shooting of 29 Muslim worshipers by settler Baruch Goldstein in the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

But Rochlin's family, as well as those of other descendants, chose not to move back. Their homes subsequently were taken over by the followers of militant Rabbi Moshe Levinger.

In 1979, Levinger's American-born wife, Miriam, led 40 women and children -- in a move unsanctioned by the Israeli government -- in a predawn foray to occupy Hebron's Beit Hadassah building, which has since emerged as the center of the Jewish enclave.

Rochlin thumbed through her thick history book and arrived at a copy of an Ottoman land record showing that part of Beit Hadassah was registered in the name of Rabbi Suleiman Menachem Mani, her great-grandfather.

Moshe and Miriam Levinger later moved into another home in Hebron's Avraham Avinu complex. According to Birman, that home once belonged to his great-grandfather.

``We, the moderate people on the Israeli side, are hostages in the hands of these fanatical people, these trigger-happy people,'' Birman said, warning that the settlers were likely to instigate violence inside Hebron to torpedo the peace process.

While Birman and his colleagues want the settlers out, these descendants are not bent on regaining their family homes. They say claiming Jewish property inside the West Bank could set an awkward precedent, encouraging Arabs to reclaim their ancestral property inside what is now Israel.

Birman, who called that prospect ``very dangerous,'' noted that his house in the Bakaa neighborhood of West Jerusalem belonged to Palestinians until they fled during the 1948 war.

So far, a petition calling for the settlers to be evacuated from the West Bank city has gained the signature of about 40 Hebron children and grandchildren.

Rochlin, a sponsor of the campaign, readily admits that some Hebron descendants sympathize with the settlers. In truth, two generations after the Jewish community was banished from the city, Hebron's offspring have come to reflect the whole range of views in Israeli society.

But the three-month-old publicity drive, including media interviews and advertising, has drawn attention in Israel, creating unexpected opposition against the settlers.

Rochlin, Keidan and several other descendants have garnered even more attention by meeting in recent weeks with Hebron's Palestinian mayor, Mustapha Natshe, and touring the city with PLO Police Commander Jibril Rajoub.

This cooperation has been sharply criticized by the Hebron settlers. Noam Arnon, a settler spokesman, accused the descendants of ``bizarre activity to justify those who killed the Jewish community in 1929.''

Arnon said the settlements had received the support of some Hebron offspring and now were home to several relatives, though no direct descendants, of those who previously lived in the city. He accused those involved in the petition drive with being agents of ``fanatical movements who want to destroy the Jewish existence in Hebron.''

``This is just a small group of leftist activists,'' Arnon said. ``They do not represent anything.''

The petition campaigners hold out little hope that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would heed their call and remove the Jewish settlers.

But if the homes are evacuated, several descendants have urged that they be dedicated as a museum commemorating the old Jewish community and a cultural center for Jewish-Arab understanding.

``I can give my house as a present for peace,'' Rochlin said. ``I don't want my son to be killed over my grandfather in Hebron.''

This is a perfect way to make a point. Fantastic!

Wow, you people are lame. Some day you're going to get out of school and live in the real world, and this sort of thing will embarrass the hell out of you. Even worse are the people who find this action 'clever.' I mean, please. Why didn't you build sandcastles while you were at it?

This is why the world laughs at California.

It is about time people learned the truth... that the existence and support of a nation called Israel is no more than a support for one of the most intolerant, racist regimes on earth.

As Americans, we should all be ashamed of ourselves and our nation.....

That a perfectly valid and rational point made here is always immediately followed by propaganda.

This story made my day!!!! These guys are absolutely fantastic and I commend them wholeheartedly for their courage! How noble of them to stage a demo against something that they are not even directly connected to.
BRAVO. And anyone who has tried to justify settlement building on this message board is so incredibly sick and lost it's incredible!

I told you so........bet they do it again.

Yeah. Zionism is crazy. Since all the anti-semitism in the world is a thing of the past, the Jews don't deserve a home where they can feel safe.

Fucking brilliant. Feel ashamed.

"And anyone who has tried to justify settlement building on this message board is so incredibly sick and lost it's incredible!"

Don't think of us as "settlers". Think of us as "protesters".

Looks like there's a party been going on on Indybay, and we wusn't invited!! Imagine that???

Execellent idea!!!

It's so great to see that there are many organizations like QUIT, who understand and stand for Palestinian rights in this country. Settlement activity is a reality that people in this country doesn't undertsand. I went to my village last year in Palestine for the third time...the Illegal Israeli settlement had grown bigger. The Israeli Zionist Nazis stole more of our land, like everywhere else in Occupied Palestine.
Well this was a great idea by QUIT, thank you for covering it sfindymedia...Ignore the garbage emails that ZIonist Nazis send because they have no heart.

MORE POWER TO YOU QUIT!!!!!

Seems more like one of those anti-smoking commercials than a political statement. Although, I do now know more than I did previously about the situation.

nice try, but paranoid wierdness can't compete against the excellence of this action.

This is why we love Berkeley!

How come all these street theatre, militant protest things are still being carried out by the same folks who were doing it back in the seventies? This circus-protest-crap is so stale and status quo at this point. - not that those who do this stuff are all middle-aged. Most folks under 40 just don't think it's cool anymore. Berkeley is as curious as ever, but it is no longer relevant to broad social change. Aging hippies and pole-smokers taking over a Starbucks is good for a laugh, but it is hardly a relevant social statement.

I agree, but the old lefties just don't hear the message -- imagine that! We, the "virtual" protesters of the old guard are being ignored -- how the world turns.

I think this part of the country gave up the ghost a long time ago. Whenever the next progressive movement arises, you can bet it won't be here. These jokers don't now the meaning of words like practical, efficient, effective, broad-base, etc.

How do you know if that Palestinian was Muslim or not? He/She could be Christian or even Jewish! How do you know if I am Arab or not? I could be Chinese, Japanes, Italian, or German. Stick to the topic next time.

I hope it starts a trend

let us know if you'd like to organize one in NYC

http://www.michaelmoore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi

I hope it starts a trend

let us know if you'd like to organize one in NYC

http://www.michaelmoore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi

It's great to know we're being appreciated

;-)

http://www.michaelmoore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi

since that troll was spamming, I kept getting "not found" messages

I would be great if you could ban its IP



http://www.michaelmoore.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi

Who pays Smashmouth to troll this website ?

that is the question

I suspect we pay with our taxes

http://pub31.bravenet.com/forum/fetch.php?id=9914929&usernum=2649060294

http://pub31.bravenet.com/forum/fetch.php?id=9914929&usernum=2649060294

http://pub31.bravenet.com/forum/fetch.php?id=9914929&usernum=2649060294

http://pub31.bravenet.com/forum/fetch.php?id=9914929&usernum=2649060294

http://pub31.bravenet.com/forum/fetch.php?id=9914929&usernum=2649060294

the above site mentions smash and lists a post from someone and FYI smash didn't write that I did so dont go blaming him for something he didnt do thats just not right ahh and thanks for editing out the best part where you expect people to fall down and worship you because youre so right and youre god on earth and god with us and we need to bow down at the very mention of your name thanks for leaving that part out you trolls

Do you notice that everyone in QUIT! is ugly, fat and is a totaly looser. There is not one normal looking person there. I wonder why that it is so. QUIT! is made up of the social rejects of the gay and lesbian community. Because they are rejected, they need attention - latch on to the 'Palestinan Struggle' and you have it - I bunch of nobodies have attention.

Good job QUIT! - your revenge of the nerds plan is working.

jewishjoc [at] aol.com

Do you notice that everyone in QUIT! is ugly, fat and is a totaly looser. There is not one normal looking person there. I wonder why that it is so. QUIT! is made up of the social rejects of the gay and lesbian community. Because they are rejected, they need attention - latch on to the 'Palestinan Struggle' and you have it - I bunch of nobodies have attention.

Good job QUIT! - your revenge of the nerds plan is working.

jewishjoc [at] aol.com

Do you notice that everyone in QUIT! is ugly, fat and is a totaly looser. There is not one normal looking person there. I wonder why that it is so. QUIT! is made up of the social rejects of the gay and lesbian community. Because they are rejected, they need attention - latch on to the 'Palestinan Struggle' and you have it - I bunch of nobodies have attention.

Good job QUIT! - your revenge of the nerds plan is working.

jewishjoc [at] aol.com

Do you notice that everyone in QUIT! is ugly, fat and is a totaly looser. There is not one normal looking person there. I wonder why that it is so. QUIT! is made up of the social rejects of the gay and lesbian community. Because they are rejected, they need attention - latch on to the 'Palestinan Struggle' and you have it - I bunch of nobodies have attention.

Good job QUIT! - your revenge of the nerds plan is working.

jewishjoc [at] aol.com

Do you notice that everyone in QUIT! is ugly, fat and is a totaly looser. There is not one normal looking person there. I wonder why that it is so. QUIT! is made up of the social rejects of the gay and lesbian community. Because they are rejected, they need attention - latch on to the 'Palestinan Struggle' and you have it - I bunch of nobodies have attention.

Good job QUIT! - your revenge of the nerds plan is working.

jewishjoc [at] aol.com

Wow! What a great statement! I'm sure it went over a lot of heads, but what the hell, I love it! I'll be looking for your next 'settlement', maybe next time you can set up 'roadblocks' for the starbuck patrons and turn them away at will!

Thanks for making my day, keep up the great work.

(those trolls man, what can you do but laugh at their inane responses, they also make my day!)

Wow! What a great statement! I'm sure it went over a lot of heads, but what the hell, I love it! I'll be looking for your next 'settlement', maybe next time you can set up 'roadblocks' for the starbuck patrons and turn them away at will!

Thanks for making my day, keep up the great work.

(those trolls man, what can you do but laugh at their inane responses, they also make my day!)

Wow! What a great statement! I'm sure it went over a lot of heads, but what the hell, I love it! I'll be looking for your next 'settlement', maybe next time you can set up 'roadblocks' for the starbuck patrons and turn them away at will!

Thanks for making my day, keep up the great work.

(those trolls man, what can you do but laugh at their inane responses, they also make my day!)

jesus you are great!!! I wish I can join you in your next rally... I hope every american can understand how much we are blind by our continuous support for the Isreal... we all should wake up... thank you flolks for making my day... keep going!!! any plans for DC or NY?...

jesus you are great!!! I wish I can join you in your next rally... I hope every american can understand how much we are blind by our continuous support for the Isreal... we all should wake up... thank you flolks for making my day... keep going!!! any plans for DC or NY?...

MYTH

“The Jews have no claim to the land they call Israel.”

FACT

A common misperception is that the Jews were forced into the diaspora by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 A.D. and then, 1,800 years later, suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years, including a national language and a distinct civilization.

The Jewish people base their claim to the land of Israel on at least four premises: 1) God promised the land to the patriarch Abraham; 2) the Jewish people settled and developed the land; 3) the international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people and 4) the territory was captured in defensive wars.

Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in Palestine continued and often flourished. Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea.

The Crusaders massacred many Jews during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years. By the early 19th century-years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement-more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel.1 The 78 years of nation-building, beginning in 1870, culminated in the reestablishment of the Jewish State.

Israel's international "birth certificate" was validated by the promise of the Bible; uninterrupted Jewish settlement from the time of Joshua onward; the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; Israel's admission to the UN in 1949; the recognition of Israel by most other states; and, most of all, the society created by Israel's people in decades of thriving, dynamic national existence.

“Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its 'right to exist.'

Israel's right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel's legitimacy is not suspended in midair awaiting acknowledgement....

There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its 'right to exist' a favor, or a negotiable concession.”

— Abba Eban2

MYTH

“Palestine was always an Arab country.”

FACT
The term "Palestine" is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who, in the 12th Century B.C., settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain of what is now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century A.D., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palaestina to Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word "Filastin" is derived from this Latin name.3

The Twelve Tribes of Israel formed the first constitutional monarchy in Palestine about 1000 B.C. The second king, David, first made Jerusalem the nation's capital. Although Palestine eventually was split into two separate kingdoms, Jewish independence under the monarchy lasted for more than 400 years. This is much longer than Americans have enjoyed independence in what has become known as the United States.4

When Jews began to immigrate to Palestine in large numbers in 1882, fewer than 250,000 Arabs lived there, and the majority of them had arrived in recent decades. "The great majority of the Arab population in recent decades were comparative newcomers-either late immigrants or descendants of persons who had immigrated into Palestine in the previous 70 years."5

Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the language of most the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: "There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not."6 In fact, Palestine is never explicitly mentioned in the Koran, rather it is called "the holy land" (al-Arad al-Muqaddash).7

Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:

We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.8

In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: "There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."9

The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria" and that, "politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity." A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria."10

Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-World War I phenomenon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War and Israel's capture of the West Bank.

They ought to have demolished the Starbucks and built a Peets on top. This would have related to passers-by a more accurate picture of violent Islamic history and indeed, of the region called Palestine©.

There's no USA in the Bible either. So when are you moving back to Europe and giving your house back to native Americans, Mr. Murdered?

Smash the left....obviously violently hates women.

smashy--seems like you're an angry one who won't come out of the closet! But we already know.....

Mr. Murdered, I just read the first few words from your comment, about from where the word palestine came. Dude, you have to understand it doesn't matter from where is this word, there is a people living there for 100s of years, why they should give to the hews who came from europe. They should keep fighting until they liberate thier homeland. You are talking about how vilolent is the islamic history, it seems you don't know anything about history, give a single piece of history that says that when muslims went to Indonisia, they killed people, but look at the history of eurpe civilization, what they did in india, algeria, libya, egypt. etc.
The muslims when they went to war, they have orders not to kill any body who is not in the battle, and not even to cut a tree, we can see how many civilians killed by american bombs on afganistan "BY MISTAKE",

Whats else, Vitnam, what else, oh I just remembered , 20,000 muslims where kiiled in one of the refugee camps in Serbia a few years ago. give me a single example from the history, telling me that the muslim civilization did single time something like this.

go and read history 101, and don't listen to bot robinson or fox news, they are brain washing people like you.

"Smash the left....obviously violently hates women."

probably a safe assumption that the feeling is mutual.

I really for sorry for the little loser . . . even though all other humans would like to rid the world of him . . . its just so embarrassing, I can't imagine what it must be like for him . . . so little, so lost, not a real enough geek to have a decent site . . .

The only other source of humor in this tragedy was the SF Mime Troupe "Seeing Double". I hooted out loud when I saw your pictures and news articles. You guys are great. Thanks.

First a comment to the condescending would-be activists who derided this action and Berkeley in general. "These jokers don't now the meaning of words like practical, efficient, effective, broad-base, etc." If you were famous you'd have signed your name, so I guess you haven't made your "practical, efficient, effective, broad-based" revolution yet. Meanwhile, information about this action is, as far as I can tell, the most widely-forwarded thing since people stopped believing that Microsoft would give you $100 for every email you forwarded. I've found this article to be a useful way to inform queer non-political friends about this issue--great conversations have started up from it. I also know of groups in several cities across the country (including here in Wisconsin) who are planning similar actions, or different ones inspired by this. So even tho those "QUIT" folks didn't organize massive national publicity, their creativity has created a wave of energy and education that is still spreading out exponentially. I'm willing to bet I've never read an email about something *you've* done. Why not turn your energy toward solidarity and collaboration instead of sneering at what others come up with?

I also wanted to address what someone said, sarcastically, that "since anti-Semitism doesn't exist then the Jews don't need a land of their own to feel safe." You've missed the point. The whole point of the QUIT protest is to remind us that many people in the world are second-class citizens, are oppressed and so on, but that an oppressed status just does not confer special rights on people. I do a lot of work to combat anti-Semitism and I know it's out there... I just helped organize people to oppose the anti-Semitic National Alliance gathering in DC. I regularly hand out literature that combats anti-Semitism. That fight is also important. But I must say, that if the world were run on the principle that "every group that is oppressed and tortured can kill whoever they want in order to carve out their very own nation-state," well, that world would not be very livable. What if the survivors of Rwandan genocide decided that their gods had given them Florida? We must always be vigilant against every form of racism, but we must find ways to destroy oppression and enshrine the inalienable rights of every individual--WITHOUT destroying the rights of other individuals. Why is that such a hard concept?

As for myths and facts, I just want to note three...(1) the lie that most Palestinians are "new arrivals" (most popularized by Joan Peters) has been soundly refuted over and over and over again--most thoroughly in Said & Hitchens "Blaming the Victim." Those folks who tell us to read history would do well to read even half the books referenced in some of the longer and more educated posts like "20 Zionist Myths."

(2) the whole "defensive war" thing. Get your history right, if you want to spout it--Israel struck first in 1967. Yes, that's right, Israel attacked first, destroying war planes on the ground in Jordan, Syria and Egypt the same way the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor. Defensive war, eh?

Yes, Egypt's army was mobilized in the Sinai. Yes, Nasser was doing the same kind of brinksmanship that Bush is doing now against Iraq. But significant evidence exists that he did not intend to go to war, that he expected the UN to refuse to withdraw peacekeepers from Gaza, that he expected the US to intervene, etc. Of course, Israel could not have known that at the time, but anyway, the truth is that Israel struck first and that the incident cannot be ascribed to the mythological blood lust of the evil Arabs.

And finally, the charter of the UN does not say anywhere that you can acquire territory in war as long as you were attacked first. "The inadmissability of acquiring territory by war" is absolute.

(3) The last myth I'd like to address is that Zionist settlers were so nice and peaceful until those bad Arabs forced them to be mean and nasty (why doesn't this sound like racism to anyone? Europeans are good and Arabs are bad? Hello!). Let's look at this. Suppose that a bunch of Armenian survivors of Turkish genocide moved to California. They buy up 6% of the land (that's all the Zionists had prior to 1937) and tell Californians that California is now going to become an Armenian republic. English will no longer be spoken in schools, courts or places of business, and those who are not members of the Armenian Catholic Church will not be eligible for the best jobs or able to purchase land in most locations.

Now tell me--surely you can't think for one second that Californians would think this was a swell idea? I'm very sorry about the Armenian genocide and so are the people of California, but I have a strong suspicion that even this terrible event in history would not convince Californians that they should now live in an Armenian republic--especially an undemocratic republic that limited the rights of some citizens based on their religion.

Now we come to the issue of partition. Suppose Californians opposed the Armenian republic, and the Armenians said, "OK, fine, you can have Eastern California--we will just take the coast, thanks." One might imagine that this proposition would still not be satisfactory to Californians. Zionists like to say that the Palestinians were evil/stupid/whatever for not accepting partition. But when you look at the Californian analogy, it's easy to see why the Armenians would be content with half, while the Californians would still consider giving up half of the state (especially when that half consists of all the coast and most of the arable land!) to be an unjustifiable outrage.

The point I wish to make is *not* that Israel doesn't "have a right to exist." (As an anti-nationalist, I don't think states have rights, only individuals have rights--but since we live in a world of states I will leave that point aside). I would have opposed Israel's creation as fiercely as I would have opposed Polish pogroms, had I been around in 1881. But today, Israelis as humans have all the human rights that everyone else has--to live in safety and security, to livelihood and education and self-determination. Obviously, anyone who thinks Israelis should pack up & leave is advocating yet another human rights violation--expelling them now would be as bad as their expulsion of the Palestinians (and, as several others have noted, non-indigenous people in the US cannot justifiably advocate such a course until they have moved back to wherever their ancestors came from).

But Palestinians also have these inalienable human rights. And Israel violates these rights on a daily basis. This is wrong and must stop.

That's it: that's the whole crux of the matter. Whatever history exists (and I know it as well as any of you) and whoever has done what to whom, Israel's current actions against the Palestinians are a crime against humanity and must stop. History cannot justify collective punishment. Remember that the Nazis' rationale (part of it) was that Jewish saboteurs had harmed Germany in WWI against the British. Even if this was true (and it may have been), that cannot justify the collective punishment of ALL Jews. I am not comparing Israel to the Nazis (and such comparisons do not hold water, tho a comparison to apartheid South Africa is very accurate), but I am reminding people that it is never justifiable to punish a whole group for the crimes of some of its members, especially not for crimes of preceding generations.

To return to what I was saying, the occupation is absolutely unacceptable and therefore another way MUST BE FOUND. I don't want to hear about why that's so hard to do. The continuation of the occupation is unacceptable so let's, as human beings, get creative and devise an alternative.

For those of you who don't care if Israel perpetrates crimes against the Palestinians, let me add that the occupation is clearly the cause of the suicide bombings, and that Sharon cares nothing about the lives of Israelis and everything about territorial expansion.

In this, Sharon follows in the footsteps of your hero ben-Gurion--benGurion said that if he could save all the Jewish children from the Nazis by transporting them to England, but only half by transporting them to Israel, he would rather save half and promote the state of Israel. (see _Righteous Victims_ by Israeli historian Benny Morris). This horrible "logic"--this willingness to sacrifice the lives of half the Jewish children of Europe for the sake of land--is the same "logic" that underlies Sharon's actions. Sharon is perfectly well aware that his terrorist attacks on Palestinian civilians will result in terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians (yes, I condemn both). But he is happy to sacrifice Israelis if it will mean the success of his ethnic cleansing plans.

Is this really the man you want in control of the state where your and my friends and relatives are living in fear of their lives? Are you willing to sacrifice your Israeli relatives to Sharon's expansionist vision--a vision that is no secret but has been the cornerstone of Likud policy for forty years? If so I have to say--you are completely mad.

If Sharon does succeed in extending the state of Israel to the Jordan River, he will forever forgo any possible chance that Israel can create true peace with its neighbors. He will ensure that for the rest of Israel's existence its people must live as if within a fortress, in fear of never-ending war. He may quite possibly ensure the destruction of Israel.

Whereas if saner Israelis manage to regain control--well, first a lot of people would have to regain their sanity, but anyway--if a saner policy held sway, if the occupation were ended and a Palestinian state established--not just established but supported and allowed to flourish--I do believe that we might see true peace and even neighborliness within a few generations. From all reports, the vast majority of people in the region accept that Israel exists. (The PLO officially accepted it in 1988 in Algiers--despite Bush's allegation that Arafat has not done so). They may not like that, but they are resigned to it. What they can't accept is that Israel is toruring the Palestinians mercilessly and ceaselessly. Nor should they accept that.

I know many people are so imbued with anti-Arab hatred that they think that Hamas' brand of anti-Jewish hatred has existed from time immemorial and will never change, but this is simply a racist and ignorant assertion. Do the research--Jewish communities have flourished in every Muslim and Arab country for millennia. The Jewish community of Iraq was the most prosperous in the world for two thousand years. Mutual antagonism and hatred dates only from the advent of Zionism and an expansionist Israeli state. This is not an "age-old conflict," it is in many countries a 50-year-old conflict. It is not based on hatred of the Jewish religion but on hatred of Israel's cruelty. Antagonism and hatred would be eased by any evidence of humanity and tolerance in Israel.

I know, the racists will be shouting that Muslims and Arabs are inhuman and unable to feel normal human emotions, that they are killing machines capable only of evil. I have Jewish friends who have spent extensive time in the territories, being treated with only kindness and hospitality, with people ground down by poverty offering them all the food in the house and all the resources at their disposal. I know personally a Jewish Israeli man who has refused to serve in the army of occupation, who when he takes food to people under curfew has on multiple occasions been told, "I was going to join Hamas but now that I see that Israelis can be kind and gentle I have changed my mind." Isn't this the clearest evidence you could ask for, that an end to Israeli crimes and a genuine peacemaking effort would be met with a positive response?

And no, Oslo was not a genuine peacemaking effort. They were an effort to stall Palestinian resistance while territorial superiority was consolidated. The doubling of the settlement population under Barak alone should be adequate demonstration of that.

OK I have better things to do than to froth on Indymedia. Why do I bother trying to talk to people. The profoundly racist ideology that causes Palestinian suffering to be absolutely invisible...is something that is very difficult to dislodge. I have not yet figured out how to do it. When people can look at a picture of the puddle of blood left by a slain 3-year-old child and say "filthy arab," (this has happened in my personal experience), I don't know what to say to them to arouse any sense of humanity or compassion in their hearts. To me this is the central problem of this conflict--that many Israelis seem to have lost all sense of compassion or humanity for the suffering of anyone who isn't Jewish. It is a travesty of the glorious Jewish tradition of humanitarianism, the Jewish belief in human dignity and human rights, which was promoted for centuries in places like modern-day Iraq, long before the US constitution started the process of protecting those rights for a small group of people. When an Israeli army commander can say that all he feels when he releases a bomb into a civilian area is "a slight bump as the bomb leaves the plane," I sometimes wonder if the cause is lost, and I wonder whether, if that man had killed my family, I would have the heroism to "rise above" and restrain my urge for violent revenge. Would you? It's amazing that even as the Israelis respond to each attack with ferocious violence, they expect and demand that Palestinians to respond to Israeli violence with Gandhian peace and tranquility. It's absolutely insane.

Enough talk. More power to QUIT and every group that educates the US public and works for justice for Palestine!

Peace is on Our Minds
Originally published in Common Ground News Service, June 6, 2002


We lost our loved ones, but this does not mean that we changed our minds and reject peace, or that we do not believe in it."
- Khader Al Mughrabi, head of a Palestinian political movement

GAZA - Dr. Haidar Abdel Shafi, chief negotiator at the Madrid Peace Conference held between Arabs and Israel ten years ago, received a letter signed by a Jewish girl proposing a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the establishment of a secular state where Arabs and Jews live peacefully. The letter seems to have brought back memories to Dr. Abdel Shafi, who is now about 83 years of age, of some decades ago (in 1920, to be specific) when he moved with his father, who was an inspector of religious estates, from Gaza to live in Hebron. "Jews were a minority in Hebron, but they lived in peace," says Abdel Shafi. "I still remember the rabbi who used to visit my father in his capacity as the inspector of religious estates. He was a good man."

In 1929, after the Zionist movement started in Palestine and the Buraq revolution broke out, there were clashes between Arabs and Jews.

In the meantime, Abdel Shafi had already returned to Gaza. When he learned about the clashes, he could not help thinking about his old neighbors in Hebron.

"I was told that, when some of the revolutionaries set upon killing the rabbi, local citizens wanted to protect him. But he refused, saying ‘How can you protect me from my children?’" said Abdel Shafi. "The fighters slaughtered him, and I was deeply moved. The rabbi had deep confidence that there was coexistence between Arabs and Jews."

Today, the Israeli girl’s vision of peace has become a dream that Abdel Shafi hopes will come true. He believes that peace between Arabs and Jews can be achieved on the basis of a secular, democratic state. "But to achieve this," notes Abdel Shafi, "requires the Jews to discard the Zionist principle of evicting Arabs from the historical land of Palestine, and for Palestinians to accept the right of Jews to live in Palestine on a democratic basis governed by a constitution applicable to everyone."

Abdel Shafi expressed his skepticism that a peaceful settlement of the conflict could be arrived at in the near future, while he was optimistic about the potential of achieving this in the medium or long term.

* * *

On the eastern edge of the Khan Yunis refugee camp, where the family of the shaheed ["martyr"] Wissam Muhareb has its home, a tabloid covered with pictures and slogans in the colors of the Palestinian flag appears on the wall of the Old Court Road praising his glories and heroism.

In the middle of the sitting room of Wissam’s family home, where a large picture of him hangs on the wall with a caption showing the dates of his birth and death (January 22, 1976 and December 22, 2001, respectively), sits his mother, Hanan, who is no more than 55 years of age, but whose facial features are full of lines carved by turbulent times.

"There is still a strong hope for living in peace. We want peace and seek it, but the other side leaves us no choice. All the world witnessed the war crimes that took place in Jenin." When I asked her what she would say to an Israeli woman who lost her son in the conflict, she answered: "I would ask her if her son is precious to her. I am sure she would answer ‘Yes.’ And then I would say, ‘So is mine. My son died in return for yours. But what I request from you, as a nation, is to strive for peace, for we extend our hand in peace.’"

* * *

"Peace is important to us. It is true that we lost our loved ones, but this does not mean that we changed our minds and reject peace, or that we do not believe in it." This statement was made by Khader Al Mughrabi, the Secretary General of the National Movement for Change, a Palestinian political movement established during the Palestinian National Authority era after the Oslo agreement was signed. It is a political movement that believes in dialogue and the possibility of achieving peace through negotiations and political relations between the two nations.

"Our agenda does not include the practice of violence or force for the purpose of achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people. After signing the Declaration of Principles in Oslo, we needed a political force that would contribute to the push towards the rights of the Palestinian people."

Since its inception in 1995, the movement has had extensive relations with the Israeli peace movement in its various perspectives. Many activities and dialogues took place with them that were based on the principle of dialogue.

"We tried to assert to the people and political forces in Israel that the majority of the Palestinian people believe in striving for peace, because they need it most after fifty years of suffering and the absence of security as a result of the occupation."

The National Movement for Change tried repeatedly to organize bilateral meetings with Israeli peace parties since the outset of the Intifada 20 months ago. All attempts, however, failed due to the stringent security procedures imposed by the Israeli occupation forces on Palestinian travel to Israel or to the rest of the world.

"Our activities have presently been curtailed drastically as a result of the escalation of violence in the area. We are interested, however, in showing that there are groups within Palestinian society that do not practice or believe in violence."

* * *

Suzan Hajjo is a Palestinian mother who is not yet 20 years of age. Less than a year ago, her infant daughter Iman died while she was in Suzan’s lap when Israeli tanks in Khan Yunis bombarded the family home. Suzan sustained moderate injuries, as did her mother, her sister Dunia (seven years old), and her brother Mahmoud, who is less than two years of age. Suzan says that she would live peacefully with Jews, although they killed her daughter. "The Israeli people should demand that their prime minister stop the killing and destruction in order to live in peace. I am confident that every nation wishes to live in peace and security."

Iman’s father, Mohammad Hajjo, believes that the most effective method of resistance to avenge his daughter is peaceful resistance, through working at promoting Palestinian rights around the world "… to tell them that we are a nation whose rights have been usurped, and that in spite of its exposure to aggression, it seeks peace." Mohammad refused to consider suicide missions that target civilians inside Israel within the framework of resisting occupation, labeling them as human rights abuses.

Although one cannot ignore the fact that a large percentage of Israeli society supports the repressive measures practiced by the government headed by Sharon, Al Mughrabi believes that this support for Sharon is temporary and that, if the same question were addressed to Israelis in normal circumstances, a large percentage in this category would express their support for peace.


# # #

Mahmoud Habboush is a freelance journalist based in Gaza.

'You (the Jews) should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle and I wish to expel you from this land. I will expel the Jews and the Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslims.' [Hadith Muslim 4366]

In 625 CE Muhammad had all 600-700 adult males of the Jewish tribe Banu Qurayzah decapitated in the public square of Medina. The women and children were ransomed or kept as slaves.

'And He made you heirs of their lands, their houses and their goods, and of a land which ye had not frequented before, and Allah has power over all things.' [Quran 33:27]

The Quran acknowledges the Jews as a people upon whom God had bestowed peculiar favors in terms reminiscent of Paul's summary in Romans 9.4-5:

'We did aforetime grant to the Children of Israel the Book, the Power of Command, and Prophethood; We gave them, for sustenance, things good and pure; and We favored them above the nations. [Surah 45.16]

Mohammed desired to win their support but was so rudely rejected that they soon became his hated enemies. The Jews could hardly be expected to acknowledge an Ishmaelite prophet who proclaimed Jesus as their Messiah. They irked him on two counts - satire and evidences against his claim to prophethood.

'Yet the Jews were a constant cause of trouble and anxiety. They plied him with questions of which the point was often difficult to turn aside. The very people to whose testimony he had so long appealed in the Coran proved now a stubborn and standing witness against him. [Muir, The Life of Mahomet, p. 179]

Whereas the Meccans had simply ridiculed his message and generally resorted to sheer abuse, the Jews were able to trace many of these teachings to their own folklore and produce more damaging evidence against him. As Mohammed could not read their scriptures they were able to constantly provoke him with their knowledge and often frustrated him with subtle twists of phrases, which he could not immediately detect but which entertained Jewish bystanders. For example, Exodus 24.7 states that the Jews at Sinai answered Moses 'All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient', but in the Quran we discover that the Jews, when commanded to hearken to God's Law on the Mount, allegedly answered, 'We hear and we disobey'. [Surah 2.93]

The end result was as predictable as it was crucial to the success of Mohammed's ministry - the neutralization of the Jews as an effective force in Medinah. This took place chiefly through the deportation of two of the tribes and the annihilation of the third, but at the same time Mohammed also sought to discredit them in other ways.

'The portions of the Coran given forth at this period teem with invectives against the Israelites' (Muir, The Life of Mahomet, p.180).

Here are a couple examples of this trend in the last Surah making up the revelation:

'The Jews say: 'God's hand is tied up'. Be their hands tied up and be they accursed for the (blasphemy) they utter... Amongst them we have placed enmity and hatred till the Day of Judgment. Every time they kindle the fire of war, God cloth extinguish it; But they (ever) strive to do mischief on the earth. And God loveth not those who do mischief. [Surah 5.67]

Thou seest many of them turning in friendship to the unbelievers. Evil indeed are (the works) which their souls have sent forward before them (with the result) that God's wrath is on them and in torment will they abide. [Surah 5.83]

Thus the contemporary Muslim response to the state of Israel has its roots in passages like these which, allegedly being God's own judgments, control the attitudes of the Muslims throughout the world to the Jews. Therefore, it's not surprising to find Jews constantly slandered in the Hadith (which are interpretations of Quran and Sunnah by Islamic scholars throughout the years) as well.

townhall article:

' It’s never expected for those who are supposed to protect us to break bread with those who endanger us. But on Tuesday, April 16, at Dearborn, Michigan’s “La Shish” Restaurant, Ridge and Treasury Secretary O’Neill 'broke pita' with Imad Hamad, Ismael Ahmed, Ali Berry, Osama Siblani, Imam Hassan Qazwini, and several other Detroit area Muslim Arab leaders—all of whom applaud Arab terrorism. '

--

'Hassan Qazwini—Imam of the largest mosque in North America, the Islamic Center of America, Shiite Muslim Qazwini invited Farrakhan to speak at a 1998 mosque religious service, introducing Farrakhan as “our dear brother,” “a freedom fighter,” and “a man of courage and sacrifice.” Resembling a Hitler rally, Farrakhan ranted about 'forces of evil (occupying our government). ... We should perform a jihad. [They are] frightened, and we must frighten them even more.' This garnered frenzied applause and cheers from Qazwini and his congregants. '

--

Some other famous quotes by Farrakhan:

'Farrakhan: 'Is the Federal Reserve owned by the government?'
Audience: 'No.'
Farrakhan: 'Who owns the federal reserve?'
Audience: 'Jews.'
-Dallas Observer on-line, 8/10/00

' 'And you do with me as is written, but remember that I have warned you that Allah will punish you. You are wicked deceivers of the American people. You have sucked their blood.' '
-Saviours' Day Speech, Chicago, 2/25/96

[Note: We should bear in mind when we here from Qazwini in the future about 'peaceful Islam', his support for Farrakhan and for Islamic hate groups such as CAIR and AMC.]

http://www.meforum.org/article/pipes/430/

' 'Become a Muslim warrior during the crusades or during an ancient jihad.' Thus read the instructions for seventh graders in Islam: A Simulation of Islamic History and Culture, 610-1100, a three-week curriculum produced by Interaction Publishers, Inc. In classrooms across the United States, students who follow its directions find themselves fighting mock battles of jihad against 'Christian crusaders' and other assorted 'infidels.' Upon gaining victory, our mock-Muslim warriors 'Praise Allah.'

Is this a legal activity in American public schools? Interaction says it merely urges students to 'respect Islamic culture' through identification with Islam. But the Thomas More Law Center, a public-interest law firm based in Michigan, disagrees and last week filed a federal lawsuit to prohibit one school district, in Byron, California, from further using the Interaction materials on Islam. '

You really want to know about the first incidents of violence, and who they were directed at, then you need to learn about the events of 1920, 1921, 1929 & 1936.

You will be surprised to learn that there was peace between the two populations until Muslim Arab violence started in the 1920s by extremist aggitators.

Go find yourself a neutral source and find out the truth of how it all began. I challenge you!

http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP37002

http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP36702

http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP37202

http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP34302

'They [the Jews] try to kill the principle of religions with the same mentality that they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Mohammed.'

- Syrian President Bashar Assad at May 5 welcoming ceremony for the Pope Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, May 6, 2001

'Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them and those who stand by them they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine.'

- Dr. Ahmad Abu Halabiya, Member of the PA appointed 'Fatwa Council' and former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza. Palestinian Authority television, October 14, 2000

'It is not a mistake that the Koran warns us of the hatred of the Jews and put them at the top of the list of the enemies of Islam. Today the Jews recruit the world against the Muslims and use all kinds of weapons. They are plundering the dearest place to the Muslims, after Mecca and Medina and threaten the place the Muslims have faced at first when they prayed and the third holiest city after Mecca and Medina. They want to erect their temple on that place....The Muslims are ready to sacrifice their lives and blood to protect the Islamic nature of Jerusalem and El Aksa!'

- Sheikh Hian Al-Adrisi, Excerpt of address in the al-Aksa mosque, September 29, 2000

'Thanks to Hitler, blessed memory, who on behalf of the Palestinians, revenged in advance, against the most vile criminals on the face of the earth. Although we do have a complaint against him for his revenge on them was not enough.'

- Columnist Ahmad Ragab Al-Akhbar (Egypt), April 18, 2001

'All weapons must be aimed at the Jews, at the enemies of Allah...whom the Koran describes as monkeys and pigs, worshippers of the calf and idol worshippers. Allah shall make the Moslem rule over the Jew, we will blow them up in Hadera, we will blow them up in Tel Aviv and in Netanya in the righteousness of Allah against this rif-raff...We will enter Jerusalem as conquerors, and Jaffa as conquereors, and Haifa as conquerors and Ashekelon as conquerors...we bless all those who educate their children to jihad and to Martyrdom, blessing be he who shot a bullet into the head of a Jew.'

- Sermon broadcast on Palestinian Authority television, August 3, 2001

'The Jews are Jews, whether Labour or Likud, the Jews are Jews. They do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars. They are the ones who must be butchered and killed. As Allah the Almighty said: 'Fight them'. Allah will torture them by your hands and will humiliate them and will help you to overcome them, and will relieve the minds of the believers. ... Our people must unite in one trench, and receive armaments from the Palestinian leadership to confront the Jews. ... Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Whenever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them - and those who stand with them - they are all in one trench, against the Arabs and the Muslims - because they established Israel here, in the beating heart of the Arab world, in Palestine. They created it in order that it be the outpost of their civilisation - and the vanguard of their army, and to be the sword of the West and the Crusaders, hanging over the necks of the Muslim monotheists, the Muslims in this land. They wanted the Jews to be the spearhead for them...'

-Dr Ahmad Abu-Halabia, a member of the 'Fatwa Council' appointed by the Palestinian Authority and the former acting Rector of the Islamic University in Gaza, delivered in the Zayd bin Sultan Nahyan mosque in Gaza on October 13, 2000, the day after the lynching of the Israeli reservists in Ramallah, and carried live on Palestinian television.

sounds like legitimate historical exploration to me.

sounds like legitimate historical exploration to me. If conservatives had their way, of course, NO history would be taught. Doesn't make little units productive.

It's befitting and telling that the protestors were trespassing illegally - so were many Arabs who illegally immigrated to the British mandate in the late 19th century:

http://www.mideastweb.org/PalPop.htmThe Population of Palestine Prior to 1948

The population figures for mandatory and Turkish Palestine are of historical interest and figure in many historical debates. The Zionist claim that Palestine was "a land without a people" is challenged by pro-Palestinian historians who cite census figures showing a substantial Palestinian-Arab population by 1914. The Zionists note that most of this increase seems to have occurred after 1880, when Jews began developing Palestine. Census figures of the Ottoman Empire were unreliable. Foreign and illegal residents did their best to evade the census, as did people wishing to evade military services and taxes. The population figures of the British mandate were more reliable, but there was no census taken after 1930, or if there was, the figures were kept secret. Mandatory figures for the period after 1930 are based based on hospital and immigration records and extrapolation, it seems.

Under the British Mandate which began after WWI, Jewish population increased due to immigration, especially in the 1930s. Arab population also increased at an exceptional rate, so that according to birthrate figures, Palestinian Arabs had the highest birthrate figures of any Arab country. Joan Peters, in her book "From Time Immemorial," argues that most of this increase was in fact due to illegal Arab immigration. Norman Finkelstein and others have criticized her thesis and shown evidence of poor scholarship. Finkelstein's analysis also shows that the largest increases of Palestinian Arab population occurred close to Jewish population centers in Palestine, which would argue against the Palestinian contention that the Zionists were dispossessing Arabs. We do not know if this increase was due to population shifts in Palestine or immigration from outside Palestine. It is certain that there was at least some illegal Palestinian-Arab immigration, as noted in British mandatory reports. Immigration from Transjordan was not illegal, and was not recorded as immigration at all until 1938. During World War II, the British recruited Arab workers from the Houran in Syria and elsewhere. Arabs also came to Palestine before the war, attracted by higher wages. However, since much of the depletion of Palestinian population that had occurred in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was due to migration to neighboring countries, many of these returning Arabs may have been families returning to Palestine.

...

Illegal Immigration in the 1930s

Under the pressures of the Arab revolt, the British government in Palestine reduced immigration quotes and took stricter measures to control illegal immigration beginning in 1938, as well as to curtail Jewish immigration. The excerpt of the mandate report of 1937 below shows that in fact, most of the illegal immigrants apprehended were not Jewish, but "others."

...

Population and Land Ownership prior to the UN Partition Resolution

An Anglo-American commission of inquiry in 1945 and 1946 examined the status of Palestine. No official census figures were available, as no census had been conducted in Palestine in 1940, so all their surmises and figures are based on extrapolations and surmises. According to the report, at the end of 1946, 1,269,000 Arabs and 608,000 Jews resided within the borders of Mandate Palestine. Jews had purchased 6 to 8 percent of the total land area of Palestine. This was about 20% of the land that could be settled and cultivated. About 46% of the land belonged to Arab owners living on the land or absentee owners, and about the same amount was government land.

It's befitting and telling that the protestors were trespassing illegally - so were many Arabs who illegally immigrated to the British mandate in the late 19th century:

http://www.mideastweb.org/PalPop.htmThe Population of Palestine Prior to 1948

The population figures for mandatory and Turkish Palestine are of historical interest and figure in many historical debates. The Zionist claim that Palestine was "a land without a people" is challenged by pro-Palestinian historians who cite census figures showing a substantial Palestinian-Arab population by 1914. The Zionists note that most of this increase seems to have occurred after 1880, when Jews began developing Palestine. Census figures of the Ottoman Empire were unreliable. Foreign and illegal residents did their best to evade the census, as did people wishing to evade military services and taxes. The population figures of the British mandate were more reliable, but there was no census taken after 1930, or if there was, the figures were kept secret. Mandatory figures for the period after 1930 are based based on hospital and immigration records and extrapolation, it seems.

Under the British Mandate which began after WWI, Jewish population increased due to immigration, especially in the 1930s. Arab population also increased at an exceptional rate, so that according to birthrate figures, Palestinian Arabs had the highest birthrate figures of any Arab country. Joan Peters, in her book "From Time Immemorial," argues that most of this increase was in fact due to illegal Arab immigration. Norman Finkelstein and others have criticized her thesis and shown evidence of poor scholarship. Finkelstein's analysis also shows that the largest increases of Palestinian Arab population occurred close to Jewish population centers in Palestine, which would argue against the Palestinian contention that the Zionists were dispossessing Arabs. We do not know if this increase was due to population shifts in Palestine or immigration from outside Palestine. It is certain that there was at least some illegal Palestinian-Arab immigration, as noted in British mandatory reports. Immigration from Transjordan was not illegal, and was not recorded as immigration at all until 1938. During World War II, the British recruited Arab workers from the Houran in Syria and elsewhere. Arabs also came to Palestine before the war, attracted by higher wages. However, since much of the depletion of Palestinian population that had occurred in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was due to migration to neighboring countries, many of these returning Arabs may have been families returning to Palestine.

...

Illegal Immigration in the 1930s

Under the pressures of the Arab revolt, the British government in Palestine reduced immigration quotes and took stricter measures to control illegal immigration beginning in 1938, as well as to curtail Jewish immigration. The excerpt of the mandate report of 1937 below shows that in fact, most of the illegal immigrants apprehended were not Jewish, but "others."

...

Population and Land Ownership prior to the UN Partition Resolution

An Anglo-American commission of inquiry in 1945 and 1946 examined the status of Palestine. No official census figures were available, as no census had been conducted in Palestine in 1940, so all their surmises and figures are based on extrapolations and surmises. According to the report, at the end of 1946, 1,269,000 Arabs and 608,000 Jews resided within the borders of Mandate Palestine. Jews had purchased 6 to 8 percent of the total land area of Palestine. This was about 20% of the land that could be settled and cultivated. About 46% of the land belonged to Arab owners living on the land or absentee owners, and about the same amount was government land.

It's befitting and telling that the protestors were trespassing illegally - so were many Arabs who illegally immigrated to the British mandate in the late 19th century:

http://www.mideastweb.org/PalPop.htmThe Population of Palestine Prior to 1948

The population figures for mandatory and Turkish Palestine are of historical interest and figure in many historical debates. The Zionist claim that Palestine was "a land without a people" is challenged by pro-Palestinian historians who cite census figures showing a substantial Palestinian-Arab population by 1914. The Zionists note that most of this increase seems to have occurred after 1880, when Jews began developing Palestine. Census figures of the Ottoman Empire were unreliable. Foreign and illegal residents did their best to evade the census, as did people wishing to evade military services and taxes. The population figures of the British mandate were more reliable, but there was no census taken after 1930, or if there was, the figures were kept secret. Mandatory figures for the period after 1930 are based based on hospital and immigration records and extrapolation, it seems.

Under the British Mandate which began after WWI, Jewish population increased due to immigration, especially in the 1930s. Arab population also increased at an exceptional rate, so that according to birthrate figures, Palestinian Arabs had the highest birthrate figures of any Arab country. Joan Peters, in her book "From Time Immemorial," argues that most of this increase was in fact due to illegal Arab immigration. Norman Finkelstein and others have criticized her thesis and shown evidence of poor scholarship. Finkelstein's analysis also shows that the largest increases of Palestinian Arab population occurred close to Jewish population centers in Palestine, which would argue against the Palestinian contention that the Zionists were dispossessing Arabs. We do not know if this increase was due to population shifts in Palestine or immigration from outside Palestine. It is certain that there was at least some illegal Palestinian-Arab immigration, as noted in British mandatory reports. Immigration from Transjordan was not illegal, and was not recorded as immigration at all until 1938. During World War II, the British recruited Arab workers from the Houran in Syria and elsewhere. Arabs also came to Palestine before the war, attracted by higher wages. However, since much of the depletion of Palestinian population that had occurred in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was due to migration to neighboring countries, many of these returning Arabs may have been families returning to Palestine.

...

Illegal Immigration in the 1930s

Under the pressures of the Arab revolt, the British government in Palestine reduced immigration quotes and took stricter measures to control illegal immigration beginning in 1938, as well as to curtail Jewish immigration. The excerpt of the mandate report of 1937 below shows that in fact, most of the illegal immigrants apprehended were not Jewish, but "others."

...

Population and Land Ownership prior to the UN Partition Resolution

An Anglo-American commission of inquiry in 1945 and 1946 examined the status of Palestine. No official census figures were available, as no census had been conducted in Palestine in 1940, so all their surmises and figures are based on extrapolations and surmises. According to the report, at the end of 1946, 1,269,000 Arabs and 608,000 Jews resided within the borders of Mandate Palestine. Jews had purchased 6 to 8 percent of the total land area of Palestine. This was about 20% of the land that could be settled and cultivated. About 46% of the land belonged to Arab owners living on the land or absentee owners, and about the same amount was government land.

oopsie
..
..

I believed that in the 20th century people were more civilized than in 1492 when Christopher Colombus doscovered America ..... !!!???!!!!

I was wrong .... Mr Sharon prove me the contrary.

PS:Sorry for my english.

I believed that in the 20th century people were more civilized than in 1492 when Christopher Colombus doscovered America ..... !!!???!!!!

I was wrong .... Mr Sharon prove me the contrary.

PS:Sorry for my english.

Fear and anxiety are manifest in your essay, I'm sorry for you and wish you well.

Nevertheless, it appears that you are spreading falsehood and libels, and this demands a truthful response. Please consider the following ideas. Have the courage to seek truth and justice, and you will find that your personal safety will increase while at the same time community ethics will be improved.

THE BOTTOM LINE:
The idea that Israel the *cause* of antisemitism is simply backward.
The TRUTH is that antisemitism created Israel.

'Combatting the International Zionist Conspiracy' by committing violence against *random* Jews is simple ignorant bigotry. Excusing antisemitism as viable method of 'fighting zionism' has as much basis as excusing the KKK for lynching African-American men in order to defend the sanctity of white womanhood. It's all of the same fabric; simple racist nonsense.

It is impossible to placate bigots by giving in to them. The best method of fighting bigotry is to answer the Big Lies and Blood Libels with TRUTH.

You are engaging in Big Lie propaganda, e.g.: The Zionist Occupying Government (ZOG) has hijacked Bush, Cheney, and the other in the U.S. Gov't; the foundation of Israel is murderous racism, etc.

These are pitiful Big Lies, and they demand a TRUTHFUL answer.

We cannot placate bigots by accepting some of their worst lies about Jews, or ANY other minority group. This will only serve to increase bigotry (e.g. antisemitism) among the plurality who don't know much about history. If all they hear is the Big Lies, then it will not help if American Jews attempt to 'save' themselves by accepting certain 'politically corrrect' Big Lies (e.g. Israel only exists because it is useful as a US military forward position in the Mid-East). One Big Lie leads to another. When the plurality accepts the Blood Libels along with the other lies, then antisemitic violence will bloom.

For instance, Kevin Svorak published flat-out lies in Indymedia about Israel massacring ~500 civilians in Jenin in April, 2002 ( http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=22676&group=webcast). This Blood Libel led to a rash of synagogue arson, jew-beatings, and (in Europe) actual murders of random Jews.

Every investigation of Jenin has exposed Svorak story as a complete falsification. Reports from defacto anti-zionist organizations, such as the UN (http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/) and the Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/05/jenin0503.htm ) conclude that the Israelis told the truth, that 52 Palestinians died, the vast majority were armed combatants who killed 23 Israeli soldiers in fierce fighting, that the Palestinian Jihadi set ~2000 booby-traps and mines in the Jenin Refugee Camp, that there was no Israeli massacre of Palestinian civilians. Skvorak and Indymedia spread a very inflammatory lie, one that soon had a life of its own and spread throughout the world as a Blood Libel.

History is replete with Blood Libels, as as result the Blood Libel phenomenon is well understood. It is used to incite and excuse prejudicial hatred and inspire violence. Documented history records many bigots and their blood libels (e.g. 'they spread the plague', 'they poisoned the well', 'they teach witchcraft', 'they use non-jewish children's blood to make matzah', etc.), which caused awful hate-crimes. Blood libels have led to arson and murder throughout European history. Svorak's 'Jenin Massacre' blood libel was classically effective.

If Mr. Svorak's intention was to incite racist violence against Jews, he succeeded. Synagogues and other assorted Jewish Centers were torched throughout Europe in late April and early May, as the accusations of the 'Jenin Massacre' spread, and several European Jews were killed.

Even well intentioned folks who normally avoid bigoted positions ended up excusing this racist violence. Perhaps you remember the argument: assaulting random Jews may halt Israeli's slaughter of Palestinians. What slaughter? Well, look at the 'Jenin Massacre'....

Although I support the rights of Nazis, KKK, and other assorted bigots to freely express themselves, we are not required to accept nor spread their blood libels, since it is impossible by definition to support civil rights by instigating bigotry.

If Hamas, Fatah, and the other other Jihadi ever *DID* win a decisive victory, it is likely many would attempt do exactly what they've repeatedly and openly promised to do: remove every Jew from Palestine, into the sea if necessary. Phillip Roth calls this 'the second Holocaust'. If such crimes ever did come to pass, I have no doubt that indymedia activists would portray the slaughter as a triumph of 21st justice, and history be damned.

So what's the proper course of action in the face of these libels?
Seek Justice and Truth. Do not be afraid of the facts.


Here are some relevant facts (in precis):

Zionism's core value is CIVIL RIGHTS. Any discussion of Israel that ignores the basic CIVIL RIGHTS issues is mortally wounded by ignoring the most important single motivating force behind the Zionist Movement.

Early Christianity was profoundly affected by St. Augustine's formulation that Jews are guilty of deicide (killing Christ), and they compound the guilt by continuing to reject Christianity. Because Jews are not 'reborn' via 'G-d's only begotten son', Jews are condemned to Eternal Damnation. St. Augustine recognizes that it is improper to slaughter or eliminate the Jews. Augustine says they must be humiliated and kept in a depraved state to serve as an object lesson to the Christian community on the fate that befalls people who reject Christ.

The Augustinian formulation gave birth to the Ghetto system and the other atrocities that tormented Jews in Christian Europe. The Jew was, at best, 'property' of the aristocracy or the Church. The Jews never had equal civil rights with Christians in Europe until the Enlightenment. In the late 1700s the Jews began to be 'emancipated'. The last Ghetto was lifted in 1870, i.e. Jews achieved emancipation in Europe at about the same time that African-Americans were emancipated in the U.S. The results of the two emancipations were startling different.

In Europe, fear of the *Emancipated* Jew was apparently greater than fear of the Ghetto Jew. By the late 1800s there were political parties all over Europe that proposed the roll-back of civil rights for Jews, and failing that, ELIMINATION of Jews from Europe.

'Antisemitism' was the name the Christian Jew-Haters gave to their political philosophy of depriving emancipated Jews of their civil rights. This term was always reserved for Jews, never applied to Arabs. The notion that it applies to Arabs occurred after WWII in order to obscure the original meaning, and more importantly to suppress the factual history. Luckily, late 19th century European history is well-documented, and these facts are easy to confirm through independent research.

Many Jewish thinkers in the late 1800s realistically (and prophetically) appraised the situation and concluded that it was only a matter of time before the core group of antisemites (always a small minority) used the well-understood tactics of 'Big Lie' and 'Blood Libel' to motivate the European plurality into a sense of 'justifiable' violence against random Jews in order to overcome the Jewish Menace.

For many Jews, the solution was to go to America, to the country with constitutional Freedom of Religion.

For other 19th Century Jews, the solution was to first recognize that Europeans may one day attempt to violently ELIMINATE the Jews altogether, and the best way to prevent the slaughter of millions of Jews involved the establishment of Jewish Homeland. The Jewish Homeland could defend Jews via diplomacy; failing that it could intervene militarily to combat the bigots, and failing all else it could provide a port of refuge for Jews running from European violence.

THE PRIMARY FORCE BEHIND THE CREATION OF ISRAEL IS ELIMINATIONIST ANTISEMITISM.
ANY DISCUSSION OF ZIONISM THAT SUPPRESSES THIS FACT IS A "BIG LIE" OF OMISSION.

Israel was created because it was obvious in the 1890s that many European movements were converging on an ELIMINATION of European Jewry. This realization was not confined to Jews. It underlay the numerous international attempts to set up a Jewish Homeland in Palestine (in 1917, 1920, 1921, 1937) before it was finally established via UN agreement in 1947.

FACT: When the British offered Uganda as the location of the Jewish Homeland to the Jews in 1901, Herzl (and the other Zionists) rejected the proposal. Why? Because, as Herzl explained at the time, if Zionists were not occupied with attempting to establish their own homeland, they would be working to free Africa from the clutches of Imperialist Europe. In fact, Israelis were active throughout the continent in the '50s and '60s supporting all sorts of liberation movements. Why? Because African Liberation was completely congruent with the civil rights foundation of Zionism.

This history has been suppressed by bigots who portray Israelis as inherently racist, an extension of the libel that Judaism is a white racist sect that attempts to subjugate all the other peoples in the world. The suppression of the contributions of Zionism to African Liberation is another 'Big Lie' of omission, as egregious as the nefarious lies about apartheid within modern Israel.

In fact, there are Jews among all the races of the world. There were lots of Black African Jews (Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Ethiopia, etc.), just as there were Chinese Jews in Khai Feng, and Indian Jews (especially in the Malabar Coast). All these racial groups, along with Arab Jews, and 'Aryan' Jews (from Iran & Afghanistan :-) walk the streets of Israel. Racially, the Jews are as diverse as NYC itself. Is this reality ever featured in Indymedia? How many African-Americans realize there are 1/4 million African-Israelis?

Speaking of Truthfullness, many of the comments above are filled with the opposite; their falsehoods go beyond partisan bickering and venture into Big Lie Country.

For instance: compare the BOGUS maps of the Israeli offer at Camp David (above) with the maps presented on the OFFICIAL Palestinian Liberation Organization -- Negotiations Affairs Dept. webpage. This is Yassar Arafat's webpage. Their maps bear NOTHING in common with the forgeries presented above. Check it out: http://www.nad-plo.org/maps/map10.html

Another consideration: In the past few days a mother of seven has been murdered in public for an unproven accusation of 'collaboration' with Israelis. Palestinian authorities tortured she and her oldest son. The boy said he'd have admitted that he 'owned East Jerusalem' to stop the pain, and doesn't remember everything he'd said while beaten with electric cords, etc.

Incidentally, the mother's supposed crime? Fingering a man who machine-gunned a 5 year old girl who was hiding under her bed. That was after he and a buddy killed the girl's parents and siblings. He had a host of similar incidents to his credit. Apparently none of his adventures involved attacking Israeli military targets; only civilians. He was killed by Israelis troops in the Jenin Refugee Camp while firing his AK-47 at troops attempting to apprehend him.

The ONLY articles I've seen in Indymedia relating to this are *praises* for the Palestinian Authorities executions of possible Israeli 'collaborators', and praises for the man who point-blank machine-gunned children and un-armed women. There is no mention of the torture, nor any concern of the lack of due process. What is the motivation for the Pro-Palestinian support for torture and lynching? Blind bigotry, perhaps?

Also in the past few days Syria sentenced doctors, professors, and ex-politicians to years in prison for the crime of discussing politics in salon in private homes. Indymedia is silent.

Compare this to any given day's Haaretz editorial (hint: they *hate* Sharon & Likkud, and say so every issu e:-). Yet if you read indymedia, you get the impression that Israel is the most repressive and unjust government in the MidEast. How can that conclusion be reached, without suppressing every available fact?

In fairness, indymedia does cover some of the MANY (hundreds?) of Israel civil liberties and human-rights organizations. These organizations are MOSTLY concerned with Palestinian rights. Compare these to Palestinian civil liberties and human-rights orgs. They are similar in that both sides concentrate on the wellfare of Palestinians. Has ANYONE ever seen a Palestinian organization deal with the rights of ANY Israelis? How about the kangaroo courts and lynchings of Palestinians by Palestinians? Human Rights Watch (England), which is demonstrably anti-Zionist, nevertheless documented the horrendous abuses of basic rights under the Palestinian Authority: (http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/11/pa1130.htm). Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and any number of other orgs have noted that the indiscriminate killing of non-combatant Jews are both war-crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet indymedia activists seem singularly unconcerned, as long as the dead and wounded are Jews. I've seen people in the Bay Area cheer upon hearing news that children in a Jerusalem ice cream parlor are killed with their grandmothers, yet they do not support IRA bombings in England, nor Chechan bombings in Moscow. What is the explanation?


What lessons do we draw? Well, it is not reasonable to think that antisemitism will disappear if we cater to the racist liars. It will not go away if we refrain from identifying bigots as what they are: bigots. This may not be politically correct (e.g. the indymedia crowd get positively violent when they are confronted with their own bigotry) nor comfortable (no one likes to point out someone else's prejudice nor ignorance). Yet at the same time there is really no other moral nor ethical alternative. The discomfort of pursuing and speaking Truth is a prerequisite for the pursuit of Justice.


My own aspirations? I hope for a Jewish Homeland and a Palestinian-Arab Homeland in a two-state solution. I hope that the Palestinian State will become the first Arab Muslim Democracy. I hope it will become wealthy via its relationship with Israel. I hope the other 22 Arab Muslim nations will learn Democracy and economic vigor from the Palestinians. I hope Democracy spreads from Israel to Palestine to all the nations of the MidEast, and that this process results in prosperous nations which (like most prosperous democracies) will not make war with each other. I hope (and expect) the MidEast to flower into a new Golden Age. I hope for this, I work for this, and I will pray for this.

And let us never forget the primary Jewish Commandments: Choose Life, Avoid False 'gods', and Pursue Justice.

There really is no other viable alternative.

I really wish you all the best, and hope that you will find the courage to confront these problems with the integrity that will lead you to serenity and peace.

Right on. Kind of a cool protest, even though the analogy is waaaaay too subtle to make any kind of connection for most of the mainstream world. And of course it's bound to elicit knee-jerk accusations (completely off the mark) of antisemitism, which will bog down the whole dialog as usual...

To "Stop Anti-Jewish Racism!" Who are you addressing? Much of your essay refers to "you" and "your comments" but it isn't clear which article you're referring to.

I just want to take up two issues, one from "Stop Anti-Jewish Racism," who notes that "Zionism's core value is CIVIL RIGHTS." I would beg to differ. I would say that one of _Judaism's_ core values is civil rights / human rights, and that this important value is one of the great gifts from the Jewish tradition to world history. But I don't think you can claim thta _Zionism's_ core value is civil rights, when people in Israel have different rights depending on their religion. Muslim Israelis cannot own land in most locations and don' t have access to the best jobs. If the US did not allow Jews to own land in most locations or allow Jews access to the best jobs, we would all rightly identify this as a civil rights violation. What about the different colored license plates? Cars belonging to Jewish people have a different color license plate and are allowed on major highways from which non-Jewish cars are barred. I could go on and on, but Israel denies equality under the law to a significant portion of its citizens. I think this undermines your assertion.

Second, the idea that "Arabs have always hated Jews" is simply untrue. If you want to go quoting ancient scripture, there are plenty of examples in the Torah/Old Testament of Jews smiting various people and killing everyone in this or that village or whatever. That's a very long time ago and people did a lot of smiting back then.

Look at the case of Iraq, for example, on which I have done extensive research. Before the advent of the ZIonist project in Palestine, the Jewish community in what is now Iraq considered themselves to be Arabs, and so did their neighbors. They spoke Arabic and made important contributions in Arabic to mainstream Mesopotamian culture, intellectual thought, music, literature etc. They were highly-placed civil servants in the Ottoman empire and prospered through trading with Mesopotamian Jewish communities in other countries like England and India. Jewish and Christian Arabs were politically part of the initial stirrings of pan-Arab nationalism. The 1915 manifesto of the Arab Revolutionary Committee appealed to "Arabs of the Christian and Jewish faith" to join with their Muslim counterparts in advancing pan-Arab unity and "the vital interests of the race." The idea that Jews were a separate race was first propagated by Europeans and Zionists, not by Arabs. Ja’far Abu’l-Timman, a prominent opposition leader fighting the British in Iraq after WW I, wrote to Jews and Christians, " We are brothers and our ancestors lived in friendship and mutual help…We again invite you in the name of the fatherland and patriotism to unite…."

Yes, Jews have faced terrible historic persecution--in Europe. In 1492 Spain expelled or killed all Jews and Muslims. Where did they seek sanctuary? In Muslim-majority countries, especially in the Ottoman Empire where the only "persecution" they faced was an additional tax levied on non-Muslims, and where they often achieved positions of prominence in civil service. 1881 was a year of horrific pogroms in Poland and Russia. And where did many of these Jews seek sanctuary? Many headed to the U.S., but once again many others went to modern-day Turkey, and many more ended up in Baghdad and Basra in modern Iraq. Their writings lauding the safety and prosperity they found in their new homes can be readily found. The 1880s also saw the birth of Zionism, a plan whereby Palestinians who had never done anything to harm Jews would be made to suffer horrendously for the crimes of Europeans.

To return to Baghdad, as soon as Zionism began to gather force it was denounced by the Jewish community in modern Iraq. They called it a "European solution to a European problem" and referred to it as another manifestation of European colonialism. Indeed, early European Zionists were as racist toward Arab Jews as were European Christians toward them and toward all Arabs. They didn't want Arab Jews in Israel except as manual laborers.

Baghdadi Jews denounced Zionism and worked hard to oppose the efforts of the Zionist underground, which they (accurately) predicted would only bring them misery. Prominent Baghdadi Jewish lawyer Yusuf al-Kabir wrote, "Reconstruction of historical geography, if accepted as a practical theory, would…provide a recognized legal basis for German claims on Eastern Europe….Moreover, if one goes reconstituting history two thousand years back, there is no reason why one should not go still farther back, say four or five thousand years, and presently have the world ruled by militant archaeology."

Some have claimed that they were just trying to distance themselves from Zionism because they feared persecution, but if that was the case, why then was the anti-Zionist Communist League--which was much more heavily persecuted much earlier than the Zionist underground--able to recruit young Jews in far greater numbers than was the Zionist underground?

I can send the whole paper on Iraqi Jews complete with all references, to anyone who's interested--post your email address here. I think it's vitally important to combat the myth that Arabs have always hated Jews. Only by overturning this assumption can there be any hope of restoring the harmonious coexistence that has, through the centuries, prevailed more often than not in the history of Jewish communities in the Middle East.

I agree anti-Jewish racism must be stopped. I also agree that anti-Palestinian human rights violations must be stopped. And it seems to me a no-brainer, that an end to the latter would help promote an end to the former.

To "Stop Anti-Jewish Racism," I hope that you will realize that your goodwill and faith are being manipulated cynically by Sharon. You don't see clearly--your vision is clouded with ideology. Check out this link, where the head rabbi of the UK condemns Israel's action as "incompatible with Judaism."
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/2218571.stm>
You say you want peace--the keys to peace are in your hands. End the occupation. Withdraw from the settlements. Restore justice and peace will follow. The Jewish tradition demands it.

What's sad about this is that nobody on either side is willing to believe that both sides are telling the truth. To me it is perfectly plausible that many people had the experiences described in the GUPS letter, while many other people had the experiences described in Ms Jennings posts. It is possible that the majority experienced it as they describe, and came away feeling traumatized and victimized, while only a small minority on either side was calling names or being cruel in any way. In fact rallies that have degenerated have often unfolded that way, in my experience, with a small minority of people making trouble for the majority of the group who come with peaceful intentions. Sad that no one can accept this possibility but instead insists on painting themselves as pure victim and the other as pure evil.

Ms Jennings, I have to say that you have depressed me more than anything else I've read on this topic. Although I am an active supporter of Palestinian human rights and an end to Israeli occupation, I am also an active opponent of anti-Semitism. I was moved and saddened by your account of your experiences. No one should have to have death threats hurled in their face and the things that were said to you were absolutely unconscionable. You had me completely sympathetic to you until, all of a sudden, you started saying crap like "the Koran tells Muslims to lie," and (regarding Leila, whose version of events you have no way of verifying or disproving) "funny how lying comes so easily to her." Not only did this disgust me, it really disturbed me because you had sounded so rational and calm up to thta point. I have to say you made me start to wonder, "how many more of my avowedly "liberal" Jewish acquaintance are secretly racist like this???" I know my close friends well enough to believe that they are not hiding any secretly racist thoughts, but....

I work very hard on this issue and I work very hard as I said to fight anti-Semitism. But I want you to know, Ms Jennings, that the next time I assure someone that "Jewish tradition places the highest priority on human rights--Jews were in the forefront of civil rights and liberation struggles around the world!" that a flicker of doubt will creep into my mind and that doubt will be planted by you. You really had me fooled. More importantly, if you think you are "liberal" as you keep saying, you have yourself fooled: sadly, you're no better than the assholes who hurled epithets at you.

Lastly, I would really like to ask people to quit saying negative things about "the left" and "leftists." There are as many variations among the "left" than there are among Jews, Muslims or any other group, which, as you seem to have forgotten, is why you're not supposed to go around making claims that all members of a certain group have a particular characteristic. There are certainly large swathes of the "left" that continue to uphold humanist principles and work for peace through justice. Sure there might be some kneejerk assholes who call themselves socialists or leftists, but a true leftist is an interntaionalist who seeks justice for all people. Yes, we want to end the human rights abuses against the Palestinians, and to that end we want to end the occupation. But we also understand that Israelis and Palestinians are all human and have human rights, like the right to be safe in their homes and on their streets, and the right to self-determination. Anyone who advocates that Jewish Israelis should pack their bags and leave is also advocating a human rights abuse. Palestinians should never have been expelled, and Jews should not be expelled now. If you who say you're torn between your traditional left affiliation and the issue of Israel/Palestine are sincere, please do seek out and join with true humanist leftists who are working to achieve peace, security and justice for all inhabitants of the region. If however you think that Israel is always 100% right no matter what it does, that it is right to collectively punish the entire people for the crimes of the few, that it is right to reduce an entire population to dire poverty to the point that 1/5 of Palestinian children are chronically malnourished, I have news: you're not actually a leftist yourself.

Finally, someone said that the Palestinians "really want" all of Israel, which is patently untrue. Yes, you can find such statements on the Hizbollah website, but they aren't even Palestinian. Friends (Jewish and non) who have spent considerable time in the West Bank, Gaza and Jordan all say that Palestinians in and out of the territories have accepted that Israel is here to stay and only want an end to the occupation and a peaceful life for themselves and their children. Anything else is racist propaganda.

Lastly, a few words for some true heroes, those who continue to wish for and work for peace rather than being reduced to the kind of epithet-slinging that has dominated this page, despite the fact that they have suffered more than anyone who has written anything on here...

Peace is on Our Minds      
Mahmoud Habboush   
Originally published in Common Ground News Service, June 6, 2002
http://www.searchforcommonground.org/cgnews/menarticleframe.cfm?articleid=300

"We lost our loved ones, but this does not mean that we changed our minds and reject peace, or that we do not believe in it."
- Khader Al Mughrabi, head of a Palestinian political movement

GAZA - Dr. Haidar Abdel Shafi, chief negotiator at the Madrid Peace Conference held between Arabs and Israel ten years ago, received a letter signed by a Jewish girl proposing a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the establishment of a secular state where Arabs and Jews live peacefully. The letter seems to have brought back memories to Dr. Abdel Shafi, who is now about 83 years of age, of some decades ago (in 1920, to be specific) when he moved with his father, who was an inspector of religious estates, from Gaza to live in Hebron. "Jews were a minority in Hebron, but they lived in peace," says Abdel Shafi. "I still remember the rabbi who used to visit my father in his capacity as the inspector of religious estates. He was a good man."
In 1929, after the Zionist movement started in Palestine and the Buraq revolution broke out, there were clashes between Arabs and Jews.
In the meantime, Abdel Shafi had already returned to Gaza. When he learned about the clashes, he could not help thinking about his old neighbors in Hebron.
"I was told that, when some of the revolutionaries set upon killing the rabbi, local citizens wanted to protect him. But he refused, saying ‘How can you protect me from my children?’" said Abdel Shafi. "The fighters slaughtered him, and I was deeply moved. The rabbi had deep confidence that there was coexistence between Arabs and Jews."
Today, the Israeli girl’s vision of peace has become a dream that Abdel Shafi hopes will come true. He believes that peace between Arabs and Jews can be achieved on the basis of a secular, democratic state. "But to achieve this," notes Abdel Shafi, "requires the Jews to discard the Zionist principle of evicting Arabs from the historical land of Palestine, and for Palestinians to accept the right of Jews to live in Palestine on a democratic basis governed by a constitution applicable to everyone."
Abdel Shafi expressed his skepticism that a peaceful settlement of the conflict could be arrived at in the near future, while he was optimistic about the potential of achieving this in the medium or long term.
* * *
On the eastern edge of the Khan Yunis refugee camp, where the family of the shaheed ["martyr"] Wissam Muhareb has its home, a tabloid covered with pictures and slogans in the colors of the Palestinian flag appears on the wall of the Old Court Road praising his glories and heroism.
In the middle of the sitting room of Wissam’s family home, where a large picture of him hangs on the wall with a caption showing the dates of his birth and death (January 22, 1976 and December 22, 2001, respectively), sits his mother, Hanan, who is no more than 55 years of age, but whose facial features are full of lines carved by turbulent times.
"There is still a strong hope for living in peace. We want peace and seek it, but the other side leaves us no choice. All the world witnessed the war crimes that took place in Jenin." When I asked her what she would say to an Israeli woman who lost her son in the conflict, she answered: "I would ask her if her son is precious to her. I am sure she would answer ‘Yes.’ And then I would say, ‘So is mine. My son died in return for yours. But what I request from you, as a nation, is to strive for peace, for we extend our hand in peace.’"
* * *
"Peace is important to us. It is true that we lost our loved ones, but this does not mean that we changed our minds and reject peace, or that we do not believe in it." This statement was made by Khader Al Mughrabi, the Secretary General of the National Movement for Change, a Palestinian political movement established during the Palestinian National Authority era after the Oslo agreement was signed. It is a political movement that believes in dialogue and the possibility of achieving peace through negotiations and political relations between the two nations.
"Our agenda does not include the practice of violence or force for the purpose of achieving the aspirations of the Palestinian people. After signing the Declaration of Principles in Oslo, we needed a political force that would contribute to the push towards the rights of the Palestinian people."
Since its inception in 1995, the movement has had extensive relations with the Israeli peace movement in its various perspectives. Many activities and dialogues took place with them that were based on the principle of dialogue.
"We tried to assert to the people and political forces in Israel that the majority of the Palestinian people believe in striving for peace, because they need it most after fifty years of suffering and the absence of security as a result of the occupation."
The National Movement for Change tried repeatedly to organize bilateral meetings with Israeli peace parties since the outset of the Intifada 20 months ago. All attempts, however, failed due to the stringent security procedures imposed by the Israeli occupation forces on Palestinian travel to Israel or to the rest of the world.
"Our activities have presently been curtailed drastically as a result of the escalation of violence in the area. We are interested, however, in showing that there are groups within Palestinian society that do not practice or believe in violence."
* * *
Suzan Hajjo is a Palestinian mother who is not yet 20 years of age. Less than a year ago, her infant daughter Iman died while she was in Suzan’s lap when Israeli tanks in Khan Yunis bombarded the family home. Suzan sustained moderate injuries, as did her mother, her sister Dunia (seven years old), and her brother Mahmoud, who is less than two years of age. Suzan says that she would live peacefully with Jews, although they killed her daughter. "The Israeli people should demand that their prime minister stop the killing and destruction in order to live in peace. I am confident that every nation wishes to live in peace and security."
Iman’s father, Mohammad Hajjo, believes that the most effective method of resistance to avenge his daughter is peaceful resistance, through working at promoting Palestinian rights around the world "… to tell them that we are a nation whose rights have been usurped, and that in spite of its exposure to aggression, it seeks peace." Mohammad refused to consider suicide missions that target civilians inside Israel within the framework of resisting occupation, labeling them as human rights abuses.
Although one cannot ignore the fact that a large percentage of Israeli society supports the repressive measures practiced by the government headed by Sharon, Al Mughrabi believes that this support for Sharon is temporary and that, if the same question were addressed to Israelis in normal circumstances, a large percentage in this category would express their support for peace.

# # #
Mahmoud Habboush is a freelance journalist based in Gaza.

While I can agree with much of his letter there is one point that he misses. He calls Ms. Jennings to task for saying how easily lying is for Leila. Unfortunately, this is very true. I could understnd his offense if she had generalized but it was not a generalization, and about the person it was refering to it was 100% true.
She has given several extreamely contradictiory accounts of the events of that day- she changed her account when her claims were proven to be false. She also threw in a heavy dose of playing every card she could get- those who were claiming anti-semetism took place were lying to hurt the Palestinian cause, the condemning of GUPS actions were racist and anti-Muslim. She made these claims continuely and tried to label everyone who wouldn't bend to her will a racist. This is disgusting and the unwillingness to admit wrongdoing but just continualy crying that they were the sole victim, the unwillingness to scrutinize their own actions- these things must all come out or else political activism will end up being run by thugs like GUPS.
That said, I'm sorry if your feelings were hurt by something Ms. Jennings said but by the same token remember their are a lot of Jews who read the media from Islamic countries, have seen web sites like cafearabica.com, arabia.com, and hear Arabs and Muslims in the US blaming Jews for everything from 9-11 to fabricating the holocaust... all these things would make Jews wonder if they aren't stupid to trust Arabs/Muslims... similar to how you feel, right?

Queers:

Stop and think about this. You'd be dead meat in most
Arab countries in that region. Israel at least respects your civil rights in that area.

Queers:

Think about this: Millions of Palestinians ARE Dead in Israel.

"Think about this: Millions of Palestinians ARE Dead in Israel."

Too bad the numbers arent higher.

Nuke the whole lot of em. The world would be a better place without both groups (and a few other to boot)

Yes 1936 IS interesting as that is when the Zionists started bombing buses, markets, oil-pipelines, and many other targets.

Marc Levenson, I will accept your ignorance at face value.
There was a thread not too long ago on this site that linked to another Israeli indymedia page which exposed the following:
Two teenagers in jerusalem were beaten and arrested by cops for kissing eachother in the park after midnight.
They were detained for hours and made to come out to their parents in the police station.
Now, like you I... was under the impression that Israel was indeed a tolerant place, appearantly not if you partake of homosexual behaviour.

Obviously this guy is not familiar with the halacha!

However, we must forgive zionism as it was victimized by nazism...Its violent treatment of liberals, Palestinians and homosexuals should not be comdemned as those who have not walked in their should should shut their holes!

THE TEENAGERS WERE HELD IN CUSTODY WITHOUT BEING SUPPLIED OF A REASON FOR THEIR DETAINMENT.
AS OF NOW, THEY ARE STILL NOT TOLD WHY THEY WERE CUFFED VIOLENTLY BY ZIONIST OFFICERS.

Too bad that the most misused label only shows the ignorance of the individual using it.
Too bad that that those who most use this term are themselves guilty of the behavior they accuse others.

The term?

"anti-Semite" Why? The term "Semite" historically applies to the native peoples of the Levant. This is the geographical region known today as Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and the Sinai.

The peoples populating this region were and are:

Arabic Gnostic Christian Moslem Jewish The Ashkenazim are descended from the Kahzarians and are not Semites! However the majority of the Zionists are themselves Ashkenazi and not Sephardic (Arabic or Spanish Jews).

And while Israeli law is Halacha (religious law) based. Stealing from or the killing of non-Jews is permissible as long as the non-Jew is weaker.
Also a method used to kill, but not actually be responsible, is to cause some other object i.e. the collapse of a dynamited house to crush the occupants…
Sound familiar?

By the way the notion that in Israel cars belonging to Jews have license plates of different colour is a shameless lie.
Cars belonging to ALL Israelis (including Israeli Arabs, Israeli Beduins, Israeli You-name-its) have yellow license plates while cars registered in PA (that is by those with PA citizenship) have green license plates.
My G-d said: "you shall not testify falsely against your neighbor". Life is short and G-d is no fool. Perhaps it is a good time to comply?

GiantGerbil, that does not excuse the national I.D cards where ones nationality is not defined as Israeli but as jews (Yids) or gentile (none Jews).

The Israeli ID does not posess the nationality since 2000.

Funny, a friends sister just made an ID where her religion was the definition of her nationality.
Now, at first this is not a cause for an alarm.
but, the fact is that the Zionist nation owns all Palestinian land... if one is interested in leasing some land, their being non jewish will be practically an insurmountable obstacle to achieve.

it is no surprise to me that a supporter of Israeli policies would cry "stop anti-jewish racism" get attention to his wordy and unsupported argument. "Oh my, this is such libel and slander". Quit crying racism and realize the facts: the israelis are killing innocents and stealind land

JUST REMEMBER IN THE ARAB LANDS YOU WOULD HAVE YOUR THROATS CUT FOR BEING GAY.
GET OFF STARBUCKS CASE AND GET REAL.
THE ARABS HAVE COME STRAIGHT FROM HELL AND I BELIEVE IN THEIR RIGHT TO RETURN.

If you are unable to form cogent thoughts upon which to base a follow up, why do you even bother?




"Here's another portion of words for you.
Drink them in, my friend."
-hooper

>> JUST REMEMBER IN THE ARAB LANDS YOU WOULD HAVE YOUR THROATS CUT FOR BEING GAY. <<

Absolutely true. Look at what happened in Egypt recently. It was only under pressure from the "evil" U.S. that they took a second look.

Palestinian gays are living in exile in Tel Aviv because they're afraid to be among their own people (I found it ironic that so many at gay pride protested against Israel and for the Palestinians--are they in favor of their gay brothers and sisters being murdered?)

Keep it up!!!!!

Imagine: Iraq
Tigris and Euphrates
a play in one act
By Tariq Ali

Early evening. A doctor's private surgery in Baghdad. A day-bed in the corner sealed off by a white curtain. An exhausted woman in a white-coat is slumped at her desk, her head resting on the large table. She is fast asleep. The buzzer on her desk rings. She sits up, puts on her spectacles, smooths her hair.

DR. SORRAYA: Who is it Humaira?

VOICE ON INTERCOM: Its Mrs Khalidi, doctor.

SORRAYA: Send her in and..Humaira. I know your children are alone at home don't bother to wait tonight. I promise you I'll lock the surgery and put out the lights..I promise.

VOICE: Thank you doctor.

Mrs Mona Khalidi walks in. She is in her late thirties, dressed in a smart black skirt and blouse. The two women embrace lightly.

MONA: You look tired.

SORRAYA: Tired of waiting for you.

MONA: You didn't come to the funeral.

SORRAYA: He was your husband.

MONA: You were his doctor.

SORRAYA: If I attended the burial of every cancer patient I've treated I would have little time for anything else. Doctor, my father is ill. His joints ache. He has a high temperature. He tires quickly. He vomits every day. Will you come to our house and see him, doctor? I think its just a bad flu, but your presence would reassure him. Please doctor? It rarely is a bad flu, Mona. Do you understand what I'm saying?

MONA: I see. (Moves away and looks out of the window)

SORRAYA: Don't sulk. Please. (Pause. Then she follows her and strokes her neck) I haven't seen you for a whole month. (kisses her nape) I want to hold you again. Run my hands down your naked back. (touching one breast and then the other) Play with Tigris. Play with Euphrates. Kiss your nipples. Lick your estuary.
MONA: (moving away) You're shameless. Shameless. I only buried him yesterday. How can you at this time. Please don't. Why didn't you come, Sorraya? Why?

SORRAYA: I never liked seeing you with him.

MONA: I wanted you there for me. Not him.

SORRAYA: I never liked seeing you with him.

MONA: But he was dead.

SORRAYA: You were burying him as his wife.

MONA: I felt so deceitful. Terribly deceitful as he lay there dying and asked me if I had ever betrayed him with another man.

SORRAYA: (smiling) Well you didn't, did you?

MONA: You hated him because he was in the Army. It wasn't his fault. Everyone had to join. You know that. He wanted to be an architect.

SORRAYA: Every mother-fucker in Baghdad wants to be an architect.

MONA: How can you talk like this? So heartless.

SORRAYA: (getting angry) Yes, yes. I'm heartless. If I shed a tear for every child who died from malnutrition in my care, every woman suffering from tuberculosis, every cancer-ridden man, do you know how many tears I would have lost over the last five years. Guess? Come on. Guess.

MONA: I can't. I won't.

SORRAYA: Nine thousand, three hundred and fifty-nine. Imagine 9,359 tears. Men, women and children who died after passing through this surgery. I had no medicines for most of them. At first I used to sit her every evening and weep and weep and weep, but that made me weak. I couldn't deal with the patients who were still in the queue. There were times I thought of killing myself. That surprised you. There was a time in this city when, however bad the situation, suicide was unthinkable. Last week an old schoolfriend of mine, I think you know her, Nafisa Aziz, the novelist. Yes, her. She took her own life, but she also took her sixteen year old daughter with her. I understand her. I can feel her desperation. Sometimes its easier to die than to live.. I used to feel that more often than you can imagine. Then you walked into my life. Remember that day, Mrs Mona Khalidi.

MONA: (weakly) Yes

SORRAYA: Just the sight of you excites me. (feeling her pulse) Feel it. Come on. Feel it. (MONA takes her pulse and smiles). I told you. At night sometimes, half-awake I call for you. Mona. Mo-oo-nn-aa. But you never reply. So I get up and drink a glass of water, pleasure myself and then sleep returns.

MONA: I haven't had much time to think about us.

SORRAYA: I'm sorry your husband died, Mona. Nothing could have saved him. Not even the most advanced chemotherapy in Washington. His body was so rich in uranium, they could have mined him. I shouldn't say that. Someone might be listening. They have no imagination. They would inform the monster and he might think it a good idea. Order to scientists: Dig up the bodies of all our people who died of Gulf War cancer and extract the uranium. (Pause) Life in these conditions is a torture. Then someone arrives from Jordan with a crate-full of antibiotics and other medicines and I can breathe again again. What do we physicians tell our patients? We tell them that there is no cure today but maybe there will be sometime in the future. We encourage them to be strong, even as they face unbearable pain. We help them to prepare for death by encouraging them to be at peace with themselves, their families, and their friends. Sometimes we even give them good news that perhaps one day, their children will be able to benefit from a cure made possible through improved medical research and development. We tell them in no uncertain terms that they must not surrender to the disease. They should fight it with all their strength, and with all the air that is left in their lungs, and with all the blood that is running in their veins. And they should fight with dignity. They cannot die as the newborn son of Mrs. Aziz did yesterday. (Pauses) I'm tired. You're angry. Do you want to go back home. Perhaps you need a rest from me. A few weeks on your own and I might appear in a different light, you know the light just before sunrise. Go if you want. I'll be fine.

Mona softens. She hugs Sorraya. The two women embrace and disappear behind the screen. Music. They undress. Darkness. Silence. On a screen we project UN figures of the number of people who have died as a result of sanctions, including Albright statement in response to a question: Do you think the price of 300,000 dead children was worth it? 'It was a price worth paying'. Figures of the amount of bombs dropped on Iraq by the US and Britain. Simultaneously Sorraya and Mona in a carefully-lit shadow dance: the love-play of puppets. Music. They dress.

MONA'S VOICE: There's something I haven't told you.

SORRAYA's VOICE: (ultra-soft) What? You told him about us?

MONA: No, no. Never mind. (she walks back into view followed by Sorraya).

SORRAYA: Tell me. I don't mind what it is.

MONA: I'm pregnant.

SORRAYA: You're what? Its impossible. How? I thought you weren't. But when? Where did you go for a check-up? Why? Are you crazy?

MONA: He insisted. I agreed...His last wish. What could I say. Anyway it happened.

SORRAYA: (cold) It happened. It happened. OK. He pumped his sperm with a high uranium count straight into you. And all for a moment's pleasure. Or was it longer. Or was it preceded by love-play. Did he stroke Tigris and Euphrates just like I do.

MONA: He's dead and you're still jealous

SORRAYA: I see. I see. He died. You jumped on the corpse. It impregnated you. Praise Allah for this miracle.

MONA: Stop this. Please. Its insane. (stroking Sorraya's face) I want the baby, Sorraya. It can be our baby. We'll live together. (stroking her stomach) Lucky baby. It will have two mothers and Tigris and Euphrates will feed it and make it strong.

SORRAYA: (distant) There's something I haven't told you.

MONA: What?

SORRAYA: I was married once.

MONA: When? Who? Why did you lie when I asked you?

SORRAYA: I don't know why I lied. Perhaps I wanted to make you feel inferior. I was pure. Untainted. Untouched by man. It was stupid. I'm sorry.

MONA: When? Who was he?

SORRAYA: Faris. He was a Communist from Basra. Studied medicine. Edinburgh University. In Scotland. His father advised him not to return. He did. For a few years we were happy. Really happy.

MONA: In what way.

SORRAYA: In every way. Work. Life. Love.

MONA: Sex.

SORRAYA: Yes, that too.

MONA: What happened. How did this Thousand and One Nights romance come to an end.

SORRAYA: (A sad smile) Badly like in many of those stories. A group of people used to meet at our house during the war with Iran. Faris always was a shy and meek sort of guy, but that war made him crazy. He was very upset and began to abuse the Supreme Leader in the most obscene language. You would have liked my Faris. He always smiled with his eyes, just like you. You were very young then, but Baghdad was full of Westerners in those days. Arms-merchants from England. Advisers of all sorts from Washington. French socialists trying to sell us submarines. Oh, yes, the great leader was drenched in the sunshine of their applause (Saddam portrait lights up). We hated that war, Mona. Faris would come back from the hospital after treating the wounded and weep. 'Its not our war. Its not our war, ' he would shout. 'We must do something.' So we began to talk to others who thought like us. We would meet in our house every Friday and talk. Just talk. Sometimes knowing there are others who think like you helps. We should have known. One of them was an agent. It was he who suggested that Faris write a leaflet against the war which could be printed and distributed. I said it was a bad idea (pause).

MONA: What happened.

SORRAYA: They took him away one night. He disappeared. They tortured and tortured and tortured him till he died. It was many years ago. (Distant)

MONA: I know you're still hiding something. What?

SORRAYA: Nothing.

MONA: No more lies.

SORRAYA: The same week they killed Faris, they came here. There were three of them. They held a gun to my head. One of them was very young. Seventeen or eighteen at most. He was nervous, kept looking away from me and that's when I realised what they were going to do. They raped me. The young one pleaded with them to be left alone, but they pulled down his trousers and threw him on me. He was all soft down there, but he pretended and I kept screaming..

The two women embrace.

MONA: (weeping) You should have told me. You should have told me.

SORRAYA: I don't like to think about it.

MONA: After the Kuwait business and the war didn't you secretly wish that the Americans had come here and got rid of him?

SORRAYA: (angry) Like they got rid of the Emperor of Japan after bombing Hiroshima? No. I never felt that. Its our job to change our rulers. We're weak now, but one day we will be strong again. Enough of all this talk. Now to the important thing. Your baby.

MONA: Our baby. If it's a boy we'll call him Faris.

SORRAYA: Mona dearest, you can't have this baby. I'm speaking as a doctor, not a lover. Your husband was very badly infected. The chances are the baby will be deformed. I don't want you or your child to suffer. The pain would kill us both.

MONA: No. I won't get rid of it.

SORRAYA: You must.

MONA: I'll never have another chance.

SORRAYA: Foolish talk.

MONA: You mean.?

SORRAYA: I mean we will find healthier sperm.

MONA: (cheering up) From where?

SORRAYA: Leave it to me.

MONA: I won't. From where?

SORRAYA: I have a Kurdish friend in Istanbul. A doctor. He will find us healthy Kurdish sperm.

MONA: (giggling) You mean, I'll have to.

SORRAYA: No. No. No. I will inject it in you.

MONA: Its my right to choose, isn't that what you taught me?

SORRAYA: Not if its going to be our baby.

MONA: What if I prefer the traditional method of getting pregnant.

SORRAYA: We shall overrule you.

MONA: We?

SORRAYA: Me, Tigris and Euphrates

END.

[This was 12-minute play was presented at the amazingly successful cultural evening: IMAGINE: IRAQ at Coopers Union, in New York on 19 November, which was attended by 900 people.]

Tariq Ali, a frequent CounterPunch contributor, is the author of The Stone Woman, just published in paperback by Verso.

In jerusalem, if you are an Israeli and a homo you will be held in a police station without bail and assulted violently when are caught kissing your boyfriend.

Gather, my coffee drinking brethren, to fight back against the monkey and pigs that occupy our starbucks. While the other 200 starbucks in the area will not let us get our java there, they will send us money to fund the liberation of ours. I call on all good Javastinians to give themselves to the cause of latte and blow themselves up in the midst of these decaffiendels. While we may have to sit outside our starbucks for the next 50 years, in an increadibly groggy and iritating state, we will succeed in driving the queerklies into the sea! (Note: The sea is a city fountain next to the starbucks.)

P.S. 9/11 is America's fault for it's dependence on foreign coffee.

THESS, THINK BEFORE YOU ACT AS THE GAY MILITARY BRIGADE WILL NO DOUBT EXPLODE YOUR FAMILYS' HOUSE AND THE REST OF YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD AS THEY INSTALL COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT AND RANDOM CURFEWS... THEY WILL NOT HESITATE TO KILL ANY STRAIGHT WHO DARES CHALLENGE THEIR AUTHORITY!

I have noticed that only those who have agreed with your actions have been posted, so perhaps mine will not be posted. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to warn you that God has always judged those who curse Israel and that is exactly what you are doing. Hitler did this many years ago, he sent his SS men into shops and did what you are doing. I am wondering are the homosexuals going to be the forerunners for antisemitism in this country? Are you not behaving as violently as the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who demanded the guests of Lot to come out so that they could rape them (not knowing they were angels) I know some homosexual people who say they love God and want peace and that all homosexuals are peaceful loving people. In reading this article it is quite evident that this is not the truth.

I have noticed that only those who have agreed with your actions have been posted, so perhaps mine will not be posted. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to warn you that God has always judged those who curse Israel and that is exactly what you are doing. Hitler did this many years ago, he sent his SS men into shops and did what you are doing. I am wondering are the homosexuals going to be the forerunners for antisemitism in this country? Are you not behaving as violently as the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who demanded the guests of Lot to come out so that they could rape them (not knowing they were angels) I know some homosexual people who say they love God and want peace and that all homosexuals are peaceful loving people. In reading this article it is quite evident that this is not the truth.

I have noticed that only those who have agreed with your actions have been posted, so perhaps mine will not be posted. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to warn you that God has always judged those who curse Israel and that is exactly what you are doing. Hitler did this many years ago, he sent his SS men into shops and did what you are doing. I am wondering are the homosexuals going to be the forerunners for antisemitism in this country? Are you not behaving as violently as the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who demanded the guests of Lot to come out so that they could rape them (not knowing they were angels) I know some homosexual people who say they love God and want peace and that all homosexuals are peaceful loving people. In reading this article it is quite evident that this is not the truth.

I have noticed that only those who have agreed with your actions have been posted, so perhaps mine will not be posted. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to warn you that God has always judged those who curse Israel and that is exactly what you are doing. Hitler did this many years ago, he sent his SS men into shops and did what you are doing. I am wondering are the homosexuals going to be the forerunners for antisemitism in this country? Are you not behaving as violently as the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who demanded the guests of Lot to come out so that they could rape them (not knowing they were angels) I know some homosexual people who say they love God and want peace and that all homosexuals are peaceful loving people. In reading this article it is quite evident that this is not the truth.

I have noticed that only those who have agreed with your actions have been posted, so perhaps mine will not be posted. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to warn you that God has always judged those who curse Israel and that is exactly what you are doing. Hitler did this many years ago, he sent his SS men into shops and did what you are doing. I am wondering are the homosexuals going to be the forerunners for antisemitism in this country? Are you not behaving as violently as the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who demanded the guests of Lot to come out so that they could rape them (not knowing they were angels) I know some homosexual people who say they love God and want peace and that all homosexuals are peaceful loving people. In reading this article it is quite evident that this is not the truth.

HAHA, OMG... whoever was in charge of this was to high on cum to realize how stupid it is.
If i were in that vincinity id go around tearing up all the crap ya'll posted around.
Anyone supporting palestine can kiss my ass.
There are so many facts (i dont plan to name any, but just scroll down, many people already listed quite a few) which warrent a widespread support of Israel.
Islam is at its core a hateful religion.
Some one mentioned how 2 gay teens were arrested in israel, imagine if it was palestine? Chances are they'd be killed.


If your smart, you'll quit this ignorant farce and stop giving gays a WORSE* name.

Good job....I am not queer but this was awesome.....Some needs to stick to the Israelis....! hahhahahahhahaha

Good job....I am not queer but this was awesome.....Some one needs to stick to the Israelis....! hahhahahahhahaha

Listen up all you jew-hater faggits. You remind me of Hitler who was also a not-so-secret cumgulper.

Learn to live with the fact that we are smarter, better looking and a lot richer than the rest of you.

Get right with your God if you have one, or you will all burn in hell.

Izzy

Good point and very interesting. I have a question. Where do you suggest I move? I no longer enjoy it and am quite ready to go elsewhere. Give me a suggestion.

How come supporters of Israel call anyone who is against the occupation of Palestine, anti-semitic? Don't you know that Arabs are semites as well? Stop this Anti-Semtiic nonsense and stick to thre real issue. I wish you were Anti-Violence and Anti-Occupation as much as you are blindly in support of Israel and against Anti-Semitism.

Attacking Israel's policy of settlement and massacre is not anti-semitic. as was mentioned above, everyone involved in this first hand IS semitic!
Divestment continues. We march at WSU in Detroit tomorrow.
It worked in South Africa, it can work in Israel.

???!?!??!??!?
Actually, queer settlers DID come and settle in California, they pushed the native Mexicans out and colonized there. They are called Americans, their government is NAWEOG (North American White European Occupation Government).

All Americans are colonialists (except native Americans), the queers at that pointless rally are too.

This thread gets more bizarre by the minute .. . everyone cussing and spitting and including these email addresses . .. why? Is it still all about a BUMPERSTICKER? Are people really scrolling through hundreds of comments about this scrap of paper being affixed to people's SUVs?

Someone needs to monitor those injections the residents are giving out at Langley P. And for chrissakes, take that computer out of the rec room!

What isreal is doin is just as bad as what Hittler did to the jews. I am a muslim I have Jewish friends I am not anti semetic. I just want every real jewish person to reflect on the holocostand see how they feel, Beacause Isreal learnt how to perfect the hitlers teachings and are doing on the defensless palestinians what hittler did to the jews in germany. DO ON TO OTHERS AS _______ do you know the rest?
What Gose around comes around. FOR EVERY ACTION THERE IS AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE REACTION. Keep that in mind

What isreal is doin is just as bad as what Hittler did to the jews. I am a muslim I have Jewish friends I am not anti semetic. I just want every real jewish person to reflect on the holocostand see how they feel, Beacause Isreal learnt how to perfect the hitlers teachings and are doing on the defensless palestinians what hittler did to the jews in germany. DO ON TO OTHERS AS _______ do you know the rest?
What Gose around comes around. FOR EVERY ACTION THERE IS AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE REACTION. Keep that in mind

What isreal is doin is just as bad as what Hittler did to the jews. I am a muslim I have Jewish friends I am not anti semetic. I just want every real jewish person to reflect on the holocostand see how they feel, Beacause Isreal learnt how to perfect the hitlers teachings and are doing on the defensless palestinians what hittler did to the jews in germany. DO ON TO OTHERS AS _______ do you know the rest?
What Gose around comes around. FOR EVERY ACTION THERE IS AN EQUAL AND OPPOSITE REACTION. Keep that in mind

What isreal is doin is just as bad as what Hittler did to the jews. I am a muslim I have Jewish friends I am not anti semetic. I just want every real jewish person to reflect on the holocostand see how they feel, Beacause Isreal learnt how to perfect the hitlers teachings and are doing on the defensless palestinians what hittler did to the jews in germany. DO ON TO OTHERS AS _______ do you know the rest?

What isreal is doin is just as bad as what Hittler did to the jews. I am a muslim I have Jewish friends I am not anti semetic. I just want every real jewish person to reflect on the holocostand see how they feel, Beacause Isreal learnt how to perfect the hitlers teachings and are doing on the defensless palestinians what hittler did to the jews in germany. DO ON TO OTHERS AS _______ do you know the rest?

What isreal is doin is just as bad as what Hittler did to the jews. I am a muslim I have Jewish friends I am not anti semetic. I just want every real jewish person to reflect on the holocostand see how they feel, Beacause Isreal learnt how to perfect the hitlers teachings and are doing on the defensless palestinians what hittler did to the jews in germany. DO ON TO OTHERS AS _______ do you know the rest?

Cannot wait until Shariah Law is the norm for this country..
You will be the first to feel the effects of your efforts

Well...good on ya... i just hope that you Starbucks protesters can weather the silent periods of the storm..

I'll check in with you every 5 years or so and see how you are doing..

I hope that at least 1 or 2 of you are still around then..the Palestinians were.....if you hope to emulate their struggle...then you should emulate their resolve....I doubt that any of you have that kind of commitment...i'll even wager 1000.00 that not a one of you will be around 5 years from now...


I will be checking in and taking names from time to time....remember...you wrote this check..now you have to cash it...


Randy

If I'd oppose Zionism I'd follow my government, as I dont I oppose my government. I see that the view on the situation from America is different. But I wonder how Queers can limit our criticism of the Middle East situation to Israel, ignoring the gendercide executed py political Islam. Even if your "settlement" action indirectly is referring to interesting parallels in anti-Semitism and homophobia, it's political message to me seems to be some kind of "imitate the straights" behaviour, copying their dodgy consensus of condemning Zionism without understanding European and Arab history and ignoring the real question: How can societies suitable for Queers evolve in Palestine and the region? Make a difference wheter someone really cares about the situation or just wants to applaud the intifada for whatever reasons. Being pro-Palestinian is ridiciulous if Queers do it in a straight way. My real political enemies are the European governments of ex-Leftists who are increasingly supporting the Islamic Queerkiller states because e.g. Iran is one of Germany's most rapidly growing export trade markets or most wealthy Arabs have moved their US deposits to European banks after 911. Isn't your real political enemy the U.S. Christian Conservatives who are huddling with the lethal Islamic Conservatives in the United Nations meetings on AIDS, healthcare and children against Queer liberation issues? And these who promote that states like Saudi Arabia that have nothing but death penalty for people like us still could be Americas polical allies? And those who recognize Arafat though nobody can live openly gay under his government?

http://www.eastbayvoice.org/NNews/NGLBTGayinPalestine.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A61275-2002Jun16

to all you (trans, homo, bi, queer) PHOBIA PHUKERZ----------------------->
San Fransisco, Bay area, and everyother grassroots protest/activist haven (ON THE WEST COAST)has ALWAYS been QUEER FRIENDLY!!!! (that is, a safe force of truth to be reconed with!)
AIN'T NO POWER LIKE THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE 'CAUSE THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE DON'T STOP! SAY WHAT??!
much luv from wto99 ground zero, 3 years later!

WEST BANK -- Ahmed and Yusaf are all too familiar with the hatred and disgust that their relationship evokes in their Palestinian community. Lovers for the past six years, the two men have endured discrimination and hostility in many ugly forms, from verbal assaults to physical ones.

But none of that is what motivates them today. On this cool March morning, the men have but a single purpose: to prove to their countrymen that gay Muslims can still be effective soldiers in jihad. "I'm sick of it," Yusaf explains while slipping into a linen dress and stuffing two grenades into his bra. "People think that because we are gay that we cannot be dedicated Muslims, that we are not willing to die for our beliefs."

Pulling a shirt over the duct-taped contraption on his chest and back, Ahmed concurs. He also recalls what it's like to have his faith doubted solely because his lifestyle. "People can be so intolerant and hateful," he says. "But we will send a message today by killing a bunch of stinking Jews."

The gay couple is no stranger to the war against the Israel. In 1999 they formed Gay Islamics Serving Muhammad (GISM), an organization dedicated to spreading awareness and understanding of the gay Muslim lifestyle while "defending the one true faith from the uncompromising Zionist pigs."

The men describe their founding of the organization as an accreditation of their faith and lifestyle. "It was important for us to prove to our families that we weren't just a bunch of pluckahs (rump-rangers) using our prayer mats to smahkta'rmp (have anal intercourse) and akbak dukbar (suck cock)," says Ahmed. "We needed to show our peers that when the Israelis give it to us in the mouth we are ready to spit it right back out at them, no matter what our sexual preferences."

Life has been particularly difficult on Yusaf, as playing the female role in the relationship has led to significantly more harassment. "They say that I do not have the porbah-porbahs (testicles) to fight for Muhammad," he says. "They do not understand that I simply tape them back to provide a smooth and attractive inseam." As for the alleged miniscule size of his penis, Yusaf yanks the AK-47 from his large purse and brandishes it high in the air. "Is this gun big enough for you, closed-minded Jewish swine?"

The recent escalation of tensions in the Middle East has made Ahmed and Yusaf even more determined to prove their worth as Muslims. When the suicide bombings started several years ago, it was mostly single, young men that chose to martyr themselves for the cause. However, recent weeks have seen several female suicide bombers, and this revelation has caused GISM to reassess its own status in the war against Israel. "It's about equality," Ahmed says. "Annihilating Jews isn't just for heterosexuals, it's for everyone."

Finally, their moment has come. Checking their weapons and explosives one last time, the men embrace and bid farewell to their klemar (haven of depraved sexual perversion).

On the street, the men are all smiles as they hold hands and walk amidst the Jewish settlement looking for a bus stop. Spotting one, they hurry towards it while spouting cheerful greetings. "Good morning, my Jewish brothers," hails Ahmed. "Shalom!" shouts Yusaf.

The settlers relax a little, and one even offers the barest trace of smile. "Look at the friendly Jewish occupiers, ah, settlers," says Yusaf. "I'd say there are what, between twenty-five to thirty of them?" Ahmed nods in agreement, his smile widening.

One girl is visibly shaken by their presence. Yusaf puts a reassuring arm around her and coos, "Come now young lady. We are but peaceful, gay Muslims. Don't go to pieces."

"Yes," beams Ahmed as the bus approaches. "Please give us chance. I think we will blow your minds."

Who Are the Terrorists?



People of Israel, you claim that your religion holds life in the highest esteem, yet everyday your soldiers kill the children of Palestine.

Daily, their young bodies, draped in the Red, White, Black and Green flags of their beloved homeland, are paraded down the main streets of Palestine, carried aloft in a Hero's Farewell, to their final resting place.

Each day another Palestinian mother weeps as her child is buried in sacred soil, shot down in the most horrific manner.

You call the Palestinian's terrorists, while you kill a woman who is nine months pregnant, with an American made Hellfire rocket, fired from an American made Appache helicopter, as she is taking her children home from school.

Each evening, your gigantic, armored Civil Administration, Caterpiller D-9 bulldozers arrive around 2:30 a.m. in the middle of the night and proceed to demolish Palestinian homes, destroying their olive and lemon trees, and other precious Middle Eastern commodities, such as water supplies.

No warning is given to these people that their homes are about to be destroyed. Many people have been buried alive by these American made Caterpillar bulldozers! Fathers have to quickly gather their families and run for their very lives in Terror!

You use informers to find out the location where two important Palestinian leaders are about to be meeting, then you send your helicopters to such location, and then, in what seems like something out of a Hollywood movie, it hovers directly outside the window where these leaders have gathered with their families. It fires its American made Hellfire rocket directly into the meeting room, vaporizing everyone, including the women and children! Is this not Terror?

Since its founding, Israel has started every war in which she has fought against her Arab neighbors, each victory greatly enlarging the size of your nation.

Your government has shown complete disregard as to the opinion's of the rest of the nations of the world, regarding her actions.

Who are the terrorists?



James F. Harrington 2002

" two important Palestinian leaders"
talk about getting PC......... they arent even militants anymore soon they will be "visionary icons"

Why are our political leaders silent in the face of policies and attitudes that many Israelis, and certainly a majority of Americans, reject?

Main reason is that a majority of Americans are pro-Israel, or at best ambivalent about the whole thing. It's easy to think that those who share your opinion must be everywhere, since you probably only hang out with people of similar politics to yourself. But the fact is that it's currently only the "far" sides - far left AND far right - that take the virulently anti-Israel view. Politics make strange bedfellows, as we all know. Who'd have thought we'd ever see Berkeley queers and Pat Buchanan fighting on the same side of anything?

<i>Do you mean peacefully creating a Jewish only state? Cooperating with other Jews who are ethnically cleansing the indigenous population?</i><br><br>
Israel is not a Jewish-only state. It's a home to many faiths - Jew, Christian, and Muslim. All have some degree of representation in the government. Yes, Jews have a greater degree than others, but that's the nature of a "Jewish homeland".<br><br>
On the other hand, I don't see anyone here complaining about states with far worse restrictions: Saudi Arabia, where <i>expressing support</i> for Israel is punishable by <i>death</i>. Where all religions but Islam are illegal. And even within that, only certain forms of Islam. Most countries in the Middle East have such rules. Jews are not allowed to own property in many Arab states. In the old Iraq (and possibly the new Iraq, we'll see) that was the case. No one complained about it though. Jews don't make good martyrs anymore, I guess. I suppose we used up our martyr mystique wiuth Jesus.

Seems like too many of us are have resigned themselves to putting up with being ill treated and subjected to a different standard. We don't always really seem to cry out in protest in at least an appearance of unison when it becomes evident that a different standard is being applied to Jews.

Blah blah blah, "Arabs are semites too!" - yeah, whatever. Get used to it, the term "antisemite" is used for "anti-jew", whether it etymologically makes sense or not, that's the meaning of the word. It doesn't matter that a given Jews might or might not be a semite, nor does it matter that an Arab might or might not. The meaning of the word "antisemite" - in any dictionary - is anti-jew.

i.e.:

an·ti-Sem·ite (nt-smt, nt-) n. One who discriminates against or who is hostile toward or prejudiced against Jews.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language

or...

antisemitic

anti-semitic adj 1: relating to or characterized by anti-Semitism; hating Jews

Source: WordNet 2.0, Princeton University

That's what the word freakin' means, whether you like it or not, buckos. Next thing you'll be explaining how "Racist" doesn't mean hating black people, since, like, white people are a "race", too.

And if we're gonna stick to proper ewtymological rules, we probably oughta ditch "homophobia". People hate us, not fear us. I know, it's all "empowering" and crap to make it all like, "really, they're afraid of us - that's why they hate us" - oh, pooh.
But then, we use the word anyway, even though "fear of homos" is not actually what it means, right? Same with "anti-semitism".