Stand with Israel: Letter to Challenge Weekly
You will find Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East at kbrm.org.nz. Basically, they frame the debate with their comic-strip version of history, which assumes an acceptance of Zionist hasbara (propaganda), and then argue for “balance” within that distorted structure.
Crescent International, June 2010
This month’s edition of Crescent International contains articles headlined: Palistan’s slide into total chaos; Two sets of talks, but few expectations for long-suffering Palestinians; Two more years of emergency in Egypt; Bashir arrests opposition leaders in Sudan; Will Britain’s Kafkaesque laws be changed?; Bosnia’s Grand Mufti had acted as “Serb informant”, say victims; NGOs: the West’s soft instrument for hegemonic policies; OSCE: the West’s tool to legitimize the illegitimate; and World Bank and IMF: financial cops of Western hegemony.
The latest issue of Australia/Israel Review went to press before the international uproar over Israel’s May 31 attack on the peace flotilla. There is, however, a brief item headlined Gallivanting to Gaza, which describes those aboard the boats as “a mixture of well-meaning humanitarians and hardcore anti-Israel activists” and says they have set off with aid for “supposedly suffering Gazans”. (To prove they aren’t really suffering, AIR notes: (1) a Maan news agency report of May 18 that Gaza now has an Olympic-sized swimming pool; (2) a report in the Financial Times of May 24 that Gaza’s shops are “bursting with goods”; and (3) a whole lot of Israeli supply-truck statistics.)
Israel/Palestine a de facto unitary state
The above letters, the first one by myself, were published in the Manawatu Standard on June 25, 2010. In the second letter, a typical example of hasbara, there is an embroidered version of the testimony of the commando identified in reports as “Captain R” — the commander of the first team of marines to rappel down to the deck of the Mavi Marmara on May 31.
This is what Captain R said, as reported by the New York Post on June 2 (http://tinyurl.com/35kum26):
“I was in front of a number of people with knives and clubs. I cocked my weapon when I saw one of them coming towards me with a knife drawn and I fired once. Then another 20 people came at me and threw me down to the deck below.
“Then I felt a stabbing in the stomach. It was a knife. I got the knife out, then somehow got down to the lower deck. There was another mob of people.
“Another soldier and I managed to get out of there and jump into the water.”
Where, in the above, does Captain R claim that he was disembowelled?
Two final points: Captain R was the second man to rappel down to the deck — not the first, as Eileen Zinsli claims; and the boarded ship was the Mavi Marmara, not the Mari Marmara.
Gog and Magog raise ugly heads again
Silly me! There I was, thinking that George W. Bush had finally nailed Gog and Magog during his invasion of Iraq to overthrow the Wicked Tyrant. I should have know that they were more resilient than that, and that they certainly wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to insinuate themselves into the manifest of the Mavi Marmara as it sailed on its Satanic voyage to Gaza…
But seriously, it’s amusing to see Bill Millward referring to Walid Shoebat, a lecture-circuit apostate, as an “ex-Palestinian terrorist”. “Self-styled ex-Palestinian terrorist” would probably be more accurate, as The Jerusalem Post found no evidence to support his claims. In fact, Shoebat’s relatives, who live in Beit Sahur, near Bethlehem, were reportedly somewhat mystified by them. See the article by Jorg Luyken.
The letter is from the June 21, 2010, edition of Challenge Weekly, New Zealand’s Christian newspaper.
One democratic state in Israel/Palestine
The time has come to get together behind the only just and feasible solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. It has come to be known as “the one state solution.” As one observer wrote,
“Through various ways and means, an ever-increasing number of people active in the Palestine/Israel conflict are reaching the conclusion that ethnic separatism — the two state solution — is no longer a viable possibility. If one rules out the ethnic separatist agenda, one is limited to two opposing visions: a racist one-state model based on ethnic cleansing; or a non-racist one-state model based on mutually acceptable coexistence within the same state.”
To support this endeavor, go to One Democratic State.
Areas seized by Israel in war of 1948
There was considerable interest in Glubb Pasha’s map of Palestine, showing Arab troop movements during the war of 1948, which I posted a couple of days ago. I have therefore posted his next map in Peace in the Holy Land, which shows the areas seized by Israel during the war. Note that the Gaza Strip was formerly almost twice as long as it is now, and remember that the Palestinians of Gaza don’t have access to a buffer zone on their side of the border with Israel — an area that includes some of their best agricultural land.
Easing of Gaza blockade largely meaningless
Anyone who was in any way involved in the campaign against the apartheid system in South Africa must be experiencing a sense of deja vu. Once again, as well as combating an apartheid system — this time in Israel/Palestine — we are having to contend with all those earnest souls in the West who would have us believe the system is set in stone.
As I reflect on the mid-1970s, I remember how these people would call for a “realistic” approach to the problem of apartheid. As there was no possibility of the white minority in South Africa sharing power with the black majority, the most we could hope for was an easing of the apartheid system. Hence all that talk about the importance of “building bridges” to the white regime — by playing rugby with all-white teams, and by exchanging cultural and commercial visits with white performers and businessmen.
While we maintained these sporting and other contacts with the white supremacists, the reasoning went, we would slowly be able to show them that there was a more satisfactory way of running a society in which there were two peoples. And of course, no country was better placed than New Zealand, where Maori and Pakeha got along swimmingly, to deliver this message. (Yes, the exercise was suffused by a good measure of Kiwi self-congratulation.)
It was all nonsense. The South African apartheid system was not set in stone, although it was certainly strong enough to withstand anything short of total ostracism. If we had followed the path of “building bridges”, it would still be with us today. The answer to a thoroughly rotten system is not to finesse the system — to lessen the stringency of its discriminatory regulations — but to scrap it.
The easing of the blockade of Gaza, announced today, is being reflexively described as “a step in the right direction”. But although it will make life a little less hellish for the people of Gaza for a while, it’s unlikely to lead anywhere. The ultimate objective of political Zionism, which is to ethnically cleanse the land between the Jordan River and the sea, remains unchanged.
The voice of ignorance from Down Under
This was the featured letter in The Dominion Post of June 10, 2010. Ironically, the only person who has been indoctrinated is the writer of the letter — who has swallowed the Zionist assertion that the United States and Israel are not hated because of anything they have done to the Palestinians and others, but because Muslim school curricula and/or imams’ sermons “teach hatred”. Hence the fear, which we are presumably expected to take seriously, that immigrants from the Middle East might resort to suicide bombing. One might laugh at the absurdity of this, if it were not, in itself, an incitement to suspicion, intolerance, hostility and hatred. This, dear letter-writer, is how racism arises.
Israeli ambassador slapped down
Two letters that appeared in The Dominion Post on June 16, in response to the article by the Israeli ambassador to Wellington:
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