Zionism’s Lost Shine

[82_28]

Israeli Embassy tweets xenophobic art meme
The images featured a Jihadist Mona Lisa and Michelangelo's David alongside the words ‘Israel Now, Paris Next’

Arts+Culture News
19 days ago
Text Thomas Gorton

The images tweeted by the @IsraelinIreland have been described as Islamophobic
Scaremongering and religious division on the internet is nothing new in 2014, but one might reasonably expect better behaviour from a nation's embassy.

However, the Israeli Embassy in Dublin has landed in serious trouble for tweeting images of iconic European artworks recontextualised as Islamist militants. All the images were captioned with the words "Israel Is the Last Frontier of the Free World".

In one image, the Mona Lisa wears a hijab and holds an enormous rocket with the slogan "Israel Now, Paris Next". A niqab has been photoshopped onto the Molly Malone statue in Dublin with the tagline "Israel Now, Dublin Next". In another image, Michelangelo's statue of David appears in a keffiyeh and a belt of explosives.


Unsurprisingly, the images caused an online uproar and sparked accusations of racism and Islamophobia. The tweets were deleted over the weekend, and the Israeli ambassador's office told Newsweek that "there was no intention to cause insult or offense to anyone".

But these images retain all the qualities of the right-wing propaganda machine – xenophobic, factually insolvent and, worst of all, vague enough to stir up anti-Islamic sentiment without actually having to explain the tricky details of how a Muslim takeover of Europe would actually work.

This isn't the first time the Israeli Embassy's Twitter account has stirred up controversy. Just two weeks ago, it tweeted an image of Hitler on the Palestinian flag with the words "Hamas take the lead from Hitler".

Good christ. Seriously? It's the second time I am going to use this phrase this morning. But who the fuck died and left them in charge? What PR company is behind this shit?

What I don't get is the fact that American racist outfits have always been "behind" the subjugation of Muslims. YET. In the wake of "9/11" the racist fucks were all over defending the Islamic lands. Now they fucking defend the fascist and cruel thrust of Israel who they have timelessly "hated".

Make up your motherfucking minds motherfuckers. Soccer ball -- kids -- existential lesson in which we hope you have a heart.

I think we're dealing with a lot of money and weapons on a global scale.

[American Dream]

This isn't the first time the Israeli Embassy's Twitter account has stirred up controversy. Just two weeks ago, it tweeted an image of Hitler on the Palestinian flag with the words "Hamas take the lead from Hitler".

Oh, what bullshit- as if Lenni Brenner never documented extensive collaboration between Nazi leaders and Zionist leaders...

[82_28]

Another thing. It dawned on me that hitler was completely fake some years ago. Not saying the holocaust didn't happen. Just that he was a mouthpiece and front for something other. An actor for an overarching tyranny.

I read The Rise and Fall and was stunned by how stupid/capricious hitler was. I think a lot of people read that shit in order to reenforce the narrative they have been told.

I watched a bunch of footage of him after reading the book and couldn't help but think of him as a "drama queen". He served a purpose for the media of the day -- news reels and shit like that -- some kind of "intimdating" gestures and odd moustache. Forceful salute or whatever the fuck you call it. I just don't think hitler was smart enough to mastermind all this shit we "know" and to this day people still worship him. In this day and age we would laugh at that idiot.

Bear with me, I am absolutely not in defense of hitler here. Just I don't think he was the guy who singlehandedly caused the history that we know about. He was the fall guy as in actor for something far more insidious.

[coffin_dodger]

My plea to the people of Israel: Liberate yourselves by liberating Palestine Haaretz 14 Aug 2104

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, in an exclusive article for Haaretz, calls for a global boycott of Israel and urges Israelis and Palestinians to look beyond their leaders for a sustainable solution to the crisis in the Holy Land.

cont: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.610687

[Sounder]

Zionists are British and/or Imperialist dupes, same as Wahabists and Scofield bible shaped Christians.

I find it hard to believe that this shit has retained its shine for as long as it has, but then again maybe dupes have some deep seated need to be manipulated.




Monday, August 18, 2014
The New Ulster: The Nature and Purpose of The State of Israel
Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

Since the inception of the Israeli state and its official formalization in 1948, Israel has baffled the world with its seeming irrational aggression, hypocrisy, brutality, and willingness to entirely ignore international law. Indeed, Israel is well-known for thumbing its nose at even the basic etiquette for international relations.

Israel’s sordid history – that of its connections to mega-rich banking families like the Rothschilds, racism, double-edged alliances, and genocide – has caused it to, therefore, be the target of many researchers and activists that see it as the sole source of evil upon the earth. Zionist Christians (mostly those in the West), have generally pledged religious allegiance to Israel under the pretext of supporting “God’s Chosen People” and Biblical prophecy. Still others pretend that Israel is the absolute pinnacle of the power structure and condemn Jews as responsible for all the horrors of the world.

Of course, none of these representations are accurate.

Yet, with virtually the entire Middle East erupting in flames, it is important to understand the purpose of the Israeli state as well as the reasons for its seeming irrationality and unmitigated aggression against its immediate and regional neighbors.

In his article entitled, “Beware: Israel the Eager Provocateur,” Tony Cartalucci, points out that Israel “is a stunted, militaristic faux-state that depends entirely on the West for its continued existence.” Cartalucci also accurately describes Israel as a “Forward Operating Base” for a greater power above it.


Cartalucci writes,
As such, Israel's constant and otherwise irrational belligerence makes perfect sense. An FOB's priorities are not prosperity and peace as would a nation's, but rather to engage forward into enemy territory. The trick over the years has been to portray Israel as a nation, while propping up its constant belligerence and aggression as "self-defense." To keep this illusion in motion, Israel and its regional and Western collaborators have even created full-time enemies, including Hamas itself - a creation of Israeli intelligence and to this day primarily propped up by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, both of which are defacto regional partners with the West and of course Israel itself.
While a Forward Operating Base (FOB) is one way to describe Israel, it is also much more than simply a territorial staging ground for Western imperialist motives. It is, in fact, a carefully constructed destabilization organ that was planned an implemented long ago for the purpose of dividing and conquering the entire Middle East as well as for the purpose of fostering and initiating a global military confrontation between major world powers and the world’s three major religions – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

As Conn Hallinan wrote for Foreign Policy In Focus, “When British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour issued his famous 1917 Declaration guaranteeing a “homeland” for the Jewish people in Palestine, he was less concerned with righting a two thousand year old wrong than creating divisions that would serve growing British interests in the Middle East.”

Indeed, the righting of an alleged two-thousand-year-old wrong was not even a consideration among the British aristocrats, bankers, and the equivalent parties of other governments and institutions. This mythical righting of a wrong was merely a cover story provided to the public for propaganda purposes. This propaganda was aimed particularly at those of religious backgrounds.

It is important to note, of course, that the narrative being provided by the architects of Israel were entirely new to these religions and that it was not a philosophy that was adhered to or acknowledged in any of these faiths, at least not in the way it was presented.

For instance, Sir Ronald Storrs, the first governor of Jerusalem for the British empire wrote in his memoirs in 1937 that Israel and the mythical “Jewish Homeland” would be nothing more than a pit of destabilization. Storrs stated that “Even though the land could not yet absorb sixteen millions, nor even eight, enough could return, if not to form The Jewish State (which a few extremists publicly demanded), at least to prove that the enterprise was one that blessed him that gave as well as him that took by forming for England “a little Jewish Ulster” in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.”[1]

Ulster, of course, was the original Israel.

Ulster was a place in Northern Ireland where, in 1609, the English King Charles I concocted a plan (presumably not on his own) to further weaken the Irish by the tried and true “divide and conquer” mechanism. He marched forward with this plan by removing the O’Donnell and O’Neill clans from the area and moving in around 20,000 Scottish and English Protestants and forming the plantation of Ulster in overwhelmingly Catholic Ireland.

Because of the structure of Ulster, religious tension became inflamed. Division between religious denominations and sects became the order of the day, while the true enemy – Britain – took a back seat in the minds of those squabbling over religious differences and those who received preferential beggar status compared to those who did not.

Ulster was essentially divided into two societies - the Protestants who were “first class” and the native Catholics who were considered and treated as “second class.” The class difference was, of course, sanctioned and enforced by the Crown. Although, after a bit of time, native Irish Catholics were allowed to enter Ulster for purposes of working the land, their presence was entirely labor-based.

Protestants were also granted the “Ulster Privilege,” which afforded them special access to land and lower rent. Ulster Privilege, incidentally, was a concept that was quite similar to the Israeli/Palestinian arrangement today.

In Ireland, resentment between the religious groups could not help but arise as the result of the mandated social structure in Ulster and that, of course, is precisely what happened.

Finally, the religious divisions that resulted from the establishment of Ulster were codified into law with the enactment of the Penal Laws of 1692. These laws denied Catholics any civil rights, removed their ability to sign contracts, become lawyers, or hire more than two apprentices. It is also important to note that the laws were extended to Protestants who intermarried with Catholics.

“In essence,” Hallinan writes, “they insured that Catholics would remain poor, powerless, and locked out of the modern world.” These laws had reverberations that are still being felt in Ireland today.

Even Edmund Burke once commented that the laws were “A machine of wide and elaborate contrivance and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.”

Nevertheless, once the British implemented the plan of religious tension and division, it was only a matter of time before the nation of Ireland was subdued and the conquest of the country was solidified. It was a tactic that the British would use successfully throughout its empire across the world.

Of course, these laws, as well as a number of other mandates and societal practices are themselves very similar to the current mechanics of Israel. As Conn Hallinan writes,
It would appear the Israelis have paid close attention to English colonial policy because their policies in the Occupied Territories bear a distressing resemblance to Ireland under the Penal Laws.

The Israeli Knesset recently prevented Palestinians married to Arab Israelis from acquiring citizenship, a page lifted almost directly from the 1692 laws. Israeli human rights activist Yael Stein called the action “racist,” and Knesset member Zeeva Galon said it denied “the fundamental right of Arab Israelis to start families.” Even the U.S. is uncomfortable with the legislation. “The new law,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Phillip Reeker, “singles out one group for different treatment than others.”
Which, of course, was the whole point.
[...]
As the penal laws impoverished the Irish, so do Israeli policies impoverish the Palestinians and keep them an underdeveloped pool of cheap labor. According to the United Nations, unemployment in the West Bank and Gaza is over 50 percent, and Palestinians are among the poorest people on the planet.

Any efforts by the Palestinians to build their own independent economic base are smothered by a network of walls, settler-exclusive roads and checkpoints. It is little different than British imperial policy in India, which systematically dismantled the Indian textile industry so that English cloth could clothe the sub-continent without competition.

Divide and conquer was 19th and early 20th century colonialism’s single most successful tactic of domination. It was also a disaster, one which still echoes in civil wars and regional tensions across the globe. This latter lesson does not appear to be one the Israelis have paid much attention to. As a system of rule, division and privilege may work in the short run, but over time it engenders nothing but hatred.

Hallinan is correct to draw such parallels between Ulster and Israel. However, it is incorrect to assert that the Israelis have not paid attention to the fact that “divide and rule” is a strategy that ends in civil and sometimes regional wars. This, unfortunately, is the goal of Israel’s existence.

In the end, and with all of this in mind, the purpose and nature of the settler state of Israel is more easily understood. Simply put, Zionism is not the center of the conspiratorial spider web, it is just another strand of it.

The sole purpose of Israel is not to create a “Jewish” state, but to create a “Jewish” Ulster for the purposes of dividing Christians, Muslims, and Jews against one another and creating a center of constant tension in the Middle East.

By enacting its own reign of terror against Palestinians, controlling and directing fanatical Muslim extremist groups throughout the Middle East, conning Western Christians into supporting military action in the Middle East under the guise of “protecting Israel against its hostile enemies,” and, all the while, doing so under the cover of a “Jewish” state, Israel stands as the greatest destabilizing force in the entire Middle East.

[8bitagent]

What I don't get is the fact that American racist outfits have always been "behind" the subjugation of Muslims. YET. In the wake of "9/11" the racist fucks were all over defending the Islamic lands. Now they fucking defend the fascist and cruel thrust of Israel who they have timelessly "hated".

Make up your motherfucking minds motherfuckers. Soccer ball -- kids -- existential lesson in which we hope you have a heart.

I think we're dealing with a lot of money and weapons on a global scale.

There was some Kevin Costner documentary dvd documentary I saw a few years ago that tried to present this idea that neo Nazis and British/Euro Islamists were in cahoots. Forget the name of it. And yeah, there are a lot of white nationalist/racialist types who say 9/11 was all Israel, speak in defense of Arabs, use the Gaza conflict, etc. The news made mention of a Ukraine commander who is a Jew hating, pro Arab Belgium neo Nazi who says he wants to fight for Syria. Of course after 9/11 there was a LOT of neo Nazis who used 9/11 to commit violent hate crimes against Arabs and Muslims and said all Arabs and Muslims should be kicked out of the US. The holocaust denier types often see, to side with Arabs and hate Israel.

However as I noted in another thread, there is this newer growing trend, especially in the wake of Anders Breivik, of both neo Nazi and "evolved" Nazi political parties(those who try and mask their hate roots) in Europe who have made it a charter to attack all things Arab or Muslim from Europe and now vigorously cheer on and champion Israel.

Breivik said it was a mistake for Hitler to side with Arabs and North Africans, and try and kill the Jews and said it shoulda been the other way around. In my own research I found one of al Qaeda's main banks that got busted
in 2002 was started by a surviving German Nazi and a prominent Muslim Brotherhood member.

However it is VERY VERY TELLING noone talks about this...is the fact you NEVER see al Qaeda, ISIS, or other hardcore jihadist Sunni groups ever try and target Israel or Israeli interests. Its almost always action or rhetoric
against US, European or Shia interests...why is that?

[8bitagent]

Bear with me, I am absolutely not in defense of hitler here. Just I don't think he was the guy who singlehandedly caused the history that we know about. He was the fall guy as in actor for something far more insidious.

Nothing controversial about that. I've long seen Hitler as the puppet and mouthpiece of something far more darker and hidden. It's not like the elite commander and ranks of the Nazis deep interested in the occult, UFOs, aliens
and esotericism is hidden.(thanks to blowhard trashtainment like Nat Geo, Discovery, Hist channel, etc)

[solace]

"However it is VERY VERY TELLING noone talks about this...is the fact you NEVER see al Qaeda, ISIS, or other hardcore jihadist Sunni groups ever try and target Israel or Israeli interests. Its almost always action or rhetoric
against US, European or Shia interests...why is that?"

"In response to questions that appeared on several Internet sites as to why the Islamic State wasn’t fighting Israel instead of killing Muslims in Iraq and Syria, the organization responded on its Twitter account: “We haven’t given orders to kill the Israelis and the Jews. The war against the nearer enemy, those who rebel against the faith, is more important. Allah commands us in the Koran to fight the hypocrites, because they are much more dangerous than those who are fundamentally heretics.” As proof, the organization cited the first caliph, Abu Bakr, who began by fighting those who rebelled against the faith, as well as Saladin, who fought the Shi’ites in Egypt before conquering Jerusalem. ..."

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/.premium-1.605097

al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for attacks on Israel.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/al-qaeda-li ... el-attack/

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/origina ... reat.html#

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/ ... grou_2.php

There are lots of other links if you look.

[Searcher08]

"However it is VERY VERY TELLING noone talks about this...is the fact you NEVER see al Qaeda, ISIS, or other hardcore jihadist Sunni groups ever try and target Israel or Israeli interests. Its almost always action or rhetoric
against US, European or Shia interests...why is that?"

"In response to questions that appeared on several Internet sites as to why the Islamic State wasn’t fighting Israel instead of killing Muslims in Iraq and Syria, the organization responded on its Twitter account: “We haven’t given orders to kill the Israelis and the Jews. The war against the nearer enemy, those who rebel against the faith, is more important. Allah commands us in the Koran to fight the hypocrites, because they are much more dangerous than those who are fundamentally heretics.” As proof, the organization cited the first caliph, Abu Bakr, who began by fighting those who rebelled against the faith, as well as Saladin, who fought the Shi’ites in Egypt before conquering Jerusalem. ..."

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/.premium-1.605097

al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for attacks on Israel.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/al-qaeda-li ... el-attack/

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/origina ... reat.html#

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/ ... grou_2.php

There are lots of other links if you look.

Those links are:
Behind a Haaretz paywall
CBS News? with the line "Israel blames Hamas for all violence from Gaza."
An article by Bruce Riedal from the Brookings Institution???
An article from a Neocon-led foundation???

Sources, sources. They say so much.

[8bitagent]

"However it is VERY VERY TELLING noone talks about this...is the fact you NEVER see al Qaeda, ISIS, or other hardcore jihadist Sunni groups ever try and target Israel or Israeli interests. Its almost always action or rhetoric
against US, European or Shia interests...why is that?"

"In response to questions that appeared on several Internet sites as to why the Islamic State wasn’t fighting Israel instead of killing Muslims in Iraq and Syria, the organization responded on its Twitter account: “We haven’t given orders to kill the Israelis and the Jews. The war against the nearer enemy, those who rebel against the faith, is more important. Allah commands us in the Koran to fight the hypocrites, because they are much more dangerous than those who are fundamentally heretics.” As proof, the organization cited the first caliph, Abu Bakr, who began by fighting those who rebelled against the faith, as well as Saladin, who fought the Shi’ites in Egypt before conquering Jerusalem. ..."

http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/.premium-1.605097

al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for attacks on Israel.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/al-qaeda-li ... el-attack/

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/origina ... reat.html#

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/ ... grou_2.php

There are lots of other links if you look.

And there's just as many or more articles detailing al Qaeda linked groups hatred and war against Hamas
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/a ... s-al-qaida
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340 ... 17,00.html

al Qaeda and hardcore jihadists still feel Shiites are more of an enemy and pressing issue than Israel
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/opinion/26haykel.html?_r=0

Of course you're going to have a few minor attacks on Jewish interests in North Africa or elsewhere by splinter groups. But I'm looking at the big picture.
And the big picture is when it comes to SUNNI hardcore Islamic jihadism, Israel doesnt seem at all concerned...let alone bothered by it. As long as Sunni militants
continue focusing on fighting Shiites.

[seemslikeadream]

VIRAL VIDEO: Journalist Introduces the 'Rubble Bucket Challenge' to Bring Attention to Gaza
"We do not have water. We have dust."

August 25, 2014 |
Ayman al Aloul, a journalist based in Gaza, really wanted to take part in the international Internet phenom, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. But since he is in Gaza, which has been subjected to Israeli airstrikes almost continually for at least a month, there is no water around, and definitely no way to freeze it.

So he came up with a bucket challenge to bring attention to another plight: Gaza's

In a video that is rapidly going viral, al Aloul has someone dump a bucket of dusty rubble on his head. Dusty rubble is in great supply in Gaza. “If five famous people in the world like actors or presidents will do the challenge, that means I succeeded in sending the message about Gaza,” al Aloul says right before his dousing.

Watch:

[seemslikeadream]

Victim of McCarthy-Era Witch Hunt calls on U-Illinois not to Fire Critic of Israeli Policies
By Juan Cole | Aug. 25, 2014 |

Note by Juan Cole: In the early 1950s, under the influence of Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), a national witch hunt was conducted for leftists. McCarthy claimed to have a list of 100 Soviet moles in the State Department. Even former members of the Communist Party, which had been popular in the 1930s Great Depression before Stalin’s crimes were recognized, and which was part of the formal US alliance against the Axis in World War II, were suddenly put under scrutiny. Running against secret Communists or alleged covert socialists became common in politics (a slimy sociopath named Richard Nixon got his start in Congress that way). Screen writers in Hollywood were fired, names taken off the films, and made non-persons. No actual crime had to be alleged or proven– people were punished and ostracized, essentially for thought crimes. These techniques of intellectual bullying and intimidation, supposedly on national security grounds, were intended by many of their proponents to roll back the New Deal reforms that made a decent life possible for working people and to make criticism of the absolute property prerogatives of corporations and the very wealthy illegal. Many of our social pathologies in the 21st century are rooted in the success of this inquisitorial drive. At the University of Michigan, there is still an annual lecture, the Academic Freedom Fund, in honor of three University of Michigan professors who were fired or suspended for refusing to testify to a visiting delegation from the House Un-American Activities Committee. One of those summarily fired was a mathematician, Chandler Davis, who emigrated to Canada. Professor Davis, still feisty in his late 80′s, has just written a personal letter to University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise urging her to rescind the firing of Professor Steven Salaita, a specialist in Native American Studies, for his trenchant criticisms of Israeli government policy toward the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. When I first wrote him suggesting I reprint the letter, in his gentlemanly way he said it was a letter to Chancellor Wise and he preferred not. Then it got out on the internet anyway, and he relented.
Chandler Davis writes:
Dr. Phyllis Wise
Chancellor
University of Illinois
Dear Chancellor Wise:
I write from a rich experience of attacks on academic freedom; I have seen the damage that enforcing conformity can do to intellectual life. Among the victims was myself. My expulsion from American academe in 1954 has been thoroughly refuted by history, so that I speak not with the bitterness of any unresolved grievance, but with the immediacy that personal memory gives.
When anti-segregationists were expelled, when socialists were expelled, the damage was dire for the victims, but dire also for the whole community. Today, we have our work cut out for us to defeat real anti-Semitism and real bigotry of all sorts. I am heartsick to see your office betray the struggle by joining the attack on Professor Steven Salaita.
Of course some sufficiently strong partisans of the Israeli government are sorry to hear his criticism, and might deplore his presence on your faculty. You are not obliged to bow to them. They are asking you to violate the security of an academic position– in this case, a position firmly promised though not yet taken up. Even if you could justify breaking your University’s commitment to Prof. Salaita –which you can not– you should reject with indignation the calls to wrench him from the community. He is an active opponent of anti-Semitism and other bigotry, as you must know from his writings. We need him by our side.

Chandler Davis

[seemslikeadream]

'Biggest in 30 years': Israel expropriates 400 hectares of W. Bank land

Minister says Israel land grab erodes international support
Wednesday 3 Sep 2014 5:00 a.m.

Finance Minister Yair Lapid has warned that Israel is eroding its international support after Washington joined a chorus of criticism of its biggest grab of Palestinian land since the 1980s.

Lapid complained that the cabinet had not been consulted about Sunday's announcement of the confiscation of 400 hectares (988 acres) of land in the occupied West Bank to pave the way for further settlement building.

"The announcement, which wasn't brought to the cabinet, regarding 900 acres of land for building in Gush Etzion 9between Jerusalem and Hebron] harms the State of Israel," Lapid told an economic conference in Tel Aviv.

"Maintaining the support of the world was already challenging, so why was it so urgent to create another crisis with the United States and the world?" he asked.

Lapid, a moderate within the governing coalition, was alluding to widespread international condemnation of the high Palestinian civilian death toll during Israel's 50-day war in Gaza.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, another cabinet moderate who served as chief negotiator in abortive US-brokered talks with the Palestinians, had already criticised the land grab.

"It weakens Israel and threatens its security," she said on Monday (local time).

But Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, whose far-right Jewish Home party draws much of its support from the settler lobby, defended the move, saying it was retaliation for the murder of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank.


"It's 120 years that the world has opposed our construction, and we'll continue to do it," he said, equating settlement building in the West Bank with construction in what is now Israel in the years before its creation in 1948.

The international community regards all Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, including annexed east Jerusalem, as illegal, and Sunday's announcement by the army drew strong US and UN criticism.

"This announcement, like every other settlement announcement Israel makes, planning step they approve, and construction tender they issue, is counterproductive to Israel's stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians," a US State Department official said.

"We urge the government of Israel to reverse this decision."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was "alarmed" by Israel's plans, his spokesman said.

"The seizure of such a large swathe of land risks paving the way for further settlement activity, which - as the United Nations has reiterated on many occasions - is illegal under international law and runs totally counter to the pursuit of a two-state solution," the spokesman said.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International similarly denounced the Israeli plans, saying that it "appears to be the largest land grab in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1980."

"Israel's strategy of illegally confiscating land for settlements in the West Bank must stop once and for all," said Amnesty's Philip Luther.

The Palestinians have called for diplomatic action against Israel, while Israeli peace campaigners say the land expropriation is the biggest of its kind in three decades.

[seemslikeadream]

Tortured and Raped by Israel, Persecuted by the United States
Tuesday, 02 September 2014 10:11
By Dahr Jamail, Truthout | Report

Twenty-two-year-old Rasmea Odeh, along with 500 other Palestinians, was arrested in 1969 by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during a massive security sweep following the 1967 war and occupation of the West Bank.
At the time, as now, Palestinians who were detained by the IDF were later charged with crimes they did not commit in order to justify their detention.
Charged with bombing a supermarket, while in prison, Odeh was tortured with electrical shock and raped with batons. Her father was tortured in front of her.
IDF personnel even attempted to make her father rape her.
She was beaten regularly with metal rods, kicked, threatened, humiliated, denied medical care and access to a bathroom, and almost needless to say, was denied access to legal resources.
She was made to watch a Palestinian man literally tortured to death.
She eventually signed a confession to stop IDF personnel from continuing to torture her father.
In March 1979, Odeh was finally released with 60 other prisoners as part of a prisoner exchange for an Israeli soldier. Shortly thereafter she traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, where she gave testimony regarding the torture she suffered at the hands of the IDF.
At the end of the narrative of her torture and imprisonment by the Israelis, she said, "It may have been 10 years, but it felt like 100 years."
Odeh lived in Lebanon after that, then Jordan, until in 1994 she was able to move to the United States to live, since her father was a US citizen.
Ten years later, she became active in the Arab-American community in Chicago, and became the deputy executive director of the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), a community-based nonprofit that provides social services and advocacy, campaigns against anti-Arab discrimination, and organizes for the Arab-American community in the greater Chicago area.
Then, in 2013, 19 years after arriving in the United States and nine years after receiving US citizenship, Odeh was indicted by the US government and charged with immigration fraud, stemming from other charges pulled from her 35-year-old IDF file.
Illegally Charged by Illegal Occupiers
Odeh's lawyer for the case against her in the United States is Michael Deutsch with the People's Law Office in Chicago.
Deutsch told Truthout he believes Rasmieh's indictment is an attempt to "criminalize her," and has advised her not to speak with the media out of concern something she said might be used against her, given the politically sensitive nature of her case.
"In 2010 the AAAN was investigated by the FBI, and the FBI wanted more information on Rasmea's background and sent a request to the Israeli government to pull her file," Deutsch explained.
Later that same year, the FBI raided the homes of various activists, including Hatem Abudayyeh, the executive director of AAAN.
"Everyone refused to testify at the grand jury, no indictments were made, and possessions seized during the home raids were returned to people," Deutsch said. "But it was during this that they learned of her history in the occupied territories."
The US government claims that Odeh lied when she said she had never been arrested, convicted or imprisoned.
Deutsch is well-versed in cases like Odeh's, given that he was one of the lawyers for the Attica prisoners following the 1971 prison uprising and state massacre. He was also the legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City, and has been with the People's Law Office since 1970.
"Our view is that she was asked these questions almost 10 years after coming to this country, and on one level they pertain to the US, and so she said no because the question is ambiguous," Deutsch said. "She thought they were asking her [if she'd been arrested during] her time in the US."
Truthout was provided with a court affidavit for Odeh's US case, within which Mary Fabri, a licensed clinical psychologist who also worked as the senior director of Torture Treatment Services and International Training for the Kovler Center in Chicago, provided the details of Odeh's treatment at the hands of the IDF.
Fabri has diagnosed Odeh with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and has provided expert opinion that Odeh has suppressed the memories of what happened to her at the hands of the IDF.
"We believe her PTSD affected her state of mind when she answered those questions," Deutsch added. "Like someone who is a battered woman saying she was never married because she suppresses that information so as not to think about it."
Deutsch also sees a legal problem with the US government's attempt to frame Odeh's conviction and persecution by an occupying force as evidence of illegal activity.
"That doesn't hold up to due process or the fundamentals of international law," he said. "These military courts the Israelis set up are illegal under international law, hence, no evidence from them should be used in this case."
Deutsch and others on Odeh's defense team say her indictment is being pushed by the US government as an effort to criminalize those working to educate people about what is really happening in the occupied territories.
"I've seen in other cases I've worked on, a close collaboration between the US and Israeli Justice Departments, and I think the Israelis are more than happy to cooperate with that and condemn her and have her thrown out of the country," Deutsch said.
If Odeh is convicted she automatically loses her citizenship and would be subject to deportation.
Given that the IDF just killed more than 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the vast majority of whom were civilians, the possible ramifications of deportation are, indeed, dire.
Pro-Israel Judge Steps Down
The judge for Odeh's case, US District Judge Paul Borman, recently recused himself from her trial after Deutsch and other attorneys accused him of having lifelong ties to the Israeli government.
Borman had angrily refused to recuse himself, but then it was also discovered that his family had financial ties to the supermarket Odeh was accused of bombing.
Borman had also been honored with a civic award in part for his support of Israel, and his family had raised more than $3 million for a pro-Israel charity.
"She's maintained she was not involved," Deutsch said of the bombing. "Even though they all said they'd been tortured and recused their confessions. So she's saying whatever she said [at the time of her detention] was a result of torture and she was not involved [in the bombing]."
Abudayyeh, AAAN's executive director, told Truthout he felt vindicated by Borman's decision to recuse himself.
"It was all about his relationship to Israel," he said of Borman's strong political and financial ties to Israel. "So for him to have ruled that he was offended for being attacked was absolutely disingenuous."
Abudayyeh told Truthout that AAAN is "a very political organization" which believes in "challenging systems of oppression, and working to cause very real change."
Also a member of Odeh's defense committee, Abudayyeh has worked with her more than 10 years, knows her well, and praises her character.
"This is a person who has dedicated her life to social justice," he said of Odeh's character. "For close to 50 years she's been a social justice advocate, working with Palestinian refugees from 1948 to the present. She's a simple woman who's never sought out personal publicity, has no ego, is 67 and still does organizing the old fashioned way."
Attacking Palestinians
Abudayyeh sees the indictment against Odeh as part of a broader attack against the Palestinian community in general.
"There is Islamaphobia, and it's moved from being a personal tool of oppression to structural and institutional," he explained. "Even non-prominent Muslims are being caught up in law enforcement entrapment on both coasts now. The majority of the prominent Muslims caught up in that net have in common that they are Palestinian organizers, and are challenging US foreign policy as it relates to Palestine specifically."
Deutsch concurred, drawing a stark analogy.
"From 1969 to the present, the IDF tortures people and we have plenty of evidence of this systematic torture," he said. "If you have Nazi courts, would they put in a conviction from a Nazi court in a US court?"
He remains concerned that despite a new judge being selected for the case, this still may not be a fair trial.
Nevertheless, Deutsch sees the best outcome of the trial as this: "They find the judgment of an occupation military court is not legitimate and therefore they can't put in evidence that she was convicted and imprisoned by this so-called judicial process and thus couldn't be convicted and lose her citizenship," he said.
According to Deutsch, if Odeh were convicted, "It'd be a strong punishment for something that was unjust in the first place."
Abudayyeh told Truthout that a new judge has been randomly appointed to replace Borman: Judge Gershwin Drain.
Born in Detroit, Drain worked as an attorney in the federal defender's office for the Eastern District of Michigan, served as a judge of the 36th District Court for Detroit, served as a judge on the Recorder's Court for Detroit, and served on the Third Circuit Court of Michigan, working in both the civil and criminal divisions of the court.
The next trial date is September 2, where it is expected that introductions will be presented and a second trial date will be set.
Abudayyeh believes Odeh's trial is critically important, and says the case must be won "both in the courtroom and in the streets." He, the AAAN and other groups are mobilizing from Chicago to Michigan to fill the courtroom in support of Odeh.
"We know historically in this country that every social justice movement that has been effective has come under attack by law enforcement, and we believe very strongly that this is what is happening to Palestinians here now," Abudayyeh said. "We are winning some battles now, and Palestinians around the world are winning this battle against Israel for the hearts and minds of the world, with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. So, this is how the US and Israel are reacting . . . they are attacking us by trying to criminalize us. So if they can take down a community icon like Rasmea, then they think they can criminalize the movement as a whole."

[BrandonD]

Another thing. It dawned on me that hitler was completely fake some years ago. Not saying the holocaust didn't happen. Just that he was a mouthpiece and front for something other. An actor for an overarching tyranny.

I read The Rise and Fall and was stunned by how stupid/capricious hitler was. I think a lot of people read that shit in order to reenforce the narrative they have been told.

I watched a bunch of footage of him after reading the book and couldn't help but think of him as a "drama queen". He served a purpose for the media of the day -- news reels and shit like that -- some kind of "intimdating" gestures and odd moustache. Forceful salute or whatever the fuck you call it. I just don't think hitler was smart enough to mastermind all this shit we "know" and to this day people still worship him. In this day and age we would laugh at that idiot.

Bear with me, I am absolutely not in defense of hitler here. Just I don't think he was the guy who singlehandedly caused the history that we know about. He was the fall guy as in actor for something far more insidious.

The Dubya of his day, perhaps?