Tag Archives: Palestinian protests

Palestinians: Sand In The Eye Of The Mideast, by Eric Margolis

Posted on May 26, 2018 | Leave a comment

There is almost no possibility that Israel will allow the creation of a Palestinian state. From Eric Margolis at lewrockwell.com:

To date, 62 Palestinians have been shot dead in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli army and over 5,500 wounded by gunfire.  Their crime: protesting the loss of their ancestral homes in the West Bank.

Here was an example of Gandhi-style passive resistance that failed.  Israeli sniper teams just fired at will at the protestors, some of who were throwing rocks or firing sling shots.  High concentration tear gas was dumped by drones on the demonstrators.  Israel claimed it was killing ‘terrorists.’

The United States, Israel’s patron and financier, reveled in the move of its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move seen by Bible Belt religious fundamentalists as a key step to the return of the Christian Messiah and Armageddon.  The rest of us, Jews included, are fated to be burned alive.  The American Republicans, who have become a far-right theocratic party, cheered this good news.  The Trump administration, by now an extension of Israel’s hard right Likud Party, was cock-a-hoop.

There was no joy in Gaza.  This miserable, squalid human garbage dump is a giant open-air prison packed with 2 million Palestinian refugees driven from the newly created state of Israel in 1948.  Israel and its close ally Egypt keep Gaza bottled up on its land and sea borders.  Palestinians are only allowed to fish along the shore. Coastal gas and oil reserves have been expropriated by Israel and Egypt.

Gaza’s two million people subsist on the edge of starvation. Israel openly boasts that it allows just enough food into the enclave to prevent outright starvation.  Chemicals to treat water are banned. Electricity runs only a few hours daily because the power plant was bombed by Israel’s US-supplied air force.  Hospitals have almost no medicines.  In short, wartime conditions in the open-air prison. Even the wretched animals in Gaza zoo are starving.

The intensive punishment of Gaza, a crime under international law, began after its people voted in a free election for the Hamas movement over the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) which is more or less run by Israel and the United States.  Israel helped found Hamas in 1987, but then sought, with the US, to destroy the organization, branding it ‘terrorist.’

To continue reading: Palestinians: Sand In The Eye Of The Mideast

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Posted in Geopolitics, Governments, History, Immigration, Uncategorized

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Introducing “Bad Guy” Theory, by Bill Bonner

Posted on May 24, 2018 | Leave a comment

Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? Bill Bonner has some unsettling answers. From Bonner at bonnerandpartners.com:

Nothing much to report from the markets…

So we gird our loins, put on our armor, and go into battle.

We’re anticipating a fight.

Power Corrupts

Has Israel become a “bad guy”? we asked yesterday. Iran, the U.S… Who’s bad and who’s good?

Our guess yesterday was that power really does corrupt. And when you have too much of it – a near monopoly on power – you give yourself permission to do things you otherwise wouldn’t do. Because you know you can get away with it.

What prompted this line of thought may have been the news… or indigestion. As for the news, here is Jeremy Scahill, editor of The Intercept:

Israel has once again conducted a premeditated, full-scale massacre in broad daylight, in front of the cameras of the world. Once again, it took place in Gaza.

On May 14, Israeli snipers and other forces gunned down more than 60 Palestinians, and wounded thousands of others, including civilians, journalists, and paramedics.

Among those killed by Israeli forces was an 8-month-old infant. Her name was Laila al-Ghandour. They also killed at least seven other children and a man in a wheelchair, and that man had lost his legs after they had to be amputated following an earlier Israeli attack.

“Bad Guy” Theory

Here at the Diary, we try to connect the dots. There are the bare “facts,” which are squirrelly enough. And there are the ideas, myths, and delusions surrounding them.

These latter dots, like ball bearings on a sidewalk, are the ones that cause the broken bones.

People think they know, for example, not only what happened, but why it happened. They think they can look into black hearts and see corrupted souls – even from thousands of miles away.

They think they know who the real bad guys are. In the case at hand…

The Palestinians were fiends from Hell, said one Diary reader:

When faced with a screaming horde of fanatics who want to exterminate your existence, do what it takes. Be glad that Mexico is not dominated by Islamists.

They had blood dripping from their hands, said another:

A significant number of Palestinians killed were unquestionably identified by independent sources as terrorists.

They were mass murderers, said a third:

They intend to kill indiscriminately and create a fifth column within Israel to destroy it.

In other words, “Bad Guy” Theory says they all deserved to die. They – not the Israeli gunmen who shot them down – were the evil ones.

To continue reading: Introducing “Bad Guy” Theory

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Military, Morality

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The Day of Shame, by Uri Avnery

Posted on May 22, 2018 | 2 comments

One Israeli is not proud of his country’s soldiers firing on unarmed Palestinians. From Uri Avnery at antiwar.com;

On Bloody Monday this week, when the number of Palestinian killed and wounded was rising by the hour, I asked myself: what would I have done if I had been a youngster of 15 in the Gaza Strip?

My answer was, without hesitation: I would have stood near the border fence and demonstrated, risking my life and limbs every minute.

How am I so sure?

Simple: I did the same when I was 15.

I was a member of the National Military Organization (the “Irgun”), an armed underground group labeled “terrorist”.

Palestine was at the time under British occupation (called “mandate”). In May 1939, the British enacted a law limiting the right of Jews to acquire land. I received an order to be at a certain time at a certain spot near the sea shore of Tel Aviv in order to take part in a demonstration. I was to wait for a trumpet signal.

The trumpet sounded and we started the march down Allenby Road, then the city’s main street. Near the main synagogue, somebody climbed the stairs and delivered an inflammatory speech. Then we marched on, to the end of the street, where the offices of the British administration were located. There we sang the national anthem, “Hatikvah”, while some adult members set fire to the offices.

Suddenly several lorries carrying British soldiers screeched to a halt, and a salvo of shots rang out. The British fired over our heads, and we ran away.

Remembering this event 79 years later, it crossed my mind that the boys of Gaza are greater heroes then we were then. They did not run away. They stood their ground for hours, while the death toll rose to 61 and the number of those wounded by live ammunition to some 1500, in addition to 1000 affected by gas.

On that day, most TV stations in Israel and abroad split their screen. On the right, the events in Gaza. On the left, the inauguration of the US Embassy in Jerusalem.

In the 136th year of the Zionist-Palestinian war, that split screen is the picture of reality: the celebration in Jerusalem and the bloodbath in Gaza. Not on two different planets, not in two different continents, but hardly an hour’s drive apart.

To continue reading: The Day of Shame

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Posted in Geopolitics, Government, Morality

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If US Foreign Policy Were Consistent, America Would be Bombing Israel Right Now, by Darius Shahtahmasebi

Posted on May 19, 2018 | 1 comment

The US pushed regime change in Syria and Ukraine when their governments  gunned down innocent protestors. There will be no such action in Israel. From Darius Shahtahmasebi at the antimedia.org:

The Syrian civil war, we have been told, began as part of the Arab Spring and really took hold when Syrian government forces allegedly opened fire on protesters across the country in early 2011. This pattern of indiscriminate violent behavior against civilians has been a talking point in the western media’s regime-change narrative. The media often goes so far as to claim that the government led by Bashar al-Assad has lost all legitimacy.

What then, should we make of Israel’s decision to open fire on protesters in the Gaza Strip this past week, killing over 60 protesters and wounding 2,700 more in the process? According to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Israel is not an aggressor at all but a country that has shown considerable “restraint” in its use of force. Despite the claim that most of the dead were Hamas members, the fact that 2,700 people were injured suggests Israel deployed lethal force upon thousands of protesters — not exactly what comes to mind when one thinks of the word “restraint.” Even purposely shooting one unarmed protester seems to contradict everything we are supposed to believe about human rights and democracy.

By that logic, Assad has also used considerable restraint. For some time, Assad’s forces have been battling groups like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Jaish al-Islam, just to name a few of the Sunni-inspired jihadists currently wreaking havoc across the country. These aren’t some ragtag bunches of rebels dreamily vying for Armageddon — they have received billions upon billions of dollars of weapons and training from the United States and an endless supply of fighters from some of the most powerful nations in the entire region.

Israel, on the other hand, has been documented shooting down unarmed protesters including women, children, journalists, and first responders; all the reasons we are told we should despise Assad. What could be more cowardly than shooting down people who are protesting their right to have basic human rights, who don’t have any significant armed forces of their own?

To continue reading: If US Foreign Policy Were Consistent, America Would be Bombing Israel Right Now

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Insurrection

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Gaza Riots: Really About the Embassy? by Bassam Tawil

Posted on May 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

Here is the Israeli side of the story concerning the recent deadly confrontations with Palestinian protestors. From Bassam Tawil at thegatestoneinstitute.org:

  • Throughout history, the excuses to attack Israel keep changing.
  • For 8 years under the Obama administration, the Palestinians had portrayed themselves, and been treated as, the deserving underdog — the “good guys.” Now, a foreign government is actually holding the Palestinians accountable and calling them out for activities they had taken for granted, such as incitement to riot and murder, or funding terrorists and their families. The Palestinians do not like it one bit.
  • The Palestinians hate the Trump administration not because of the decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, but because it speaks truth to them and exposes their perfidy and malice. They hate the Trump administration because they see it as an obstacle on their way to eliminating Israel.
  • What happened at the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip was an act of aggression by Hamas on Israeli sovereignty. It was an act of war. Even the terrorists did not say that they were protesting the embassy relocation. The terrorists and the rest of the Palestinian demonstrators were chanting “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” They were chanting that their goal is to replace Israel with an Islamic state.
  • The idea that Hamas is concerned about the US embassy move is a sick joke. All one needs to do is to listen carefully to what Hamas is saying, namely that its struggle is to “liberate all of Palestine, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.” Hamas is saying that the protests it has been orchestrating are aimed at enabling millions of Palestinians to flood Israel and turn it into an Islamic state.

Much of the world is convinced that the Palestinian protests that took place on May 14 and 15 were directly connected to the inauguration of the US embassy in Jerusalem.

This misapprehension can be traced directly to the international media, which helped create the impression that the clashes that took place between Palestinians and the Israel Defense Forces along the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel came in response to US President Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

To continue reading: Gaza Riots: Really About the Embassy?

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Posted in Geopolitics, Governments

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