For Palestinians, Every Day Is Kristallnacht
By Paul Craig Roberts
December 14, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- "Settlers attack
West Bank mosque and burn holy Muslim books" was a London Times headline on
December 11, 2009.
These attacks, together with the demolition of Palestinian homes, the
uprooting of Palestinians' olive groves, the innumerable checkpoints that
prevent Palestinians from accessing schools, work, and medical care, the
Israeli Wall that denies Palestinians access to the land stolen from them,
and the isolation and blockade of the Gaza Ghetto, are part of the Israeli
government's policy of genocide for the Palestinians.
The Israel Lobby has such power over America that even former
President Jimmy Carter, a good friend of Israel, is demonized for using the
polite term--apartheid--for the genocide that has occurred over the decades
during which American "Christian" preachers, together with
bought-and-paid-for politicians, justified Israel's policy of slow genocide
for Palestine.
Israelis who still have a moral conscience--a small part of the
population--endeavor to use moral protests against the inhumanity of the
Israeli government. Israelis Jeff Halper and Angela Godfrey-Goldstein lead
the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), a non-violent,
direct-action group established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of
Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories.
Under international law an occupier by military force is forbidden to
steal the occupied land. The US, however, has protected Israel's violation
of international law for decades by vetoing UN resolutions. Israel has been
able to steal Palestine from the Palestinians, because the US government
used its power to prevent Israel from being held accountable under
international law.
In March 2003 American citizen Rachel Corrie stood in front of an
Israeli bulldozer, made by Caterpillar and sent to destroy a Palestinian
home. Her courageous act of defiance was regarded as an annoyance, and she
was run over and murdered by the Israeli bulldozer operator. Israel suffered
no consequences for its murder of an American citizen who had a moral
conscience.
In the Israeli-controlled American media, we hear endlessly that
Palestinians are terrorists who strap on explosives in order to kill
innocent Israelis and who terrorize Israeli towns by firing rockets into
them. One look at the maps above is enough to make clear who the real
terrorist is. The success of Israeli propaganda in the face of totally
obvious facts damns the ignorance and unconcern of the American people.
The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, which also has a moral conscience and
is intelligent to boot, wrote on December 4, 2009: "Every appointee to the
American government must endure a thorough background check by the American
Jewish community." http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1132797.html Haaretz
notes that any American that the President of the United States proposes for
an appointment to his government is subject to the approval of the Israel
Lobby, which can blackball appointees at will.
Haaretz gives the example of Charles Freeman, whom President Obama
intended to appoint as head of the National Intelligence Council. The Israel
Lobby proved, again, that it was more powerful than a mere American
President and prevented the appointment, citing Freeman's "anti-israel
leaning." In other words, because Freeman was not an overboard apologist for
Israel's crimes he was unacceptable to the Israel Lobby.
Haaretz reports: "The next attempt to appoint an intelligence aide, in
this case, former Republican senator Chuck Hagel, also resulted in vast
criticism over his not having a pro-Israel record." The Israel Lobby has
blocked Hagel's appointment by President Obama. Hagel doesn't want to start
a war with Iran for Israel's benefit and was blackballed by Morton A. Klein,
the president of the Zionist Organization of America. Hagel, it seems,
"refused to sign a letter calling on then-president George Bush to speak
about Iran's nuclear program at the G8 summit that year."
Now it is a Jewish daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Hannah Rosenthal,
whose appointment to head the US Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism,
an office that is another indication of America's puppet state status, is
under attack. Rosenthal was the head of the Jewish Council for Public
Affairs during 2000-2005. Her black mark came from serving on the advisory
board of the J Street Lobby, a recently-formed American Jewish organization
formed in opposition to AIPAC's murderous militarism.
The Israel Lobby's opposition to Hannah Rosenthal shows that no moral
person can survive the Israel Lobby's blackball.
The US, "the world's only superpower," has no independent voice in
Middle Eastern affairs. The real power rests in the hands of the settler
thug, Avigdor Lieberman, Deputy Prime Minister of Israel and Minister of
Foreign Affairs. This is the man who controls the Obama government's Middle
East policy. Lieberman forced the "all-powerful President of the US, Barack
Omama," to rescind his order to Israel to halt the illegal settler
settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Obama was given the bird and
submitted to his master.
Macho Americans who prance around as if they owned the world are
nothing but the puppets of Israel. The US is not a country. It is a colony.
***
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/10-7
Making an American 'Impenetrable Underground Wall' the Laughing Stock of the
World-Leave It to the People of Gaza
by Ann Wright
CommonDreams.org: Dec. 10, 2009
No doubt at the instigation of the Israeli government, the Obama
administration has authorized the United States Army Corps of Engineers to
design a vertical underground wall under the border between Egypt and Gaza.
In March, 2009 the United States provided the government of Egypt with $32
million in March, 2009 for electronic surveillance and other security
devices to prevent the movement of food, merchandise and weapons into Gaza.
Now details are emerging about an underground steel wall that wil be 6-7
miles long and extend 55 feet straight down into the desert sand.
The steel wall will be made of super-strength steel put together in a jigsaw
puzzle fashion. It will be bomb proof and can not be cut or melted. It
will be "impenetrable," and reportedly will take 18 months to construct.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8405020.stm)
The steel wall is intended to cut the tunnels that go between Gaza and
Egypt.
The tunnels are the lifelines for Gaza since the international community
agreed to a blockade of Gaza to collectively punish the citizens of Gaza for
their having elected in Parliamentary elections in 2006 sufficient Hamas
Parliamentarians that Hamas became the government of Gaza. The United
States and other western countries have placed Hamas on the list of
terrorist organizations.
The underground steel wall is intended to strengthen international
governmental efforts to imprison and starve the people of Gaza into
submission so they will throw out the Hamas government.
Just as the steel walls of the US Army Corps of Engineers at the base of the
levees of New Orleans were unable to contain Hurricane Katrina, the US Army
Corps of Engineers' underground steel walls that will attempt to build an
underground cage of Gaza will not be able to contain the survival spirit of
the people of Gaza.
America's super technology will again be laughed at by the world, as young
men dedicated to the survival of their people, will again outwit technology
by digging deeper, and most likely penetrating the "impenetrable" in some
novel, simple, low-tech way.
I have been to Gaza 3 times this year following the 22-day Israeli military
attack on Gaza that killed 1,440, wounded 5,000, left 50,000 homeless and
destroyed much of the infrastructure of Gaza. The disproportionate use of
force and targeting of the civilian population by the Israeli military is
considered by international law and human rights experts as as violations of
the Geneva conventions.
When our governments participate in illegal actions, it is up to the
citizens of the world to take action. On December 31, 2009, 1,400
international citizens from 42 countries will march in Gaza with 50,000
Gazans in the Gaza Freedom March to end the siege of Gaza. They will take
back to their countries the stories of spirit and survival of the pople of
Gaza and will return home committed to force their governments to stop these
inhuman actions against the people of Gaza.
Just as American smart bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq have not conquered the
spirit of Aghans and Iraqis,
America's underground walls in Gaza will never conquer the courage of those
who are fighting for the survival of their families.
One more time, the American government and the Obama administration has been
an active participant in the continued inhumane treatment of the people of
Gaza and should be held accountable, along with Israel and Egypt for
violations of human rights of the people of Gaza.
Ann Wright is a retired US Army Reserve Colonel and a former U.S. diplomat
who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She served in
as a US diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan,
Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She is the co-author of
"Dissent: Voices of Conscience" . Her March 19, 2003 letter of resignation
can be read at http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0303/032103wright.htm.
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