The Hands of Esau
Category: News and Politics

From Counterpunch.org...

The Hands of Esau

By URI AVNERY

Which of the two men is the leader of the greatest power on earth and which is the boss of a small client state?

A visitor from another planet, attending the press conference in Jerusalem, would find it hard not to answer: Olmert is the president of the great power, Bush is his vassal.

Olmert is taller. He talked endlessly, while Bush listened patiently. While Olmert anointed Bush with flattery that would have made a Byzantine emperor blush, it was quite clear that it is Olmert who decides policy, while Bush humbly accepts the Israeli diktat. And Bush's flattery of Olmert exceeded even Olmert's flattery of Bush.

Both, we learned, are "courageous". Both are "determined". Both have a "vision". The word "vision", once reserved for prophets, starred in every second sentence. (Bush could not know that in Israel, "vision" has long become a jocular appellation for highfaluting speeches, usually in combination with the word "Zionism".)

The President and the Prime Minister have something else in common: not a word of what they said at the press conference had any connection with the truth.

One OF the most moving dramas in the Bible tells about our old blind forefather, Isaac, who wanted to bless his eldest son, Esau, a reddish and hairy hunter. But the second son, the homebody (or rather tent-body) Jacob, exploited the absence of his brother and went to his father in order to steal the blessing. He wore Esau's clothes and covered his arms with hairy goat skins. The ruse nearly failed, when the father felt the arms of Jacob and his suspicion was aroused.

That's when he uttered the famous words: "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." (Genesis, 27: 22).

Yet Jacob, the impostor, did receive the blessing and became the father of the nation which was named after him (he was also called Israel). It seems that Ehud Olmert is a true successor: there is no connection between his voice and his hands.

Anyone who listens to him - not just at the press conference, but also on every other occasion - hears words of peace and reason: The Palestinians must have a state of their own. The "vision" must be realized while Bush is president, because Israel has never had and never will have a truer friend. The settlement outposts must be removed, as promised by us again and again. The settlements must be frozen. Etc. etc.

That is the voice of Jacob. But the hands, well, they are the hands of Esau.

* * *

BEFORE ANNAPOLIS, during Annapolis and after Annapolis, nothing at all was done to promote the Two-State Solution. The negotiations were about to begin - any moment now - a year ago, and now they are again about to begin - any moment now. Yes, the "core issues" - borders, Jerusalem, refugees - will be addressed. Sure. Any moment now.

But in the meantime, the hands of Esau are working feverishly. All over the occupied territories, the settlements are being enlarged. The existing outposts remain untouched, new ones spring up from time to time. Around them, a well choreographed dance has evolved, a kind of formal ballet executed by the settlers and the army. The settlers set up a new outpost, the army removes it, the settlers return and set it up again, the army dismantles, and so forth.

In the meantime the outpost gets bigger and bigger. The government connects it to the electricity and water systems and builds a road. And the army, of course, protects it day and night. We cannot leave good Jews at the mercy of the evil Palestinian terrorists, can we?

Bush knows all this and still continues to blabber that "the illegal outposts must be removed". And so it continues: the voice is Jacob's voice, the hands are the hands of Esau.

But one cannot fool all of the people all of the time, to quote another American President who was slightly more intelligent than the present incumbent.

And so, after Olmert and Bush repeated the mantra about removing the outposts and freezing the settlements, one of the journalists popped an innocent question: How does this fit together with the announcement about the building of a huge new housing project at Har Homa?

If anyone thought that this would embarrass Olmert, he was sadly mistaken. Olmert just cannot be embarrassed. He simply answered that this promise does not apply to Jerusalem, nor to the "Jewish population centers" beyond the Green Line.

"Jerusalem" - since the time of Levy Eshkol - is not only the Old City and the Holy Basin. It is the huge tract of land annexed to Israel after the Six-Day War, from the approaches to Bethlehem to the outskirts of Ramallah. This area includes the hill that was once forested and called Jebel Abu-Ghneim, now the site of the big and ugly Har Homa settlement. And the "population centers" are the big settlement blocs in the occupied Palestinian territories, which President Bush so generously presented to Ariel Sharon.

This means that almost all the extensive building activities that are now going on beyond the Green Line are not covered by the Israeli undertaking to freeze the settlements. And while Olmert publicly announced this, President Bush was standing at his side, smiling foolishly and painting on another layer of compliments.

The following day, Bush visited Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and told the shocked Palestinians that the innumerable Israeli roadblocks in the West Bank, which turn the life of the Palestinians into hell, are necessary for the protection of Israel and must remain where they are - until after the establishment of the hoped-for democratic Palestinian state.

Condoleezza Rice was quick to remind him in private that this was not very wise, since he was about to visit half a dozen Arab countries. So Bush hastened to call another press conference in Jerusalem, talking about the "core issues": there would be a "contiguous" Palestinian state, but the 1949 borders (the Green Line) would not be restored. He would not speak about Jerusalem. Also, the refugee problem would be settled by an international fund - meaning that none at all would be allowed to return.

Altogether, much less than Bill Clinton's 2000 "parameters", and less than most Israelis are already prepared to accept. It amounts to 110% support for the official Israeli government line.

After that, Bush had dinner with Israeli cabinet ministers. He cordially shook the hand of Minister Rafael Eitan, the former spymaster who controlled the Israeli spy in Washington, Jonathan Pollard, whom Bush refuses to pardon. (Eitan would be arrested the moment he set foot on American soil.) He spoke cordially with the ultra-rightist Minister Avigdor Liberman, urging him to support Olmert. Throughout the dinner, he talked and talked, until Condi sent him a discreet note suggesting that he shut up. Bush, in high spirits, read the note out loud.

* * *

I HAVE mentioned more than once the British World War II poster which was pasted up on the walls in Palestine: "Is this trip really necessary?"

That is again the question now: Is this trip of Bush's really necessary?

The answer is: Of course. Necessary for Bush. Necessary for Olmert. Necessary for Abbas, too.

For Bush, because he is a lame duck, in the last year of his term, and therefore almost paralyzed. In the United States he is rapidly becoming irrelevant. His touted Middle East tour has been drowned out by the primary elections mayhem, which produces a new drama almost every day. While Hillary wrestles with Obama and the glib Bill competes with an impressive black grandma, who cares where the worst president in American history is traipsing around?

Olmert is well aware of the situation. When he declares that the last year of the term of his noble friend must be used, what he really means to say is: he cannot exert any pressure on us, he cannot even "nudge" us, as he promises. There is no need to remove even one single outpost for him. So let us squeeze the last drop of juice out of his presidency, before he is thrown onto the trash pile of history.

But Olmert needs the presence of Bush at his side, because his position is not much more secure than Bush's. Bush is bankrupt in a big way, after starting one of the most pointless and unsuccessful wars in US history. That is true for Olmert in a small way. He is bankrupt too, and he also started a pointless, failed war.

In two weeks time, the Winograd Commission will publish its final report on Lebanon War II, and everyone expects it to come down on Olmert like a 16 ton weight. He may survive, if only because there is now no credible substitute. But he needs all the help he can get - and what better help than the "Leader of the Free World" gazing at him with liquid eyes?

It's the old story about the lame and the blind.

* * *

THIS WAS NOT Bush's last presidential visit to Israel. He has already promised to return on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state, which falls this year (in accordance with the Hebrew calendar) on May 8. What else can a president do in his last months in office, except star in ceremonies with kings, presidents and prime ministers?

Perhaps he had intended to finish with a big bang, a historic climax that would overshadow even his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, such as a grand attack on Iran. But it seems that the US intelligence community, in a patriotic act that makes up for some of its earlier sins, has prevented this by publishing its sensational report.

True, this week something happened that put on a warning light. Some small Iranian boats were reported to have made a provocative gesture against the powerful American warships in the Strait of Hormuz.

That takes us right back to 1964 and to what has become known as the "Gulf of Tonkin incident". President Lyndon Johnson announced that Vietnamese vessels had attacked American warships. That was a lie, but it was enough for Congress to empower the president to widen the war that killed millions of people (and buried Johnson's career).

But this time the red light went out quickly. The US Congress is not what it was, it seems that the Americans have no stomach for another war, the historical parallel was too obvious. Bush has been left without an option for war. He has been left with nothing.

Apart from Olmert's flattery, of course.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is o a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

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Olmert to win nomination for both US parties
Category: News and Politics

Published on Sunday, January 13, 2008 by The Oregonian
Candidates' Unconditional Support Isn't Right for Jewish State
by John J. Mearsheimer

Once again, as the presidential campaign season heats up, the leading candidates are going to enormous lengths to demonstrate their devotion to the state of Israel and their steadfast commitment to its "special relationship" with the United States.

Each of the main contenders emphatically favors giving Israel extraordinary material and diplomatic support — continuing the more than $3 billion in foreign aid each year to a country whose per capita income is now 29th in the world. They also believe that this aid should be given unconditionally. None of them criticizes Israel's conduct, even when its actions threaten U.S. interests, are at odds with American values or even when they are harmful to Israel itself. In short, the candidates believe that the U.S. should support Israel no matter what it does.

Such pandering is hardly surprising, because contenders for high office routinely court special interest groups, and Israel's staunchest supporters — the Israel lobby, as we have termed it — expect it. Politicians do not want to offend Jewish Americans or "Christian Zionists," two groups that are deeply engaged in the political process. Candidates fear, with some justification, that even well-intentioned criticism of Israel's policies may lead these groups to back their opponents instead.

If this happened, trouble would arise on many fronts. Israel's friends in the media would take aim at the candidate, and campaign contributions from pro-Israel individuals and political action committees would go elsewhere. Moreover, most Jewish voters live in states with many electoral votes, which increases their weight in close elections (remember Florida in 2000?), and a candidate seen as insufficiently committed to Israel would lose some of their support. And no Republican would want to alienate the pro-Israel subset of the Christian evangelical movement, which is a significant part of the GOP base.

Indeed, even suggesting that the U.S. adopt a more impartial stance toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can get a candidate into serious trouble.

These candidates, however, are no friends of Israel. They are facilitating its pursuit of self-destructive policies that no true friend would favor.

The key issue here is the future of Gaza and the West Bank, which Israel conquered in 1967 and still controls. Israel faces a stark choice regarding these territories, which are home to roughly 3.8 million Palestinians. It can opt for a two-state solution, turning over almost all of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians and allowing them to create a viable state on those lands in return for a comprehensive peace agreement designed to allow Israel to live securely within its pre-1967 borders (with some minor modifications). Or it can retain control of the territories it occupies or surrounds, building more settlements and bypass roads and confining the Palestinians to a handful of impoverished enclaves in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel would control the borders around those enclaves and the air above them, thus severely restricting the Palestinians' freedom of movement.

But if Israel chooses this second option, it will lead to an apartheid state. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said as much when he recently proclaimed that if "the two-state solution collapses," Israel will "face a South African-style struggle." He went so far as to argue that "as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished." Other Israelis, as well as Jimmy Carter and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, have warned that continuing the occupation will turn Israel into an apartheid state. Nevertheless, Israel continues to expand its settlements on the West Bank while the plight of the Palestinians worsens.

Given this grim situation, one would expect the presidential candidates, who claim to care deeply about Israel, to be sounding the alarm and energetically championing a two-state solution. One would expect them to have encouraged President Bush to put significant pressure on both the Israelis and the Palestinians at the recent Annapolis conference and to keep the pressure on during last week's visit to the region.

Hillary Clinton could be expected to be leading the charge here. After all, she wisely and bravely called for establishing a Palestinian state "that is on the same footing as other states" in 1998, when it was still politically incorrect to use the words "Palestinian state" openly. Moreover, her husband not only championed a two-state solution as president but in December 2000 he laid out the famous "Clinton parameters," which outline the only realistic deal for ending the conflict.

But what is Hillary Clinton saying now that she is a candidate? She said hardly anything about pushing the peace process forward at Annapolis. More important, both she and GOP aspirant Rudy Giuliani recently proclaimed that Jerusalem must remain undivided, a position that is at odds with the Clinton parameters and virtually guarantees that there will be no Palestinian state.

Sen. Clinton's behavior is hardly unusual among the candidates for president. Barack Obama, who expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians before he set his sights on the White House, now has little to say about their plight, and he, too, said little about what should have been done at Annapolis to facilitate peace. The other major contenders are ardent in their declarations of support for Israel.

As Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. national security adviser and now a senior adviser to Obama, noted, "The presidential candidates don't see any payoff in addressing the Israel-Palestinian issue." But they do see a significant political payoff in backing Israel to the hilt, even when it is pursuing a policy — colonizing the West Bank — that is morally and strategically bankrupt.

In short, the presidential candidates are no friends of Israel. They are like most U.S. politicians, who reflexively mouth pro-Israel platitudes while continuing to endorse and subsidize policies that are in fact harmful to the Jewish state. A genuine friend would tell Israel that it was acting foolishly and would do whatever possible to get Israel to change its misguided behavior. And that will require challenging the special interest groups whose hard-line views have been obstacles to peace for many years.

As former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami argued in 2006, the American presidents who have made the greatest contribution to peace — Carter and George H.W. Bush — succeeded because they were "ready to confront Israel head on and overlook the sensibilities of her friends in America." If the Democratic and Republican contenders were true friends of Israel, they would be warning it about the danger of becoming an apartheid state, just as Carter did.

Moreover, they would be calling for an end to the occupation and the creation of a viable Palestinian state. And they would be calling for the United States to act as an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians so that Washington could pressure both sides to accept a solution based on the Clinton parameters.

But Israel's false friends cannot say any of these things, or even discuss the issue honestly. Why? Because they fear that speaking the truth would incur the wrath of the hard-liners who dominate the main organizations in the Israel lobby. So Israel will end up controlling Gaza and the West Bank for the foreseeable future, turning itself into an apartheid state in the process. And all of this will be done with the backing of its so-called friends, including the current presidential candidates.

With friends like them, who needs enemies?

John J. Mearsheimer is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Stephen M. Walt is a professor of international affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. They are the authors of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," published last year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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More Double Standards Underlined and Bolded
Current mood: Exasperated
Category: Exasperated News and Politics

Israel's Toy Soldiers
by Chris Hedges

If you are a young Muslim American and head off to the Middle East for a spell in a fundamentalist "madrassa," or religious school, Homeland Security will probably greet you at the airport when you return. But if you are an American Jew and you join hundreds of teenagers from Europe and Mexico for an eight-week training course run by the Israel Defense Forces, you can post your picture wearing an Israeli army uniform and holding an automatic weapon on MySpace.

The Marva program, part summer camp part indoctrination, was launched in Israel in 1981. It allows participants, who must be Jewish and between the ages of 18 and 28, to fire weapons, live in military barracks in the Negev desert and saunter around in an Israeli military uniform saluting and taking long hikes with military packs. The Youth and Education Corps of the Israel Defense Forces run four 120-strong training sessions a year.

"Upon arrival, the participants experience an abrupt change into army life: wearing uniforms, accepting army discipline, and learning the programs and lessons integral to the program," the Let Israelis Show You Israel Web site reads. "The program includes military content such as: navigation, field training, weapons training, shooting ranges, marches and more, as well as educational content such as: Zionism, Jewish Identity, history and knowledge of the land of Israel. All of this is taught in Hebrew in an intensive eight weeks."

"The participants finish the program after completing a short, intensive, exhilarating military experience that allows them to taste Israel in a way that they never could before-as part of the Israel Defense Forces," the site reads. "They leave the program with a feeling of belonging and a strong connection to Israel, and many return to Israel to continue the connection that was created in the framework of the Marva course."

There are, of course, gushing testimonials about the program.

"I spent the first few days of Marva doubting my decision, wondering why I had come, wondering if there was any way out. With all of the running, yelling orders, discipline and Hebrew, I felt horribly out of place," writes Canadian David Roth of his summer. "It was a completely different world from the one I was used to. All that changed, though, by the end of the first week. We had our first 'Masa' (Hike). It was very hard, but at the end, we all knew, our M16s were waiting for us at the 'tekes' (Ceremony). We got through the 8 kilometers and had our 'tekes' and got our guns. It felt amazing, and from that point on Marva was incredible."

How have we reacted when we discovered that American Muslims were being taught in a foreign country to fire machine guns at paper figures and simulate military maneuvers? And what about the summer schools in Gaza organized by Islamic Jihad designed to train young Palestinians in the basics of military life? These Gaza camps, uncovered in 2001, were widely denounced by Israel as proof that the Palestinians were teaching their children to hate and kill.

The argument in favor of camps in Israel, as opposed to camps in Pakistan, is that these young men and women are not going to come back and use what they have learned to harm Americans. They are not terrorists. Muslims, however, have not cornered the market on terrorism and violence. Radical Jews have also been involved in terrorist attacks in Israel and the United States.

I discovered an American in Israel in 1989 named Robert Manning. A huge, burly man, Manning was living in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kiyrat Arba. When I found him he was carrying a pistol, a large knife strapped to his leg and an M-16 assault rifle. He was part of a Jewish terrorist group called Committee for Protection and Safety of the Highways that set up ad hoc roadblocks and pulled Palestinians from cars to beat and often shoot them. He was a follower of Meir Kahane, the leader of the Jewish Defense League, who was implicated in terrorist attacks in the United States and Israel. Manning served as a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank.

Manning was wanted in California for murder. He had been charged in a 1980 mail-bomb killing as part of his involvement in the Jewish Defense League. The bomb was intended for the owner of a local computer firm, but the package holding the device was opened by the firm's secretary, Patricia Wilkerson, who was killed instantly by the blast.

Manning, full of bluster and a bitter racism toward Arabs, used as his pseudonym the name of the FBI agent in charge of his case, a bit of humor that backfired on him by confirming my suspicion of his identify. I obtained the picture from his California driver's license and showed it to his neighbors at Kiyrat Arba. They identified him from the photo. I wrote an article affirming that Manning, heavily armed and an active member of the Israeli army, was living in a Jewish settlement. The Israeli government, until that moment, said it had no information about his location. He was extradited in 1993 and sentenced the next year to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for 30 years. He is in a maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo.

Those who go through the Marva summer program are indoctrinated as thoroughly as Muslims who go overseas and are told they are part of a greater jihad for Islam. The results, given Israel's close alliance with the United States, may not be negative for those in power in the United States, but it may be very negative for those Americans defined as the enemy, especially Muslims, should we suffer another 9/11. The program inculcates hatred and a belief in the efficacy of violence to solve the problems in the Middle East. It identifies Israel with militarism. It feeds the idea that a Jew born in Brooklyn has a birthright to settle in Israel that is denied to an American of Palestinian descent.

Jerusalem, aside from being one of the most beautiful cities in the world, is one of the most literate, creative and intellectual. Do these young men and women really know the best of Israel by spending eight weeks playing soldier and glorifying the military? Is the cause of Israel advanced by mirroring the twisted militarism of Islamic fundamentalists?

Terrorists arise in all cultures, all nations and all religions. We have produced more than our share. Ask the people of Vietnam or Iraq. The danger of a military program such as these is that it solidifies a mind-set of us and them. It romanticizes violence. It widens the divide that leads to conflict. It makes dialogue impossible. There are great Israeli institutions, from the newspaper Haaretz to the courageous Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem to Peace Now. A summer working for them, rather than wearing an army uniform, unleashing bursts of automatic fire in the desert and singing Israeli patriotic songs, might actually help.

Chris Hedges, who graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, is the author of "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."

Currently listening : Fear Is on Our Side By I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness Release date: 07 March, 2006

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Save the fish!!!!!!
Category: News and Politics

Fishers in developing countries are catching fewer and fewer fish--because of massive overfishing by industrialized fishing fleets from rich countries, fleets subsidized with tens of billions of Euros every year. As a result, fish populations are now collapsing around the globe, and could soon be pushed beyond recovery.

But our oceans don't have to die. This September, the World Trade Organization will release a new proposal for global fishing rules--and right now, trade ministers are deciding what those rules should be. If enough of us urge our trade ministers to support a better system, we preserve our oceans for future generations--and for the one billion humans who rely on fish for protein today. Click here to send your trade minister a message in support fairness and sustainability:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/make_fishing_fair/c.php/?cl=16220580

FOR ANY AUSTRALIANS WHO WANT TO DO THIS - I THINK THE TONE OF THE SUGGESTED MESSAGE WAS PRETTY RUBBISHY, SO HAVE REPLACED IT WITH MY OWN TEXT, WHICH YOU CAN COPY AND PASTE FROM BELOW;

Dear The Hon. Warren Truss M.P.,

I'm writing to urge you to support a fairer and more sustainable global fishing system. As you are undoubtedly aware, the WTO is now writing new rules for fishing subsidies.

Our oceans are of course of tremendous concern to most Australians, and a source of income for many. Australia has taken a strong stance in the past on international fisheries/conservation issues, and has a proud record of lobbying for the reduction of subsidies in overseas markets - particularly in relation to primary industries.

I am writing today to request that Australia's position in relation to the the new WTO fishing subsidy rules takes a particularly strong stance - with a view to reducing subsidies that promote overcapacity and overfishing, particularly by wealthier nations at the expense of those for whom fishing is a more subsistence activity.

THEN JUST USE THE REST OF THE SIGNATURE TEXT, ETC.A recent study found that 90% of the ocean's big fish--tuna, swordfish, and marlin--are already gone. But it's not the countries with the greatest need that are catching too many of these fish--it's the subsidized fishing fleets from the rich countries. These fleets don't just trawl the open ocean--they fish off the coasts of developing countries, robbing local fishers and their communities of desperately needed food supplies. And as technology has developed, the crisis has accelerated.

Last week, Dr. Francis K. E. Nunoo, a Ghanaian scientist who studies fisheries ecology, interviewed a local fisherman for this campaign. the fisherman told him:

"Ten years ago, during the peak fishing season of the year, my boat is filled with a single throw of the net. In recent times, we throw the gear about 7 times before filling the same boat. And the situation is even worse this year."

And here's what Sall Samba, an octopus fisherman in Mauritania and father of six, told a reporter:

"You used to be able to fish right in the port. Now, the only thing you can catch here is water."

A group of 125 scientists wrote a letter to the director-general of the WTO, urging him to take action on fishing subsidies. Their argument:

"There are only decades left before the damage we have inflicted on the oceans becomes permanent. We are at a crossroads. One road leads to a world with tremendously diminished marine life. The other leads to one with oceans again teeming with abundance, where the world can rely on the oceans for protein, and enjoy its wildlife. The choices we make today will determine our path for the future."

The World Trade Organization is governed by its 151 member countries. Avaaz members live in every one of those countries--and so, if we act together, we have a tremendous opportunity to push for action. The next few weeks, as the WTO works on its new plan, are critical. The plan is to send messages--thousands of them--to our countries' trade ministers, urging a strong decision by the WTO to change the rules that underly the unfair and unsustainable fishing trade.

Experts say that 29% of commercial fisheries might already be beyond repair. But most of the world's marine ecosystems can recover, if we get our policies right. The very fact that so few people are paying attention to this issue means that our actions will have more power. Please click here to contact your trade minister now:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/make_fishing_fair/c.php/?cl=16220580

The fishing crisis is an example of where our global economic system doesn't work--not for people, and not for the earth. But by joining together to fix it, we can create an example of how global democracy should work: human beings, rich and poor, taking action to renew a world full of life.

Raise your voice and spread the word.

PS: You can read more about the fishing crisis at this site set up by our partner on this campaign, Oceana. Look here for fact sheets, studies, and the scientists' letter: http://www.cutthebait.org

Here is the article that quoted Sall Samba, from the Wall Street Journal--a great look at the global crisis, the role of rich-country subsidies and global regulation, and the human impact on Mauritania: http://www.illegal-fishing.info/item_single.php?item=news&item_id=1797&approach_id=12

And this article sheds light on the global situation by looking specifically at Senegal: http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2003/june/fish.htm

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Why NOBODY must vote for Hilary Clinton
Current mood: sick of morons in charge
Category: sick of morons in charge News and Politics

Because the one issue that really matters for the entire world out of this Presidential election, is getting a leader brave enough to smack Israel's stupid face.

Hilary's hubby once said of himself "Israel has never had a better friend in the White House", and she has shown herself several times over to be a timid, loathesome, whining populist imitation (as a New York Senator MUST be) of her frequently admirable hubby. There is no way this woman can afford to (much less would be capable of) doing anything as bold as standing up to the Israeli lobby. You can have no doubt a large amount of her election warchest is provided by them. I tell you if Hilary were the Democrat candidate versus McCain or Kucunich, I'd vote Republican. Why can't more people see through this smarmy self-serving bint who stands for absolutely naff all besides her own aggrandisement.

Obama would be equally useless.

My dream ticket for 2008 ..... Gore-Edwards. Dear God, please.

Now, read this...

A Declaration of Independence from Israel
by Chris Hedges

Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid.

The intervention, which enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the sustained life-support system the United States has provided to the Jewish state.

Israel was born at midnight May 14, 1948. The U.S. recognized the new state 11 minutes later. The two countries have been locked in a deadly embrace ever since.

Washington, at the beginning of the relationship, was able to be a moderating influence. An incensed President Eisenhower demanded and got Israel's withdrawal after the Israelis occupied Gaza in 1956. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes bombed the USS Liberty. The ship, flying the U.S. flag and stationed 15 miles off the Israeli coast, was intercepting tactical and strategic communications from both sides. The Israeli strikes killed 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 171. The deliberate attack froze, for a while, Washington's enthusiasm for Israel. But ruptures like this one proved to be only bumps, soon smoothed out by an increasingly sophisticated and well-financed Israel lobby that set out to merge Israel and American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Israel has reaped tremendous rewards from this alliance. It has been given more than $140 billion in U.S. direct economic and military assistance. It receives about $3 billion in direct assistance annually, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. foreign aid budget. Although most American foreign aid packages stipulate that related military purchases have to be made in the United States, Israel is allowed to use about 25 percent of the money to subsidize its own growing and profitable defense industry. It is exempt, unlike other nations, from accounting for how it spends the aid money. And funds are routinely siphoned off to build new Jewish settlements, bolster the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and construct the security barrier, which costs an estimated $1 million a mile.

The barrier weaves its way through the West Bank, creating isolated pockets of impoverished Palestinians in ringed ghettos. By the time the barrier is finished it will probably in effect seize up to 40 percent of Palestinian land. This is the largest land grab by Israel since the 1967 war. And although the United States officially opposes settlement expansion and the barrier, it also funds them.

The U.S. has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems and given Israel access to some of the most sophisticated items in its own military arsenal, including Blackhawk attack helicopters and F-16 fighter jets. The United States also gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its NATO allies. And when Israel refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the United States stood by without a word of protest as the Israelis built the region's first nuclear weapons program.

U.S. foreign policy, especially under the current Bush administration, has become little more than an extension of Israeli foreign policy. The United States since 1982 has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It refuses to enforce the Security Council resolutions it claims to support. These resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.

There is now volcanic anger and revulsion by Arabs at this blatant favoritism. Few in the Middle East see any distinction between Israeli and American policies, nor should they. And when the Islamic radicals speak of U.S. support of Israel as a prime reason for their hatred of the United States, we should listen. The consequences of this one-sided relationship are being played out in the disastrous war in Iraq, growing tension with Iran, and the humanitarian and political crisis in Gaza. It is being played out in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is gearing up for another war with Israel, one most Middle East analysts say is inevitable. The U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is unraveling. And it is doing so because of this special relationship. The eruption of a regional conflict would usher in a nightmare of catastrophic proportions.

There were many in the American foreign policy establishment and State Department who saw this situation coming. The decision to throw our lot in with Israel in the Middle East was not initially a popular one with an array of foreign policy experts, including President Harry Truman's secretary of state, Gen. George Marshall. They warned there would be a backlash. They knew the cost the United States would pay in the oil-rich region for this decision, which they feared would be one of the greatest strategic blunders of the postwar era. And they were right. The decision has jeopardized American and Israeli security and created the kindling for a regional conflagration.

The alliance, which makes no sense in geopolitical terms, does makes sense when seen through the lens of domestic politics. The Israel lobby has become a potent force in the American political system. No major candidate, Democrat or Republican, dares to challenge it. The lobby successfully purged the State Department of Arab experts who challenged the notion that Israeli and American interests were identical. Backers of Israel have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to support U.S. political candidates deemed favorable to Israel. They have brutally punished those who strayed, including the first President Bush, who they said was not vigorous enough in his defense of Israeli interests. This was a lesson the next Bush White House did not forget. George W. Bush did not want to be a one-term president like his father.

Israel advocated removing Saddam Hussein from power and currently advocates striking Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Direct Israeli involvement in American military operations in the Middle East is impossible. It would reignite a war between Arab states and Israel. The United States, which during the Cold War avoided direct military involvement in the region, now does the direct bidding of Israel while Israel watches from the sidelines. During the 1991 Gulf War, Israel was a spectator, just as it is in the war with Iraq.

President Bush, facing dwindling support for the war in Iraq, publicly holds Israel up as a model for what he would like Iraq to become. Imagine how this idea plays out on the Arab street, which views Israel as the Algerians viewed the French colonizers during the war of liberation.

"In Israel," Bush said recently, "terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq."

Americans are increasingly isolated and reviled in the world. They remain blissfully ignorant of their own culpability for this isolation. U.S. "spin" paints the rest of the world as unreasonable, but Israel, Americans are assured, will always be on our side.

Israel is reaping economic as well as political rewards from its lock-down apartheid state. In the "gated community" market it has begun to sell systems and techniques that allow the nation to cope with terrorism. Israel, in 2006, exported $3.4 billion in defense products—well over a billion dollars more than it received in American military aid. Israel has grown into the fourth largest arms dealer in the world. Most of this growth has come in the so-called homeland security sector.

"The key products and services," as Naomi Klein wrote in The Nation, "are hi-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling and prisoner interrogation systems—precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. And that is why the chaos in Gaza and the rest of the region doesn't threaten the bottom line in Tel Aviv, and may actually boost it. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the 'global war on terror.' "

The United States, at least officially, does not support the occupation and calls for a viable Palestinian state. It is a global player, with interests that stretch well beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, and the equation that Israel's enemies are our enemies is not that simple.

"Terrorism is not a single adversary," John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote in The London Review of Books, "but a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups. The terrorist organizations that threaten Israel do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or 'the West'; it is largely a response to Israel's prolonged campaign to colonize the West Bank and Gaza Strip. More important, saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around."

Middle Eastern policy is shaped in the United States by those with very close ties to the Israel lobby. Those who attempt to counter the virulent Israeli position, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell, are ruthlessly slapped down. This alliance was true also during the Clinton administration, with its array of Israeli-first Middle East experts, including special Middle East coordinator Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk, the former deputy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, one of the most powerful Israel lobbying groups in Washington. But at least people like Indyk and Ross are sane, willing to consider a Palestinian state, however unviable, as long as it is palatable to Israel. The Bush administration turned to the far-right wing of the Israel lobby, those who have not a shred of compassion for the Palestinians or a word of criticism for Israel. These new Middle East experts include Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, the disgraced I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and David Wurmser.

Washington was once willing to stay Israel's hand. It intervened to thwart some of its most extreme violations of human rights. This administration, however, has signed on for every disastrous Israeli blunder, from building the security barrier in the West Bank, to sealing off Gaza and triggering a humanitarian crisis, to the ruinous invasion and saturation bombing of Lebanon.

The few tepid attempts by the Bush White House to criticize Israeli actions have all ended in hasty and humiliating retreats in the face of Israeli pressure. When the Israel Defense Forces in April 2002 reoccupied the West Bank, President Bush called on then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to "halt the incursions and begin withdrawal." It never happened. After a week of heavy pressure from the Israel lobby and Israel's allies in Congress, meaning just about everyone in Congress, the president gave up, calling Sharon "a man of peace." It was a humiliating moment for the United Sates, a clear sign of who pulled the strings.

There were several reasons for the war in Iraq. The desire for American control of oil, the belief that Washington could build puppet states in the region, and a real, if misplaced, fear of Saddam Hussein played a part in the current disaster. But it was also strongly shaped by the notion that what is good for Israel is good for the United States. Israel wanted Iraq neutralized. Israeli intelligence, in the lead-up to the war, gave faulty information to the U.S. about Iraq's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And when Baghdad was taken in April 2003, the Israeli government immediately began to push for an attack on Syria. The lust for this attack has waned, in no small part because the Americans don't have enough troops to hang on in Iraq, much less launch a new occupation.

Israel is currently lobbying the United States to launch aerial strikes on Iran, despite the debacle in Lebanon. Israel's iron determination to forcibly prevent a nuclear Iran makes it probable that before the end of the Bush administration an attack on Iran will take place. The efforts to halt nuclear development through diplomatic means have failed. It does not matter that Iran poses no threat to the United States. It does not matter that it does not even pose a threat to Israel, which has several hundred nuclear weapons in its arsenal. It matters only that Israel demands total military domination of the Middle East.

The alliance between Israel and the United States has culminated after 50 years in direct U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. This involvement, which is not furthering American interests, is unleashing a geopolitical nightmare. American soldiers and Marines are dying in droves in a useless war. The impotence of the United States in the face of Israeli pressure is complete. The White House and the Congress have become, for perhaps the first time, a direct extension of Israeli interests. There is no longer any debate within the United States. This is evidenced by the obsequious nods to Israel by all the current presidential candidates with the exception of Dennis Kucinich. The political cost for those who challenge Israel is too high.

This means there will be no peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It means the incidents of Islamic terrorism against the U.S. and Israel will grow. It means that American power and prestige are on a steep, irreversible decline. And I fear it also means the ultimate end of the Jewish experiment in the Middle East.

The weakening of the United States, economically and militarily, is giving rise to new centers of power. The U.S. economy, mismanaged and drained by the Iraq war, is increasingly dependent on Chinese trade imports and on Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury securities. China holds dollar reserves worth $825 billion. If Beijing decides to abandon the U.S. bond market, even in part, it would cause a free fall by the dollar. It would lead to the collapse of the $7-trillion U.S. real estate market. There would be a wave of U.S. bank failures and huge unemployment. The growing dependence on China has been accompanied by aggressive work by the Chinese to build alliances with many of the world's major exporters of oil, such as Iran, Nigeria, Sudan and Venezuela. The Chinese are preparing for the looming worldwide clash over dwindling resources.

The future is ominous. Not only do Israel's foreign policy objectives not coincide with American interests, they actively hurt them. The growing belligerence in the Middle East, the calls for an attack against Iran, the collapse of the imperial project in Iraq have all given an opening, where there was none before, to America's rivals. It is not in Israel's interests to ignite a regional conflict. It is not in ours. But those who have their hands on the wheel seem determined, in the name of freedom and democracy, to keep the American ship of state headed at breakneck speed into the cliffs before us.

Chris Hedges, who graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, is the author of "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."

6:25 AM - 6 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Vale Big Silver
Current mood: fish-bereaved
Category: fish-bereaved Pets and Animals

He was a fish of utmost substance. A Gourami of certain credentials. Smart beyond all other fish. Bigger and more silver than the other fish. Moody in the sort of way that denotes a true intellect.
These things I will miss him for;
The way he wobbled all side to side whenever I went near the tank in an attempt to get my attention. The point generally being to remind me that he hadn't been fed in the last five minutes.
The way he would eat from my hand. (Fish that will do either of these things are few and far between)
The way when something new came into the tank he would go up to it and run his feeler-arms all over it, like he was giving it a proper checking out.

Anyway, well may he rest now. And well may he know he was loved. And shall never be replaced. The best fish I have ever owned.

His song is "Down in Splendour" by the Straighjacket Fits. Which the retarded blog adding thing won't let me advise you I am listening to now. Which is criminal, but shouldn't surprise.

4:45 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Them Olden Golden Plains
Current mood: pyrrhic
Category: pyrrhic Music

Golden Plains Fest. I look upon it as my individual recompense for them not electing to sell me any tickets to Meredith this year.
Some general observations: Oh lordy, it is dry out there. Quite depressing to do a drive I've done so often before and see the whole foresaken hinterland grilling to waterless buggery. The poor animal folk all chewing pitifully at the dead earth. The land a flood of insipid brown to the edge of every eyeline. Damn this drought, and curse you Mr. Nino!
Also, to the scheduling-beings. You have work to do. Some woeful programming leaving the wrong things happening at the very wrongest times. The mood of the thing all up and down like a bipolar narcolept. refer to notes below for further education.
To the Main Lass for insisting on Ballan-based muffin-guzzling thereby ensuring our arrival as the bush camp shut its doors .... Grrrrrrrr and again grrrrrrr!
To the acid casualties beside whom I found myself camped, if you are not actually being murdered, please do not front as such. It hastens your come-down and ensures I have to deal with the day far too prematurely.
To the schedulers again - Why stop at 4am on the first night, then run it till 6am the following, by which time everyone's exhausted and just want to sleeeeeeeep??? Why would you do that??

In summary, it went thus;
Muscles
Why are people who ought to know better making out this sad-sack has the vaguest stirrings of talent? I don't mind people who can't sing doing so, but you must have something else in your armoury to compensate. Try writing a proper song. Or even actually performing. I could programme a sequencer and recite inanities too, given the opportunity.

Jamaica Irie/RUC.L & Jigzie Campbell
Not bad as such. But in no way appropriate for 3 o clock in the afternoon. That's all you need to know.

Shooting at Unarmed Men
Why are you not McLusky????? I want you to be McLusky!!! Which means, finding a new vocalist - I fear. In all honesty they were good, but not enough of a raucus bass-y assault relative to my expectations. Not enough Jon Chapple, too much the other guys.

Ground Components
I also had bigger expectations here. The tunes just disn't grab me.

Muph & Plutonic
God. Australian hip-hop.
Put your hands in the air! Say 'hooooo'! Do something formulaically retarded!
Kill yourselves. Since we're clearly in the business of issuing instructions.

The Drones!!!!!!!!!!!!
Grade A, prime-cut discovery of the entire festival for mine.
It's like they've taken the best bits of The Birthday Party, made them a little more musical and re-woven them into something truly mesmerising. And they really do put on a tight, spectacular live show. See them if and when you have the chance. Trust me.

Yo La Tengo
Beautiful. Everything that can be said about these guys most certainly already has. A brilliant and diverse chameleon act. Sixty genres in about as many minutes.

The Bellrays
Yawn. Get me another roti wrap!

Dexter DJ set
Accomplished, but I'm not reviewing a DJ

Mad Professor
Actually, yes I am. We all owe a good deal to this chubby dubby legend. He was brilliant. I'm sure at some point there has been some bad dub music, but if that's so, I am yet to hear it.

Sebastian & Kavinsky
See Dexter. But playing Cindi's "Time After Time" and finishing with the Beach Boys earns you kudos.

Sunwrae Ensemble
You woke me up. Bastards. But you sounded kind of interesting. From a tent half a kilometer away.

Mountains in the Sky
I've seen you before and I like you. You would have been good had I not been in my tent. Perfect chilling music. Very talented.

Darren Hanlon
You can't exactly rave about him, but nobody ever says a bad word about Darren. You couldn't. It would be like smothering kittens.

George Rrurrambu
Who actually turned out to be King someone-or-other. African drumming/dancing troupe. Phenomenal performances, and didn't the kiddies love them. I was a bit disturbed by chicken girl. Who appeared to have slaughtered several of these creatures in order to create her ensemble. Also disturbed by the sight of several 50 year old ravers in spandex and skirts and oh so crazy accompaniments, all tied together by a pink rope. C'mon guys, regression isn't cute anymore after 30. Put your heads in your elmo backpacks and reflect on that.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring
Another band I had fairly high expectations of based on ongoing rave reviews that failed in the main to meet them. Electric live show, but I found the music fairly formulaic bluesy pub-rock fodder.

Gotye
So very glad I saw them live. As these days you would imagine on hearing the album it was all done by synths. But instead we're treated to a batch of talented instrumentalists (memo: violin AND viola, never let you be alone again!!) We will be hearing much more from Gotye if there is any justice.

The Slits
OK, so I went back to my tent, and lay down and suddenly felt the comfort of a million velveteen pillows. And I thought to myself - It's a once in a lifetime chance, but as with every reformed seminal punk act yet, it's going to be sooo embarassing. But as I wafted off into nap-land, I had to admit they sounded pretty damn rocking. Anyway apparently they were completely conceited and crapped on about how they single-handedly invented punk-rock-reggae (not really true, folks). However they did have full-frontal nude go-go dancers who did naked cartwheels. I would sleep through that.

Comets on Fire
Asleep. Felt like I was missing little.

Fat Freddy's Drop
If you'd told me beforehand that I was going to be listening to New Zealand dub, I would have asked for you to fetch me another roti wrap (yes, another. I have an appetite). I would of course have been forgetting how good Salmonella Dub are, and now I can honestly say little kiwi-ville sports at least two absolutely world-class dub acts. I should add that I was completely prejudiced against them owing to their mongoloid name, and when the lead singer walked out looking like Craig David only further lobotomised I was set to turn and run. But it took about two minutes before they were shining so far beyond all the dumb artifice. Incredible ability to change moods, gears, tempos, flavours in their brilliant 10-minute songs, and they way they put the set together gave every impression that they'd thought about the whole perormance in that regard. A revelation.

The Presets
My god. If there is a better electronica act anywhere in the world right now, I challenge anyone to identify them. Meaning Australia can claim the top two in that department by way of Cut Copy. The set was absolutely blistering. The songs are ingenious. The performance, the delivery, the look, the everything faultless. These guys are going to conquer the world. No doubt at all. But hopefully never so thoroughly as to prevent them playing the likes of Meredith over and over and over.

!!! (chk chk chk)
We come at last to close with my biggest disappointment of the entire festival. I admit I should have done my homework. I knew that all the cool kids were raving about them. I knew that they're supposed to be in the same league as The Rapture & LCD Soundsystem. Only they're not. As they contain one fundamental, in-designed flaw. A flaw called funk. Funk in the hands of the best is ... well ... great. But very rarely my auditory tipple of choice. And the best are a rare bunch indeed. But that horrid deformed, genetically-impoverished beast of funk-rock fusion (citation required - ed) is invariably barely the other side of tedious. At best. This was occasionally best. Probably for two songs, unsurprisingly those that hid most diligently their funky roots. One was the second-last song. I think it was called "Don't Stop". It was almost techno, and it worked. The other one was where the lead singer (who whilst being a brilliant performer is quite cleary a WANKER - ladies, are you listening??) starts on this "can anybody here speak english?" rant, repeating that line over and over. That was pretty confronting, and that's all I liked about it.
I realise I'm completely on my own on this one. But I'm right. Just because InPress agrees with you, doesn't entitle you to dine out on my ostracism.

So, in summary and by request, my top 5 (and I will have yours in return, folks)
1. Yo La Tengo
=2. The Drones
=2. The Presets
4. Gotye
5. Mad Professor

Currently listening : Nine Times That Same Song By Love Is All Release date: 28 March, 2006

8:08 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Laneway
Category: Music

Oh yes. Another year, another laneway. Or the same laneway, in truth. At a different time, in different mode. I love that little lane - all the bizarre and inspired and inconspicuous stencil art. The delicious pointlessness of it. They fixed the sound this year too, which made it a much more pleasant experience. Unfortunately events somehow conspired to ensure I spent the day even more profoundly bedraggled and hungover than last year, which is a something I'd imagined altogether impossible. So I had to give it away early, missing both Ground Components and Midnight Juggernauts, which were two of the key reasons for being there. Boo.

The beauty of these festivals is the way you always discover some new musical creature that had somehow managed to exist up to that point squirrelled away like a Cleaner Shrimp in some musical rockpool somewhere. These events come along like a rock-flipping six year old, and it's great to watch the bands so briefly in action as they scuttle off to their next hiding-hole.

My assessment (in order of raucus delight)...
1. Love is All (Sweden)
AAA #1. new discovery of the day. Brilliant, vital, happy without being dumb. Josephine Clausson has a SOMEthing that should take them places. What the hell is going on over there right now? Are there ANY Swedes NOT playing in bands?? Is it like their equivalent of national service or something?

2. Camera Obscura (Scotland)
AA Possibly the plug-ugliest band anywhere on the face of the planet right now, but very talented. Beautiful songwriting, beautiful voice on the lead singer - all kind of Harriet Wheeler-esque. Must find out more.

3. Fionn Regan (Ireland)
A No banter whatsoever between songs. One thankyou at the end. Gave every impression of not wanting to be there aside from the actual music, into which he was obviously putting the most of his clearly considerable abilities. Which to me is a perfectly fine attitude. Wonderful singer-songwriter. Thanks to Kate for insisting we be there for him.

4. Peter, Bjorn and John (Sweden)
B It may have been a certain sense of anticipation which meant these guys actually wound up being kind of disappointing. It wasn't helped by them coming across like a pack of lame, ever-so-wacky backpackers. Just didn't seem like they were trying all that hard.

As for the remainder... Youth Group MUST DIE!!!!! Every fucking song, exactly the fucking same, and souding just like Matchbox 20 with a fuzzbox. Insipid.

The Sleepy Jackson. I hate you. The lead singer is a cunt. I didn't even see you, and yet I am able to write this review. Astounding is it not?

Bumblebeez. Grow up. Quickly. And change your name.

The Walkmen. For God's sake. Does anyone remember melody? Yet this turgid mess inspired a full reserve of dickhead males punching the air. Because the world needs another band like that. The lead singer looks like Brett Lee.

Anyway. It's 3am. That is all.

Currently listening : Three Mantras By Cabaret Voltaire Release date: 08 July, 2006

8:23 AM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

O cretin, your testament is F A I L U R E!!!
Current mood: ecstatic
Category: News and Politics

Tonight it seems for the first time in an eternity as though there may be a little bit of inbuilt comeuppance in the world for those who commit the most horrendous misdeeds for the most obscenely debased reasons.

George Walker Bush
Donald Rumsfeld
Dick Cheney
Christopher Dickless Hitchens
Your kind and those who sustain you.

People who make decisions to take away the lives of tens of thousands of human beings they've never met, nor never will, and however much they may mouth suggestions to the contrary, DO NOT and cannot care about. People who from the same sense of sheer contempt LIE LIKE BEGGARS in attempting to attain the consent of the world for their maleficient acts. People who viciously slander those who would stop them on their course leaving the sane and the reasoned covered in layers of their venemous spittle in the aftermath their ranting.

America - how many lives would be still be with us HAD YOU LISTENED TO THE FRENCH?
America - how much safer would it be, how much less terror-scarred would this planet now be HAD YOU LISTENED TO THE FRENCH?
America - how long could it possibly take you to realise YOU"VE BEEN HAD!

We know and have known for some time the answers to all of these things. Slowly yet all this dawns upon an increasingly rational nation. As I guess time elapsed since some bits of machinery were turned against you makes your mind that much less victim-bound, do we dare to hope you will begin to think and act RATIONALLY? Is it just possible that the ultimate testament to those victims would actually see you start to behave in a way that would ensure it might never happen again?

It's easy to make too much of this. People are undoubtedly just weary of being in so close companionship with death. To die and die cheaply is of course the domain of third-world types, it's the presence of such continual death as visited upon AMERICANS that's proven to be so unpalatable. A virtual sluice set overflowing from extremities of the Israeli charnel-house will move the nation not one whit.

But now you have to say that there is at least some solace in that people who don't care about the things that matter most in the world - the very lives of other human beings (which it would of course be a crime punishible by death to remove but a single one EXCEPT in the context of war, in which case tens of thousands can be so consigned) will at least be adjudged by history correctly, and something SOMETHING in the long run my be learned by the next batch of SLY-MOUTHED DESPOTS who would seek to act as MISERABLE SECOND-RATE DIVINITIES, and wipe out the lives of thousands based on wholesale lies, wrought in the furnace of a desire to see their unilateral will exercised worldwide.

These are the people who have not, do not and will not support the notion of multilateral approaches to conflict, who could not care less about war with humanitarian ends (WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU IN DARFUR?? WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU IN PALESTINE?? WHY DID THE SAME PEOPLE CHEERLEADING THIS WAR OPPOSE INTERVENTION IN KOSOVO OR SIERRA LEONE ("ALBRIGHT'S WAR")??), yet realise the untenability of what they've done such that they need to dress the whole thing up and to PRETEND the whole thing is multilateral AND humanitarian.

So we've freed the good people from the evil dictator (even though even the Shia women of Iraq are heard screaming in the streets to "Bring back Saddam - it was never like this before!") and we've done it as a coalition of the willing.

A rollcall of the coalition of the willing;
Spain. Spain?? Mr. Aznar?? Oh sorry - your people threw you out of office, and because of your position on this list too, it would seem. So sorry about that.
Britain. Britain?? Mr. Blair?? What? Busy! Fatally wounded - despised largely by the people that once adored you in record numbers, and all basically because of your position on this list. How truly disappointing.
A-Mer-ica. Mr. Bush. Lost control of both houses of congress. Squandered what was once amongst the highest approval a President has ever enjoyed. Squandered the sympathy of the world after Sept. 11. Even Jeb's anointed successor doesn't want to share a stage with you, doesn't want the poisoned chalice of your endorsement. And so now it is certain that the legacy of your time in office is to be WHOLESALE FAILURE WRIT SO LARGE IT ENVELOPED THE WHOLE FUCKING GLOBE. You miserable small-brained, weak-willed fucking troglodyte of a man. You complete moral debasement. YOU not merely FUCKED UP, but ensured the whole world was watching. You set all this in train - you, yourself. You leave any thinking, sane or morally-grounded individual no course but to issue, as I do now the most SNIDE, PITEOUS LAUGHTER for you in this, the hour of your fall. You lose, and dear benevolent God (for whom I can but have a renewed sensation of your ultimate justice) how you lose!!!
Australia?? Mr. Howard?
** DIVINE PERDITION ROLL THE FUCK ON!!!! **

Currently listening : Goodbye Enemy Airship The Landlord Is Dead By Do Make Say Think Release date: 27 March, 2000

2:01 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Why the dead of Marwahin have only 22 graves (Israel deserves no peace)
Current mood: angry

Marwahin, July 15, 2006: The Anatomy of a Massacre
by Robert Fisk

The tragedy of these poor young people and of their desperate attempts to survive their repeated machine-gunning from the air is as well-known in Lebanon as it is already forgotten abroad. War crimes are easy to talk about when they have been committed in Rwanda or Bosnia; less so in Lebanon, especially when the Israelis are involved. But all the evidence suggests that what happened on this blissfully lovely coastline two and a half months ago was a crime against humanity, one that is impossible to justify on any military grounds since the dead and wounded were fleeing their homes on the express orders of the Israelis themselves.

Mohamed Abdullah understands the reality of that terrible morning because his 52-year-old wife Zahra, his sons Hadi, aged six, and 15-year-old Wissam, and his daughters, Marwa, aged 10, and 13-year old Myrna, were in the pick-up. Zahra was to die. So was Hadi and the beautiful little girl Myrna whose photograph - with immensely intelligent, appealing eyes - now haunts the streets of Marwahin. Wissam, a vein in his leg cut open by an Israeli missile as he vainly tried to save Myrna's life, sits next to his father as he talks to me outside their Beirut house, its walls drenched in black cloth.

"From the day of the attack until now, lots of delegations have come to see us," Mohamed says. "They all talk and it is all for nothing. My problem is with a huge nation. Can the international community get me my rights? I am a weak person, unprotected. I am a 53-year-old man and I've been working as a soldier for 29 years, day and night, to be productive and to support a family that can serve society and that can be a force for good in this country. I was able to build a home in my village for my wife and children - with no help from anyone - and I did this in 2000, 23 years after I was driven out of Marwahin and I finished our new home this year." And here Mohamed Abdullah stops speaking and cries.

Marwahin is one of a string of villages opposite the Israeli border and, unlike many others further north, is inhabited by Sunni Muslim Lebanese, followers of the assassinated former prime minister Rafiq Hariri rather than the Shiite-dominated Hizbollah militia, which is supported and supplied by Syria and Iran. Most Sunnis blame Syria for Hariri's murder on 14 February last year.

While no friends of Israel, the Sunni community in Lebanon - especially the few thousand Sunnis of Marwahin who are so close to the frontier that they can see the red roofs of the nearest Jewish settlement - are no threat to Israel. For generations, they have intermarried - which is why most of the people in this tragedy hold the family name of al-Abdullah or Ghanem - and, had their parents been born a few hundred metres further south, they would - like the Sunni Muslim Palestinians who lived there until 1948 - have fled to the refugee camps of Lebanon when Israel was created.

Mohamed recalls with immense tiredness how his wife took his children south from Beirut to their family home in Marwahin on 9 July this year. The date is important because just three days later, Hizbollah members would cross the Israeli border, capture two Israeli soldiers and kill three others - five more were to die in a minefield later the same day - and Israel would respond with 34 days of air-strikes and bombardments that killed more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians. Hizbollah missiles would kill fewer than 200 Israelis, most of them soldiers.

Just down the hill from Marwahin, on Israeli territory, stands a tall radio transmission tower and on the morning of 15 July, the Israelis used loudspeakers on the tower to order the villagers to flee their homes. Survivors describe how they visited two nearby UN posts to appeal for protection, one manned by four members of the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organisation - set up after the 1948 war with Israel - and the other by Ghanaian soldiers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, the same army which, much expanded with French, Italian, Turkish and Chinese troops, is now supposed to police the latest ceasefire in southern Lebanon. Both the UNTSO men and the Ghanaians read the rule-book at the villagers of Marwahin. Ever since the Israelis attacked the UNIFIL barracks at Qana in 1996, slaughtering 106 Lebanese refugees - again, most of them children - the UN has been under orders not to allow civilians into their bases. The UN, it seems, can talk mightily of the need to protect the innocent, f but will do precious little to shield them in southern Lebanon.

Mohamed's four children had travelled south with their mother to buy furniture for their newly-built home; their father and his six other children in Beirut were to join them the following week.

"When the Israeli soldiers were taken, the airport closed down and all the roads became dangerous," Mohamed says. "But the mobile phones still worked and I had constant conversations with my wife. I asked her what was happening in the village. She said the Israelis were bombing in the fields around the village but not in the village itself. She had no car and anyway it was too dangerous to travel on the roads. On 13 and 14 July, we spoke six or seven times. She was asking about those of our children who were with me. You see, she had heard that Beirut had been bombed so we were worried about each other."

Mohamed's calvary began when he turned to the Arabia television station on the morning of the 15th. "I heard that the people of Marwahin had been ordered by the Israelis to leave their homes within two hours. I tried to call my wife and children but I couldn't get through. Then after half an hour, Zahra called me to say she was in the neighbouring village of Um Mtut and that people had gone to the UN to seek help and been turned away."

Mohamed insists - though other villagers do not agree with this - that while the UN were turning the civilians away, a van drove into Marwahin containing missiles. The driver was a member of Hizbollah, he says, and its registration number was 171364 (Lebanese registrations have no letters). If this is true, it clearly created a "crisis" - to use Mohamed al-Abdullah's word - in the village. Certainly, once the ceasefire came into place 32 days later, there was a damaged van beside the equally damaged village mosque with a missile standing next to it. Human rights investigators are unclear of the date of the van's arrival but seem certain that it was attacked by the Israelis - probably by an air-fired rocket - after Marwahin was evacuated.

In her last conversation with her husband, Zahra told Mohamed that the four children were having breakfast in a neighbour's house in Um Mtut. "I told her to stay with these people," Mohamed recalls. "I said that if all the civilians were together, they would be protected. My brother-in-law, Ali Kemal al-Abdullah, had a small pick-up and they could travel in this." First to leave Marwahin was a car driven by Ahmed Kassem who took his children with him and promised to telephone from Tyre if he reached the city safely. He called a couple of hours later to say the road was OK and that he had reached Tyre. "That's when Ali put his children and my children and his own grandchildren in the pick-up. There were 27 people, almost 20 of them children."

Ali Kemal drove north from Marwahin, away from the Israeli border, then west towards the sea. He must have seen the Israeli warship and the Israeli naval crew certainly saw Ali's pick-up. The Israelis had been firing at all vehicles on the roads of southern Lebanon for three days - they hit dozens of civilian cars as well as ambulances and never once explained their actions except to claim that they were shooting at "terrorists". At a corner of the road, where it descends to the sea, Ali Kemal suddenly realised his vehicle was overheating and he pulled to a halt. This was a dangerous place to break down. For seven minutes, he tried to restart the pick-up.

According to Mohamed's son Wissam, Ali - whose elderly mother Sabaha was sitting beside him in the front - turned to the children with the words: "Get out, all you children get out and the Israelis will realise we are civilians." The first two or three children had managed to climb out the back when the Israeli warship fired a shell that exploded in the cab of the pick-up, killing Ali and Sabaha instantly. "I had almost been able to jump from the vehicle -- my mother had told me to jump before the ship hit us," Wissam says. "But the pressure of the explosion blew me out when I had only one leg over the railing and I was wounded. There was blood everywhere."

Within a few seconds, Wissam says, an Israeli Apache helicopter arrived over the f vehicle, very low and hovering just above the children. "I saw Myrna still in the pick-up and she was crying and pleading for help. I went to get her and that's when the helicopter hit us. Its missile hit the back of the vehicle where all the children were and I couldn't hear anything because the blast had damaged my ears. Then the helicopter fired a rocket into the car behind the pick-up. But the pilot must have seen what he was doing. He could see we were mostly children. The pick-up didn't have a roof. All the children were crammed in the back and clearly visible."

Wissam talks slowly but without tears as he describes what happened next. "I lost sight of Myrna. I just couldn't see her any more for the dust flying around. Then the helicopter came back and started firing its guns at the children, at any of them who moved. I ran away behind a tel [a small hill] and lay there and pretended to be dead because I knew the pilot would kill me if I moved. Some of the children were in bits."

Wissam is correct about the mutilations. Hadi was burned to death in Zahra's arms. She died clutching his body to her. Two small girls - Fatmi and Zainab Ghanem - were blasted into such small body parts that they were buried together in the same grave after the war was over. Other children lay wounded by the initial shell burst and rocket explosions as the helicopter attacked them again. Only four survived, Wissam and his sister Marwa among them, hearing the sound of bullets as they "played dead" amid the corpses.

His father Mohamed heard on the radio that a pick-up had been attacked by the Israelis at Bayada, perhaps 10km from Marwahin. "When I heard that the driver was Ali Kemal al-Abdullah, I knew - I knew - that my children were on that truck," he says, "because my brother-in-law would not have left them behind. He would have taken them with him. I had another brother in Tyre and I called him. He had heard the same news and was waiting at the hospital. He said it was too dangerous to travel from Beirut to Tyre. He said that my family were only wounded. I said that if they were only wounded, I wanted to speak to them. I spoke to Marwa. She said Wissam was in the operating theatre. I asked to speak to the others. My brother just said: 'Later.'"

No one who has travelled the roads of southern Lebanon under Israeli air attack can underestimate the dangers. But Mohamed and his nephew Khalil decided to make the run to Tyre in the afternoon. "We just drove fast, all the way," Mohamed remembers. "I got to the Hiram hospital and I found Ali, my brother, waiting for me. I saw Marwa and I asked about her mother and Hadi and Myrna and she said: 'I saw them in the pick-up, sleeping. When the ship hit us, I was blown out of the vehicle. Afterwards, I saw Mummy and my brother sleeping.'" Marwa told Mohamed that she had run from the pick-up with her 19-year-old cousin Zeinab.

When Mohamed drove to the city hospital in Tyre in search of Zahra, Hadi and Myrna, his brother refused to travel with him. "At this point, I knew there was something wrong. So I went to the hospital on my own and I found my wife and children in the fridge. It was a horrible shock. To this day, I feel like I am dreaming. And I cannot believe what happened. No one came to ask me about Marwa or Wissam who lost a vein in his leg. It seems no one knows that this house has martyrs."

Before the ceasefire in southern Lebanon, Mohamed was called to say that the medical authorities in Tyre wished to bury the dead of Marwahin temporarily in a mass grave. He attended their burial and returned to his much-battered village on 15 August - just over a month after his wife and two children were killed and in time for their final interment on 24 August. He found his house partially destroyed in the Israeli bombardment along with the van and its Hizbollah rockets. "Every day is worse than the one before for me," Mohamed says.

And he blames the world. The UN for giving no protection to his family, Hizbollah's "vanity" in starting a war with a more powerful enemy and the Israelis for destroying the life of his family. "Is Israel in a state of war with children? We need an answer, a response to f this question. We ask for a trial for this Israeli pilot who killed the children. He is a war criminal because he killed innocents for no reason. And what has happened? The south has been destroyed. The people were massacred. The Israelis were back on the soil of my land. I could see them when we buried Zahra and Hadi and Myrna. How can I lose my children and then see the Israelis here? We are ignored by the government and treated with neglect by the media and the political parties - including the Hizbollah - who were the cause of what happened."

Almost all the "martyr" pictures of the dead of Marwahin contain a ghostly photograph of Rafiq Hariri, the mightest Sunni Muslim of them all, who was assassinated last year. The martyrs of Marwahin have become identified with a man who sought peace rather than war with Israel. But at the graveyard on the edge of the tobacco-growing village, there is no end to mourning. I found two old women sitting beside the graves, weeping and beating themselves and pulling at their hair. One of them was Ali Kemal's wife.

Adel Abdullah took me round the graves. His sister-in-law Mariam lies in one of them, her body still containing the unborn child she was carrying when she died. So are her five children, Ali, 14, Hamad, 12, Hussein, 10, Hassan, eight, and two-year-old Lama.

"This is Myrna," Adel says, patting his hand gently on the concrete surface of the little girl's still unadorned grave. "This is Zahra, her mother, whom we put just behind her. And here is Hadi." The villagers have written their first names in Arabic in the concrete. "There is Naame Ghanem and her two children. And this is the grave of both Fatmi and Zeinab because we could not tell which bits of them belonged together. That is why the 23 dead of Marwahin have only 22 graves."

On the dirt road to the cemetery on the windy little hill above the village, there still lies a face mask worn by the young men carrying the decomposing bodies to their final grave. And just to the left of the dead, clearly visible to the Israeli settlers in their homes across the border, the villagers have left the remains of Ali Kemal Abdullah's Daihatsu pick-up. It is punctured by a hundred shrapnel holes, bent and distorted and burned. The children in this vehicle had no chance, killed outright or smashed to pieces as they lay wounded afterwards.

"If it is right that these people should be martyred in this way, well fine," Adel says to me. "If not, why did this crime take place? Why can't a country - a single country, your country - say that Israel was responsible for a war crime? But no, you are silent." A woman, watching Adel's anger, was more eloquent. "The problem," she said, "is that these poor people belonged to a country called Lebanon and our lives are worth nothing to anyone else. If this had happened in Israel - if all these children were Israeli and the Hizbollah had killed them all with a helicopter - the US president would travel to the cemetery each year for a memorial service and there would be war crimes trials and the world would denounce this crime. But no president is going to come to Marwahin. There will be no trials."

Mohamed al-Abdullah weeps beside his wounded son in Beirut. "I consider this to have been a useless war and with these atrocious massacres it is innocent civilians who paid the price. Those who died are resting but we who are living are paying a price every day. That price is paid by the living who suffer. Why should I pay the price of something I didn't choose? I will say just one thing to you. God have mercy on Rafiq Hariri, a man of education and reconstruction. In God's name, I hope his children walk in his path. My wife loved Sheikh Rafiq so much. In this house, my wife's whole life changed after his assassination. Before, Zahra was not interested in politics but from the day his car was bombed, she listened to the news every day. Before bed, she wanted to hear any news. And she said to me once, 'I hope I don't die, so I will know who killed Rafiq Hariri'."

A UN investigation is still underway into Hariri's murder. An Israeli investigation is to start into the disastrous performance of its army during the war. The Hizbollah still claims it won a "divine victory" in July and August of this year. UNIFIL, which turned the refugees of Marwahin away on 15 July, stated that when they were removing the children's bodies, their soldiers came under fire. Human Rights Watch is still investigating the killings of civilians at Marwahin and other locations and wrote of them before the war ended. "The Israeli military," it said in its initial report, "did not follow its orders [to civilians] to evacuate with the creation of safe passage routes, and on a daily basis Israeli warplanes and helicopters struck civilians in cars who were trying to flee, many with white flags out the windows, a widely accepted sign of civilian status ... On some days, Israeli war planes hit dozens of civilian cars, showing a clear pattern of failing to distinguish between civilian and military objects." International law makes it clear that it is forbidden in any circumstances to carry out direct attacks against civilians and that to do so is a war crime. Human Rights Watch states that "war crimes" include "making the civilian population or individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities the object of attack".

Lama Abdullah was the youngest victim of the Marwahin 23. Ali Kemal's wife Sabaha was in her eighties. At least six of the children were between the ages of one and 10. The Israeli helicopter pilot's name is, of course, unknown.

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