Israeli Arab MK Supports Bombing of Israel

Israeli Arab MK defends Gaza rockets

Posted: 11 Apr 2011 07:52 AM PDT
Firas Press quotes Maariv as reporting that Israeli MK Haneen Zoabi said that Gaza armed groups have a right to fire rockets at Israel - her country.

She said, "Those who live under siege and hardship will do everything for their freedom and Israel understands that."

Zoabi was on the flotilla that included the Mavi Marmara last summer.

Would any democracy in the world tolerate a member of their parliament publicly supporting war against their own country?

Elder of Ziyon

Pithy Platitudes for Israel

A 'think tank' called the Oxford Research Group (stated agenda: "promotes non-violent solutions to conflicts") has made the brilliant pronouncement that an Israeli attack on Iran would "be the start of a protracted conflict that would be unlikely to prevent the eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran and might even encourage it." Of course, the 'think tank' didn't think a whole lot about what the consequences of a nuclear Iran might be, nor did it even think about what other measures short of an Israeli attack might stop Iran from going nuclear.

The Oxford report estimated it might take three to seven years for Iran to develop a small arsenal of nuclear weapons if it decided to do so. It said there was no firm evidence such a decision had been taken by the Islamic Republic.

Any Israeli strike would be focused not only on destroying nuclear and missile targets but would also hit factories and research centers and even university laboratories to damage Iranian expertise, the report said.

This would cause many civilian casualties, it added.

Military action would include the direct bombing of targets in Tehran and probably include attempts to kill technocrats who managed Iran's nuclear and missile programs, the report said.

Brilliant analysis. Where can I get a throwing around pithy platitudes like that?

Yes, of course, an Israeli strike against Iran could lead to a long war. But what are the choices? The US under Obama is more likely to start rounding up Republican supporters than it is to bomb Iran. And if there is no strike, we might find ourselves living with an Iranian nuclear weapon - one that could even be set off by Hamas or Hezbullah at their whim.

What could go wrong? posted by Carl in Jerusalem

It's Not the Palestinians; It's the Jews

Michael Totten explains why the World is apparently uninterested (yes, really) in Gaza.

An extraordinary amount of time and energy has been spent in the last ten days denouncing Israel for its supposedly inhumane treatment of Gaza, but Hamas — under which Palestinians fare orders of magnitude worse — gets a pass from most of the people yelling at Israel. It’s not hard to figure out who and what all the fuss is really about. If Gaza weren’t at war with a half-Western Jewish country, Palestinians who suffer as a result would get no more attention than victims of the civil conflict in Yemen.

And for those who believe that it's paranoid to point this out, I don't believe that Totten is Jewish.

The picture is a protest against Israel's Gaza policies outside the Israeli embassy in London. posted by Carl in Jerusalem

Republican Barcelona 1936 Gerde Taro

Republican Militiawoman 1936 Gerde Taro

FirstPost.co.uk

Wickedness Is a Big Expense

Wickedness Carries a Big Price Tag
The Americans would kill everybody in Asia so long as we didn't pay for it. Borrowing from the Chinese and printing 'Monopoly' currency we thought was painless.
Sadly, the wars have had trickle down effects such as moral and financial bankruptcy. This decay shows the results of preemptive land wars in Asia. Not many Americans are willing to surrender their homes and jobs to continue a bogus war on terror.
So, we haven't learned anything except that wickedness has a big price tag.

Bush Coup Scenario

A Bush/Cheney Coup Is Possible
Since I haven't heard from Lyndon LaRouche after 1983, I thought he was dead. I watched the coverage of the siege on NDTV 18/3. It was realistic and utterly chaotic. Totally unlike the World Trade Center tragedy, they lacked a string of 'witnesses' who mouthed the Administration line.
I can't imagine the Brits being involved in this. They are too class conscious to murder tourists in posh hotels. The Mossad would have notified the Jews in the Chabad House to steer clear that day. The Americans are too much in love with their high tech toys to limit themselves to 300 dead. If a nuclear war begins, it will point directly at the USA. Nobody else hates Pakistan AND India enough to set up a nuclear war between them.
After the attack on Iran failed to materialize, the Republicans rushed to bail out the financial interests before the GOP scuttled the ship of state. As they did not want to get lynched before they left town, they lowered the gas prices. I thought they kept control of the MSM simply to keep from sinking below the radar. However, the estimate of Pakistani A-bombs has risen from 4 to 150 in the past few months.
Bush could attack India with a number of suitcase bombs, blame it on Pakistan and retaliate with the US Navy. He could declare Martial Law. Backed by the US Military patrolling our streets, he could remain POTUS for some time.

Republican Apocalypse

GOP Horsemen of the Apocalypse

In 2004 almost 60 millions of Americans voted for war, famine, pestilence and disease. In 2008 this platform received 55% of the white vote. Apparently, many people have a death wish.
If the GOP exists in 2048, its notions may again become fashionable.

Informing Americanized Jews

Informing Americanized Jews

"Israel chooses conflict over peace." This is a peculiar mindset typical of many Americans and some American Jews. They are willing to fight to the last drop of Israeli blood. They wonder why our region rejects their brand of democracy.

The intellectuals among them believe that peace is possible through negotiation and compromise. How sad they are when they discover these paths closed by Arabs!

So, the 'peace talks' become one-sided: Jews communicating with Jews. Sixty years of conversing with ourselves are quite enough, thank you.

Ari Sharon was right to grant them self-rule and to build high walls. Now, if everyone shuts his mouth and tends his garden, we may have calm.

There are not two sides to every story. You can't always get what you want. Being an Israeli is a lot more than being in Israel.

by jbpaz

Here We Go Again

FirstPost.co.uk

What Goes Around Comes Around
The sky is dark with chickens coming home to roost. America is in a terrible fix. But you wouldn’t know it from the politicians.

78 Millions Cluster Bombs Remain in Laos

During the Vietnam war, the US illegally bombed Laos as part of a secret war to disrupt Vietcong supply routes. 30 years later, 78 million unexploded cluster bombs remain scattered across the country, placing thousands at risk of death or injury every day. 111 countries gathered in Dublin this week to adopt a treaty banning cluster bombs. 5 countries- the US, Russia, Israel, India and Pakistan- were notable in their absence.

No Compromise in the Middle East

The words “no compromise” offer a summary. The possibilities are:
1. Israelis under heavy attack fall back to the sea and drown.
2. The Israelis drown and 200 millions Muslims are radioactive cloud cover.
3. 200 millions Muslims perish in a matter of a few hours.
The dead will have the comfort of knowing they never compromised.

Albert Camus on Unjust Wars Torture and Genocide

In 1948, in the shadow of that monstrous world war, the French author/philosopher Albert Camus accepted an invitation from the Dominican Monastery of Latour-Maubourg.
To their credit, the Dominicans wanted to know what an "unbeliever" thought about Christians in the light of their behavior during the '30s and '40s. Camus' words seem so terribly relevant today that it is difficult to trim them:
"For a long time during those frightful years, I waited for a great voice to speak up in Rome. I, an unbeliever? Precisely. For I knew that the spirit would be lost if it did not utter a cry of condemnation ...
"It has been explained to me since, that the condemnation was indeed voiced. But that it was in the style of the encyclicals, which is not all that clear. The condemnation was voiced and it was not understood. Who could fail to feel where the true condemnation lies in this case?
"What the world expects of Christians is that Christians should speak out, loud and clear, and that they should voice their condemnation in such a way that never a doubt, never the slightest doubt, could rise in the heart of the simplest man.
"That they should get away from abstraction and confront the blood-stained face history has taken on today.
"It may be ... that Christianity will insist on maintaining a compromise, or else on giving its condemnations the obscure form of the encyclical. Possibly it will insist on losing once and for all the virtue of revolt and indignation that belonged to it long ago.
"What I know -- and what sometimes creates a deep longing in me -- is that if Christians made up their mind to it, millions of voices -- millions, I say -- throughout the world would be added to the appeal of a handful of isolated individuals, who, without any sort of affiliation, today intercede almost everywhere and ceaselessly for children and other people." (Excerpted from Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays)

If You Think Your Nation Jinxed, Consider Sudan

'Sudan's Looming War'

by Sudanese Thinker

Sudanese Returnee explains the dangerous situation eloquently:

Abyei, that oil rich region in the North-South border, is arguably one of the most sticky issues that threatens the CPA and could possibly draw the country back to the cycles of war!

Today, Northern troops entered Abyei after the NCP expressed their objection to the appointment of an SPLM Administrator for Abyei.

… Recently, SPLA soldiers were reportedly attacked by heavily armed Misseriya gunmen and fingers are being pointed at the NCP in Khartoum for arming them. Now the northern army is building up in Abyei and who knows what will happen tomorrow!

In case you're wondering, the Misseriya are a nomadic tribe regarded as 'Arabs' by Southern Sudanese. As for the potentially deadly situation, Kizzie has an idea:

Dear government of Sudan and SPLM,


If you are planning to start another bloody civil war, evacuate a few villages and kill each other there.

Meanwhile John Akec isn't happy over Southern Sudan's seeming trend towards what he refers to as 'assassination politics':

A well known South Sudanese secondary school teacher from Greater Bhar El Ghazal by name Mathon Mathon often said under Abakr Tree (The Wau's answer for London's Trafalgar Square):

"When a war breaks out in a county, it is not the earth that gets destroyed but people's morals." In the South Sudan's war against the North, they did.

... Now, how far would you expect our morals to sink. All that because of our lust for power and feeling of extreme insecurity once in power. And a manner akin to King David of old, many of our leaders commit the sin and then murder to cover it up. Assassination is a virus once it infects, it spread like a wild fire and. Once started, it is hard to be stopped.

We now end this round up with another lovely short poem by Ras Babi:

she keeps her eyes down and whispers to me:

ras babi...

ras babi...

do you see this dressed in green and red man?

I feel her shaking from the in

I hold her hand in mine

she explodes crying

and crying

This man raped me with others

he killed my child

cut the head of my tent

that man is a devil son

do not buy their news

do something

tell the world

You may view the latest post at

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/04/20/sudans-looming-war/

Let's Meet at the Yalu River

Your fabulous writing brings back wonderful memories of what will always be my war. Although the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor a month after my birth, I never took World War II personally.

Seasoned by A Walk in the Sun and Sands of Iwo Jima, I was prepared to volunteer for Korea [aged 9]. If they would have accepted me, my life would have been very different.

As it was, I gave up war in favor of women. Enough with foolishness, the Battle of the Sexes has no light at the end of the tunnel.

Note: This was my comment on Jane Stillwater’s funny article posted on today’s Opednews.

Petraeus and Crocker Make a Case for Diplomacy

Bill Scher, Tom Paine

Based on the opening statements from Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker, shifting blame onto Iran for the continuing violence in Iraq appeared to be a major objective of their congressional testimony. Establishing that blame helps conservatives make a justification for launching an additional war with Iran.

But those Iran talking points crumbled under simple questioning. Media headlines today focus on Petraeus' plan to "pause" what was only a trickle of troop withdrawals, and the frustration of senators from both parties at the lack of a plan to eventually end the occupation. If the goal was to put a spotlight on Iran, Petraeus and Crocker failed.

Both tried to raise alarms that so-called Iranian-backed "special groups" (which, as my colleague Rick has noted, may not really exist) are fomenting violence and cannot go "unchecked."

But, as Washington Independent's Spencer Ackerman flagged, Sen. Jack Reed forced Crocker to acknowledge than Iran also has ties to the Shia militia with which we're allied (though Crocker said our friends are out of the "overt" militia business.) Democracy Arsenal's Ilan Goldenberg noted Sen. Barbara Boxer's observation "that the President of Iran gets the red carpet treatment [when visiting Iraq] and our President has to sneak into the country," indicating that the Iraqi government does not see Iran as a major threat, and the Iraqi people are less likely to shoot at Iranian leaders. Petraeus had acknowledged that Iran "presumably" wants a "Shiite democratic" state to succeed, and Crocker later described meeting with Iran's president was "in the category of a normal relationship" between the two neighboring countries.

They never backed off their claims from the opening statements, but they never successfully squared the claims with all that we know about the Iraq-Iran relationship.

And they certainly didn't produce any sort of case for attacking Iran. Even if you accept that "special groups" are adding to Iraq's sectarian violence, Petraeus' and Crocker's acceptance of a degree of Iranian regional influence bolsters the case for serious diplomacy to ensure Iranian cooperation in stabilizing Iraq.

The Petraeus-Crocker duo was treated as untouchable when they testified last year. Yesterday, they were mere mortals, questioned respectfully but open to challenge.

And challenging potential half-truths, false assumptions and misinformation is what's needed to avert another unnecessary war.

"War is a Racket" from General S.D. Butler

"War is a racket. . . It may seem odd for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent 33 years in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force --the Marine Corps -- . . . I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras 'right' for American fruit companies in 1903 . . . "Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best that he could do was to operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents". S. D. Butler "Butler understood the more honest function of the Marines (and U.S. foreign policy in general) was to forcefully maintain structures protecting the haves from the have-nots." { from www.VeteransForPeace.Org/military.htm}. We feature many more excellent quotes of this sort at our http://LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/warvspeace.html .

Cited by Ray Dubuque in Opednews.com

The Folly of Preemptive War in Asia

GWB should have begun his reading with the UN Charter and the US Constitution, both of which prohibit our country from waging a preemptive war. Only the Congress can declare war and authorize funds for it.
There is no cure for greed and hate. If these emotions make war a necessary evil, then we must prepare for perpetual conflict. This is the creed of the military/industrial complex, which has ruled the USA since the 1950’s.
To me moderate Islamists accept our bribes and do not make threats against us while the radicals behave in the opposite manner. This can change in a minute because most Muslim nations are tribal and despotic. For this reason human rights is a foreign concept like democracy a tool for the colonialists.
The Muslims prefer the rule of a vile domestic tyrant over a benign foreign one.Typically, Asia absorbs invaders eventually becoming undifferentiated from the natives. Land war in Asia is complete folly for westerners.