| I was just reading an account of the Jewish armed uprising in defense of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, an astounding story of heroism in the face of almost certain death, as people armed with little more than pistols and home-made bombs held out for a month against the most powerful army on earth.
It is also a tale full of horrifying acts of a kind of ruthlessness and coldness that are hard to understand outside of the context of the fighting of that time:
A 12-year-old boy who had ratted to his Nazi captors.
Who was summarily pushed out of a top floor building window by a Jewish fighter so he can't do it again.
Nazi captives who were simply executed.
Wounded comrades who were left behind to burn to death because rescuing them was too dangerous.
Fighters who hid themselves in crowds of civilians and then begin firing at Nazi troops.
Inevitably leading to the deaths of civilians in the resulting crossfire.
Dave Lindorff 11 August 2006 www.counterpunch.org |
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...when I left Britain, I moved to Nazareth in Israel, an Arab — Muslim and Christian — community on the very margins of the self-declared Jewish state.
In the ghetto of Nazareth, I rarely meet Israeli Jews unless I venture out for work or I find myself sitting next to them in a local restaurant as they order hummus from an Arab waiter, just as I once asked for a madras curry in High Wycombe.
When Israeli Jews briefly visit the ghetto, I suddenly realise how much, by living here, I have become an Arab by default.
Living on the margins of any society is an alienating experience that few who are rooted in the heartland of the consensus can ever hope to understand.
Such alienation can easily deepen into something less passive, far more destructive, when you find yourself not only marginalised but your loyalty, rationality, even your sanity, called into question.
As we approach the fifth official anniversary of the "war on terror", the foiled UK "terror plot" has neatly provided George W Bush, the "leader of the free world", with a chance to remind us of our fight against the "Islamic fascists".
But what if the war on terror is not really about separating the good guys from the bad guys, but about deciding what a good guy can be allowed to say and think?
What if the "Islamic fascism" President Bush warns us of is not just the terrorism associated with Osama bin Laden and his elusive al-Qaeda network but a set of views that many Arabs, Muslims and Pakistanis — even the odd humanist — consider normal, even enlightened?
What if the war on "Islamic fascism" is less about fighting terrorism and more about silencing those who dissent from the West's endless wars against the Middle East?
At some point, I suspect, I joined the Islamic fascists without my even noticing.
Were my name different, my skin colour different, my religion different, I might feel a lot more threatened by that realisation.
Jonathan Cook 11 August 2006 www.counterpunch.org |
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| How would Homeland Security judge me if I stepped off a plane in the US tomorrow and told officials not only that I am appalled by the humanitarian crises in Lebanon and Gaza but also that I do not believe the war on terror should be directed against either the Lebanese or the Palestinians? How would they respond if, further, I described as nonsense the idea that Hizbullah or the political leaders of Hamas are "terrorists"? I have my reasons, good ones I think, but would anyone take them seriously? What would the officials make of my argument that, before Israel's war on Lebanon, no one could point to a single terrorist incident Hizbullah had been responsible for in at least a decade? Would the authorities appreciate my comment that a terrorist organisation that doesn't do terrorism is a chimera, a figment of the President's imagination? Equally, what would they make of my belief that Hizbullah does not want to wipe Israel off the map? Would they find me convincing if I told them that Israel, not Hizbulalh, is the aggressor in the conflict: That following Israel's supposed withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, Lebanon experienced barely a day of peace from the terrifying sonic booms of Israeli war planes violating the country's airspace? |
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O'Reilly got a little more than he bargained for when he invited Noura Erekat, legal advocate for the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, to discuss Israel's incursion into Lebanon, its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and America's role in the conflict.
In the past 6 years years Israel 11,782 missiles over the Lebanese border.
Hizbullah had launched 100 missiles over the border.
“I don’t think that our viewers know that Israel actually occupied Lebanon for 18 years and that in the past 6 years alone it’s launched 11,782 missiles over the Lebanese border. In comparison, Hizbullah had launched 100 missiles over the border.”Do Americans know that? Do you now know??? |
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| US Pays Blackwater $320 Million in Secretive Global 'Security' Program
While the Bush Administration calls for the immediate disbanding of what it has labeled "private" and "illegal" militias in Lebanon and Iraq, it is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into its own global private mercenary army tasked with protecting US officials and institutions overseas.
The secretive program, which spans at least twenty-seven countries, has been an incredible jackpot for one heavily Republican-connected firm in particular: Blackwater USA.
Government records recently obtained by The Nation reveal that the Bush Administration has paid Blackwater more than $320 million since June 2004 to provide "diplomatic security" services globally.
The massive contract is the largest known to have been awarded to Blackwater to date and reveals how the Administration has elevated a once-fledgling security firm into a major profiteer in the "war on terror."
Jeremy Scahill August 11, 2006 The Nation |
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| Would they understand as I explained that Hizbullah had acted with restraint for those six years, stockpiling its weapons for the day it knew was coming. When Israel would no longer be satisfied with overflights and its appetite for conquest and subjugation would return? Would the officials doubt their own assumptions as I told them that during this war Hizbullah's rockets have been a response to Israeli provocations. That they are fired in return for Israel's devastating and indiscriminate bombardment of Lebanon? ...Sitting in London or New York, the news that Gaza lost 151 souls, most of them civilians, last month to Israeli bombs and bullets passes us by. It is after all just a number, even if a high one. At best, a number like that from a place we don't know. Suffered by a people whose names we can't pronounce. It makes us pause. Even sigh with regret. |
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| President Bush and his obedient serf in Britain, Tony Blair...do not want to understand because they, and their predecessors, are responsible for creating these patterns and for writing this epic tale in blood.
Bush and Blair and their advisers know that the plan is far more important than the rage.
The "red" alert levels at airports.
Or even planes crashing into buildings, plunging out of the sky.
To protect the plan — to preserve the Middle East as a giant oil pump, cheaply feeding our industries and our privileged lifestyles — those who care about the suffering, the deaths and the wars must be silenced.
Their voices must not be heard.
Their loyalty must be questioned.
Their reason must be put in doubt.
They must be dismissed as "Islamic fascists".
Jonathan Cook From High Wycombe to Nazareth 11 August 2006 www.counterpunch.org/ |
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Lebanese Doctors and Civillians Speak Out against the Terrorism they are facing from Israel. Chemical Weapons, Cluster Bombs, Massacres Shocking Documentary About the War in Lebanon and the tradgedy in Qana. Lebanese testimonials to the war. Doctors Speak Out Against War Crimes. |
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Video taken from Sky News, placed on YouTube:
Galloway wipes the floor with Sky News anchor
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Atrocities committed by Israel — graphic pictures What CNN nor the BBC ever shows you |
| US ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES Israel Caused Holocaust Palestine Lebanon US Israel massacres — desire to kill one and half million people They keep sucking off the teat of America and the banking systems of Europe |
| ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES The horror of January 2009 Israel massacres — children bullets to the head I watched an Israeli soldier shoot dead my two little girls |
| US ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES February March 2008 US Israel massacres — desire to kill one and half million people The Story of Palestinians Childhoods |
| ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES January 19 - 21 Israel massacres — children bullets to the head Places flag on family home — East Gaza City |
| ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES January 14 - 18 2009 Israel massacres — desire to kill one and half million people They came up again with the Hamas-was-in-the-UN-school lie |
| ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES CONTINUE January 2nd week 2009 99% of US House joins 100% of US Senate in Supporting Israel with HRes34 The 42 vetoes of the US for Israel |
US Israel attack on Gaza City The Politics of Anti-Semitism 99 US Senators, 350 US House members attend AIPAC meeting |
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ISRAEL MASS WAR CRIMES CONTINUE January 2009 — Click here Israel killing — US paid army fires towards populations to cause death and injury The 42 vetoes of the US for Israel |
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