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Indybay Feature

Raise the Palestinian Flag over City Hall

by Verve
May 7th Get out and protest against the raising of the Isreali flag over San Francisco's City Hall!
Date: Fri, 2 May 2003 07:56:07 -0700 (PDT)
From: Leonid Nakhodkin <uhmsf [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: inform

By the initiative of the United Humanitarian Mission,
on the Independence Day of Israel on May 7th at 11:00a.m., at the City
Hall of San Francisco, the State Flag of Israel will be raised. The
General Consul of Israel will be present. The
raising of the Israeli flag at City Hall will be first time in the USA.
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by Aaron S
First of all, we need verification that this is happening. If it is, I hope some existing Palestinian and anti-imperialist organizations are organizing a protest.
by Corporate_Crap_OFF
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by Shocked
This is a travesty, and an affront to the good people of San Francisco. Were they ever asked whether they wanted to raise the Zionist flag?

This calls for a loud protest.
by nic (nixvilence [at] yahoo.com)
This is a slap in the face to the community that led the U.S. anti war movement! Do not go unheard! I urge you to rally against this extremely political act.
HOWEVER, I urge you to not make a large pro-Palestine display. All that is necessary is a single, large Palestinian flag to accompany the Israeli one. This will send a clear message that cannot be ignored and that is not too obnoxious to be disregarded by the politicians and diplomats present. It will point out the region's conflict, and the American people's conflicted views of what is happening in the region.
Should Palestine be freed? Yes! Should there be a Zionist State? Yes!
U.S. support of Israel is often defended with Zionism innapropriately, but also, one must consider how oppressive the Palestinian state is.
Why would we as liberals, human rights activists, anarchists, communists, greens, socialists or any other "leftish" political animals show support for either?
There should be one unified protest united under a single Palestinian flag to tell Israel that they aren't the only ones, they're not right—that the two conflicting states have equal interest in the Middle East and that we as Americans do not necessarily support one over the other.
Regardless, this is a call to action!
What do you think?
-Nic
by Socialist
I have searched the websites, including the Chronicle's datebook, and can find nothing about this event. It is true that Israel celebrates its theft of Palestinian land on May 7. In San Francisco, there is a June celebration scheduled. If anybody can find a listing of this May 7 event anywhere, please post it.

As to flags, only the Red flag should be raised at City Hall as that is labor's flag and it is labor that creates all wealth. All national flags are reactionary.

As to Israel, no decent person supports a Zionist state. Zionism by definition is racist , theocratic, anti-women and ant-gay. It is a philosophy of imperialism. The only hope for peace in Israel is a socialist secular Palestine.
by just wondering
What does that mean?
by I Agree with Above
The most absurd thing I ever saw were the Palestinian supporters at San Francisco's Gay Pride rally. Do gay people think they'd even exist for a second in Palestine? The same thing would happen in Palestine as happens in Egypt.

Gay Palestinian youth routinely flee to Israel because it's the only country in the whole middle east where they have some semblance of safety.

by If we can't make the rally
If people can't make it to a rally, the least we can do is call City Hall to protest the raising of the Israeli flag, as it represents a country this is apartheid and has been committing ethnic cleansing since day one of its immoral creation.

While you're at it, call the Westin St. Francis because last week they had an Israeli flag flying next to the US flag. My curiosity peaked, I went in to ask about why it was there, and the concierge lady said it was because they "rotate" flags from other countries and it was Israel's turn. I told her I found it very offensive to see the flag of a racist, anti-democratic, apartheid country's flag flying next to my country's flag.
by That's what I heard
Isreal is a racist state that practices ethnic cleansing and apartheid! That's why there is quite a large Arab and Palestinian population INSIDE Isreal...ummm, wait a second.
by Here's the number to call
Call the Protocol Office at City Hall at 415-554-6674 and ask for Matthew. Tell him of your indignation that the flag of an apartheid, racist, anti-democratic country like Israel is being raised at City Hall on May 7 at 11 am. Israel was immorally created when white European countries gave away Arab land that was NOT theirs to give away to Eastern European white Zionist Jewish Supremacists for a Jewish supremacist state,and in the process ethnically cleansed in 1948 over half of the non-Jewish indigenous Palestinian people from their own homeland. It is an outrage to commemorate such an event known as the Nakba ("Disaster") in Arabic to the Arab world. The Zionist Jews and Israelis have NEVER faced up to this immoral injustice that they have inflicted on the Palestinian people which resembles in many ways the Nazi treatment of the Jews during WWII. The Palestinian suffering has NEVER been addressed and is STILL continuing and they deserve reparations, liberty, freedom, equal rights and the right to return to their ancestral homeland of Israel-Palestine as it is their right according to UN Resolutions, International Law and world opinion. NEVER AGAIN applies to everyone! Ethnic cleansing can NEVER be justified no matter who does it to whom. Stop US support of Israel NOW.
by Socialist
Zionism by definition is racism. The Israeli state is a Jewish state by definition, dedicated to promoting the superstition called Judaism and the preference of those who believe in this superstition over others. It is because Israel is an exclusive Jewish state that it cannot claim to be a democracy, even in the bourgeois sense. This is a fact.

There is no separation between Church and State in Israel, a fact that causes a great deal of distress to those who prefer secular marriage and divorce. This too is why Israel cannot claim to be a democracy. It is also why, by definition, Israel is anti-women and anti-gay. All religions are anti-women and anti-gay. For more on the anti-women nature of Israel and the horrofic violence perpetrated against women by this warmongering society which by definition is filled with anti-women violence, see:
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/IsraelII.html

The Zionists also have a long history of colloboration with reactionary governments, from Hitler to Bush, as Zionism is an ideology of imperialism. See:
(1) Lenni Brenner's Zionism in the Age of Dictators at:
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/index.htm
and
(2) Ralph Schoenman's Hidden History of ZIonism at:
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/schoenman/

Contrary to the statements of the anti-Semites, Israel does not tell the US what to do; the US tells Israel what to do. Israel is just a US military base to protect US oil profits in the Middle East. Israel is in fact a death-trap for Jews, whose lives are endangered by the capitalist class of the US, an anti-Semitic terrorist gang who only care about maximizing their profits. It is also a death-trap for the Palestinians, as we witness every day. The workingclass of Israel, both Jewish and Arab, has gone on a general strike, which is expected to resume at the end of this week, as they are being asked to sacrifice to pay for this military base, while the rich get richer. It is labor that will put an end to the Israel garbage and make possible a socialist secular state of Palestine.

As to flags, the flag of Israel represents the same racist capitalist class as does that of its paymaster, the US. Only the red flag represents the workingclass of the world.
by angie
I'm sure you are well aware that the Palestinians inside Israel are treated more like second class citizens than the Israelis are; in fact, settlers brought in from around the world are treated more humanely than the Palestinian population within this terrorist state.
by Haha
Haha, the responses from "Socialist" and "angie" are laughable. Being gay is legal in Israel. Israel has gay pride parades. In Palestine, Jordan or Egypt, you get killed for being caught "being gay." And in Israel a million Israeli arab citizens have the same voting and working rights that anyone else in Israel has. There are muslims in the Israel government as we speak, democratically elected the same way Jewish government officials were elected. Those are the FACTS. And the fact that you hate Israel so much that you are willing to spew total NONSENSE makes you look like a total loon. Good job.

by well, well
We're glad something has amused the little mind.

However, renowned author, Edward S. Herman, would not agree with you. But then you probably never heard of Edward S. Herman.
by angie
Are you and I on the same page??? What the hell have I said about gay parades or anything remotely resembling same?

If this is what you're basing your knowledge of Israel upon, you're in big trouble, my friend. I don't give a damn if they have gay parades or no parades at all. It's immaterial to me.

I am talking about lower paying jobs, problems with permits for home construction, etc., etc.,while, as I stated earlier, the israeli Government allows its necomers to build homes in the most elite areas, mostly Palestine lands, get better jobs, etc.. This has been well documented AS A FACT.

So stop yapping with respect to anyone who may have an informed opinion different than your own. It serves no useful purpose whatsoever.

Some Jews are Zionist because they are Jewish and some Jews--yet a minority, so far--are *ANTI*-ZIONISTS *ESPECIALLY* because they are Jewish and thus would never do to another people what has been done to Jews so often in history.
by Seamus
I would say, in response to this particular argument that Irish nationalism is racist because it's based on the claim that any Irishman (white, black, etc.) is genetically Irish and that Irish--especially European Irish (since political Irish nationalism is a European ideology)--as an "ethnic" group have an *inherent* and *superior* right to most--if not all of--the land in Ireland.

P.S. If your family can show its roots are German, Russian, Japanese etc. you have a leg up on citizenship in those countries, even if you were born elsewhere.
by Moshe (isratela [at] hotmail.com)
To Angie
Your opinions are either based on complete ignorance and lack of information or are a result of malicious propaganda.
Whenever you are ready you are invited to visit me in Israel, to learn of some facts first hand, you can talk to some of my Arab neighbors and friends, some Israeli left friends and God forbid less leftist friends, as well.
Radicalism is the mother of all distortions and bad in this world, the inability to listen to the other and the lack of empathy rein your world as well as the world of your fellow “brothers in opinions” on this board.
Radicalism of any sort and kind is the true problem of mankind.

Moshe
by JA
"Contrary to the statements of the anti-Semites, Israel does not tell the US what to do; the US tells Israel what to do." (See "Socialist", Monday May 05--at 7:05pm)

----------

Actually this is not true. Unlike, then, apartheid South Africa (or any other foreign government I can think of), Zionist apartheid Israel has a very financially and politically powerful and influential lobby within the U.S.. This lobby does not control the world or even all of U.S. foreign policy, but this lobby does more or less control U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, keeping Israel as the primary focus and concern there. As Jewish-American and one of the world's formost authorities, Lenni Brenner, on Zionism and the history of Zionism says, "Jewish-Americans are the most successful, political influential and powerful minority in the history of the world." Brenner laughs at, for example, Chomsky's and USF's Stephen Zunes' (who I tore apart on this) claim that Israel is merely 'the cat's paw' of U.S. Mideast policy.

Any president, congressperson or other elected official to, especially, higher office who has defied this lobby or in any way criticized/questioned Israel has not been re-elected -- or even not elected in the first place. If one is a public official that criticizes or questions Israel, it is not the U.S. govt that will go after you, it's the Zionist lobby. That's why even Barbara Lee--let alone Barabara Boxer--rhetorically genuflected before Ariel Sharon, no less, and congratulated him on his then being elected prime minister. Boxer recently gave a speech before the Zionist lobby (shown to me by the S.F.'s anti-Zionist pro-Palestinian human rights activist Jewish-American journalist Jeffrey Blankfort) in which Boxer had her nose so far up the lobby's ass I couldn't believe it, it was the most salivatingly slavish speech I had ever heard.

People like Chomsky or Zunes won't even debate people like Brenner or Blankfort on this particular issue because Chomsky and Zunes (a Zionist disguised as a progressive) know that they would get creamed on this issue. Hell, even *I* creamed Zunes--and I'm not an expert! I just read lots of stuff and have some intellectual common sense and non-hypocritical moral values. (Are Brenner and Blankfort "anti-Semites"?) Or as Blankfort asks: Are we to believe that the Zionist lobby gives tens of millions of dollars each year to Presidential, Congressional and other high-ranking politicians for nothing, so that the U.S. govt would do what it's going to entirely do anyway?

Does this mean that the Zionist lobby (now euphemistically called "the Israel lobby") gets its way every single time? NO. But it usually does. Does this mean that the interests of the U.S. never co-incides with Israel or the Zionist lobby? Of course not. But, it can be credibly argued, Israel no longer really serves the purpose for which the Western imperialist powers originally intended. If Israel were not there to cause trouble with, interfere with, or hinder otherwise would-be unfettered U.S. interests in the Middle East, the U.S. would actually be better off as an imperialist just selecting and supporting suitable rich dictatorial Arab (or Persian, as with the former Shah) governments with large oil reserves to do the U.S.'s imperialist dirty work. Let's get real.

In fact, we might ask of the Zionist neo-cons in the Bush/whatever administration, *who's* Mideast foreign policy are they conducting, the U.S.'s or Israel!? (Not that I personally favor either country's imperialism/colonialism.)
by JA

"P.S. If your family can show its roots are German, Russian, Japanese etc. you have a leg up on citizenship in those countries, even if you were born elsewhere. " (See "Death to Ireland" 'Seamus' above.)

Germany, Russia, Japan, Ireland do *NOT* politically and legally define themselves as "a German/Russian/Japanese/Irish state" and being of foreign German, Russian, or Japanese descent do not automatically gain you citizenship there. Nor does Germany, Russia, Japan or Ireland define itself as "the state of all Germans/Russians/Japanese/Irish" in the world. If you are a citizen of any of those states, but are not a member of the numerically or politically dominant ethnic group, you are still legally (at least on paper) entitled to ALL the rights and privileges of those states. (Actually, Japan might still legally discriminate against Korean-Japanese as ethnic Koreans, but I doubt it.)

Now are you a Zionist, 'Seamus', or just being silly?
by JA
Now are you a Zionist, 'Seamus', or just being silly?

--OR BOTH!!
by From Angie
Moshe,

My very own note from you! I would have responded earlier, my friend, but it is early morning here. Besides, I am not sure why i've been addressed personlly by you. My comments as compared to others mentioned in this post are so mild as to be - gasp - boring. Nonetheless, thank you.

I am not sure if you are calling me a left wing radical or something worse or neither. In either case, the title is misplaced. I am a very boriing, peace loving individual with a passion for the rights of all peoples, and when I see a blatant abuse of this by any nation, I become very angry indeed..

I too have read Edward S. Herman (as alluded to above in this post) and in his brilliant piece on Israel's Ethnic Cleaning, Part 1, "Making" Facts on the Ground, page 4, he has some very uncluttered and definite comments.

I shall quote here the following: ". . . 18 percent Arab minority are legally second class citizens without "nationality rights" that have included not only land use but access to public and private employment, and credit, and many other privileges that are limited to Jews". This was published in 2001. Edward S. Herman is a critically acclaimed US author/professor, etc.

Another interesting piece was "The Arabs of Israel after Oslo: Localization of the National Struggle" by Elie Rekhess, Israeli Studies, Volume 7, No. 3.

"History of the Palestinians in Israel" is another spiel I've read , and very informative it has been.; likewise, "The Outsiders: Palestinian Citizens in an Israeli Apartheid State" by Isabelle Bennett Humphries, Aholi Centre for Community Development, Nazereth; and "Is Israel Ready to be Judged by its Second Class Treatment of its Arab Citizens" by Alan C. Brownfeld, December 1999.

I could go on, but you can read all these articles yourself..

After reading your note I checked the Internet for any references to "Arabs In Israel, Second Class Citizens", and there were 19,000 items mentioned in my Yahoo search..

I am very pleased to know that you and your Arab friends are happy, etc., etc. It is only as it should be.

However, until Herman and countless others are proven incorrect with respect to the treatment of Arab citizens in Israel, I will not dismiss what they say as propaganda.

Your offer to visit Israel and see for myself is accepted in the spirit of the offer given. And maybe some day who knows.

Angie
by Bob
"Germany, Russia, Japan, Ireland do *NOT* politically and legally define themselves as "a German/Russian/Japanese/Irish state" and being of foreign German, Russian, or Japanese descent do not automatically gain you citizenship there."

Poland - Land of the Poles
Ireland - Land of the Irish
England - Land of the English
Finland - Land of the Finns
Deutchland - Land of the Germans
Israel - Land of the Jews

Japan - no non-Japanese foreigners are entitled to citizenship, including Koreans whose families have lived in Japan for one hundred years. People of Japanese descent born elsewhere, like Peruvian born Alberto Fujimoro, are entitled to citizenship.

In Germany, people of German descent from Eastern Europe and Russia are allowed to become citizens of Germany upon proof of ancestry. Non-German immigrants are not entitled to citizenship






by Moshe (isratela [at] hotmail.com)
I was addressing you in particular from no apparent reason, you were the last one to comment.

I would like to address some your quotation of Edward Said:
I shall quote here the following: ". . . 18 percent Arab minority are legally second class citizens without "nationality rights" that have included not only land use but access to public and private employment, and credit, and many other privileges that are limited to Jews". This was published in 2001. Edward S. Herman is a critically acclaimed US author/professor, etc. “
Unlike you and most of your “colleagues” on this board, I did not read his work, maybe I should have but actually leaving the Israeli situation, occasionally as I do, is my preferred first hand experience.
Tell you the truth I do not know whom exactly Mr. Said refers to, when talking about “18 percent Arab minority”. In case he is referring to Israeli Arab citizens than there are no other words to describe these lines but a “complete lie”.
Israeli Arabs are by law equal citizens to all other ethnic Israeli groups, may they be divided by religion or otherwise. (but this as well can be debated by your colleagues on this board for hours)
It might be that Mr. Said is referring to the Arabs in the Palestinian occupied territories. In this case he is not lying but simply wrong.
Arabs residing in the occupied territories are not Israeli citizens, the occupied territories are, as their name suggests, occupied by the Israeli army.
This occupation is horrible and me as well as many other Israelis are completely against it in words as well as in deeds. But as sad as this might sound this is an entirely political situation in which 2 sides are arguing. Arab population in the territories, as well as Israeli citizens within Israel (of all ethnicities and religions), are being held hostage, by politicians from both sides. Politicians who make their living by vilifying the other side (just as you vilify Israel on this board).
In this “hostage situation” things are generally in a stalemate, long one. Palestinian Arabs residing in the occupied land, are for the past 3 decades being held in the situation of no homeland no citizenship no rights / duties, while Israelis are held Hostage to the constant, under- threat situation.
The situation of the Israelis is far better no doubt about it, but after all they were the “winners” of all wars fought in the area. But what a sour victory…
Two peoples that are living within, around and inside one another in a way that they neither can swallow nor can spit this “bone” of the other that is stuck in his throat.
As the outcome of this situation, Arab Israelis that by law are equal to all other citizens suffer as well, I myself help some friends in need whenever I can to try and ease their unnatural situation of being part of a people that is fighting against the country in which they are citizens, and in which they would like to stay citizens .The absolute vast majority of Israeli Arabs would never change their Israeli passport for a Palestinian one, they would never consider to immigrate, nor they would, in any future peace accord, be part of any non Israeli country (there were some talks of territorial exchanges between Israel and a future Palestinian state. In the past there were talks of territorial exchanges, in such, Israel would transfer territories with Arab majority to Palestinian rule while territories that are with Israeli Jewish majority will be given to Israel in exchange, any such talks were flatly rejected by Israeli Arabs.
To summarize it, I can say that the situation in Israel is extremely complex; there is no need to add to its complexity with further propaganda, such propaganda is in any way being perfectly well handled by politicians from both sides.
Regarding my invitation and your: “acceptance in the spirit of the offer given”
I was not joking, since you, as well as others on this board are so much concerned with the situation to the point of obsession with Israel and everything it stands for, why not do something about it?
Myself I am a business person, writing this message from beautiful Rome, having given myself this title, I do not pretend to be moral or better than anybody, so I really should not bother, but you and your friends, that are so moral and right, and that write everyday in this board about horific Israel and Israelis, if you really believe that such atrocities exist, being so moral, how can you sit and do nothing, writing on the web will not change anything for the better. And especially the way you write here will only bring more divisions and hate.

To my humble opinion if the only thing you can and willing to do is write, than at least write about peace and love.
If any writing might change anything for the better than spreading love it is, and not spreading hate, the only thing your board is good for is for spreading hate.
And if anything, this might only change things for the worst.
by From Angie
Thank you for your note.

I will be reading it over later and will respond.

Lucky you in "beautiful Rome". A pal of mine is saving for a trip to Venice, which I'm sure is equally beautiful..

I appreciate you taking the time to respond, but please, whoever is on this board I know not. They, like me, are just people with views that differ or are the same as anyone else.

Till later, Angie
by equality
Moshe's assertion that Palestinian citizens of Israel have equal rights is a lie (he even had the call to call Edward Said a liar for pointing out the discrimination against Palestinians). Palestinians are discriminated against by Israeli law. They are treated as unwanted guests in a land in which they and their ancestors were born and had lived for millenia.

Check out this link which documents the discrimination against Palestinians in Israel:
http://tv.oneworld.net/tapestry?story=143
Israel as a Jewish state has been legally defined as resting on three minimum conditions: Jews form the majority, Jews are entitled to special treatment and preferential laws, and a reciprocal relationship exists between Israel and Jews in the diaspora. By privileging Jews, the state treats the Palestinian Arab minority as second-class citizens.
by JA
To: Lesson, by Bob Tuesday May 06, 2003 at 07:02 AM :

In your descent into stooopidity you forgot about:

Maryland - Land of the Marys
Greenland - Land of the Greens (not to be confused with the political party)
New Foundland - Land of the New Founds
New Zealand - Land of the New Zeals
England - Well, England, STOOOPID, is not a country; the country is called the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. So what would that be the ethnic land of?

Israel - Land of the Jews??? Wouldn't that be "Jewland"--a questionably anti-Semitic name? I think you broke your rhythm, Bob: there's no "Land" root word in the name Israel !!

The United States of America - states of the ethnic Uniteds?--the ethnic Americans?

How about Palestine - Land of THE PALESTINIANS (or Palestinian Arabs)!!!

And any trip to London will quite readily assure you that many of its CITIZENS are not ethnic English or even white. In fact, the 'national' dish of England is said to be *curry*!! And any trip to Berlin and other multicultural German cities will quite readily assure you that there are plenty of other German citizen ethnicities, some even Jewish, in those cities. Or are you saying that only ethnic Germans are allowed immigration and/or citizenship in Ze Fatherland!

Your list of country names, Bob, is simply that: a list of names now. Those country names in itself mean nothing in terms of who is legally allowed the full rights of citizenship and equality in those places. Those country names are now *national* names, not ethnic names, and now refer to the *citizenship* name of ALL the people in those countries, not the ethnicity of all of the people who are its citizens.

One is said, today, to be a Polish, Irish, British, Finnish, German, Japanese *CITIZEN*, if they are a citizen of those countries; those names do *NOT* automatically denote or define one's inherent ethnicity/ancestry in those countries. Unlike in Israel where one's citizenship name (I am told) is racistly denoted or defined by one's ethnicity/religion on their identity cards. Thankfully, Jews do not have to carry racist identity cards--or have separately colored license plates--in the U.S. that says: "Jew".

And while some racist whites in the U.S. still sometimes talk about wanting to "maintain the white Christian character" of the nation--just as they openly used to talk about maintaining the white Christian character of their neighborhoods or Ivy League universities--it is not nationally defined policy as with Israel racistly proclaiming that it wants to maintain--through legal and political force--"the Jewish character and dominance" of the Israeli state regardless of the population demographics and religion (Muslim, Christian, or other faiths) of the people within its borders. Jews in Israel are just recreating the racist and religious bigotries for themselves against others that they have been the unjust victims of in other countries and times and that they would rightfully never accept in any other country.

Martin Luther King said that "The Promised Land" was the creation of a just society with equal rights and equal dignity for all people--and, if you want a Biblical interpretation, that "the Chosen People" are a people "chosen" by God to be and retain a *special* moral consciousness because of His moral trials upon them of the special suffering they have endured.

As for Japan, individuals who are not ethnically Japanese can, in fact, become Japanese citizens. Now, they are yet required to take Japanese names to do so, which many ethnic Koreans have refused to do -- understandably so -- BECAUSE IT IS *RACIST*! In fact, Japan has had a long history, like the U.S. and other countries had, of being *LEGALLY or CONSITUTIONALLY* RACIST in many respects--just as Israel still has. But American "Jim Crow" apartheid has been legally abolished. South African apartheid has been legally abolish. Nazi German apartheid has been abolished. And Israeli apartheid needs to be legally abolished along with the other racist systems.

(By the way, I may have been wrong about whether it was Barbara Boxer or Nancy Pelosi who recently gave that grovellingly slavish speech to the Israel Lobby--I have to look it up again, when I can find it--but I'm sure that both probably have, if not to the same abject degree.)

Now are you too, Bob, a Zionist or just being plain silly, like 'Seamus'--OR BOTH?

Sillyland - the Land of Bob & 'Seamus'
by Land of the Jews?
Not for long.

It's only that way now because of immoral ethnic cleansing. That's why we are going to rally and protest the raising of apartheid IsraHell tomorrow.

And we will keep on rallying until Israel becomes Palestine-Israel, a true democracy with equal rights for all including all the 5 million Palestinian refugees, who have the right to return to their ancestral homeland of Palestine-Israel according to UN Resolutions, International Law and world opinion.

Jews will soon be the minority once again in the Holy Land, because that's the natural organic peaceful way.

Just like the end of apartheid in South Africa -- now it's a true democracy, not a White Supremacist state.

No longer will Israel be a Jewish Supremacist state either. Get used to it. Deal with it, non-violently.

We Americans don't think Jews should have any more special priviledges or treatment than anyone else. We the People believe that Jews must be held to the same democratic standards as everyone else.

Time to stop supporting ethnic cleansing in Israel for a Jewish state! Time to stop all support of racist, apartheid Israel until it is truly transformed to a true democracy just like So. Africa was, and the US for that matter. So. Africa and America did not break up into two states, and we ended segregation and we value diversity! No more double standards! No more hypocrisy! Justice, equal rights, freedom, liberty and the right to pursuit fo happiness for ALL!!!
by Penny
In the musical, "South Pacific" is a song about racism in which the phrase "You have to be carefully taught..." is repeated with every chorus.

Yet, I've been seeing a kind of bigotry which doesn't seem to have to be taught in these last few weeks. My eyes only recently got good enough for me to even look at Indymedia and I was saddened and, I admit it, frightened.

I told a friend, "Whatever button it was that Hitler's cadre pushed in human nature seems to have been pushed again." I have even seen the Third Reich's propaganda hoaxes being put on as valid information.

Where does this come from?

I have no problem with people objecting to the actions of governments which they find unethical/wrong, etc. There are many governments in this world doing wrong things and it is valid to object to them. And if huge numbers of people are more upset by the awful war between Israel and the terrorists from the Palestinian territories than by the mass murders and torturing in Sudan or El Salvadore, etc. well, still, maybe that's just some kind of accident. Not really anti-semitic Jew-bashing?

But there is a great deal of sheer blathering hate-think with no rational content and huge amounts of serious lying going on by people who claim to support the Palestinians. This is something which goes beyond having sympathy for one beleagered people. This sort of thing truely goes against the best interests of the Palestinian people as well as the sanity of all decent people on earth.

There is no question that a combination of hysteria and misery and sheer mutual trauma has made the Palestinian-Israel situation dangerous and hearbreaking. Anything which would help calm down the extremists from both sides so some sort of workable compromise could happen would benefit everybody.

But the hate-think bigots only want the violence to go on and on and on. They even advocate the self-immolation of little children!
by No to ethnic cleansing and genocide!
As Rachel Corrie said, "This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don't think it's an extremist thing to do anymore....I am in the midst of a genocide which I am also indirectly supporting, and for which my government is largely responsible." Please join us to protest the raising of a racist apartheid country's flag over our SF City Hall. Zionist Israel must be shunned.
by Down with Israel
Penny, not only are your eyes bad, but perhaps your mind is going, too, poor dear.

Israel was founded by terrorists--- oh that's right, your memory is going too, poor,poor dear!

Let me remind you, that in 1946 Menachem Begin oversaw the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which killed 92 people and critically wounding over 100 more, many of them civilians, all British and Arabs. Later Menachem became a Prime Minister of Israel. But I guess that's OK with you, because no Jews were killed in that terrorist attack. I suppose you even think of Manachem Begin as some sort of hero. Just like you think the war criminal Butcher of Beirut Sharon is a hero.

Why don't you just go take a nap, Penny? I'm sure you'll find your fantasy dreams of Israel there! Sorry, but you seem to have lost your capacity to grasp reality. Sweet dreams.
by Brian
The comment written by "Uhh" is just on the mark. In fact most Israelis who I know say that they are willing to part with the West bank and Gaza and live in peace with the Palestinians if the other side stops terrorist attacks, hatred, obsession with the past, and recognized Israel right to exist. When and only when there will be responsible leadership on Palestinian side, comparable to Anwar Sadat of Egypt or King Hussein of Jordan, will the Israelis withdraw with the west bank and gaza. Under the present conditions, who in the world needs another terrorist state???
by Eric
Arthur, you have just become my hero.

KAHANE TZADAK = Kahane was right

KAHANE CHAI = Kahane Lives!

Palestine = Jordan
by Angie
Good morning, Moshe,

Edward Said was not mentioned by me, even though I have great respect for him. I quoted Edward S. Herman (and he can be found on the Internet if you wish to read his works).

Politicians are, indeed, the root cause of most problems universally. These people (for the most part) are elected and can easily be voted out of office..

My unhappiness with Israel is based on history, and works by well known and respected authors, as well as television news reports. I do not consider my sources to be propaganda, malicious or otherwise, nor do I believe that facts and figurees in libraries around the world are sources of propaganda either.

Israel's inability, since it's formation, to be upfront and honest is legendary. It's always been poor us. We didn't do it. It was their fault. It was self defence. It was -- and on and on ad nauseum. A peace activitist, a journalist, a UN worker murdered. It wasn't our fault. There is never an apology, always going to be an "investigation". We are used to it by now even though we do not accept it and know it to be untrue..

Remember the night time bombing of an apartment building in July, 2002 wherein not only was Salah Shehadeh, a Hamas leader, killed, but fourteen civilians, nine children, hundreds injured? And there was Sharon, the real butcher of the Middle East, gleefully telling the cameras "This operation, in my view, was one of our biggest successes". Nine children murdered? And we get it was one of our biggest successes. Please!

We were told that the people of Israel were "horrified" at the massacre, and I'm sure they were. In the same breath Peres was telling us it was "self defence". Please! Israel NEVER says it's wrong. And that is very very SAD. There is no responsibility for its cruelty and savagery. It is always the fault of the other party. I don't like it, my friend. I simply do not like it at all. AND THIS IS JUST ONE EXAMPLE.

Civilized nations would have arrested Shehadeh and charged him for his crimes, if any, and a Court would assign his guilt or innocence. Imagine if every country assassinated alleged offenders? Yet Israel goes on its murderous way, knocking off one so-called militant after another; blowing up another house sometimes with people inside (as was the case back in 1954, in another massacre led by Sharon).

With respect to the recent conflict, Ariel Sharon knew damn well what he was doing when he puffed his way to Temple Mount, accompanied by his thugs, on September 28th, 2000. He had been asked (we are told by a brilliant PBS documentary re the Cllnton-led peace talks) not to do this, but knowing the Palestinian psyche, he went ahead anyway. We see the result..

The Israeli Government loves tossing the word "terrorist" around, but it ignores its own terrorist leaders, Shamir and Begin, who had their gangs in Palestine in the forties and fifties, then went on to become Prime Ministers of Israel, and now Sharon.

We remember the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, some 17,000 plus slaughtered, mostly civilians,. We recall the refugee camp massacres at Sabra and Shatila, (with mass graves still being located). "It wasn't our fault", even though Sharon was found "indirectly responsible", by an Israeli commision of inquiry,..

I've seen Fergal Keane's brilliant "The Accused", and I've read the tirade of abuse that was hurled at him. Why are you bringing this up twenty years later, friends of Israel demanded to know. They forget that Israel, even to this day, is still hunting down war criminals fifty years later.

It's the double standard that angers me, my friend. Strange as it may be for Israel to believe, it is no more important to the scheme of things than any other nation on earth, any other peoples on earth. Israelis, despite what they seem to think, are just people. So are we all. They are no better than anyone else. They are not superior to anyone else. A seige mentality is not applicable here unless it suits the Israeli image, of course .

Brilliant Canadian, Gwynne Dyer, devoted Part 3 of his critically acclaimed series "War" to Israel. It is a history lesson in itself.

Robert Fisk and John Pilger give us a rational and honest, not to mention courageous, coverage of events in the Middle East. The fact that they are vilified constantly for their work is proof they are telling the truth. Israeli writer, Israel Shamir, I also trust. . Even Ha'aratz had a headline recently claiming "He Must be Stopped" referring to Sharon.

The Israeli army is out of control. The killing of James Miller on Saturday; and it was, oh, we (Israel) didn't do it. Rachel Corrie was run over by a bulldozer. It was her fault. Two other peace activists were shot, one in a coma, and w hen his parents come to visit they are shot at. What is it, Moshe? What has this army become? This is not self-defence. This is murder.

I look at the images on television, and I see the hovels the Palestinians are living in. I see the hopelessness, the utter despair. It's as if they are living in an open air prison or worse. This is what your country has done to another people. And you expect us not to be angry?

There is no work, no money, children going to school with tanks, guns, missiles everywhere. The horrific effect this must be having on these children is unimaginable. Some of them have never known any other kind of life. It is tragic. And if they fight back in the only way they can, they are terrorists. if they are, my friend, so is the Israeli army.

The suicide bombers who blow up Israeli civilians and property are guilty of murder as well, but one does not make the other less guilty. Perhaps if the Palestinians had its own army and equal weaponry, then we could call this conflict a "war", as Sharon likes to refer to it..

I am happy to know you are helping out in any way you can. Others should follow your example, and I am sure that there are good, decent people in Israel just as there are in any nation of the world. Sadly these are not the ones we see/hear.

It is only the horror we hear about. Daily on our news reports we hear "the Israeli army shot and killed" and another number of Palestinians, mostly civilians, are being buried by their grieving families. And every time we're always told that "it was self defence. We were attacked", etc., etc. Sorry, my friend, I do not believe it.

The Palestinians, or anyone else for that matter, has a right to fight for their people, their freedom, and fight
in the only way they know (or can) with the limited resources they have. We are not talking about a level playing field here, are we?

Vililfying Israel, incidentally, is no different than Israel vilifying anyone else, and as you know, they do it well. Spreading hate against Israel is no different than Israel spreading hate against anyone else.

There is no law that states Israel is set apart, that says it cannot be judged on its conduct, that it can kill at will, disregard international law, and moral, ethical, and judicial conduct. So why is this tyranic behaviour allowed to continue? Why is it encouraged by the Israeli leadership with help from the US? The only one responsible for the actions of Israel is Israel, itself.

Those of us who write our thoughts here, for the most part, are doing so out of a genuine concern for our fellow humankind, and I don't care much if it is Israel, or any other country on earth. If I believe something is wrong, I shall point it out in any forum available. If you consider us spreading "hate" because we dare criticize Israel, then that is your problem not ours.

The situation in Israel (and in the terrorities) is not so complex that a little truth and compassion cannot create understanding. Voting out the Likud party and its fanatics might be a start..

Oh, and, Moshe, it is not up to us who comment here to visit Israel and stop what we believe are atrocities committed againist the Palestinians. We can (and do) write letters to our government representatives, etc. but this is up to the people of Israel. The ISM hasn't fared too well in its efforts to protect the civilian population, has it?

To the rest of you who use this board, forgive me for taking up so much of your space.

Angie
by john
Let me remind you, that in 1946 Menachem Begin oversaw the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which killed 92 people and critically wounding over 100 more, many of them civilians, all British and Arabs.

And let me remind you of the 1920 slaughter of jews in Jerusalem which was committed by Haj Amin al-Husseini. He later because "grand mufti" of Jerusalem and helped the Nazis recruit Bosnia muslims during WW2. Shortly after WW2 his pro-Nazi/anti-Jew group, the Arab Higher Committee went on to kill untold numbers of Jews and political dissenters. Several high ranking members of this committee went on to form Fatah. Oh, and Arafat's real name is Abd al-Rahman abd al-Bauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. I wonder why he would change it? Possibly to avoid associated with the murdering nazis who helped him form his precious Fatah?

Anyway, my point is there have been a lot of bad things done on both sides. Pan-arabism/Nazism and radical Zionism set the tone for this conflict 90 years ago, but what we need to do is move past that and look at the current situation. Everyone in the entire world is putting pressure on Israel to stop the conflict, but no one is putting any pressure on the palestinians (except for the US of course.) The arab world needs to start saying "end the violence on both sides! stop the occupation and stop the terrorist attacks!" instead of the one-sided bias we hear coming from them now.

by indy regular
"Let me remind you, that in 1946 Menachem Begin oversaw the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which killed 92 people and critically wounding over 100 more, many of them civilians, all British and Arabs."

I thought you indy-types supported this sort of thing. I mean anytime, anyone is engaged in a war of liberation against a colonial power you support it. When Jews attack a colonial power (UK) it is terrorism but when Algerians were engaged in armed struggle against France you all supported it. What's up with the double standard?
by gehrig
It's also worth mentioning that (a) the Hotel had been requisitioned by the British and was being used to garrison their troops -- although there are those who are perfectly willing to leave this part out and leave you with the impression that the Irgun was bombing tourist civilians, and (b) that the British were warned in writing in advance that the building was going to be bombed, but they found the idea that Zionists would resort to a bomb so ludicrous that some of the Brits reported that they were having a laugh over the very idea in the hotel's bar when the bomb went off.

Of course, in Indybay-ese, that's the only moment of British/Zionist history that matters. They never quite get around to telling you what most Zionists thought of the bombing at the time; they'd rather leave you with the impression that it was the "work of The Zionists and that's all you need to know."

After all, all Zionists think alike, and anything one Zionist or Zionist group does can be blamed on all of 'em.

@%<
by angie
Sad, isn't it,, the minute someone makes a statement you disagree with we get the name-calling, the insults, the character assassination.

i was responding to points Moshe directed to me yesterday, nothing more, something I think I have freedom to do. .

Anything else I refuse to dignify with a response.
by one of the editors
You yourself, "indy regular," are by definition an "indy type."
by thoughtful
thank you Angie, for your comments. They were well thought out and researched, and I appreciate the friendly manner in which you put them across.

I am a Jewish American woman who has actually visited Israel. I was horrified by what I witnessed there. My parents (who grew up during WWII) are pro-Israel, and I can understand some of how they feel. But I am disgusted by the things the Israeli government does (completely under U.S. auspices) and feel that change must start with Israel (and the U.S.) as these are the countries with the power in this situation.
by me
You are what I call a self-hating Jew, or "Jewish Liberal". Israel is fighting for its survival, condemned by the entire world for actions it takes in self-defense. Groups like the UN, the UN Human rights commission, chaired by Libya (world leader in upholding human rights) and European Union made up of anti-semetic countries such as france and germany. So when the "unbiased" UN and the anti-Semitic countries censure Israel for its right to fighting the war on terror, Israel simply tells them to "shove it."
by Ariel Sharon
Please consider enlisting in the zionist army. You sound as though you hate those wicked Palestinians as much as I do. You'd make a great killing machine.
by Angie
Thoughtful,

I truly appreciate your comments. If you read this board regularly, you know it can be a pretty scary place. It is truly appreciative when someone who has first hand knowledge of the situation is courageous enough to say so.

Bless you,
Angie
by Ariel Sharon
Please consider enlisting in the zionist army. You sound as though you hate those wicked Palestinians as much as I do. You'd make a great killing machine.

by Flocos
You're almost as redundant as I am.

At least you're not censored.
by ANTI-ZIONIST
I AM NOW *VERY* DEEPLY HONORED THAT SOME ZIONIST SEES MY ARTICULATION AND POST AS SO EFFECTIVE THAT THEY HAD TO REMOVE IT ***THRICE*** !!

I AM DEEPLY HONORED THAT SOME ZIONIST SEES MY ARTICULATION AND POST AS SO EFFECTIVE THAT THEY HAD TO REMOVE IT *TWICE* !!

THIS POST WAS PREVIOUSLY REMOVED BY SOMEONE ZIONIST-- AND I AM RE-POSTING IT -- AGAIN.

>Question: How do you respond when someone says "Zionism is not racism, that it has all sorts of races, blacks, whites, etc."?

A response to "hi", Monday May 05--at 3:11am:

I would say, in response to this particular argument that Zionism is racist because it's based on the claim that ANY Jew (whether white, black, etc.) is genetically Jewish and that ALL Jews--especially European Jews (since modern political Zionism is a European ideology)--as an "ethnic" or racial group have an *inherent* and *superior* right to most--if not all of--the land in Palestine.

Zionism also politically and legally defines the Israeli state as "a *Jewish* state" and "the state of all Jews" in the world, and Zionism ethnically/racially privileges Jews anywhere in the world to have superior immigrant rights to citizenship over/against anybody else, including non-Jewish people who were born in Palestine and whose families lived there for generations and/or centuries. Jews who were born anywhere else in the world and who have lived elsewhere for a generations--including in affluent American suburbs--or elsewhere for a couple of thousand years, and who have never even seen Israel, have "the Right of Return", but indigenous Palestinians who were violently displaced, left as refugees, and dispossessed by European Israeli Jews, don't. And regardless of ethnic/religious demographics, Israel said that it will politically and legally "maintain the Jewish character and dominance of the Jewish state." (What if New York City said that it would "maintain the white Christian character and dominance of New York city"? What if, for example, NYU or Harvard said that, as they once sought to impose against Jews, Blacks, etc.?) That is by its own definition racist. Thus, Israel is a Jewish-supremacist state.

In fact, Jews were once (I would say certainly for at least the first half of the 20th century up through the '60's in the U.S.) racistly and anti-Semitically considered to be (and sometimes claim themselves to be, to justify Zionism) "non-white" by most Anglos in the U.S. Hitler didn't consider Jews to be white: he considered Jews to be fundamentally different human beings (if human beings at all) from other people--and Zionism plays right into this anti-Semitic *racialization* of Jews in order to gain someone else's land (the Palestinians who lived there and whose country it was) and to gain Jewish political dominance in Palestine. Zionism and anti-Semitism are really two sides of the same coin--and have been exploited as such even by Zionists.

In this particular sense, it would almost be (a limited analogy) as if a group of "Africanist Americanists" said that (as many Zionist pioneers did about Jews), 'You're right, you whites: we African Americans *are* fundamentally different human beings from you whites. Since we African Americans were here before the U.S. even became a country and since we tilled the soil in the South and did most of the work there, and most of us died there doing that work, we want the South itself to be our own state where we will set up superior rights and special privileges for ourselves, and most of the whites who now live in the South must leave, and the few whites we Blacks permit to stay will have 4th class citizenship (behind dark-skin African Americans and Native Americans), and those whites will be kept at a population minority, and kept an even much smaller minority politically, maintained at a level so as to not threaten our superiority and privileges and "democracy". Whites will not be able to buy anymore land (of course we African Americans would need to take much of it away) or expand their homes even on their own land. Martin Luther King did *NOT*--*NOT* even Malcolm X or the Black Panthers--work for an African American supremacist nation, but a nation where everyone would be Constitutionally and legally equal.

Every other state in the world is defined as a geographical area. Not even the Vatican is defined as "the state of all Catholics" in the world. Not even other predominantly ethnic states, like Ireland, are politically and legally defined on the basis of ethnicity or as "the state of all Irish" in the world. Not even Nigeria, or any other predominantly black African state, politically and legally defines itself as “a black state” or a state for all blacks in the world. Not even in slavery was the United States defined as "the state of all white Christian people" in the world. Only Israel "racializes" its general and immigration citizenship rights. All other states are defined as the state of all citizens living within their borders. The U.S., in particular, has abolished citizenship rights based on "race" (as Asian immigrants/decendents were once *racistly* excluded from immigrating or severely limited from gaining citizenship--even if they lived here all their lives or for generations).

Also the concept of race can be a somewhat slippery formation, since its true significance is *political*, not biological, with pseudo-scientific, pseudo-biological underpinnings. The definition of what race even is--and different races--has *never* been consistent, and has always been arbitrary and fluid, from country to country (those countries that defined concepts/categories of race), or even within a country (if it's geographically large enough) or from time to time--sometimes for all factors even within the same country. So, one can more generally say that Zionism is *a form* of--religioethnic--racism. But it's easier to put on a protest sign or bumper sticker simply "Zionism is racism". One can say that Zionist ideology (attempts to) "racializes" all Jews, using a weird combination of ethnicity and religion. At any rate, a state defined on the basis of one religion (a semi-theocratic state) is not any better--or any more universally democratic--than a state defined on the basis of one race.

And in fact, there is *OF COURSE* persistent and significant racism in Israel--even among *Jews* (especially by "Western" European Jews against indigenous Mideast and African Jews), let alone against Palestinians--based on skin color and interethnic/subethnic classes.

What's easy to do is to trip Zionists up on their own claims, because Zionists--of course--want to play it both ways. First they claim that Zionism is equivalent to Judaism, and that Israel is equivalent to Judaism, and define Israel as "a Jewish state" or "the state of all Jews" in the world. Then they poke their mouths out and are so ready to call someone anti-Semitic if that someone says something politically against Jews in general, instead of more correctly referring to Zionists or Israel in particular.

As for further information on "racial" discrimination, racism, against different classes of people--including different classes of Jewish and non-Jewish citizens and non-citizens--in Israel-Palestine, look up Jewish-American Phyllis Bennis' writings on this topic at the Institute for Policy Studies website.

Tragically, Zionists have internalized and rematerialized the racism they themselves have been the tragic victims of in history. Some Jews are Zionist because they are Jewish and some Jews--yet a minority, so far--are *ANTI*-Zionists *ESPECIALLY* because they are Jewish and thus would never do to another people what has been done to Jews so often in history. Such anti-Zionist Jews would *NEVER* take away the homes of others, as their Jewish homes have been taken away so often in history. These anti-Zionist Jews believe that just as there should be no state oppressing Jews, so there should be no Jewish state oppressing others. As an African American, coming from a people who have also suffered and died for generations and centuries, in the tens of millions, too at the hand of European Christians (even forced to convert to Christianity), I can say that *NO AMOUNT* of suffering entitles one people to take away, systematically dispossess, or be given away, the land and homes of another people.

As Malcolm X said, the Zionist argument to take Palestine has no intelligent, moral or legal basis in history.

I hope this helps.
by Hah
Hey "anti-zionist," how does it feel to be a joke?

Seriously, you're an absolute joke. Your analysis has no real-world validity at all.

One can argue whether the long-term effect of zionism is more helpful or more harmful for the masses. That's a valid discussion. But you are so over-the-top with utter nonsense that isn't the least bit realistic that it's impossible to read what you write and not just laugh at how sad and pathetic an individual you must be to have to sit around lying and ranting like a crazed loon because you refuse to deal with planet earth.

by FOX NEWS
Thanks for watching! Would you like an autographed copy of Sean's book? We like to reward our most loyal sheep.
by gehrig
I'm particularly amused by the fact that he thinks his posts are being removed by the Zionist editors of Indybay.

Now _that's_ an unusual perspective.

@%<
by rigeh
I'm particularly amused at your stupidity.
by CAMERA is untrustworthy
So, CAMERA says that MLK was a Zionist.

Pretty lame, CAMERA is a racist, anti-Arab, pro-Israeli site which lies to defend the state of Israel.

Check this article out in which CAMERA defames Rachel Corrie as a defender of terrorism:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/05/1607922_comment.php
[To] Moshe
by Angie Wednesday May 07, 2003 at 05:46 AM

" Good morning, Moshe, ...
...

To the rest of you who use this board, forgive me for taking up so much of your space.

Angie "

------------------------------------

Angie, yours is the most eloquent post I have seen on indymedia--or anywhere else--on the subject of Israel and its oppression of the Palestinian people. Far better than I could do. You have not taken up space; you have greatly and articulately enlightened.

What you have to realize in the, nonetheless, highly defensive Zionist attacks (even lashing out at the Jewish-American woman "thoughtful",May 07, 2003 at 03:28 PM; an Israeli woman recently said much the same thing at a Pilger documentary at Berkeley) --not even a moment of pause or reflection--against you is that modern political Zionists are, with very tragic irony, supremacist people who just believe that they have an inherent and superior right to most--if not all--the land in Palestine. PERIOD. You cannot change their minds--at least not most of them. PERIOD. Angie: "Anything else I refuse to dignify with a response," regarding more attacks on her and others--and MORE insipid explaining away--just like Angie pointed out--by Zionists. There is *NOTHING* you *can* say to them. PERIOD. They represent the self-absorption, 'racial'/ethnic egocentricism, and self-righteousness of all supremacists.

We just have to work to expose to others, and argue against, according to our means and ability, their supremacist ideology, political thought, media propaganda and behavior, so that others will not be fooled or misled, and work to stop our governments/politicians from aiding, financing, and arming such brutal regimes as the Zionist state, Israel. Just as we progressives have done with any other brutal, especially supremacist, regime (from Apartheid South Africa way back to the Nazi one).

----------------

[Yo, gehrig! Regarding Zionist deletion of my posts: I didn't say *where/who* the Zionists were. Maybe you know something??? An internal conflict at indymedia? A hacker?]
by gehrig
[Yo, gehrig! Regarding Zionist deletion of my posts: I didn't say *where/who* the Zionists were. Maybe you know something??? An internal conflict at indymedia? A hacker?]

Sure. The "Zionist" who deleted your post is in your head. The editors here tend to yank posts if you've posted the exact same thing more than once. It's called spamming. Seems like you had a few things you've posted more than once in the last few days, and when the editors see it, it disappears. It was you who jumped to the conclusion that it was some Zionist trying to remove your posts. The editors at Indybay are a lot of things, but it's for goddamned sure that Zionist is one thing they ain't.

@%<
by angie
I am very appreciative of your comments, JA, and I thank you sincerely. Bless you.
by chron
MILPITAS
Old Vietnamese flag saluted by Milpitas

Friday, May 9, 2003

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



The Milpitas City Council has unanimously approved a resolution that recognizes the former Republic of Vietnam flag and sanctions its display during City Hall ceremonies.

Vietnamese Americans crowded Milpitas City Hall chambers Tuesday night, waving the flag with its three horizontal stripes of red on a field of gold. After the resolution was passed, they cheered and chanted in Vietnamese.

The council resolution also expresses support for a pending state Assembly bill that urges the state to formally recognize the South Vietnamese flag as the official symbol of the Vietnamese American community.

Activists praised the resolution as an important symbolic gesture.

"This is to recognize the Vietnamese flag, which existed before the communists, as the authentic flag of Vietnam," said Pham Huu Son, president of the Vietnamese-American Community of Northern California. "We're victims of communism, and we can't salute that flag."

Compiled from Chronicle staff and news service reports


by gehrig
I agree that there's an awful lot more to the editorial practice than just being anti-spam. It's true that "one of the editors" has declared explicitly that he feels he has the right to delete any Zionist post he chooses simply because it's Zionist. (He has a variety of supporting reasons -- or, if you prefer, supporting excuses.) I have had posts I considered reasonable inexplicably yanked. I just thought it was amusing, given this overtly anti-Zionist stance, that JA thought his posts were being pulled by Zionists.

I think it's pretty clear that "one of the editors" would be happy if Israel simply went away. Reality is going to disappoint him sorely.

@%<
by gehrig
Could an Indybay editor please explain why the post I replied to immediately above, which struck me as unobjectionable, was 'disappeared'?

@%<
by Concerned
Please seek professional help.
I'm seeking volunteer help instead; that's why I addressed my comments to the editors of this site. Would some Indybay editor please explain why the reasonable post which preceded my previous post suddenly was 'disappeared,' Pinochet-style, while the personal attack which proceeds _this_ post is allowed to remain?

@%<
by Hey
It's because IMC is sponsered by Saudi oil money to incite hatred against the enemies of the Saud family, namely, Jews, Israelis and Americans.

Therefore, all posts which further this end are permitted to stay, while posts that inhibit this end must be removed.

Any further questions?
§?
by me
Why doesnt the oil rich Saudi Arabia help out the poor Palestinians, giving money for food and clothing and building infrastructure instead of guns, mortars, and money for suicide bombers????
by Justice
The Palestinian Authority had an infrastructure until Israel decided, as part of their current agenda, to demolish it just like the US has done in Iraq.(apart from the Oil Ministry, of course).
by me
The Palestinian Authority infrastructure received money from many nations, but most of the money went into the pockets of Arafat and his cronies. He owns 15 villas in France. Instead of building buildings and getting the poor palestinians out of the refugee camps and improving their lives, the PA did no such thing. They did however invest in the media sector, the saturday morning cartoons with kids acting in plays which praise suicide bombers, and the brodcasted sermons from mosques where they are taught to hate Israel, America, and to kill Jews wherever they live. What a great infrastructure, too bad Israel destroyed it.
I don't know why that particular comment was removed. i didn't do it. But somebody here did. If one of the other editors here doesn't like something, that's good enough for me.

The basic rule here is don't annoy any of the editors. If you don't like the rule, you can either go somewhere else where the rules more agree with you, or you can start your own site and make your own rules.

We have no right to censor anyone's free speech. But neither do we have any obligation, either legal or moral, to spend our time, money, skills, talent and energy to provide a soapbox to people who annoy us. So if you don’t like it here, go somewhere else and say whatever you please. We wont try to stop you. But while you’re on this site, you’re our guests. Behave accordingly or we’ll bounce you. Capiesc’?
by Hey
One of the Editors:

"We have no right to censor anyone's free speech. But neither do we have any obligation, either legal or moral, to spend our time, money, skills, talent and energy to provide a soapbox to people who annoy us. "

Talk about an oxymoron!

That's the whole idea behind free speech, you buffoon. That you have let people speak who DISAGREE with you. Or as you put it, "annoy" you.

Figures you're annoyed by people who tell the truth.
by one of the editors
We do let them speak, just not here, not on our nickle. Whatever they want to say on their own website, and their own nickle, is their business. We wont try to stop them.

But what on earth leads you into such absurd delusion that you think we have an obligation to finance their ability to reach the public? Do they finance our ability to reach the public? Do you?
by Jeff
Palestinian officials admit, they want there children to die. What Sadists.

http://www.pmw.org.il
Subject: PA Schools teach their children to attack Israelis and die for Allah. That is the Palestinian Arab idea of "peace" with Israel. Tue, 06 May 2003 18:06:09 +0200

Director of Palestinian Children's Aid Association:
"We teach our children to reach Shahada"
By Itamar Marcus

Introduction:
PMW reports documenting the comprehensive Palestinian Authority [PA]
encouragement of their children to aspire to heroic Death for Allah, Shahada, have brought repeated denials by PA leaders in English. However, in their own Arabic language media they continue to see encouraging children to Shahada as a national achievement.

In a candid interview this week on PA TV the Director of the Palestinian "Children's Aid Association", an agency whose function is to help children, stated that as education policy with other values, Palestinians teach their children to aspire to Death for Allah - Shahada.

The following is the text of the interview:

The Interview:
Journalist Samir Shahin:
"The children only wanted to leave [school] and throw stones at the Israeli soldier, and to reach Shahada [Death for Allah]. They aspired to Shahada as a first priority.

Moderator: Mrs. Firial, in your opinion, does the Palestinian child understand the concept of Shahada?

Firial Hillis, C.E.O. of the Palestinian "Children's Aid Association":
"The concept of Shahada for him [the child] means belonging to the homeland, from a religious point of view. Sacrifice for his homeland. Achieving SHAHADA in order to reach Paradise and to meet his God. This is the best. We also teach our children to protect the homeland, belonging and to reach Shahada".
[PATV, May 4, 2003]

by Jeff
Angie, Read these 3 articles. I'm begging you to speak out against Palestinian child abuse. How long can the world be silent, while the Palestinians force there children to be homicide bombers, so they can murder Jewish children. Why are the French silent on this sadism.

http://wtvt.com/investreptr/jihad.html
Jihad for Kids
It’s a show that won't make the Saturday morning lineup on any American network. But it has had a prominent slot on Palestinian TV.

FOX13 Investigative Reporter
Glenn Selig

Girl singing

It comes complete with puppet shows, games, songs and a very chilling message about becoming a suicide bomber. A little girl sings in Arabic about her ultimate ambition in life.

(Song Translation) “Oh sing my sister constantly about my life as a suicide warrior.”

Another girl screams about preparing to die.

Teaching to hate

(Song Translation) “I foresee my death, but I march quickly. Am I afraid? Life has little value because I'm returning to my lord and my people will know I am a hero.”

That message is repeated again and again in song and verse.

(Song Translation) “I will come at the time of drought with my best efforts bring a machine gun, violence anger, anger, anger...”

The children, most of them elementary school age, shout a message of violence.

“I will return with the dawn of tomorrow. It is my conviction of launch a jihad.”

Girl shouting a
message of violence

(Song Translation) “When I wander into Jerusalem, I'll turn into a suicide warrior in battle dress, in battle dress, in battle dress.”

A teacher cheers them on, “Bravo, bravo, bravo.”

If you're like most Americans, you had no idea that the show existed, but the Children's Club is no secret to Israelis.

“I am still shocked every time I see it,” says Hela Crown-Tamir who lived in Israel for 19 years.

“Imagine a teacher telling them bravo, "Crown-Tamir says, "because they're going to grow up to be a militant Islamic suicide bomber.”

Hela Crown-Tamir

Crown-Tamir moved back to The Tampa Bay area to escape the violence that ruined her travel business. She says Americans are just now waking up to the realities Israelis have been facing for years, that children are trained as suicide bombers. Because it's so dramatic, some Israeli groups have used excerpts from The Children's Club to produce a campaign against Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat.

But are Palestinian children really educated this way? Or is this just an Israeli propaganda tool? We contacted several Islamic groups in the Tampa Bay area, but no one from any of those organizations would even agree to watch the tape.

Professor Abdelwahab Hachiche

But University of South Florida professor Abdelwahab Hachiche did agree to watch it.

“I always keep a reasonable degree of skepticism about anything I see or anything I read.”

Hachiche is an internationally recognized expert on Mideast terrorism. He's also an Arab and a Moslem. Until we gave him the tape, he'd never heard of the show. And while he says he has no idea who produced it, he says the translations are accurate and the problem is real.

“And the indoctrination and the danger of indoctrination is very, very serious.”

Dr. Hachiche calls this kind of teaching nothing short of infanticide. But he hopes children growing up in today's Islamic world will ultimately reject these messages of hatred.

“On both sides the younger generation are looking for true leaders who will have the courage to overcome this passion that is leading to mutual destruction.”

Still, in the mid-east the violence continues. And now even in America we're looking terrorism right in the face-- listening and wondering if this is the voice of the future.

Official PA TV: Pressures Exerted on Palestinian Children to seek Shahada - Death for Allah
By Nadav Shragai
Correspondent, Ha'aretz http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=15324

TV: Child Writes to Mother, "Rejoice over My Death"
"Ask for Death - the life will be given to you." This slogan, which was broadcast on Palestinian television on July 5th of last year, was also the headline chosen by the authors of Palestinian Media Watch as the title of their 40th research report. This report examines the social pressure exerted by the Palestinian Authority [PA] on children to die as "Shahids" [Death for Allah].

The written findings of the report are presented with a CD, which is not easy to watch. The televised evidence, includes educational films specially prepared for children that have been broadcast in the Palestinian Authority, texts from PA schoolbooks, and quotes from statements issued by political and religious figures in the Palestinian Authority.

One particular "educational" film clip, which was broadcast regularly during 2001 and 2002 as often as three times a day, shows a child writing a farewell letter to his mother in which he declares, "Rejoice over my death and do not cry for me," and also "How sweet is Shahada [Death for Allah] when I embrace you, my land." This text is recited over a backdrop of a picture showing the child falling to the ground "embracing" the earth.

One short broadcast shows the most famous child Shahid, Muhammad Al-Dura, whose death was captured on camera, apparently calling to Palestinian children, "Join me in Paradise." A child actor plays Al-Dura in fictional scenes of his life in Paradise, frolicking in an amusement park with a kite and on the beach. "How pleasant is the fragrance of Shahids.I go with no fear or tears," says the fictional Al-Dura. The program begins with the caption, "I am waving not to part, but to say you, 'Follow me.' And is signed: "Muhammad Al-Dura"

The report also displays texts that appear in widely-used school books published by the Palestinian Education Ministry, such as the "Song of the Shahid," which is found in four different publications. In one book, "Islamic Education for the Eighth Grade," on page 176, states that, "The Moslem sacrifices himself for his belief , and wages Jihad [Holy War] for Allah. He is not swayed, for he knows that the date of his death as a Shahid on the field of battle is preferable to death in his bed."

The November 2000 issue of "Al-Hayat Al-Jadida," a PA newspaper, quotes "The sports teacher of Wajdi Al-Hattab," [a 14 year old student] "responded to Allah's call and achieved the Shahada he yearned for."

The teacher relates that, "Wajdi asked me to give out cake when he becomes a Shahid." The newspaper also reports that Wajdi's classmates "swore that they would follow the path of Shahada until the liberation of Jerusalem."

The author of the report, Itamar Marcus, writes that many cultural programs "encourage Shahada and show approval for those who are killed. Many television broadcasts include songs and dances accompanied by photographs of violence and highlight how right it is to die for the sake of Allah."

Marcus gives the example of a song [broadcast 3 times on PA TV] that was composed in memory of Wafa Idris, the first woman suicide bomber. The song was recorded at a concert in Egypt, and it describes Idris as a "flower" and a "heartbeat of pride." "In death, you have brought life to our will," the song continues.

In the past Marcus and his institute issued a comprehensive report into Palestinian study material and helped to expose Yasser Arafat's "Hudaybia Speech," in which Arafat compared the Oslo Agreement with the Hudaybia Pact, which the prophet Muhammad signed expressly in order to break later. This time Palestinian Media Watch also brings relevant quotes from Yasser Arafat, who expresses his pride in the Shahids. In a speech given to children who were attending a summer camp, Arafat states, "You are the peers of Faris Ouda [a youth who planned his own death as a Shahid] Onwards together to Jerusalem." In response, the children call out, "Millions of Shahids marching to Jerusalem."

The report also brings examples of the statements issued by the parents of suicide bombers, in which they welcome their children's deaths, and express their satisfaction and joy. The mother of one boy who was killed states: "Praise to God, the Master of the Universe. I can raise my head up high and I have glory and pride. My son is a Shahid. But it is not just my son. All of the Shahids are my children."
The mother of Abbas Al-Awiwi states, "The greatest mother's day present I received this year is the death as a Shahid of Abbas."

Marcus and his staff also bring quotes from speeches delivered by religious leaders. Dr. Muhammad Ibrahim Madi stated on Palestinian television in June 2001: "Shame upon he who does not educate his children the education of Jihad. blessings upon he who dons a vest of explosives belt on himself or on his children and goes in to the midst of the Jews".

Sheikh Abd al-Razak stated on Palestinian television on 22nd March 2002: "Allah has planted within our youth the love of Jihad, the love of Shahada. Our youth have turned into bombs, they blow themselves up among them [Israelis] day and night."
Marcus and his colleagues have concluded that, having been exposed to such messages, young Palestinian children from the ages of six till nine play "death" games and role-play the dead. Children between the ages of 10 to 13 express the will to die, sometimes in televised interviews, and from the age of 14 some even take part in suicide attacks.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull%26cid=1040530640771

Dec. 23, 2002
Arabic paper, book encourage kids to emulate suicide bombers
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH

Two Arabic publications are encouraging children to to view suicide bombers as role models. One is an Iranian newspaper for children printed in Kuwait and is also distributed to the Moslem world via the Internet, while the other is a children's paper printed by Hamas. Details on the publications were released on the IDF Web site.

In July this year the Iranian children's newspaper Mojitaba published the story of a suicide bomber from Jenin who blew himself up in a bus in Afula on November 29, 2001, killing three Israelis and wounding scores. The item that appears in the story of the week section is called "The Hero and the Holy War in Palestine" and describes the background of the suicide bomber, Samar Shawahneh, and details leading up to when he blew himself up.

It claims that during the holy month of Ramadan, Shawahneh prayed daily at the mosque and on the eve of the bomb attack remained at home, where he prayed and then broke the fast with his family. The story describes how he then set out for a "Zionist neighborhood" where he boarded a bus full of "Zionists" and blew himself up. The story claims the attack "brought fear to the hearts and homes of the Zionists."

After the incident, people thronged to his parents' home to express their condolences and were greeted by his mother who bore a tray of sweets and said: "My son is the one who chose to die for Allah, it was his most important ambition, he refused to marry but told me to wait for a big wedding. Today is the wedding to celebrate his death for Jerusalem and Al Aksa."

In an article called "The Occupier" that appeared in a recent Hamas children's newspaper, children are encouraged to view suicide bombers as supreme beings. The paper publishes the testimony of Ismail Abu Hamdan, killed on March 16 while planting a bomb near Netzarim in the Gaza Strip.

In it, he claims to have fulfilled his lifelong wish to die as a martyr for Allah, and he asks his mother to be happy as he will marry 72 virgins in Paradise, and he asks her not to cry. He also calls on his sisters and brothers to educate their children to attend prayers at the mosque and study the Koran and teach them love for Allah, the Prophet Muhammad, and the love of jihad.


by FOX NEWS
We love you! Would you like an IDF rifle signed by Ariel Sharon?
by JA
gehrig: "The editors at Indybay are a lot of things, but it's for goddamned sure that Zionist is one thing they ain't."

------------------------------------

Gehrig, you are an unreconstructed, hard-core, militant Zionist. I call Occupied Territory settlers with your mentality "redneck Zionists".

But some editors at (or hackers into) sf.indymedia may be so-called "moderate/liberal" Zionists. (In the Bay Area, some of them even try to pass themselves off as "progressives". )

These are Zionists who also believe in the INHERENT and SUPERIOR 'right' of Jews to most/all of the land in Palestine. They, with tragic irony too, represent the so-called "moderate" self-absorption, 'racial'/ethnic egocentrism, and self-righteousness of all supremacists. PERIOD--even if it's a 'soft' *period*. "Moderate/liberal" Zionists too--just like you--believe in a Jewish-supremacist state in Palestine.

But, they are just EMBARRASSED by Zionism's WORST excesses..., by the Begins and the Sharons and the Netanyahus. They are embarrassed by the Israeli correlate of people like the American "Jim Crow" era, cigar stogie-chompin', pot-bellied, swaggering Southern sheriff Bull Connors, or the South African apartheid era Afrikaner Pik Bothas (or ealier, the Verwoerds), or the Israeli "Butcher of Beirut" Sharons, or the rabid Begins, or the politically ambitious Naziesque Netanyahu. (Actually, you can put a Nazi cap on Sharon and Netanyahu and they both look like they could come out of Hollywood central casting. Sharon, the swaggering concentration camp commandant--isn't Sharon, in effect, commandant of the Occupied Territories?--and Netanyahu the younger, 'smart', trimmer, more media-genic, ambitious Nazi politician.) All of these figures are the *NATURAL* and logical outcome of their respective racist state ideologies.

So-called "moderate/liberal/'progressive'" Zionists prefer a 'genteel' Zionism, like the 'liberal' racist whites during "Jim Crow" segregation apartheid in the American Old South, or "moderate/liberal/'progressive'" pro-Apartheid Afrikaners -- both types who wanted American or South African apartheid, but just didn't want to see the Sharpeville Massacres, the fire hoses or dogs sicked on even teenage girls protesters, little girls bombed in Southern churches, people mercilessly beaten bloody in the streets or run over by police horses, or protesters having been brutally tortured in detention (often left almost unrecognizable) by police--preferring a more "genteel racism".

These kinds of so-called moderates/liberals want the ideological *SYSTEM* to be kept in place. They just don't want the systems' worst and inevitable excesses to be graphically displayed--especially revealed to the world.

It reminds me of "liberal" misogyny that advised that patriarchal men should not beat their wives with a stick/switch no thicker than their (the man's) thumb. It reminds me of "liberal" Southern plantation slavemasters who advised prolonged solitary confinement in a sweat box or withholding food or shelter, rather than resorting to whipping African slaves (drawing blood and leaving hideous scars that looked like trees in winter). Hitler said that gas chambers were so much more "civilized and humane" than racist American "Jim Crow" Southern torture, burnings, and lynchings. I'm sure that Hitler would have felt that gas chambers were 'more humane' that giant bulldozing and crushing people/families alive in their houses.

So, there may be so-called "moderate/lliberal" Zionists within sf.indymedia (that's why I suggested in internal conflict--esle why would they relocate some of my posts to hidden posts?), if not hackers outside, who delete/hide criticisms about THE FUNDAMENTAL NATURE of Israel/Zionism/Zionists that are *too* incisive, *too* clear, *too* sharp, *too* effective, and *too* blunt.
by JA
Yo Jeff! (Monday May 12, 2003 at 12:41 PM)

I think that the actions of the *ZIONIST ISRAELI STATE* itself and its 55-year history teaches Palestinian children to hate Israel more than any supposed Palestinian books/teachers do. I think that murderous Israeli bullets, *ESPECIALLY AGAINST CHILDREN*, fighter aircraft missiles, helicopter gunships spewing shells, village massacres, whole apartment buildings being bombed at night, steady land confiscations, giant bulldozings, collective and family home demolitions, indefinite administrative imprisonment of family members, squalid refugee camps, confiscation of Palestinian well water for the faucets and lawns--and sometimes even pools--of relatively lavish hilltop Jewish settlements, etc.--in short, Zionism-- teaches Palestinian children to hate Israel more effectively than any supposed Palestinian book ever could! Now, why would any Palestinian kid hate Israel...? Who needs books teaching Palestinian children to hate Israel, when the children have the Jewish-supremacist state of Israel itself!!?

Your inability to realize this reveals your own mental and moral erosion. (There are Jews who understand this--even what leads to Palestinian suicide bombers.)

---------------------------

"I have but one life. And if I must lose it by violence, I will take some of my persecutors with me." -- Ida B. Wells, African American early feminist, civil rights and anti-lynching activist.

"I will renounce violence, when the racist apartheid government renounces violence." -- Nelson Mandela

"We (blacks) cannot all be what we ALL ought to be, until you (whites) are what you all ought to be." -- Martin Luther King (when asked to comment on black riots, borne of prolonged racial discrimination and frustration)

"If we don't like so-called suicide bombers, then we all need to do what we have to do, internationally, protesting, boycotting, and putting political pressure and sanctions on the state of Israel to reach a just settlement, so that suicide bombers are not necessary." -- Ward Churchill (Native American activist, University of Colorado professor, author, public lecturer)

"...nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds." -- Gandhi, The Jews of Palestine, 1938

"I believe that the Israeli government, the Sharon government in particular, is provoking suicide bombers as a way to avoid any peace settlement."
-- Henry Siegman, Jewish-American academic, member of the Council of Foreign Relations, and Jewish Holocaust survivor--comment made on the PBS-TV Charlie Rose Show on the Aug 22/23, 2002, midnight broadcast; transcripts and videotape available.
by angie
I think it's time you got a grip, man. Take a deep breath for heavens sakes AND STOP BELIEVING EVERYTHING YOU READ AND HEAR. Check it out first and find out who said it and why.

And now I suggest that you point out to me and anyone else interested in this bloody topic just what I have lied about, and while you're mulling over this, I will briefly comment on Itamar Marcus for the benefit of those who know him not.

They can judge for themselves whether anything he says is worth reading, much less getting into a frenzy about.

Itamar Marcus is a right wing settler from Efrat, and Director of Palestinian Watch, a so-called non profit organization. He has published several "studies" and articles with respect to the Palestinians, and, of course, he is busy on the lecture tour. Aren't they all?

To those of us with independent minds he is somewhat suspect to say the least.

Following one of his "studies", the New York Times sent Susan Sontag to visit a school in Ramallah in September of 2000, and she found NO EVIDENCE to substantiate his claims.

A writer with Haaretz, Akiva Eldar, stated that "the Palestinians are being rebuked where they should, in fact, be praised" for their textbooks and schooling including their treatment of questions on Israel .

There are other examples as well, but you can do your own research.

I know from reading your posts here that are you a firm believer in Israel the good, Palestine the bad, but please try to distinguish between truth and fiction. You can state your views without attacking me or anyone else. There's no need for it, and, again, it serves no useful purpose. You're not out to score points with your rhetoric, you know.

If you wanted me to read your articles, all you had to do was say so. I have read them, and I will judge them on their merit and form my own conclusions on the validity of same. That is what you should do, my friend..

Now let's see you have the decency to apologize to me for the pathetic headline "Angie lies". Or "Angie Should Get Her facts Straight". Ranting and raving and making absurd allegations as you have, Jeff, is a sad reflection on you, not me. I know who I am.

So how about it? You keep your views, I'll keep mine, and let us simply respect the other, okay? Attack the issues, not the person. If everyone did that, it would be a much better world.

by Israel
If a dog goes insane you can let the dog go free and try to punish the owner (although the dog will now go around biting everyone and giving them rabies or somthing).
or you can shoot the dog and worry about the owner later.
by red baiting anarchist (tenji888 [at] yahoo.com)
hey socialist dictator: you're a TOTALITARIAN!

caught! now fold up your manifesto and go take a bath. your polemic stinks of Stalinism.

tyhe only flags should be red flags? Will they have thePlanet earth with a giant swastica on top for balance? You have a totalitarian's arrogance to your argument and so I laugh at your one sided epistemological nightmare. It's you who have to live with the shame of sharing a philosophy with stalin and Hitler, you damned socialist fool.

Apity actually, you illiterate jerk, that you can look at words and maybe a whole book but lack the human faculty of comprehension.

I support socialism. In China, man. In China, in Jung quo, a racially stable and homogenous nation that is done with empire and ancient in culture and steeped in the humanizing mystical writ of daoism. In China socialism is acceptable (not theat they are pure socialists anymore) but i still respect socialism there because in a racially homogenous culture, class war is class war.

To talk your shit in the United States is asking for race war, because the poverty gap and the racial chasm are pretty much the same. But most white, affluent suburban neostalinists don't look that deep because they have no intimate friends who are not of their same class and race. Go about 4000 years into the past; take your manifesto and cram it up a time machine, nerd. maybe in North India of 2000 BC your failed sophism would be remotely acceptable. In any country that is not racially homgenous, socialism is just a racist joke of a philosophy.

You really won't find any friends with high IQs here in the inited states: why don't all of you pitch in and buy a boat, go out into international waters and STAY THERE? Hmm/ that might prove interesting.

get lost i am done wasting memory on you. you're a complete idiot.


anyway,


tenji
tenji888 (at) yahoo.com (未確認) Current rating: 0
22 5 2003 so who's different?

in response to "good morning moshe"
what nation state has apologized or said simply "we were responsible" for outargeous atrocities against humanity. name one?

better yet, name a few. i can think of a few that deserve apologies, the Slavic peoples practically made slavery a household word and when have they recieved apology? what nationstate that has committed atrocities has apologized or admitted wrong doing?

instead of looking it up i am asking the author of the above essay.

of course israel has comitted atrocities. so have Japan and the United States, Russia and Iraq and China and Afghanistan in recent memory, in the last 100 years. Which have apologized?

So it is the model of government, the constitutional republic model Plato adored, that all these states had in common...
by Israel
JA logic - If I am always right and someone disagrees with me (or thinks I am racist) it must be because they have prejudice - for example "zionism" or "racism"

"...nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds." -- Gandhi, The Jews of Palestine, 1938

as useful as gandhi may have been this logic means that the weak should always fight the strong and we should help them but as soon as they are no longer the weak we have to switch sides and find another weak guy to support..

hmm perpetual war...
by anti-Zionism activist
israeliflagprotest.jpegw77624.jpeg
"The only thing necessary for evil (Zionism, violent racism against non-Jews in Palestine) to flourish if for good men (people, especially in the US) to do nothing." -- Burke
by Angie
I don't see you putting forth any "literature" with respect to the Israeli practice of teaching children hate against the Arabs in your little speil.

Ah, but that would have made it a rational objective piece, wouldn't it, and we can't have that here now, can we?

by Angie
Oh, it's you again! Doing your bit to discredit the Palestinians in this wretched conflict, I see.

When I saw the phrase "caught in the cross-fire" I had to chuckle. What a farce! What a typical mainstream US media catch phrase. Caught in the crossfire, indeed. Whenever I see that phrase I know full well who was doing the killing.

Had you, as I've said in other threads in response to your post, been objective enough to add a similair article about Israel teaching its children (and civilians) to hate Arabs, one might be more willing to give this piece some credence. As it is, it's just another one-sided attack designed to keep the propaganda machine rolling along its treacherous path.
by Hey
I don't see why Israelis wouldn't dislike Arabs a little bit.

After all, the Arabs attempted to institute a second Holocaust right after the first, and then fought three wars to destroy the Jews, and expelled all the Jews from their nations, and blow them up every day with terrorist bombs.

It's so funny why the Anti-Semites (oh, excuse me "Anti Zionists") are so defensive about how the occupation justifies Palestinians acting like murderous animals, but the Holocaust, which killed more people per day than Palestinians per year, apparently justifies nothing. Jews should just "get over" the fact that six million of them were killed with scientific precision in the heart of Europe, and not one of these god-damn feel-good liberals lifted a finger to stop it.

But then again, who can understand the mindset of a rabid Anti-Semite? Oops, I mean, "Anti Zionist."
by Angie
Who is carrying out its own holacoust these past several years, hmm? Who is using some of the very same tactics against the Palestinians as the Germans used?

Tell us, oh wise one. Oh, and please try to distinguish between truth and fiction.

Even the Israeli press has compared the current (and past) Israeli attrocities to be remimiscent of the behaviour of the Nazis. Of course, you won't see that in US mainstream press. Nah, it's too busy brainwashing the American public as to the evildoers of Palestine.

I notice you also brought up, as per the norm, the old time worn "anti-semitic" crap. I hate to disappoint you (like hell) but you call yell this and anything else you wish to yell. We've seen it all before. Be critical of Israel, and watch out!

Well, Hey, that doesn't work any more, at least not with me. But do your best. The Israeli seige mentality served its purpose years ago.
by SB
I don't know, angie, who is carrying on a "holocaust?"

Have you greatly lowered the standards of what a "holocaust" means?

Israel maintains full rights for all it's citizens no matter what religion they are, and as for palestinians, 3 years ago offered them a state in return for peace, palestinians chose to start intifada instead, and now israel is working for the "road map" once again.

In heated fighting, a few thousand palestinains have died, and almost a thousand israelis have died in a two and a half yer period. In the holocaust 30,000 per day were being exterminated in gathered camps.

Not exactly a "holocaust" or even remotely close, but thanks once again for sharing your blatantly misguided opinions. You reveal yourself more and more with each post.

by Also
One more thing. Thanks to islamic law in Saudia Arabia, it's illegal to even be a jewish citizen.

But, naturally that doesn't offend angie, and jews should just smile and enjoy the line of religious teachings that dictates that sort of thing, right? And if jews take any offense to that, it's just jews being jerks, right?



by Angie
Gosh, folks, I have not revealed near as much about myself as you have
by Angie
So who said "Jews are jerks"? In fact, who the hell said ANYTHING about them?
by Hey
Angie, how the hell can you be taken seriously when you compare a death rate of 0, 3, 7, Palestinians a day under this "occupation" to the 30,000 Jews a day murdered during the Holocaust?

Can you even conceive how ridiculous your comparison is?

Israel uses the same tactics? Oh? Israel is putting Palestinians in Auschwitz? Israel is gassing them by the tens of thousands? Bull!

I know Anti-Zionists like you enjoy fabricating Israeli crimes, but you never even attempted such an outrageous fabrication as death camps. Why? Because it's so absurd, you'd be exposed as the liar you are.

But you still like to pretend that there's a comparison, whereas there is none.

If the Nazis did to the Jews what the Israelis did to the Palestinians, it would just be another day in the saga of historical anti-Semitism. The Holocaust was worse on a scale you are astoundingly ignorant of.

Which makes you an excellent anti-Semite (oops, Anti-Zionist, oops, 'critic of Israel.') indeed.
by Angie
The systematic destruction of any race over a period of time is, to me, a halocaust.

So am I to assume, therefore, that there was no Russian "halocaust" even though Stalin murdered - what? Six thousand plus people? And I suppose there was no Armenian halocaust? And what do you call the slaughter in Rwanda? An incidental? And since 1999 there have been over 4 million people killed in the Congo.

You know (or you should know) that since 1948 there have been more than a few thousand Palestinians killed. A hell of a lot more.

So don't yell at me, Hey. I am not the one that's been bulldozing olive and orange groves, keeping a nation under curfew, keeping them from working thus keeping them in poverty, bulldozing homes, shooting for any or no reason, preventing ambulances from reaching the wounded until it's too late. I am not looking at the so called Road Map and saying we're going to object to this, and this, and this, but we'll "grudgingly" accept it (whatever "it" means).. I am not building settlements on lands that don't belong to me, nor am I lying about how Rachel Corrie and countless other civilians were killed.

Whooops. There you go again, Angie. Expressing a "far fetched opinion". Everything mentioned above never really happened, did it, Hey? I must be getting as delusional as GWBush.

Anyway, Hey and pals, it's been fun, but my career is waiting. I'm sure we'll have more to say as this "conflict" continues (as it will), but as I said earlier do your best. For now the board is yours. Was that a sigh of relief I heard there? Poor Hey!
by Hey
The anti-Semite has chosen hate because hate is a faith; at the outset he has chosen to devaluate words and reasons. How entirely at ease he feels as a result. How futile and frivolous discussions about the rights of the Jew appear to him. He has placed himself on other ground from the beginning. If out of courtesy he consents for a moment to DEFENDS HIS POINT OF VIEW, he lends himself but does not give himself. He tries simply to project his intuitive certainty onto the plane of discourse... Never belief that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The Anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument, bu to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, the will abrudly fall silently, loftily indicating BY SOME PHRASE THAT THE TIME FOR ARGUMENT IS PAST. It is not that they are afraid of being convinced. They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning some third person to their side."

From Anti-Semite and Jew, by Jean-Paul Sarte.
Emphasis mine.
by Justice
If I may interject here, this is more like a profile of Hey.
by Hey
Yeah Justice, I knew someone would try the Pee-Wee Herman argument.

"I know you are, but what am I?"

Speaking of which, can you tell me what justice the Jews should receive after the suffering they've gone through? Should they have a homeland like you folks insist the Palestinians should have? Or should they just get more of the same?
by Justice
You seem to know more about the Pee Wee Herman bit than I do. Why is that?

Oh, and where have you been living all those years? Didn't Israel get its "homeland" in 1948?
by Just wondering
Around the time of the major Israeli incursions into Gaza and the West Bank last spring CBC Newsworld, Canada, had an item showing Firends of Irsael or the Jewish Lobby (someone) marching in support of Israel. As they were moved along there was suddenly an outburst of naming calling, yelling, etc., and we noted a few women approaching.

Then this young boy about 10 to 12 (who knows) stood there in his Sunday best yelling "you're stupid", and a lot more at the women in question. Viewers were then told these were Israeli women marching for peace.

CBC Newsworld was bombasted by the same Friends of Israel (or whoever) for showing the particular scenes, just as it was crucified for showing Fergal Keane's brilliant documentary, "The Accused".

The Israeli ambassador had a few choice comments to make in a letter to CBC, which was shown to its viewers. One of the remarks was why are you bringing this up now", etc. You know, it's twenty years plus after the event.

Well, pardon us, I thought at the time. The hunt for war criminals went on for over fifty years, and may be still ongoing today..

I came to the conclusion at the time that those yelling the loudest about "anti-semitism" probably do not live in Israel at all but in Canada and the US. I still feel that way.

by debate coach
> Should they have a homeland like you folks insist the Palestinians should have? Or should they just get more of the same?

Those are not the only two possibilities. They have gotten a homeland, and it has brought them more of the same. Israel is the only place on earth where Jews are routinely murdered, solely because they are Jews. "Safe haven"? Hardly. Israel is a death trap for Jews. Unlike the Jews of Auschwitz, the Jews of Israel are building their own fence. Whoever put them up to it is a greater threat to Jewish survival than was Hitler.

It's time to look for a third possibility.
by Scottie
Hey seems to be quite well read to be able to find relevant profiles from literature for other people in debates.
not just that but he also knows peewee herman..
by justice
Let's not forget the "emphasis" are his!
by Hey
Let's see, where to begin...

I totally disagree with our fellow who believes Jews in Israel are somehow in as much danger as Jews in Auschwitz, but the absurdity of that statement should be obvious. I mean, Israel's the only country that actually will use its army to defend Jews. No other nation did that during the second world war. Israel has saved the lives of millions of Jews, not just from Europe, but from the Arab world and Ethipoia as well.

Of course, the Palestinians may... hopefully will... be allowed to have a place to stay. Of course, this would have been solved fifty years ago if the Arabs accepted the two state partition in 1948. Or it could be solved any time if the other Arab states were willing to have compassion for their brethren, and offer them refuge. Saudi Arabia has huge amounts of oil and plenty of empty land. They could absorb the Palestinians any time they wish to. In fact, Saudi Arabia is begging for immigration... but refuses to accept Palestinians. Palestinians are doing their job, being a constant threat to Israel, and a consistent agitation to the Middle East. Why solve it with compassion when they're so useful against the Jews? Oh well. Se la vie.

Maybe Macmoud Abbas will be able to forge a peace between Israel and the Palestinians that Arafat was unable to author. Let us hope so. Let's hope this new leader can forge Palestinians into peaceful neighbors who will coexist, rather than Arafat's vision of destroying Israel in blood and fire.

Oh and Justice... the little Pee-Wee Herman bit is from the movie "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure." It's a nice, silly, dumb movie if you ever want a few laughs that aren't intellectually based. Why should I be incapable of watching Pee-Wee's Big Adventure in addition to Amadeus? Why can't I have read both Dr. Seuss and Crime and Punishment? Picky, picky.

After all, Pee-Wee gave us some immortal words of wisdom to live by, such as:

"I know you are, but what am I?"

Or perhaps:

"Auuuuuuuuugh!"

Or even:

"Oops! This is why I watch adult movies in the privacy of my own house!"
by debate coach
>I totally disagree with our fellow who believes Jews in Israel are somehow in as much danger as Jews in Auschwitz,


That's not what I said. Stop putting words into my mouth. It's rude. It's dishonest. it's very bad form.

It is worth noting, though, that Jews have not been killed in Auschwitz for six decades. Jews are killed in Israel almost every day, and for no other reason than they are Jews. A Jew today really is safer in Auschwitz than in Israel. That's the "safe haven" that the Zionists have created. It's true, even if it's not what I said.

But, true or not, itt's not what I said. I said something else. Why don't you address what I actually said?
by Hey
Wow. Debate Coach pointed out that fewer Jews are killed at an old camp that's been evacuated for six decades and now serves only as a tourist spot, than a living, breathing, vibrant nation.

Guess what. There are fewer Germans and French killed at the trenches between France and Germany. Back in World War I, thousands of soldiers died for a few stretch of yards. But now the trenches are abandoned, and more Frenchmen and Germans die in the confines of their own nations. Gee, I wonder why that is?

Here's a lesson for you, Debate coach. Jews are a target whether they're inside Israel or outside of it. It's not because of their geographical location. It's because they're Jews, and they're the target of anti-Semitism, whether in their own country, or out of it. The only difference is, when Jews were in other countries, the governments could target them officially, and no one would defend them. In Israel, the government defends the Jews, and the people who kill them are foreigners, rather than government employees.


More Jews were killed in Auschwitz in six years than were killed in Israel in sixty, and that is progress, my friend. Fewer Jews are killed in Poland than in Israel because there aren't any more Jews in Poland. Funny thing, that.
by angie
I note in my absence Hey has continued what he does best; and that is promoting a seige mentality for the people of Israel.

However, maybe he can pause for a moment to tell Debate Coach and the rest of us just where jews are being prosecuted today. Name the countries. Give us the stats. Show us the research.

Incidentally, I don't care what you watch. If Peewee makes you happy, fine, but this board is not about Peewee, nor does Peewee have any relevance to anything on this board. If there is ever a thread about Peewee, well, then we'll rush to read your comments.

On a more personal note, with respect to your "Profile of Angie", it's astonishing that you, who have no idea who I am or what I do or what I believe in, could come up with such a piece of fiction. In your attempts to discredit me, you have shown who you really are, so we don't need a profile of Hey now, do we? Not from me, you won't.

However, it's to be expected. We see it all the time throughout the world. Whenever anyone dares be critical of Israel (gasp!) out comes the old anti-semitic accusations, the character assassinations, and in a lot of cases, death threats. It's the price we pay for having independent minds.

But do you best. It's a reflection on you, not me.

However, I will not be responding to anything else you write either about me or anything else. If someone can't comment on what they believe in without someone like you attacking them personally, it's not worth the time or the effort, at least not to me. I've got more important things to do than read your poisonous rhetoric.

We all look forward, I'm sure, to your next rant.

by Hey
Gosh Angie. I thought you left us for good! You said you were gone, so I thought you were just an anti-Semite leaving the conversation.

Now you've come back, except you said you're not really here to talk, because you're not going to respond to anything I say, you just want to... well, I dunno, make your distaste known for me, I guess. You know, 'cause i have Jewish cooties and all that.

Oh by the way, you should do some research on France and Argentina. The Jewish communities there have been having some pretty bad times, and there's a very ugly resurgance of anti-Semitism in France. Not to mention the waves across the Arab world, where Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are spreading, but hey, I guess that doesn't surprise anyone. After all, all those millions of Arabs with their oceans of oil are being oppressed by little Israel, aren't they?

I know you won't do this research, even though you can do it pretty easily on Google all by yourself. Even if I posted the links, you would deny it was a problem. Or you would justify beating up French rabbis as being some kind of just "criticism of Israel."

In fact, I wouldn't expect anything less.
by still waiting
Angie. I thought you left us for good! You said you were gone
Whatever "gone" means.

No, dear Still Waiting, it's just wishful thinking on Hey's part.
by Hey
"Anyway, Hey and pals, it's been fun, but my career is waiting. I'm sure we'll have more to say as this "conflict" continues (as it will), but as I said earlier do your best. For now the board is yours. Was that a sigh of relief I heard there? Poor Hey! "

So I thought you were leaving for good, but I guess it was just for the day. Dear, dear.

Poor Angie. You get so upset when you're personally attacked, but you personally attack me all the time. Not that I expect to see you treat others the way you'd like to be treated.
by For ever Israel
Your a sick racist bastard. If Israel is a racist and apartheid country, whats the US? I doubt you've even been there. Once you actually go there you can speak for yourself. Once you experience the horror of a Palestinian suicide bombing, you can speak. Once your relatives and friends are gunned down by Palestinians you can speak. Until then- shut up.

Shalom
by Israel must be dismantled
Hi everyone. Please check out the fantastic website of the anti-Zionist Jewish group Neturei Karta at http://www.nkusa.org.

Along with them, we pray for the speedy dismantling of the Zionist state of Israel. Amen.
by No
No. Just because a handful of religious jews are out of their minds doesn't mean they should be taken seriously, just as non-jews out of their minds shouldn't, either. Your brain was obviously dismantled long ago.

by gehrig
Well, to be fair, Windy Wendy thinks that the Neturai Karta are a large movement. And if all I knew was what was I read on Indybay, I'd probably think it too.

What they are, really, are rhetorical camouflage, so that Windy Wendy can tell herself that, no, she's not really antisemitic, if she likes the NK. But the only thing she knows about the NK is that they're anti-Zionist. And she's been very careful not to learn anything else that might endanger that ignorance.

@%<
by Boswell
Hablas con ella!
" Because of all of this and other reasons the Torah forbids us to end the exile and establish a state and army until the Holy One, blessed He, in His Glory and Essence will redeem us. This is forbidden even if the state is conducted according to the law of the Torah because arising from the exile itself is forbidden, and we are required to remain under the rule of the nations of the world, as is explained in the book VAYOEL MOSHE. If we transgress this injunction, He will bring upon us (may we be spared) terrible punishment.
"
http://www.nkusa.org/AboutUs/Zionism/opposition.cfm
by gehrig
Not just a state, but a pure 100% Jewish theocracy based on a re-establishment of the Davidic Kingdom.

Funny how Windy Wendy doesn't mention that part.

@%<
by gehrig
Windy Wendy, while dodging a lot of questions she finds too embarrassing: "And we're supposed to believe your statements about the Holocaust as fact? I don't think so."

These _are_ facts, as I said: "that the Nazis had a genocidal program in which they murdered Jews by the million in many ways, including industrial-scale gas chambers and crematoria."

Do you not think this is historical and documented fact, Windy Wendy? Step up to the plate, Windy Wendy. Let's see your best shot.

@%<
by anti-zionist
New documentary coming out soon, all about the Neturei Karta featuring an in-depth interview with Rabbi Dovid Weiss of the Neturei Karta. He explains it all in detail, that will send gehrig under his bed with his buddy Ariel Sharon. In the meantime, check out their website http://www.nkusa.org. Over 30,000 Jews belong to his organization worldwide.
by gehrig
Windy Wendy, while dodging a lot of questions she finds too embarrassing: "And we're supposed to believe your statements about the Holocaust as fact? I don't think so."

These _are_ facts, as I said: "that the Nazis had a genocidal program in which they murdered Jews by the million in many ways, including industrial-scale gas chambers and crematoria."

Do you not think this is historical and documented fact, Windy Wendy? Step up to the plate, Windy Wendy. Let's see your best shot.

@%<
by How gehrig is stuck in history
He is SO concerned about the Holocaust (which he is SO convinced he knows all the details and don't bother getting into a debate about it either cuz his loony ADL cronies will be knocking down your door! How's that for stifling any debate for you? Works for me!) However, he is indifferent to the similar treatment that the Zionists are visiting upon the Palestinians and have been for far, far longer than the Holocaust went on. Zionists have been massacring and persecuting non-Jewish Palestinians since even before the immoral state of Israel was created in 1948. This doesn't seem to be of any concern whatsoever to gehrig and his buddies.
by gehrig
Hey, what do you know, I jumped threads. Sorry to confuse you folks.

Windy Wendy: "He is SO concerned about the Holocaust (which he is SO convinced he knows all the details and don't bother getting into a debate about it either cuz his loony ADL cronies will be knocking down your door! How's that for stifling any debate for you? Works for me!)"

That has to be the lamest excuse I've seen from you yet, Windy Wendy. What I'm concerned about is that the readers of this site get a good look at where you're coming from, because it ain't pretty and it makes a mockery of your claim to be fighting racism.

You've posted an article by a Holocaust deniers. You've posted links to Holocaust denial sites several times. And now you're indicating that you find the fundamental facts of the Holocaust -- that the Nazis had a genocidal program in which they murdered Jews by the millions in many ways, including industrial-scale gas chambers and crematoria, racking up about six million dead -- are some how merely a "debatable" proposition, and you're being coerced by the Big Bad Jews from saying what you _really_ think happened.

Really, Windy Wendy. You're out. Why keep pretending?

@%<
by uhh
wendy is an evil scumbag. anyone who thinks otherwise is probably a scumbag as well.

I like good human beings, not scumbags.

by gehrig
I like to think that folks like the now-outted Windy Out Wendy are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to anti-Zionism. But take a look at Windy Out Wendy's posts here, and you'll see how interchangeably she uses "Jews" and "Zionists," and how completely that undercuts her "oh I'm not antisemitic, only anti-Zionist."

Hey, anti-Zionists -- aren't you proud to have Windy Out Wendy Campbell, poster of Holocaust denial URLs and barely disguised antisemite as one of your leading lights?

@%<
by S.Burke
I assume when you say Davidic state you are refering to King David, slayer of Goliath. What a man! Does not the good book state that Dave was a bloody man? Did not this very same Dave send a man into the front lines in order for said man to die in battle for David lusted after his wife? What a man!

So from the good book, I gather David was neither a good man, or a peaceful man. Sounds like modern Israel to me. Of course this is just based on years of reading and of observations. Also I assume that this war in Iraq was fought not only to satisfy the ego of George(may he rest in peace) but to establish biblical boundaries for Israel.
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