591 "Palestinians only" buses introduced. Israel defense minister called Palestinians "cancer"

"Palestinians only" buses introduced. Israel defense minister called
Palestinians "cancer"

Newsletter published on 20-3-2013

(1) NYT features West Bank Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation
through non-violence
(2) More Jewish wailing: FDR added to list of Anti-Semites - Paul Eisen
(3) Israel's incoming defense minister evaded war crimes arrest, called
Palestinians "cancer"
(4) Obama outsmarted Lobby on Hagel, with help from veterans and retired
generals - M J Rosenberg
(5) Lobby survives despite 30 days of scrutiny over Hagel - Philip Giraldi
(6) State Dept infiltrated by Lobby; Kerry's ties to the Lobby - Brother
Nathanael
(7) Israel's Transportation Ministry launches 'Palestinians only' buses
(8) South Africa and Palestine, a joint struggle - Mazin Qumsiyeh

(1) NYT features West Bank Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation
through non-violence

From: MJ Rosenberg <mjayrosenbergblog@gmail.com> Date: 20 March 2013 05:29

The Times Eviscerates The Occupation

MJ Rosenberg

Martch 19, 2013

http://mjayrosenberg.com/2013/03/19/the-times-eviscerates-the-occupation/

On Sunday, the New York Times ran an extraordinary magazine piece (it
was the cover story) on West Bank Palestinians who are resisting the
Israeli occupation through non-violence. For those who follow the issue
closely, the extraordinary aspect of the piece was not so much anything
author Ben Ehreneich revealed as it was that the article appeared in the
New York Times at all.

You just don't expect to find this type of reporting on Israel in the
Times which, ever conscious that it is the New York Times, is cautious
about its reportage on Israel. Most of its coverage is either extremely
balanced (“the Palestinians say this, the Israeli government says that”)
or slavishly supportive of the Israeli line. (Columnists Roger Cohen,
Tom Friedman, Nick Kristof consistently deviate from the line, but they
are columnists, influential columnists to be sure, but opinion
columnists nonetheless.)

Ehrenreich's piece neither adhered to the Israeli line nor was it
balanced. It had a clear point of view: the occupation is a terrible
thing that should not continue.

Does that make it biased? It would, if there was another side to the
argument. But in the case of the occupation, there isn't. Imagine
Ehrenreich's counterpart on the right explaining that the 45-year
occupation is a good thing which should continue forever.

Other than West Bank settlers and their supporters on the far right of
the Israeli and American political spectrum, no one makes that case. The
United States government is committed to the “two-state solution.” Prime
Minister Netanyahu has also endorsed it as has every Israeli prime
minister since Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo agreement with Yasir
Arafat. As for the lobby here in the United States, it too supports the
two-state solution.

It hardly needs to be said that endorsing the “two state solution,” by
definition, means opposing the occupation. After all, there is no place
where a Palestinian state could be created other than the West Bank
(including east Jerusalem) and Gaza. That is if you favor two states.
On the other hand, the so-called “one state solution” would include the
land that is now Israel in a single state for all the people who live
there. But that, obviously, is something different than the “two state”
framework.

Of course, neither the Netanyahu government nor the lobby here really
want the occupation to end. If they did, they would not, in the case of
the Israeli government, keep expanding settlements or, in the case of
pro-Israel organizations here, support Israel's right to do so. Nor
would they use their influence to prevent any pressure from the United
States on Israel to end the occupation. In short, both Israel and its
lobby here nominally oppose the occupation while actually supporting it.

The reason they can't say they support occupation is the same reason
that the New York Times will never run a major piece that takes the
opposite point of view from Ehrenreich's. That is because in the year
2013, it is no longer possible to defend occupation and the denial of
rights to the native people that goes along with it. Like defending
colonialism or segregation, defending occupation is beyond the pale of
civilized discourse.

And that is why hardly anyone defends it. It survives because those who
favor it, do not engage on that issue directly, saying “of course, I
oppose the occupation but….”

And it is the arguments that follows the “but” that allow an institution
universally believed to be wrong to continue.

The words that invariably follow the “but” rarely, if ever, defend the
occupation itself. Instead they attack the people whose land is being
occupied, the Palestinians in particular and sometimes Muslims in general.

The arguments are (1) that the Palestinians do not accept Israel's right
to live in peace and security (they have since 1993), (2) that they are
terrorists (the Palestinian Authority which governs the West Bank not
only opposes terrorism, it works with the Israeli authorities to thwart
it, (3) that Palestinian schools teach their children to hate Jews
(which has been proven false), (4) that Israel has no Palestinian
partner with whom to negotiate (Mahmoud Abbas is so friendly to Israel
that many Palestinians consider him an Israeli puppet) and (5) that the
Palestinians have rejected Israeli offers of to remove the settlements
and exchange the occupied territories (it has, in fact, never been offered).

In other words, supporters of the status quo, knowing that the
occupation is indefensible, simply change the subject to one that they
would rather discuss. And that is the nature (as they see it) of the
Palestinians (and, in the case of the Pam Geller's of the world, the
nature of all Muslims). In short, knowing they cannot win the argument
by discussing the issue that prevents peace (the occupation), the
Israeli government and its lobby here chooses instead to attack the
Arabs. And it works. Forty-five years after it began, the occupation not
only survives, it has become more impregnable as settlements expand, the
number of settlers increase and Israel's system of roads, walls, and law
defends the settlers at the expense of the local population.

[It should be noted that in the first years of the occupation, it was
defended as strategically necessary to defend Israel itself. But that
was disproven in 1973 when Israel, holding all the territories it does
now plus the Sinai Peninsula, was attacked by the combined forces of
Egypt and Syria and prevailed after three weeks of fighting and the loss
of 2,688 soldiers in contrast to the 776 it lost in the 1967 war, when
it held none of the occupied territories and defeated Egypt, Syria, and
Jordan in six days.]

The best news about the Ehrenreich piece is that he simply describes the
occupation in all its ugliness, forcing the reader to forget for a time
all the propaganda about Palestinians and instead focus on the
conditions Palestinians are subjected to simply because the settlers
(and the Israeli government that supports them) wants their land. And,
beyond that, he defends non-violent resistance to the occupation as the
one means that can end it. (He quotes one Israeli army official saying
that he prefers dealing with resisters who shoot, “you have the enemy,
he shoots at you, you have to kill him.” But he is confounded by
non-violent resistance. Another is quoted as saying, “We don't do Gandhi
very well.” In short, Ehrenreich eviscerates the occupation and
describes how it can be ended.

That is the second best news about the piece. The best news is that this
story appeared in the New York Times. Most definitely, the Times, they
are a changing.

(2) More Jewish wailing: FDR added to list of Anti-Semites - Paul Eisen

From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@gmail.com> Date: 14 March 2013
07:36

http://pauleisen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/more-jewish-wailing.html

WEDNESDAY, 13 MARCH 2013

More Jewish wailing

This is some professional Jewish wailer going on about how, yet again,
someone else let us poor Jews down.

So, to this list....."The German and Austrian peoples who, we are told,
conceived and perpetrated the slaughter; the Russian, Polish, Ukrainian,
Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Rumanian, Hungarian, peoples etc. who
supposedly hosted, assisted in and cheered on the slaughter; the
Americans, the British, the French, the Dutch, the Belgians, the
Italians (but not the Danes and the Bulgarians) etc. who apparently
didn't do enough to stop the slaughter; the Swiss who earned out of the
slaughter, and the entire Christian world who, it seems, created the
faith-traditions and ideologies in which the slaughter could take place,
and now the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim peoples who seemingly want to
perpetrate a new slaughter..."

We can now add poor old President Roosevelt ==

The Holocaust: FDR's indelible failure

By Richard Cohen,

Mar 11, 2013 11:31 PM EDT The Washington Post Published: March 11

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-fdrs-moral-failure-on-the-holocaust/2013/03/11/6bb9ef56-8a76-11e2-8d72-dc76641cb8d4_story.html

On April 12, 1945, my grandfather approached me as I played outside the
house and asked where my mother was. He looked stricken, and so I
quickly followed him inside and heard him say words that made my mother
burst into tears: President Roosevelt had died. My mother's grief and
panic were so palpable — her brother was fighting in the Pacific, her
brother-in-law was fighting in Europe — that it scared me. In our house,
FDR was not merely the president. He was a god.

He is a god no more. His New Deal is no longer solely credited with
ending the Great Depression — World War II did that — and the war in
Europe was not won, as we all once thought, primarily by the United
States but more so by the Soviet Union. Yet these, to my mind, are
trifles compared to the criticism that Roosevelt was passive in the face
of the Holocaust. It's not that he did nothing, it's that he did nothing
much.

This accusation of immense moral failure — or indifference — is now
being addressed by a new book, “FDR and the Jews,” by Richard Breitman
and Allan J. Lichtman. It sets out to find a middle ground and instead
makes things worse. It is a portrait of a president who, in the authors'
own words, “did not forthrightly inform the American people of Hitler's
grisly 'Final Solution' or respond decisively to his crimes.” This is a
Roosevelt who almost always had a more pressing political concern —
American isolationism, American anti-Semitism, a fear and hatred of
immigrants — and who stayed mum while a bill to allow 20,000 Jewish
children into the United States died in Congress.

Roosevelt inattentively also permitted a cabal of heartless anti-Semites
in the State Department to control the country's visa policies.
Desperate Jews, fleeing from the Nazis, were denied asylum in the United
States. One of them was Otto Frank. His daughter Anne perished at the
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Both FDR and his wife, Eleanor, were genteel anti-Semites — although the
president had Jewish aides and one close Jewish friend, his neighbor
Henry Morgenthau Jr. Eleanor, a woman not afraid to confront her own
prejudices, later became a champion of Jewish causes, but the record for
the president on this score is hardly as redeeming. As late as 1943, at
the Casablanca Conference, he sympathized with a French general's
observation that the Jews were overrepresented in the professions. FDR
referenced the “understandable complaints which the Germans bore towards
the Jews.”

Breitman and Lichtman, both historians at American University, prove
adept at demolishing several straw men: It was a subordinate, not FDR,
who refused to bomb Auschwitz to put the gas chambers out of commission;
the United States did not send the Coast Guard to stop the now-infamous
refugee ship St. Louis from reaching America. And it is true as well
that FDR supported programs that did, the authors reckon, save 100,000
Jewish lives — hardly a footnote, especially to those who were saved.

But it is also true that Roosevelt did not even mention the mass murder
of Jews until 1944, by which time most of Europe's Jews had been killed.
He showed almost no leadership on this issue, refusing to confront
nativist anti-Semitism and fear of foreigners. He did little to warn
either Germany or its satellites — Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, among
others — that they would pay for their treatment of the Jews. And while
nothing could deter Hitler from trying to kill every last Jew, the
satellites grew increasingly less zealous as it became clear that they
were on the losing side. It took an outright German invasion of Hungary
for more than 400,000 of its Jews to be murdered.

Roosevelt was a man of his times. His anti-Semitism was so common it
would have been almost noteworthy if it were absent. But Thomas
Jefferson, too, was a man of his times — a slaveholder like his Virginia
contemporaries — yet his greed or his hypocrisy can hardly be overlooked
or, maybe, forgiven.

It is the same with Roosevelt. His exuberant humanity, his political
brilliance, his triumph in possibly saving the American free enterprise
system — all this and so much more cannot negate the fact that he did
not confront the biggest crime in all history with everything at his
disposal.

Back in 1945, my mother thought a god had died. We know now he was just
a man, not so great as he once appeared. Increasingly and deservedly,
his reputation is being consumed by the very Holocaust he ignored.

(3) Israel's incoming defense minister evaded war crimes arrest, called
Palestinians "cancer"

From: Kristoffer Larsson <krislarsson@comhem.se> Date: 18 March 2013 05:27

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israels-incoming-defense-minister-evaded-war-crimes-arrest-called-palestinians

Submitted by Asa Winstanley on Fri, 03/15/2013 - 14:46

{photo} 130314-yaalon-geller.jpg
Israel's next “defense” minister poses for a photo with notorious racist
blogger Pamela Geller (Wikipedia)
{end}

This is Moshe Ya'alon, the Likud parliamentarian set to become minister
of “defense” in Israel's new hard-right coalition government due to be
sworn in early next week.

In a 2002 interview with Israeli paper Haaretz, when he was Chief of
Staff of the Israeli army, Ya'alon said the “Palestinian threat” was
“like cancer” and an “existential threat.” He explained that his
solution was “applying chemotherapy.”

The “chemotherapy,” was the massive destruction his forces visited on
Palestinian society during the second intifada. Israeli forces
infamously fired over a million bullets at Palestinian demonstrators
within the first few days of that popular uprising.

Under pressure, Ya'alon later back-pedaled, saying his statements were
“inopportune,” but that he had been “taken out of context” reported
financial publication Globes in Hebrew.War crimes

In 2005, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit against
Ya'alon, charging him with war crimes for his role in the Israeli army's
1996 attack on a United Nations compound in Qana, Lebanon that killed
more than 100 Lebanese civilians who had taken shelter there, injuring
many more.

At the time of the lawsuit, Ya'alon was a fellow at the AIPAC-founded
Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, DC.

In 2006 a federal judge dismissed the case on the grounds that Ya'alon
enjoyed immunity under the Foreign Sovereigns Immunities Act. But
Ya'alon's legal problems did not end there.

He was invited to a 2009 fund-raising event for Israeli soldiers in
London, but had to cancel the trip for fear of arrest on suspicion of
war crimes.

The charges to have been brought against him related to the infamous
2002 Israeli bombing of an apartment block in Gaza, which killed 14
civilians, including children.Hamas military leader Salah Shehadeh was
also killed in the attack.

This is the same incident for which the Palestinian Centre for Human
Rights brought a case against Ya'alon and Israeli air force commander
Dan Halutz in the Spanish National Courtin 2008. An appeal against a
lower court decision to close the case was pending before Spain's
constitutional court as of 2011.

Ya'alon had been invited to London in 2009 by the Jewish National Fund.
According to The Guardian, one of the lawyers who advised Ya'alon not to
travel was Daniel Taub, now the Israeli ambassador in London.Notorious
Islamophobe

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ya'alon is vaunted by Pamela Geller, a notorious
Muslim-hater and leading demagogue among racist bloggers.

Geller once described him as “Israel's best shot for the right
leadership” and boasts of having interviewed him alongside other Zionist
bloggers.

In that interview, Ya'alon seemed to concur with some of Geller's
disturbing ideology, agreeing with Geller that:

Yes, this is the main challenge… to create what I call an awakening in
the West. The West is sleeping. In many terms it reminds of the
situation before World War II. It's very clear, the threat [of Islamic
jihad] is very clear.

Geller was one of the key inspirations for the Muslim-hating,
pro-Israel, convicted terrorist Anders Breivik, so it is grimly fitting
she would take inspiration from killers like Ya'alon.

With thanks to Ali Abunimah for his contribution, and Dena Shunra for
translation from Hebrew, research and analysis.

(4) Obama outsmarted Lobby on Hagel, with help from veterans and retired
generals - M J Rosenberg

From: MJ Rosenberg <mjayrosenbergblog@gmail.com> Date: 8 March 2013 02:59

How Obama Beat the Israel Lobby

M J Rosenberg

http://mjayrosenberg.com/2013/03/06/how-obama-beat-the-lobby/

I am not one for admitting I am wrong but sometimes the evidence is so
overwhelming that I have to say it. I was wrong.

I have been repeatedly wrong when I said that the Israel lobby could not
be defeated unless and until the President of the United States
confronted it directly. In that situation, I always knew the United
States would prevail. But I did not understand that a deft president
could beat the lobby through indirect means – by quietly using his
authority to prevail.

That is what happened when the Obama administration first nominated and
then achieved the confirmation of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense.

There, of course, are those who accept the line put out by the lobby,
most notably its main component AIPAC, that it was neutral on Hagel.

That is just silly. If AIPAC was neutral, it could have ended the whole
battle against him by issuing a statement that it recognized a
president's right to choose his own cabinet. That might not have stopped
Republican groups like Bill Kristol's Emergency Committee For Israel or
Sheldon Adelson's Republican Jewish Coalition from pursuing its smear
campaign against Hagel but it would have stopped the very mainstream
American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League from joining
the attack. AIPAC's public silence on a campaign waged by its closest
allies demonstrated what it wanted: Hagel's defeat. So did the fact that
it supplied the anti-Hagel senators with the “information” it used to
bludgeon him with at his kangaroo court of a confirmation hearing.

President Obama outsmarted the lobby by ignoring it. He knew that if he
could get Sen. Chuck Schumer to endorse Hagel, then the game would be
over. That is because he, as a Jew and New York's senior senator, is the
de facto head of the lobby's forces in Congress.

A reflexive lobby man, Schumer might have been expected to oppose Hagel
and thereby give a signal to his fellow Democrats that doing so was the
only safe position. Had he done that some Democrats would have feared
not opposing Hagel. With most Republicans already on record as opposing
his nomination, just a shift of a few Democrats would have killed the
nomination. Schumer's announcement in support of Hagel guaranteed that
not a single Democrat would oppose him.

So what convinced Schumer to stand with Obama on Hagel? My friends on
Capitol Hill, who without exception correctly predicted Schumer's
position, tell me that it was made clear to him that he could not oppose
Obama on Hagel and still expect to become leader of Senate Democrats
when Harry Reid retires. No threats were made because none needed to be
made. Schumer was simply led to understand that he was not getting a
pass on this one. Add to that the unprecedented public campaign
supporting Hagel. This time the lobby did not have the field to itself.
With veterans' organizations, former Secretaries of State and Defense,
and retired generals speaking out in support of the former Nebraska
senator, the lobby was out-flanked.

And so Hagel was confirmed. The lobby was defeated. And its friends are
devastated.

In a Jewish Tablet piece called, “How AIPAC is Losing” the militant
lobby supporter Lee Smith asks “just how powerful is AIPAC if a man who
refers to it as the 'Jewish lobby' and has defiantly claimed that he is
not an “Israeli senator” is slated to be our next secretary of Defense?”

And, most significantly, how much influence does the lobbying
organization actually exercise if it can't carry the day on the single
issue that's been at the very top of its agenda for over a decade:
stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

Despite an operating budget of more than $60 million, on the most
crucial issue facing Israel's security, AIPAC has lost the policy
debate. The winners include those who believe you can't stop a nation
from getting the bomb if it's determined to do so, those who think the
Iranians have a right to nuclear weapons, and those who argue the
Iranians can be contained—among them, our new Secretary of Defense Chuck
Hagel.In other words, the lobby is not all-powerful. A determined
president can defeat it, a lesson Obama will bear in mind in the future,
particularly in reference to the lobby's singular focus on war with Iran.

But will Hagel's presence make a difference? Who knows? But we do know
this: a win is a win. And so is a defeat.

I was wrong. The lobby can be beaten. Obama scared it into public
silence and then defeated it. Nice work, work that will only become
easier as younger Jews, and the non-Orthodox 90%, continue to abandon a
lobby that is at variance with their liberal worldview. Ethnic
chauvinism is on the rise in Israel (along with its twin, racism) but
not here. Israel's “demographic problem” can be solved by withdrawing
from the occupied areas. The same can't be said of AIPAC's problem. Like
the Republican Party, its base is growing smaller and narrower every day.

(5) Lobby survives despite 30 days of scrutiny over Hagel - Philip Giraldi

Kristoffer Larsson <krislarsson@comhem.se> 15 March 2013 18:06

http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/news/opinion-a-analysis/item/2545-same-old-stuff-from-aipac


Same Old Stuff from AIPAC

by Philip Giraldi

Thursday, 14 March 2013

Antiwar - The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has just
completed its annual gala in Washington. A reported thirteen thousand
AIPAC supporters reportedly cheered the latest efforts to make Israel
America's most favored nation. A small group of demonstrators was
generally ignored though Scott McConnell reports that some protesters
were spat upon by those filing in to celebrate Israel. It must be a
habit they picked up in Jerusalem where spitting on Christian clergymen
is considered de rigueur.

There has been considerable speculation that AIPAC's power to corrupt
and misdirect the American political system might be waning, that the
struggle over the nomination of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense
revealed all the ugliness of the Israel Lobby. I have never quite bought
into that argument even though it is true that the attempt to derail the
nomination of a qualified former senator demonstrated clearly that U.S.
foreign and defense policies are being judged by many in the media and
the punditry as well as, to our shame, in congress solely in terms of
how they impact on Israel. It seemed to me that the Israel Lobby is too
firmly ensconced in the places that matter to be vulnerable to thirty
days of scrutiny. The American public has already f orgotten about
Hagel, if it was ever interested at all, and there is no sign that any
of the demagogic senators – Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, James Imhofe, John
McCain, and Marco Rubio among others – will in any way pay a political
price for their placing Israel first. Indeed, many of their evangelical
constituents will inevitably applaud what they have done.

It has also been noted that the recently concluded AIPAC gathering was
the first in many years where a sitting U.S. President or an Israeli
Prime Minister did not speak, and this has been interpreted as a loss of
influence. Last year, both President Barack Obama and Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu were present but this year Netanyahu is engaged in
forming a new government and could not travel while Obama is himself
preparing for a trip to Israel next week. Vice President Joe Biden did
yeoman's work, however, making sure that everyone would understand th at
the Washington will continue to respond to Israel's concerns, boasting
how the Obama administration had successfully blocked any United Nations
inquiry into Israel's illegal settlements. So predictions that the death
of AIPAC is imminent would appear to be somewhat premature.

Indeed, it would be a mistake to focus too much on AIPAC when the Israel
Lobby encompasses so much more, but it is no coincidence that there has
been a flurry of proposed legislation designed to coincide with the
annual conference. Consider for a moment what the friends of Israel are
now attempting to accomplish and how far their allies in congress are
willing to go to compromise actual American interests. First there is
H.R. 938 the "United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013"
which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs last Monday. The
bill is co-sponsored by Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who heads the
committee and by her Democratic colleague from Florida Ted Deutch.
Ros-Lehtinen is a familiar booster for Israel and also for what she
perceives to be Jewish interests. In 2011 she co-sponsored a bill that
provided special medical benefits to holocaust survivors to enable them
to remain in their homes and receive medical care. As the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency described it "the bill would give Holocaust survivors
preference in obtaining aging services," providing in this case
something that is not available to normal Medicare recipients.
Ros-Lehtinen has also been a co-sponsor of most of the pro-Israel,
anti-Iran legislation that has surfaced in congress over the past five
years.

H.R. 938 calls for strengthening "the strategic alliance between the
United States and Israel." It's declaration of policy is that "Congress
declares that Israel is a major strategic partner of the United States"
and it indicates that its intention is to upgrade "the framework of the
United States-Israel strategic and military relationships." The text of
the bill is relatively soporific but it does several things. First, it
extends the time frame and scope of various assistance and information
sharing programs that Washington has entered into with Tel Aviv,
including its ability to help itself to equipment from U.S. military
stockpiles. Second, it creates reporting requirements for the White
House and various government Departments to ensure that programs
relating to Israel are actually moving forward. There should be
particular concern over t he bill's expanding the areas of military
technology sharing between Washington and Tel Aviv as Israel has a track
record of stealing the proprietary technology for use in systems that
its own defense industry is marketing. Assisting in that effort, the
bill also specifically gives Israel blanked authority to re-export any
technology it obtains from the U.S. An additional substantive area that
the bill addresses is the various missile defense systems that Israel
has in place and is developing, mandating that the U.S. "should provide
assistance upon request by the Government of Israel, for the…procurement
and enhancement" of the systems.

The House Resolution also calls for the State Department to include
Israel in the visa waiver program, which would allow Israelis to travel
to the United States more-or-less freely. It will be a boon to
Israeli/Russian organized crime, which has already spread throughout the
United States. Interestingly, there is also a Barbara Boxer produced
Senate version of the same bill (S.R. 462) that adds some interesting
language, "Israel has made every reasonable effort, without jeopardizing
the security of the State of Israel, to ensure that reciprocal travel
privileges are extended to all US citizens." Normally participation in
the visa waiver program absolutely requires that the arrangement be
completely reciprocal, but in this case the Senate is certifying that
Israel is compliant even though it is not: it regularly denies entry to
American citizens of Palestinian descent, most recently to a teacher in
a Christian school in Ramallah. So Congress is again rewriting its own
rules on behalf of Israel.

It does not require any particular insight to note that the "major
strategic alliance" suggested by the bill benefits Israel by extending
various cooperation and sharing agreements while further committing to
pay for enhancements of the Israeli missile defense system "upon
request" by Benjamin Netanyahu or whoever winds up succeeding him as
prime minister. And it might be noted in passing that no other nation,
including countries like Great Britain and Canada whose soldiers have
actually fought side by side with Americans in a number of twentieth
century wars and also more recently, is regarded as a "major strategic
ally." It is a designation that will be unique to Israel and is intended
to elevate that nation above all others in terms of its relationship
with Washington.

And there is nothing in the bill that actually benefits the United
States. The words "alliance" and "ally" are used several times but they
have no meaning as Israel is not in any traditional alliance
relationship with Washington that would actually require it to do
anything. In any event, it would be difficult for Washington to define
what constitutes an attack on Israel as Israel has expanding borders. No
reciprocity and no conditions set on possible mutual action means there
is no actual alliance, unlike an organization like Cold War-era NATO
which once upon a time clearly defined what member states had to do if
threatened or attacked while further limiting what they could do
unilaterally. The U.S. exercises no restraint on Israeli behavior and
the relationship is strictly one way.

An additional bill, this time from the Senate, S.R. 65, authored by
unflinchingly pro-Israel Senators Lindsey Graham and Robert Menendez,
with twenty other Senatorial co-sponsors, was introduced on February
28th. There is a parallel version in the House of Representatives called
H.R. 850 with 102 co-sponsors. The Senate version is called "The Iran
Nuclear Prevention Act" and is described as "A resolution strongly
supporting the full implementation of United States and international
sanctions on Iran and urging the President to continue to strengthen
enforcement of sanctions legislation." It cites the Iranian "continuing
pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability" and "the policy of the United
States…to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon capability"
before urging that "if the Government of Israel is compelled to take
military action in self-defense the United States government should
stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military and economic support…"

S.R. 65 is a virtual declaration of war on a timetable to be established
by Israel though the text of the resolution concludes with a disclaimer
that it is not an "authorization for the use of force or a declaration
of war." Disclaimer aside, the resolution basically concedes that if
Israel starts a war against Iran under any pretext, the United States
must automatically support it up to an including using its own military
and naval forces. As Senator Graham admitted in an interview, "If Israel
acts in its own defense – even preemptively – we will support Israel
economically, diplomatically, and political ly."

But one of the interesting things about the attack Iran resolution is
that its premise is wrong: both Israeli and U.S. intelligence believe
that Tehran currently has no actual weapons program though if one goes
by "capability" rather than actually having or seeking a weapon, Iran is
one of more than fifty nations that currently have the technical ability
to construct a nuclear device. To do so, it would have to make the
political decision to spend the billions of dollars required in the
effort and be prepared to submit to a catastrophically damaging
international response which almost certainly would lead to a war that
would devastate Iran and the entire Gulf region.

Finally there is the sequester, which provides an opportunity to return
again to AIPAC. Part of AIPAC's annual routine consists of its
supporters flooding Capitol Hill Senate and House offices to lobby
legislators regarding key issues of concern to the pro-Israel community.
This year there were a couple of hot buttons, including the perennial
favorite of the alleged Iranian threat, but the issue that received the
most attention was the sequester. AIPAC's supporters fanned out in the
House and Senate office buildings to tell their congressmen that under
no circumstances should Israel's $3.2 billion in aid be cut, no matter
what the sequester calls for and no matter what domestic programs have
to be eliminated. One has to suspect that the no-cuts in aid to Israel
will somehow be tied to the bid to declare the country America's "major
strategic ally."

So are we back to square one? Not exactly. The Hagel confirmation fight
revealed that U.S. interests matter not a whit f or Israel's most vocal
supporters while the American media is gradually becoming more open to
criticism of what is going on in Tel Aviv. But the Lobby still has the
whip hand, able to manage what appears in most of the media while having
a vice-like grip on congress. It is probably futile in the near term,
but we the people should start to imitate AIPAC by letting congressmen
know that there are a lot of us out here who vote and who are not too
happy about the prospect of a third war in Asia against Iran. Indeed,
the real test of the Israel Lobby's power will be played out over the
next nine months or so. If we do get a war with Iran then those of us
who have opposed it might as well fold our cards on "let us reason
together" and begin to think of civil disobedience on a serious level.
It might be the only option we have remaining to turn the ship around.

(6) State Dept infiltrated by Lobby; Kerry's ties to the Lobby - Brother
Nathanael

{some intemperate language here. Brother Nathanael would serve his cause
better by not resorting to such language - Peter M.}

From: Brother Nathanael <bronathanael@yahoo.com> Date: 4 March 2013 14:37

{http://www.realjewnews.com/
My Name Is Brother Nathanael Kapner
I'm A "Street Evangelist"
I Grew Up As A Jew
I'm Now An Orthodox Christian
I Wish To Warn How Zionist Jews
Are Destroying Christianity Throughout The World}

http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=800

John Kerry's Jew-Ridden State Department

By Brother Nathanael Kapner

March 3, 2013

WITH JOHN KERRY'S plan to aid Syrian terrorists, it's time we expose the
State Department as a Jew-ridden organ of the Jewish Lobby.

It's a well-known fact that the Syrian 'revolution' is a dire threat to
the centuries-old Christian population. But when it comes to pleasing
the Jews, Kerry couldn't care less.

Added to Kerry's Jew-pleasing diplomacy, he recently demanded that
Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey, apologize for calling Zionism a
“crime against humanity”…which it most certainly is.

What's behind Kerry's Jew-loving actions?

Does he owe the Jews so that off to work for the Jews he goes? Yes indeed.

First of all, Kerry's paternal grandparents were Jews named Ida Lowe and
Fritz Kohn, who like many Jews in order to hide their identity, changed
their surname to Kerry.

John Kerry's father, Richard, (son of Ida and Fritz) was born in the
Jewish area of Boston known as Brookline where John Kerry studied law at
Boston College.

JEW WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE

IN HIS 2004 PRESIDENTIAL BID, Kerry placed some high-powered Jews on his
campaign staff to drive his Jewish 'money-go-to' machine.

Alan Solomont, Board member of the Boston Private Bank & Trust Company
and Chairman of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston,
was an ardent supporter of Kerry and a key member of his finance team.

Eric Lynn, a veteran AIPAC agent, acted as Kerry's 'Jewish Vote Director.'

Lynn will always be around to remind Kerry of the Jewish dollars
invested in his political advancement since he now hangs out in the
Jew-ridden State Department where he serves as Senior Policy Adviser.

Then we have John Kerry's brother, “Cam” Kerry, who converted to Judaism
before marrying Kathy Weinman. (Most converts are women who want to
marry Jewish men. Shame on him!)

Cam was awarded for his apostasy by being granted an all-expense paid
vacation to Israel by AIPAC in 1994.

Cam soon became a partner of Mintz, Levin, Kohn, a major Boston law firm
which represents Israeli business interests and afterwards appointed
Vice-Chair of the National Jewish Democratic Council. He now serves as
General Counsel for the US Department of Commerce.

Isn't it nice that John has a 'Jewish' brother with ties to lots of
Jewish dollars to pay his way?

No wonder our new Secretary of State loves the terrorists in Syria in
his drive to topple Assad who is a protector of Syrian Christians. [...]

When Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry knew all
too well that the way to keep his job was to keep his Jewish-enablers
and the Jewish Lobby happy.

And now as Secretary of State he has lots of Jews looking over his
shoulder making sure he tows the Jewish line.

Here's the Jewish Lineup at State:

• Victoria Nuland - Spokesperson for the State Department. Daughter of
Sherwin Nudelman who changed his surname to the Gentile-sounding
'Nuland.' Married Robert Kagan, neocon Jewish warmonger.

• Wendy Sherman - Under Secretary for Political Affairs. Recently met
with Shimon Peres assuring him of Jewmerica's loyalty to Israeli
genocide of the Palestinians.

• Hannah Rosenthal - Special Envoy to combat Anti-Semitism. (Your tax
dollars hard at work forbidding you to criticize those who rule over you.)

• Philip Goldberg - Under Secretary for Intelligence and Research. (Big
Brother Jew is watching and getting background checks on you.)

• Daniel Rubenstein - Principal Deputy Assistant for Intelligence and
Research. (Big Brother Jew #2 is watching and getting background checks
on you.)

• Jerry Lanier/Anne Witkowsky - Coordinators for Counter-Terrorism. (Big
Brother Jew #3 and Big Sister Jew are watching and getting background
checks on you.)

• Michael Posner - Assistant Secretary for Democracy and Human Rights.
(Bringing Jewish 'democracy' and Jewish-inspired bombs to hapless
nations around the globe. All at the cost of 7000 dead Gentile American
soldiers. NO 'Posners' among the dead.)

• Daniel Shapiro - US Ambassador to Israel. Has a GREAT LOVE for the
Palestinian people! (Yet not a peep out of him protesting the illegal
Israeli settlements…simply not in a 'Shapiro's' blood.)

AND THE LIST…I mean the BEATING of Americans into the drum of the
Jewish-enabled bloodshed around the world goes on.

And John Kerry will make sure that not one drop of Jewish blood is ever
shed.

(7) Israel's Transportation Ministry launches 'Palestinians only' buses

From: Kristoffer Larsson <krislarsson@comhem.se> Date: 4 March 2013 07:02

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4351368,00.html

Ministry launches 'Palestinians only' buses

Transportation Ministry sets up designated bus lines for Palestinian
passengers in West Bank; insists lines are for general public, but only
Palestinian villages have been advised of their existence

Itamar Fleishman

Published: 03.02.13, 21:18 / Israel News

Racial segregation or transportation mitigation? The Transportation
Ministry announced that starting Sunday it will begin operating
designated lines for Palestinians in the West Bank.

The bus lines in question are meant, according to the ministry, to
transport Palestinian workers from the West Bank to central Israel. The
ministry alleges that the move is meant to ease the congestion felt on
bus lines used by Jews in the same areas, but several bus drivers told
Ynet that Palestinians who will choose to travel on the so-called
"mixed" lines, will be asked to leave them.

While officially the new lines are considered "general bus lines," Ynet
learned Saturday that their existence has been made public only in
Palestinian villages in the West Bank, via flyers in Arabic urging
Palestinians to arrive at Eyal crossing and use the designated lines.

The Transportation Ministry defended the plan, saying it was the
result of reports and complaints saying that the buses traveling in the
area were overcrowded and rife with tensions between the Jewish and Arab
passengers.

A ministry source said that many complaints expressed concern that the
Palestinian passengers may pose a security risk, while other complaints
said that the overcrowded buses cause the drivers to skip stations.

The ministry has also gotten reports of scuffles between Jews and Arab
passengers, as well as between Palestinians and drivers who refused to
allow them to board their bus.

The ministry reportedly considered several alternatives before
deciding to opt for designated lines – knowing that the issue of
so-called "Palestinian lines" would be highly controversial.

'Buses meant to improve service'

Still, the ministry eventually decided to launch the lines, which will
run from Eyal crossing – near the West Bank city of Qalqilya – to Israel.

Legally, however, there is no way to stop Palestinians from boarding
"regular" lines: "We are not allowed to refuse service and we will not
order anyone to get off the bus, but from what we were told, starting
next week, there will be checks at the checkpoint, and Palestinians will
be asked to board their own buses," a driver with Afikim – the company
that holds the routes franchise for the area – told Ynet.

The volatile nature of the decision was not lost on the driver:
"Obviously, everyone will start screaming 'apartheid' and 'racism' now.
This really doesn't feel right, and maybe (the ministry) should find a
different solution, but the situation right now is impossible."

Another driver said that, "Driving a bus full of only Palestinians
might turn out to be tricky. It could be unnerving and it might also
create other problems. It could be a scary thing."

The Judea and Samaria Police is reportedly gearing for the move as
well, and will deploy additional forces in Eyal crossing to maintain
public order.

Police sources said that it is highly unlikely that Palestinians would
be excluded from riding on existing bus lines, adding that the forces
would "Do their best to execute the ministry's decision."

Afikim issued a statement saying that, "This plan aims to ease travel
for Palestinian passengers and offer a solution that counters pirate bus
companies that charge exorbitant prices. As for any question about
removing Palestinian passengers from buses – that has to be addressed by
the enforcement and security bodies."

The Transportation Ministry issued the following statement: "The new
lines are not separate lines for Palestinians but rather two designated
lines meant to improve the services offered to Palestinian workers who
enter Israel through Eyal Crossing.

"The new lines will replace irregular, pirate lines that charge very
high prices from Palestinian passengers. The new lines will reduce
congestion and will benefit Israelis and Palestinians alike."

According to the statement, "The Transportation Ministry is forbidden
from preventing any passenger from boarding any line of public
transportation, nor do we know of a directive to that effect. Instating
these lines was done with the knowledge and complete agreement of the
Palestinians."

(8) South Africa and Palestine, a joint struggle - Mazin Qumsiyeh

Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2013 15:02:28 +0200
From: Mazin Qumsiyeh <mazin@qumsiyeh.org>
Subject: [HumanRights] Rethinking South Africa

I did some research with South African scientists on gerbils and had
worked briefly in the 1980s against apartheid in South Africa. I have
also been talking and reading about South Africa for the past thirty
years as a model for Israel/Palestine. I should have also listened to my
own advice when I speak about Palestine: come and see because no amount
of reading and talking to people outside would substitute for visiting
the country itself and immersing one's body, mind, and soul in a
country. So I am rethinking South Africa. I was shocked and dismayed at
some of what I saw but I was inspired by the people. Witnessing the
miseries of slums like Diepsloot (lit. Deep Ditch) and Soweto (South
West Township), I realize that apartheid is not ended here but mainly
changed shape and this provides us with lots of lessons for Palestinian
struggle against Israeli apartheid. .........

To read more with pictures, please go to
http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2013/03/rethinking-south-africa.html

Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
Professor, Occupied Palestine ==

http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2013/03/rethinking-south-africa.html

Rethinking South Africa

Mazin Qumsiyeh

MAR 5, 2013

I did some research with South African scientists on gerbils and had
worked briefly in the 1980s against apartheid in South Africa. I have
also been talking and reading about South Africa for the past thirty
years as a model for Israel/Palestine. I should have also listened to my
own advice when I speak about Palestine: come and see because no amount
of reading and talking to people outside would substitute for visiting
the country itself and immersing one's body, mind, and soul in a
country. So I am rethinking South Africa. I was shocked and dismayed at
some of what I saw but I was inspired by the people. Witnessing the
miseries of slums like Diepsloot (lit. Deep Ditch) and Soweto (South
West Township), I realize that apartheid is not ended here but mainly
changed shape and this provides us with lots of lessons for Palestinian
struggle against Israeli apartheid.

The conference included 50 representatives from some 20 countries to
discuss how to bring the world closer to peace and justice and for this
meeting to be in South Africa. Its guiding principles include
recognizing the connection between ecology, economics and ecumenical
(all based on Greek root oikos meaning house). Getting our house in
order as human beings is important. In recognizing that an economy based
on theological principles entails caring about people and our
environment and living a spirituality of resistance and transformation.

But before the formal meeting began, we were given tours of places like
the Apartheid Museum, the Voortrekker monument, the Freedom Park, the
Diepsoot Township/settlement, and Mandela's house. At the Apartheid
Museum we were painfully reminded of all the suffering and indignity of
the era. The killings, economic injustice, and human rights violations
were then rampant as they are today in Palestine (the apartheid state of
Israel). But we are also reminded of the struggling human spirit that
seeks justice and freedom. The compromises that Mandela made with the
white leadership and his attempts to be inclusive and forgiving is
prominently displayed. But his earlier statements are also visible as at
the entrance “For to be free is not merey to cast off one's chains, but
to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” This
is line with Mandela's statement that freedom in South Africa will not
be complete unless Palestine is also free. Ofcourse to fit with the
world structure, he had to modify his views that Zionism is racism.
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan is now receiving similar pressures
because he told the truth that Zionism is a crime against humanity.

In January 1985, Mandela was offered release on the condition that he
renounces violence. He refused writing to the people in a letter that
“Only Free Men can negotiate. Prisoners cannot enter into contract…. I
will not sell the birthright of my people to be free.” He insisted that
he be released unconditionally and demanded that apartheid be ended
before the ANC negotiated. Only free men can negotiate. Pressure
built-up on the Apartheid regime via a growing local resistance aided by
an international BDS movement. F W DeKlerk explained to fellow Apartheid
supporters that the writing is on the wall and that South Africa should
avoid the fate of “Rhodesia”. Mandela did not fall into the trap of
negotiations while apartheid persisted but he assured the whites of
flexibility after apartheid ended and indeed whites kept their
privileged class to this day. That was t many ANC supporters a “sell
out”. But it was a far less compromise than the PLO leadership agreeing
to negotiate while we Palestinians remained imprisoned under the
colonial apartheid system. Hence the real meaning of the Oslo process is
the 20 years negotiations between prisoners and prison guards (instead
of what happened in South Africa where within a span of 3 years
negotiations between a freed people and apartheid symbols, the remaining
issues were resolved). These and other lessons can be learned from the
(ongoing) struggle in South Africa.

We learned by talking to people of all backgrounds that he struggle here
in South Africa is not complete. Voting apartheid ended in law but
economic, cultural, social and truth apartheids still stand. We visited
the Voortrecker Monument dedicated to a battle that happened 16 December
1838 where white colonial settlers killed the native people. But that is
not what the white tour guide described it. To her, “pioneers” signed
treaties with Zulu ciefs, were betrayed by Zulus who “murdered” white
pioneers! Whites on their march to the interior of the continent (the
voortrekers) circled their wagons when danger came ! Actually the
monument has carving of 64 circled wagons around it. To this day white
and ony white South Africans gather in the monument every December 16 to
honor that pledge made by their ancestors nearly 100 years ago to thank
the lord for allowing them to vanguish their enemies in the promised
land as they advanced the "light of civilization in the dark continent".
Theology of The carved reliefs and the guide show a white democratically
elected educated civilized “leader” Retief facing the evil superstitious
Zulu king Dingane. That is when a few of us “colored”/black vistors
decided we had enough of this tour.

The rich still get richer and the poor get poorer; 0.1% of the world
population hold 81% of the wealth and the ratio of poverty to wealthy
statistic went from 3:1 in 1820 to 35:1 in 1950 to nearly 80:1 today.

Sometimes liberation movements fall into the trap of power. Many of
those we met commented on how some members of ANC who came into
government jobs at the end of Apartheid got spoiled by the material
goods (houses, cars, bank account) that they forgot about the struggling
people in the townships and the slums near the glittering skyscrapers.
The tallest building in Johannesburg is the Reserve Bank! My tears
rolled as we passed by townships that are teaming with poor people
because they reminded me of refugee camps in Lebanon, in Jordan, and in
Palestine. The most heart-wrenching was Diepsloot where 250,000 human
beings live in shacks with sheat metal roofing. Here we visited
“Vuselela Ulwazi Lwakho Drop-in Center” (vuselela-ulwazi.org, founded by
one woman nurse) where hundreds come weekly for counseling and treatment
for AIDS (now a horrific pandemic in Africa). I peaked into a hall and
noticed nearly 100 children crammed together – they are the AIDS orphans
who lost their parents to the disease (and a few other orhans). I
contrast these images of man-made poverty and disease with the posh
gated communities of upwardly mobile mostly white South Africans. It is
like contrasting the posh life of the colonial Jewish setters in
Palestine with the life in refugee camps. But the hope of the workers
and users of this and other facilities show us how the goodness among
humans can spread.

Ronnie Kasrils, South African minister once said about Palestine: “This
is much worse than apartheid..Israeli measures, the brutality, make
apartheid look like a picnic. We never had Jets attacking our townships;
we never had sieges that lasted months after months. We never had tanks
destroying houses.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prie winner
who headed the Truth and Reconciliation Committee said Israel has
established an apartheid system and thus has engaged in crimes against
humanity. Both support the Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)
movement.

Our conference of activists learned lessons from each other and we
rededicated ourselves to a joint global struggle. This is something we
have been calling for as a global intifada against oppression,
colonialism, and the neoliberal capitalist world order that makes the
rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In visiting the freedom park we
saw workers putting names on the wall of those who lost their lives for
freedom. Already 4300 names are on that wall (out of lists that could go
up to 80,000). One day, we will build a wall like that in Palestine to
remember the 60,000 Palestinian martyrs. These are not numbers but real
people.

Arafat Jaradat died being tortured by the Israeli Apartheid regime last
week and he was 30 years old. Steve Biko died while being tortured by
the Souh African Apartheid regime in 1977 and he was 31 years old. The
two struggles are intertwined. The perceptive words of Steve Biko ring
true today in Palestine, in South Africa, and around the world: “The
most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the
oppressed.” We the oppressed must free our minds from mental
colonization before we liberate our body. We are then really free to
work for peace, justice, and freedom. This cannot be achieved without
sacrifices/without revolution.

The wisdom of the Zulu is striking as is their spirit of defiance. We
listened to the music played by young people and as we chatted with
elders who all gave us hope for the future. We learned to sing Hayo
Matata (no worries) and to say Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (a person is a
person because of others). The latter reminded me of Vittorio Arrigoni's
constant admonition to us to “stay human”. To be human is to care about
others, struggle for freedom and justice in a world of injustice. Come
to think of it to be human is then to be revolutionary!

Zionism explained by a settler
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey_oP2Goef4

Action: Join activists from all backgrounds to challenge AIPAC influence
in Washington DC. Visit
http://www.jvp.org/aipac

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. “ Amen!

Posted by Qumsiyeh at 3/05/2013