D E M O C R A C Y




Muhammed Asadi
November, 2002.

The author gives an open permission to anyone who wants to reproduce, copy or distribute this article.Please do so at will provided: 1. you acknowledge the source(s) and 2. link to the original site. Thank You.



In all discussions about the Middle East by the U.S. mainstream corporate media, there is an incessant bragging that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. In fulfilling its propaganda function, it is not surprising that this media will praise a country as democratic even though it has been occupying by force for several decades a whole country (Palestine) thereby denying millions of people their right of self-determination. It also does not matter to this media that the country so praised as democratic practices the worst form of apartheid that exists in the world today.

The assertion that Israel is unique in the Middle East as a democracy is actually an understatement. Israel is unique in the world as a democracy. It is the only country in the world that practices as democracy which would otherwise, objectively speaking, be termed fascist totalitarianism. Consider some of these observations regarding Israel:

( Please note that links for details and documentation are embedded in the text in blue and underlined )

WEBSITE BEST VIEWED WITH


Uses its Army to bomb and destroy radio and television stations (Reported on CNN, BBC etc., 01/19/2002), to curb freedom of expression

"Out of 213 violations involved shootings, shellings, bombings and missile attacks (against the PRESS), 204 were carried out by Israelis, four by Palestinians, and five by unknown perpetrators. Many Palestinian broadcasting stations were effectively censored due to shutdown by order of authorities (Israeli and Palestinian) or because of (Israeli) missile or bombing attacks. Journalists have been jailed for several months at a time by the Israelis without even being charged with an offense. All Palestinian journalists have been denied Israeli press cards by Israel's Government Press Office and have thus been severely obstructed in carrying out the duties of their profession. By the stroke of a pen, around 450 media professionals, or the press corps of a whole nation, have therefore been disabled by a foreign military occupying power from reporting freely on dramatic and momentous events in their own home country.", INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE REPORT

The United States, following Israel's lead as occupier is doing the same in Iraq:

"Reuters has told the US government that American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiralling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public. The detention and accidental shootings of journalists is limiting how journalists can operate, wrote David Schlesinger, the Reuters global managing editor, in a letter to Senator John Warner, head of the armed services committee. The Reuters news service chief referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq". ....US forces admitted killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed Khaled, who was shot by American soldiers on August 28 while on assignment in Baghdad. But the military said the soldiers were justified in opening fire. Reuters believes a fourth journalist working for the agency, who died in Ramadi last year, was killed by a US sniper."JULIA DAY OF THE GUARDIAN




Wanted to pick and choose who leads the Palestinians, being unhappy with its leadership under Arafat (CBS News)

Murdered the United Nation's Peace Mediator, Count Bernadott (in 1948), when it didn't agree with his diplomatic efforts, never bringing the assassins to justice (even though Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel knew that the Stern Gang (an Al Qaeda-like Jewish organization was responsible). The mission to assasinate Bernadotte was organized by Yitzhak Shamir, who later became Prime Minister of Israel

Had a Prime Minister (Menachim Begin) wanted for terrorism (by the British Government). Begin's Irgun was another Al-Qaeda-like Jewish terrorist group.


Blows up civilian hotels (Jerusalem's King David Hotel- killing 91 and the Semiramis Hotel) in the "Oklahoma City" fashion, while preaching these days that "terrorism" is "never" justified (Natanyahu,"the evangelist" talking on the Christian Broadcasting Network, Nov.2002)


Uses F-16s, Attack Helicopters, tanks (over 300 in civilian camps ) and thousands of troops, to attack civilian towns and civilian vehicles. Uses live ammunition at stone-throwing Palestinian youth, and practices assassinations in broad daylight in civilian marketplaces. Of all Palestinians killed during curfews by the IDF, over 80% have been children according to B'TSELEM - The Israeli Center for Human Rights (Oct 16, 2002 Report).

"The Israeli security forces who carry out the extrajudicial executions offer no proof of guilt, no right of defence," said Amnesty International. "The Israeli authorities are showing an utter disregard of the right to life."


Image from the Qana Massacre by the Israeli "Defense" Forces
April 18th, 1996 in Southern Lebanon
Qana was a civilian refugee camp


Is illegally occupying land by use of force, in clear violation of United Nations Resolutions, and continues to expand illegal settlements while demolishing Palestinian homes.

Under article 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention Israel is prohibited from establishing settlements: "The Occupying Power shall not transfer parts of its own civilian population into territories it occupies"

Under Articles 35 & 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention it is forbidden to deport or "forcibly transfer," the local population, including such common Israeli practices as revoking the Jerusalem residency of Palestinians or banning Palestinians from returning from work, study or travel abroad

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention Occupying Powers are prohibited from destroying Palestinian property or employing collective punishment. Article 53 reads: Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private personsis prohibited." Under this provision the practice of demolishing Palestinian houses is banned, as is the wholesale destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure.

Since 1967, Israel has created a "Greater" Jerusalem which controls the entire central portion of the West Bank and cuts economic heart out of Palestinian state. While constructing 90,000 housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem, the municipality has intentionally created a shortage of 25,000 housing units for Palestinians. The goal is three-fold: (1) to maintain a 72%-28% majority of Jews over Arabs a racist policy that no Jews in the world would accept; (2) to confine the Palestinian population to small islands the Arabs make up a third of the Jerusalem population, but only have access to 7% of the urban land; and (3) to ultimately force them out of the city

Source:
THE ISRAELI COMMITTEE AGAINST HOUSE DEMOLITION

United Nation's Resolution 1998/32 (at the 45th plenary meeting, 29 July 1998) - Economic and social repercussions of the Israeli occupation on the living conditions of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem, and the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan - states categorically under point 5 (see link to 1998/32 above for complete text):

Direct Quote "5. (The UN) Also reaffirms that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan, are illegal and an obstacle to economic and social development."


The Holocaust Industry


Gathers sympathy for itself via the holocaust "industry" (even after reparations have been paid) but practices genocide and apartheid on the Palestinians in a manner similar to South Africa and genocide like the Nazis (REUTERS report by Jeffery Heller 03/13/2002 & The Post, Dublin, Ireland,14 April, 2002).

Actively creates "facts on the ground" causing derailment of any hope for peace and immense human suffering. All this to fulfill Zionist aspirations of annexing the entire West Bank as Yertz Yisrael (the Land of Israel).

"..."Metropolitan Jerusalem," which I later learned encompasses not just the city of Jerusalem, but 40 percent of the West Bank, including large Palestinian towns and villagesRamalla, El Bireh, Beit Sahour, Bethlehem and Beit Jalla, to name a few.

What one has to understand about Jerusalem is that it is being transformed from a city into a larger region by the Israeli government. This has three effects: It divides the northern part of the West Bank from the southern part; isolates Jerusalem's Palestinian population from fellow Palestinians and; creates a corridor from Tel Aviv to Amman, Jordan. All of this ensures Israeli control over any Palestinian state that might emerge from the "peace process."

Gonsalves, February 13, 2001 edition of the Cape Cod Times.


Has disregarded for over five decades, United Nation's Resolutions, including the Resolutions that condemned it for "breaking" the Resolutions (# 517 and # 673), yet no "regime change" demands have been brought against it.(See, MEDIA MONITOR )

Cries loud and clear about individual cases of suicide bombings (caused by conditions of hopelessness and anomie that it has directly caused in the camps) yet has killed, on average, 3 to 4 Palestinians for every Israeli that is killed (before the current uprising, the ratio was much higher). (New York Times, 3/12/2002, Front Page Story).Summary Tables

Gets over $ 3 Billion dollars in aid from the U.S (60% of which is military), which is 1/3 (one part in three) of TOTAL U.S aid given on earth, yet it comprises 1/1000 (one part in one thousand) of the world's population. At the same time Israel holds Palestinian back-taxes, further impoverishing a people they have made homeless (see BBC)

Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today's population, that is more than $5,700 per person. This is an estimate by Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For decades, his analyses of the Middle East scene have made him a frequent thorn in the side of the Israel lobby. For the first time in many years, Mr. Stauffer has tallied the total cost to the US of its backing of Israel in its drawn-out, violent dispute with the Palestinians. So far, he figures, the bill adds up to more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War. And now Israel wants more...( Christian Science Monitor, December 9, 2002 )



Attacked and almost sank a US Navy ship, the USS Liberty , killing 34 US Sailors, and wounding 171.

"Bamford writes that while the Israelis were attacking the Liberty, an American spy plane overhead, a Navy EC-121, overheard and recorded Israeli conversations. The results are devastating. The Israelis were unaware that anyone was listening, and their pilots talked openly about seeing an American flag on the ship they were attacking."


After the Egyptian Revolution of 1954 when U.S. and Egyptian relations were improving, Israel started a "terror campaign" aginst U.S. government officials and businesses in Egypt. The campaign was eventually broken and led to the resignation of the Ben-Gurion government in 1961. This Israeli "terror campaign" against the U.S. is rememberd as the Lavon Affair.

Was caught spying on the US, remember Jonathan Pollard?

"One document Pollard is believed to have slipped to the Israelis --thought to have landed in Soviet hands, albeit unintentionally-- was a huge compendium of frequencies used by foreign military and intelligence services [which] cost the U.S. billions of dollars but Pollard rendered . . . useless [and, by compromising it] may have cost informants their lives." (Time magazine, Dec. 13, 1993)


Link to Pollard


Even after Pollard, FOX NEWS reported on the Israeli White House spying during the Clinton era and the "spies" that were detained after September 11th, who had prior knowledge of the event but did not inform the US authorities, showing complete disregard for American lives (see Carl Cameron, Fox News 12/21/2001, Washington Post, 9/28/01)


Labels anyone speaking out against its inhumane policies an Anti-Semite while actively pressuring our U.S media and capitalizing on the anti-Islam sentiment generated after 9-11.


GET THE FACTS
FROM SOURCE DOCUMENTS

The problems between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East is not a 2000 year old problem. It is not a religious problem. The golden years of Jewery were in 12th century Andalusia under Muslim rule, at a time when Christians were persecuting them as "Christ killers". Anti-Semitism was a European-Christian phenomena not related to Arabs and Muslims.

The problems between Arabs and Jews started when the Jewish minority in historic Palestine wanted to bring in immigrants from all over the world to change the demography of the region (1917) and to displace the indigeneous Arab residents.

1. CONFLICT NOT 2000 YEARS OLD
2. CONFLICT NOT BASED ON RELIGION
3. CONFLICT NOT INITIATED BY THE ARABS
4. CONFLICT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH ANTI-SEMITISM.


The charge of anti-semitism applied to the conflict is historically, geographically, religiously and ethnically misplaced.



SHLAIM INTERVIEW ON HISTORY




NORMAN FINKELSTEIN ON HISTORY





Holocaust Against the Palestinians


Michael Hoffman II, Moshe Lieberman

Compiled by two scholars with impeccable credentials -- Michael Hoffman, a former reporter for the New York bureau of the Associated Press, and Moshe Lieberman, a former Hebrew University researcher -- the authors combine their sleuthing skills and erudition to bring the reader an irrefutable dossier of Israeli war crimes in Palestine, profusely illustrated with harrowing photos of the death and destruction which the Zionist war machine has administered as collective punishment upon the entire Palestinian nation.



PLEASE USE THIS LINK
TO WRITE THE U.S. GOVERNMENT


TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS EFFORT
PLEASE PASS THE WEB SITE URL TO AS MANY AS YOU CAN
THANK YOU

Recommend this site!
Your Name
Your Friends Name
Your email address
Your friends address
Personal message




USING RELIGION TO PROMOTE GENOCIDE


THE AXIS OF EVIL

Conservative Jews and Evangelical Christians use "God" and his "promise" to justify the dispossession of the Arabs from Palestine. The famous promise that they talk about is found in Genesis 17:8 of the Holy Bible.


And I will give to you (Abraham) and to your seed after you, the land wherein you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan (Palestine) for an everlasting possession and I will be their God (Genesis 17:8-The Holy Bible)

Note that the promise is made to Abraham who was NOT a Jew. The words Jew, Judaism, and Israel postdate Abraham. Also, the Arabs are the "seed" of Abraham through Ishmael, so the "promise" covers them as well, and not only the children of Isaac (the Jews). Thirdly, the statement in the Bible promised Abraham ("YOU and your seed") the land, however when he died he did not possess any part of it (Acts 7:3-5- The Bible). It did not fall into Jewish hands until Joshua. As such this promise cannot be from God, according to the Torahs own standards (of distinguishing truth from falsehood):

When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing FOLLOW NOT, NOR COME TO PASS, that is the thing the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously (Deuteronomy 18:21-22- The Bible)

Supposedly, according to the Bible, the Jews invaded Palestine under Joshua three thousand years ago (Joshua 12:24) conquering each little divided village by force of arms, killing old men, women, children and animals- it was not given to them, it was forcibly taken by them through conquest, using the same tactics that the modern Israeli state uses in terrorizing and displacing outgunned Palestinians.

According to the Talmud, Judaism's holiest book, considered even holier than the Old Testament by its own admission (Erubin 21b, Soncino edition), non-Jews are like dogs and pigs. Jews can rob, steal and kill non-Jews without being brought to justice. Possibly inspired by such indoctrination, Baruch Goldstein, an orthodox Jew from Brooklyn massacared 29 Palestinians as they knelt in prayer at a mosque. Goldstein was a disciple of the Rabbi Kahane, who stated that his view of Arabs as "dogs" was "from the Talmud" (CBS 60 minutes). This illustration is not meant to be generalized to all Jews, many of whom would condemn Goldstein.

And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword (Joshua 6:21- The Bible)


SEPTEMBER 16, 1982
The Sabra & Shatila Massacre of Civilian Refugees
Old men, women, and children



The Israeli Government's appointed Kahane Commission (February 8, 1983) stated,

"We have found, as has been detailed in this report, that the Minister of Defense (Ariel Sharon) bears personal responsibility."


SHARON: The WAR CRIMINAL
Human Rights Watch



Forensic Assessment of IDF Atrocities at the Jenin Refugee Camp, April 2002
Physicians For Human Rights



Assessment of Ongoing Human Rights Crisis in the Occupied Territories
Amnesty International


Beatings & Abuse of Palestinians
B'TSELEM: Israeli Center for Human Rights



Rodinson, a Jew, writes in his book, Israel and the Arabs:

But for one thing, they (the Israelis) cannot be said to have a historic right to a piece of territory because some of their ancestors supposedly inhabited it two thousand years agoThe Arabs of Palestine have the same rights over Palestine territory as the French exercise in France, and the English in England. These rights have been violated without any provocation on their part.





THE CAMP DAVID FACTS

Robert Malley, the US National Security Councils Middle East expert under Clinton and a member of the American team at Camp David, wrote an article for the July 8, 2001 edition of the New York Times, in which he says:

The Palestinians were arguing for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967, borders, living alongside Israel. They accepted the notion of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory to accommodate settlement blocs. They accepted the principle of Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalemneighborhoods that were not part of Israel before the Six Day War in 1967. And, while they insisted on recognition of the refugees right of return, they agreed that it should be implemented in a manner that protected Israels demographic and security interests by limiting the number of returnees. No other Arab party that has negotiated with Israelnot Anwar el-Sadats Egypt, not King Husseins Jordan, let alone Hafez al-Assads Syriaever came close to even considering such compromises.

It is a FACT that the Palestinian Authority has accepted the existence of Israel, on over 78% of historic Palestine as reflected in the Oslo Accords of 1993 and their own official charter. The UN partition plan of 1947 gave Israel 55% of the land at a time when Jewish population in historic Palestine was 30% of the whole, and Jews owned 7% of the land, with most being recent immigrants from other countries. In 1922, the Jewish population in that general area was 11%, the rest were predominantly Arabs. Now they have over 78% and are occupying the rest and building Jewish settlements on it.

Israel wants even more land by continued settlement building and talk about Judea and Samaria as Yertz Israel (the Land of Israel). In the Camp David Accords, by denying complete soverignity to the Palestinians, Barak rejected in principle the United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338, which had been accepted as the basis for the Oslo Accords.

The blame does not lie with the Palestinians for the breakdown of the Camp David meeting.

Avi Shlaim, Oxford Historian and author of The Iron Wall: Israel & the Arab World (1999), says in an interview

The Israelis would never concede to the Palestinians the status of victims, this they insist on keeping for themselves. One example of this is the case of the 1948 refugees, which Benny Morris demonstrated was the result of Israeli pressure and outright expulsions. And yet no Israeli leader would ever accept the moral responsibility, let alone the political responsibility, for creating the refugee problem. They wouldn't even accept a share of the moral responsibility for this problem. Ehud Barak at Camp David wasn't asked to accept the right of return for refugees. He was asked to accept that Israel bear merely a part of the moral responsibility for this problem, which would then be tackled by the international community. And he refused."


PERVERTED STANDARDS


CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST THEIR OWN PEOPLE?


In a few years if regime change in Russia "fits in" with the agenda of the corporate elite, maybe the argument that "they used chemical weapons against their own people"- can be resurrected.

Apparently that outrage is lacking in the media's propaganda priorities at the time that it has taken place. The propaganda about Iraq's use of chemical weapons, "against its own people", makes clear that the media propaganda model operates without any temporal logic-events are resurrected a decade after they happen when need be and ignored as unimportant at the time they occur.

Consider the millions that have died of cancer caused by nuclear testing and radioactive/chemical dumping- according to many government and private studies- , even after the studies made the effects of them clear, amounts to our US  "regime(s)" using chemical and nuclear weapons against its own people, in a permeditated fashion. Why don't we hear about that on the mass media?

M. Asadi

PUBLISHED BY THE KHALEEJ TIMES, 2 NOVEMBER 2002, UAE


Beslan, The Neo-conservatives & the Media

William Kristol, one of the "big guns" in the Neo-Conservative movement, Chairman of the Project for the New American Century and editor of the Weekly Standard magazine, writes in the Financial Times (September 9, 2004): "...the forces of barbarism, holding high the banner of jihad, have murdered innocents from Bali to Istanbul, from Jerusalem to Madrid, Falluja and beyond. Will the forces of civilization be found wanting in the struggle against terror?"

To understand the above statement by Kristol, as well as the reporting of the Baslan tragedy by the U.S. media, we need to understand the blueprint or model based upon which such incidents are covered by specific interest groups or this media. At the heart of this model, which is almost uniformly followed, lies the violation of the principle of objectivity. By objective we mean the uniform application of standards regarding similar phenomena. Subjective on the other hand implies the arbitrary application of standards to phenomena. Similarly, subjectivity also implies the association of deliberately vague concepts so that when one is mentioned, an automatic association with the other is made-even though they are not connected- like the association between "barbarism" and "Jihad" in the Kristol statement, or the association of the war on Iraq with "civilization", in the same statement. Arbitrary application of standards reveals ulterior motive, what we term as the propaganda function of this media or various interest groups (like the neocons).

The Neo-Conservative movement is recognized for its unconditional support of Israel. It has also been credited with pushing the Iraq war agenda and passing sensitive U.S. intelligence to Israel (Washington Post, Sept 4 2004). Taking the Kristol statement above, we can apply the objectivity test and dismantle the illusion of manipulative sincerity that he is trying to convey to his readers. Application of objective standards would require that when children are killed there is clear condemnation, regardless of who does the killing. Such condemnation is missing in Kristols articles and in U.S mainstream media reports regarding Iraq and Palestine:

Regarding Iraq, over half a million children died in Iraq (hundreds of thousands more than those killed in Baslan) directly caused by U.S sanctions (several hundred were killed by U.S bombs during the current war), yet we did not see labels of "barbarism" being leveled by Kristol and his gang. Regarding Israel, when BTselem, the Israeli Human Rights Organization, working in the Occupied Territories, said that out of the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli Defense Forces, over 80 percent have been children, we didnt see Kristol making statements combining "barbarism" with "holding high the banner of Zionism", as he did with "Jihad".

Those who are in the business of fooling people dont seem to realize that in time a full circle is made, they end up making a fool of themselves. Those who fooled the public on the Iraq war are now seeing the effects of the mess they created. They are also causing immense human suffering in the process, "holding high the banner of civilization"- to use Kristols terminology.



Muhammed Asadi

The above article was published by SELVES & OTHERS

Abnormal lives

NONE of the experts in the media panels of the United States seem to realise that when suicide becomes a part of the daily life of a community, it is an abnormality that must have a social context and cause. This 'opposition culture' can only be neutralised if what nourishes it is eradicated. Israel's oppression and humiliation of the Palestinian people is legitimate reason for the would-be suicide bombers, in their mind, to indulge in what they do - this is how an 'opposition culture' operates. No one has to inform these people, who are willing to give up their lives, about what is going on. They see it all around them on the streets of the occupied territories everyday. Tanks rolling into civilian cities and firing at will is not a 'normal' situation to live in. This is the anatomy of the problem, yet we choose to ignore it. - M. Asadi.

The above letter was published in the Khaleej Times, UAE



The Morality of Prejudice (April 18, 2004)

I was very disappointed to note regarding Elie Wiesel (who is presented by your program as a "towering moral figure", winner of the Nobel Prize and the Congressional Medal of Honor) that people like him who have suffered so much themselves become, in the drift of time, blind to the suffereing of others. I refer to his letter which was read on air in your program, in which he mentions the mutual suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust and the Palestinians at the current time.

What was conveniently forgotten by him in that letter from the 1970s was that the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust was not caused by Palestinians or "fanatics" whereas the suffering of the Palestinians and their dispossession (see the work of Benny Morris, Israeli historian) from their ancestral land was directly caused by Israel and the Jewish elite. His letter while a beautiful string of words is factually quite meaningless. While condemning the terrorism of the suicide bombers, he similarly forgets that such reactions do not occur in a social vacuum. They occur within a social structure of hopelessness and extreme oppression that Israel has constructed and maintains. Similarly, his idea about martyrdom morality in Judaism and Christianity compared to what those he calls "fanatics" (his term for Muslims) is completley detached from the view presented in the Old Testament. The morality of Moses during conflict (see Numbers 31:17-19) "in the name of the Lord", makes the suicide bombers look like Sunday school kids. Wiesel further mentions that no government would deal with "terrorists," conveniently forgetting that terrorism was used by the "founding fathers" of Israel to get their "homeland"(the blowing up of the King David Hotel, the Semirimis Hotel, murdering the UN envoy, Count Bernadott, etc).

Before Mr. Wiesel makes moral proclamations to humanity, may I suggest he try to break free of the immoral prejudice of always seeing the Palestinians as the criminal culprits and Israel as the righteous victim.

M. Asadi
Published at SOF site at:
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/reflection/2004/0415_wiesel_1.shtml







BILL MAHER'S PROPAGANDA BOOK


On Bill Maher's Picture-Book, "When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin-Laden"

Bill Maher:

Your comments on Islam being forced on the people, as your quote on page 130 in large type-font (for the sake of sensationalism) is historically misguided. Historians have, across the board, termed this "sword" claim as a "debunked hypothesis" (See Philip K. Hitti's, A Short History of the Arabs 1973:59). An analysis of the adoption of Islamic names reveals that over a century and a half after the "conquests", less than 10% of the population of those areas was Muslim. This suggests that the masses accepted Islam much later and not as a result of the conquest (see Albert Hourani's, A History of the Arab Peoples (1991), page 46-47). Prominent Western historians (like Edward Gibbon) have called this "sword" propaganda a myth. Why are you perpetuating a myth that has been debunked by experts who scientifically analyze the evidence?

Your silence about "Holy Violence" in the Torah, and the explicit racism of the Old Testament that has been translated into the present day apartheid regime of modern Israel, shows dishonesty and insincerity. Your claim that U.S Foreign Policy cannot be criticized by today's Muslims because Muslims who lived 1400 years back allegedly had a "conquering to convert" foreign policy is not only absurd, it reeks of the Israeli claim that since their ancestors allegedly inhabited Palestine 2000 years back, they are justified today in stealing the entire area from its indigenous Arab population. Don't resurrect the past to fulfill your present-day agenda!

Sincerely,
M. Asadi

Copies of this letter were published by Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com book reviews.


"(O Children of Israel)... if you repeat (your crimes of the past), We shall repeat (the punishment of the past)..." (Koran 17:8)

ISRAEL IS IN A GUARANTEED LONG-TERM "SUICIDE MODE". THOSE WHO SUPPORT THE STATUS-QUO, AND ARMED OPPRESSION, ARE ISRAEL'S GREATEST ENEMIES, LIVING IN A FOOL'S PARADISE, WITH NO THOUGHT ABOUT THE FUTURE.




PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: IS IT POSSIBLE? (October, 2005)

The Israel/Palestine problem is not complicated: we have an occupying power (Israel) and an occupied people (Palestinians), and a huge disparity of power and control between the two, all within the context of International Law, and the UN which has already decided upon the solution (see http://israel.rationalreality.com). If the occupying power desires peace, it can be readily achieved, given its dominant position. So why has peace not become a reality in around half a century?

In the 1950s C. Wright Mills wrote about the Military Metaphysic- the military definition of reality deeply espoused by the US elite. Why the Israel/Palestine problem will not get resolved and has not been solved so far can be understood, in my opinion, in light of what Mills wrote: "The expectation of war solves many problems of the "crackpot realists"; it also confronts them with many new problems. Yet these, the problems of war, often seem easier (for them) to handle, (compared) to political policies that are distasteful to many politicians...The terms of their long term solutions, under conditions of peace, are hard for the capitalist elite to face." (Page, 87, Causes of World War III)

What is distasteful to the US and Israeli elite, is peace in the Middle East, and the resulting effect that might have on regional development in the Arab world and US hegemony in a resource rich Middle East. In their uneasy alliance with corporations, whose leadership positions they normally hold when they are not posing as politicians, the Neo-Cons in the US (Israel's strong supporters) have found a dual fulfillment of purpose. The terms of the "long term solution" to the "Palestinian problem" are what they do not want to face. If that can be avoided, any "practical problems" that a new war or a new Intifadah might bring are easier for them to handle. In all such alliances to further power and wealth, human suffering and misery become at best, background noise justified by moral symbols, unconnected events (like the holocaust), media distractions, and stage management. The US and Israel together (and not only Israel), are to blame for the lack of peace and development in the Arab world. I do not think that peace in the Middle East will ever become a reality as long as US hegemony in the current world system continues to exist. Even if (in an imaginary scenario) the Palestinians voluntarily leave the West Bank and Gaza and hand it over to Israel on a silver platter, Israel will invent a new war in that region, in tune with the desires of the US elite. There will still be no peace.

Peace is possible only if the current world system with its structure of power and manipulation is altered to one that places humanity and its well being before wealth, resources and profits. Peace, working within the current system, dominated by the US power elite, is impossible to achieve. History bears witness to the fact that regardless of the face or political label of the person in power, or the terminology used for the various peace plans, there has been no peace in Palestine and no end to the Israeli occupation.

.

M. Asadi
Published by Selves & Others










Free Counters
Free Counters