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Monday, April 13, 2009

The original Taliban - religiously racist!

The most racist regime in the world has recently whitewashed its soldiers' horrific conduct, clearing them from their abhorrent war crimes in Gaza, where those neo-Nazis deliberately murdered unarmed civilians and dropped horrendous flesh-burning phosphorous bombs on civilian centres.

And the irony of it has been that those crimes were admitted by its own soldiers, and not reported by any Arab or pro Palestinian groups or individuals.

A BBC report showed that the war was (my words) Taliban-ised – hardly surprising when the Judeans (ancestors of the Israelis) were the original Talibans. It reported:

The soldiers' testimonies also reportedly told of an unusually high intervention by military and non-military rabbis, who circulated pamphlets describing the war in religious terminology.

"All the articles had one clear message," one soldier said. "We are the people of Israel, we arrived in the country almost by miracle, now we need to fight to uproot the gentiles who interfere with re-conquering the Holy Land."

"Many soldiers' feelings were that this was a war of religion," he added.

Also read my previous posts:
(1)Neo-Nazis perpetuating Holocaust in Gaza
(2)Deuteronomic Israeli Military

Even as new PM Netanyahu pledged to resume peace talks with the oppressed Palestinians (of course mainly for the consumption and peace of mind of his naïve American benefactors) his government has blockaded aid to rebuild a Gaza demolished by the military of the racist regime, aid such as cement and building material.


The Israeli racist objective of making the lives of Palestinians as miserable as possible continues, with the covert aim of making the Palestinians leave the land the Israelis lusted.

ABC reported that:

Little has changed in Gaza since the war in January, with thousands of families still living in tents and homes and schools still just rubble and ruins.

But life for many children has never been the same since Israel launched its offensive three months ago.

In January, Israeli bombs flattened the main building of this school in northern Gaza, destroying eight of the school's 20 classrooms. [...]

Twelve-year-old Omsyat Awaja faces a tougher ordeal than many; days before the school was hit, her family home was bombed. Through a translator, she says her nine-year-old brother was shot dead by Israeli soldiers. Her parents too were shot and injured and now they live in a tent in a nearby camp.

"When my brother was between the hands of my father, and they executed him on purpose; they meant to kill, to shoot him," she said. "I remember also when my parents got wounded and they were bleeding for five days. I hope that in the future there will be opening of border crossings, so the construction material will come in so I will have my house again. But the future will never bring me back my brother."

Israel's military has repeatedly described its armed forces as the "most moral in the world", saying they take care not to kill civilians. It has justified the bombing campaign as retaliation for ongoing rocket fire into Israel by Hamas militants.


But Omsyat Awaja's father, Kamal, questions why his son had to die.

"The Israelis claimed through the whole war that they are democratic, they are civilised society," he said through a translator. "But why did they execute my son? So all those, all the people, all the army, who's doing that, is not [civilised]."

For the Palestinians, there can be no peace while Gaza remains cut off from the outside world - a two-year blockade has kept Palestinians effective prisoners, and stopped essential supplies from reaching them.

A couple of years back, Naftali Tamir, the Israeli ambassador to Australia in an interview with Ha’aretz, a leading Israeli newspaper, that “... the two countries [Israel and Australia] are white sisters amid the yellow race of Asia.”

He said: "Israel and Australia are like sisters in Asia. We are in Asia without the characteristics of Asians. We don't have yellow skin and slanted eyes. Asia is basically the yellow race. Australia and Israel are not - we are basically the white race."

As expected the Israeli Foreign Ministry initially feigned horror but in a subsequent ‘INTERNAL’ investigation cleared its ambassador from those racist comments. However, his tenure as ambassador was cut short.

Ha’aretz is not exactly a sensationalising newspaper in Israel, but the Israeli Foreign Ministry couldn’t afford to acknowledge the truth of that racist comments (and by its so-called ambassador) for fear of offending China and Japan, with disastrous trade and even diplomatic implications.

So it whitewashed its racist ambassador as it had just whitewashed its soldiers from their religious-racist behaviour.

"And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:" [Deuteronomy 20:13]

17 comments:

  1. Just a passing comment: if Israel desires to take the entire land for itself by making conditions so bad for Palestinians that they would leave, the overwhelming question is: why Gaza?

    Why isn't the West Bank (which, incidentally happens not to be ruled by Hamas, who has committed in its charter to rid the territory of Jews) isn't placed under the same restrictions as Gaza?

    After all, the West Bank has more of a connection with the Jews - the southern portion of it is known as Judea to the Jews - where the Jews got their name from. Landlocked West Bank is also easier to control, with primitive tunnelling under the Jordan river (unlike the Rafah crossing) virtually impossible.

    I mean, if the motive is religious land grab, why focus on a territory that wasn't in historic Israel, when you could do the same for the heartland of historic Israel?

    This is not to say that conditions in the West Bank are spendid, but I'm sure any Palestinian (except partisan Hamas members) would prefer living in Ramallah or Bethlehem or Jenin than in Gaza City.

    Yes, there are rabbis that are fundamentalist. But it is fallacious to extrapolate that, and that ambassador, to the entire Israeli polity.

    As for how the Netanyahu right-wing government came into place - the Israeli voting population (oohhh, voting, very neo-Nazi of them... and Israeli-Arabs can vote too, how most unusual) usually swings to the right with conflicts. They were also punishing Kadima for the failed Lebanese war. Electorale pressure led to Rabin, and later, Ehud Barak, becoming prime minister.

    In fact, most of the Israeli electorate supports the two-state solution, which is more than you could say of the Palestinians, especially those in Gaza. Israel is not perfect, but it is hardly the modern, ironic version of the Third Reich.

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  2. Wow, that was longer than a passing exam.

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  3. UMNO = Zionist Regime

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  4. Ktemoc = Racist

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  5. Some of us Malaysians have to be send to the Talibans.
    Then they will know humility and realise Malaysia is a blissful haven.
    One such person is Anonymous 5.54pm.
    Has the so-called Regime encroached on your land or rain you with bombs.
    KT, with regard to your adopted cuntry, it is confused.
    It want to be known as the West but situaited way down south.
    But sometimesit want to be in Asia to play big brother role.
    The word is identity crisis.
    By the way is there such a thing as religious racist.
    I thought only religious zealots and religious fanatics.

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  6. I see rajanr cannot resist coming out of 'temporary blogging retirement' ;-) to defend Israel, but as to the 'lie of the land' for Israelies re Gaza and West Bank, it takes too long to respond here - maybe in another post.

    As for democratic voting, I recall Hamas won the last election to govern Palestine but so-called democractic Israel and that so-called bastion of freedom USA have both continuously sabotaged a legitimately elected political party from governing

    yes idzan, in the case of Israel (and I accept rajanr's point that not all Israelis are racist though what the military had done to Gaza in the last oppression was) its religious belief makes its people (the ultras) racists. Take people like Rabbi Meir Kahane and Baruch Goldstein who were both unmitigated racists because of their religious beliefs - Praise be to God, the Lord is One ;-) that both are very very dead. Amen.

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  7. Wahaha, need some way to de-stress from the finals.

    As for Hamas' democratic credentials - elections is a necessary condition, not the only condition, to be democratic. An organization that is heavily armed with terrorist activities, that have no qualms in supressing Fatah partisans in Gaza, that violated the Palestinian constitution in breaking off links with the Palestinian Authority, that has no respect, and will have no respect, for the fundamental civil liberties that underpin any functioning democracy - no, my friend, Hamas is not democratic.

    And if Israel isn't democratic (despite having equal franchise, access to polls by parties and voters, free and fair elections, fair, non-bias campaign regulation, free and fair press, etc.), how on earth is Israel only "so-called" democratic.

    And lastly, how is the last campaign in Gaza "racist"? Again, if the primary motivation is racial extermination instead of, oh say, having your southern cities being bombarded daily by missiles, why start with Gaza? Why not start with more valuable territory (economically and historically to the Jews)? Why did the racist Israeli military do things like call Gazans ahead to warn about impending airstrikes (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052260.html) - ruining the element of surprise?

    You're merely shaping bits and pieces of information to support an hypothesis. But your hypothesis doesn't even pass the motive test.

    (Yes, btw, Israel is technically racist - it is a "Jewish state" - and Israel is also technically religious for the same reason. But I wouldn't go as far as to compare little over a thousand deaths in Gaza as the new Third Reich and the Levant's Taliban).

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  8. And, hah, I'm out of retirement a long time dude. Just never really had the time to blog regularly. Singapore does that to you.

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  9. Also, sorry for the third comment in a row, but I found it ironic you mentioned Rabbi Kahane without mentioning that his Kach Party was barred from contesting in elections because it was inciting racist violence. Kahane Chai, the party founded by his son, was also barred from elections. Interesting action by the Jewish neo-Nazi state, no? Hitler probably would have banned similarly fascist parties... right?

    Wonder if the Palestinians would ban parties that incite racist violence. (But yeah, they won't have any mainstream parties anymore... hmmm).

    Again, its one thing to criticize Israel (as a libertarian, there is plenty to criticize, personally). But, other than being entertaining, there is no credibility earned comparing Israel to the Taliban or neo-Nazis.

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  10. God, if and when Kaytee becomes PM of Israel, he would march all the Jews and Jewesses there into the gas chambers, completing Hitler's unfinished mission. That's the reason why the Jews have nuclear weapons-- to protect themselves from such madmen

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  11. rajan - the answer to all your queries is the USA, not just the Administration (like the Bush Administration which was led by the nose by the neocon Zionists), but the American people.

    The Israelis had to demonstrate to the American people that they are worth supporting, therefore they would try to show off their best behaviour. Remember, it’s worth more than US$4+ billions per annum in finances on top of intelligence, military aid, scientific and technological transfer and constant (virtually blind) political support.

    This had been why the Israeli government or/and Knesset would ban any ultra conservative racist parties, not because they were racist, but because of American opinion. They couldn't have those idiots labelling American goyims as the great 'unwashed', could they? Or to show they (the nice democratic Israelis) condone racist organizations not unlike the KKK?

    Likewise, even as they oppressed the Gazans in a near-genocidal war, they had to limit their atrocities (or cover them up, including the use of canned excuses like "a militant was firing from the school") to 'acceptable' levels, acceptable, that is, to American public opinions.

    On another point, how could Hamas act normally as an Authority when both the USA and Israel deliberately armed Fatah, provided it with financial aid meant for the legitimately elected Palestinian authority (Hamas), warned off international banks from accepting cash donations for Hamas, and egged Fatah to seize control of the Authority, etc. As always, the Yanks would back the losing side wakakaka.

    As for your opinion that Palestinians prefer to live in West Bank, I do not see any evidence of that. Numerous have been the reports (including those by BT'selem - seen on Aussie TV documentaries) of Israeli harassment of Palestinian farmers and merchants at Israeli check points, aimed to frustrate the Arabs and hinder their ability to move to market places to sell their products. Israeli Human Rights groups have reported that whenever the groups are around, the soldiers would process the movement at normal rates but when they stay out of sight of the soldiers but observing from afar, the soldiers would deliberately make a Palestinian farmer or merchant wait for several hours for no apparent reason, invariably ruining perishable goods.

    The ultimate aim of course is to make life so miserable and to 'persuade' the Palestinians, whether in the West Bank or Gaza, to migrate and hopefully leave the land for Israel to annex, or at least leave behind a smaller Palestinian population that would be easier for Israel to control and dominate over.

    Both Gaza and the West Bank are in reality huge prisons, with entries and exits all controlled by Israel. How can viable trade or commerce survive, let alone flourish, in such a ghetto-like situation?

    On top of this, West Bank is chopped up into several separately controlled enclaves or restricted zones, with hundreds of check points manned by Israeli military. Palestinians are not allowed to travel on some roads reserved exclusively for Israelis, an apartheid practice, or perhaps a description you would be more familiar with, a de facto caste system where the shadow of a Palestinian pariah shall not cross the shadow of an Israeli brahmin.

    Gaza of course contains several Jewish holy sites. When Ariel Sharon pulled out he was cursed by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Rabbi Yosef Dayan plus a dozen other rabbis with a death curse, called the Pulsa diNura. Maybe it worked coz old Ariel is lingering in the shadow of death.

    But the old fox didn’t do it out of the goodness of his black heart (The Butcher of Sabra & Shatila has no iota of goodness). His aide Sharon aide Dov Weisglass informed Ha’aretz on 8 October 2004 as to his (Sharon’s) reason.

    He said that the Gaza withdrawal would allow Israel to delay negotiations, and the formation of a Palestinian state. It would also prevent discussions on Arab- Palestinian refugees, the borders and Jerusalem.

    He boasted: ”Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress. The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.”See how they had sought American approval!

    They had to, for Israel is nothing more than a financial parasite on the American coffers, without which (plus military aid) the Jewish State wouldn’t survive as a viable let alone a sovereign nation.

    Mind you, the Yanks have been giving Egypt some US$2 billion per annum to ensure the largest Arab nation remains in its pocket and not cause trouble to Israel. Likewise with Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the latter not requiring any financial aid but US backing for the Al Sabah family to survive as rulers.

    But my post is of course on the Israeli religious-racist war on Gaza, where the perpetration of war crimes were sanctified and even encouraged by rabbinic pseudo-religious blessings.

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  12. On Israel's dependence on American aid - it gets $4 billion out of a $60 billion budget. Dear, if that's propping up, America sure is propping up a whole lot of states. (Personally, I think Israel would do a lot better to say no thanks).

    A side note on America's bribes to Egypt - it wasn't necessary to prevent another war; Egypt just didn't have the capability for it. So the main benefit of the peace treaty is the reopening of the Suez Canal, made possible by Israel's return of half its territory to Egypt. Considering the old prices in the 70s, shaving transport costs in the 80s would certainly do US well (and well enough to justify the annual bribe).

    On Gaza and not the West Bank: again, you are failing to prove the motive. The West Bank, especially the southern part, is critical to Jewish history. If they doing what they are doing in Gaza because of some ethnic cleansing plan, why choose Gaza? Wouldn't regaining King David's hometown (as opposed to several synagogues built some short centuries ago in Gaza) more central to your perceived Israel ethno-religious neo-Nazi aims?

    In fact, things used to be worse in the West Bank - at the height of the Intifada, Israeli clampdown on the West Bank was far stricter than in Gaza, largely due to the fact that the West Bank was next to major Israeli population centres. While waits at checkpoints are long, at least checkpoints are open, a significant improvement to the early part of this decade. Again, if keeping "prison-like" conditions for ethnic-cleansing purposes is the aim, that wouldn't have happened. Things like the Supreme Court ruling that the separation barrier having to be moved to make things more convenient for Palestinians would be unimaginable.

    And then lets examine the motive even more deeply: if ethnic cleansing is the aim, why kill 1,400 and then keep them in (in your words) a prison? Even if Gazans can leave freely, but to where? How dumb do you think Israel is, actually?

    So seeing your motive theory is not at all persuasive or credible, why else would Operation Cast Lead take place? If ethnic cleansing was the aim, 1,400 (most of them young men or older teenage boys) is pathetic considering Gaza's population. So what about the fact that the Negev have been pelted with missiles from Gaza?

    As for Hamas democratic credentials - they don't seem more impressive even if Fatah is similarly armed and funded by aid. They both aren't democratic; elections there is a battle between two armed groups. No real democracy has that. Elections, again, is a necessary but insufficient condition for democracy. Otherwise even Kim Jung-il is democratically elected.

    As for other bits, like the motive behind the Gaza withdrawal (if you follow Ariel Sharon's campaign in the Likud referendum, that motive you mentioned wasn't exactly kept secret) - it isn't relevant. There is a perception, a true one, that a permanent peace settlement with the Palestinians is impossible in the foreseeable future, and instead a policy of disengagement should be pursued. I thought disengagement was stupid and would never work - and Operation Cast Lead is evidence of that.

    Again, I don't think Israel is perfect - had things been done differently in the 70s and 80s, things wouldn't be this fucked up there. But painting a liberal democracy as some sort of genocidal ethno-theocracy is just plain stupid.

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  13. And lastly, your idea that the opinion of a bunch of ultra-Orthodox rabbis being representative of the opinion of Israel as a whole is laughable. Almost half of Israel's Jewish population is "secular" (which ranges from atheism to just plain apathetic about religion). The next biggest group is "observant" Jews - which tend to mean they are from other Judaic sects like Reform and Conservative, which have been gaining a lot of ground in Israel. And of course, the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox comes next - but there are more Muslim citizens in Israel than these people.

    And yet, somehow, these people pull the drawstrings of Israel? How warped your views can be. So powerful and influential, yet they can't even keep their extremist parties against American public opinion. Odd.

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  14. rajan, I'll respond to your second comment first. Please read this New York Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/weekinreview/22BRONNER.html?em which says:

    "For the first four decades of Israel’s existence, the army — like many of the country’s institutions — was dominated by kibbutz members who saw themselves as secular, Western and educated. In the past decade or two, religious nationalists, including many from the settler movement in the West Bank, have moved into more and more positions of military responsibility. (In Israeli society, they are a growing force, distinct from, and more modern than, the black-garbed ultra-Orthodox, who are excused from military service.)"

    "In many cases, the religious nationalists have ascended to command positions from precisely the kind of premilitary college course that Mr. Zamir runs — but theirs are run by the religious movements rather than his secular one, meaning that the competition between him and them is both ideological and careerist."

    “The officer corps of the elite Golani Brigade is now heavily populated by religious right-wing graduates of the preparatory academies,” noted Moshe Halbertal, a Jewish philosophy professor who co-wrote the military code of ethics and who is himself religiously observant but politically liberal. “The religious right is trying to have an impact on Israeli society through the army.”"
    Sadly, your views of Israel, seen through your preferred rose tinted glasses, have been the warped ones.

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  15. rajan, on to your 2nd past comment:

    (1) fact is, no matter how much you've tried to mask it, Israel has been a parasite on the USA. The US$4 billion per annum financial dole is just one portion of the total aid America donates to a nation that won't be able to survive on its own.

    (2) contrary to your belief, Egypt came close to winning the war in 1973, known as the Yom Kippur War, despite prior warning to the Israelis by King Hussein of Jordan - it was due to a combination of poor Egyptian finishing and massive infusion of US military (and some even alleged, USAF fighter pilots) aid in Operations Nickel Grass, to replace all of Israel's material losses.

    Additional US military aid were state of the art equipment, (then) such new stuff as the AGM-65 Maverick missile and the BGM-71 TOW, and very sophisticated electronic jamming equipment. US Army instructors were also despatched to train IDF forces swiftly in the use of these weapons. Ops intelligence were supplied, including those obtained from SR-71 photo-electronic intelligence gathering flights.

    Henry Kissinger gave the excuse to Anwar Sadat that the US had to resort to airlift of conventional arms because the Israelis were about to resort to nuclear Armaggedon. We wouldn't know, would we?

    It was reported that one day after frightening advances by the Egyptians, across the canal and into Sinai, Moshe Dayan was so alarmed that he reported to Golda Meir: "this is the end of the third temple", where the term '3rd Temple' referred to the State of Israel.

    Golda Meir was subsequently reported as contemplating suicide then.

    So don't dismiss the US bribery to Egypt - you may not like it but the Americans and Israelis are aware that the potential for Egypt as the most likely Arab State to destroy the Jewish State is always there.

    There is no distinction between Gaza and the West Bank in the lust of Israel for what they believe to be their ancestral lands - their military planning, programs and where/with whom to war first or later deal with the tactical, strategic and political (American opinions) threats as a wholesome/total package in accordance with their national vision, intelligence, operational assessments and political judgement.

    Ethnic cleansing is not just about killing. It involves the riddance of a particular ethnic group (in this case, the Palestinians and other Arabs), whether by physical attrition, legal expatriation/mass deportation, ousting by persuasion or force, or 'encouraged' migration through demoralisation (as Germany did to the Jews prior to WWII - there have been other examples also on the Indian subcontinent). When Ariel Sharom was around, he had often voiced his views that Jordan should be the home of all Palestinians, meaning the Palestinians should pack up their bags and leave Gaza and the West Bank for the Israelis only.

    As I said all too often, throughout their covert Lebensraum program, the Israelis have to constantly keep an eye on American public opinion - being a parasite entity, Israel won't be able to survive without American backing.

    I am disappointed that you had the brazen chutzpah (;-) excuse my use of this Jewish word) to suggest a comparison of the Palestinian elections with that of the nonsensical election of Kim Jong Il - you've discredited yourself thoroughly for such a silly attempt.

    But everyone, including USA and Israel, knew that Hamas winning the Palestinian election had been kosher - it's just they didn't/don't like the winner. So the US and Israel have been equipping, financing, even training, and egging Fatah on to wrestle control from Hamas, but they backed the wrong horse.

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  16. Since my previous comment kinda got erased, I'll be shorter.

    1) On ethnic cleansing: if that's the aim, it needs one very, very important mechanism. A valve for Palestinians to leave. Exit from the territories to Jordan and Egypt is extremely controlled, and in the case of Gaza-Egypt, legally impossible. Exit from the territories to other, willing countries is also pretty hard - you, yourself, describe the territories as a prison.

    If ethnic cleansing through attrition is the goal, wouldn't an easy path out be the primary goal?

    Of course, if the only thing constraining Israeli excess is American public opinion, why focus on Gaza and not southern West Bank, where the latter has less Palestinian population and far more economic and emotional appeal to Israel?

    2) On the rise of the "religious nationalist" in the Israeli armed forces, well, I wrote something much longer and more detail, and I'm too lazy to do it again. But notice - there is a high level of debate in Israel. The Israeli society have always served as a counter to its army's excesses - the largest and most immediate protests on the Sabra and Shatila massacres weren't in the United States, Europe, or even the Arab world - it was in Tel Aviv.

    If you look at the Military Rabbinate - the last chief rabbi, Israel Weiss, was replaced with the current one because of his position that soldiers should disobey orders on dismantling settlements. Considering the military is under civilian rule, it is unlikely that the religious nationalist right would rise up high enough to cause widespread bloodshed. My original argument, that these rabbis are not representative of Israel, still stands.



    3) An important characteristic of a proper democracy isn't just free and fair elections. The requirement goes even further: there should be certain rights and liberties that would ensure the right to political participation.

    However, considering that Fatah and Hamas are heavily armed, and more so than the police (which, in 2006, was heavily under the thumb of Fatah), it doesn't exactly lend itself to a democracy. Yes, free and fair elections - but would Hamas, or Fatah for that matter, tolerate the rise of a liberal party? The very fact that Hamas, the only entity capable of rivaling Fatah in a fraticide, is the only alternative to Fatah is telling.

    And it goes beyond just that one detail - if in a German legislative election, a heavily armed, neo-Nazi party aiming to create a German Lebensraum through arms, and refuses to engage or compromise those principles, should the rest of the world accept these results because they are the result of "free and fair elections"?

    It is ironic through, you defend Hamas even though it engages in militant and terrorist acts that targets Israeli (and, well, Palestinian) civilians directly (something you accuse Israel of) and seeks to exterminate Israel (something you accuse Israel of doing with the Palestinians), with a flat-out refusal to negotiate and compromise on those principles.

    4) And a short note on Israeli dependence on American aid - Israel's Arab neighbours had something back then they do not these days: the Soviet Union. Egypt and Syria could not have fought the Yom Kippur war without Soviet weaponry, and it was worry that the Israelis would soon cross the 1967 lines that led to Soviet pushing for a early, UNSC-sanctioned ceasefire.

    On financial aid - I've already shown how it is a small portion of the Israeli budget. On military aid - it isn't something unique to Israel; most US allies have access to the same military aid (including well-to-do countries like South Korea). It isn't that Israel depends on it - rather, it symptomatic of the successful rent-seeking ways of the defense contractor's lobby.

    If aid is cut, certainly similar military aid to Israel's Arab neighbours would be cut. Israel wouldn't then be placed in an adverse competition situation.

    If aid is cut to Israel only - well, yes, it is plausible that Egypt may grow as militarily strong as you claim it is. But only because of American aid. It does not prove your contention that Israel exists only because of American aid (it wouldn't explain the 1948 War in any case, where Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Lebanon received extensive aid while Israel didn't).

    Even if the Egyptian-Israeli peace was only through American bribery, America wouldn't want to go back to the pre-1973 situation even if Israel becomes unpalatable to the American public opinion (the Suez Canal was closed because neither side controled both sides of the Canal).

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  17. sorry I took so long to respond - been busy with the local politics ;-)

    (1) Gaza and West Bank are prisons to the extent of free Palestinian movement, particularly legitimate economic ones, but 'exit' as a one-way movement won't be stopped. Ariel Sharon himself encouraged Palestinians to go to Jordan which he asserted would/should be their 'natural' homeland.

    Gaza is the ideal spot to terrorize ALL Palestrinians, to make them all feel the place (Gaza as well as West Bank)uninhabitable - it allows the Israelis to claim they're targeting the bad Islamist Hamas (and indirectly not the friendlier Fatah - as part of its heel dragging strategy towards a two-State proposition) Israel has to show there is a good/bad Palestinian sector, with only the bad one delaying that process

    In the meanwhile, like the thief it is, it keeps land grabbing of Palestinian West Bank.

    (2) It's not just the mad rabbis - the extreme rightwing political parties have arisen. Look at who Israel has as its Foreign Minister. And the rightwing renaissance has also permeated into the military.

    (3) Palestinians are in a state of war against the Israeli State so why shouldn't they be armed? You claimed that Hamas refuses to negiotiate but the fact is the other way around - Israel, back by the US, has steadfastly refuses to negotiate with Hamas.

    And Fatah is actually a multi-party confederation, just like BN or PR, so it's not just a two party state, though I don't see any thing wrong with that (USA?). The fact is there's a variety of Palestinian political parties of all persuasion, eg. Islamist (Hamas and Islamic Jihad), secular (Fatah) and Marxist (PFLP, PFLP-GC and DFLP), etc, so your condemnation of Palestinian lack of political variety has been totally incorrect, and I suspect wakakaka prejudiced.

    (4) Israel cannot survive without American financial, military and political support - that's a fact, rajan much as you try to pretend that's not so. It's a parasite of extraordinary size, and will be America's downfall (of one kind or another) if the USA or rather its American Christian Right doesn't come to their senses

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