THE REAL WORLD ALLIANCE

POSTED BY: Howard
UPDATED: Sunday, October 9, 2005 21:41
VIEWED: 2310
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HOWARD

Sunday, October 9, 2005 2:37 AM

Like a scenario that could be in the Verse this past August the world's media presented a TV NEWS soap opera view of the Israeli "pull-out" from Gaza. What the media showed was a great big lie and a racist lie at that just as the tears of Israeli soldiers were racist tears. The same soldiers who had driven Palestinians from their homes at gunpoint with 15 minutes warning, now crying because Israelis were being escorted from illegal colonies with months even years of warning and huge monetary compensation of the kind never paid to Palestinians.

The following link is from Counterpunch it links to a response of many grateful people to a moving article written by Jennifer Lowenstein a Jewish American who spent months living among the Palestinians. Her original article is linked in the first paragraph of the response article.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn08262005.html

In our world too we have browncoat resistance.

SEVENPERCENT

Sunday, October 9, 2005 4:38 AM

Wow.

And I don't mean wow in a 'that's a powerful piece' way, I mean it in a 'wow, that's some awesomely useless, narrow minded opinions coming from Ms. Lowenstein' kind of way.

That is one screwed up region, with a history of violence going back far longer than most people care to remember, and she does a disservice to the Palestinians by taking such an extremist, Palestinians-can-do-no-wrong attitude about the whole conflict (as well as being too critical of the Israeli effort in the process). Here are some examples from the article:

Quote:
Sharon and the thieving, murderous settler-culture he helped create

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the Israelis with their monstrous military arsenals

Or how about reducing the story of a girl losing her home to a game of 'you got more airtime.'

Oh, don't get me wrong. She's right on a lot of points, of that I am in no doubt, as one who follows the news from that region with much scrutiny (and am a firm believer that if mideast peace will ever work, it'll have to work there first). But these things take time, and will, and effort; to accuse the Israelis of not acting fast enough, painting them as racist monsters, and saying the Palestinians are innocent victims is a poor, irrational thing to do.

Israel, a state created out of Holocaust guilt and surrounded on all sides by people who want that state removed by nuclear force if necessary, is in a very peculiar position. If it ceases to become the apartheid state that it is, it will be turning over its rule to people who would just as soon kill the Jews as govern them. The Palestinians, pushed into a corner, who want their own state and who are tools of Arab governments that use them as pawns, need to stop blowing things up if they want the Israelis to trust them.

Which brings me around again to Lowenstein's article. She's not helping anyone, because she isn't offering a solution (and inflammatory trash like this just makes matters worse) and she isn't taking in the big picture. It's not going to happen overnight, and frankly, this line summed up where her entire argument went wrong:

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from home demolitions, targeted assassinations and total closures to the murder of civilians and the wanton destruction of commercial and public property-

If you don't read the article, it's impossible to guess she means the Israelis. She gives the Palestinians a pass for these very crimes. The history of race and religion in America has been written in bone and blood, and we've had a lot more time (and a lot less pressure) than Israel to get it right.

Call the settler removal what it is-- a decent step in the right direction. Babies wobble, totter, and sometimes step backwards before they get walking down pat. The day an infant comes out of the womb running faster than I, I'll give Ms. Lowenstein another chance.

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

HOWARD

Sunday, October 9, 2005 10:31 AM

You are brainwashed with the cancer of American Zionism which by the way is not necessarily a Jewish thing the largest section of the Israeli lobby is the Christian Right (plus there is also the Clinton/Kerry brand of Zionism too).

The Palestinian people were not responsible for a Holocaust committed by Europeans and no one had a right to ethnic cleanse them from their own country and force them to suffer for half century for a crime they had nothing to do with.

Your linking of the Nazi Holocaust as a rationale for the American armed and financed, brutal racist tyranny, put upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli state is typical of sick, racist and brainwashed Americans. You live in a society where political candidates compete in proving their Zionist credentials and their hatred of Arab people in a society where the US corporate media only values Israeli lives. Where that same media censors 90% of the crimes committed by Israel upon the Palestinian people.

CITIZEN

Sunday, October 9, 2005 1:23 PM

Brainwashed with the cancer of American Zionism...
What an interesting concept...

Before you tar me with the same brush I'm not American. I am British and quite frankly our media (though not perfect) is second to none. There's atrocities happening on both sides. That's BOTH sides.
To blame the Israelis entirely for everything that happens in the region is stupid, at best. If you want to play that game then here's the logical extension:
It's the German people's fault. They committed the Holocaust and the UN's construction of a Jewish state in the region was because of that. Of course it’s also the fault of the UN.
So the real 'aggressors' who have to take all the blame is Germany, the UN, and all the countries of the UN. Your irrational blaming of the entire Israeli nation is bogus, even given your own reasoning.

I'll give you something though. America does unconditionally support Israel, in the same way that some nations unconditionally oppose Israel.

You want to think that the world is this clear cut black and white, good and evil place, where Israel and America are on the Evil side and the Palestinians and their supports are on the side of good.
Your argument is shockingly simplistic.

Here in Britain we had the IRA. Your argument, moved over to the troubles in Ireland, suggests that it was okay for the IRA and other paramilitary groups to murder innocent civilians in terrorist actions, because of Bloody Sunday. I'm sure that will be of comfort to the families of the victims.

Well fella, ever heard the saying two wrongs don't make a right?

Just out of curiosity, was it okay for the bombers to do what they did in London on the 7th of July?

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!
Zen Buddhist to the Hotdog Vendor:
"Make me one with everything."

HOWARD

Sunday, October 9, 2005 1:45 PM

As appalling as ALL terrorism is (including the extensive record of Anglo-American terrorism) the horrible crimes of a few individuals comprising of small groups is small cheese compared to the past fifty years or even for that matter the past 15 years of crimes against humanity committed upon Iraq and other nations by the American Empire and its lapdog/attack dog clients.

Under Bill Clinton more than 1:2 million Iraqis perished as a direct result of the single most genocidal enconomic sanctions in history. Of whom 600,000 were Iraqi infants. Denied drugs for cancers caused by Bush seniors radioactive weapons in the 1991 War in which between 200,000 and 300,000 Iraqis were slaughtered by the US/UK.
Other pandemic diseases that killed these kids were water-based infections. Water treatment equipement was blocked by the Clinton dominated UN Sanctions committee. The original water system was bombed by the US/UK during the 1991 conflict.
Consider also the tens of thousands of Sudanese children and old people who died as a result of Clinton blowing up their one medicine factory with cruise missiles. The German Ambassador to Sudan estimated this death toll and was quoted in a distinguished Harvard publication.

For the the past 50 years literally millions of people have been murdered by American power and its clients and mercenaries including 5 million Indochinese, 2 million Indonesians and 250,000 East Timorese.
Including 3 to 4 million people in Southern Africa in false civil wars orchestrated by the CIA and hundreds of thousands under US death sqad regimes across Latin America.

SEVENPERCENT

Sunday, October 9, 2005 3:27 PM

Quote:
7%,
Welcome to the VRWC, you budding neocon!

Thanks Andrew, I'll try to do you all proud (now I just have to watch out for Rue and Signy getting ahold of me

)

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horrible crimes of a few individuals comprising of small groups is small cheese compared to the past fifty years or even for that matter the past 15 years of crimes against humanity

Right, the crimes of a few individuals. Causing daily rocket attacks, blowing up buses filled with civilians, and kidnapping. But hey, don't let facts get in the way of painting with that broad brush you're using. Zip right by the fact that Israel won several conflicts where it was not the aggressor, and that the hard-line Iranian government has said that the first strike target of a nuclear weapon would be Israel. But remember, hearing the quote from a mullah that the Jews would pay for their crimes with a river of blood has no bearing on the situation. I also seem to recall, while Clinton was President, they nearly reached a peace accord that was scuttled by the Palestinians refusing to yield one single, solitary acre of land (and when the talks stalled, began launching rocket attacks from the border over it).

But I'm not disagreeing with the assessment that the Israelis aren't innocent, so you've got that whole 'right-wing Zionist brainwash' canard all wrong. I think the wall is a bad idea, I think their assassination by rocket policy isn't really all that bright either.

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For the the past 50 years literally millions of people have been murdered by American power and its clients and mercenaries

I'm about as liberal as you get, and even I think this is stupid. 'Murder' is a loaded term that even I won't use. Policy decisions sometimes work, sometimes they don't. It's always been that way; there are casualties caused in ways that are impossible to see. But there are reasons we ally with Israel, the most important of which is that states that want us dead are Palestinian allies. I can guarantee you an instant shift in US/Palestinian foreign policy the day the Pal. leadership says 'you know what, Ayatollah, we think you're doing us more harm than good, time for you to go.' Or 'I think that's enough weapons, Syria, we don't like the direction we're headed.'

I stand by my original analogy. Sometimes you totter, sometimes you step back, sometimes you fall down; but you aren't going to ever get anywhere unless you start putting your feet forward, which is what the pullout was.

Heh. Conservative christian. Zionist brainwash. Where's Chrisisall when I need him?

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

CITIZEN

Sunday, October 9, 2005 4:44 PM

Howard:
Well done. American Foreign policy is pretty appalling at times, especially for a country that wants to hold itself as a moral police-state of the world. (That's police state as in the good humanitarian meaning, not the Fascist sense ).

But again, you show your arguments as being entirely prejudiced and about as far from objectivity as those who think it's okay to murder hundreds of thousands of civilians because of September 11th.

How many civilians were slaughtered by Saddam’s regime leading up to 1991? Should the first Gulf War not have been fought?
You say the US/UK as if their the only participants. That is about as far from the truth as you can get.
34 Nations, mandated by the UN was responsible for the First Gulf War.

Members of the Coalition included Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea, Spain, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States of America. Germany and Japan provided financial assistance instead of military aid.

The UN wasn't alone in imposing sanctions either, as the Arab League also condemned the invasion of Kuwait and imposed sanctions.

Quote:
Originally posted by Howard:
As appalling as ALL terrorism is (including the extensive record of Anglo-American terrorism) the horrible crimes of a few individuals comprising of small groups is small cheese compared to the past fifty years

I see, we can condemn Anglo-American terrorists, but terrorists can be forgiven if they attack the evil Anglo-Americans. Great double standards there, I suppose your not prejudiced in anyway either?

Quote:
Originally posted by Howard:
15 years of crimes against humanity committed upon Iraq and other nations by the American Empire and its lapdog/attack dog clients.

Yes how could the evil Westerners ever think it was okay to ever attack in anyway the good and Just Iraq. There's your simplistic view again.

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Originally posted by Howard:
Denied drugs for cancers caused by Bush seniors radioactive weapons

There is NO evidence that the depleted uranium shells used by the American military (the only radioactive weapons used) have caused any increase in cancer or Birth defects. The only support for that claim was baseless accusations made by regime doctors in 1998.

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"because DU is only weakly radioactive, very large amounts of dust (on the order of grams) would have to be inhaled for the additional risk of lung cancer to be detectable in an exposed group. Risks for other radiation-induced cancers, including leukaemia, are considered to be very much lower than for lung cancer." In addition, "no reproductive or developmental effects have been reported in humans" as a result of DU exposure.

World Health Organization:
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/env/du/en/

Quote:
Originally posted by Howard:
1991 War in which between 200,000 and 300,000 Iraqis were slaughtered by the US/UK.

Slaughtered huh. So none of those casualties was carrying a gun and attempting to kill Coalition troops. Oh and try and get your facts straight before quoting figures:

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Independent analysts generally agree the Iraqi death toll was well below initial post-war estimates. In the immediate aftermath of the war, these estimates ranged as high as 100,000 Iraqi troops killed and 300,000 wounded. According to "Gulf War Air Power Survey" by Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, (a report commissioned by the U.S. Air Force; 1993-ISBN 0-16-041950-6), there were an estimated 10-12,000 Iraqi combat deaths in the air campaign and as many as 10,000 casualties in the ground war. This analysis is based on enemy prisoner of war reports. The Iraqi government claimed that 2,300 civilians died during the air campaign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War

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Originally pos

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HOWARD

Sunday, October 9, 2005 5:25 PM

There is in fact extensive evidence to prove as it not denied by military specialists and has been confirmed by many international institutions that the 1991 Gulf War was a highly radioactive conflict as a direct result of the US/UK using masses amounts of depleted uranium tipped bombs. This is a well established fact. Not open to doubt. It is not in question by any of the world's leading bodies that confirm and verify such matters.

To clarify:

1. I condemned ALL terrorism.
2. Those other countries were mostly bribed the primary actors were the US and UK.
3. We did not attack Saddam for his crimes we attacked him for disobeying an order.
4. All of Saddam's crime up to 1991 Gulf War were crimes committed on our side. He was a client dictator of the West. (and East too he was a savvy SOB he got aid from both sides of the Cold War).
EXAMPLE: In the weeks AFTER he gassed the Kurds Prime Minister Thatcher increased his financial credit by 350 million and President George Bush senior increased his fiancial credit by 1 Billion.
AFTER the slaughter of Kurdish civilians. While also getting arms from Bulgaria and East Germany as well as France.
5. Saddam was first hired as an assassin by the CIA in the last year of the Eisenhower admin 1959.

Your accusation of an assertion is ill-read and ill-thought-out.

Israel has the power backed up by the US/UK etc the Palestinians are the oppressed ones. They have nothing and have suffered far more in the past 40 years than anything lived through by the Israelis in that period.

When a people such as the Palestinian people are suffering occupation and oppression they are not obliged to prove themselves as saints. They are human beings in a bad situation which in itself brings out ugly elements in the human mindset. Jews in Nazi camps were often bad to each other this is obviously the base state that terrible circumstances brings out in some people. Some people not so, they have a noble ethical value system but it depends on the person. Populations are not a block they are made up of individual human beings.

SEVENPERCENT

Sunday, October 9, 2005 6:10 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Howard:
Thank you for your reasonable disagreement unlike others.

I think this was aimed at me, so I'm going to respond again. How was my disagreement unreasonable? You posted a link to an article, of which I was critical (and kind, actually; ask Andrew, he's seen some of my nastier posts), at no time was I critical of you personally. Then, you called me brainwashed and put words in my mouth that had nothing remotely to do with the point of my post:

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The Palestinian people were not responsible for a Holocaust committed by Europeans and no one had a right to ethnic cleanse them from their own country and force them to suffer for half century for a crime they had nothing to do with.
Your linking of the Nazi Holocaust as a rationale for the American armed and financed, brutal racist tyranny,

Explain how you make that assertion from ANY statement I made in my post. I didn't say I approved, nor did I 'link it as a rationale.' I'm just putting the events in the region in context, which you failed to acknowledge.

Then, instead of rebutting my points (more than likely because you cannot) you say that my disagreement is unreasonable. You might have gotten away with some pity, until you dropped this little gem:

Quote:
Israel has the power backed up by the US/UK etc the Palestinians are the oppressed ones. They have nothing and have suffered far more in the past 40 years than anything lived through by the Israelis in that period.

Good thing you tacked on that 'in that period,' because I'm beginning to think you're a holocaust denier whose grasp of regional history only goes back about 5 years or so. You refuse to confront the Egyptians, the Syrians, the Lebanese, the Iranians, the Saudis, and the Palestinians for the problems of the past 60 years or so in favor of bashing the Israelis for trying to survive.

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When a people such as the Palestinian people are suffering occupation and oppression they are not obliged to prove themselves as saints.

You conveniently forget that as of 2005, the overwhelming majority of Israelis were born right there, don't you? So let me ask you this: What would you-- as a citizen born right there in Israel-- do when confronted by people who want you gone dead or alive? You retaliate, and like the Palestinians, are not obliged to prove yourself as a saint.

And I find it terribly amusing that you go on the attack against me, given that in my very first post I agreed that the Palestinians are victims and the Israelis aren't helping matters. But through this all you refuse to acknowledge that regional politics are anything but the biggest grey area ever known to man.

I'm not sure what you're looking for here. Anyone with even a base knowledge of history knows that your assertions and Ms. Lowenstein's article are both misrepresentations of the facts. If I were you I'd find your way towards the middle, or else when the really smart folks hit the thread (Rue, Signy, Geezer, Finn, et. al.), they're gonna make mincemeat out of some of the posts. Just sayin'.

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

HOWARD

Sunday, October 9, 2005 7:37 PM

People like you, neo-colonialists always steer the discussion toward outer areas that I never mentioned. As for the Arab regimes they were born out of European imperialism and maintained by American corporate colonialism. They are not the issue where Palestine is concerned.

Yes I agree be it a soldier or freedom-fighter I personally would adhere to a high ethical code of humanitarian decency.

Most Palestinians do while some do not.
While some Israelis do, while most do not!!

That is the difference.

As for the "grey area" that is a fine prism of convenience for those who are part of the Western construct that built your so-called "grey area".

Jennifer Lowenstein has witnessed daily life for the Palestinian people first hand. She has seen and lived in the daily conditions of Israeli state terror and witnessesd the crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli machine a machine financed by US tax-payers. She has written many articles and has just begun a new position at Oxford University as a visiting Professor from the USA. I can assure you her credentials and intelligence and honesty and accuracy is way beyond your childish chums.

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