Natural Born Zionists 1

Kingdom come is a first-class expose of Israel's coddled and deadly settler spawn by Fairfax's Middle East correspondent Ruth Pollard. I'm serialising it here. The Australian connection is most interesting:

"The small house of Saad and Riham Dawabshe still smells of the fire that took their lives and that of their 18-month-old son, Ali. The floor is a jumble of clothes, melted furniture and cracked glass, the walls blackened by the ferocious flames that two fire trucks struggled to extinguish. To hear witnesses retell the story of the firebombing in the West Bank village of Duma on July 31 is heart-stopping. Saad, 32, was already dying in front of his house by the time his brother Nasser reached him. Saad's wife Riham, 27, was lying nearby, clutching a blanket she believed held Ali. Two masked Israeli settlers stood over their bodies, determined, Nasser Dawabshe says, to see them die. Another son, five-year-old Ahmad, was trapped behind the lounge room door, his screams rising above the inferno. A neighbour managed to get him out. Ali could not be saved. 'The more we threw water on the flames the more they burned,' Nasser says.

"Days later, three young Jewish men were arrested. They are, Israeli security services allege, involved in a violent underground movement that aims to create a Jewish kingdom. Known as 'The Revolt', their plan entails attacking Palestinians to draw the Israel Defence Forces into a cycle of violence. One of these young men is Evyatar Slonim, a dual Australian-Israeli citizen. The 23-year-old now sits in a small cell in a high-security wing of Eshel Prison in the city of Beersheba. Accused by Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon of 'involvement in activity by an extremist Jewish group', Slonim was already the subject of a year-long 'administrative ban' prohibiting him from entering the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem when he was arrested. Meir Ettinger and Mordechai Meyer, who were arrested at the same time, are also in administrative detention.

"Slonim is a relative of controversial former Knesset member Rabbi Moshe Feiglin, who recently visited Australia to address synagogues in Sydney and Melbourne. Ettinger is the grandson of Meir Kahane, a militant American-Israeli rabbi and former Knesset member whose Kach movement was outlawed in Israel in the 1980s. Kahane was assassinated in 1990 but remains a hugely influential figure on Israel's far right. While authorities have not directly tied the arrest of Slonim, Ettinger and Meyer to the attack in Duma, Yaalon made it clear that the government believes there is a link. In an interview with Israel's Channel 10, the defence minister said: 'We wouldn't conduct these administrative arrests if there wasn't any connection to the arson.' Slonim was previously arrested on suspicion of setting fire to a home in the Palestinian town of Khirbet Abu Falah in November 2014. Ettinger is believed to have been involved in the torching of the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes on the shores of the Sea of Galilee on June 17, while Meyer is suspected of an arson attack on Jerusalem's Abbey of the Dormition in May 2014. Through their lawyers, all three deny any involvement in the attacks. The investigation into the Dawabshe murders remains under a gag order in Israel.

"Slonim has been involved in attacks against Palestinians for years, according to court documents seen by Fairfax Media. He is believed to have been part of the extremist group known as the Hilltop Youth, from which security sources believe The Revolt was formed. The Hilltop Youth refuse to acknowledge the authority of the state, the military or their parents. They feel betrayed by the mainstream settler movement which is working in contravention of international law and with the full support of Israel's government - to establish a permanent Jewish presence throughout the occupied West Bank. And in recent years they have been, according to Israeli security sources, the main perpetrators in the so-called 'price tag' attacks against churches, Palestinian civilians and even Israeli military personnel. The 'price tag' is graffiti left at the scene as a message that there is a price to be paid for actions against the settler movement, such as carrying out court-ordered demolitions of settler outposts. At the Dawabshe house, the graffiti in Hebrew reads 'Revenge' and 'long live the Messiah.' A Star of David and a crown are drawn above the phrases.

"The Dawabshe family say they have no idea why they were targeted. But a manual saved on a thumb-drive found on one of Slonim's co-accused by the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, provides some insight into the plans of The Revolt. In their creation of a Jewish kingdom, all non-Jews would be expelled and a third temple would be built on the Temple Mount, where al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock stand today, forming Islam's third holiest site. 'The starting point of The Revolt is that the State of Israel has no right to exist, and therefore we are not bound by the rules of the game,' the thumb-drive manifesto reads. It goes on in chilling detail to provide a how-to guide for firebombing Palestinian homes or mosques. 'We prefer to use firebombs with our friends so provide yourself with: a molotov cocktail, preferably a litre-and-a-half, lighter, gloves, masks, metal bar/hammer, bag to carry all those,' the manual reads. 'Come to the village and there look for a home with an open door or open window without bars... Simply breaking a glass door or window... turn on [ignite] the fire bomb and throw it in. In order not leave the possibility of escape, burning tyres can be placed at the entrance of the house.'"

Next post: Part 2 

A Base Without a Building for a...

Have you noticed how, in the mainstream media, Jerusalem's 7th century Haram ash-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) is now almost routinely referred to, in Ziobabble, as the Temple Mount?

By so doing, the MS media is unwittingly - to accord it the benefit of the doubt - aiding and abetting those who are, even now, girding their loins for an unparalleled act of religious cleansing in the city.  
You see, whether Zionist fanatics say this...

"Israel will continue to enforce its longstanding policy: Muslims pray on the Temple Mount; non-Muslims visit the Temple Mount." - Benjamin Netanyahu ('Muslims pray on the Temple Mount, non-Muslims visit', Tovah Lazaroff, Jerusalem Post, 25/10/15)

Or this...

"It is my dream to see the Israeli flag flying at the Temple Mount. The flag must be raised. I think this is the centre of Jewish sovereignty, the capital of Israel and the holiest place for the Jewish people." - Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely ('It is my dream...', Tom Dolev, jerusalemonline, 9/11/15)

Or this...

"And that is the story taking place today on the Temple Mount. The message heralded by the everlasting nation is drawn in its entirety from the place chosen by G-d. The Temple Mount truly is the bedrock of our existence in the most essential way. The Mount is not just a sentimental site. It is not even a historic site. It is more like a huge power socket that connects to, and has nourished, the Israeli motor for the past 3,000 years." - Former Deputy Speaker of the Knesset Moshe Feiglin (It's all because of the Temple Mount, jewishpress.com, 6/11/15)

... Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are being verbally erased, and the Haram ash-Sharif, as a result, reduced to nothing more than a base without a building for a building without a base - just as the Palestinians, for earlier generations of Zionist fanatics, were erased by the slogan a land without a people for a people without a land.

Zionism: Red in Tooth & Claw

If you want a vision of life in occupied Palestine NOW, imagine an Israeli jackboot stamping on a Palestinian face - forever.

(With apologies to George Orwell)

Zionist daleks in action:

"The video, published Friday by the London-based website Middle East Eye, was filmed by Yazan Ikhlayel on an iPhone after Israeli forces stormed Bethlehem's Aida refugee camp. The video shows an Israeli army jeep driving down one of the camp's main roads, firing tear gas as a message blares over the vehicle's loudspeakers: 'People of Aida refugee camp, we are the occupation army,' one soldier is heard saying in Arabic. 'If you throw stones, we will hit you with gas until you all die. We won't leave any of you alive'." (Israeli soldiers threaten to kill Palestinians with tear gas, teleSURtv.net, 30/10/15)

Zionist intellectual in action: 

"Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset and member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud Party, Moshe Feiglin, has called for the use of concentration camps for the 'conquest of the entire Gaza Strip, and annihilation of all fighting forces and their supporters.'... In his letter, Feiglin urged Netanyahu to 'turn Gaza into Jaffa, a flourishing city with a minimum number of hostile civilians,' in reference to a Palestinian coastal city that was ethnically cleansed in 1948 and incorporated into present-day Israel. He called for tent encampments where the Palestinian civilian population would be 'concentrated' to be established along the Sinai border and relevant emigration destinations are determined, adding that the supply of electricity and water to the formerly populated areas will be disconnected while they are 'shelled with maximum firepower' in order to destroy the civilian and military infrastructure of Hamas as well as its means of communication and of logistics." (Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset Moshe Feiglin's comments come after one of his far-right Knesset colleagues Ayelet Shaked previously called for the mothers of Hamas members to be targeted, worldbulletin.net, 4/8/14)

Zionism Good, Homophobia Bad

We have a constant stream of Israeli Zionist apologists and boosters coming to Australia, all of whom subscribe, in one form or another, to such cherished Zionist values as Jewish supremacism, Palestinian dispossession, apartheid, occupation, colonisation, and oppression, but when one turns out to be, in addition, a blatant homophobe - well now, that's going too far. Beyond strange:

"Australia's main Jewish organisations have launched an attack on extremist Israeli politician Moshe Feiglin, who is visiting Australia to raise funds for a new political party. The former Likud Knesset member and deputy speaker is appealing to religious Jewish groups in Sydney and Melbourne to secure financial backing for his new party in Israel called Zehut (identity). Mr Feiglin wrote an article titled 'I am a proud homophobe' in 2009, and in August argued that the 'culture' of homosexuality threatened the status of the family, calling a gay parade in Jerusalem 'a clear example of coercion'. He has also called Palestinians a 'gang of bandits'. The newly minted chief minister and rabbi of the Great Synagogue in Sydney, Benjamin Elton, said Mr Feiglin was not welcome... 'I'm absolutely opposed to any sexism, racism or homophobia.' This comes after a group of 11 Zionist, Jewish and LGBTI groups condemned Mr Feiglin's Australian visit, claiming his views were not representative of Jewish values." ('Proud homophobe' faces backlash, Judith Ireland, Sydney Morning Herald, 14/10/15)

Arab East Jerusalem's Israeli Nightmare

The ethnic cleansing of Palestine never stops:

"On Wednesday evening, Abdel Rahman ash-Shaludi, 21, drove his vehicle at high speed into a crowd of Israelis on a light rail platform at Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem, wounding 8 people. 3-month-old Israeli-American Chaya Zissel Braun died hours later, and Karen Yemima Muscara, an Ecuadorian woman in her 20s, died from her injuries last night.*

"As Shaludi attempted to run away, he was shot by an Israeli security guard. In a video, the guard stood over the mortally wounded Shaludi, pointed a gun in his face at point-blank range and taunted, 'Do you want it?'

"That night, Mohammad Mahmoud of the Addameer Prisoner Support & Human Rights Association was prevented by the army from visiting Shaludi in the hospital. He died hours later. As a result of the army banning visitors to the hospital as Shaludi lay dying, Israel prevented any psychological evaluation or statements that could reveal the nature of the incident. This move ensured that nothing would surface that could derail the impending media frenzy.

"Immediately, Israeli media branded the incident a terrorist attack and declared Shaludi was a Hamas operative with a history of terrorism. Yet according to prior Israeli investigations and statements from his family, he was not affiliated with Hamas. Shaludi had spent 14 months in Israel prisons for stone-throwing - not exactly an act of a mastermind terrorist. He was released in December of 2013, arrested again in February and held for 20 days by Israeli interrogators.

"'They kept on harassing him and summoning him for questioning over and over again and they tried to enlist him into working for them, but he repeatedly refused,' his mother told Ma'an News. 'They threatened him, saying he would never find work or be able to continue his education or have a normal life,' she added.

"According to the Shaludi family, he was brutally tortured in prison and suffered severe trauma as a result. Only hours before the incident, his mother had taken him to 'a doctor who advised him to see a therapist after days of exhibiting signs of mental exhaustion.'

"Over the years, Shaludi's East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan has come under attack by Israeli authorities and settlers. Just 3 days before the incident, fanatical Israeli settlers moved into homes in the middle of the night, doubling their presence in the neighborhood.

"For the Israeli public, the possibility that the incident resulted in from severe psychological trauma from torture in Israeli gulags, as well as attacks on Shaludi's neighborhood is inconceivable. Admission of this possibility could implicate Israel's brutal security apparatus in the death of baby Chaya. Besides, insanity is only applicable to whitewash the crimes of Jewish Israelis like Yosef Chaim Ben David, the settler who, with two teenagers, beat Mohammed Abu Khdeir with a wrench before forcing the Palestinian teenager to drink gasoline and burning him alive as revenge for the deaths of the 3 Israeli teenagers this summer.

"The immediate branding of the incident as a Hamas terrorist operation alleviated any potential responsibility from public consciousness. As the news of a terrorist attack spread, the Israeli public demanded the Netanyahu government punish East Jerusalem Palestinians. An op-ed appeared in Haaretz that called for an increased police presence in Jerusalem, signaling consensus from left to right.

"Israel's campaign of escalation and collective punishment began. While visiting the grieving family of Chaya Zissel Braun, Minister of Internal Security Yitzhak Aharonovich announced that he would seal or demolish the Silwan home of the bereaved Shaludi family. Two days later, in an act of provocation, Minister of Housing and Construction Uri Ariel,** announced that he planned to move into Silwan. This morning, Netanyahu announced that 1,000 new homes would be constructed in East Jerusalem, a move that increases pressure on Palestinians.

"The day after the incident, Netanyahu convened with Aharonovich, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barakat, Shin Bet Head Yoram Cohen, and police officials ordering 1,000 more police and troops from the border police, instructing them to 'exercise Israeli sovereignty' over the occupied territory.

"The police carried out Netanyahu's orders with brute force. As a crowd of 150 Israelis gathered at the site of the incident, calling for expulsions of Palestinians, and chanting 'Death to Arabs' and 'revenge', soldiers, police and settlers mounted attacks on neighborhoods throughout East Jerusalem. In Silwan, soldiers ransacked the Shaludi home and arrested family members including Abdel Rahman's 15-year-old brother Izzedin. Settlers threw stones at homes, cars and property and attacked several Palestinians. Fatimah Rajabi, 11, and her 4-year-old cousin Wael were shot in the face while in their home by Israeli soldiers firing rubber-coated bullets.

"In an attempt to expand martial law that Palestinians live under in the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem police officials are considering legislation that would hold parents liable for the acts of their children.

"As the Israeli government ramped up its attacks on East Jerusalem, it simultaneously recruited Western governments to internationally legitimize the assault. 'The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms today's terrorist attacks in Jerusalem,' US State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a released statement. The UK and France followed suit and released statements condemning the apparent attack. Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor called on the UN Security Council to condemn the incident as a 'terrorist' attack.

"This episode illustrates how anti-Arab racism in Israeli society - what Israeli President Reuben Rivlin recently called 'sick' - makes it susceptible to manipulation of facts in order to advance the far right's agenda. Though the secular elite in Tel Aviv may appear to be ambivalent to the religious settler movement's aspirations to completely Judaize Jerusalem, they practically support it in the name of security measures and counter-terrorism.

"Under the pretext of restoring quiet, the Netanyahu government is escalating Israel's war on Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Led by Moshe Feiglin, the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset who has called for genocide of the Palestinians, extremist settlers escorted by armed police have increasingly been visiting the courtyard surrounding the al-Aqsa Mosque - a site of huge importance in Islam. Police have attacked Palestinian worshippers on a near daily basis, and in a move that could ignite an intifada, Israeli lawmakers will soon vote on partitioning the mosque. As Netanyahu incites Israelis and ramps up attacks on Palestinian neighborhoods, the future of Jerusalem is anything but quiet." (Under pretext of restoring calm, Netanyahu government is escalating Israel's war on Palestinians in Jerusalem, Dan Cohen, mondoweiss.net, 27/10/14)

[*See my 25/10 post What's Fit to Print in The Australian; **See my 18/5/14 post Our Klutz in... East Jerusalem.]

What Would Herzl Do?

Meanwhile, back in Israel, the question on every mover and shaker's (pun intended) mind is: What's "a mature, pluralist democracy" (to draw on Tony Abbott's quaint description of the place) to do about those pesky natives? ('Pesky'? As in drawing breath. Just being there.)

Move them on, of course, as the founding father said in his diary in 1895:

"We must expropriate gently the private property on the state assigned us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying employment for it in our country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly. Let the owners of the immoveable property believe that they are cheating us, selling us things for more than they are worth."

Many are the ways, but only one of the following really captures the spirit of the master. Guess:

"Prominent members of Israel's ruling Likud party have proposed annexing part of the West Bank as the battle for right-wing votes intensifies before the general election in less than 3 weeks. A government minister, Yuli Edelstein, told a conference in Jerusalem that the lack of Israel sovereignty over Area C - the 60% of the West Bank under full Israeli military control in which all settlements are situated - 'strengthen the international community's demand for a withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.' The chairman of the governing coalition, Ze'ev Elkin, said Israel should adopt a 'salami' approach to annexation. 'We will try to apply sovereignty over as much as we can at any given moment,' he said. A third Likud member, the extreme right-wing settler Moshe Feiglin, proposed that Israel should pay Palestinian families to leave the West Bank, using funds earmarked for security measures. 'We can give every family in Judea and Samaria [the biblical term for the West Bank] $500,000 to encourage to emigrate... This is the perfect solution for us,' he said." (Israeli right eyes annexing parts of the West Bank, Harriet Sherwood, Guardian/The Age, 4/1/13)