While we're focusing the 50s, consider the following powerful words of Henry A. Byroade, Assistant Secretary of State (1952-55), addressing the Dayton (Ohio) World Affairs Council on April 9, 1954. They'd be inconceivable today, coming from a key US administration figure:
"To the Israelis I say that you should come to truly look upon yourselves as a Middle Eastern state and see your own future in that context rather than as a headquarters, or nucleus so to speak, of worldwide groupings of peoples of a particular religious faith who must have special rights within and obligations to the Israeli state. You should drop the attitude of the conqueror and the conviction that force and a policy of retaliatory killings is the only policy that your neighbors will understand. You should make your deeds correspond to your frequent utterances of the desire for peace." (Violent Truce: A Military Observer Looks at the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1951-1955, Commander E.H. Hutchison, 1956, pp 97-98)
Just to be clear, among other things, Byroade is calling on Israel here to abandon a central pillar of Zionist ideology, the 'Jewish people' concept, which underpins the claim that Israel is not merely a state of its citizens, but rather a state representing all Jews, regardless of where they live, or whether they wish to be part of this fictional, supranational, entity.
Such plain-speaking, however, inevitably drew the wrath of the Zionist lobby of the day: "I had all kinds of problems," he recounted in an official interview, "There was a lot of pressure put on the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, to get me out of the Service. I know: he talked to me frankly about it. He said to me once that a part of these problems were rumors about my sexual life. John Foster Dulles said, 'The President and I know exactly what's behind all this.' He said, 'Do you realize when I ran for the Senate in New York, they tried to pin a sex rap on me?'" (Truman Library - Henry Byroade Oral History Interview, 9/88, trumanlibrary.org)
Showing posts with label Zionism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zionism. Show all posts
Saturday, April 20, 2019
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Not Your Average Fanatics
One of the most disturbing trends around today is the tendency of many well-meaning folk - Ilhan Omar for one - to apologise, or otherwise back down, when under attack by Zionists for comments in support of the Palestinian cause. The simple fact of the matter is that it is those who advocate for Israel, not those who advocate for Palestine, who should be apologising for their role in aiding and abetting Israeli apartheid. If pro-Palestinians have done their homework, and are in command of the facts, there should be no backing down or appeasement of Israel lobbyists.
US academic Steve Salaita's essay The problem with apology (stevesalaita.com) should be read in its entirety by anyone intending to weigh in on the subject of Palestine/Israel. Here's an extract:
"You probably know that pro-Israel activists are intense, but unless you've been their target it's hard to imagine the level of intensity. They never stop. This relentlessness separates them from garden-variety fanatics. A single punishment, no matter how vicious, is never enough. Their goal is to force targets into destitution, and then they'll keep going until observers are destitute by association. The belligerence honors the settler-colonial entity to which they're devoted. If you fight back (the correct decision), they'll smear you as anti-Semitic. If you ignore the noise, they'll grow louder. And if you apologize, well, it would be a bad idea. They'll see it not as a victory, or an opportunity for reconciliation, but as an invitation to be more exasperating. The lists of journalists, academics, writers, artists, politicians, musicians, and activists punished for affirming Palestinian life - or merely for running afoul of right-wing Zionist orthodoxy - illustrates that recrimination is its own kind of stimulus. It's been so effective, may as well accelerate the model. It's hard to imagine the model's demise without reshaping the anatomy of US political discourse. And forget about avoiding it. If you criticize Israel's behavior - or condemn Zionism, the more important approach - you simultaneously risk defamation, or at least the nattering inanity of both voluntary and professional trolls. Institutions exist around the world to protect Israel's reputation and inoculate the state against the kind of inquiry any healthy community understands as normal. These institutions are funded by billionaires and various government agencies. It can lead to the bizarre scenario of a solitary Twitter critic getting pitted against the world's most powerful forces. I was once that solitary critic."
US academic Steve Salaita's essay The problem with apology (stevesalaita.com) should be read in its entirety by anyone intending to weigh in on the subject of Palestine/Israel. Here's an extract:
"You probably know that pro-Israel activists are intense, but unless you've been their target it's hard to imagine the level of intensity. They never stop. This relentlessness separates them from garden-variety fanatics. A single punishment, no matter how vicious, is never enough. Their goal is to force targets into destitution, and then they'll keep going until observers are destitute by association. The belligerence honors the settler-colonial entity to which they're devoted. If you fight back (the correct decision), they'll smear you as anti-Semitic. If you ignore the noise, they'll grow louder. And if you apologize, well, it would be a bad idea. They'll see it not as a victory, or an opportunity for reconciliation, but as an invitation to be more exasperating. The lists of journalists, academics, writers, artists, politicians, musicians, and activists punished for affirming Palestinian life - or merely for running afoul of right-wing Zionist orthodoxy - illustrates that recrimination is its own kind of stimulus. It's been so effective, may as well accelerate the model. It's hard to imagine the model's demise without reshaping the anatomy of US political discourse. And forget about avoiding it. If you criticize Israel's behavior - or condemn Zionism, the more important approach - you simultaneously risk defamation, or at least the nattering inanity of both voluntary and professional trolls. Institutions exist around the world to protect Israel's reputation and inoculate the state against the kind of inquiry any healthy community understands as normal. These institutions are funded by billionaires and various government agencies. It can lead to the bizarre scenario of a solitary Twitter critic getting pitted against the world's most powerful forces. I was once that solitary critic."
Monday, April 15, 2019
Jonathan Freedland's Dream Zionists
Here's the liberal Zionist editor of The Guardian, Jonathan Freedland, pretending that Netanyahu's victory at the polls will be equally bad for Jewish Israelis and Palestinians, and omitting the fact that it was the former who enabled it:
"So Palestinians will have to brace themselves for a Trump 'peace plan' that is likely to deny them the territory they need to build a state of their own. Meanwhile, Netanyahu's victory promises a further assault on democratic norms and the rule of law inside Israel. It surely spells gloom for the long-term prospects of both peoples, but they are used to that by now. It's been this way on and off for most of the last quarter century. For truly this is the age of Netanyahu." (Netanyahu's victory means life is about to get worse for Palestinians, theguardian.com, 10/4/19)
George Orwell would be turning in his grave if he knew Freedland had been awarded a special Orwell Prize in May 2014 for his 'journalism'. Certainly, at least on the subject of Palestine/Israel, he seems incapable of producing anything other than pro-Israel PR.
In a 2012 New Statesman essay, Yearning for the same land, Freedland reveals why.
In it, he argues unconvincingly that, alongside the Zionism we're all familiar with, "the expansionist desire to control the entire biblical land of Israel," there's another "true" Zionism, consisting of "the more modest claim that there should be a Jewish national home within historic Palestine," and that that is the Zionism he, Freedland, professes. IOW, it's two states for two peoples, with the Palestinians getting a mere 22% of their historic homeland at most, contingent on the unlikely event of every soldier and settler pulling up stakes and getting out.
Whatever their imagined difference, both Zionisms, of course, subscribe to the same dogma, namely that Jews constitute not a faith community, but a "people" who, "like every other people, have a right to self-determination in the historic land of their birth." Although the concept of Jewish peoplehood has no basis in fact (and has been exploded most recently by Israeli historian Shlomo Sand in his 2009 book The Invention of the Jewish People), Freedland accepts it uncritically. Nor does he acknowledge the absurdity of this fictional people's achieving its fictional right of self-determination at the expense of another.
Sensing he's on shaky ground here, he attempts to bolster his case by shamelessly playing the Holocaust card: "The Jewish people, scythed by the Holocaust and after centuries of persecution, were gasping for breath in 1948; their need for a home was as great as that of any people in history. They had the right to act, even though the cost for another people, the Palestinians, was immense." Overlooked, of course, is the bleeding obvious that it was Germany, not the Palestinians, who perpetrated the Holocaust, not to mention the fact that the majority of Jews displaced by the war would have preferred to migrate to the United States and elsewhere than to Palestine.
Freedland goes on to claim that there was no "logical" connection between the pre-1967 Zionist colonisation of Palestine and the post-1967 Zionist colonisation of its West Bank and Gaza remnants. The Israeli settlement of the occupied territories was not, he asserts, "the ineluctable consequence of Zionism - as the Israeli right argued then and now." Presumably, for Freedland, those responsible for settling pre-1967 Palestine, his "true," Labor, Zionists, were more than content with their "national home" in 78% of historic Palestine. How strange then that their behaviour after 1967 belies this:
"The authorized, 'legal' settlements began in the era of the Labor-led governments, from 1967 to 1977. They flourished in the days of the Likud governments that followed and during the subsequent period of the Labor, Likud, and unity governments. In the course of the negotiations that engendered the September 1993 Oslo agreement, and in the period following it, the settlements saw an unprecedented building boom. All the the subsequent governments have made a point of approving new construction, ostensibly only within the boundaries of the existing settlements, but they have always supported - by political and budgetary deed and by failing to enforce the law and deter violations - the establishment of new settlements in the guise of new neighborhoods and 'illegal' outposts." (Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007, Idith Zertal & Akiva Eldar, 2007, pp xvii - xviii)
Freedland, of course, overlooks entirely the colonial-settler roots of the Zionist project and the trampling of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs' right to national self-determination following World War I; the fact that political Zionism, from its inception, was focused exclusively, as one of its early slogans put it, on 'a land without a people'; and that Zionist colonisation, like every other form of colonisation, has only ever trampled underfoot the rights of those it has dispossessed.
Freedland may try to fool us with his airy talk of Zionist "dreamers" and "two peoples, fated to seek their dreams in the same land," but in truth he's only fooling himself.
"So Palestinians will have to brace themselves for a Trump 'peace plan' that is likely to deny them the territory they need to build a state of their own. Meanwhile, Netanyahu's victory promises a further assault on democratic norms and the rule of law inside Israel. It surely spells gloom for the long-term prospects of both peoples, but they are used to that by now. It's been this way on and off for most of the last quarter century. For truly this is the age of Netanyahu." (Netanyahu's victory means life is about to get worse for Palestinians, theguardian.com, 10/4/19)
George Orwell would be turning in his grave if he knew Freedland had been awarded a special Orwell Prize in May 2014 for his 'journalism'. Certainly, at least on the subject of Palestine/Israel, he seems incapable of producing anything other than pro-Israel PR.
In a 2012 New Statesman essay, Yearning for the same land, Freedland reveals why.
In it, he argues unconvincingly that, alongside the Zionism we're all familiar with, "the expansionist desire to control the entire biblical land of Israel," there's another "true" Zionism, consisting of "the more modest claim that there should be a Jewish national home within historic Palestine," and that that is the Zionism he, Freedland, professes. IOW, it's two states for two peoples, with the Palestinians getting a mere 22% of their historic homeland at most, contingent on the unlikely event of every soldier and settler pulling up stakes and getting out.
Whatever their imagined difference, both Zionisms, of course, subscribe to the same dogma, namely that Jews constitute not a faith community, but a "people" who, "like every other people, have a right to self-determination in the historic land of their birth." Although the concept of Jewish peoplehood has no basis in fact (and has been exploded most recently by Israeli historian Shlomo Sand in his 2009 book The Invention of the Jewish People), Freedland accepts it uncritically. Nor does he acknowledge the absurdity of this fictional people's achieving its fictional right of self-determination at the expense of another.
Sensing he's on shaky ground here, he attempts to bolster his case by shamelessly playing the Holocaust card: "The Jewish people, scythed by the Holocaust and after centuries of persecution, were gasping for breath in 1948; their need for a home was as great as that of any people in history. They had the right to act, even though the cost for another people, the Palestinians, was immense." Overlooked, of course, is the bleeding obvious that it was Germany, not the Palestinians, who perpetrated the Holocaust, not to mention the fact that the majority of Jews displaced by the war would have preferred to migrate to the United States and elsewhere than to Palestine.
Freedland goes on to claim that there was no "logical" connection between the pre-1967 Zionist colonisation of Palestine and the post-1967 Zionist colonisation of its West Bank and Gaza remnants. The Israeli settlement of the occupied territories was not, he asserts, "the ineluctable consequence of Zionism - as the Israeli right argued then and now." Presumably, for Freedland, those responsible for settling pre-1967 Palestine, his "true," Labor, Zionists, were more than content with their "national home" in 78% of historic Palestine. How strange then that their behaviour after 1967 belies this:
"The authorized, 'legal' settlements began in the era of the Labor-led governments, from 1967 to 1977. They flourished in the days of the Likud governments that followed and during the subsequent period of the Labor, Likud, and unity governments. In the course of the negotiations that engendered the September 1993 Oslo agreement, and in the period following it, the settlements saw an unprecedented building boom. All the the subsequent governments have made a point of approving new construction, ostensibly only within the boundaries of the existing settlements, but they have always supported - by political and budgetary deed and by failing to enforce the law and deter violations - the establishment of new settlements in the guise of new neighborhoods and 'illegal' outposts." (Lords of the Land: The War Over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007, Idith Zertal & Akiva Eldar, 2007, pp xvii - xviii)
Freedland, of course, overlooks entirely the colonial-settler roots of the Zionist project and the trampling of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs' right to national self-determination following World War I; the fact that political Zionism, from its inception, was focused exclusively, as one of its early slogans put it, on 'a land without a people'; and that Zionist colonisation, like every other form of colonisation, has only ever trampled underfoot the rights of those it has dispossessed.
Freedland may try to fool us with his airy talk of Zionist "dreamers" and "two peoples, fated to seek their dreams in the same land," but in truth he's only fooling himself.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Portrait of a Zionist Diva
In his book How I Stopped Being a Jew (2014), that formidable debunker of Zionist narratives and mythology, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand, writes that:
"We must recognize that the key axis of a secular Jewish identity lies nowadays in perpetuating the individual's relationship to the State of Israel and in securing the individual's total support for it. If, until the 1967 war, Israel occupied a relatively secondary place in the sensibility of Jewish descendants in the West, from that point onward, this little state - which had just given a display of its great strength, even appearing as quite a power - became a source of pride for a goodly number of Jewish descendants. As is well known, any power attracts a mass of followers and comes to constitute, to a lesser or greater degree, a locus of adulation and worship. The image of soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, svelte and spirited, perched on powerful armoured cars or leaning proudly against jet fighters, serves as an identity card for many new Jews throughout the world. The prestige that this gives has been used to the maximum by the Israeli state." (pp 93-4)
Sand could have been writing about Australian singer/songwriter Deborah Conway, just featured in the Sydney Morning Herald's GoodWeekend magazine:
"Carl Conway's family fled Russia to England after the pogroms around 1900. Deborah Conway's upbringing was not particularly religious - she doesn't believe in God - but the family had Shabbat dinner on Friday night and synagogue visits a few times a year. Over time, though, she has become increasingly passionate about her heritage. Conway and [husband Willy] Zygier ran the Shir Madness Melbourne Jewish musical Festival in 2015 and 2017 and both are avowed Zionists, believing in the development and protection of Israel as a Jewish state. Asked why her passion for Zionism has increased, she says 'I hate bullies and I feel like the world is bullying Israel.' The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement - which aims to end international support for Israel - is, says Conway, 'nothing short of horrendous anti-Semitism.' 'Look, there's no question there are contentious aspects of the Jewish state, but it's the only place in the world where Jews have a state'." (Love of a lifetime, Melissa Fyfe, 2/2/19)
To deconstruct this particularly egregious example of delusional identity politics: here we have a 'secular Jew', with no discernible connection to Palestine/Israel, who swears blind that the Israeli bully is really a victim - of "the world" no less - and maliciously smears as anti-Semites those who demand justice for the bully's Palestinian victims.
Reality couldn't be more twisted. But, to make matters worse, the feature's author, journalist Melissa Fyfe, apparently saw no need to raise an editorial eyebrow, or in any way challenge, Conway's appalling diatribe.
"We must recognize that the key axis of a secular Jewish identity lies nowadays in perpetuating the individual's relationship to the State of Israel and in securing the individual's total support for it. If, until the 1967 war, Israel occupied a relatively secondary place in the sensibility of Jewish descendants in the West, from that point onward, this little state - which had just given a display of its great strength, even appearing as quite a power - became a source of pride for a goodly number of Jewish descendants. As is well known, any power attracts a mass of followers and comes to constitute, to a lesser or greater degree, a locus of adulation and worship. The image of soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, svelte and spirited, perched on powerful armoured cars or leaning proudly against jet fighters, serves as an identity card for many new Jews throughout the world. The prestige that this gives has been used to the maximum by the Israeli state." (pp 93-4)
Sand could have been writing about Australian singer/songwriter Deborah Conway, just featured in the Sydney Morning Herald's GoodWeekend magazine:
"Carl Conway's family fled Russia to England after the pogroms around 1900. Deborah Conway's upbringing was not particularly religious - she doesn't believe in God - but the family had Shabbat dinner on Friday night and synagogue visits a few times a year. Over time, though, she has become increasingly passionate about her heritage. Conway and [husband Willy] Zygier ran the Shir Madness Melbourne Jewish musical Festival in 2015 and 2017 and both are avowed Zionists, believing in the development and protection of Israel as a Jewish state. Asked why her passion for Zionism has increased, she says 'I hate bullies and I feel like the world is bullying Israel.' The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement - which aims to end international support for Israel - is, says Conway, 'nothing short of horrendous anti-Semitism.' 'Look, there's no question there are contentious aspects of the Jewish state, but it's the only place in the world where Jews have a state'." (Love of a lifetime, Melissa Fyfe, 2/2/19)
To deconstruct this particularly egregious example of delusional identity politics: here we have a 'secular Jew', with no discernible connection to Palestine/Israel, who swears blind that the Israeli bully is really a victim - of "the world" no less - and maliciously smears as anti-Semites those who demand justice for the bully's Palestinian victims.
Reality couldn't be more twisted. But, to make matters worse, the feature's author, journalist Melissa Fyfe, apparently saw no need to raise an editorial eyebrow, or in any way challenge, Conway's appalling diatribe.
Saturday, October 13, 2018
School DaZe 2
In a 20/8/18 post, School DaZe, I drew your attention to a Sydney Morning Herald ad for a teaching position at Sydney's Moriah College. Among the criteria for the position was "an empathy with the Zionist ethos of our Modern Orthodox Jewish Day School is essential."
On 15 September, another such Moriah College ad appeared, but this time the word "Zionist" was conspicuous by its absence.
This could, of course, have been an oversight. Or could it perhaps be a sign of the times, namely that the term 'Zionist' has finally become something of a liability these days? First, there's the evidence of the eyes: the brutal treatment meted out on a daily basis to the Palestinians, with one Israeli outrage after another caught on camera.
But there's another aspect too. If we cut through the spin of Israel's defenders, who assert that Zionism is all about 'national self-determination for the Jewish people', or 'a national liberation movement' like any other, to the historical roots of the Zionist movement, we can see clearly that this is really a case of mutton dressed as lamb.
The fatal flaw in Zionist ideology can be seen in Theodor Herzl's The Jewish State (1896): The notion that the Jews are a 'people' or 'nation', as opposed to a faith community.
European nationalism was on the march back in the 19th century and, in many ways, it is understandable that the national idea was taken up by a segment of secular Jewish intellectuals as Zionism at the time. At the same time, too, the vast non-European world was the subject of a wave of European expansion, colonialism and settlement, with no regard whatever for the natural rights of existing non-European populations. The words of the Basel program, issued at the first ever Zionist conference in 1897, for example, tell us that "Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz Israel [The Land of Israel], and urges the "settlement" there of Jewish farmers, artisans, and manufacturers."
The simple truth of the matter is that Zionism is a form of European settler-colonialism and, like all forms of settler-colonialism, could only proceed by riding roughshod over the rights of the "existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine," as the Balfour Declaration of 1917 dismissively referred to the 90% Arab majority population there.
So, no matter how much today's Zionists try to distance themselves from that fact, and dress up the term Zionism (as in, for example, the following Wikipedia entry on the subject: "Zionism is the national movement of the Jewish people that supports the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel...the Holy Land or the region of Palestine," or as a national movement simply exercising its right of national self-determination), Zionism is really nothing more than a European colonial implant and impost on the indigenous Arab population of Palestine. This colonial-settler dynamic, with its complete disregard for the natural rights of the indigenous inhabitants of the land, is what lies behind the wanton cruelty of Israeli apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing. Is it any wonder that, in a post-colonial world, the term Zionist has become a dirty word?
On 15 September, another such Moriah College ad appeared, but this time the word "Zionist" was conspicuous by its absence.
This could, of course, have been an oversight. Or could it perhaps be a sign of the times, namely that the term 'Zionist' has finally become something of a liability these days? First, there's the evidence of the eyes: the brutal treatment meted out on a daily basis to the Palestinians, with one Israeli outrage after another caught on camera.
But there's another aspect too. If we cut through the spin of Israel's defenders, who assert that Zionism is all about 'national self-determination for the Jewish people', or 'a national liberation movement' like any other, to the historical roots of the Zionist movement, we can see clearly that this is really a case of mutton dressed as lamb.
The fatal flaw in Zionist ideology can be seen in Theodor Herzl's The Jewish State (1896): The notion that the Jews are a 'people' or 'nation', as opposed to a faith community.
European nationalism was on the march back in the 19th century and, in many ways, it is understandable that the national idea was taken up by a segment of secular Jewish intellectuals as Zionism at the time. At the same time, too, the vast non-European world was the subject of a wave of European expansion, colonialism and settlement, with no regard whatever for the natural rights of existing non-European populations. The words of the Basel program, issued at the first ever Zionist conference in 1897, for example, tell us that "Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz Israel [The Land of Israel], and urges the "settlement" there of Jewish farmers, artisans, and manufacturers."
The simple truth of the matter is that Zionism is a form of European settler-colonialism and, like all forms of settler-colonialism, could only proceed by riding roughshod over the rights of the "existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine," as the Balfour Declaration of 1917 dismissively referred to the 90% Arab majority population there.
So, no matter how much today's Zionists try to distance themselves from that fact, and dress up the term Zionism (as in, for example, the following Wikipedia entry on the subject: "Zionism is the national movement of the Jewish people that supports the re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the territory defined as the historic Land of Israel...the Holy Land or the region of Palestine," or as a national movement simply exercising its right of national self-determination), Zionism is really nothing more than a European colonial implant and impost on the indigenous Arab population of Palestine. This colonial-settler dynamic, with its complete disregard for the natural rights of the indigenous inhabitants of the land, is what lies behind the wanton cruelty of Israeli apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing. Is it any wonder that, in a post-colonial world, the term Zionist has become a dirty word?
Saturday, June 16, 2018
It Seemed Like a Jolly Good Idea at the Time
I introduced Thursday's post, Erin Go Brath, with a quote from Ronald Storrs (1881-1955), the British governor of Jerusalem from 1920-26. As indicated, the quote comes from his highly-regarded memoir Orientations (1937). It is obvious from the passage that, at the time of writing his book, Storrs was a starry-eyed admirer of the Zionist colonial project in Palestine. But, as the bloody reality of that project inevitably became apparent, the penny began to drop for him, as those wonderful, enterprising Zionist chappies of the 20s turned on Britain in the late 40s and went for its jugular.
Here's how Zionist historian Rory Miller concludes his essay Sir Ronald Storrs & Zion: the dream that turned into a nightmare (Middle East Studies, July 2000):
"For the Zionists the story [of British involvement in Palestine] concluded well with the birth of the State of Israel. For Storrs the story did not have such a happy ending. By the time of Israel's founding in 1948, Storrs' long-time interest in Palestine had crystallized into a loathing of Zionism. It had even turned into paranoia with Storrs concerned lest his public pronouncements on Zionism might result in his assassination by Zionist extremists and get him 'sterned off', as he liked to phrase it... Entries into his diary such as 'Palestine news is heartbreaking' and 'Palestine is worse than ever... I wish I could let my anxiety, even despair lapse into... indifference' evoke the bitterness, hostility and resignation of a man who had involved himself in the Palestine question for over 30 years. Indeed it is a private note made by Storrs when he was contemplating adding an addendum to the 1948 reprint of the final and definitive edition of Orientations that emotionally and eloquently best sums up the totality of his opposition to Zionism and his belief in the harm wrought by the Zionist experiment in Palestine by this time: 're-reading these chapters I compared what Britain had done for Zionism with what Zionism had done to the British, to the peaceful inhabitants of the Holy Land and to the Middle East, to Judaism and ultimately to world Jewry, to the fair name of the United Nations, to the Anglo-American relationship, upon which the future of humanity depends - then, in the speech of our book of common prayer - 'I held my tongue and spake nothing. I kept silence, yea even from God's* words, but it was pain and grief to me'."
[*The Book of Common Prayer actually says, 'good words'.]
Here's how Zionist historian Rory Miller concludes his essay Sir Ronald Storrs & Zion: the dream that turned into a nightmare (Middle East Studies, July 2000):
"For the Zionists the story [of British involvement in Palestine] concluded well with the birth of the State of Israel. For Storrs the story did not have such a happy ending. By the time of Israel's founding in 1948, Storrs' long-time interest in Palestine had crystallized into a loathing of Zionism. It had even turned into paranoia with Storrs concerned lest his public pronouncements on Zionism might result in his assassination by Zionist extremists and get him 'sterned off', as he liked to phrase it... Entries into his diary such as 'Palestine news is heartbreaking' and 'Palestine is worse than ever... I wish I could let my anxiety, even despair lapse into... indifference' evoke the bitterness, hostility and resignation of a man who had involved himself in the Palestine question for over 30 years. Indeed it is a private note made by Storrs when he was contemplating adding an addendum to the 1948 reprint of the final and definitive edition of Orientations that emotionally and eloquently best sums up the totality of his opposition to Zionism and his belief in the harm wrought by the Zionist experiment in Palestine by this time: 're-reading these chapters I compared what Britain had done for Zionism with what Zionism had done to the British, to the peaceful inhabitants of the Holy Land and to the Middle East, to Judaism and ultimately to world Jewry, to the fair name of the United Nations, to the Anglo-American relationship, upon which the future of humanity depends - then, in the speech of our book of common prayer - 'I held my tongue and spake nothing. I kept silence, yea even from God's* words, but it was pain and grief to me'."
[*The Book of Common Prayer actually says, 'good words'.]
Friday, June 8, 2018
Don't Even Think About It
What makes Israel different from every other country on earth (apart, that is, from its cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of Palestinians and other Arabs who stand up to its bullying) is that it is not a state of its citizens, but, in line with its 'Jewish state' Zionist ideology, the state of Jews all over the world - whether or not they wish to take up or refuse Israeli citizenship.
This, of course, means that while Jews get the red carpet treatment should they ever wish to avail themselves of Israeli citizenship, non-Jewish, indigenous Palestinian Arabs, whether evicted from their Palestinian homeland by Israeli forces in 1948 and 1967, or subjected to Israeli military occupation and the violence of Israeli settler thugs since 1967, haven't got a snowflake's chance in hell of ever being granted Israeli citizenship.
Yes, the Palestinian remnant, which escaped being ethnically cleansed in 1948, and which now constitutes 20% of Israel's population, are Israeli citizens, but of a distinctly inferior, second-class kind.
As it happens, one of the latter's MKs had recently dared to place a bill on the Knesset's agenda, calling for Israel "to be defined as a state of all its citizens." That is, mandating real equality between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs.
The result? "On June 5, the Knesset issued a press release stating that its Presidium (a group consisting of the speaker and deputy speakers) voted to disqualify [it]." (Israeli lawmakers kill 'equality of all citizens' bill before it is even introduced, Mohamed Mohamed, mondoweiss.net, 6/6/18)
Yes, Virginia, Israel is an apartheid state.
This, of course, means that while Jews get the red carpet treatment should they ever wish to avail themselves of Israeli citizenship, non-Jewish, indigenous Palestinian Arabs, whether evicted from their Palestinian homeland by Israeli forces in 1948 and 1967, or subjected to Israeli military occupation and the violence of Israeli settler thugs since 1967, haven't got a snowflake's chance in hell of ever being granted Israeli citizenship.
Yes, the Palestinian remnant, which escaped being ethnically cleansed in 1948, and which now constitutes 20% of Israel's population, are Israeli citizens, but of a distinctly inferior, second-class kind.
As it happens, one of the latter's MKs had recently dared to place a bill on the Knesset's agenda, calling for Israel "to be defined as a state of all its citizens." That is, mandating real equality between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs.
The result? "On June 5, the Knesset issued a press release stating that its Presidium (a group consisting of the speaker and deputy speakers) voted to disqualify [it]." (Israeli lawmakers kill 'equality of all citizens' bill before it is even introduced, Mohamed Mohamed, mondoweiss.net, 6/6/18)
Yes, Virginia, Israel is an apartheid state.
Friday, June 1, 2018
Spot the Loonie!
Bob Carr's tweeted (16/5/18) question "Is Washington in the hands of people who are clinically insane?" pretty much answers itself given the evidence he tenders:
"This quote from their ambassador to Israel, justifying the shift of the US embassy, would appear to present a prima facie case for institutional admission & a program of medication with longer term therapeutic attention: 'Well first of all, I would take issue with beginning the history lesson in 1947. Go back another 3,500 years. Go back to the Bible. I'll tell you an interesting story. One of the great commentators on the Bible, his name was Rashi, and he said, the reason that the Bible begins with the creation of the world is to create the chain of title from God directly to the Jewish people for the land of Israel, so that if the nations of the world say that the Jewish people don't own the land of Israel, they would point to the fact that God created the world and gave it to them'."
It's a virulent form of insanity called political Zionism, Bob. It's what's driving the Israeli settler movement. It's what's driving Israel. It's what's long been driving US policy in the Middle East. It used to fly pretty much under the radar, but it's now there for all who are paying attention to see.
"This quote from their ambassador to Israel, justifying the shift of the US embassy, would appear to present a prima facie case for institutional admission & a program of medication with longer term therapeutic attention: 'Well first of all, I would take issue with beginning the history lesson in 1947. Go back another 3,500 years. Go back to the Bible. I'll tell you an interesting story. One of the great commentators on the Bible, his name was Rashi, and he said, the reason that the Bible begins with the creation of the world is to create the chain of title from God directly to the Jewish people for the land of Israel, so that if the nations of the world say that the Jewish people don't own the land of Israel, they would point to the fact that God created the world and gave it to them'."
It's a virulent form of insanity called political Zionism, Bob. It's what's driving the Israeli settler movement. It's what's driving Israel. It's what's long been driving US policy in the Middle East. It used to fly pretty much under the radar, but it's now there for all who are paying attention to see.
Monday, May 28, 2018
Corbyn's Convulsion
The Zionist smear campaign against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn rolls on. The latest offensive came in the form of a leaked account of his meeting with the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council at his Commons office 4 weeks ago:
"Jeremy Corbyn was 'too unemotional or too stupid' to understand claims that he has failed to combat anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, it has been claimed. The Labour leader is described as 'bored, uninterested and condescending' in a leaked account of his meeting with Jewish leaders last month to discuss the issue. It suggests he lacks the 'emotional or intellectual ability' to comprehend their demands for more action to tackle the problem. By contrast, he sprang into life with a 'convulsion' when told that his support for a 'two state solution' in the rift between Israel and Palestine meant he was a 'Zionist'." (Corbyn was 'too stupid' to tackle Labour Party anti-Semitism in meeting with Jewish leaders, Simon Walters, dailymail.co.uk, 27/5/18)
Leaving aside the Zionist conceit that anyone who doesn't kiss the Zionist ring is either inert or stupid (or worse), let me proceed straight to Corbyn's convulsion. This is how I imagine it:
Zionist: So you support a two-state solution?
Corbyn: Yes.
Zionist: Israel and Palestine, side by side?
Corbyn: Yes, yes.
Zionist: A Jewish and an Arab state?
Corbyn: Mmm.
Zionist: A Jewish state, eh? So you're a Zionist then?
Corbyn: CONVULSION
Corbyn was obviously too savvy to fall for this ploy. For the experience of another politician who did, check out my 30/5/15 post Richard Di Natale: The Fool Who Rushed In.
"Jeremy Corbyn was 'too unemotional or too stupid' to understand claims that he has failed to combat anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, it has been claimed. The Labour leader is described as 'bored, uninterested and condescending' in a leaked account of his meeting with Jewish leaders last month to discuss the issue. It suggests he lacks the 'emotional or intellectual ability' to comprehend their demands for more action to tackle the problem. By contrast, he sprang into life with a 'convulsion' when told that his support for a 'two state solution' in the rift between Israel and Palestine meant he was a 'Zionist'." (Corbyn was 'too stupid' to tackle Labour Party anti-Semitism in meeting with Jewish leaders, Simon Walters, dailymail.co.uk, 27/5/18)
Leaving aside the Zionist conceit that anyone who doesn't kiss the Zionist ring is either inert or stupid (or worse), let me proceed straight to Corbyn's convulsion. This is how I imagine it:
Zionist: So you support a two-state solution?
Corbyn: Yes.
Zionist: Israel and Palestine, side by side?
Corbyn: Yes, yes.
Zionist: A Jewish and an Arab state?
Corbyn: Mmm.
Zionist: A Jewish state, eh? So you're a Zionist then?
Corbyn: CONVULSION
Corbyn was obviously too savvy to fall for this ploy. For the experience of another politician who did, check out my 30/5/15 post Richard Di Natale: The Fool Who Rushed In.
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Good News... Bad News
A 2008 Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation (Monash University) survey of Melbourne's and Sydney's Jewish community found that "Close to 80% of respondents indicated that they regarded themselves as Zionists." (Report Series on the GEN08 Survey, Preliminary Findings)
Nine years on, the ACJC GEN17 survey finds that, while "88% of people feel a personal responsibility to ensure that the Jewish State 'continues to exist'," only 69% identify as Zionist.
What is one to make of these figures?
Well, the good news is that when it comes to those surveyed identifying as Zionist, that's a drop of 11% on the 2008 survey. One could, perhaps, conclude therefore that Zionism is increasingly on the nose with Australian Jews.
But the bad news is that 88%. What does it mean? That 19% of those surveyed simply don't understand that feeling the need to ensure the continued existence of a Jewish State in Palestine means that they are, in fact, Zionists?
Nine years on, the ACJC GEN17 survey finds that, while "88% of people feel a personal responsibility to ensure that the Jewish State 'continues to exist'," only 69% identify as Zionist.
What is one to make of these figures?
Well, the good news is that when it comes to those surveyed identifying as Zionist, that's a drop of 11% on the 2008 survey. One could, perhaps, conclude therefore that Zionism is increasingly on the nose with Australian Jews.
But the bad news is that 88%. What does it mean? That 19% of those surveyed simply don't understand that feeling the need to ensure the continued existence of a Jewish State in Palestine means that they are, in fact, Zionists?
Saturday, April 28, 2018
The Plain Truth about the Gaza Ghetto Massacres
As you reflect on Israel's latest Friday massacre in Gaza (3 killed, 600 wounded), recall this demented Zionist's 14-year-old prediction:
"When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. Its going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day." Israeli 'geostrategist' Arnon Sofer, quoted in It's the demography, stupid, Ruthie Blum Leibowitz, jpost.com, 21/5/04)
Of course, the plain truth is that:
a) The "human catastrophe" in Gaza is a wholly Israeli creation, a by-product of Zionist ethnic cleansing in 1948.
b) The "bigger animals" are not the ghettoised and brutalised Palestinians, but their jailers, the Israelis.
c) The "insane fundamentalism" driving those Israeli "animals" is Zionism, Israel's state ideology, which insists on maintaining an exclusively Jewish state in historic Palestine at the expense of its indigenous people.
d) The only way to maintain this state of apartheid is to "kill and kill and kill. All day, every day."
"When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. Its going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day." Israeli 'geostrategist' Arnon Sofer, quoted in It's the demography, stupid, Ruthie Blum Leibowitz, jpost.com, 21/5/04)
Of course, the plain truth is that:
a) The "human catastrophe" in Gaza is a wholly Israeli creation, a by-product of Zionist ethnic cleansing in 1948.
b) The "bigger animals" are not the ghettoised and brutalised Palestinians, but their jailers, the Israelis.
c) The "insane fundamentalism" driving those Israeli "animals" is Zionism, Israel's state ideology, which insists on maintaining an exclusively Jewish state in historic Palestine at the expense of its indigenous people.
d) The only way to maintain this state of apartheid is to "kill and kill and kill. All day, every day."
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
Give Us a Break, Guardian!
Another Israeli bloodletting in Gaza. Another lame Guardian editorial:
"The soldiers use of live ammunition against unarmed demonstrators is an affront; but it is in line with the brutal attitudes towards Palestinians that have been normalised by Israeli politicians." (The Guardian view on the Gaza protests: a new challenge to Israel's blockade, 23/4/18)
It's not an "affront," it's a fucking war crime!
That aside, if the Guardian's editor, Jonathan Freedland, is so bloody ignorant that he seriously thinks that Israeli brutality towards Palestinians is something new, then he doesn't deserve editorial space on a news website, let alone the job of boss cocky.
I mean, how far back do we have to go to understand that anti-Palestinian brutality is in the Zionist DNA?
1967?
"[Israeli Prime Minister Levi] Eshkol had already had reason to be worried about the Gaza refugees roughly two years before the Six-Day War [of 1967]. The refugees were multiplying, and when their numbers reached half a million, he feared the situation would become explosive. Once, he asked the chief of staff what would happen if the Egyptians [who then controlled the Gaza Strip] simply marched the refugees - women and children in the vanguard - towards the border with Israel. [Yitzhak] Rabin said they would not do that, and if they did, as soon as the IDF had killed the first 100, the rest would go back to Gaza." (1967: Israel, the War & the Year that Transformed the Middle East, Tom Segev, 2007, p 524)
1949?
"Altogether between 2,700 and 5,000 infiltrators were killed in the period 1949-1956, the great majority of whom were unarmed." (Avi Shlaim, reviewing Benny Morris' Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation & the Countdown to the Suez War, 1993)
"The soldiers use of live ammunition against unarmed demonstrators is an affront; but it is in line with the brutal attitudes towards Palestinians that have been normalised by Israeli politicians." (The Guardian view on the Gaza protests: a new challenge to Israel's blockade, 23/4/18)
It's not an "affront," it's a fucking war crime!
That aside, if the Guardian's editor, Jonathan Freedland, is so bloody ignorant that he seriously thinks that Israeli brutality towards Palestinians is something new, then he doesn't deserve editorial space on a news website, let alone the job of boss cocky.
I mean, how far back do we have to go to understand that anti-Palestinian brutality is in the Zionist DNA?
1967?
"[Israeli Prime Minister Levi] Eshkol had already had reason to be worried about the Gaza refugees roughly two years before the Six-Day War [of 1967]. The refugees were multiplying, and when their numbers reached half a million, he feared the situation would become explosive. Once, he asked the chief of staff what would happen if the Egyptians [who then controlled the Gaza Strip] simply marched the refugees - women and children in the vanguard - towards the border with Israel. [Yitzhak] Rabin said they would not do that, and if they did, as soon as the IDF had killed the first 100, the rest would go back to Gaza." (1967: Israel, the War & the Year that Transformed the Middle East, Tom Segev, 2007, p 524)
1949?
"Altogether between 2,700 and 5,000 infiltrators were killed in the period 1949-1956, the great majority of whom were unarmed." (Avi Shlaim, reviewing Benny Morris' Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956: Arab Infiltration, Israeli Retaliation & the Countdown to the Suez War, 1993)
Friday, March 30, 2018
Fixated Persons
"A Fixated Persons Unit set up in the wake of Sydney's deadly Lindt Cafe siege has lead [sic] to charges against 17 people, some of whom 'were on the cusp of some pretty terrible things', NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said yesterday." ('We won't wait', Fuller vows on terror tactics, Deborah Snow, Sydney Morning Herald, 29/3/18)
I think Police Commissioner Fuller is onto something here. After all, just look at what happened in the absence of such a unit in 19th century Palestine:
"My dictionary defines a 'fixed idea' as follows: 'A Fixed Idea is a preconceived belief or idea, a prepossession, hence psychologically, an idea, usually delusive, which dominates the whole mental life during a prolonged period, as in certain forms of insanity.' This definition has fitted political Zionism or 'Jewish' nationalism to perfection. Ever since that Sunday, August 29, 1897, when Dr. Theodor Herzl, at the First Zionist World Conference in Basel, Switzerland, sold his bill of fare, his Judenstaat [Jewish State], to the leaders of East European persecuted ghetto Jewry, right up to the post-June 1967, 'Jewish' military victory over their 'enemies,' the Arabs.
"I know whereof I am speaking. I was a first graduate (Class 1913) of the Gymnasia Herzlia of Jaffa-Tel Aviv - the Nursery where 'Jewish' political nationalism had its rebirth after the demise of its Founding Father, Dr. Herzl. I attended the Gymnasia Herzlia from 1909 through 1913. Day and night, inside the classes and outside, I was inoculated with the 'fixed idea' of 'Jewish' nationalism. In all of Arab Palestine, in those days, there were only about 50 000 Jews, practically all living on alms - charity collections made in the Diaspora. Very few Jews, in those days, were farmers of artisans. Very few looked healthy and strong. The manly men I knew during the five years I attended the Gymnasia Herzlia were the Arab seamen who unloaded and reloaded the many steamers that had to stop miles beyond the high cliffs. Every Jew who lived in Palestine was first brought to land when he arrived from Russia, Poland or Hungary by those brave oarsmen, who got them through the narrow passage through the cliffs. Every worker on my uncle's large vineyard in Rehovot, was an Arab. Work was done by Arabs only, with few exceptions.
"Yet, the spiritual education we constantly received consisted of amanooh, artzanooh, moladtanooh - our nation, our country, our fatherland. My benchmate during my five years at the Gymnasia was Moshe Shertok, who was later to become, what it was hoped that both of us would become, a leader in the coming Jewish State. Moshe Shertok was Foreign Minister, and, for a short while, Prime Minister, of the young State of Israel. Religion was nonexistent. 'Jewish' nationalism was our new religion. We were made to understand, and feel, that the Jews of the world are sui generis, a 'Chosen People,' who must eventually all emigrate to their 'Jewish Fatherland.' There were hardly any synagogues in Jaffa-Tel Aviv. I never heard of any of my Hebrew teachers going to pray in a synagogue.
"We lived in an enchanted world of myths, dreams, and aspirations. It was a hotbed of pumped and inflated excitement and synthetic idealism. To me, who was brought up in Jerusalem, before I came to the Gymnasia, in the home of my saintly and revered grandfather who believed in, and practiced, ethical and universal Judaism (Orthodox but sincere), believed and practiced social justice in all his contacts with Jews and gentiles (he was a rich retired merchant who came 'to die in the Holy Land,'). this preaching of hatred towards the Arabs conflicted with the Prophetic Judaism of my grandfather. On his death, I left Jerusalem to prepare myself to study at the Gymnasia, at the age of 15-16. But at the age of 20, unlike my fellow-graduates, I refused to accept the scholarships offered me by the Gymnasia to study in Europe under their supervision, and decided to go America and support myself and be independent." (The Culmination & Full Manifestation of the Chronic, Pathological, Seventy-Year-Old 'Fixed Idea' of Fanatical 'Jewish' Nationalism, Moshe Menuhin*, The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time**, 1969, pp 502-03)
[*Father of the famous violinist, Yehudi Menuhin; **An absolute classic, recently republished by Forbidden Bookshelf in the US as 'Not By Might, Nor By Power': The Zionist Betrayal of Judaism.]
I think Police Commissioner Fuller is onto something here. After all, just look at what happened in the absence of such a unit in 19th century Palestine:
"My dictionary defines a 'fixed idea' as follows: 'A Fixed Idea is a preconceived belief or idea, a prepossession, hence psychologically, an idea, usually delusive, which dominates the whole mental life during a prolonged period, as in certain forms of insanity.' This definition has fitted political Zionism or 'Jewish' nationalism to perfection. Ever since that Sunday, August 29, 1897, when Dr. Theodor Herzl, at the First Zionist World Conference in Basel, Switzerland, sold his bill of fare, his Judenstaat [Jewish State], to the leaders of East European persecuted ghetto Jewry, right up to the post-June 1967, 'Jewish' military victory over their 'enemies,' the Arabs.
"I know whereof I am speaking. I was a first graduate (Class 1913) of the Gymnasia Herzlia of Jaffa-Tel Aviv - the Nursery where 'Jewish' political nationalism had its rebirth after the demise of its Founding Father, Dr. Herzl. I attended the Gymnasia Herzlia from 1909 through 1913. Day and night, inside the classes and outside, I was inoculated with the 'fixed idea' of 'Jewish' nationalism. In all of Arab Palestine, in those days, there were only about 50 000 Jews, practically all living on alms - charity collections made in the Diaspora. Very few Jews, in those days, were farmers of artisans. Very few looked healthy and strong. The manly men I knew during the five years I attended the Gymnasia Herzlia were the Arab seamen who unloaded and reloaded the many steamers that had to stop miles beyond the high cliffs. Every Jew who lived in Palestine was first brought to land when he arrived from Russia, Poland or Hungary by those brave oarsmen, who got them through the narrow passage through the cliffs. Every worker on my uncle's large vineyard in Rehovot, was an Arab. Work was done by Arabs only, with few exceptions.
"Yet, the spiritual education we constantly received consisted of amanooh, artzanooh, moladtanooh - our nation, our country, our fatherland. My benchmate during my five years at the Gymnasia was Moshe Shertok, who was later to become, what it was hoped that both of us would become, a leader in the coming Jewish State. Moshe Shertok was Foreign Minister, and, for a short while, Prime Minister, of the young State of Israel. Religion was nonexistent. 'Jewish' nationalism was our new religion. We were made to understand, and feel, that the Jews of the world are sui generis, a 'Chosen People,' who must eventually all emigrate to their 'Jewish Fatherland.' There were hardly any synagogues in Jaffa-Tel Aviv. I never heard of any of my Hebrew teachers going to pray in a synagogue.
"We lived in an enchanted world of myths, dreams, and aspirations. It was a hotbed of pumped and inflated excitement and synthetic idealism. To me, who was brought up in Jerusalem, before I came to the Gymnasia, in the home of my saintly and revered grandfather who believed in, and practiced, ethical and universal Judaism (Orthodox but sincere), believed and practiced social justice in all his contacts with Jews and gentiles (he was a rich retired merchant who came 'to die in the Holy Land,'). this preaching of hatred towards the Arabs conflicted with the Prophetic Judaism of my grandfather. On his death, I left Jerusalem to prepare myself to study at the Gymnasia, at the age of 15-16. But at the age of 20, unlike my fellow-graduates, I refused to accept the scholarships offered me by the Gymnasia to study in Europe under their supervision, and decided to go America and support myself and be independent." (The Culmination & Full Manifestation of the Chronic, Pathological, Seventy-Year-Old 'Fixed Idea' of Fanatical 'Jewish' Nationalism, Moshe Menuhin*, The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time**, 1969, pp 502-03)
[*Father of the famous violinist, Yehudi Menuhin; **An absolute classic, recently republished by Forbidden Bookshelf in the US as 'Not By Might, Nor By Power': The Zionist Betrayal of Judaism.]
Thursday, December 21, 2017
The (OFF) White Tribe
A fascinating piece in yesterday's Australian, Hanson's Stonehenge gran is no laughing matter, by Catherine J. Frieman, lecturer in European archaeology at the Australian National University's school of archaeology and anthropology:
"Of all the strange section 44 news, by far the most surreal was Pauline Hanson's claim that her grandmother was born at Stonehenge. Stonehenge... is a 4000 to 5000-year-old stone circle in the middle of a dield by the side of the A303 in Wiltshire, in the south of England. No one lives there... Wags and internet commenters (rightfully) got a bit of a laugh out of this news, and I'll admit that my first reaction was also to snigger. But, as an archaeologist who studies European pre-history, I also know that claims about personal connections to Europe's past may be more insidious than simple historical misunderstanding. As recent events have demonstrated, European icons now hold sway as status markers of white supremacy.
"In August, neo-Nazis and white nationalists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia. Many of them carried signs and paraphernalia decorated with medieval and Viking designs. At the same time, in Britain a white supremacist, neo-pagan group known as Odinists demanded that the Church of England hand over a number of churches that were, they claimed, built on Norse holy sites. Also around that time, renowned ancient historian Mary Beard spent weeks fighting with right-wing commentators and Twitter trolls over her (entirely correct) claim that Roman Britain was diverse and multicultural.
"Ideas about who our ancestors were, where they lived and what they believed are powerful. In Australia, this power has been harnessed in a strong and positive way by indigenous communities asserting their rights to their country and to their status as Australia's first people. But there is a dangerous power in the past as well. Nazi Germany funded considerable prehistoric archaeological research because Adolf Hitler believed he could draw lines of descent between Nazi Aryans and people in the Bronze and Iron ages from 3000-4000 years ago.
"Today's neo-Nazis are continuing Hitler's project when they brandish shields painted with Viking runes and symbols, or shout at marches about Vinland - a Viking settlement in northeast North America. This is, they imagine, a noble period of white European dominance. They claim (cultural, if not always genetic) descent from these imagined Vikings and so they argue that they, not First Nations people and Native Americans, are the true indigenous people in the continent. The idea here is that there was no civilisation of value in North America before Europeans arrived - a version of terra nullius that replaces the English convicts with Viking fishermen.
"In fact, we know that during the Viking period - and the medieval and Roman periods, and earlier in prehistory - Europe was ethnically diverse and people with different genealogies and skin tones lived alongside each other. Recent skeletal and DNA research demonstrates that some of Roman York's wealthiest inhabitants were African and Middle Eastern. Other DNA evidence tells us the first farmers in western Europe were genetically closer to today's Turkish population than to contemporary Europeans.
"When we talk about the ultra-right and how it creates these imagined white pasts, we almost never mention Stonehenge. Despite Hitler's love of the Bronze Age, the modern alt-right tends to stick, at least publicly, to the Vikings. But Stonehenge is not without controversy. It is probably the most famous prehistoric monument in England, if not Europe... It is also a site of spiritual significance for neo-pagans who claim they have a religious and cultural connection to Iron Age Druids... So I doubt that Hanson was engaging in nefarious acts when she listed her grandmother's place of birth as a 5000-year-old stone circle. But I also can't just laugh and move on because I know the past is powerful and no site is more English than Stonehenge.
"The settler ideology of European dominance in Australia relies on a belief that European culture, values and traditions are superior to anyone else's. European white have (Western) civilisation, the rest of the world just has identities. Call me alarmist, but when the leader of a right-wing party with explicit planks against multiculturalism, Muslim religious practices and indigenous sovereignty publicly asserts she has a blood tie to a European prehistoric site, I think it's time to start worrying."
***
Like I said, a fascinating piece, but notice how the the biggest reinvention of the past, that of political Zionism, has gone completely unreferenced.
OK, so Hitler "believed he could draw lines of descent between Nazi Aryans and people in the Bronze and Iron ages from 3000-4000 years ago," but what about Binyamin Netanyahu's immediate "line of descent": Nathan Mileikowsky (grandfather), Benzion Mileikowsky/Netanyahu (father)? What's that change of names all about?
Nathan Mileikowsky, bitten by the Zionist bug, imagined himself a direct descendant of the ancient 'Israelites,' and passed this incredible delusion on to his son, whom he named Benzion Mileikowsky. Benzion Mileikovsky then dropped the Polish 'Mileikowsky' for the Hebrew 'Netanyahu', and the rest, as they say, is history:
"In my office in Jerusalem," said PM Netanyahu in his 2011 UNGA speech, "there's an ancient seal. It's a signet ring of a Jewish official from the time of King Hezekiah. Now, there's a name of the Jewish official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu. That's my last name. My first, Benjamin, dates back a thousand years earlier to Benjamin - Binyamin - the son of Jacob, who was also known as Israel. Jacob and his 12 sons roamed these same hills of Judea and Samaria 4,000 years ago, and there's been a continuous Jewish presence in the land ever since."
"Of all the strange section 44 news, by far the most surreal was Pauline Hanson's claim that her grandmother was born at Stonehenge. Stonehenge... is a 4000 to 5000-year-old stone circle in the middle of a dield by the side of the A303 in Wiltshire, in the south of England. No one lives there... Wags and internet commenters (rightfully) got a bit of a laugh out of this news, and I'll admit that my first reaction was also to snigger. But, as an archaeologist who studies European pre-history, I also know that claims about personal connections to Europe's past may be more insidious than simple historical misunderstanding. As recent events have demonstrated, European icons now hold sway as status markers of white supremacy.
"In August, neo-Nazis and white nationalists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia. Many of them carried signs and paraphernalia decorated with medieval and Viking designs. At the same time, in Britain a white supremacist, neo-pagan group known as Odinists demanded that the Church of England hand over a number of churches that were, they claimed, built on Norse holy sites. Also around that time, renowned ancient historian Mary Beard spent weeks fighting with right-wing commentators and Twitter trolls over her (entirely correct) claim that Roman Britain was diverse and multicultural.
"Ideas about who our ancestors were, where they lived and what they believed are powerful. In Australia, this power has been harnessed in a strong and positive way by indigenous communities asserting their rights to their country and to their status as Australia's first people. But there is a dangerous power in the past as well. Nazi Germany funded considerable prehistoric archaeological research because Adolf Hitler believed he could draw lines of descent between Nazi Aryans and people in the Bronze and Iron ages from 3000-4000 years ago.
"Today's neo-Nazis are continuing Hitler's project when they brandish shields painted with Viking runes and symbols, or shout at marches about Vinland - a Viking settlement in northeast North America. This is, they imagine, a noble period of white European dominance. They claim (cultural, if not always genetic) descent from these imagined Vikings and so they argue that they, not First Nations people and Native Americans, are the true indigenous people in the continent. The idea here is that there was no civilisation of value in North America before Europeans arrived - a version of terra nullius that replaces the English convicts with Viking fishermen.
"In fact, we know that during the Viking period - and the medieval and Roman periods, and earlier in prehistory - Europe was ethnically diverse and people with different genealogies and skin tones lived alongside each other. Recent skeletal and DNA research demonstrates that some of Roman York's wealthiest inhabitants were African and Middle Eastern. Other DNA evidence tells us the first farmers in western Europe were genetically closer to today's Turkish population than to contemporary Europeans.
"When we talk about the ultra-right and how it creates these imagined white pasts, we almost never mention Stonehenge. Despite Hitler's love of the Bronze Age, the modern alt-right tends to stick, at least publicly, to the Vikings. But Stonehenge is not without controversy. It is probably the most famous prehistoric monument in England, if not Europe... It is also a site of spiritual significance for neo-pagans who claim they have a religious and cultural connection to Iron Age Druids... So I doubt that Hanson was engaging in nefarious acts when she listed her grandmother's place of birth as a 5000-year-old stone circle. But I also can't just laugh and move on because I know the past is powerful and no site is more English than Stonehenge.
"The settler ideology of European dominance in Australia relies on a belief that European culture, values and traditions are superior to anyone else's. European white have (Western) civilisation, the rest of the world just has identities. Call me alarmist, but when the leader of a right-wing party with explicit planks against multiculturalism, Muslim religious practices and indigenous sovereignty publicly asserts she has a blood tie to a European prehistoric site, I think it's time to start worrying."
***
Like I said, a fascinating piece, but notice how the the biggest reinvention of the past, that of political Zionism, has gone completely unreferenced.
OK, so Hitler "believed he could draw lines of descent between Nazi Aryans and people in the Bronze and Iron ages from 3000-4000 years ago," but what about Binyamin Netanyahu's immediate "line of descent": Nathan Mileikowsky (grandfather), Benzion Mileikowsky/Netanyahu (father)? What's that change of names all about?
Nathan Mileikowsky, bitten by the Zionist bug, imagined himself a direct descendant of the ancient 'Israelites,' and passed this incredible delusion on to his son, whom he named Benzion Mileikowsky. Benzion Mileikovsky then dropped the Polish 'Mileikowsky' for the Hebrew 'Netanyahu', and the rest, as they say, is history:
"In my office in Jerusalem," said PM Netanyahu in his 2011 UNGA speech, "there's an ancient seal. It's a signet ring of a Jewish official from the time of King Hezekiah. Now, there's a name of the Jewish official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu. That's my last name. My first, Benjamin, dates back a thousand years earlier to Benjamin - Binyamin - the son of Jacob, who was also known as Israel. Jacob and his 12 sons roamed these same hills of Judea and Samaria 4,000 years ago, and there's been a continuous Jewish presence in the land ever since."
Friday, October 13, 2017
The Weinstein Saga Takes a Turn for the Worse
With sordid revelation after sordid revelation, could the Harvey (Gimme a massage NOW!) Weinstein saga get any worse?
Of course!
Read on:
"Oscar-winning film producer Harvey Weinstein expressed his deep love and appreciation for the Jewish state on Monday, saying, 'I am an Israeli in my heart and mind.' Speaking on the red carpet at The Algemeiner's fourth annual gala in New York City, Weinstein emphasized, 'I love that country, I love what it stands for, I am proud to be Jewish.'... He also spoke of his upcoming movie 'Mila 18,' an adaption of Leon Uris' acclaimed novel on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. 'When people see 'Mila 18,' they can subtitle it 'Jews with guns,' because this is not about going into the night quietly,' Weinstein said. 'This is the birth of the modern Israelis, these were the guys in the ghetto who said we are not going to walk into concentration camps and get herded like cattle. They said, we're going to kill some Germans instead.'" (Oscar-winning producer Harvey Weinstein at Algemeiner gala: 'I am Israeli in my heart and mind', algemeiner.com, 20/9/17)
Of course!
Read on:
"Oscar-winning film producer Harvey Weinstein expressed his deep love and appreciation for the Jewish state on Monday, saying, 'I am an Israeli in my heart and mind.' Speaking on the red carpet at The Algemeiner's fourth annual gala in New York City, Weinstein emphasized, 'I love that country, I love what it stands for, I am proud to be Jewish.'... He also spoke of his upcoming movie 'Mila 18,' an adaption of Leon Uris' acclaimed novel on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. 'When people see 'Mila 18,' they can subtitle it 'Jews with guns,' because this is not about going into the night quietly,' Weinstein said. 'This is the birth of the modern Israelis, these were the guys in the ghetto who said we are not going to walk into concentration camps and get herded like cattle. They said, we're going to kill some Germans instead.'" (Oscar-winning producer Harvey Weinstein at Algemeiner gala: 'I am Israeli in my heart and mind', algemeiner.com, 20/9/17)
Monday, October 2, 2017
The Balfour Declaration Centenary: 1 Month to Go
Here's the American historian, Herbert Adams Gibbons (1880-1934), writing on the subject of Britain's odious, ill-fated November 2, 1917, decision to hand Palestine to the Zionist movement in the January 1919 edition of the New York magazine Century:
"The Zionists fall back upon their acceptance of the clause in the Balfour Declaration that 'nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.' Zionism, they say, does not mean oppression of or conflict with the other communities. If conflict arises, it will be the fault of others, and help will be asked from Dr Weizmann's 'one just and fairly responsible guardian' [Britain!] to defend the immigrants. But how can the setting up of the Jewish 'national home' in Palestine fail to affect the civil and religious rights of the present inhabitants of the land? What other result can it possibly have than to rob the Palestinian Arabs of their hope to evolve into a modern, self-governing state? The spirit of the twentieth century is unalterably opposed to government by communities constituted on theocratic principles. The evolution of self-governing democracies has been possible only through unification and secularization. Utah is an illustration. Doing away with polygamy was simply the rallying cry in the inevitable conflict with Mormonism. In Zionist congresses delegates have frequently advocated making the United States 'the promised land.' But the answer always was that the ideals of Zionism could not be realized under the American system of civil government. Mr Lloyd George is now an enthusiastic advocate of Zionism - for Palestine. But years ago, when he was lawyer for the [Zionist] organization at the time of the eastern African proposal, he told his clients frankly that they would have to change their scheme of governing Zion if Zion was established in a British colony."
"The Zionists fall back upon their acceptance of the clause in the Balfour Declaration that 'nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.' Zionism, they say, does not mean oppression of or conflict with the other communities. If conflict arises, it will be the fault of others, and help will be asked from Dr Weizmann's 'one just and fairly responsible guardian' [Britain!] to defend the immigrants. But how can the setting up of the Jewish 'national home' in Palestine fail to affect the civil and religious rights of the present inhabitants of the land? What other result can it possibly have than to rob the Palestinian Arabs of their hope to evolve into a modern, self-governing state? The spirit of the twentieth century is unalterably opposed to government by communities constituted on theocratic principles. The evolution of self-governing democracies has been possible only through unification and secularization. Utah is an illustration. Doing away with polygamy was simply the rallying cry in the inevitable conflict with Mormonism. In Zionist congresses delegates have frequently advocated making the United States 'the promised land.' But the answer always was that the ideals of Zionism could not be realized under the American system of civil government. Mr Lloyd George is now an enthusiastic advocate of Zionism - for Palestine. But years ago, when he was lawyer for the [Zionist] organization at the time of the eastern African proposal, he told his clients frankly that they would have to change their scheme of governing Zion if Zion was established in a British colony."
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Where Do You Even Begin?
Maybe in somewhere in the wilds of Georgia, where her parents originated.
Unfortunately, at some point in time, they conceived/received the mad idea, the delusion, that they weren't really Georgians, but part of a grander scheme, something called 'the Jewish people,' and that that, therefore, required them to migrate to a place called Israel, which had been, up until its majority Arab population were driven out by bomb and bullet in 1948, an integrally Arab country known as Palestine.
Their daughter, Tzipi Hotovely, the subject of our post, was, again unfortunately, too stupid, or too indoctrinated, or both, to see through the delusion she'd inherited from her parents, although in Israel, of course, this category invariably goes far, particularly in politics.
And so here she is, Israel's deputy foreign minister, telling Palestinian Israeli representatives in the Knesset, apropos UNESCO's listing of occupied Hebron and the Mosque of Ibrahim as "endangered Palestinian heritage sites," that:
"You are history thieves. Your history books are empty, and you are trying to co-opt Jewish history and Islamicize it. I recommend to UNESCO and the Arab Knesset members to read these two books, the Bible which tells the story of the Jewish people, and Assaf Voll's new bestseller, A History of the Palestinian People: From Ancient Times to the Modern Era. It will captivate you because it is empty. Because the Palestinians don't have kings and they don't have heritage sites. The Palestinians are appropriating Jewish heritage sites and displacing them, just as they are trying to change the Western Wall into an Islamic site and just like they are attempting to sever the Jews' connection to the Temple Mount." (Hotovely to Arab MKs: You are thieves of history, israelnationalnews.com, 13/7/17)
Cliocide on a grand scale.
Par for the course in Israel.
Unfortunately, at some point in time, they conceived/received the mad idea, the delusion, that they weren't really Georgians, but part of a grander scheme, something called 'the Jewish people,' and that that, therefore, required them to migrate to a place called Israel, which had been, up until its majority Arab population were driven out by bomb and bullet in 1948, an integrally Arab country known as Palestine.
Their daughter, Tzipi Hotovely, the subject of our post, was, again unfortunately, too stupid, or too indoctrinated, or both, to see through the delusion she'd inherited from her parents, although in Israel, of course, this category invariably goes far, particularly in politics.
And so here she is, Israel's deputy foreign minister, telling Palestinian Israeli representatives in the Knesset, apropos UNESCO's listing of occupied Hebron and the Mosque of Ibrahim as "endangered Palestinian heritage sites," that:
"You are history thieves. Your history books are empty, and you are trying to co-opt Jewish history and Islamicize it. I recommend to UNESCO and the Arab Knesset members to read these two books, the Bible which tells the story of the Jewish people, and Assaf Voll's new bestseller, A History of the Palestinian People: From Ancient Times to the Modern Era. It will captivate you because it is empty. Because the Palestinians don't have kings and they don't have heritage sites. The Palestinians are appropriating Jewish heritage sites and displacing them, just as they are trying to change the Western Wall into an Islamic site and just like they are attempting to sever the Jews' connection to the Temple Mount." (Hotovely to Arab MKs: You are thieves of history, israelnationalnews.com, 13/7/17)
Cliocide on a grand scale.
Par for the course in Israel.
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Israel Can't Fool All of the People All of the Time...
Even in Trumpland:
"An unprecedented [IRmep] poll reveals the gaping void between American identification with Israel and the official position taken by both major political parties. A majority of American adults - 70.3% - do not consider themselves Zionists when defined as 'A Zionist is a person who believes in the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. Only 24.9% say, 'I consider myself a Zionist' while 4.8% provided other responses." (Poll: Most Americans aren't Zionists, Grant Smith, antiwar.com, 20/6/17)
Some other interesting excerpts from the above:
"... 80 million Christian evangelicals provide a nationwide multiplier at the voting booth, the result of decades of intense Israel lobby cultivation. This critical to the Israel lobby since according to Pew research, 82% of Jewish Americans do not belong to Jewish organizations, 70% are only somewhat or 'not at all' attached to Israel, while 44% think settlement building is a bad idea. This suggests that Jewish supporters involved in the Israel lobby number only around 774,000..."
"Many prospective candidates for national office must present position papers on Israel to regional AIPAC officials before being allowed to tap a national network of single issue issue pro-Israel donors for the seed-funding necessary to launch political campaigns. Any subsequent divergence from an essentially Zionist narrative or voting record can result in loss of this financial support, primary challenges and ousting from office."
"It is a testament to the lobby's harmful propaganda campaigns that in 2014, as it battled the Iran nuclear deal, most Americans believed Iran already possessed nuclear weapons. A plurality of Americans - in contrast to much of the world - believe Palestinians occupy Israeli land and not the reverse."
"An unprecedented [IRmep] poll reveals the gaping void between American identification with Israel and the official position taken by both major political parties. A majority of American adults - 70.3% - do not consider themselves Zionists when defined as 'A Zionist is a person who believes in the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. Only 24.9% say, 'I consider myself a Zionist' while 4.8% provided other responses." (Poll: Most Americans aren't Zionists, Grant Smith, antiwar.com, 20/6/17)
Some other interesting excerpts from the above:
"... 80 million Christian evangelicals provide a nationwide multiplier at the voting booth, the result of decades of intense Israel lobby cultivation. This critical to the Israel lobby since according to Pew research, 82% of Jewish Americans do not belong to Jewish organizations, 70% are only somewhat or 'not at all' attached to Israel, while 44% think settlement building is a bad idea. This suggests that Jewish supporters involved in the Israel lobby number only around 774,000..."
"Many prospective candidates for national office must present position papers on Israel to regional AIPAC officials before being allowed to tap a national network of single issue issue pro-Israel donors for the seed-funding necessary to launch political campaigns. Any subsequent divergence from an essentially Zionist narrative or voting record can result in loss of this financial support, primary challenges and ousting from office."
"It is a testament to the lobby's harmful propaganda campaigns that in 2014, as it battled the Iran nuclear deal, most Americans believed Iran already possessed nuclear weapons. A plurality of Americans - in contrast to much of the world - believe Palestinians occupy Israeli land and not the reverse."
Thursday, June 1, 2017
The Emails are IN! 4
Further to my posts on Fairfax journalist Tony Walker's excellent opinion piece on the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and the coming 50th anniversary of same...
You'll recall his anticipation of criticism on the letters page from the usual suspects, and the clueless/gutless SMH letters editor publishing two of these (Danny Samuels and Michael Jacku).
Both gentlemen, of course, despite their spin, obfuscation and denialism on the subject of Israel's 1967 military aggression, were models of decorum, as one would expect on the letters page of a newspaper.
Go to the online comments which followed Walker's piece, however, and you'll see the usual suspects in a more direct, less disciplined mode. One of these - Joel (Canberra, May 30) - went even further, however, tossing his mask aside, and exposing Zionism's true face:
"Ross - you misunderstand. It would not only have been normal, but expected, to wipe the Palestinians out not all that long ago. The fact Israel hasn't annihilated them shows how restrained they are. If the loser uses violence, the victor can use their overwhelming force to crush them until they accept defeat - up to and including complete displacement and relocation."
No carefully crafted spin, obfuscation or denialism here, just the ravening, genocidal, Zionist beast.
Now you know what the Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza have had to endure for the past 50 bloody years.
You'll recall his anticipation of criticism on the letters page from the usual suspects, and the clueless/gutless SMH letters editor publishing two of these (Danny Samuels and Michael Jacku).
Both gentlemen, of course, despite their spin, obfuscation and denialism on the subject of Israel's 1967 military aggression, were models of decorum, as one would expect on the letters page of a newspaper.
Go to the online comments which followed Walker's piece, however, and you'll see the usual suspects in a more direct, less disciplined mode. One of these - Joel (Canberra, May 30) - went even further, however, tossing his mask aside, and exposing Zionism's true face:
"Ross - you misunderstand. It would not only have been normal, but expected, to wipe the Palestinians out not all that long ago. The fact Israel hasn't annihilated them shows how restrained they are. If the loser uses violence, the victor can use their overwhelming force to crush them until they accept defeat - up to and including complete displacement and relocation."
No carefully crafted spin, obfuscation or denialism here, just the ravening, genocidal, Zionist beast.
Now you know what the Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza have had to endure for the past 50 bloody years.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
They Shoot 16-Year Old Girls, Don't They?
Russian Jews first began colonising Ottoman Palestine in the 1880s. Following an 1891 visit to their colonies, the Russian cultural Zionist, Asher Ginzberg (Ahad Ha'am), noted a disturbing trend on the part of "our brethren" in Palestine:
"Serfs they were in the lands of the Diaspora and suddenly they find themselves in unrestricted freedom and this change has awakened in them an inclination to despotism. They treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, deprive them of their rights, offend them without cause and even boast of these deeds; and nobody among us opposes this despicable and dangerous inclination."
That "despicable and dangerous inclination [to] treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty," has only grown since the advent of the state of Israel in 1948. These days, Zionist cruelty assumes forms and refinements which Ginsberg could never have imagined. For example:
"On Sunday afternoon, Israeli police shot and killed a 16-year old Palestinian girl near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. Although the Israeli police spokesperson claimed that the teen attempted to stab a security officer, that account has been disputed. The child has been identified as Fatima Abdul-Rahman Hajiji, 16, from Qarawat Bani Zeid village, northwest of Ramallah...
"Eyewitnesses said Fatima was standing near the entrance of Bab al-'Amoud (Damascus Gate), and was at least 10 meters away from the nearest soldier... and that one of the soldiers started shouting 'knife, knife,' before 5 soldiers fired a barrage of bullets at the child. They added that Fatima was first shot with several live rounds in the chest, and the soldiers continued to fire at her after she fell onto the ground." (From Israeli police kill 16-year old Palestinian girl near the Damascus Gate, imemc.org, 8/5/17)
"Serfs they were in the lands of the Diaspora and suddenly they find themselves in unrestricted freedom and this change has awakened in them an inclination to despotism. They treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, deprive them of their rights, offend them without cause and even boast of these deeds; and nobody among us opposes this despicable and dangerous inclination."
That "despicable and dangerous inclination [to] treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty," has only grown since the advent of the state of Israel in 1948. These days, Zionist cruelty assumes forms and refinements which Ginsberg could never have imagined. For example:
"On Sunday afternoon, Israeli police shot and killed a 16-year old Palestinian girl near the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem. Although the Israeli police spokesperson claimed that the teen attempted to stab a security officer, that account has been disputed. The child has been identified as Fatima Abdul-Rahman Hajiji, 16, from Qarawat Bani Zeid village, northwest of Ramallah...
"Eyewitnesses said Fatima was standing near the entrance of Bab al-'Amoud (Damascus Gate), and was at least 10 meters away from the nearest soldier... and that one of the soldiers started shouting 'knife, knife,' before 5 soldiers fired a barrage of bullets at the child. They added that Fatima was first shot with several live rounds in the chest, and the soldiers continued to fire at her after she fell onto the ground." (From Israeli police kill 16-year old Palestinian girl near the Damascus Gate, imemc.org, 8/5/17)
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