IT SAYS IT ALL: Love Letter from Israel

In the week in which Israel held parliamentary elections and the rightwing warmonger Benjamin Netanyahu was predictably the victor, we need to all be reminded about just how utterly Zionist, expansionist and dangerous Israel has become over the years - and more so now than ever.

Below is a telling swipe at a convenient Zionist ploy, as done by my 2012 Cartoonist of the Year, Carlos Latuff:


           Courtesy of Carlos Latuff at Latuff Cartoons

It really does say it all.

RANT: (Mostly) Shameful Numbers

As this is my 100th post of 2012 (and the first time I have hit the 100-post mark in a given year with this blog), I thought it only fitting that I mark the occasion by looking at some important numbers:

Here are some important numbers at this moment in time - shameful numbers at that:

455: the number of rhinos killed in South Africa this year to the end of October:

 
    Courtesy of Eye Witness News, South Africa


729:   The international barcode number designated for products from Israel:


   Courtesy of Zazzle UK


918: The number of days Bradley Manning has been imprisoned without trial:


   Courtesy of The Bean Blog


150: The number of acres of rainforest burnt every minute of every day:



 Courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory

37: Number of Palestinian children killed by Israeli attacks in 2012:



18-month-old Eyad Abu Khosa, killed in the November Israeli airstrikes - photo by Mahmud Hams, courtesy of Russia Today


0: Number of Israeli children killed by Palestinian attacks in 2012:



 Courtesy of Al-Jazeera

They are in no particular order, as they all carry their own gravitas, and there are many, many other important numbers out there. The above were just a few numbers that have caught my attention thus far this year.


But there was a good number that came out of New York City last night:

138: The number of countries who voted in favour of Palestine being granted observer status (like the Holy See has) at the UN - 41 nations abstained and only 9 were opposed (I am proud to say that South Africa, Italy and Portugal all voted in favour)


   
    Courtesy of Mondoweiss
  
There are indeed statistics, statistics and more statistics, but sometimes a number can tell the story.

Do you get my point?

IT SAYS IT ALL: Israel the Indignant Aggressor

It's fitting that I conclude my current crop of anti-Israel posts with this brilliant cartoon by the ever-excellent Carlos Latuff, courtesy of QW Magazine:



It really does say it all. Israel is really hardly the 'victim,' now is it?

RANT: Boycott Israel, Boycott the 729 Barcode

As I am on a determined anti-Israel tirade, so I must once again make a plea (and continue my own pledge) regarding the boycott of all Israeli goods and services.

However, it's not always easy to know which products indeed come from Israel. One enormous help is knowing that the international barcode number assigned to Israeli products is (mostly) 729.

The following graphics serve to highlight the international campaign for the boycott and disinvestment of all things Israeli with the help of this barcode number:



Courtesy of OpEdNews

 
Courtesy of Indymedia of Ireland




Courtesy of the Misswinthrop blog



Courtesy of the Politically Confused blog




Courtesy of My Catbird Seat





Courtesy of Live From Occupied Palestine (an Australian blogger)


If South Africa had to endure boycotts, embargoes and sanctions in the 1970s and 1980s, then why not the Israel of today?

It's the very least every person with a conscience should do.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Proud, Apartheid Israel

My last post was a rant about how Israel is undoubtedly an apartheid state - if not identical in its racist and segregationist policies to that of apartheid South Africa, it nevertheless meets all the criteria for having its own brand of Zionist-inspired 'apartheid.'

Just over a month ago a poll of Israeli Jews was published by the Israeli liberal left-leaning daily, Ha'aretz, that subsequently provoked a firestorm of controversy against Israel around the world, and even perhaps some serious soul-searching within Jewish Israel itself. It also inspired the al-Jazeera article by Ben White that formed the basis of my last post, and to which I made many references. Below is a graphic breakdown of that poll's controversial findings:



NB: The "famous American author who is boycotting Israel" as quoted in the above Ha'aretz poll is Alice Walker, the African-American author of the best-selling novel The Color Purple. 

They are very telling results indeed. They strongly suggest a (Jewish Israeli) nation that is at somewhat odds with the oppression of the Palestinian people by their state of Israel, but who seem somehow resigned to being the oppressor and, even more bizarrely, to being okay with living in what is essentially an apartheid state. 

Even the article in Ha'aretz by Gordon Levy about their own poll had the headline: "Apartheid, by any other name."

But then the byline to the that very headline reads: "No, Israel is not an apartheid state, but the occupation in the territories is apartheid." 

Excuse me?

That's a bit like a headline back in 1985 in, say, the Johannesburg daily newspaper The Star having stated: "No, South Africa is not an apartheid state, but the homeland system is apartheid."
Yeah, right. Talk about cognitive dissonance on a grand, national scale.

The journalist Christopher Bollyn wrote an excellent article in his blog in response to this poll in late October, entitled "Israel - Apartheid Without Shame or Guilt." Here are some of the points he makes, even further evidence of the apartheid state that is Israel, if any was needed:

• Israeli checkpoints prevent Palestinians from moving freely in their own country. Jews, and cars with Jewish license plates, however, are allowed to pass without stopping
• Three out of four Israelis support the use of segregated roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank
• A third to half of Jewish Israelis want to live in a state that practices formal, open discrimination against Israeli citizens who are not Jewish. An even larger majority wants to live in an apartheid state if Israel annexes the territories

Bollyn makes the telling observation that the Ha'aretz poll shows how it "...lays bare an image of Israeli society, and the picture is a very, very sick one. Now it is not just critics at home and abroad, but Israelis themselves who are openly, shamelessly, and guiltlessly defining themselves as nationalistic racists." 

He continues, "We're racists, the Israelis are saying, we practice apartheid and we even want to live in an apartheid state. Yes, this is Israel." And makes the further salient points that, "The "Jewish" part of "Jewish democracy" has won big time. The "Jewish" gave "democracy" a knockout, smashing it to the canvas. Israelis want more and more Jewish and less and less democracy. From now on don't say Jewish democracy. There's no such thing, of course. There cannot be. From now on say Jewish state, only Jewish, for Jews alone. Democracy - sure, why not. But for Jews only." 

Bollyn then makes a very serious conclusion about the state of the state of (Jewish) Israel: "the image of Israel 2012 is this: We don't want Arabs, don't want Palestinians, don't want equality, and the hell with all the rest. Values-shmalues, morals-shmorals. Democracy and international law - those are matters for anti-Semites, not us. We will vote for Netanyahu again, recite that we're the only-democracy-in-the-Middle-East and wail that the whole world is against us."

Because that is indeed the Israel of today - democratic, yet for whom?; defiant, yet so very scared; oppressor, yet always the victim. 

Hypocritical, shameful Israel.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Israel the Apartheid State

I've said it before in my blog, and I'll say it again: the state of Israel is an apartheid state. 



My anti-Israeli stance was sparked (yet again) by the recent bombardment of Gaza by Israeli forces on the (yet again) trumped up charges that Hamas was threatening to send missiles into Israel. There was even talk of an all-out assault on Gaza by Israel. At least Hamas responded with over 1000 short-range missiles. At the end of the week-long battle between the two sides there were 160 dead Palestinians, with over 1000 wounded, whilst Israel had six reported dead.

According to a BBC report cited in Workers World, Israel were only held back from a full-on invasion on Gaza due to a "“a shift in international support” away from Israel."

One marvels at how there can still be any international support for Israel, given its many atrocities against Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon, etc., over the years, let alone support that can still "shift" away from them.  

Once again, many more Palestinian lives were lost compared to Israeli lives in this latest assault. Once again, an Israeli life is worth a lot more than a Palestinian life. That is how it has always been throughout history when comparing the life of the oppressor to the oppressed.

I was quite surprised to come across a piece of online journalism posted on October 29th that is highly critical of Israel's track record to date, and by no other than al-Jazeera. I say surprised, because  over the past year or so I have lost a lot of the respect I once had for their once-vaunted television station. More and more al-Jazeera looks and sounds like CNN with an Arab face - and that's not a good thing. So it was heartening to read the said article written by the British freelance journalist, Ben White, who specializes in Palestine/ Israel.

Ben White provides a laundry list of Israeli transgressions second to none, which is why I found the article so  compelling and worth blogging about. White is correct when he states how, "To talk about Israeli apartheid is not to suggest a precise equivalence with the policies of the historic regime in South Africa. Rather, apartheid is a crime under international law independent of any comparison..." He then quotes former UN Special Rapporteur John Dugard, who makes the excellent point that, "It [apartheid] is Israel's own version of a system that has been universally condemned."

The neverending land grabs since 1948, the anti-Arab laws, even against Arab Israelis, the broken promises and treachery by Israel in international law 

White makes interesting reference to Israeli and other polls in recent years in which Israeli Jews have been shown to have the following clearly racist views [links within the actual article by White to other articles on the given data are shown here in blue bold]:

• over half of Jewish Israelis saying marriage to an Arab is "equal to national treason" 
• 78 per cent of Jewish Israelis opposing Arabs joining the government
• 62 per cent of Jewish Israelis encouraging the emigration of Palestinian citizens
• 36 per cent of Jewish Israelis being in favour ofrevoking the voting rights of non-Jews

White quotes more examples of how Israeli society sounds remarkably apartheid-esque:

• Kadima MK (Member of the Knesset) Otniel Schneller praised the decision for "articulat[ing] the rationale of separation between the peoples and the need to maintain a Jewish majority and the [Jewish] character of the state", linking this to the formulation of "two states for two peoples"
• Ironically, this slogan of Zionist "moderates" (yes, it's all relative) echoes the rhetoric of Apartheid South Africa's politicians, who warned that "either we must follow the course of equality, which must eventually mean national suicide for the white race, or we must take the course of separation"
• In 2007, Israel's internal security agency the Shin Bet stated it would "thwart the activity of any group or individual seeking to harm the Jewish and democratic character of the state of Israel, even if such activity is sanctioned by the law"
• In 2008, the agency's then-chief told US officials that many of the "Arab-Israeli population" are taking their rights "too far"
• Israeli law provides for the banning of electoral candidates who deny "the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people"
• Proposed bills can be rejected on the grounds that they undermine "Israel's existence as the state of the Jewish people"
• In Jerusalem, constantly touted by Israel's leaders as the country's "eternal" capital, Palestinian residents in the illegally annexed East face planning restrictions, home demolitions, discrimination in municipal services, and the community-shattering Apartheid Wall. 
• Speaking to BBC's Hardtalk in July 2011, Mayor Barkat openly confirmed that he seeks to maintain a Jewish majority in the city (White asks, "imagine if the mayors of London, New York or Paris stated that Jewish residents must not rise above a certain proportion.")
• There are over 300,000 Israeli citizens living in West Bank settlements (plus 200,000 in East Jerusalem), a network of colonies among a Palestinian population without citizenship.
•  Palestinians' freedom of movement is controlled by a bureaucratic "permit" system, enforced by some 500 checkpoints and obstacles. 
• The vast majority of the Apartheid Wall, 700km in length and 70 per cent completed or under construction, lies inside the occupied West Bank. 
• The illegality of this de facto annexation [of the Wall] was confirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in their 2004 advisory opinion.

And it goes on:

• In 60 per cent of the West Bank ("Area C"), Palestinians must apply for building permits from Israeli occupation forces; yet according to a 2008 UN report, 94 per cent of applications are denied. Building illegally means demolition.
• In 2011, Israel demolished 620 Palestinian-owned structures in the West Bank, part of what the EU has called a "forced transfer of the native population". 
• Israel also exploits the West Bank's natural resources, such as its "discriminatory" control of water access and usage: Palestinians, over 80 per cent of the population in the West Bank, are restricted to 20 per cent of the water from the main underground aquifer. 
• Human Rights Watch have called Israel's regime in the West Bank a "two-tier system" where Palestinians face "systematic discrimination" (the same terminology they have used to describe policies inside the pre-67 borders as well)
• The Gaza Strip, home to some 1.7 million Palestinians a majority of whom are refugees, is blockaded by the Israeli military behind perimeter fences and "buffer zones" (including at sea)
• Restrictions on movement began in the early 1990s, with an intensified siege being implemented in 2006-'07. Until today, Israel blocks almost all exports from the territory, and pursues what it calls a "separation" policy for the purpose of cutting off Gaza from the West Bank.
• In March, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) described Israel's violations of the right to equality in unprecedented terms. Noting "segregation between Jewish and non-Jewish communities" and a lack of "equal access to land and property" inside Israel's pre-1967 borders, CERD found a regime of "de facto segregation" in the West Bank severe enough to prompt a reminder of the "prohibition" of "apartheid".

The list could go on and on and on and on and on...

Gosh, how very, very familiar this all feels to me. Ah, yes (and as I too have spoken about before), it all sounds terribly reminiscent of how my fellow whites were thinking about blacks and black majority rule and the 'black threat' back in 1980s apartheid South Africa. Different racial issues, same racial prejudices. 

EXCEPT, back then South Africa was a pariah state - as a white South African teenager I was even spat at by a Belgian couple when touring Austria with my mom in 1984. We were constantly harangued because of being white South Africans then. Do Israeli Jews really put up with that much antagonism today?

Apartheid South Africa was banished from the United Nations, the Olympic Games and most 'civilized' pursuits of nations, whereas Israel today is, for the most part, quite comfortably a member of the 'family of nations.' THAT is what I continue to fail to understand.

Israelis, Zionist Jews and their legions of apologists keep making the position of Israel seem somehow 'unique'  in world history, somehow tenuous because of its very 'unique' racial and religious and geopolitical realities. 'Unique' in so many ways, and therefore fully deserving of being able to 'defend' its uniqueness by oppressing an entire people. It's as if Israel is indeed infused by some divine providence to oppress at will, even if conveniently leveraged on the rampant Islam-phobic fears that permeate the West and, in particular, the United States. 

But it's all smokescreens and mirrors. Israel is not unique in any way. For all its so-called religious, racial and geopolitical 'uniqueness,' Israel is little more than a shabby, oppressive little apartheid state, wearing its quasi-racist 'right to self-determination' like a suit of armour with missiles attached.

Israel may be all gleaming and 'modern' and 'Western' to those who care not to look any deeper (as Johannesburg most certainly was back in 1985), but it is still a wretched, oppressive and racist nation at its core, hell-bent on oppressing an entire people at any cost. 

It has no moral imperative because it lost the moral argument a long time ago.

Israel is nothing more than a shabby, tatty little state. I just feel for the millions of second class citizens (and non-citizens) who have to live and die in its malevolent, racist shadow.

Do you get my point?

SCHMUCK OF THE MONTH: Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN

The scene of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointing to a crude picture of a bomb when addressing the United Nations this week had to be seen to be believed:

I was so gobsmacked when I first saw it on the news, that my first reaction was to burst out laughing.


Image courtesy of latinospost.com

The leader of the apartheid state of Israel was using it as analogy for the escalating ‘illegal actions’ of Iran as ludicrous excuse for Israel’s panting desire to justify attack of Iran. The bitch on heat of the Middle East is at it again.

The fact that he was using what was tantamount to a childish scrawl out of a primary school art project only made the entire affair even more laughable and ludicrous – if it were not over an issue so incredibly dangerous.

The drums of war by another rogue nation at the UN are being played yet again, as ominous prologue to what is fast becoming a certainty – war with Iran. And heaven help us ALL when Israel and its Master Muppet, the United States, decide to make that deadly and unbelievably stupid move.

One thing is for sure: this image of Netanyahu and his amateur-beyond-belief art project will go down as one of the most surreal moments in the too often insalubrious history of the United Nations General Assembly.  

RANT: A Ruse About the Jews in the News

Photo courtesy of wina.com

Much fuss was made this past week of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanhayu, and his much-publicized and ‘controversial’ blitz through America. Turns out that instead of getting the usual Jewish-loving, Palestinian-hating, AIPAC-lobbied orgy of Israel loving that the Americans love to bamboozle Israeli heads of state and other minions of the Jewish apartheid state, he was actually ‘snubbed’ by no less than American President, Barack Obama.

The media was in a frenzy about how Obama had basically tut-tutted Netanyahu about invading Iran, with the rather stern caveat that the United States would not simply “attack” (invade) at the behest of Israel, and that “further dialogue” with the Iranians was needed. It was reported that Netanyahu was furious about this ‘volte face’ by Obama and people were analysing it to death, speculating that this was a ‘new low’ in US-Israeli relations, and that perhaps now Israel could not simply attack (invade) Iran with the full backing of the United States.

Republican presidential (non-) contender Mitt Romney was quick to declare his and his party’s undying (and frankly sick and twisted) love and devotion to Israel, no doubt making it clear that if he were to become president of the United States that Israel would have his full support and backing, not to mention missiles and other hardware to rain down on Tehran. Like any good corporate scheister gunning for the ultra-rightwing evangelical vote would declare to the apartheid state of Israel.

Even Paul Lavelle’s talk show on usually America-sceptic Russia Today (RT) asked his panel, “Has bipartisan support for Israel become a Republican cause?”

I smell a rat.

And I’ll tell you why:

This is all a ruse by Barack Obama to placate (and clinch) the liberal vote come the election in November. Whatever pundits may say, Obama still needs the support and votes of the tree-hugging, anti-war, anti-Wall Street, educated, basically secular and very pissed off liberals of America, i.e. many of the very people who swept him to power in 2008. He needs their votes.

So, what does Obama the consummate devious, spineless politician do? He suddenly comes out all ‘peace-loving’ and ‘cautious’ and speaking the words of the ‘diplomat,’ none of which this warmonger par excellence is, of course.  And he uses a visit by the Prime Minister of Israel to cement this ruse in the public and media eye. Because it’s all bullshit, as anyone with a hint of memory will know. This ‘change of heart’ is coming from the same man that has been beating the drum of war against Iran for over two years now? This is now from the same man who is still heavily supporting ‘rebel’ forces in order to overthrow Assad in Syria, which everyone knows is a gambit to get at Iran?

Come on! It’s all a ruse – it has to be ruse.

So, here’s how I see it: behind closed doors, Obama has given Netanyahu his full assurances that come January the United States will fully back an Israeli attack on Iran on some trumped up charge or another, but until then Obama must play the ‘liberal, anti-war’ president just as he so effectively did as Democrat presidential contender in the 2008 election. So he asks Netanyahu to bide his time and even take one on the chin as Obama will have to ‘sternly rebuke’ him for now so that he can get all those peace-loving, war-hating liberal votes.

Netanyahu, being Jewish and genetically knowing a great deal when he sees it, grabs Obama’s hands with both hands and vigorously agrees to the whole charade. Elated, he walks out and in front of the world media and makes as if he has been royally snubbed by Obama and is foot-stomping furious about it. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

Come January or a few weeks thereafter, and just watch the newly re-elected Obama come out in full support of Israel as it forges an attack on Iran on some trumped up charge or another.

It’s the only ploy that makes sense. And I am sure that there are many others who have come to the same conclusion. Ironically, it makes the war with Iran now seem more inevitable than ever. And that is by far the scariest aspect of this entire US-Israeli-concocted and cynical charade.

Do you get my point?

It Says It All: Israeli Hegemony

I saw this brilliant cartoon today in an excellent article about the hypocrisy of the United States and the West on the website, www.veteranstoday.com:



Need one say more?

RANT: The So-Called "Friends of Syria"

Few things in this world make me as angry as hypocrisy. Yet it is everywhere. The historical record is rife with hypocrisy; human nature is rife with hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of the powerful, the hypocrisy of the pleb - it has been a mainstay of human society and has shaped who we are, regardless of race, culture or creed. Hypocrisy has no doubt abounded for millennia, it would seem, and certainly continues to abound with wild abandon today.

The Syrian 'crisis' is an excellent case in point.

First and foremost, this is an internal 'crisis', yet it has been mangled by certain Western and Arab powers to be a crisis that somehow 'affects us all'. But it doesn't, not should it. If the Assad regime is under attack from internal forces, then so be it. But it is an internal matter, whatever the 'civilized world' might wish to harp on about. Civil wars and internal revolutions have occurred many times before, and shall continue to occur long into the future.

The hypocrisy of it all is the we all know this is nothing more than a geopolitical battle being waged with one goal in mind - Iran. Syria is strategic conduit to that nation that poses so many 'threats' to so many 'powers' (when in fact, it doesn't). Iran is a threat to the United States and the West because it simply won't capitulate to ludicrous and patently unfair allegations about its nuclear program. Iran is a threat to Israel because the apartheid Jewish state is the hysterical bitch that never shuts the hell up and shit stirs like the most vile gossip on the block.

Iran wants to develop nuclear energy. I am entirely opposed to nuclear energy on ecological and human health grounds, but when nuclear countries like the United States, the UK, France and Israel get all shrill and self-righteous about Iran's 'nuclear intentions', then all I want to do is throw up - such is my bile from the sheer hypocrisy of these anti-Tehran allegations.



However, all the hypocrisy gets even richer when just this weekend a symposium of countries calling themselves 'Friend of Syria" meet in Istanbul to declare their unrelenting devotion (and plenty bucks and arms) to the so-called 'freedom fighters' in Syria trying to topple the Assad regime.

Never mind that these so-called 'freedom fighters in Syria have been:

• Accused by many Syrian witnesses of mostly being comprised of foreign mercenaries
• Accused by many Syrian and foreign aid people inside the country of countless horrific atrocities against civilians in cities like Homs
• Accused by the International Red Cross of being a leading cause of the thousands of Syrian refugees who have fled to neighbouring countries like Turkey and Jordan
• Aided, abetted and very strongly supported by certain Western and Arab countries with arms, cash and, of course, diplomatic support 

Hillary Clinton, that sold-out and inept Secretary of State from the United States, is there too, grinning like a demented old mog and looking more bedraggled than ever. So too other nations committed to overthrowing Assad, all in the name of the "people of Syria" and that most whored-out word of all, "democracy."

I say hypocrisy because one of the leading bulwarks in this Laughable Posse of Hypocrites congregated in Istanbul is none other than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, undoubtedly one of the most oppressive and outright hideous governments on planet Earth. And there they are berating Syria's Assad for being an "oppressor" and violating "human rights," full of indignant self-righteousness.

This 'indignation' from SAUDI ARABIA?!!

Oh, come on! How can anyone not see the sheer hypocrisy of just that?!

We all know what this is all about: it's about nothing more than oil and geopolitical power by a seriously ailing and declining (and bankrupt, by the way) imperial power and its lapdog allies in the region, as well as from the West. Oil and money-obsessed geopolitics. Nothing else. Hence all the streams and rivers and enormous oceans of putrid, nauseating hypocrisy.

This has stuff all to do with democracy or violations of human rights. This is cynical, malevolent geopolitical posturing at its very worst. And we as human beings should be sick to the stomach that this is what we have progressed to in the year 2012.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Apartheid South Africa A Mirror to Israel

I'm on an anti-Israel offensive today. Just minutes after reading that the IDF launched a deadly attack on Gaza, my anger at this rogue state has just gone through the roof.

There they go again- the Big Bully Israel punching way above its weight, no doubt largely thanks to the massive support of the United States and the vociferous pro-Israel lobby in Washington D.C.

I am often amazed at how people seem so appalled when Israel is called an apartheid state. They get seduced by Israel's patina of 'democracy' (as long as you don't live in the occupied territories), the 'sophistication' of Tel Aviv (just as Johannesburg was back in the 1980s) and its (mostly) white and European-looking population. Yes, that does help in the United States and Europe.

This was South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s:

• 'Bantustans' ("homelands") for the 'others'
• laws and regulations along racial lines
• an 'enemy within' that had to be brutally contained
• deep-seated paranoia
• a militarized state
• a much-feared secret service
• death squads mandated by government to 'eliminate terrorist threats'
• endless and very 'justifiable' wars/ skirmishes with or raids on neighbours
• a 'beacon of hope' in a region of dictators and 'failed states'
• mandatory conscription
• the fervent support of Washington D.C. and many in the West
• the condemnation of most of the rest of the world

That was South Africa during the height of apartheid.

Sound familiar? Hang on, doesn't this all sound very much like Israel today?! Yes, it most certainly does.

Yet calling Israel an apartheid state (which it most certainly is) is hysterically attacked as being 'anti-Semetic' (which it need not be, convenient as that attack may be). The 'anti-Jew' counter-attack by Israeli and Zionist apologists is so old, so tired and so knee-jerk, it's beyond reproach. Yawn.

No, I'm just anti-apartheid and oppression of human rights, and I don't like bullies, Israel.

This image pretty much says it all, whether one likes it or not:


Do you get my point?

RANT: Israel the New Year's Aggressor - Again

It's that time of year again - it's the final days of the year, so that must mean Israel is once again thinking of going on a rampage against Gaza and the occupied territories.

After all, they did conduct a massive (and highly illegal, not to mention internationally condemned) offensive against Gaza three years ago at exactly this time of year. It was a brutal assault which killed over 1, 500 Palestinians - and four (or was it three?) Israelis.

According to Press TV on this latest Israeli assault:
"...a Tel Aviv official has again threatened to launch another war on the blockaded and impoverished territory, describing the move as “a war of necessity for Israel”. Referring to the military plan as a “swift and painful” war, chief of staff of the Israeli military, Lt. General Benny Gantz, also claimed that the measure was “not a matter of choice, but a war of necessity” for Tel Aviv."

"A war of necessity"...in what way?

The reasons given why and all the background machinations make very little difference - once again, Israel the Rogue Apartheid State will go on an illegal rampage and kill countless innocent Palestinian civilians and, if lucky for the IDF, a few Palestinian terrorists. The excuses, the reasons, the geopolitical fluff - it will all ebb away soon after the dust settles and Palestine must count its dead yet again.

According to the Irish Times:
"ISRAELI OFFICIALS are stepping up their rhetoric, warning that another invasion of Gaza is just a matter of time. Speaking as Israel launched two air strikes on militant targets in the strip, Israel’s top general, chief of staff Lieut Gen Benny Gantz, warned that cracks had emerged in Israel’s deterrence of militant groups and a second round of fighting was no longer a matter of choice for Israel. “Such a round must be initiated by Israel and must be swift and painful. I do not advise Hamas to test our mettle.”

Test your "mettle", Israel? You have no character and no moral stature as a nation, Israel, therefore how can you have "mettle" to be tested?

I'm sick to death of this rogue nation let loose in a tinderbox region, all because of the express support of the biggest bully on the block, the United States (Israel being the second-biggest bully), fired up by an all too powerful pro-Israel and Jewish lobby in Washington D.C.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Israel is nothing more than a pathetic apartheid state masquerading as a democracy and the only 'beacon of light' in a 'mad' region.



I should know - I lived in apartheid South Africa. I know all the signs, baby. And Israel has them in spades.

Do you get my point?

RANT: Shame on Greece, Gatekeepers for Israel

A flotilla of activist boats wanting to sail to Gaza in order to break the illegal and amoral Israeli blockade of Gaza remains blocked from doing so in a Greek port.And now, after almost two weeks of being held in limbo by the Greek authorities, this disparate group of about 300 brave activists are starting to disperse.

What else are they to do now that a European country has basically scuppered their chances of setting sail for Gaza?

What I find so obscene about all of this is how it is Greece, of all European countries, that is the one playing gatekeeper and watchdog to that most divisive and racist state of all, Israel.

Greece, for crying out loud!

This is the same Greece that is having its coffers pillaged by the likes of the IMF and ECB.

This is the same Greece that is on the verge of economic collapse, a victim of the sinister foibles of Eurozone politics and economics and the venality of their own leaders.

This is the same Greece who's population is sliding deeper and deeper into debt, recession and long-term poverty.

This is the same Greece who's populace has been striking and demonstrating and rioting in the streets of Athens and inspiring all those of us who want a better, saner economic future.

This is the same hijacked, demoralised, raped Greece.

And what do the Greeks see fit to do? Capitulate to archetypal Israeli bullying and perverted European political pressures that leave a flotilla of peace activists stranded in one of their ports.

Yet another Western stooge for the apartheid state that is Israel.

All of this from...Greece.

Greece should be ashamed of itself.

Do you get my point?

RANT: No(where) Ark

According to Reuters today:

"Irish pro-Palestinian activists accused Israel on Thursday of sabotaging their boat while it was docked in Turkey to stop it joining an international flotilla bound for the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.The crew of the MV Saoirse realized there was something wrong with the propeller shaft when they took the vessel for refueling at Gocek on Turkey's southwest coast on Monday. Activists said a marine engineer who inspected the damaged boat in dry dock declared that it had been sabotaged.

"It's identical to the damage to the Swedish boat and you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out who is behind this," Paul Hogan, a former Irish rugby international who was among the activists, told Irish state broadcaster RTE. "Israel has made statements saying that this flotilla will be stopped. The flotilla, which is now down to nine vessels from some 15 planned earlier, hopes to set out over the weekend in an attempt to run an Israeli naval blockade to take relief supplies to Gaza, home to 1.5 million Palestinians."





The Israelis are at it again.

No doubt the Israelis are denying it. Or scoffing at it in that self-righteous and smug arrogance that has become the hallmark of the racist Jewish state.



Whom am I to believe? A group of Irish peace activists versus Israel?

Irish peace activists vs The Apartheid State of Israel.

Hmmmm, that's a really tough one.

Do you get my point?

RIP Vittorio Arrigoni

I was very saddened to read on Friday about the murder of the Italian peace activist, Vittorio Arrigoni. He was found dead, presumably from either being strangled or hanged, in an abandoned house in Gaza. He had been abducted just one day before. There had already been a Youtube clip showing him blindfolded and bloodied and with one of his captor's hands holding up his face by his hair.




The savages that did this to him are some extreme Islamist group, known as 'Salafist jihadists', and who have already taken responsibility for his murder. May they all rot in their collective little Muslim hell, the bastards.

The referred to him as an 'infidel' and accused Italy of being an 'infidel nation'. Imagine - a word as primitive and medieval as 'infidel' still being used in the 21st century.


This is a man who left his native Italy in 2008 and, under the auspices of the NGO, International Solidarity Movement (ISM), entered Gaza by boat in order to voice his opposition, along with other peace activists, to the illegal and inhumane blockade of Gaza by Israel. I have read that he was very loved within Gaza and had many Palestinian friends and admirers.


And now, in this deepest and most sick of ironies, he gets killed by Palestinian terrorists, a group of fanatics amongst the very people to whom he came to show his most brave solidarity.

Or perhaps masterminded by Mossad? That certainly wouldn't surprise me.


Of course, the Israelis and Jewish/ pro-Israeli online press are milking it hugely for what it's worth. The irony is obviously not lost on them, and it serves only to reinforce their own twisted prejudices about the Palestinians, and make their own perverted country, the perversion known as the State of Israel, somehow the 'winner' in all of this. 'You see - they're barbarians, these Palestinians. They even kill those who come to support them and who hate us," you can almost hear the Zionist press crowing.


Palestinian terrorists, Israeli apartheid state, Zionist apologists - all part of the same, sick festering broth. Bastards, all of them.

I know it's because of his leftwing and anti-Israeli occupation beliefs that I have so much empathy for him. Perhaps it's too because he is an Italian and has the same first name as I.


Whatever his failings and whatever muck people might throw at him, this was no doubt a basically decent, courageous man of conviction who wanted to show his solidarity with the Palestinian people and show his outrage at the state of Israel.

And he dies alone in an abandoned house in this most shocking manner. A brave life cut short far too soon in a far too barbaric manner and already mocked by far too many.

He deserved so much better. May you, a man of peace, rest in eternal peace, Vittorio.