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To the surviving people of Palestine;

I am truly so very sorry that you, your families, your neighbors, and your country suffer so as a brutal slaughter is waged across your land. I have tried to remain informed and active politically so that I could do whatever I can to help prevent my country from inflicting further such tragedies on others. As you might imagine, sometimes I too feel very helpless in this regard. You all have done much to remind me that sometimes courage can be as simple a thing as to just keep moving forward. And for that, you have my sincere respect, admiration, and gratitude. Please forgive us for not doing more to protect you.

To the dead, there is nothing I can say to lessen the pain. You are missed.

~ LanceThruster

WilliamCharles 8 Jan 26
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3

I posted this on Facebook a while back:
A thought just crossed my mind that could possibly be translatable to the Palestinian cause, and my bet is that it would have a remarkable effect. Despite the fact that it may be found to be an offensive idea to some Palestinians, it could cause utter chaos in Israel. We all know that Gaza is not much different than the concentration camps portrayed in films of world war II in Germany, and how the Jews were forced to wear big yellow stars on their clothing, identifying them a Jew.

My thought is this: Can you image the psychological effect that would occur in Israel, if the Palestinians started wearing these yellow stars? Not JUST in Israel, but around the world? The image of them being shot at while wearing these stars? I realize it might take some serious overcoming on the part of Palestinians to do this . . . . but my bet is that the outcome would lead to some serious problems for Israel, when the world starting seeing this, and automatically associating it with the Holocaust . . . . I realize it might sound like a crazy idea, but one has to look at the possible outcome after it was done, to really see the reasoning behind it . . . .

Imagery is powerful, and this image has been burned into people's minds . . . . but if it were turned against the Israelis? I think it would have a devastating effect upon them and the world as a whole.

THHA Level 7 Jan 26, 2019

Quite a powereful idea. In fact, they (the occupiers known as "Israel" ) already have specially designated license plates for Palestinians to make sure they don't drive on the "wrong" roads.

I like it. I think Britain lost Ireland and India because their rule was exposed as immoral. The force of that disapproval was stronger than weapons.

2

We need to remember this was Palestine before Israel. The Zionist government has taken what they have experienced and used some of that against other in the name of 'settlement.' They then wonder why there is a spate of anti-Semitism in the world (too many people don't understand the difference between Semitism and Zionism). When you take something from another you are the bad guy not the other person who is only trying to protect what is their home.

2

This new version of Zionism is not acceptable to me. Israel should not be turning the Gaza Strip into one big ghetto. I think the founders of Israel in 1948 would disapprove how some Israelis treat the Palestineans.

I'm thinking that last part is more a case of, "act now, apologize later."

Canadian historian, Gwynn Dyer remarked in his book/documentary "War" - "Everyone is theoretically against war, as long as they get to freeze the timeframe at the moment of their choosing."

2

From my LanceThruster profile at Mondoweiss.com

"I grew up with the conventional wisdom believing that the Israelis were the "white hats" and that the Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims were the "black hats." After 9/11, I wanted to know more about the conflict in the ME. I came to the realization that the narrative was totally one-sided. I largely credit many outstanding Jewish voices (my close friend Bernie the Attorney for one) for opening my eyes.

I see on a daily basis the efforts by Zionists and their stooges to dismiss truth-tellers in the most reprehensible manner, up to and including threats of violence.

Truth needs no army of thugs to establish it; only lies need enforcers."

Source:

Mondoweiss.com

2

Bertrand Russell got it.

From: [normanfinkelstein.com]

Bertrand Russell on Israel and Palestine
On December 20, 2012

Bertrand Russell’s Last Message

By Bertrand Russell

This statement on the Middle East was dated 31st January, 1970, and was read on 3rd February, the day after Bertrand Russell’s death, to an International Conference of Parliamentarians meeting in Cairo.


:

"The latest phase of the undeclared war in the Middle East is based upon a profound miscalculation. The bombing raids deep into Egyptian territory will not persuade the civilian population to surrender, but will stiffen their resolve to resist. This is the lesson of all aerial bombardment.

The Vietnamese who have endured years of American heavy bombing have responded not by capitulation but by shooting down more enemy aircraft. In 1940 my own fellow countrymen resisted Hitler’s bombing raids with unprecedented unity and determination. For this reason, the present Israeli attacks will fail in their essential purpose, but at the same time they must be condemned vigorously throughout the world.

The development of the crisis in the Middle East is both dangerous and instructive. For over 20 years Israel has expanded by force of arms. After every stage in this expansion Israel has appealed to “reason” and has suggested “negotiations”. This is the traditional role of the imperial power, because it wishes to consolidate with the least difficulty what it has already taken by violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression. The aggression committed by Israel must be condemned, not only because no state has the right to annexe foreign territory, but because every expansion is an experiment to discover how much more aggression the world will tolerate.

The refugees who surround Palestine in their hundreds of thousands were described recently by the Washington journalist I.F. Stone as “the moral millstone around the neck of world Jewry.” Many of the refugees are now well into the third decade of their precarious existence in temporary settlements. The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was “given” by a foreign Power to another people for the creation of a new State. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their number have increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East.

We are frequently told that we must sympathize with Israel because of the suffering of the Jews in Europe at the hands of the Nazis. I see in this suggestion no reason to perpetuate any suffering. What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the horrors of the past to justify those of the present is gross hypocrisy. Not only does Israel condemn a vast number. of refugees to misery; not only are many Arabs under occupation condemned to military rule; but also Israel condemns the Arab nations only recently emerging from colonial status, to continued impoverishment as military demands take precedence over national development.

All who want to see an end to bloodshed in the Middle East must ensure that any settlement does not contain the seeds of future conflict. Justice requires that the first step towards a settlement must be an Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied in June, 1967. A new world campaign is needed to help bring justice to the long-suffering people of the Middle East."

The British did the same thing in my country. They gave the north of Ireland to Scottish planters.

2

I too try to do what I possibly can. Our Government both the Liberals and Labor are quiet about the atrocities that are happening there. Shame on them. Money seem to be speaking loudly.

Twas ever thus, eh Jolanta?

1

What hath we wrought?

1

"My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town .. a German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians."

~ Gerald Kaufman MP

1

“Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”

~ Primo Levi -- Auschwitz survivor

1

"As the Arabs see the Jews" by His Majesty King Abdullah,

The American Magazine
November, 1947

"I am especially delighted to address an American audience, for the tragic problem of Palestine will never be solved without American understanding, American sympathy, American support.

So many billions of words have been written about Palestine—perhaps more than on any other subject in history—that I hesitate to add to them. Yet I am compelled to do so, for I am reluctantly convinced that the world in general, and America in particular, knows almost nothing of the true case for the Arabs.

We Arabs follow, perhaps far more than you think, the press of America. We are frankly disturbed to find that for every word printed on the Arab side, a thousand are printed on the Zionist side.

There are many reasons for this. You have many millions of Jewish citizens interested in this question. They are highly vocal and wise in the ways of publicity. There are few Arab citizens in America, and we are as yet unskilled in the technique of modern propaganda.

The results have been alarming for us. In your press we see a horrible caricature and are told it is our true portrait. In all justice, we cannot let this pass by default."

[kinghussein.gov.jo]

1

“We came and turned the native Arabs into tragic refugees. And still we dare to slander and malign them, to besmirch their name. Instead of being deeply ashamed of what we did and trying to undo some of the evil we committed … we justify our terrible acts and even attempt to glorify them.”

— Nathan Chofshi; Russian Jewish writer who migrated to Palestine in 1908. He witnessed the expulsion of the Palestinian Arabs and wrote critically about it as late as 1959.

1

"If they come for the innocent without stepping over your body, cursed be your religion and your life."

  • Philip Berrigan
0

"The other day I wrote a short piece on why the Bible does not command us to blindly stand with the modern state of Israel, and one of the points I made is that Israel is guilty of genocide. There were no shortage of internet commenters who objected to my use of this word and felt it was over the top. However, I stand by my assertion that Israel is guilty of genocide, so allow me to expand upon that."

Source:
0

MURDER (immoral and unjust killing)
as COVER (diversion of focus)
for THEFT (taking what is not yours)
and OPPRESSION (bullying people for your own gain)
is NOT self-defense (legitimate force for one's own protection)!

It's a WAR CRIME (with no statute of limitations - one day you will be brought to justice)!

~ LanceThruster

0
 "Prominent human rights advocates and scholars have argued that the killings of Palestinians and their forceful expulsion from mandate Palestine in 1948, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and the violence and discrimination directed at Palestinians by the Israeli government have violated a number of human rights protections contained in international human rights law, genocide being among them." 

[ccrjustice.org]

0

And to those who might ascribe these views somehow to anti-Semitism, these people certainly get it.


:
Holocaust survivors and their descendants accuse Israel of ‘genocide’

More than 300 Holocaust survivors and their descendants have condemned what they described as Israel’s 'genocide of Palestinian people' in an advert in the New York Times

[independent.co.uk]

0

Israel is the only country in the area that changes governments in a consistantly peaceful manner as it is the ONLY democracy surrounded by 12th century kings, chiefs,sultans,sheiks which engage in 12th century justice such as stoning, where as Israel has no death penalty. Jordan is Palestine with 98% of its citizens claiming such heritage. The Brits installed a king & washed their hands of the arab problem.

"The Auschwitz Logic - by Ran HaCohen

So this is the Auschwitz logic in a nutshell. Ramallah is not Auschwitz. Israel is not the Third Reich. We have no death-camps and we haven't massacred one third of the Palestinian population in gas chambers. Therefore, everything we do is quite all right. We may fill the occupied territories with tear gas and blood, we may kill and injure and torture and blackmail and dispossess, we may surround millions by electric fences and tanks in tiny enclaves, we may hold them under siege and daily bombing, we may make pregnant women walk to hospitals, and we shoot ambulances too, don't we. But as long as we fall even an inch short of the atrocities of Nazi Germany, it's all fine and good, and don't you dare make the comparison."

[antiwar.com]

@WilliamCharles I read the link. Thank you. To intervene or not to intervene. That is the question.

0

"The trick of declaring war against the armed resistance and then attacking the resisters’ unarmed kin as well as the sur­rounding population with the most gruesome products of Death-Science; this trick is not new. American Pioneers were pioneers in this too; they made it standard practice to declare war on indigenous warriors and then to murder and burn villages with only women and children in them. This is already modern war, what we know as war against civilian populations; it has also been called, more candidly, mass murder or genocide.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that the perpetrators of a Pogrom portray themselves as the victims, in the present case as victims of the Holocaust.

Herman Melville noticed over a century ago, in his analysis of the metaphysics of Indian-hating, that those who made a full-time profession of hunting and murdering indigenous people of this continent always made themselves appear, even in their own eyes, as the victims of manhunts.

The use the Nazis made of the International Jewish Conspiracy is better known: during all the years of atrocities defying belief, the Nazis considered themselves the victimized.

It’s as if the experience of being a victim gave exemption from human solidarity, as if it gave special powers, as if it gave a license to kill."

Fredy Perlman from his essay, “Anti-Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom” – [libcom.org]

0

Lance Thruster is my favorite porn actor.

Those were never meant to be released, I'm afraid. ?

Glad you enjoyed them, though. I try my best.

0

There's an author on C-SPAN3 right now who's said little to nothing to this point about Palestinians with regards to Israel (though I did break away for a bit to make lunch - recording so will rewatch).

James Loeffler - "Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the 20th Century"

0

And yet posting this apology, without even a mention of all the deaths caused by those who think there should be no such nation as Israel, is disingenuous at best. How many civilians did the Intifada kill? How many children? How many people have been killed by suicide bombers and random attacks on restaurants and hotels? There are plenty of innocent victims on all sides.

The root of the problem is religion; the belief that "God" granted one side or the other exclusive claim to a piece of territory, along with the right to exterminate all who deny that claim. The best way, in fact the only way, to end the bloodshed is to spread rationalism and oppose the vile preachers and their followers who have turned the Middle East into a charnel house.

Did the Palestinians do this (the Holocaust) to the Jews, Paul?

First off, international law allows for a people invaded to resist by force. Secondly, the King David Hotel bombing was committed by Jews dressed as Arabs (an attempt at a false flag). Thirdly, as most of Israel's population is part of the IDF reserves, as well as Israel using public transportation to mobilize troops, there aren't many targets in Israel that aren't military to one extent or the other.

You want to talk rationalism? Please explain why the US government ignores the Symington Amendment with regards to Chosanistan?

@Gooniesnvrdie Killing an innocent= killing an innocent. A=A. The difference between guerrilla warfare and terrorism is that guerrilla warfare targets the enemy's military assets; terrorists deliberately attack the softest targets they can, i.e. civilians; school buses, cafes, night clubs, etc., in order to attack civilian morale.

The Palestinian side may not have a choice of weapons, but they do have a choice of targets, and they choose mainly to target civilians. I cannot respect that. This is not to say I respect machine-gunning civilian protesters either. Both sides are a disgrace. But please don't hold up the Palestinians as if they are all innocents. They do shelter, train, and support murderers.

@WilliamCharles Have they used terrorism to attack Israeli civilians? Yes.

And as far as an apology to Jews, I help bankroll quite a few Holocaust memorials, museums, and educational programs with my tax dollars. Oddly, there aren't comparable programs and institutions, at least in numbers and the extent in the common consciousness, for the genocide of indigenous inhabitants and with the history of black slavery, despite being perpetrated by Americans themselves. If the history of the Holocaust is worthy of such universal condemnation (and it is), shouldn't these other crimes against humanity be addressed in a similar fashion?

@Paul4747

Paul - yes, Palestian snipers use illegal expanding rounds (a war crime) to maim and murder peaceful Jewish protesters including children, medical personnel, and press (the last two clearly identified, the children however must have been mistaken as "little people" through the sniper scopes). The US even supplies the armanents and munitions to these Palestinian murderers and war criminals despite...

Wait... I think I may have gotten the players a bit confused. Never mind.

@Gooniesnvrdie Still not getting it.

Israel has been Israel since 1948. Arab nations have been trying to wipe it out since then. The Israelis are not innocent of war crimes, but they aren't terrorists either. They're defending their homes.

The settlement policy needs to stop. Israel needs to abide by the treaties it's signed. Which would be a hell of a lot easier to get if the neighbors weren't chanting "Death To Israel". There's blame on both sides. Everybody is "defending their home". Why do you insist on portraying just Israel as the evil, puppy-stomping monsters? Reality is more complex than you want it to be.

Debates like this make me shake my head about being a liberal.

@WilliamCharles Yes, you must be thinking of the Israeli suicide bombers blowing up school buses.

Just give it a rest and admit that NEITHER SIDE is right, and neither side is entirely wrong. Both are defending themselves, and both are using sickening violence to attack the other.

@Paul4747 - you know, Native Americans were accused of using barbarous tactics in trying to repel the European invaders... but yeah... "both sides."

My initial post was directed specifically at Palestinians, and the other peoples my country helps brutalize. You wanted me, nay, insisted, I mention Jews and Israel as well. You want an end to the bloodshed and suffering, do you?

I've long felt that if Israel had to learn to murder and oppress on their own dime, that, more than anything, might get them to stop.

@Paul4747 - Paul, you seem at very best PEP (Progressive Except for Palestine). Your appeal of "Quit badmouthing Israel or I'll stop being liberal" is getting tired.

That dog won't hunt.

@Paul4747

They're defending their homes.

The settlement policy needs to stop.

That's pretty much what Bertrand Russel was saying:

Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression

@brentan Now that, I agree with completely.

The problem, as I said to begin with, is the poison of religion, which tells both Jews and Muslims that they are "intended" by their imaginary God to rule over the entirety of the land. Jewish extremists want to reconquer the whole map of ancient Israel, and Muslim extremists want to wipe the name "Israel" off the map completely.

The obvious solution is two states, with a shared capital in Jerusalem, but neither side will accept it as long as they feel entitled by "holy writ" to sole possession of the city.

@WilliamCharles When did I say "Quit badmouthing Israel"? What I said was, quit badmouthing Israel exclusively.

If part of being progressive is now accepting Palestinians as innocent victims, who have no hand in bringing any of their current situation on themselves, then I can't sign up. The Palestinians have a long history of accepting sponsorship, weapons and training from the worst actors in the region, and carrying out atrocities in the name of their cause. Certainly no better than the Israelis, and some much worse. Palestinian extremists have also carried out attacks against Arab allies who were insufficiently zealous in their support... just as fanatic Zionists have done to their own side.

Just one example: the Black September group (created with the acquiescence of Palestinian "moderates" and operating so as to give the PLO plausible deniability), assassinated the Jordanian Prime Minister and infamously kidnapped and murdered 11 Israeli athletes and officials at the '72 Munich Olympics, before disbanding after the PLO decided that the bad publicity from terror attacks abroad did more harm than good.

Both sides continue unconscionable violence against civilians. Both. Israel has no excuse for shooting civilians, but the Palestinians have no excuse for suicide bombings.

@WilliamCharles I'm sorry, I see above that you used the term ZOG. I'm done with you. You're disqualified from further conversation once you use that conspiratorial rubbish.

It's only a pity you won't realize why you're on my block list, because my posts will become invisible to you. Maybe someone else will explain to you.

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