Tag: Military Occupation

Liars Beat the Drums of War. Part 2 — The News Media and Establishment Propaganda

A key to successful propaganda is having the appearance of knowledge and authority while disseminating falsehoods and misrepresentations.

A key ingredient to the success of US corporate news broadcasts in their spreading of government-backed lies is their use of “expert” commentators. These talking-heads, periodically trotted out for their supposed expertise on a subject, are typically former members of the US military, the intelligence community, and political leaders waiting for their next government gig.

Invariably these professional commentators provide off-the-cuff “analysis” which, in one way or another, endorses the worldview necessary  for the expansion of American empire.

Whether that requires more bombing, another invasion, a tighter security apparatus, a larger military budget, you name it, these folks make a living by persuading the public that more American aggression is essential to peace and prosperity around the world.

We recently heard Donald Trump say that he bombed Qassam Soleimani, not to start a war, but to prevent a war.

Right.

Just as George W. Bush was forced to start a war in order to prevent the mythical mushroom cloud.

I am old enough to remember the Army’s justification of free-fire zones in the Vietnam war, where soldiers were free to kill anything on sight and destroy entire villages, by saying that “we had to destroy the village in order to save the village.”

Give me a break.

I wasn’t stupid enough to believe the propaganda then. And I’m not stupid enough to swallow it now.

What our TV news networks never disclose to us is that virtually ALL of these so-called expert commentators maintain profession relationships with the military-security-intelligence-industrial complex while working for the corporate news media.

After all, they have invested their entire professional lives into climbing the ladders of power inside the war rooms of the American empire. They are not about to give that up now.

Very few leopards ever change their spots, folks.

Lawrence Wilkerson is a rare breed.

So, it is not surprising that this class of propagandist is invariably are on the payroll of weapons manufacturers, military consulting firms, and surveillance companies, etc. Just as the execution of Gen. Soleimani sent the stock prices of Raytheon and other weapons manufacturers through the roof, so these talking-heads work to further enhance the financial and ideological investments that they have spent their entire lives helping to construct.

Below is a video report by The Intercept explaining only a few of these corrupt financial connections. Of course, none of the networks ever mention these connections to their viewers.

For instance, Fox News hired a retired general who naturally justifies US military strikes, but never mentions that he is a partner at SCP Partners, a venture capital fund that invests in defense contractors.

Similarly CBS hired another retired general who now works for Kohlberg Kravis Robers & Co., an investment firm with major holdings in  some of the largest US defense contractors.

These men and women do offer expert analysis. They are trying to sell us more snake oil at the very high cost of human lives around the globe.

“America Exists to Make War”

My regular readers will remember that I always value the insights of retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. Col. Wilkerson was the Chief of Staff for Colin Powell when Powell was the Secretary of State under President George

Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

W. Bush.

Col. Wilkerson is also the only official from the Bush administration who has come clean about the consistent stream of lies we were fed by the Bush administration about the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The CIA lied to him and General Powell.

Why in the world should anyone believe what US intelligence spokespeople are telling us today about Iranian General Qassem Soleimani or the Iranian

Soleimani’s burning body lies next to his car

government?

Since the catastrophic war in Iraq, which continues to this day, Col. Wilkerson has devoted himself to speaking out, working to ensure that there won’t be any more US wars based on lies.

Here he explains how the government lie-factory is again working overtime as it promotes war with Iran. As he says, “[American leaders] will lie, cheat, and steal to promote American empire.”

Watch the interview by journalist Amy Goodman discussing the current state of US/Iran relations with Col Wilkerson on the program Democracy Now.  It is 17 minutes long and well worth your time.

 

More Wise Analysis from Caitlin Johnstone

For my money, Caitlin Johnstone is one of the sharpest political bloggers working today. Below is an excerpt from her most recent post, “Full Scale War is Avoided and Trump Goes Right Back to Warmongering.”

The United States and Iran entered into a direct military exchange for the first time ever with the drone assassination of General Qassem Soleimani last week

President Trump makes statement on Iran reprisals

and a retaliatory strike from Iran via surface-to-surface missiles upon two US military bases on Wednesday.

As usual it was the less powerful nation who exercised restraint, with Iran skillfully targeting the bases’ military capabilities but taking measures to successfully avoid any casualties. The two nations de-escalated back down to their previous high level of dangerous hostilities with an understanding between them that neither side wants a full-scale war. Both sides played “chicken” and both sides swerved, and they know that about each other now.

So that was a relief. We were all forced to hold our breath and hope against hope that cooler heads would prevail after the senseless assassination of a sovereign nation’s top military official, and they did. A full-scale war that would have dwarfed Iraq and Vietnam in terms of death, destruction and destabilization was averted.

And then Trump immediately went right back to warmongering…

The entire piece is well worth reading. Just click on the title above.

Israel’s Culture of Killing

Today’s edition of Haaretz contains another moment of truth from Gideon

Israeli journalist, Gideon Levy

Levy about Zionist racism, lies, and the currency of anti-Palestinian hatred throughout Israeli society.

The piece is entitled “If There’s Such a Thing as a Murderous Culture, Then It Exists in Israel.”  I have excerpted the piece below, or you can read the entire article here:

“This is what the editor of Haaretz’s Culture and Literature supplement, Benny Ziffer, wrote on his Facebook page upon returning from paying a condolence call in the settlement of Ofra: ‘En route I looked at the Palestinian villages alongside the Jewish communities, and I thought of how for the Palestinians murder is a type of sport or enjoyment, perhaps a substitute for erotica. From that perspective we will never have anything culturally in common with them.’

“And if that weren’t enough, Ziffer also wrote, ‘Regarding this evil and undignified people living among us, we can only yearn for the land to vomit it out, because it isn’t worthy of this land, which is full of Jewish blood that it has spilled.’

“His post generated no comment. Ziffer has apparently exhausted his allotted attention. By contrast, Yaron London succeeded in raising a bigger momentary storm with less serious remarks: ‘Arabs are savages … they don’t only hate Jews, they kill their own first and foremost.’

“More than one straight line connects London and Ziffer. Their comments reflect the spirit of the times in Israel…

“More than they are racists, London and Ziffer are disseminating lies. I was sitting in London’s studio when he said his piece; I tried to respond in real time but to no avail. So I will try here.

“We examined the past decade; those murderous, bloodletting Palestinians, have since January 2009 killed 190 Israelis. How many Palestinians were

An Israeli soldier detains an unarmed Palestinian man following a weekly nonviolent protest against the expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel, Kfar Qaddum, West Bank, August 23, 2019. Credit AFP

killed by Israel, the seeker of peace and goodness, which will never have anything culturally in common with the Arabs? Some 3,500. Israel was 18 times more murderous. Was it for sport? Erotic pleasure? Of course not, but the blood speaks: Israel draws far more of it.

“Is it permitted to say that it’s Israeli culture to spill blood wholesale? According to London, yes. There is something called national culture, even if it’s a culture of killing. But when one speaks about genetic characteristics, it’s racism. One can even generalize, as London said, a generalization will always be unjust to the individual and the exceptional. But it has to based on reality, and the reality is that the enlightened whites have, in the past 100 years, massacred more people than all the Muslims and savages combined. Not only were Hitler and Stalin not Muslims, since World War II the United States, the land of the free, is guilty of more killing than any other country. Most of its mass killers are decidedly non-Muslim.

“Someone who generalizes isn’t necessarily a racist. But he may turn out to be a liar. If there’s a culture of killing, it actually exists in Israel. Soldiers and policemen who shoot to kill as a first choice testify to a warped morality. Fear, hatred, self-pity, the security cult, dehumanization and an itchy trigger finger are all Israeli cultural traits that lead to this mass blood-letting, but woe unto anyone who dares define Israel as having a murderous culture. He’d be condemned as an anti-Semite. The Palestinian people, on the other hand, are one of the most restrained people in history in its violent resistance to occupation and injustice. That’s the truth, there’s no denying it.

“Israel actually likes cultural and national generalizations, especially when they glorify its image. The ‘Jewish genius,’ ‘the chosen people,’ ‘Jewish morality,’ and ‘eternal Israel,’ are evidence of baseless arrogance. Ziffer has every right to think that the Palestinians enjoy murder and London can think they are savages compared to us, the enlightened and developed. It is our right (and duty) to answer them: There are no lies more abominable than these.” (emphasis mine)

McDonald’s Takes a Stand and Boycotts the West Bank

Below is an excerpt from Gideon Levy’s latest article in the Israeli daily, Haaretz.  His piece is entitled “Thanks McDonald’s for Reminding Israel There is a Green Line, Even a Red Line.”

“McDonald’s presents: a model hamburger. It doesn’t appear on the menu and the company obscures its ingredients, but it’s clearly the flagship item – a boycott of the settlements. There are no Big Macs in Ariel and there will be no McRoyales in Efrat.

“The right is now demanding that this traitorous company be barred from opening a branch at Ben-Gurion Airport. A group called the Disabled Veterans’ Forum for Israel’s Security posted warning signs this week at the entrance to the company’s restaurants in Tel Aviv, modeled after the warning signs that tell Israelis not to enter the Palestinian Authority. It terms the McDonald’s boycott of the settlements “a disgraceful decision” and is urging a boycott of the company.

“That’s what happens to a hamburger that seeks to raise its head and do more than just sell an extra-large portion, that chooses to heed its conscience and not just be a hamburger.

“McDonald’s is a senior partner in the crimes of the meat industry and the holocaust of animals. It’s a symbol of globalization and capitalism. Its products are harmful to people’s health and the environment, and it doesn’t let its workers unionize.

“Nevertheless, we must now applaud its policy, which dates back to 2013, when its Israeli franchisee, Omri Padan, opposed opening a branch in Ariel. People of morality must therefore contemptuously cross through the warning signs that the right has posted at the chain’s branches and demonstratively buy a green salad with corn sticks as an act of support for the company’s courage and determination. It must not suffer because it took a step very few companies are willing to take, but that all companies should have taken long ago.

“The company’s official explanation may seem evasive, but it goes to the heart of the matter: “Alonyal [the franchisee] never had a license to open branches in the West Bank.” Boom. There is a Green Line. There’s even a red line.

“It’s true this separation is artificial, and it’s been dead for a long time already. It’s ridiculous to boycott the settlement of Itamar but not Tel Aviv, which funds it, guards it and legalizes its crimes.

“Nevertheless, McDonald’s has issued a resounding statement: The West Bank and Gaza aren’t here. It has said yes to Israel, no to the occupation, which counts for more than 1,000 protest signs at a demonstration. The franchisee never had a license in a piece of land to which Israel also never had a license…

“…Hamburger joints aren’t moral leaders. McDonald’s merely said what should have been self-evident to every commercial company: The franchisee for Israel isn’t necessarily the franchisee for the colonies of the occupation. Many Israeli and international companies ought to follow in its footsteps. Just as every law-abiding company has an obligation not to traffic in stolen property, so too it must not operate on stolen land.

“And there’s no other way to define the occupied territories and the settlements built there in violation of international law except as crime zones. Can a law-abiding company set up a legitimate business in Ofra, a settlement in which more than half the houses are built on privately owned land that was stolen by force from its legal owners? This bears no connection to ideology, or even morality, but only to operating within the law.”

Israeli Soldiers Shoot, Nearly Kill, An Unarmed Shepherd Boy

The Palestinian teenager was handcuffed and blind-folded, thrown to the ground.  When he tried to stand a soldier shot him and hit a major artery in his right leg.

He began to run. He was shot a second time, again with live ammunition.

Fortunately, a neighbor filmed the entire event. You can see for yourself in this Ha’aretz article.

The ever vigilant Gideon Levy has a follow-up account, giving more detail in today’s edition of Ha’aretz. Y0u can read the entire piece here, or check out the excerpt below:

“It all started last Thursday with a road accident in which Fatima Suleiman, a local teacher, was killed. Lately most of the access roads to the village have been blocked by the IDF, leaving one entrance, which opens dangerously onto the main road. That’s where Suleiman was killed. Osama Hajajeh attended the funeral, along with most of Tuqu’s residents, who are angry about their village being choked off by roadblocks. After the funeral, the young people went to demonstrate, some of them by throwing stones at military vehicles.

“Suddenly Hajajeh, a shepherd boy who had never been arrested, felt someone grabbing him from behind and throwing him to the ground. Between the olive trees, soldiers from the IDF unit had laid an ambush for the stone throwers. There were four to six soldiers, and after hurling the boy to the ground they handcuffed him behind his back, blindfolded him and began to drag him toward their jeep. At one point he remained kneeling on the ground, a soldier standing over him. The ground was thorny, Hajajeh relates now, from his hospital bed, so at one point he tried to get up for a minute and shake off the thorns. He now tells us, contrary to the published reports, that he had no intention of escaping – only to stand up. “How would I escape? With hands bound behind me and blindfolded?” he asks.

“The moment he stood up, a shot rang out. He says he didn’t feel anyone trying to grab him before the shot was fired at him. The bullet hit him in the right leg. Frightened to death, Hajajeh started to flee for his life. He didn’t yet feel pain in the leg, he says now, but he knew he was wounded. He had stumbled only a few steps before the second shot came, the bullet slamming into his left leg. Both shots struck him in the thigh, by the groin, but the second one hit a major blood vessel. He collapsed to the ground.

“He didn’t black out, but in the video clip he looks stunned. He remembers only that the woman from the village who reached him – also a teacher – removed his blindfold as he lay there.

“Ali-Mohammed Hajajeh, a construction worker of 47 with six other children – Osama is the third oldest – is a smiling man who understands that his son’s life was saved almost by a miracle. Osama remembers lying on the ground as the soldiers fired tear gas and brandished rifles at anyone who approached and tried to get him out of there. He was finally placed in the car of a village resident who rushed him to the local clinic; from there a Palestinian ambulance took him to the hospital. About half an hour passed from the moment he was wounded until he was evacuated.”

The Great March of Return, One Year Later

An estimated 40,000 Palestinians gathered in Gaza today (read the entire article for the figures listed below), as they have every week for the past year, in order to celebrate the anniversary of their Great March of Return rallies protesting their 12 year confinement.

As always, they were met by armed Israeli tanks and soldiers on the opposite side of the fence. That’s right. It’s sling shots against tanks.  And it’s not really a “border.” Israel has no internationally recognized borders. Palestinians and the Israeli military face-off at a prison fence.

During today’s rally, 4 more people were shot dead, 3 of them teenagers. 40 more people were wounded.

Over the past twelve months,  the Israeli army has murdered 194 people, including women, children (41), medics (3) and journalists (2).

More than 29,000 people have been wounded, over 7,000 by live ammunition resulting in 120+ limb amputations.  Evidence indicates that much of this ammunition is of the exploding variety deliberately used to cause maximum tissue damage.

Let that number sink in: 29,000 people shot, many permanently injured and maimed for protesting their illegal imprisonment.

It’s called mass murder, maybe even genocide.  The one thing it is NOT is Israeli self-defense.

Israel is not protecting a border; it is executing ethnic cleansing.  According to Israeli sources, as reported by U.N. investigators, “No Israeli civilian deaths or injuries were reported during or resulting from the
demonstrations.” Only 4 Israeli soldiers have been injured, none killed.

So the score is Israel — 29,000; Palestinians — 4. Not much of a match, if you ask me.

As usual, the world remains silent in the face of Israeli bloodletting.  Well, almost.  The United Nations recently released a 22 page report from its Human Rights Counsel detailing and condemning Israel’s persistent violation of “international humanitarian law.”

The Council concluded that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza.  But since when has a U.N. report changed national behavior?

The Israeli government immediately condemned the report, as it always does whenever anyone tries to call them to account.

Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Danny Danon, responded with the tried-and-true “poor me, I’m the victim” defense,  insisting that the “council is blinded by hatred of Israel.”

No nation has fine-tuned the self-pitying instrument of perpetual victimhood as masterfully as Israel. It is her favorite tool in the propaganda arsenal. If you can’t dispute the facts, attack the messenger knowing full well that your fellow bullies will eagerly join you in the fray.

Sure enough, the United States remains Israel’s favorite partner in international bullying, having consistently blocked such investigations whenever possible.

And the #1 American enablers of Israel’s brutal criminality is not the pro-Zioniist lobby AIPAC but the conservative Christian church. (Check out these article: here and here and here and here. )

So, once again, just as the German Christian church embraced Adolf Hitler; just as Christians of the Confederacy defended slavery; just as the Pilgrims of Massachusetts Bay slaughtered Native Americans to make way for their New Zion; so American evangelicals blissfully bless Israel’s weekly massacre of encaged Palestinians without a twinge of doubt, shame, or guilt.

There is no greater testament to the death of the evangelical social conscience and the self-absorption of American Christianity.

 

Israel Loves Collective Punishment

Osama bin-Laden’s writings explain that the 9/11 Al Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers was a response to US imperialism in the Middle East; particularly the presence of American troops on Saudi Arabian soil.  That was a defilement of the holy land, in his eyes.

Bin-Laden justified the mass-murder attack in the heart of New York City because, in his mind, all Americans were equally guilty for the crimes of U.S. forces around the world.

Bin-Laden saw American civilians in the same way that many 19th century military commanders viewed Native Americans.  They were all equally guilty of resisting white settlement.  Therefore, all of them, including women, children and the elderly, were legitimate targets for white retribution.

Israel thinks the same way about Palestinians. As a nation, Israel stands in the same moral league as Osama bin-Laden and Col. John Chivington (the man responsible for the Sand Creek massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in 1864).

Gaza bombarded again

Once again, Israel is bombing the people of Gaza after several Israeli’s were tragically killed when their home was struck by a rocket fired from within Gaza.

Personally, I wish everyone would stop dropping bombs and firing rockets.

Both sides are behaving like Osama bin-Laden.  But there is no question that Israel remains the aggressor, the instigator of this entire horrible tragedy. How long will this Zionist state keep the people of Gaza locked up inside their open-air prison, with minimal food supplies and no –that’s right, NO – sources for clean drinking water anywhere?

Israel has always used this strategy of collective punishment.

I have seen it with my own eyes.

We were living with friends in the West Bank during the run up to Israel’s last assault on Gaza in 2014, Operation “Protective Edge.”

Three Israeli settlers from one of the many illegal settlements popping up

Operation Brother’s Keeper, every member of the Hamas political party was arrested and jailed

around the West Bank like mushrooms on steroids were kidnapped and later found dead. (I may write about the supposed search and rescue efforts – called Operation Brother’s Keeper – which swirled around us that summer in a future post.)

Israel had identified two suspects, though they never released any evidence to verify their definitive claims. Israeli officials said the two men were members of Hamas (the party that now governs Gaza), even though Hamas representatives not only vehemently denied the connection, but insisted that Hamas had nothing to do with the kidnappings.

The Hamas argument was entirely believable, given that Hamas was in delicate negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (the group that governs the West Bank) to form a unity government. Jeopardizing those negotiations with such a senseless stunt, knowing that it would bring down the wrath of Israel, made no sense at all.  (By the way, Israel’s government at that time hated the idea of a unified Palestinian government.)

We had become friends with an independent photojournalist that summer.  One evening she learned that the Israeli military was entering Hebron on a search and destroy mission. They intended to arrest their two suspects or at least let the Palestinian community know the consequences of not handing them over.

Our journalist friend intended to document the mayhem, and I was going along to take photos of my own.  Late into the night we searched for transportation to Hebron, but every effort failed.  Reports were circulating about gangs of Jewish settlers roaming the streets, together with the soldiers, attacking Palestinian cars and pedestrians.  No one was willing to drive us.

In the morning, we caught the first public bus to Hebron.  My friend had heard that Israel soldiers had bombed two Palestinian homes.  Since the soldiers were unable to find the two suspects, they located two family homes of the suspects’ relatives and destroyed them completely.

Eventually, we found both homes.  The shell-shocked families led us through the ruins.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, was left intact.  You can see it all for yourself in the accompanying photos.

Anything that was breakable was broken.  Everything shreddable had been shredded. All foodstuffs were torn from their bags or containers and strewn everywhere.

Both families were made to sit at a table and watch as the soldiers ridiculed them, hitting, kicking and slapping them, insisting that they tell them the whereabouts of their accused cousins.

Finally, once every nook and cranny of the homes were made unlivable, the soldiers walked upstairs to detonate a bomb in the family room.

Both explosions sent concrete walls flying through the air, opening large, gaping wounds blackened by flames. Fires raged throughout the remains as both families were forced to watch their belongings go up in smoke.  Once the soldiers left, they were free to put out the fires as best they could.

As I walked through the ruins, taking in the heartlessness and injustice of it all, I thought of General Sherman’s strategy of eliminating the American Indian.  His subordinates received explicit commands to kill, burn and destroy everything and everyone they met.  Attacking an Indian village meant that nothing was left standing.

Collective punishment has always been at the heart of Israel’s Palestinian policy.

Imagine that you are awakened late one night by soldiers kicking down your front door. Your children are pulled out of their beds and everyone is made to sit at the kitchen table.

Then the soldiers inform you that your second cousin (on your mother’s side) is suspected of a serious crime.  If you don’t tell the police where to find him, they will destroy you home.

Think about that.

Your cousin is suspected of a crime.  He has not been arrested or charged, much less tried or convicted. No evidence of your cousin’s involvement has been presented anywhere. Not in court; not on a charge sheet; and certainly not in the media.

The government can simply make a naked, unsubstantiated accusation. And on the basis of that accusation, your home will be demolished.  Why?  Because you are related to the accused.

Yep.  That, my friends, is what passes as “justice” for Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation.

Similar situations occur over and over again, month after month in the Occupied Territories.

And people wonder why rockets fly out of Gaza…

No, Mr. President, Israel’s Border Wall Has Not Worked

President Trump regularly appeals to Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims about the supposed success of Israel’s border wall with the West Bank as ironclad evidence in favor of his own border wall plans with Mexico.

The problem is, it’s not true.

The wall dividing Israel from the West Bank has not “worked” to stop terrorism, but then that was never its actual intent.  It has, on the other hand, been very successful in accomplishing its actual purpose, which Israel will never acknowledge in public.

Here’s why:

First, it is true that after Israel began construction of its separation/annexation wall during the Second Intifada in 2000, terrorist attacks within Israel came to a slow but steady halt.  But in 2001, Hamas leaders (the organization headquartered in Gaza largely responsible for the suicide bombings) claimed that their decision was driven by internal, political considerations and had nothing to do with Israel’s wall.  Check out this 2001 article in the British newspaper, The Independent, “Hamas Orders Halt to Suicide Bomb Attacks.”

Of course, Hamas leaders could be lying about their motives in order to save face.  But I suspect not, for the simple reason that Israel’s wall is not much of a barrier to the determined terrorist.

I have seen people climb over the wall quite easily.

Long stretches of the wall are nothing more than a fence, mostly strung up in far-flung, isolated areas.  It would be easy for a would-be bomber to dig under, climb over or cut through this fence at any number of spots where they would never be seen, or long-gone by the time a border patrol appeared.

This is why I believe Hamas is telling the truth.  They chose to stop their bombing campaign because it was costing them support for their cause in the international community and creating division within the membership of the Palestinian Authority.

Second, regardless of all this, touting the awesome success of Israel’s “wall” makes for great P.R. among the Zionist community.  It also provides a good illustration of a classic logical fallacy.  It’s just a shame that logic never stood in the way of a Zionist hoping to score political points – especially when that Zionist’s name is Benjamin Netanyahu.

Perhaps you have heard of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.  If not, I’ll clue you in.  It’s a Latin phrase meaning “after this, therefore because of this.”  Its purpose is to point out the invalid assumption that just because one event follows after another event, we cannot assume that the first event was the cause of the other.

Yes, the rooster crows every morning just moments before sunup.  That doesn’t mean, however, that Mr. Sunshine is hovering below the horizon, waiting for Mr. Rooster’s signal.

In other words, correlation is not proof of causation.

Just because suicide bombings ended soon after Israel began building its separation wall is not proof, in and of itself, that suicide bombings ended because of the wall.  We must search for other evidence to prove this claim to be either true or false.

I think that the wall’s easy permeability – any determined bomber could get through if he/she wanted to – tips the scales in favor of believing Hamas’ own explanation:  they chose to stop using that particular tactic.

So, NO.  When president Trump says over and over again that these walls are always 99.9% effective, he is simply one presidential blow-hard mimicking another presidential blow-hard’s propaganda point. But then, both of these men, Trump and Netanyahu, are 99.9% die-hard political opportunists and only 0.1% intelligent thinkers – and I suspect even that figure is too generous for Trump.

Third, without going into the background here, political Zionism has a very, very long history of believing in the need for a literal wall of some sort to isolate Israel from the bloodthirsty Arab hordes around them.  Their current isolation/separation/annexation barrier is the product of Zionist colonial racism.  If you want to learn more about this issue, read Avi Shlaim’s important book, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (W.W. Norton, 2000).

The only way in which this wall has actually “worked” has been its success in illegally expropriating more land for Israel, in stopping Palestinian farmers and herdsmen from tending their flocks, their fields and their orchards, in dividing villages and families.

Israel’s wall is only one more Zionist tactic for stealing Palestinian land and oppressing the people of the West Bank.

In that way, it works marvelously.

Evangelicals Share in War Crimes Remaining Blind to Oppression All Around Them

Every time I return to Israel’s Occupied Territory, I am taken aback by the irreversible transformations foisted onto the resident Palestinians by Israel’s illegal settlements project.

Every year, more and more hilltops sprout cookie-cutter apartment blocks, all covered by the same red-brick tiles, stretching end-to-end from one

Ariel settlement in the West Bank

settlement rooftop to the next.  Older settlements have grown.  Newer settlements appear as if by magic.  All of them shamelessly blushing brick-red under heaven’s gaze.

What little forest and greenery once existed in this barren land has been uprooted, plowed under and paved over to make way for more Jewish settlers, a good many of whom come from the United States, happy to take advantage of the many financial enticements Israel offers to this new generation of “pioneers.”

Several weeks ago, the Israeli daily paper Haaretz published an interesting exposé about this settler movement, and its sad ties to American evangelicalism.  It is entitled:  “Inside the Evangelical Money Flowing Into the West Bank.”

The article details the vast sums of money being donated by U.S. Christian Zionists to Israel’s illegal settler movement.

According to Haaretz, “the total amount of funding raised in the past 10 years [is] somewhere between $50 million and $65 million.”

Yep, $50 to $65 million US dollars channeled from Christian coffers into the

An American family of Christian Zionists volunteering in an illegal settlement

last western, settler-colonial project occurring in direct violation of international law.

Believe it or not, it is another of the many bizarre ways in which Israel continues to mimic the behavior of Nazi Germany and every other settler-colonial project in history.  I kid you not.

Check out the Fourth Geneva Convention, if you’ve never read it.  Especially Section III, article 49 dealing with Occupied Territories.  The most relevant portions declare:

“Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.

 “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Written during a time of rising anti-colonial sentiment, this portion of the Geneva Convention was also drafted in the shadow of Hitler’s massive population transfers throughout Eastern Europe prior to the outbreak of World War II.  After his conquest of Poland in 1939, Hitler announced:

“a new order of ethnographical conditions, that is to say, a resettlement of nationalities in such a manner that the process ultimately results in the obtaining of better dividing lines.” 

Populations would be moved about in order to benefit the expansion of

American volunteers helping with an illegal grape harvest in Occupied Territory

ethnic Germans.

Hitler’s explicit goal was to protect all Germans in Europe who were “threatened with de-Germanization.”

THAT is the primary motive behind the inclusion of Section III, article 49 in the Fourth Geneva Convention.

How tragically ironic that the offspring of Holocaust survivors who found refuge in Israel now implement a similar ethnographic plan intended to “Judaize” Samaria and Judea (aka the West Bank) by means of massive population transfers, i.e. native Palestinians are being pushed out so that foreign, Jewish settlers can move in.

This is why Israel’s settler project in the Occupied Territory is illegal, folks.  It’s illegal because it would make Hitler proud.  It violates the Geneva Conventions, which was spearheaded by the United States.

Only weeks ago, I was driving past many of these settlements as my

Illegal settlements funded by Christian donations from the US

Palestinian friend pointed out the numerous, new expansions now under construction.  In several cases, he also told me the stories of how the Israeli authorities had, once again, used their laughable “laws” of land ownership to “legally” confiscate, i.e. steal, more of this Palestinian real estate.

As I read this article (and another on the same subject) I am struck by the near complete absence of any reference to the native inhabitants of this land – the Palestinian people.  When passing reference is made to the “other” folks who were living here long before the state of Israel, they are noted in passing as the restless hostiles who really ought to give up their struggle, if they know what’s good for them.

One American Zionist, working as a volunteer picking illegal grapes in an illegal vineyard rooted in stolen land, calmly passes judgement, “It’s impossible to remove the settlers from here, as long as they believe in the Bible.  The solution to the conflict will be for the media to stop encouraging the Arabs’ uprising and encourage them to live together with the Jews.”

So, I guess it’s all the media’s fault.  Too many reporters agitating the hapless Palestinians who, apparently, aren’t able to think for themselves.

But it’s hard for anyone “to live together” with the marauders who invaded your property, taken control of your home, pushed you out, made you homeless, and then warns you repeatedly not to put down new roots whenever you try to make a new start.

Another American volunteer confirms the Zionist prejudice that all Palestinians are violent agitators:

“Last February a number of [volunteers in an illegal settlement] found themselves in the midst of a clash between settlers and Palestinians near Har Bracha. According to them, Palestinians from the nearby village of Iraq Burin attacked them with stones while they were in the vineyard.

“The Har Bracha security coordinator came and fired on the Palestinians, who say they were defending their lands, wounding a shepherd.”

But, of course, the American visitor never bothered to learn the first thing about the history of this conflict.  He certainly does not know why he is helping these settlers to break international law.  He knows nothing about the resident Palestinians who have long depended on this very piece of land for their own livelihoods.  He has never ventured beyond the walls and electrified fence surrounding his settlement. He certainly has never asked a Palestinian about the difficulties of living under military occupation while watching strangers pick fruit from your soil.

As with most western accounts, there is no back-story; the narrative begins ex nihilo with a “Palestinian attack” that comes out of nowhere, seemingly for no reason.  It’s just another story about those pesky Injuns doin’ what Injuns do best.  Makin’ trouble, hinderin’ the advance of western civilization.

Christian Zionists are remarkably incurious people, by and large.  Rarely do they ask if the Palestinians might have a good reason to be angry.  If they did, they would hear stories about the many previous assaults launched against them by Israeli soldiers and the very settlers they are now helping to protect.

They might also stop to think about why they are helping Israel do for Jews in the Middle East what Hitler hoped to do for ethnic Germans in eastern Europe.

I encourage you to take a few moments to check out these articles for yourself.