1AM - soldiers at the door

Watch this video made possible by B'Tselem giving cameras to Palestinian families to record events in their lives. In this case, Israeli soldiers arrive in the wee hours of the morning to roust a Palestinian family out of bed so that pictures can be taken of the male children. This is proof once again that Palestinians have no rights, even to the privacy of their own homes. Note that the Israeli soldiers are hardly more than teenagers.

We came to inherit the land

Amnon Neumann, a former soldier in the Palmach, the army that expelled the Arabs from areas that the future state of Israel would hold as its own, recounts some of his experiences (but not all, some being unmentionable).

Concerning the erasing of what is called by the Palestinians the catastrophe (Nakba), he says on reflection, "my whole world view of what happened in the war changed completely. I saw that this was a deliberate deception of the Zionist movement. And they did it successfully, a major success"



This video was produced by Zochrot, which means remembering in Hebrew. From the website:

Zochrot seeks to raise public awareness of the Palestinian Nakba, especially among Jews in Israel, who bear a special responsibility to remember and amend the legacy of 1948. The principal victims of the Nakba were the Palestinians, especially the refugees, who lost their entire world. But Jews in Israel also pay a price for their conquest of the land in 1948, living in constant fear and without hope.

The Nakba destroyed the fabric of relations that existed between Jews and Palestinians before 1948. In recognizing and materializing the right of return lies the possibility for Jews and Palestinians to live in this country together.

Israel's school textbook propaganda

Israeli Nurit Peled-Elhanan doesn't mince words when she asks

How do Israeli boys and girls educated on supposedly enlightened humanistic values and end up being such horrible monsters in the army?

She decided to take a look at the textbooks used in Israeli schools to see if a clue might be found there. She has examined such books for many years. In this video, she tells of what she found in maps, the handling of death, excuses and rationalizations for Israeli military actions, blame placing, glorification of the military and more.

America, what has happened to you?

What has tripped up the U.S. repeatedly is the anxiety factor of our leadership. How can a democratic political system that has shown it’s inherent strength now for over 200 years be continually headed by people who think it is about to be undermined by every wind that blows?

While the world admires the personal freedoms we enjoy and most would love to share it in their own part of the world, our leadership counteracts that very positive image with the endless fear they show by an obsession with domination everywhere. From the frenzy over Communist power (a system whose collapse was welcomed by the very people who were supposed to be under its sway) to the current Islamophobia, America must be forever planting military bases and issuing warnings; setting up trip-wires for intervention and laying down markers not to be crossed.

How ironic that freedom and liberty, so attractive to the great majority of mankind, cannot be allowed to do their good work of setting an example for others to try their best to emulate. Instead we must have a ponderous and heavy-handed policy backed with unlimited weapons that disfigures the U.S. image all over the world. Top it off by calling it “national security”.

Now after 19 people pulled off an attack with airliners of all things, we have heavy-handed law enforcement right here in the U.S. to oppress us as well with the FBI running after people who simply visited the occupied territories. If anything, it appears this monster of coercion and force is relentlessly putting liberty and justice for all in the shade everywhere, crushing the very way of life that it is promoted as protecting!

Israel and the U.S. are alike in one way – they are hard at work on their own undoing, completely blinded by an obsession with hard (as opposed to soft or diplomatic) power.