Jerusalem map

This map comes from this article from WBEZ, NPR in Chicago. The article is well worth reading as it describes how the arrangement seen in the map came to be. It also mentions that the US embassy, placed in Jerusalem by President Trump at the request of his billionaire donor Sheldon Adelson, is located in the UN Zone seen on the map.

For a detailed look at the occupation of the West Bank by Israel, see the excellent map produced by the Israeli NGO, B'Tselem.

 

Israelis watch MSM distorted coverage of Gaza

 I have nothing to add to this article from Jewish Currents that describes the media coverage Israelis receive. This is something Americans have been exposed to since the Vietnam War.

What the Israeli Public Doesn't See

The right to exist

 The "right to exist" theme causes great anxiety in Israel because of the might-makes-right nature of the creation of the state. Of course the US is also a product of might making right but the crucial difference is that native-Americans are recognized as full citizens in addition to having some (not much) of their ancestral lands reserved for them.

Israel from the beginning had no intention of any role for the Palestinian Arabs beyond menial labor, much like the case of South Africa where blacks were welcome to come work but had to leave when the day was done. That has not changed and the idea of the land being exclusively for Jews is as strong as ever with the ongoing expansion expected (Israel has no official borders and has always been and continues to be in an official state of emergency).

It is this adamant exclusivity that sticks in the craw of the world and it is testimony to the power of the Israel lobby and its associated wealth applied to the corrupt US campaign scene that has Uncle Sam, once known as Mr. Liberty and Justice for All in a trance for Israel.

If Israel is let off the hook by the ICJ, nobody will be surprised just as nobody is surprised that the UN is constitutionally unable to fulfil its purpose. The ICJ will not thereby be delegitimized, only seen as ineffectual by design like the UN itself. All the testimony gathered will not be erased from history.

The world can easily see what is taking place in Gaza and is not fooled by Israel painting Oct 7 as a continuation of the holocaust as if atrocious behavior toward the Palestinians over the history of the country has not had some relation to Oct 7.

The holocaust is a human rights disaster that Israel sees as an exclusive possession and shield against any complaints over what it has done or is doing. Israelis have a rat in the skull on this that is not present in a large number of American Jews now on the forefront of objection to the Gaza slaughter. The fact is that as an exclusively Jewish state dedicated to living (and expanding) by the sword, Israel truly is illegitimate and will be until the natives have a place in it.

North Korea, to me, doesn't hold a candle to Israel as a threat to the world because Israelis are ever-ready to see a "second holocaust" at any time and would not hesitate to launch nuclear weapons with the idea of "never again" even if the world must be brought down. Netanyahu truly sees himself leading the forces of light against those of darkness, no matter how heavily armed is Israel or how helpless are the Palestinians. The US has foolishly pumped up this Israeli inflatable by mindlessly fueling it over decades in fear of the political consequences of not doing so. 1967 was a miracle from God for Israel after which all would be possible and Uncle Sam, the God of military power, has continually fed the mania.

Chicago city council puts Palestinians in their place

A proposal was put before the Chicago City Council for a resolution calling for the end of the slaughter in Gaza (going on now for months). It was defeated in a way that defies reason; that "holocaust remembrance day" is coming soon. This call to stop the resolution was presented by the only Jewish member of the council.

Does this make any sense to you? How does one thing have anything to do with the other in a way that one should stop action on the other?

This says that to pass the resolution would in some way be disrespectful of the remembrance day. How could this be? A commemoration of an event long gone in which millions died denies calling for the cessation of a current mass killing? To the contrary, the former cries out for the latter.

What this asks is that people think of the Jews who died long ago in a different category to the Palestinians being killed by Jews who are Israelis right now. The key is the attack on Oct. 7 which has by Israeli PM Netanyahu been equated with the holocaust. In other words, think of Oct. 7 and pause on the resolution because Oct 7 is unjustifiable while the slaughter in Gaza is something less.

The terrible truth is that Zionists have claimed sole ownership of the holocaust and, blinded by self-righteousness, completely miss the true lesson of that horror - that human beings can too easily disregard the humanity of other human beings and destroy them without hesitation or limit.

The holocaust is not the possession of one people, but of all of us. It is testimony that too many Israelis quite honestly see nothing wrong with what they are doing or have done to the Palestinians so immersed are they in victimhood. This rat in the skull was present from the beginning in Israel and thanks to the United States has been nourished to the point where it is now in full bloom.

The emotional appeal of Israel

Naturally it is politics, not justice or morality, that strongly influences how ICJ judges will decide on Israel's genocide. Exactly the same reason is behind the impotence of the UN. Germany, still racked with guilt over the holocaust, is expected to side with Israel, when the real lesson of “never again” is that no people should exterminate another people, in whole or in part, which is clearly what Israel is doing. Germany looks at the past rather than what is happening now in order to decide on what is happening now. How things will look is all important, not the slaughter of tens of thousands of the faceless.

This is exactly what Israel wants all but its antagonist(s) of the moment to be blinded by and it has worked well. Israel does not want its citizens to be called Israelis, but Jews, for this very reason, to maintain the status of victimhood even when slaughtering those helpless to defend themselves.

Suppose you were on the street and you heard someone shout “They’re killing the Nigerians!” and compare it to how you would react emotionally if instead someone shouted “They’re killing the Jews!” Isn’t simply reading that repellent and evocative? There is no comparison because of all that is known about the holocaust, precisely the reason that so many states have made it law that the holocaust be taught before high school in American public schools. Who knows or cares about Nigerians?

The plain fact is that Jews are no more or less human than any other group. Praise is in order for good deeds and condemnation in order for bad deeds. But, here again, imagine someone saying “the Nigerians were condemned by the ICJ!” vs “the Jews were condemned by the ICJ!” Our emotions respond to what we know about history. Americans know nothing about Nigerians or Nigeria, they know, or at the very least have heard about Jews, Judaism, the Bible, the holocaust, the plucky “story of Israel” that is entirely a tale that Israelis want Americans to hear, they have seen movies with Jews and about Jews, produced by Jews, they have heard stories about Jews, plays about Jews, TV series about the holocaust and they know Jews as neighbors and public figures. Howard and Sarah Greenblatt down the street have been to Israel and they loved it. Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis are just two examples of the glitterati who were Jews. Wow, wasn’t Spartacus a great movie! How about beautiful Natalie Portman and Gal Gadot, not only is Gal a Jew but an Israeli.

And the Palestinians? They are just more crazy Arabs, violent, prone to using terror, suicide bombers, Arabs killed a bunch of Americans in Iraq, hit the US on 9/11 and most of all, though one or two might own a quickie mart nearby, are not neighbors, nor public figures, nor featured in media except in stereotypical roles. If you want to see the very worst of this, view the opening scene of the old movie “Cannonball Run II” that could not be more offensively bigoted, under the thin cover of humor, with Ricardo Montalban as an Arab Sheik. It is extremely hard to watch. The Nazis practiced such open bigotry against Jews and we can be thankful that against Jews it would not be tolerated in the US, but with Arabs, who will object?

All this exposure to one group in positive ways and to another solely in negative ways. Is it any surprise who Joe Biden said “we” are standing with before ignoring Congress and illegally committing our military? I have no doubt many ignorant Americans cheered at that and now we are the invincible sword of Israel (the force of light against the force of darkness) in the war of a foreign country against groups (with more likely to come) that did not declare war on us and were not out to get us, but will be in response to our attacks.

The philosophy that drives my pro-Palestinian view

POINT ONE: I do not capitalize the word holocaust deliberately. It has nothing to do with questioning what happened or belittling it.

For Zionists, it is intentional that the word be capitalized because to them it represents something unique that justifies their claim to be unique along with what they have done and do in Palestine. For them, Jews are victims of the rest of humanity. This can never change. As PM Netanyahu has put it, "we must always live by the sword". For Jews the other will always be the aggressor. Humanity is divided between Jews and all others. In this cosmic injustice, Jews can never be anything other than defenders and in the right whatever means are chosen for this assumed defense.

This is the reason that the 20:1 kill ratio (Pals/Israelis) is not of real note to Israelis, nor is the destruction of Gaza. It is an imperative. Six million dead Jews say this, so Israel claims, without being able to actually hear what the dead might say. No non-Jew can question this in spite of many living Jews vehemently saying, "Not in Our Name" over much of the history of Israel up to right now.

This is way Netanyahu has said with a straight face that we are witnessing the forces of light (Israel) vs the forces of darkness (the Palestinians but really all the Arabs, the Turks, the Iranians and any others opposed to what Israel does). He is gracious enough to include the US as an ally on the side of light.

I want to look at Oct 7 in a way you may be able to understand by using a scene from the movie, Sophie's Choice, as powerful a flick as any I have seen. Sophie is a resident of a concentration camp. She is fortunate to have obtained a job as maid for the Nazi commandant. He has a family and a nice home with a lawn and garden. His children play happily in this comfortable life that answers all the needs one could want including parental love and complete security.

But there is a gate on the yard of the commandant's house. When Sophie leaves the house and opens the gate she is presented with the horror of the death camp. Nothing but the wall at the edge of the commandant's yard separates the ideal life from hell. Of course this is no secret to the commandant, yet he is not bothered by it in the least...one place is home, one place is work.

On Oct 7 we saw this same scene, the carefree, delightful music festival for those with clear consciences on one side of the Gaza fence and the hell of the Gaza prison on the other. The big difference is the Gazans, in the form of HAMAS, had managed to build a capability to attack those living the good life seemingly without any fear of what was right next door to which they had no objection.

Oct 7 happened. What has been topic one for the Israelis and in the US? The horror of the day or the horror of the years, the decades, the entire lives of those on the other side of the fence? It is no accident that we are told "this is the greatest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust!" while the unlimited killing and destruction continues as I write, 20 times the loss of life, with the US supplying the means without question. Yet Americans for the most part don't see anything but "our ally" under attack. The Nazi commandant from the movie would understand this if ever any group of prisoners could storm his hearth and home. His response would be a duplication of what Israel is doing right now.

POINT TWO: The taking of the land

Right now there is a continuing uproar in the United States over the outrage of illegal immigration. The Mexicans and other groups must be stopped at the border using any means necessary, a wall, arrest and imprisonment. This influx cannot be tolerated. Democrats and Republicans both agree something must be done...this about an influx of people who in number do not make up even a fraction of a percentage of the US population.

But the Palestinians are wrong to have objected to an unlimited number of Jews coming to Palestine. They are wrong to have turned to violence against Jews. They are wrong to think this process should not continue right up to the present with plans for it to go on indefinitely as they are herded into a corner in Gaza. It is an outrage that some Palestinians have turned to violence resulting in JEWS BEING KILLED! and we should all think of the holocaust.

Now the Jews who have immigrated to Palestine with the intent of becoming a majority of the population everywhere in Palestine are not the same as the immigrants trying to get into the US. These people at the US/Mexican border simply want a better life, any life at all compared to what they have known.

Not one of them is thinking of turning the US into Mexico, of replacing English with Spanish, of ejecting the present non-Latino citizens of the US, of depriving such citizens of their civil rights, of tearing down what has been built in the US and replacing it with what the immigrants want to build, of getting rid of all English place-names and passing a law the puts English beneath Spanish as the national language, of claiming the US as their rightful homeland (though that is true enough), of banning the display of the American flag, of taking all firearms away from non-Latinos. I could go on and on in this truth telling.

I rest my case. You be the judges. Most Americans, completely ignorant had long ago come down on the side of Israel, those people "just like us" but the Oct 7 attack has thrown open wide a door to reveal Israel as its true, unvarnished self and the sight is not appealing. Just possibly justice might be served at least in some way, if only partial, for a long standing horror of death and dispossession.

PS...I recall talking with a Jewish woman years ago who had just returned from Israel. It was at a meeting of JVP where people were telling of their experiences there. This woman told of walking in Jerusalem when she saw an armed Israeli policewoman hit an elderly Arab woman with the butt of her rifle.

This visitor walked up to the Israeli and said "I just saw what you did. Why did you do that?" The response was "It's just an Arab". Note the use of the word "it" for a human being.