Goodbye New York Times

I have subscribed to the New York Times for many years, but I am ending my subscription tomorrow.

I'm doing so because the NYT did not so much as mention the Edward Snowden revelation that the NSA has been systematically turning over all the intelligence it gathers on all Americans to Israel with no meaningful strings attached.

The NYT claims that this was because the story was insignificant! How foolish do they think people are to believe such a preposterous claim?

I've tolerated the pro-Israel spin given to stories from the middle east for as long as I can remember. In the last two years there have been signs of improvement. One, just this week, is Ian Lustick's spot-on opinion piece in the Sunday Review about the pointless "peace talks". But my tolerance has run out.

I'm going to subscribe to the Washington Post because I am hopeful that Jeff Bezos has a better idea of what journalism is than what has been the American newspaper of record, whose motto when it comes to Israel is to protect the views of the powerful.

Paul Craig Cobb, a modern day Ben Gurion

Today the NY Times published an article documenting a white supremacist buying up property in North Dakota to create a colony where white supremacy would be practiced and promoted free of interference; a safe haven for racism to thrive. Current residents are understandably worried.

Yet, this idea of creating a colony for one group to reign supreme by buying up land has worked wonderfully well in another place and it has moved on from buying land to simply taking it away from others. The United States backs the project with billions yearly and full protection by veto in the United Nation. This supremacist project is called the State of Israel.

IDF and Palestinians dance together

While patrolling, a squad of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers happened upon a Palestinian wedding going on and hearing the music of Gangnam Style, joined in the festivities to the delight of those at the party. Take a look at this video of everyone having fun.

The entire patrol was suspended by the IDF.

a petition against phony peace talks

The following statement was initiated by Palestinian activists in North America:

We, the undersigned Palestinians and Palestinian organizations in shatat and exile, write today to express our firm opposition to the resumption of bilateral Israeli/Palestinian negotiations under U.S. auspices in Washington DC, today, July 29.

For twenty years, the negotiations have not served Palestinian interests. Through countless sessions of futile negotiations, Israeli settlement construction has escalated, thousands of Palestinian political prisoners are held behind bars and Palestinian rights - including Palestinian refugees' right to return - are no closer to implementation. While the Netanyahu government is planning the massive dispossession of Palestinians in the Naqab via the Prawer Plan, the negotiations serve only to provide a thin veneer of legitimacy to the aggressive policies of Israeli occupation and apartheid.

Our rights - the rights of the Palestinian people - and our land - the entire land of Palestine - are not for sale or bartering at the negotiations table. That this process is presided over by the United States government, which provides $3 billion annually in military aid to Israel, and specifically by Martin Indyk, former research director at infamous Israel lobby organization the America Israel Public Affairs Committe, only adds insult to injury and makes clear that these negotiations will bring nothing of value or benefit to the Palestinian people.

Today, we say: PA President Mahmoud Abbas does not represent us! Our rights cannot and will not be bargained away at a negotiating table in Washington, DC.

Instead, we affirm that the Palestinian people are one people and our cause is one cause. Our people have struggled for 65 years in order to achieve the liberation of the land and people of Palestine and the implementation of the right of Palestinian refugees to return their homes.

As Palestinians in shatat/diaspora, we are not being represented here, and we demand to reclaim our voice and role. We do not accept these negotiations, and our rights, our people and our land are not for sale!

SIGN ON: Email NoToNegotiations@gmail.com or use the form: http://bit.ly/NoToNegotiations

a lawsuit way overdue

Muslim organizations in the United States are continually under threat of lawsuits alleging connection with that catch-all term "terrorism". There have been prosecutions, notoriously the Holy Land Five case.

Well, I've just learned that at long last a case is being brought against American support groups for Israeli settlements. Armed Israeli settlers are routinely involved in violent attacks on Palestinians, uprooting or burning olive trees, if not shooting at unarmed residents of Palestinian villages. This lawsuit is long overdue.

From the Electronic Intifada...

A recently-filed complaint in a New York district court has the potential to compensate and provide judicial recourse to a handful of Palestinians terrorized by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. The civil suit is filed under a law that until now has been used almost entirely to prosecute Muslim and Palestinian Americans.

On 17 May, the New York-based commercial law firm Melito and Adolfsen filed a complaint against five US organizations alleging that they had violated the material support statute, which prohibits individuals from “knowingly providing material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.”

The organizations are alleged to have supported terrorist activities by funding settlers who have firebombed, thrown stones and shot at Palestinians, burned Palestinian land and trees, and vandalized Palestinian houses of prayer in the West Bank.

The case is filed on behalf of 15 plaintiffs: 13 Palestinian individuals, one mosque and one Greek Orthodox monastery. All of the plaintiffs have experienced a physical attack or, what is commonly referred to as “price tag” assault, by settlers from nearby Jewish colonies that are given financial support by the defendants of the lawsuit.

read the entire article.

so many villages gone

The red dots on the map below indicate Palestinian towns that have been eliminated from 1948 to date in the state of Israel. The green dots are Palestinian towns that remain. Note that Gaza and the West Bank are blank. Gaza is no longer a place of settlement for Israelis since the unilateral withdrawal of Jewish settlements in 2005 by the Sharon government. This was done because of the impossibility of the Jews in the settlements growing in number enough to be a majority of the populace. It was Sharon's admission of his concern to keep a Jewish majority in the Jewish State.

Since that time, Sharon is out of the picture and settlement in the West Bank is proceeding with vigor, ignoring Sharon's fear that such activity would create the need for a system of apartheid. The alternative of a real democracy, allowing Palestinians to be full citizens of an expanded Israel, is not a consideration, while the placement of settlements leaves no room for a Palestinian state. It is this dilemma that is behind the comments now heard from former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and others that Israel is committing national suicide with the settlements. A state for only one group of people won't survive in the 21st century.

Recently, Israeli businessmen have been warning Prime Minister Netanyahu that the apartheid label is going to kill the economy of Israel.

protesting against IDF support

On June 13, 2013 I participated in a protest demonstration at a fundraiser given by the Friends of the IDF in downtown Chicago. This group sends money to support USO type activities for the IDF troops. With the video and still shots taken at the protest, I thought I would create a video (3 minutes) to explain why the IDF is so undeserving of American support in any form.