The rhetoric of "peace"
Ziyaad Lunat, The Electronic Intifada, 15 April 2009

Benjamin Netanyahu's promise of "economic peace" means the beginning of a new stage of colonization. (Moti Milrod/MaanImages)

The Israelis have offered the Palestinians many types of "peace." Their first attempt to reach out to the Palestinians was in 1948 with an offer of a "racist peace." Ethnic cleansing was the basis of a "racist peace" where Zionist terrorists drove out two thirds of the Palestinian population from their homes. Its logic was that expulsion would end strife between Zionists and Palestinians (by eliminating one side) enabling the Zionists to enjoy peace in an ethnic Jewish haven. The Palestinians, stubborn as they were, refused a racist Zionist state as the basis for "peace."

Israel relentlessly extended its hand to the Palestinians offering them a "military peace" instead. Deterrence was the basis of a "military peace" where a Zionist state armed to the teeth would instill fear in the hearts of the Palestinians. Its logic was that through military deterrence the Palestinians would accept their condition of displacement. Soon after their expulsion in 1948, Palestinian refugees continuously attempted to return to their properties. The Zionists initiated a campaign of reprisals to deny their right to return. Hundreds were killed in this way, massacres included Qibya in 1953, Lebanon in 1982, Jenin in 2002 and Gaza in 2009. Palestinians however rejected Zionist military domination as the basis for "peace."

While the above two peace offers were crude, Israel devised an "apartheid peace" as a more elaborate proposal to the Palestinians, hoping they would finally reciprocate. Physical separation between Jews and Arab Palestinians was the basis for an "apartheid peace." Its logic was that the Palestinians would be given limited autonomy to manage their internal affairs and build their own institutions but their demands would have to eventually fall short of full sovereignty. Some Palestinians were co-opted in signing the Oslo accords in 1993, accepting apartheid as the basis for "peace."

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The Coming Breakup of American Zionism

By Norman Finkelstein

Independent scholar and author, Norman Finkelstein, speaking at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. The title of the lecture is "The Coming Breakup of American Zionism".

Uploaded May 2008






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MIDEAST: Aid Rots Outside Gaza
By Erin Cunningham

Aid meant for Gaza going waste in Egypt. Credit:Erin Cunningham

AL-ARISH, Egypt, Apr 15 (IPS) - Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of aid intended for the Gaza Strip is piling up in cities across Egypt's North Sinai region, despite recent calls from the United Nations to ease aid flow restrictions to the embattled territory in the wake of Operation Cast Lead.

Food, medicine, blankets, infant food and other supplies for Gaza's 1.5 million people, coming from governments and non-governmental agencies around the world, are being stored in warehouses, parking lots, stadiums and on airport runways across Egypt's North Sinai governorate.

Egypt shares a 14-kilometre border with Gaza that has been closed more or less permanently since the Islamist movement Hamas took control of the territory in June 2007.

Flour, pasta, sugar, coffee, chocolate, tomato sauce, lentils, date bars, juice, chickpeas, blankets, hospital beds, catheter tubes and other humanitarian- based items are all sitting in at least eight storage points in and around Al- Arish, a city in North Sinai approximately 50 kilometres from Gaza's border.

Three months after the end of the war, much of the aid has either rotted or been irreparably damaged as a result of both rain and sunshine, and Egypt's refusal to open the Rafah crossing.

"To be honest, most of this aid will never make it to Gaza," a local government official told IPS on condition of anonymity. "A lot of the food here will have to be thrown away

Click here: Egypt, Israel Block Mass Aid To Gaza - Food Rots to read more.

The Israel Lobby

For many years now the American foreign policy has been characterized by the strong tie between the United States and Israel. Does the United States in fact keep Israel on its feet? And how long will it continue to do so?

In March 2006 the American political scientists John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Steve Walt (Harvard) published the controversial article 'The Israel Lobby and US foreign policy'. In it they state that it is not, or no longer, expedient for the US to support and protect present-day Israel. The documentary sheds light on both parties involved in the discussion: those who wish to maintain the strong tie between the US and Israel, and those who were critical of it and not infrequently became 'victims' of the lobby.

The question arises to what extend the pro-Israel lobby ultimately determines the military and political importance of Israel itself. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (Colin Powell's former chief-of-staff) explains how the lobby's influence affects the decision-making structure in the White House.

With political scientist John Mearsheimer, neocon Richard Perle, lobby organization AIPAC, televangelist John Hagee, historian Tony Judt, Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth, colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Democrat Earl Hilliard, Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy and investigative journalist Michael Massing.

Research: William de Bruijn
Director: Marije Meerman

A Match Made in Tel Aviv
Will Netanyahu and the neocons live happily ever after?

By Leon Hadar
April 07, 2009 "The American Conservative" -- -Imagine that after Boris Yeltsin was elected president of a free post-Communist Russia in 1991, the Poles, residents of a former province of the Soviet empire, elected former Communist boss Edward Gierek as their new head of state. Then suppose that, upon entering office, he called on Moscow to forget about rapprochement with the West and prepare for military confrontation.
Improbable as it seems, some version of this scenario is playing out here. After their humiliating defeat in the 2008 presidential and congressional elections, the vanquished neoconservative legions won a major political victory in one of the provinces of the American empire when the parliamentary election in Israel brought to power a veteran neocon activist. He is calling on Washington to forget about changing U.S. policy in the Middle East and prepare for a military confrontation with Iran.
Initially, the neoconservatives envisioned a grander strategy. In November 2008, Americans would elect Norman Podhoretz’s favorite American politician, Rudy Giuliani, as their new president, followed by a vote in Israel in which Norman Podhoretz’s favorite Israeli politician, Benjamin Netanyahu, would be chosen as the Jewish state’s new prime minister.
It would have been like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire teaming in “Flying Down to Tehran” and dancing cheek to cheek in “Neocon Time.” Not unlike FDR and Churchill uniting their nations in the struggle against Fascism during World War II, Rudy and Bibi would bring their countries together to fight Islamofascism. How about a special commemorative issue of Commentary to celebrate the day the two tied the knot at the White House?

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22366.htm to read more.

Armed settlers confront US Consulate delegation near Nablus

Nablus - Ma'an - Armed Israeli settlers prevented a delegation from the US Consulate from approaching a settlement near Nablus on Monday, according to diplomatic officials. In a telephone call to Ma'an, a spokesperson for the US Consulate to Jerusalem said that officials were near the Hioval settlement, close to the Nablus-area village of Qaryut, when armed settler guards stopped the delegation. According to the American officials, the visit was a routine and periodic trip to areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and the visit was previously scheduled. Ghassan Doghlus, the head of the village's local council, told Ma'an that settlement guards stopped the American delegation from entering the area. "The guards prevented the delegation from getting close to the settlement and the nearby lands that were confiscated; the guards pointed their arms at the delegation, forcing them to leave the area," he said.Another spokesperson for the US Consulate in Jerusalem, Michaela Sweitzer-Blum, confirmed that armed Israeli settlers did confront an officer from the US Consulate back from the edge of the settlement."They [the US delegation] did meet up with some armed guards froma a local outpost," she said of the incident.

From:http://maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=36929

US Envoy Writes of Israeli Threats
By Barbara Crossette
April 05, 2009 "The Nation" March 31, 2009 -- -In the wake of the accusation by Chas Freeman that his nomination to lead the National Intelligence Council was derailed by an "Israeli lobby," a forthcoming memoir by another distinguished ambassador adds stunning new charges to the debate. The ambassador, John Gunther Dean, writes that over the years he not only came under pressure from pro-Israeli groups and officials in Washington but also was the target of an Israeli-inspired assassination attempt in 1980 in Lebanon, where he had opened links to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Dean's suspicions that Israeli agents may have also been involved in the mysterious plane crash in 1988 that killed Pakistan's president, General Mohammed Zia ul Haq, led finally to a decision in Washington to declare him mentally unfit, which forced his resignation from the foreign service after a thirty-year career. After he left public service, he was rehabilitated by the State Department, given a distinguished service medal and eventually encouraged to write his memoirs. Now 82, Dean sees the subsequent positive attention he has received as proof that the insanity charge (he calls it Stalinist) was phony, a supposition later confirmed by a former head of the department's medical service.Dean, whose memoir is titled Danger Zones: A Diplomat's Fight for America's Interests, was American ambassador in Lebanon in August 1980 when a three-car convoy carrying him and his family was attacked near Beirut."I was the target of an assassination attempt by terrorists using automatic rifles and antitank weapons that had been made in the United States and shipped to Israel," he wrote. "Weapons financed and given by the United States to Israel were used in an attempt to kill an American diplomat!" After the event, conspiracy theories abounded in the Middle East about who could have planned the attack, and why. Lebanon was a dangerously factionalized country.

Click here: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22356.htm to read more.