Everything We Wish Wasn't True About Israel

How Can Hamas Remain Peaceful and Defensive Against Israeli Violence?

Artwork by Carlos Latuff, friend of Salem-News.com, located in Rio de Janeiro. To see his work, visit: Latuff Gallery

(SALEM) - Regardless of its endless western support, Israel by all accounts is no different than any other Mideast religious government guilty of years of state terrorism.

The kneejerk reaction of 'antisemite' toward every critic of Israel's politics is false and unfair to Israel's victims.

Nobody wishes harm to Israeli people, changing the present paradigm would, as much as anything, work in favor of the Israeli people; peace for everyone, not just one culture, at the expense of another, which is exactly what has taken place- is the desired goal.

It is insulting that the 'you hate me because I'm Jewish' line can actually be uttered, but it is... constantly. However each time its punch does weaken, and becomes a little less effective.

The whole thing is a double edged blade for all Jewish people because there are genuine 'antisemites' on this planet, like Nazi's, etc., and a lot of angry Arabs, but calling a critic of politics and military policy an antisemite is a cheap shield becoming increasingly transparent, because criticizing the cruelty of Israel's military has nothing to do with liking or disliking a religion. However it all comes back to the same thing every time, there is no such thing as a good or humane religious government. Sad but true, I would love to see an example that works.

Not to labor the point, but it does need plenty of clarity. I think of all of the Americans who died crushing the Third Reich, thus freeing of the Jews from the concentration camps - it is our own national history as Americans, it is our greatest pride to have won that war and to have liberated the captive people who were still alive; nothing about the accusation of being against people of the Jewish religion holds water at all, or even makes sense, it's just a weak excuse to defend Israel's terrible military attacks inflicted on innocent people and every time this subject really flares up, my Jewish friends come out of the woodwork to defend me personally, and Salem-News.com overall. It all says a great deal.

Extraordinary War Crimes

The tension about this subject all over the world, is so thick sometimes that you could cut it with a knife. It is increasingly dawning on Americans, that their taxes and political representatives back a government called 'Israel' that maintains apartheid laws that even Americans fully rejected years ago. Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is so terrible, so regrettable, I suspect that most Holocaust survivors roll in their graves each time another Palestinian civilian is killed, and contrary to what Israel says, most are civilians, others are Hamas soldiers, the exact same things as Israeli soldiers. There are rules that govern this activity, Israel does not follow them.

Israel's government is and always has been cruel. I suppose that was inevitable, it was born from Genocide and the vow of 'never again' - yet rather than following that rule, the Zionist government of Israel just did it to somebody else, the Palestinian Arabs, who didn't lift a finger toward the Israelis in WWII.

Within the ranks of Israel, are and have been many great people, you can tell who they are very easily, they are the ones who refuse to accept Israel's illegal treatment of Palestinians by speaking out, and they take a lot of heat for it.

The shocking video we frequently receive from Palestine showing the brutal side of the Israeli Defense Forces, simply is banned and screened from Israeli viewership. We'll run through a few of these, they are shocking testimony of what is really taking place in the Hold Land.

And there are no excuses for it, only the same old problem; religious extremism. Israelis by and large believe, along with Christians, that they are 'The Chosen People' and because these words appear in the Bible, Israel's behavior is tolerated. The Bible isn't part of any modern political law or doctrine, it is simply one group's guiding religious manual. And it is used to pillage people who lived on this land long before what we now call Israel; a nation that is 63 years old.

Additionally, the theory of 'Zionism' is barely over a hundred years old. Jews always saw themselves as chosen people, but it wasn't until a man named Theodore Herzl came along and said 'Palestine' in the 1890's, that people began looking at this particular region, already populated by mostly Muslims, but also smaller numbers of Christians and Jews, as the future 'Israel'.

This isn't conjecture, Israel illegally steals property today exactly the way it has since its inception in 1948. There are endless examples of this on YouTube and in many other places, it can't hide if you just do a simple search. And since I'm here, I will make it easy for you:

Israelis Destroy Water Supplies

I just published an article about Israel's destruction of a water cistern used by Palestinian people to water their crops. The Israeli police came in and destroyed their crops a little less than a week ago, and now they have intentionally destroyed the cistern.

Americans need to understand that Israel has been intentionally targeting farmers in Palestine. It is easy to dismiss, but people have to stop doing that.

You have to watch the video and read the stories and vote your conscience. One group recording the Israeli destruction of Palestinian crops and water sources is the Christian Peacemakers Teams, based in Palestine.

We also need to show Israel that we are not going to put up with this, and their ongoing elimination of the Palestinian people must end.

Borders must be restored to what they were before Israel's Six Day War which was a Pearl Harbor-like surprise attack on both Egypt, Lebanon and the United States. In six days all of Egypt's Air Force was in smoldering ruin on the ground, Lebanese military targets were ruthlessly struck, and the U.S.S. Liberty was nearly sunk after a several hour long attack by Israeli aircraft and naval boats and ships.

Israelis Raze Farmer's Crops

The respected Israeli writer Tal Haran sent a story to Salem-News.com that is tied to the destruction of the cistern.

"For many years, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) has been trying to remove Palestinians from the Beqa Valley, east of Kiryat Arba and Givat Harsina. The army has demolished homes, destroyed farmers’ crops and their cisterns for collecting water.

"On Tuesday, 6th July 2010, personnel from the Civil Administration backed up by the Border Police, and accompanied by labourers, came to the area and began to uproot water drip irrigation pipelines belonging to Palestinian farmers in the Beqa Valley. The workmen also uprooted the protective covers of tomato crops. They similarly destroyed the irrigation system for approx. 35 dunams belonging to six families.

"Any Palestinian at the site, or who came to it, was violently forced to a distance – the IDF used blows and beatings, tear gas and stun grenades. Some Palestinians required medical treatment as a result, including a pregnant woman in her eighth month and a four year old child."

Israeli Snipers Shoot Farmers

I wrote in May 2011, about how farmers who try to harvest crops on land their family has owned for generations are often shot by the Israeli military, sometimes fatally. 20-year-old Mohammad al-Breem was shot in the right leg as the farmers worked together with the international Human Rights Activists. There were more shots as they attempted to leave the area having worked on their land for 2 hours in full view of the Israeli forces situated along the Green Line.

There was no surprise, no provocation; the IDF let them think they could work their own land, and then after a while they opened fire. Farmers of every persuasion, from every corner of the globe, should condemn this ongoing genocide of the Palestinians by Israel's unaccountable government forces.

In case you were curious, the farmers' crime, that Israel deemed open season over, was the loading of parsley and spinach from the agricultural lands. The shots were fired from Israeli forces on the border. Mohammad was shot in the right leg and evacuated, while still under fire, to a hospital. International Human Rights Activists have repeatedly witnessed Palestinian farmers being shot at by Israeli forces as they attempt to work on agricultural land situated within 700m of the Green Line.

Israeli Attack on Family Beach Picnic

In April 2010, I wrote a story about the Israeli navy attacking a Palestinian family; men, women and children, while they had a picnic on the beach in Gaza.

PBC News reported at the time:

"This evening seven citizens were martyred and 30 others were severely wounded, including dozens of women and in a new Israeli massacre, when Israeli war speed boats, shot at beachgoers on the coast at the Gaza beach in the Sundanea area Northwest of Gaza City. Most were the children of Ali Ghalia, his wife Rye Ghalia who was 26. Sabrina 8, Haitham 1, Zebren 8, Anadia 2, Ilham 7, and Halia 15."

The newscaster whose Arabic words are translated to English, concludes the story by saying, "Glory and eternity to our glorious martyrs."

This happens every time Israel kills another Palestinian; a tremendous loss revered as a martyr, but still the Palestinians remain non-violent, and still they are slaughtered.

Children Aren't Terrorists

Israel's version of a 'terrorist' - What parent approves of this?

This is not a defense of Islamic militarism; it is about families being slaughtered by trigger-happy Israeli sailors during a day at the beach, it's about farmers being shot by soldiers who will never be prosecuted for their crimes, it is about Israel destroying historic, ancient Palestinian water supplies, it is about Israeli settlers treating non-Jewish children with cruelty, and an endless list of problems Israel has chosen to implement as part of its apartheid legal system.

Anyone who disagrees that Israel has an apartheid government and political system can talk to the wall; since 1951 Israeli law has called for one set of laws for Jews, and one set for non-Jews. South Africa had one set of laws for whites, one set of laws for blacks, as did Alabama and many other parts of the U.S. under what were known as 'Jim Crow' laws that sprang up increasingly in the years following the freeing of the slaves in 1865, and lasted through the 1950's and later, even in the NW state of Oregon where I reside.

The sickest component of the frequently touted Israeli point of view, based on direct contact from many Israelis to Salem-News.com over the years, is the argument that killing Palestinian kids is OK because they will "grow up to become terrorists and kill Jews". This is common among the right wing elements of Israel, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Western people, Americans more than any others, have come a long way in comprehending the deeds the country committed against the Native Americans. While bigotry exists today in America, is has to hide in corners, out of the light, because Civil Right laws are real here and so are the attorneys who specialize in these cases.

Even though our own forefathers committed terrible acts against people of color here, Americans learned and created a system to protect people from racial crimes.

Read: Ground Shifting Under Israel's Feet by Daniel Johnson

If today's Americans received news only through our group and a handful of others, operating outside of the U.S., they would change their tune about supporting Israel in a heartbeat; they would never put up with it if they really knew how heartless Israel is toward the Palestinian people on a daily basis, particularly the children, who can be arrested at half the age of Jewish kids.

Non-Jewish children can be arrested, taken from their parents, and held for long periods of pre-trial confinement, where horrible stories of physical and sexual abuse from the children's Israeli captors abound. Again, this is highly documented like every other piece of information listed here. Most are arrested for 'suspicion of rock throwing' and conversely, there are no arrests of Jewish children who pelt Palestinian people with rocks all day every day in certain areas, which means near settlements or any fundamentalist or radical Zionist Jews.

Indeed, if awards were given out for the most children killed, the largest number of fathers humiliated, the record amount of Arab women and children accosted and molested and much worse, Israel would win the biggest trophy in existence. Trust me that I am sparing you the horrible images of children's bodies totally devastated by Israel's weapons, I have hundreds, they are all online.

It is insane and you know that definition of insanity... doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Americans are increasingly understanding this insane life forced on the Palestinians with separate and unequal laws, endless checkpoints, restrictions on travel, entry and exit searches, curfews, etc. Americans are ready for a big change in this area of political thinking and engineering.

Civilian slaughter in Gaza- photo titled: 'Never Again'

How Hamas and all of Palestine's supporters have remained in a non-violent mode while they are painted as mad terrorists is well beyond my comprehension.

In fact the more you learn about the vast inequity continually facing the Palestinians by the Israeli occupiers, it is easier to understand why there would be violence, than how it could not exist Don't get me wrong, I applaud it; non-violence is a fantastic thing, but it has been shown to oppressed ethnic minorities time and time again, that remaining non-violent can just make the acts of state terrorism against targeted populations easier to commission, longer-lasting, and simpler to get away with.

Non-violent resistance has won battles, amd major wars like the Civil Rights period in the United States that began in the 1950's and culminated in the 1960's. While non-violence is the bottom line, and the best approach, there is a point where it is weak and foolish and cowardly. It was Gandhi who said:

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I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.... I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.

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