by Brad Stroud

Mondoweiss has provided an excellent forum for an exploration of the questions of the Holocaust, Holocaust denial, Zionism and the denial of Zionist racism. It centers around Ahmadinejad’s speech at the (just completed) UN Racism conference.

Bruce Wolman wrote Who is the bigger obstacle to peace, Netanyahu or Ahmadinejad?. Philip Weiss, however, included a response to this piece: “a vigorous defense of Ahmadinejad by Mohammad of Vancouver, our Iranian-Canadian correspondent.” What I’m increasingly admiring about Philip Weiss is his unrelenting openness. Noting that, “as a Jew” he had taken comfort in Wolman’s piece, he added “but this site is not about comfort. We aim to be a place where dialogue occurs across national, ethnic and religious lines in a new world.”

My view is that the key to understanding what is going on whenever Ahmadinejad speaks and the “west” reports on it is that there are both deliberate and accidental misinterpretations of what he actually states. Aside from the more obvious problems of media distortion of such speeches, there is the problem of meaning and of understanding the objectives that inform the choice of rhetoric. Delving into such matters requires that us “westerners” recognize that we have more than a few shibboleths and that among them are “the Holocaust” and “Zionism”.

What some readers may encounter for the first time in reading these two pieces is the idea that “Holocaust” has been and is put to use to accomplish various objectives and that these uses are, in fact, distinct from the fact of the extermination of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazis. “Zionism” is also put to use in manners to achieve particular objectives. For example, it is used by some to ward off all criticisms of Israeli territorial occupation and expansion as being antisemitic (that is, racist). This use can be rather effective in obviating the fact that expansionist Zionism is itself a racist program entailing the complete eradication of a Palestinian homeland.

This is clearly illustrated by reading Wolman’s piece, followed by the response of Mohammad of Vancouver.

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by Brad Stroud

The bottom line is the settlements. They are an existential threat to the Palestinians. Their expansion is an existential threat to the Palestinians. Therefore the expansion of settlements must stop. Therefore the settlements must be dismantled.

The bottom line is the settlements. They are an existential threat to the Palestinians. Their expansion is an existential threat to the Palestinians. Therefore the expansion of settlements must stop. Therefore the settlements must be dismantled.

This is the only true and real existential threat in the Middle East.

Do not be placated by political talk from the lips of Obama and administration or any member of the Israeli government including Netanyahu until the words are these:

Obama:  “Mr. Netanyahu. Dismantle the settlements.”

Netanyahu:  “The Zionist ambition for a Greater Israel has seduced us into believing that anything great could come out of the complete destruction of a homeland for the Palestinians. Our future, our greatness as a nation, can only come about from a greatness of spirit. This spirit begins today with me as I sign into law the dismantling of the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.”

(Citizens and human rights advocates around the world cheer in unison! And those opposed? What ill thoughts must they be thinking to oppose this?)

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by Brad Stroud

Israel’s Settlements Entail the Destruction of an Independent Palestinian State Putting aside every other issue, Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank alone is sufficient to destroy the possibility of a viable Palestinian State (i.e, a politically independent entity with autonomous control over its borders, its resources and the movement of its people.). Since 1967 and its victory in the Six Day War, Israel has developed the public policies and policing strategies to ensure a steady and incremental appropriation of Palestinian lands and resources while also severely restricting Palestinian rights and freedoms. These policies and strategies continue more or less unabated even during so-called peace negotiations such as the current talks initiated at Annapolis in November, 2007.

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Sixty is the number of the year. There will be three invocations of this number over the coming months: One to celebrate, another to lament and I’ll get to the third in a moment.

Those celebrating will celebrate that which the others lament – the establishment of the State of Israel, entailing as it has the Dispossession and relentless, ongoing destruction of the community of Palestinians. Much like other western colonial nations the celebration of the existence of one nation will be inescapably connected with the near decimation of another. It will celebrate the establishment of so-called security for one people, at the expense of that of another. To put a finer point on it, those celebrating will be celebrating an existence (i.e., “existence” in the sense of actual historical policies and practices) inextricably connected to ethnic cleansing and cultural destruction (with some arguing also, genocide).

Some celebration.

While some celebrate 60 years of the State of Israel and others lament 60 years since the Palestinian Nakba, I’m going to celebrate a different 60 year anniversary:

Sixty years ago the world established, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. …

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the severity of the Supreme Court’s decision is not only on the human level: The Supreme Court is authorizing collective punishment, which is specifically forbidden under international law (Article 33 of the Geneva Convention). Henceforth, Israel will no longer be able to complain about attacks against innocents in Israel: If all the residents of the Gaza Strip deserve to be punished because of the Qassam rockets, then maybe all Israelis deserve to be punished because of the occupation?

The Lights Have Been Turned Off – by Gideon Levy – 02/04/08 – Haaretz

Some facts and interpretations about Gaza: What are the facts? What things have happened? Why?. Big project. There are literally thousands of articles on the topic from 2005 to the present, so it is necessary to build this post over time or over a number of posts. See here for the Israel is Demented piece.

August 15, 2005: Israel officially began pulling out the settlements from the Gaza Strip. Israel had occupied the strip for 38 years. During that period it had built up 21 settlements peopled with Jewish-Israelis.[1] The total area of Gaza: 363.7 sq. kilometers. Area of Jewish-Israeli settlements: 116.5 sq. kilometers (32.13% of the Gaza territory).[2] Number of Palestinians: approx. 1.4 million. Number of Jewish-Israeli settlers: approx. 8,700.[3]

Even before the official pullout date serious questions were being raised as to what the pullout would mean in practical, no less legal terms:

Ushani Agalawatta (07/28/05 – Inter Press Service):

-under international law the Gaza Strip would still be considered occupied territory

-the Palestinians in Gaza would not have “control over airports, sea ports or natural resources such as water or gas.”

-Renad Qubbaj of the Palestinian NGO Network stated (July 28, 2005) that despite the pullout, “there is a great risk of Gaza becoming one big prison,” and “the Israeli army will still be controlling the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza.”

-Further, “The disengagement plan specifically states that ‘Israel will guard and monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip, will continue to maintain exclusive authority in Gaza airspace, and will continue to exercise security activity in the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip.’”

-Jaber Wishah, deputy director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) stated (July 28, 2005), “It is certain that Gaza will become a big prison, there will be no freedom of trade or freedom of movement. Until there is a safe and continuous passage to the West Bank, there will only be movement through the Rafah border with Egypt but even that the Israelis want joint control over.”[3]

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“The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.” Five Western military leaders.

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Western rationality at its calculated finest:

We must stop others from having/using what we have – the ultimate means to literally holocaust massive numbers of people, totally destroy total environments and spread radiation for thousands of kilometers causing untold mutations and disease and eventual death.

How?

By using our weapons of mass destruction to literally holocaust massive numbers of people, totally destroy their total environment and spread radiation for thousands of kilometers causing untold mutations and disease and eventual death.

Nuclear annihilation to prevent nuclear annihilation. The use of weapons of mass destruction to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction.

This passes for western reason? Western thought so bankrupt, so devoid of content that all it can muster up is massive killing to prevent the imagined future possibility of massive killing? But if this is what passes for western reason mustn’t that mean that western reason has past? I think it does. We’ve past ourselves by. We’re done with. We’ve nothing left to offer but rationales for the ultimate in destruction.

Western reason meets Judeo-Christian Zionism (because you just know where this is gonna play itself out right?): Bedfellows to Oblivion.

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Part I: Israel is Demented. Part II: Gaza is the Evidence.

Israel is Demented

Yes, atrocities occur elsewhere in the world: the populations of the Sudan, the Congo, Tibet, Iraq and Afghanistan all suffer under the blow of atrocities. And? And atrocities are committed almost daily by the Jewish State – Israel – against the Palestinian population. That is a fact. Don’t be intimidated away from a fact. Misplaced guilt has no place here either. Face it. It’s the truth.

The Jewish State is barbaric. This is not a fact. It is an interpretation or a characterization of Israel’s daily onslaught of killing, land theft and subjugation of the Palestinians. Whether or not you find this characterization apt, however, is likely related to your interest in learning the truth about these daily atrocities. Look into it yourself (e.g., Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; Foundation for Middle East Peace; Public Committee Against Torture in Israel; The Electronic Intifada). Alternatively, look to Part II (to follow).

The State of the Jews ought to protect its citizens, of course, including its Palestinian population (sadly this cannot go without saying). However, Israel might consider other more plausible means to achieving state security than the near daily murdering of Palestinians. It might want to rethink starving people (see also) as a military tactic. Or of imprisoning over one million Palestinians in an area a mere 360 sq. km. It might want to rethink the consequences of flat out stealing Palestinian land, bit by bit through the work of legal sounding policies and criminal-zealot-settlers – a truly disgusting lot these colonizers. Or polluting or stealing their water and other resources. Or bombing the Gazans only electrical power plant. Or withholding medical supplies. Or letting Palestinians die waiting at check points. This is the State of the Jews. These (above) are merely a gloss on the brutal facts. It is not hyperbole, empty rhetoric nor anti-Semitism to state it. It is willful blindness to deny it. It is inhuman to ignore it. It is morally right to actively oppose it.

When I write that Israel is demented then, do not dismiss it too readily. There are facts to support that assessment. Nonetheless such an assessment, need only apply to those Israelis who idly watch or actively cheer on the destruction of Gaza and its inhabitants. You decide whether that applies merely to the twisted brutality of the Israeli State Military Apparatus (i.e, the government/military – look at its leaders over the years to understand that they are not separate) or whether there is also a criminally complicit citizenry of majority proportions.

The U.S. government materially supports this barbarism. All its leading 2008 presidential candidates genuflect to Israel irrespective of what heinous actions it commits (e.g., Israel’s False Friends). Bush spews lies and doublespeak in the name of Israeli-Palestinian peace. This bile, this excrement, dribbles off his chin nearly every time he opens that trap. He spread this bile just recently while in Israel. Then, he left and has said nothing as Israel conducts a murderous rampage in Gaza.

The obtusely literal minded Christian Zionists splatter blood over the body of Christ. You can almost see them actually striking Christ down, smashing in his face then knifing him, every time they proselytize in defense of Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians. Christ is lost on these Zionists of Atrocity. The inversion of Christ’s message in the name of Christ: Thy name is Christian Zionist.

The world looks on, watching as the Israelis, slowly, systematically, kill, torture (also), maim, then kill some more. They destroy, bomb, imprison, torture all the while defiling the meaning of the nazi holocaust through the counter-point of their own atrocious actions (all this to be substantiated in Part II).

I’ve read a few times now, dire warnings that Israel is moving ever closer to self-destruction (see also) and that the U.S.A.’s servile complicity is only accelerating this process. Is this a prediction? Is Israel, with the willing assistance of the U.S. destroying itself (see, also)? Does that mean that Israel is, in fact, acting to wipe itself off the map? Perhaps. Perhaps not. It might succeed where other belligerent, militant, genocidal (see, also) nations have failed. It might commit the perfect crime of ethnic annihilation and cultural destruction. After all, isn’t that a prerequisite to joining the ranks of the great western nations like Canada, Britain, France, Germany and the United States? Isn’t that what we’re witnessing today? Exactly what took place elsewhere either decades or centuries ago? Are we then to continue to merely watch this happen, waiting for the all-too-late apology and the government handouts to a decimated people just to underscore how entirely defeated they are? Or rather, since the ethnic genocide is still happening and still preventable, might we act to stop it?

Gaza is the Evidence – to follow