Trump and Israel Belong Together

Photo by Jordi Bernabeu Farrús CC BY 2.0

The white supremacist Trump administration and apartheid Israel make a contented couple.

Throw is the gulf monarchies abroad and the local police and Evangelicals at home, and one can see the recipe for Trump's ad hoc axis of repulsives.

From Saree Makdisi at CounterPunch:

Two spectacles unfolded in Palestine on Monday. In Gaza, Israeli army snipers shot and killed 58 Palestinians—including six children—and injured almost three thousand others amid scenes of smoke, fire, teargas, dust, agony and blood. At exactly the same time, to the tinkling of champagne glasses at a glittering reception barely fifty miles away in Jerusalem, Jared Kushner and an elegant Ivanka Trump oversaw the opening of Donald Trump’s new embassy there. The juxtaposition of these two contemporaneous scenes encapsulates at a single glance the entirety of Zionism’s murderous conflict with the Palestinian people.

Decent people should oppose all support of Israel in American policy, as Israel's continual assault against civilization persists.

Israel is not worth another Palestinian life, another massacre of real human beings, regarded as sub-human in the raciology of the lunatics of the Trump administration and apparently a solid majority of Israel's population.

Notes Makdisi at CounterPunch:

The demographer Arnon Sofer of Haifa University is the architect of the current isolation of Gaza.  In 2004, he advised the government of Ariel Sharon to withdraw Israeli forces from within Gaza, seal the territory off from the outside world, and simply shoot anyone who tries to break out. 'When 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe,' Sofer told an interviewer in the Jerusalem Post (11 November 2004); 'Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day.'  He added that 'the only thing that concerns me is how to ensure that the boys and men who are going to have to do the killing will be able to return home to their families and be normal human beings.'

This imperative to kill and kill and kill human 'animals' explains the violence taking place at the gates of Gaza.

Kill, kill, kill "animals" all day, every day.

It's a historic irony, Israel has become the inheritors of the Holocaust as perpetrators, with Trump and religious Evangelicals scurrying to keep up to the slow-motion destruction of 2.5 million people.

Meanwhile, at home, here at the homeland, Trump is carrying on his white supremacist dreams.

Note Juan Cole at TruthDig:

So Wednesday Trump again called some undocumented migrants in the US 'animals.' Calling people animals has been a parlor sport with Mr. Trump, and he has often gotten things wrong, as when he used his wealth to persecute the falsely accused Central Park 5.

Calling people animals is not just the use of an ugly epithet. It is not merely impolite.

It is a call to mistreat the class of people so designated, to fear them and blame them and ultimately to seek to wipe them out.

Animal functions similarly in this regard to the Nazi technical term Untermensch or underman, subhuman.

Richard A Etlin in Art, Culture, and Media under the Third Reich translates passages from the infamous SS pamphlet of 1941, entitled Der Untermensch:

It is a frightening creature, a mere shadow of a man, with humanoid racial features, yet spiritually and psychologically more base than any animal. Within this being rages a vile chaos of wild, uncontrolled passions, a nameless desire for destruction, the most primitive desires, and naked vulgarity.

The pamphlet goes on to be more specific about the identity of this horrible category of apparent human beings, who are actually animals or worse. It specifies eastern Slavs (Russians and Poles) and Jews, among others. Not even some members of those groups, but all of them. The pamphlet functioned as a call for and a justification for the genocide against the Jews, Gypsies, gays and other groups as well as the slaughter of Russian boys at the eastern Front.

The question for Americans is how well have we become the inheritors as by-standers.

The methodical shooting of boys at work in Gaza by Israeli Occupation Force Snipers

Our Silence is complicity Shooting boys at work is nothing new for Israel, nor is shooting anyone else.

The U.S. FBI calls snipers who kill for sadistic pleasure "Long Distance Serial Killers (LDSK)," just another name for snipers who suffer from a criminal, sadistic psychopathology.

I'm not sure I could live with myself if I shot out a girl's eye, or a protester's or any one's. I'm quite sure the snipers in the Israeli Occupation Force sleep well in their smug assurance that they are carrying out God's will.

These are children. And Palestinians are human beings. What blinds you to this understanding, IDF? I really would like an answer.

By David S Halpin FRCS Formerly, orthopaedic and trauma surgeon at the Torbay and Exeter Hospitals Devon UK

Introduction

The deliberate injury of the limbs of 23 boys by high velocity weapons has been logged and described by Defence for Children International – Palestine Branch (DCI-P) since March 2010. (1) Some of the facts have been published in national newspapers. These barbarous acts contravene international and national law but there are no judicial responses. The caring professions see the physical and mental pain of those who suffer and they should be in the vanguard in calling for this great cruelty to cease forthwith. Political leaders have failed to act. The Geneva Conventions Act 1957, which is of central importance in holding war criminals to account in the jurisdiction of the UK, is being emasculated.

Context

Most of the 1.5 million population of the Gaza strip is impoverished. Half are refugees from Mandate Palestine or their children. About 50% of the male population is without work. It has been isolated and occupied for decades. A commercial port was being built in 2000 but that was bombed by Israel. The isolation and the hobbling of its commerce was increased by a siege which was started in March 2006 in response to the election of a majority of Hamas members to the legislature. It was further tightened in June 2007 after the Hamas government pre-empted a coup by the Fatah faction that was led in Gaza by Mohammad Dahlan.

See also Israeli sniper bullet takes 12-year-old girl's life

The misery was further deepened with 'Operation Cast Lead' that was unleashed 27/12/08. This was promised 29/02/08 (2). "The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, [the Palestinians] will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah (holocaust) because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.” - Matan Vilnai Deputy Defence Minister to Israeli Army Radio. There was a massive bombardment which killed 220 adults and children in the first 15 minutes. This was followed by a full scale invasion. 1400 humans were killed and approximately 5000 injured physically. The minds of very many more were injured too. 4000 homes were totally destroyed, almost all the factories and 40 mosques. The two gleaming science blocks of the Islamic University of Gaza were flattened by very powerful thermobaric bombs, the blasts being heard throughout the 360 square kilometres of the Gaza 'Strip'. The siege has been even more draconian since. Cement, ballast and steel rods are only let in at about 5% of the rate needed for rebuilding, the pretext being that 'bunkers' could be constructed. At the present rate it will take 78 years to rebuild Gaza. (3) Chocolate, writing paper and all manner of things have been blocked. The 1,000 tunnels at Rafah have provided a way in for goods but in the face of bombing and roof falls.

See also Israel's dirty secrets in Gaza: Army veterans reveal how they gunned down innocent Palestinian families and destroyed homes and farms

The lack of any work and the extreme poverty of the large extended families has drawn the boys and men to scavenge for broken concrete ('gravel') in the evacuated Eli Sinai 'settlement' and in the industrial zone by the Erez border control post at the northern limit of the 'Strip'. The factories of the industrial zone have been progressively demolished by Israeli shelling etc. They are seen to the west as one enters Gaza through Erez. A donkey and cart, shovel, pick, sieve, muscles and courage are the tools. The rubble is used to make cement blocks and poured concrete with the cement that is imported largely through the tunnels. Many dozens of men and boys do this work for precious shekels in the shadow of manned watch towers and under 'drones' above.

The 23 boys who have been shot between 26/03/10 (Said H) and 23/12/10 (Hatem S) are listed in the table below with skeletal facts. These points are made:-

• In 18 there were single shots and not automatic fire


• The reported range in most cases confirms that the weapon was a sniper's rifle in the hands of a sniper


• Almost always there were many dozens of other men and boys at work; these victims were picked off


• A leg was the target in most cases. Where the leg was not the target it is likely the sniper was 'aiming up' so the flank, elbow etc was hit instead.


• No weapons were being borne by the gravel workers so they posed no threat to the Israeli Occupation Force personnel. Instead they were bending their backs to their menial work within their internment camp


• The histories refer often to the recovery of the injured boy by friends and relatives under fire. This was a feature during 'Cast Lead' or instead the paramedics were barred from getting to the victims so they died without care.

The history of the injury and sequel for each boy are linked to in (1). It has been done meticulously and the translation into English is perfect. The pain, and often the terror, felt by the boy as the bullet struck home are vividly recorded. No bullets have been recovered yet so the calibre/type is unknown.

• How many boys will regain full, or nearly full function is difficult to judge without the radiographs being present. Cases 3,4, 5,7,13 and 15 are likely to have joint involvement and thus some lifelong disability.


• In cases 1 and 3 there is nerve injury. If that proves to be an axonotmesis in either, it is possible that a first class repair will not be available in Gaza.


• The fractures are open by definition and no doubt comminuted. Delayed or non-union is possible. Deep infection is a real risk, antibiotic therapy not withstanding. The risk of deep infection relates to a. the possible inclusion of fabric b. the high energy injury causing irregular and wide devitalisation of the tissues c. the probability that these difficult bullet wounds were not laid open and a complete wound toilet performed. One or two of these boys might end with an amputation.


• Almost all the boys have been frightened off or forbidden from gravel work. There are few, if any, other means of earning shekels.

The shooting to wound and kill Palestinians is relentless. DCI-P notes that according to a UN study, between January 2009 and August 2010, at least 22 Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been killed and 146 injured in the arbitrary live fire zone adjacent to the border with Israel and imposed at sea. At least 27 of these civilians were children. It also notes that the targeting of civilians is absolutely prohibited under international law, regardless of circumstances.

These quotations from the available stories convey a little of the poverty, the suffering and the courage

• 'The three of us would wake up every day at around 5:30am and leave to collect gravel. We were not the only ones doing this type of work. Hundreds of youngsters aged between 13 and 22 used to work with us, despite the danger we faced because we were close to the Israeli border.' Awad W- 3
• The work was exhausting and dangerous. ‘Israeli soldiers would sometimes shoot at us, and sometimes shoot in the air to intimidate us,’ recalls Ibrahim . 'Sometimes they would shoot at the carts, horses and donkeys we used to move the gravel. But we had to do the work despite the dangers, because we didn’t have any other job to do.’ Ibrahim K- 4
• Mohammad was taught by his neighbours to watch for birds flying away from the watch towers, as this was a sign to start running, as it meant soldiers were climbing into the towers and the shooting would soon begin. Mohammad M - 6
• 'They killed our three horses and one donkey in four months, and we had to spend the money we earned on replacing them.' ….. ‘They were down on their stomachs pointing their rifles towards us, but they didn’t shoot. We got used to such things.’ Mohammad S – 11

Silence is complicity

Read more at Debbie Menon.

Israeli Oppression—’It Isn’t Nice,’ by Barbara Dane

"No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed."

- Clarence Darrow

Via Norman Finkelstein

Israeli Threats Against Gaza Grow

by: Ira Chernus, t r u t h o u t Op-Ed -- Israel's hawks are starting to make frightening noises.

If Israel attacks Gaza again, Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant will run the operation. Galant recently said that right now "the sun is shining - but one can see dark clouds in the distance." His soldiers are training to face trouble ahead, and "civilians are rightly preparing themselves for another round of fighting."

A few days later, Galant's predecessor, Maj. Gen. Yom Tov Samia (who still heads the reserves who would invade Gaza), sounded even more ominous: "We are before another round in Gaza," he predicted. "I am very skeptical about the possibility that Hamas will suddenly surrender or change its ways without being hit much more seriously than it was during Cast Lead." Israel must carry out "a more focused strike with long-lasting results."

Always ready to oblige the hawks, the Jerusalem Post reported Samia's words under the fear-mongering headline: "Another war with Hamas is inevitable."

At what "long-lasting results" might Israel aim? Samia would say only that Israel should take control of "certain areas in Gaza" to "create a situation in which Hamas runs out of oxygen." But unnamed "defense officials" told the Post of existing plans for Israel to seize and hold the Philadelphi corridor, the strip of land between Egypt and Gaza that is riddled with underground smuggling tunnels.

That would require Israeli troops to go house to house in the densely populated city of Rafah, to search out and destroy tunnels. When Israel invaded Gaza last year, the same plan was rejected because it was likely to cost too many Israeli casualties and lead to a long-term Israeli occupation of the area. Now, the hawks are pushing their government to consider paying that price.

Why? The official explanation, repeated constantly in the Israeli press, is that rockets are beginning to fly out of Gaza into Israel again, while Hamas brings larger weaponry through the tunnels. So, Israel is "forced" to defend itself.

Yet, Gaza Prime Minister, Ismael Haniyeh of Hamas, has repeated his call for all factions in the Strip to observe and maintain a total cease-fire. The cease-fire is a long-standing Hamas policy, broken in late 2008 only when Israel tightened its economic stranglehold on Gaza beyond endurable limits.

The cease-fire reflects "a moderating trend" within Hamas that has been going on for at least five years, according to Fawaz Gerges' recent detailed analysis of the movement. He lays out "unmistakable signs that the religiously based radical movement" is no longer so radical, that it "has subtly changed its uncompromising posture on Israel." "Hamas has already changed," he quotes top Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. "We accepted the national accords for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 border."

If the Hamas moves toward accommodation are "nourished and engaged," as Gerges says, they "could transform Palestinian politics and the Arab-Israeli peace process.

Predictably, though, Israel is doing just the opposite.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak added fuel to the fire when he publicly charged that Hamas leaders are unable "to control the dissident groups … who are trying to break the tranquility" by firing about 20 crude rockets into Israel in recent days. Though this has already triggered disproportionate and deadly Israeli retaliation, Barak warned of more to come: "Hamas is well deterred from trying another direct collision with Israel. I hope that they will take over - or else."

It's the same old, tragic story. Missing every opportunity to encourage the peace-oriented forces in Hamas, Israel instead escalates the violence.

Amid his vague, bellicose noises, Israeli General Samia gave a clear hint of what might really be driving Israeli policy. Claiming that support for Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party is "very weak or almost non existent in the [Gaza] Strip," Samia offered the Palestinian leader some advice: "The best chance at returning to power is taking a serious, significant and critical step that would drive Hamas out of power."

It may well be the dream of Israeli leaders to give Fatah rule over Gaza as well as the West Bank. After all, Israel (with US help) was instrumental in sparking the2007 civil war in Gaza, when Fatah tried and failed to impose sole control. All observers of the conflict note that Israel assumes it will get an better deal in negotiations from the apparently more moderate Fatah than from the moderating, but still more demanding, Hamas.

Yet, the idea of destroying Hamas is just as much fantasy now as it was three years ago. And even if Fatah were to take nominal control of Gaza, no peace settlement reached by Fatah without Hamas support would gain broad support among Palestinians. Indeed, Israel has long complained that it cannot negotiate peace because there is no one to represent all the Palestinians.

What Israeli leaders won't say is that they have worked single-mindedly to keep it that way. The fundamental principle of Israeli foreign policy has always been "divide and conquer," especially toward the Palestinians. The one thing Israel fears most is a Palestinian nation united behind a single, popular government and set of leaders. If that were to come to pass, the pressure on Israel to negotiate in good faith - to make genuine compromises for peace - would be irresistible. Israeli leaders would rather go on complaining that they have "no partner for peace."
That's why they've studiously ignored Khaled Meshaal's frequently repeated insistence that Hamas, like Fatah, will accept a two-state solution. Israel needs to keep alive the fiction of a radical difference between Hamas and Fatah to justify its continuing militant anti-Hamas drive, which is the sharp edge of the wedge it drives between the two groups.

The hawkish sounds coming from the Israeli defense establishment may be real warning signals of an impending attack. Or they may be just bluff. Either way, they drown out the sounds of moderation and accommodation coming from Hamas. They make it much harder for the Israeli people to see the possibilities for peace and security that are at hand - which must begin with the unification of Hamas and Fatah, an issue that the two Palestinian factions are still constantly discussing.

Israel can promote that unification, leading both sides to accept a two-state solution. Israel can take more steps toward peace by stopping settlement expansion and agreeing to a genuinely independent and viable Palestinian state on all of the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital (as Israel's former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has urged).

For now, though, the signals from Israel sound like they are moving in the other direction, preparing the Israeli public for more conflict, more insecurity and perhaps more useless death in the streets of Gaza.

Though I write about these events from 10,000 miles away, in the safety of Middle America, I'm not at all detached. Nor is any American. Our own government plays a central role in everything that happens in the Middle East. Israeli columnist Bradley Burston, who takes the bellicose talk at face value, recently wrote a piece titled: "Israel's Looming War in Gaza: Can Obama Stop It Before It Starts?" The US government has the power to put the brakes on Israel's military machine, he pointed out, if it wants to badly enough. And only the US government can do it.
Whether the Obama administration wants to stop the next war badly enough depends largely on how it reads the political winds at home. No one of us alone can create a wind shift big enough to shape administration policy. But every one of us can make our voice heard and help determine which way the wind blows.

Netanyahu-Obama Meeting: An Array of Unknowns

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is coming to Washington Monday to an uncertain future with President Obama.

After 40 years of American-Israeli rejectionism of a two-state solution to Israeli aggression, all eyes are on Obama and any signals of a change in direction in Middle East policy.

Is Obama serious about holding Israel accountable and dragging it into the world consensus against its continued human rights violations and illegal settlements?

Really no one seems to know. J-Street is cheering Obama on. Thoughtful bloggers are hoping. But the composition of the 18th Knesset of this state of 7,000,000 citizens has veered far to the right.

Personally, I will not harbor great hope as the world watches for a U.S. shift, but only because I don't want to get disappointed.

Phyllis Bennis, a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, writes:

So, what do we look out for?

At the recent AIPAC convention, Obama administration officials’ and supporters’ speeches put greater emphasis on Israeli actions than was ever true during the Bush years. Senator John Kerry called for a settlement freeze; Vice-President Biden called for Israel to ‘not build settlements, dismantle outposts and allow Palestinians access to freedom of movement.’

If President Obama, meeting with Netanyahu, demands a real settlement freeze – meaning an end to construction, expansion and building in all settlements, not only outposts – it could signify a real change in U.S. policy towards Israel. But only if it is backed up by specific enforcement mechanisms – like conditioning all (or even part) of the annual $3 billion in U.S. military aid to Israel until there is tangible, internationally-confirmed action on the ground.

That would certainly be a change we could believe in.President Obama’s acceptance of mere words from Netanyahu, on the other hand, whether he ‘accepts’ a settlement freeze or ‘agrees’ to a new round of talks about talks with the Palestinians, and not imposing any conditions to make sure it happens, will indicate that so far, at least, U.S. support for Israeli occupation and apartheid remain intact. And any ‘deal’ that offers Israel any promise of U.S. support for or involvement in a military strike against Iran, will undermine whatever small move towards justice might be possible from a settlement freeze or removal of roadblocks.

Lots to watch for. Stay tuned.

Palestinian Authority Veering into Authoritarianism

As Palestinians endure a state of constant siege and wanton killing, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is drawing condemnation for its despicable turn to authoritarianism, with the support of Israel and the United States.

It's is an old story. Arafat was a corrupt, Messianic boss trolling through the carnage of Israeli terror, though he did manage to keep up the resistance to the militaristic Israeli forces over decades. [Above is Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad at the opening ceremony of the Presidential Guards College in the West Bank city of Jericho, March 2009.]

Ben White reports in The Electronic Intifada:

Last week, less than two weeks after I had talked with him in his an-Najah University faculty office, Abdel Sattar Qassem was arrested by the Palestinian Preventive Security forces in Nablus, occupied West Bank.

Qassem is a 60-year-old professor of political science, and has been at an-Najah University since 1980. Imprisoned several times by the Israeli occupation, he is the author of dozens of books and papers, as well as hundreds of articles, on Palestinian politics and Islamic thought. But Qassem is also an eloquent and prominent critic of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and he has been arrested, and targeted by politically-motivated attacks, on a number of previous occasions.

The most recent of these was in January of this year, when his car was set alight. According to a news report from the Palestinian news agency, Ma'an, claim of responsibility was circulated by an unknown group who accused Qassem of being a ‘mouthpiece for the Iranian and the Syrian regimes.’ As reported by Asharq al-Awsat, Qassem pointed out how the statement was a ‘hoax,’ and thus a cover for individuals who did not want to openly identify themselves. The attack was condemned by a variety of public figures ‘in the harshest possible words,’ according to Ma'an.

This time, the official line is that his arrest was a civil, criminal case, the result of litigation proceedings against Qassem by two figures within the PA's security forces. The Palestinian Information Center reports that Qassem, who according to his family was arrested hours after he gave an interview to al-Aqsa TV to discuss the shooting of West Bank Hamas leader Hamid al-Bitawi, insists that the charges are groundless and politically motivated.

Speaking to me on the telephone after his release, Qassem noted: ‘It was evident that they didn't want to arrest me on a political basis, so they decided to fabricate something against me. Last Thursday, in court, there were many lawyers trying to represent me, because they feel like this is a national issue. They see that this is intimidation, not a genuine civil case.’

The attempts to intimidate a critic of the Palestinian Authority into silence is disturbing, but is only one incident in a growing trend. The Ramallah-based political leadership, dominated by Fatah, and the PA security forces, are becoming increasingly authoritarian, encouraging a culture of militarized policing and a lack of respect for human rights and the rule of law.

Now, nonviolent resistance leaders against the Israeli occupation like Sami Awad, based in Bethlehem, are saying that they ‘have to be ready to face any injustice even if caused by our own people, within the PA.’ ...

Meanwhile, the Israeli military continues to invade PA-controlled areas, particularly at night, an arrangement which was actually a joint Palestinian-Israeli agreement. Moreover, while a weary Palestinian population is grateful for small economic upturns in their occupied cities, they are well aware that the PA's law and order focus is a welcome part of Israel's strategy in the West Bank; the BBC noted in December last year how the Israeli army was pleased with the 'good job' Palestinian forces were doing.

One of the reasons for Israel's complimentary report card is the extent to which PA forces have been arresting members of groups who oppose the official 'peace process,' and in particular, detaining those who are either openly, or simply suspected, members and supporters of Hamas. According to the International Middle East Media Center, estimates give the number of detainees in Palestinian security forces' custody at between 500 to 600, many of whom have had no trial.

Obama Could Be Serious in Pushing Israel to Peace

I'm skeptical but there are indications.

Nathan Guttman's piece in The Forward (AIPAC Confronts A New Reality as Obama’s Agenda Becomes Clear; A Tougher Message Replaces the Uncritical Support of Bush Years):

But (Vice-President) Biden, after sending up his rhetorical warning, used his May 5 keynote speech to the pro-Israel lobby to convey the Obama administration’s insistence on a number of policies directly conflicting with those of the new government in Israel — and some policies held by previous Israeli governments, too.

Other speakers, such as Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts,
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, underlined Biden’s points on
the need for Israel to stop expanding settlements in the West Bank and accept
the necessity of a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.

That's pretty much the standard line being pushed by thoughtful writers and bloggers. See also
Jerusalem worried over breakdown of U.S.-Israel cooperation under Obama (Aluf Benn and Barak Ravid).

But then there is this, just out on Haaretz (Barak Ravid):

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a group of Russian-language reporters Thursday that Israel will never withdraw from the Golan Heights.

'Remaining on the Golan will ensure Israel has a strategic advantage in cases of military conflict with Syria,' Netanyahu said during a briefing he gave to the reporters.

His comments were published Friday on several Russian-language Israeli Web sites.

This position renders a settlement freeze besides the point, and signals the militarist Israeli government's determination to play to rightwing Russian immigrants in Israel comprising some 15 percent of Israel's 7,000,000 citizens.

Israel will pursue peace when hell freezes over.