Choosing Netanyahu Over NATO

MJ Rosenberg

Anyone who wonders what American foreign policy might look like if it was not so utterly ridden with partisan political considerations should take a look at the United Kingdom.

This is not to say that politics never intrudes on foreign policy in the UK. It does, but not in any way comparable to the way politics overruns policy here.

There are many reasons for the difference but one stands out: the cost of running political campaigns in the UK as compared to the US. In the UK, television time is free for candidates. In the United States, candidates and incumbents spend a sizable chunk of time (even a majority of time in many cases) raising money to pay for campaign ads. Much of that money comes from single-issue donors.

It is hard to imagine what US policy in the Middle East would be without the influence of campaign dollars. One thing is certain: it would be very different.

This week the House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on Turkey's "New Foreign Policy Direction." Its tone was set by the committee's chair, Howard Berman (D-CA) who made clear that he has had it with Turkey.

Berman said that he was not among those who criticized Turkey in 2002 when the Islam oriented AK party came to power.

After the AK Party was elected, I was encouraged by their focus on internal reform and the European Union as well as by the hopeful prospect that AK would be a model for a moderate Islam that would inspire others throughout the Islamic world.

But then he became aware of "the intensity of Prime Minister Erdogan's anger at Israel" over the 2008 invasion of Gaza. Since then, "Turkey's growing closeness with Iran has added, for many of us, a new dimension of outrage and concern." Berman said his "concerns about Turkey hit a new peak with the flotilla incident."

Berman is far from alone. All of a sudden, Congress is pretty down on Turkey. And the reason is obvious. This new hostility is all about pleasing Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing Israeli government.


Occupied Palestine: Home Demolitions, Dispossessions and Residency Rights Revoked

Stephen Lendman

Daily, Israeli oppression continues - demolishing homes, dispossessing occupants, and revoking residency rights, three of its many crimes under international law, Israel spurning it with impunity.

On July 22, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) reported mass Jordan Valley Al Farisyie village demolitions, displacing 107 people, including 52 children. Targeted were 26 residential tents, 22 animal shelters, seven taboun clay ovens, eight kitchens, 10 bathrooms, four water tanks, and an agricultural equipment shed - in all, 74 structures illegally bulldozed, family homes and belongings destroyed along with large quantities of food and animal fodder.

Many families weren't warned or present, so lost everything under rubble, Israel displacing Palestinians to make way for Judaization, area residents on their own, abandoned and unaided.

In July, three other communities were affected:

Fasayile al Fuga where a family home of nine, including seven children and a 10-month old infant, was destroyed;

Bardala where evacuation and demolition orders were issued; and

Ras Ar Ahmar where 13 homes and dozens of animal shelters were bulldozed after declaring the area a Closed Military Zone.

The Jordan Valley comprises about 30% of the West Bank, Israel continuing demolitions, dispossessions, land theft, and appropriation of water resources, annexing areas for Jews, collectively punishing its residents by declaring large areas Closed Military Zones, ordering entire villages evacuated in defiance of international law, hundreds of residents affected, half of them children.


Is the use of terms like "Jewish Nazism" Justified?

Khalid Amayreh


Cartoon © Pat Oliphant

I do realize that the use of terms like "Jewish Nazism" offends many people, particularly among Jews. However, those offended should also have sufficient rectitude to call the spade a spade, especially when they see it in Jewish hands.

In the final analysis, we are living in a moral universe where truth should apply to all human beings equally. This means that all peoples and all communities, Jews and non-Jews alike, ought to be treated in accordance with the same moral standards.

In fact, this is what the Ten Commandments taught thousands of years ago. Hence, when the Almighty taught "thou shall not murder," He meant thou shall not murder any human beings, and when He taught "thou shall not steal," He meant "thou shall not steal from any human beings." And when He taught thou "shall not lie," He meant "thou shall not lie to any human beings."

Unfortunately, some misguided Talmudic sages, who appeared hundreds of years later, distorted the meaning and intention of these sublime moral standards, by arguing rather erroneously that since these commandments were given to "Jews," it followed that Jews and Jews alone were concerned with these principles. The implication was very clear:

"Thou shall not murder" meant thou shall not murder a Jew. "Thou shall not steal" meant thou shall not steal from a Jew, and "thou shall not lie" meant thou shall not lie to a Jew.

As to non-Jews, the goyem, who are often viewed as cattle in some Talmudic literature, they may be murdered, stolen from and lied to. The reason is clear. Goyem are not bona fide human beings and their very existence is not essential in terms of universal wisdom.


Qana…Where Jesus’s 1st Miracle Turns Bloody

Batoul Wehbe

“We have lived through hell,” Qana resident, Fawzeya Atwi cried. “The people were chopped into pieces by the Israeli bombs. They bleed these people. You should have seen the heads.”

“Do you know what the dogs did at night after the killings? They were hungry and I saw them in the ruins eating fingers and pieces of our people,” Atwi said about the Qana massacre during the July 2006 Israeli War on Lebanon.

Head of the Red Cross in Tyre Sami Yazbak, who was helping to pull bodies from the ruins, told The Guardian that the first call about the bombing was received at 7 a.m., 6 hours after the bombing took place. He said that previous shelling on the road to Qana had delayed the arrival of Red Cross personnel.

Yazbak said that “many of the children who were sleeping inside were handicapped.”

Many journalists who arrived in Qana to cover the incident became rescuers, dugging through the rubble with the Red Cross in search for bodies.

Journalist Bahia El Ainain talks about her experiences during the 2006 Israeli massacre in Qana. “I cried several times. I couldn’t be a journalist over being a mother when I saw dead young girls. I couldn’t but think of my daughter.” She also recounts an incident when she was on a roof, along with all the foreign press and their cameras. Bahia pushed the cameras away; she admits that her patriotism outweighs the journalist’s instincts for objectivity.


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