Progressive, leftist Haaretz

Sam Loves Hummus | July 7, 2011

Rabbi Yaacov Perin said at Israeli mass-murderer Baruch Goldstein’s funeral that “one million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” A less blatant – but still gratuitously reprehensible – representation of this idea appears to have found its way into the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

I seem to consistently find myself getting into disputes over whether the daily Haaretz is a zionist-biased source. “They have left-wing columnists like Gideon Levy and Amira Hass,” my interlocutors point out. They also carry pieces by right-wing settlers like Israel Harel. When reporting a story concerning the IDF, they often reproduce the IDF spokesperson’s claims uncritically as the headline.

I’ve just seen a sub-heading on Haaretz that nearly made my eyes pop out.

IDF soldier lightly wounded by explosive device near Gaza
This is the first significant incident in the strip after few months of relative calm in area; appears as though tensions on the rise.

As Haaretz itself reported, two Palestinian fighters were killed by the Israeli air force on Tuesday, and another one was injured, in a serious condition. According to Israeli army propaganda they were going to fire a rocket. Haaretz even points out the Israeli army’s own admission that:

in contrast to previous incidents in which the IDF launched a retaliatory attack in response to rocket fire on Israel, in this case the militant group was identified well in advance and the attack was planned and carried out before the militants were able to launch any rockets toward Israel

I.e. they were assassinated for suspected pre-crime, “well in advance”.

But, incredibly, Haaretz wants to tell us that today’s light injury of one Israeli soldier is “the first significant incident in the strip after few months of relative calm.” The light injury of an Israeli is a “significant incident”, the death of two Palestinians and serious injury of one more is… well, they don’t even get a mention. It seems like Haaretz has internalized the idea that one is a member of God’s chosen people; the others are cannon fodder to be snuffed out without a raised eyebrow.

This is, as I hope any sane person can see, outright racism. Yes, by the standards of other Israeli newspapers (e.g. the Jerusalem Post) Haaretz is comparatively progressive. But they still dehumanize Palestinians, still base their choice of vocabulary, the angle, of their story on the implicit entrenched assumption that an Israeli soldier has some essential right to be in the Gaza strip, that he’s a real person, so when he is lightly injured it is significant, and that the Palestinians have no agency, no personhood; they exist only as a foil for the Israeli army’s misbehaviour; absolutely they have no right to defend themselves so when an Israeli jet kills two of them and wrecks the body of another, cosmic balance is maintained. This is the way things are meant to be, the Israelis bomb; the Palestinians get bombed. Nothing amiss.

Haaretz’ decision to adopt this illogical and gratuitously unfair narrative raises grave concerns about its trustworthiness as a source for news stories concerning the Palestinians.

Of Exclusivity, Loyalty and Liberation of Palestine

Jewish-Only Organizations . . .  A Closer Look

By Nahida the exiled Palestinian | Uprooted Palestinians | January 1, 2011

Due to recent events of alienation and/or expulsion of members of Palestine Solidarity Movement, including Palestinians, it became more and more evident that there are elements in the Solidarity Movement who continue to stir up friction and splits amongst activists, that leads to alienation of many genuine activists and even exiled Palestinians.

Such elements also continue to cause distraction by filtering information to prevent members from understanding the role of the larger Jewish community world wide in influencing their respective governments to support “Israel”, and to prevent from understanding the impact of the presence of racist ideology on the standpoints and attitudes of the Jewish communities, and the implication of such ideology on Palestinians;

This state of affairs should raise alarm to anyone interested in Justice and Peace, that means anyone who works to put an end to decades of Palestinian suffering, and its slow genocide, and to anyone who understands that such high objectives require promoting the Liberation of Palestine.

It is also apparent that many of these destabilizing elements are simultaneously members of OTHER organizations, which membership approval operates through exclusivity, and restricted only to people of Jewish background.

Moreover, it is manifest that many of these Jewish-only organizations declare publicly that their prime motive for their activism is out of concern for the welfare of “Israel” and the “Israeli society”. Worse, some of these organizations do not even conceal that their criticism of “Israel” is done out of “love” and loyalty to this criminal entity. Simply put, they criticise and condemn “Israel” primarily to protect and help it thrive and survive.

This kind of blind allegiance and deep loyalty to “Israel” is of course expected from and omnipresent amongst hyper-Zionists and their circles, but it is quite disturbing to find the same loyalty amongst “supporters of Palestine” of Jewish background. It is also interesting to notice that even hyper-Zionists, through their think tanks, have recently arrived at the same conclusion that their counterparts, Jewish anti-Zionists, have known for decades; namely open criticism of “Israel” IS the best way to defend it. As we can see for example, in Mick Davis’s article: “Open debate is our best way of defending Israel in the diaspora,” The Jewish Chronicle, 17 June 2010. The article also appears on the website of the Jewish Chronicle under the title “Defending Israel in the diaspora”.

Through my research and extensive work, it became evident that the prime allegiance of many Jewish anti-Zionist organizations is not to Palestine or the Palestinians; their loyalty is to “Israeli” Jews and to the artificially manufactured “Israeli” society. It also seems clear that the prime motive for the activism of many members of such organizations is the concern for the welfare and future of “Israelis” and the perpetuation of their colonial society.

Factual and thorough scrutiny of these organizations invariably indicates that their primary concern and main focus are the following:

How to best consolidate and reinforce a good, secure and thriving future for the INVENTED *** “nation” of “Israel”, on the Historical Land STOLEN from its ancestral inhabitants, the Palestinians;

How to best disculpate the Jewish communities worldwide from their responsibility of decades of financial, political, moral and even military support of their “beacon of light”, “Israel”;

How to best further the interests of such invented “nation”, after the finalization of their imposed facts on the grounds, and getting rid of the banner of Zionism;

How to best ensure and secure the permanent presence of an invading settler society after grabbing most of the LAND of Palestine by wars of terror and conquest;

How to best pacify and allure Palestinians into accepting foreign violent invaders as rightful co-owners of Palestine and future “partners”;

How to best promote “Israeli” settler society as “liberal peace-loving”, whose main concern would be to live in peace and security, but who just happened to be “unfortunately” plagued with corrupt leadership;

How to best conceal that their garment of humanism and thin veneer of ethics is directed principally at “saving Israelis from themselves” and thereby their own reputation, rather than unconditional and altruistic protection of the dispossessed, terrorised, besieged and occupied Palestinians, and their moral cause of Liberation.

How best to divert the limited energy of activism into supporting the “Israeli peace camp”, “Israeli” organizations, and “Israeli” individuals and treat as angels and heroes those who exhibit a minuscule dose of normal human behaviour;

It is glaringly evident that the above listed motives and aims, do not fully hold the Palestinians’ welfare or interest at heart. They are neither intertwined, nor even the slightest convergent with Palestinian aims, who are mainly Liberationist.

What is troubling, is that motives and objectives of such Jewish-only groups, as listed above, also stand in stark contradiction with the Nuremberg Principles, especially the sixth principle which happens to have been established in the aftermath of WW2 crimes, and these crimes are still instrumentalized as a main pretext for the occupation of Palestine, in-spite of the fact that Palestinians had no connection whatsoever with WW2 crimes.

Arguably, standards of moral fiber and legal consistency, are ignored or at best stretched ad absurdum by members of Jewish-only organizations who claim to stand with Palestine.

Those of us who venture into the necessary exposure of this inconvenient reality, are subjected to brutal – and often illicit forms of attacks by the enforcers of Zionist narrative, encroaching on strictly domestic matters of government, including the judicial administration, to strangle our respective freedoms.

Dual-loyalty to two opposed parties, one being the torturer, and the other being his victim, is in practice a myth. Thus it is not surprising that those involved operate in secrecy, in the exclusion of “the other side”.

While non-Jewish candidates are barred from becoming members, by definition membership to Jewish-only organizations is open to ANY person from Jewish background. This makes it piece of cake for Sayanim, Mossad agents, Shin Bet and Zionist sympathisers to effortlessly infiltrate, manipulate and steer such organizations. No wonder then, that so many Jewish-only groups who claim to be “pro-Palestinian” appear to be more interested with aims more in tune with securing the presence of “Israelis” in Palestine, than the restoration of Palestinian sovereignty.

This brings us to the core problem: while those members of Jewish only organizations have the privilege (and rightly so) to be members and never excluded from pro-Palestinian organizations, the opposite is not true. i.e we are faced with an alarming phenomenon whereby, Palestinians and non-Jewish individuals are systematically excluded from participating, having an input, debating, voting, influencing or even being informed about or simply being aware with the inner dynamics and the type and topics of discussions that take place inside such Jewish only organizations.

The outcome of such asymmetrical and non-mutual arrangement is what we have seen lately, matters are discussed amongst these exclusive groups, decisions are taken, and then the pro-Palestinian organizations are approached, persuaded, pressured or coerced to adhere to those propositions and motions.

The secrecy and lack of transparency surrounding that type of activities is allowing inside the solidarity movement people who are not necessary or entirely genuine supporters of Palestine, “fair-weather friends”, people who are in essence more interested in the long term “Israeli” interest, than genuine support of Palestine. At best, their claimed care for the suffering of the oppressed society come secondary.

Signing petitions, giving out leaflets, stating words of support, throwing some crumbs to Palestinians, accompanied with patronizing pats on the shoulders, believing that they have done their humanistic “duty” of siding with justice, while simultaneously continuing to aim and work for securing the right of the invading “Israelis” to practice their “self determination” in someone else Homeland, reflects no doubt ethical blindness and almost moral bankruptcy. Imposing on Palestine forced marriage with a rapist monster is an obscenity.

Such ethical inconsistency of crying with the victim while protecting the criminal, is a regrettable case of hypocrisy and self deception.

Throughout the Palestinian movement, recent events reveal that some people on board of our movement deleterious to the Palestinian cause and some probably are disingenuous. Thus, such unhealthy, asymmetrical and exclusionary structures are indeed destabilizing and crippling the efficiency of Palestine Solidarity Movement, an efficiency vital to a Palestinian population under threat of annihilation… these are not trivial matters.

As a matter of principle, we refuse to apply the same exclusionary methods amongst pro Palestinian organization and will never resort to such racist exclusiveness. We cannot continue to claim to be humanist anti-racist while accepting simultaneously, the exclusionary nature applied by such organizations, especially in the light of compromised loyalty, and what we know about the sinister Mossad activities and the ease with which they infiltrate such groups.

It is therefore essential to crack open the shells of exclusion and secrecy, wherein topics of discussions are about “unfavourable” information to filter, which debates to “allow” and where to draw boundaries, and sinister attacks against activists who might not conform to “permissible” lines of discourse are cooked.

Under such conditions, it is imperative for the Palestine Solidarity movement to introduce a regulation that will allow room for transparency and reciprocity. Failure to address this issue would cause the continuation and aggravation of the crippling shift that has already befallen the movement.

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Whereas some Jewish-anti Zionist supporters call for a two state solution with a thriving and secured Israel they love, whereby they actively support the theft of 80% of Palestine;

Whereas some others insist that the only solution should be a one secular state, one member one vote, whereby they establish a precondition that would not only exculpate the occupiers from any responsibility or blame but also grant the occupier lands that do not belong to them, rights that they have not earned and protection that they don’t deserve.

Whereas, many of those Jewish “anti-Zionists” are full members of the Palestinian movements and have the privilege to be part of and to vote in any organization they desire;

Whereas, they continue to exclude Palestinians and other non-Jewish individuals from being part of and voting in their Jewish-only organizations;

Whereas, Zionist methods of false accusations of anti-Semitism / Holocaust denial are used to neutralize and exclude, or push away certain members of the Solidarity Movement, including Palestinian refugees! (a crass mirror of the ethnic cleansing happening in Palestine);

Whereas, Jewish anti-Zionist individuals and groups have the right to vote and have the weight to even tilt the vote, have access to the minutes of meetings and have the privilege of being heard and their opinions respected in the broader solidarity movement;

Whereas, such affiliated Jewish groups do generally restrict their membership to Jews, hence barring non-Jewish persons from participating, or from having the right of access to their meetings as an observer, let alone from a vote within their tightly knit fellowship;

Whereas, the fundamental element of trust about the authenticity of intentions, about motivation, aims, and actions of such groups, has been profoundly shaken;

It appears evident that:

To put an end to this predicament, the exclusionary nature of such organizations must be revoked, and the fair and mutual openness to membership without discrimination against race, culture or religion must be requested.

The Solidarity Movement needs to have a system of disclosure of political affiliation of its prospective members, making it a contractual obligation of disclosure of their membership to any hitherto Jewish-only organization, or to any other organization linked to either the Palestinian cause, or to the occupiers of Palestine aka “Israelis”.

Representatives of the Solidarity Movements must have the mutual right to have access to and to be fairly represented in the insofar exclusive Jewish-only organizations, in equal numbers, and have rights to vote in these organizations.

To avoid any further mistrust, friction, crippling or fragmentation, reciprocity and mutual open membership is the way forward.

Dutch Church abused 1000′s of children

Press TV – January 1, 2012

Tens of thousands of children have been sexually abused in Dutch Catholic institutions over the past 65 years by priests and other Roman Catholic religious figures, a new report says.

The report, which is based on a survey of more than 34,000 people, said it could identify 800 Catholic clergy and other church employees guilty of sexually abusing children in the 40 years from 1945 and that more than 100 perpetrators were still alive.

According to the probe, the abuse ranged from “unwanted sexual advances” to rape, while the number of victims who suffered abuse in church institutions likely lies somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000.

Dutch bishops apologized to the victims and said they were filled with “shame and sorrow” over the Commission’s findings, which was led by a former education minister Wim Deetman.

“The Dutch Catholic Church knew what was happening and tried to resolve the problem,” but the appropriate actions were never taken, Deetman told a press conference in The Hague.

Recently the Roman Catholic Church has been rocked by numerous revelations of child sexual abuse at the hands of priests around the world.

Investigations have shown that clerics have sexually abused children in Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Belgium in the past decades and that the church has often covered up the abuse, protecting pedophile priests.

In 2004, a criminal inquiry established there were 4,400 paedophile priests in the United States between 1950 and 2002, putting the number of their child victims at 11,000.

Ireland, one of the most staunchly Catholic countries in Europe, has seen a series of crises, leading Pope Benedict XVI to publicly rebuke its bishops for a “breakdown of trust”.

A total of 14,500 Irish children are reported to have been victims of abuse by clergy.